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Which Beloved Public Figures Do You Most Despise?
On Tuesday, Google celebrated Rachel Louise Carson, arguably the mother of modern environmentalism, and, in the remarkable way modernism has with irony, murderess of tens of millions. I despise Carson, her almost single-handed fabrication of the DDT scare, and especially the “savior of the world” conceit of environmentalists resulting in the deaths of millions of, dare I say it, black African children. If I hadn’t already been told so many times that leftist and environmentalists are genetically immune to it, I might believe the ban on DDT was a racist ethnic cleansing program.
It’s positively scandalous that there are schools named after Carson — schools! With children attending! In Chicago! And other urban centers with large populations of African-Americans. Pagan “Earth Day” celebrations including Carson-worship are part of nearly every public school curriculum. Can you imagine sending your kid to Adolf Hitler Elementary? Well, he killed fewer people than Rachel Carson and her genocidal movement. By some estimates over 50 million people have died from malaria since the DDT ban took effect, and counting.
My fantasy is to see the face of every DDT-banning environmentalist just before we send him to live permanently (however long that may be) and DEET-free, into malaria mosquito infested villages with only a mosquito net as defense. “Have a nice life! You might want to reconsider sleeping, so you can make sure you don’t accidentally expose some juicy body part in the middle of the night.” Insert smiley face here.
The difference between the racism of Cliven Bundy and Rachel Carson is, Cliven Bundy’s bigotry never killed anyone. Carson has the blood of millions on her hands. Would that we never see her like again.
How about you? Who’s your most despised celebrated public figure?
Published in General
[Double post: read the next one]
I nominate Francis Galton, who took the theory of biological change created by his cousin Charles Darwin and turned it into the “social science” of eugenics, thus creating the Margaret Sangers and, at the very least, influencing the Nazis.
Ironically, his marriage of 43 years proved childless; thus the world, presumably, was denied the gift of his superior genetic endowment.
On a lesser, though still pernicious, scale, I can think of no current public figure so thoroughly despicable than the “Reverend” Al Sharpton, a lying, thieving race-hustler masquerading as a man of God. While he is sly as a fox, he’s also as dumb as a box of rocks.
In my view of the here and hereafter, Sharpton’s got a lot of answering to do someday.
And that human is female. Men having long been eradicated.
David Letterman. He blackmailed his intern into having sex with him in his ‘secret’ bedroom on his set. Then when she turned the tables on him and blackmailed him, he called the police. She was arrested. Then he told what happened on his show, but left out his blackmail part.
Oh, and I’m sure he believes there is a “War on Women”.
Of course there is a difference, but that is missing the point. Fabricating facts and promoting a lie is wrong and that’s what Rachel Carson did. People willfully lie because they think it is no big deal, because they want to manipulate, because they want things their own way. They don’t want to listen to what God says about right and wrong; they know better. One seemingly minor deliberate act of rebellion can be as destructive as a large and malicious one. Rachel Carson’s lies metastasized and millions of innocents are dead.
We little know what will be the consequences of our actions, whether our actions are good or ill, and so we are cautioned to do only good. Rachel Carson illustrates the point.
Hard to leave Karl Marx out of this discussion. Hundreds of millions have suffered and died, and many more will continue to suffer, in the name of his crackpot theories.
Of course there is a difference, but that is missing the point. Fabricating facts and promoting a lie is wrong and that’s what Rachel Carson did. People willfully lie because they think it is no big deal, because they want to manipulate, because they want things their own way. They don’t want to listen to what God says about right and wrong; they know better. One seemingly minor deliberate act of rebellion can be as destructive as a large and malicious one.
I completely agree with most of this, but the distinction is not beside the point. All sinful actions resulting in wrongful death carry some level of blood-guiltiness, but only premeditated murder carries the death penalty.
That is the Scriptural qualification too; it’s not a man-made difference to let people off the hook for good intentions. People are deeply fallible and wrong actions have all sorts of unforeseen consequences for which we bear responsibility, but the deliberate, knowing choice to take innocent life is another level of moral evil.
bigot (ˈbɪɡət)
— n
a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race
I do not concede that Cliven Bundy is a bigot.
History’s greatest monster, Jimmy Carter.
Yes, that is true.
It is true, but I am still not at all willing to let Carson off the hook, and this is why: we live and work and vote with a vast cohort of Carsons and Sangers these days — well-meaning activists with the best of intentions, or people not paying much attention but believing the MSM, certain that they are tolerant and compassionate, people more in tune with their feelings than with facts.
So we now have a president who (at best) employs kindergarten level foreign poicy, who is dismantling our military and our heath care system, is codifying the propagandizing of our education system, and is presiding over a host of other disastrous actions and non actions that are discussed here on Ricochet every day. I don’t want to let those people off the hook either, even though most of them know not what they do.
There is a fine line between willful ignorance and malice aforethought.
Ghandi. A fundamentally silly man, with all kinds of crackpot ideas, yet the whole world came to view him as a source of wisdom. Ghandi in many ways was the first Vegan: a person so simple, holy and good that everybody around them has to do backflips to meet the bizarre standards. As Nehru said, “it takes 20 people working full time to keep Ghandi living in poverty”. Ghandi should be elevated to Hindi Godhood, as the God of Passive-Aggressive Posers.
His legacy was to drive the British out of India without any plans for a transition, because Ghandi refused to even think about one. The resulting civil war killed millions (including Ghandi – murdered by a Hindu nationalist). And don’t get me going on his advise to the Jews during the holocaust.
