Posted by
Always To The Right on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 5:33:55 PM
With more focus getting applied to Barack Obama’s czars, the first to
receive scrutiny should be John Holdren, Obama’s science czar. Michelle
has outlined Holdren’s odd views from the past, including statements in
books published in the 1970s that suggested forced sterilizations and
social pressure for abortions, among other things. The College Politico
finds something a little more recent in this interview in 2007,
conducted in the virtual-reality environment of Second Life, in which
Holdren discusses his views on science and economics
First, Holdren doesn’t know what “American exceptionalism” means. He can’t even get the term
right. American exceptionalism has nothing to do with our size or our
technological prowess, except in tertiary terms. Exceptionalism springs
from the unique nature of our nation’s birth, the historical leadership
in personal freedom that America has shown (with very notable failures,
such as slavery and post-Civil War Jim Crow), and especially the role
America inherited in the 20th century as the guarantor of Western
security and international shipping.
This is no philosophical quibble, either. Part of the reason America
consumes more relative to other nations on a per-capita basis is
because we produce more for the consumption of others, and out of necessity for our role as global cop.
That is a large part of the reason that our defense spending outstrips
those of other Western nations, as they do not contribute nearly as
much to that role. Seeing as how Holdren can’t figure out what he
opposes, it comes as no surprise that he doesn’t see the connection
between that role and consumption of resources, either.
One can oppose America’s role on the world stage from either the
Right or the Left, and challenge the notion of American exceptionalism
itself — but it helps to start off by knowing what it is. Holdren
should get bounced for his ignorance as well as opposed for his
radical, redistributionist views. This interview strongly suggests
that Obama’s science czar got picked not for his dedication to science
but for his redistributionist views under the cloak of climate change.