The Spirit of Stalin Lives

For many on the Left disagreement with their dogma is indistinguishable from heresy, or worse. Remember the Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen who insisted that any meteorologist who was skeptical of the global warming orthodoxies should be decertified? Do you recall the fate of astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez who was denied tenure at Iowa State because he believes that there is strong scientific evidence to support the conclusion that the universe was intentionally designed?

Consider now the words of Robert Kennedy, Jr. which he evidently screamed to the audience at one of the Live Earth concerts the other day:

"Get rid of all these rotten politicians that we have in Washington, who are nothing more than corporate toadies," said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmentalist author, president of Waterkeeper Alliance and Robert F. Kennedy's son, who grew hoarse from shouting. "This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors."

Apparently, Mr. Kennedy believes that anyone who disagrees with him about global warming or the best way to utilize environmental resources should be summarily shot or at least put in prison. Maybe the Stalinist comrade has a nice cozy cottage in the Siberian gulag in mind for those with whom hwe disagrees.

One longs for the days when America was the land of freedom of opinion. One grows nostalgic for the antiquated idea that our policies should be based on solid evidence. One dimly but fondly recalls campus lefties fervently reciting the Voltarian dictum that "I may hate what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

For today's secular Left those quaint ideas only apply when it's their ideas which are struggling to be heard. In a world in which their particular myths and superstitions are ascendent there is no room for freedom or dissent. Either toe the line or be punished.

RLC