It's All A Hoax!!!!

Today I engaged in yet another discussion with one of my abundant conservative buddies. As it turns out he spent a career in the air conditioning business. He doesn't like the ozone "hoax".

The subject was politics surrounding President Obama's recent claim that his decision was responsible for killing Bin Laden, and Mr. Romney, the President's likely opponent in the fall, made comments in the past that might have precluded Mr. Romney from making the same decision to get Bin Laden.

My conservative friend immediately went into the predictable, did I have proof that the President's decision really was responsible for getting Bin Laden? Was it a hoax? Weren't there other, more reliable facts (like water boarding) that were responsible?

I am always taken aback when the right hits me with their endless deniabilities and claims of endless liberal hoaxes.

In a real sense, they deny reality and history itself, because "how can you prove that?" If you can't, if the threat is in the future, then it must be a hoax.

Huh....Bin Laden is dead! The President took an enormous tactical risk, by sending American armed forces into Pakistan, contrary to our treaties with that country, to capture or kill Bin Laden.

Mr. Romney, when confronted with the President's criticism of a statement he made a few years ago that he would not send forces into Pakistan, said, "Any President would have made the same call, even Jimmy Carter".

That cheap shot, implying that Jimmy Carter did not have the courage or wisdom to take such a chance was again, contrary to historical fact. Carter in fact, did order a rescue mission of the diplomatic hostages, which failed because of a dust storm. He lost the Presidency partly because of the gamble he took that failed. Ronald Reagan got elected attacking Carter's "mistake". This was no hoax.

Romney had the gall to criticize a past President, contrary to historical facts. Once again, denying history, or science to produce a "counter reality". Is this a hoax?

We then swung into Ozone Depletion, and the scientific evidence that the Montreal Protocol had produced a end to the depletion, and in fact the Ozone is healing.

I was asked where was the proof of this? He more than implied that the whole thing was a hoax. Huh?

I said, scientific studies showed it. But then it came, the hoax was that the damage from the ozone depletion was never proven, therefore there was no proof of the need for the Montreal Protocol in the first place.

In other words, we need to always wait until there is proof of the catastrophe before acting to avoid said catastrophe! Otherwise we are being victimized by a cruel hoax.

I stand aghast at this logic.

I then asked him, if we should wait until the predicted damage happened and millions dying of skin cancer, no ozone to protect the earth before we did anything. He said yes! We shouldn't act without proof! Beware the hoax!

Here is a handy list of hoaxes the conservative deniers don't want to act on, but would rather wait until the predicted catastrophes occur , so we have "proof".

1. Ozone depletion: stop efforts to curtail atmospheric emissions until the damage occurs. Otherwise it is a hoax.

2. Global Warming: stop all efforts to curtail greenhouse gases until there is proof. In short, when the ocean covers Sacramento, then act. Again, it is a hoax.

3. Peak Oil: Stop all conservation efforts until the planet really runs out of gas, then we have proof (back to horses) we are running out, and we can do something. Another hoax.

4. Immunizations: There is no proof whooping cough has been stopped by kids getting their shots, stop the shots, and wait to see if whooping cough, polio, measles, etc., make a comeback. Yet another liberal hoax.

5. Global Economy: There is no proof mindless budget cuts damage the economy, follow Europe's lead with an austerity plan, cutting spending and taxes until the crushing unemployment figures develop, then consider cutting even further (see recent article that has Europe in a new recession due to austerity approach). More hoaxes by the lefties.

6. Prison System: Wait until proof develops that incarcerating millions is a deterrent to crime. If crime figures go up, and up, until you can't leave your house, then do something. Law and order should prevail over weak liberal hoax.

7. Energy conservation: There is no proof it is needed, so do nothing until we have solid proof we can't travel anywhere, anymore! Bicycle lover's hoax.

8. Tobacco use is not bad for your health. There is no real proof that your health is compromised. All those death figures, cancer figures, and heart attacks are part of a hoax.

You get my drift. This approach is simply nuts. Science gives us the ability to predict effects of multiple causal factors. In short, the effects we see to an environment can be traced to causes, scientifically.

Hoaxes are dis proven by the scientific method. A hoax cannot stand the scrutiny of the scientific method. The scientific method is by definition, a process to find the truth, the real, the actual. Hoaxes are the blood enemy of the scientific method.

So why would scientists create hoaxes? A hoax is counter intuitive to scientists.

Moreover, our computerized science of today, can crunch numbers like never before, so we can predict consequences. Hoaxes do not survive data crunching.

Therefore the Ozone Layer is getting better because the world (most of it), stopped certain atmospheric emissions. That is scientific fact. The ozone layer issue was not a scare tactic by the environmentalists. Science proves, by the positive results that are found, that the ozone layer issue was definitely NOT a hoax.

But the conservative does not listen. Everything contrary to his political interest is a hoax; the damage must be done, lives lost, and the world damaged irrevocably before "proof" exists. Even then, as the last human dies, his last works will be:

"It was a liberal hoax"....