The trouble is that each successive year seems to bring with it an ever-expanding platform for seemingly endless throngs of social engineers, radical activists, and left wing politicians telling us that doom awaits us if we don't comply with their lofty agendas to reform western societies. Ice ages, Global Warming, ozone holes, Y2K, massive extinctions, and so on. The amazing thing is that we keep on listening, and we keep on panicking with each new blaring pronouncement of impending catastrophe.

This past year we were told that financial markets would collapse, that we would be faced with the most severe depression since the 1930's, that we would die in great numbers from a global pandemic, and that an environmental catastrophe was about to unfold unless we turned over control of all these issues to our massive government machines. Now stock markets are on the rise, economic recovery is underway, the swine flu came and went with a whimper, and much of the climate change research is being called into question. And yet we listen and believe it all every time the panic-mongers unleash more rhetoric. Why?

Because we somehow still trust those whose motives are to destroy confidence and instill fear. A great many government agencies and global authorities are now staffed with radical activists whose purpose it is to gain control of the levers of western society, at the expense of open markets and free enterprise. As severe as that may sound, I believe it to be true. Each successive recession that has occurred in the past 30 years has been met with a greater level of government intrusion into the natural operation of the business cycle. Government believes that it is its duty to remove hardship, economic peaks and valleys, and to artificially restore prosperity, at the long term cost to the taxpayer. 2009 was the pinnacle of this trend with its TARP, auto bailouts, cash for clunkers, and phony job creation schemes that have left 10% of American workers officially unemployed, but more likely over 17% without jobs.

Fear is never going to be far away from us as long as we accept the pronouncements of officials with ulterior motives. We have to think for ourselves, but perhaps that is what is lacking in today's busy world. Maybe we somehow have a perverse need to be afraid of something, and maybe we want somebody else to do our thinking and acting. The H1N1 hoax is a perfect example. Margaret Chan Director General of the World Health Organization declared "it is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic". She appealed for "global solidarity", and to be "on high alert". No wonder people freaked out. It sounds like the end of the world is being predicted by a high ranking international bureaucrat.

Panic and fear are debilitating. What may start as responsible concern is all too often raised to genuine panic by those who wish to have us believe that the problem (if it exists at all) is beyond our control. "All we have to do is be ignorant, and anxious….and we forfeit our sovereignty to political types". says Dr. Irvin Wolkoff, a Toronto psychiatrist. Public officials have learned this response and have begun to turn it into a strategy for bigger government.

All countries have given over personal freedoms to governments to varying degrees, but the United States is undergoing the most pronounced transformation of all in recent times, as President Obama along with a majority Democratic Congress has raised the level of government control to new proportions with its massive and ill conceived Health Care Reform Bill. Unfortunately for him and the Democratic Party, a heavy price will be paid in the 2010 mid-term Congressional elections, as American voters lash out against the cost and intrusion of this massive monstrosity. It will however be too late for the American taxpayer, and for the previous health care system which could have been improved without a government takeover.

Who knows what we'll find to be afraid of in 2010? One thing is for sure though, social engineers from government and global agencies will be falling over each other to concoct the next massive disaster that will surely befall our vulnerable under-governed world.

Richard Scott, December 22, 2009.

I can sense a real battle brewing here, the gauntlet has been dropped, will Al Gore and the environmentalists turn tail and run? Let them show their cards and stop huffing and bluffing.
Here are some excerpts from Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. regarding global warming. To see the entire article, go here:

The Real Inconvenient Truth

By: Sen. Jim Inhofe March 20, 2007 01:16 PM EST
Senator James Inhofe, R-Okla., discusses energy legislation being debated on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, July 30, 2003. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)

The New York Times — nearly a year late — is finally recognizing the scientific reality regarding fears of a man-made climate catastrophe. On March 13, a landmark article stated “scientists argue that some of (former Vice President Al) Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous.”

It appears we are all skeptics now.

A separate U.N. report last year found that emissions (methane gas) from cows do more to drive global warming than C02 from cars.

An increasing number of government leaders and scientists are finally realizing that much of the motivation behind the climate scare has nothing to do with science.

Recently, prominent French scientist Claude Allegre recanted his belief in man-made catastrophic global warming and now says promotion of the idea is motivated by money. (This coming from a French Socialist, no less.)

New research by teams of international scientists is revealing that the sun has been a major driver of climate variability. Solar specialist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center explained, “We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years.”

The usual suspects will still insist that there is a “consensus” of scientists who agree with Gore. And yes, many governing boards and spokesmen of science institutions must toe the politically correct line of Gore-inspired science, but the rank-and-file scientists are now openly rebelling.

Just ask James Spann, a certified meteorologist with the American Meteorological Society. Spann, who has nearly 30 years of experience as a weather expert, said in January that he does “not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype.” In February, a panel of meteorologists expressed unanimous climate skepticism, and one panelist estimated that 95 percent of his profession rejects global warming fears.

Let me put this bluntly: Our political leaders in Washington are going to demand the American people make significant economic sacrifices by paying 4 percent more, 10 percent more or even higher for gasoline and home energy costs in order to “do something” to address the climate “crisis.”

What do Americans get in return for this economic sacrifice?

They get real economic pain for no climate gain, and they get “solutions” that are purely symbolic. The American people may opt to shut down Washington, D.C., with a flood of phone calls, e-mails and faxes before they allow any of these “solutions” to become law.
Ironically, climate skeptics may owe Gore, Hollywood, liberal environmental groups and the mainstream media a big debt of gratitude. If it were not for the shrill, “sky is falling” rhetoric emitted by the elite jet-setters hyping this issue, the silent majority of scientific experts who reject alarmism might not have been stirred to action.

The real inconvenient truth is that global warming fearmongers have overplayed their hand and are now suffering a massive scientific and media backlash. America needs a rational science debate about climate variability. Achieving that goal now appears closer to reality.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public