Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Jailing People For Their Beliefs

This is why you don't want university professors in charge of anything (including the executive branch of the government!):
An assistant philosophy professor at Rochester Institute of Technology wants to send people who disagree with him about global warming to jail.

The professor is Lawrence Torcello. Last week, he published a 900-word-plus essay at an academic website called The Conversation.

His main complaint is his belief that certain nefarious, unidentified individuals have organized a “campaign funding misinformation.” Such a campaign, he argues, “ought to be considered criminally negligent.”

Torcello, who has a Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo, explains that there are times when criminal negligence and “science misinformation” must be linked. The threat of climate change, he says, is one of those times...

As such, Torcello wants governments to make “the funding of climate denial” a crime.
Which is more harmful to people, climate change or communism/socialism? If we’re going to imprison people for their beliefs, you know which group I’d go after.

4 comments:

pseudotsuga said...

Back off, man, he's a scientist--err, I mean, not really a scientist but a professor, which means he's smart and stuff, which is why he knows that everything he says is stone cold fact (unlike anything else he ever studies or teaches in his philosophy classes).
What's even scarier is to go to the original location where this essay is published, and look at the list of colleges which contribute to publications like this.
I'm glad that we can have some free speech in the world so that guys like this can tell us what they really think--if only they would return the favor instead of wanting to lock up those guilty of Wrongthink. *sigh* A man can dream, I guess...

Ellen K said...

So a true believer in AGW wants to put those who oppose it in jail. A Reconquista advocate at UTArlington, wants us to die. This is why such maniacs should never be left in charge.

allen (in Michigan) said...

The only reason this guy got his fifteen milliseconds of fame is because he was injudicious enough to say what most anthropogenic global warming advocates feel.

After all, having come to the conclusion that anthropogenic global warming's incontestably true how many advocates haven't toyed with the idea of summary execution for the crime of impeding this crucial crusade? Probably plenty more then are willing to say so.

But the good professor's sentiment's a lot more understandable if you keep in mind my contention that he's a spoiled, rich kid upset because there are people standing in the way of his getting what he wants. Keep that image in mind and ignore any trappings of adulthood to which the professor might lay claim and his behavior makes perfect sense.

Anonymous said...

This Tortello guy is a philosopher so I’m trying to reproduce his bizarre logic.

For example: ‘Misinformation about climate is criminally negligent.
There are those who fund climate misinformation. Therefore those who
fund climate misinformation are criminally negligent.’ ....No that’s not
valid.

How about: ‘Misinformation about climate is criminally negligent.
Everyone provides climate misinformation from time to time. Therefore
everyone is criminally negligent from time to time.’ ...No that’s not valid
either.

Can someone help me out here?