I don’t think Ghandi is the worst person ever, but he is the most over-rated. He has world-wide appeal unlike Carson or Sanger.
Heh. Why do you think so, MWM?
My FDR Democrat mother always loved Jimmuh. He meant well.
Oh!… now there’s someone I hadn’t thought of. You may be onto something with Gandhi. I’ve often thought his “passive resistance” notion was benefited greatly by his opposition. Try that with Islamists.
A Simpsons joke. They unveil a statue of Jimmy Carter, and a man in the crowd yells that out.
I agree. I’ve never understood the appeal of Ghandi (which, I suppose, means I’m a racist hater).
Or a sensible man. There is an old saying, “Watch how people treat those who cannot help them.” I shall not say more, but those who have eyes to see and ears to hear and know how to search the Internet or read books may find information about Gandhi which is not so positive.
Also, a pro tip on remembering how to spell certain Indian names. Indian orthography makes use of “dh” to produce something close to the “th” in the English word “there.” In other words, the “dh” is not pronounced like a “d,” but is the voiced linguadental fricative. So, knowing the name is pronounced GanTHee, makes it easier to remember it is spelled “Gandhi.” I haven’t misplaced that darned “h” in the name since I figured that out. Likewise, the same applies to other Indian names, like Marahabadha.
Woodrow Wilson. Progressive, racist, and anti-civil liberties.
But I repeat myself.
Oooo. That’s a good one.
LBJ.
The “Great Society” has had a lot of unintended consequences. What’s the exit strategy for the war on poverty?
My blood pressure goes up when I think of how in 2012 they made so much hay out of Todd Akin, who made a dumb comment about rape but never actually raped anyone, but then put Clinton, who is almost certainly a rapist, front and center in 2012. How did we let them get away with that!?
As a Canadian, I despise Norman Bethune.
When I was growing up he was touted as the most famous Canadian ever. Schools and roads were named after him. Who was this Canadian superman, you ask?
Why, he was the doctor for MaoTse-Tung.
I particularly appreciate the point made throughout the thread that today’s cosseted Rachel Carson enthusiasts live and play in an environment rendered safe by the very methods they deny others. Personal safety apparently permits romanticism of the Harry Potter variety to thrive; magical thinking that would not long survive contact with the meaner circumstances regnant elsewhere.
Carson’s influence extends well beyond the DDT ban per se to the abandonment of mosquito-control itself as a public health option. The planted axiom distills to, “Mosquitoes are people, too.” Treacly and offensive as it is, this unexamined premise underlines malaria control efforts to this day. We cannot offend mother Gaia by hurting her creatures and thereby altering the balance of life, even if the lives of our children are at stake. And so we limit ourselves to ineffective and reactive half-measures.
Carson argued, incorrectly, that life on earth would be destroyed by continued widespread use of DDT and other insecticides. Silent Spring, despite its thorough debunking, remains the animating force behind abandonment of vector control: the approach that eradicated malaria from the temperate zone and suppressed the malady in many tropical countries prior to the rise of the modern environmental movement.
I just finished reading The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse, an evisceration of modern environmentalism by the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner (yes, there is a French philosopher who hates environmentalism). Here he addresses the “mosquitoes are people too” inanity:
“‘I shall never say that I have a right to vote superior to that of a mosquito,’ writes Arne Naess, the Norwegian founder of ‘Deep Ecology’. Easy to say for a Scandinavian who has never suffered from malaria!”
“But I’m just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood”
-The Animals
Every time I hear some do-gooder spouting tripe, I think if those lines.
Woodrow Wilson is another first rate son-of-a-bitch who gets much better press than the results of his actions warrant. Of course he is second tier when we consider Sanger and Carson.
Paul Johnson lets Ghandi have it in Modern Times , a great read for those who REALLY want to despise Ghandi.
Yes, thanks, George. That’s the bigotry to which I’m referring. I don’t think we can prove overt racism on Carson’s part. It’s developmental elitism. “Well, I and my children live in an advanced society. We can’t be expected to tolerate plagues like malaria in our environment. But the primitives elsewhere should live in ‘pristine’ environments, unadulterated by such ‘toxins’ as pesticides, fertilizers, and fossil fuels.”
The RFK Jr;s of the world know damn well the policies they promote kill people. But, since it’s not personal, it’s not a tragedy — it’s just a statistic. Seems to me some other central planning ‘savior of the world’ used that phrase.
Google “jay nordlinger carterpalooza”, and you may find yourself thinking he is indeed a monster.
“I think the lives of Those People are less important than my feeling good about getting rid of the thing which made it so that the people I care about are safe.”
Who cares if it’s racism?
It’s like the gun grabbers who have their armed body guards, but want poor inner city folks on a street with a murder a week to be disarmed.
And no doubt you’ve read that Emma Watson (of Harry Potter movie fame) recently graduated from Brown, a bodyguard disguised in cap and gown at her side. After ditching the cap and gown, the bodyguard was seen escorting Ms. Watson, but clearly wearing a gun and badge.
Now, I don’t begrudge public figures from having protection. What I do despise is when they feel that no one else is entitled to such protection (don’t know Watson’s position). Is the Brown campus a gun-free zone? If so, then why shouldn’t Jane Doe (a strawman – strawwoman?) carry her weapon to protect herself from the ex-husband jealous of her getting a college degree and hanging out with “all them thar college boys who want nuttin’ more than to go to bed with my shugah?”
Translation for those up north (or “nawth” as we say down “heyah”): “. . . all those college boys that want nothing more than to go to bed with my sugar?”