All in all, it just makes me giddy to think how much more peaceful the world would be if we could just make the USSA gunverment sigh it’s last gentle breath and fade quietly into the nightmare of history.

But in a debate about the AGW hypothesis it isn’t the doubters who owe the proof, just as in a court of criminal law (as noted above) it is not the defense that owes the proof but the prosecution. And this is quite sensible: the assertion that someone has done the crime is provable if true since there is a reality corresponding to it; the assertion that someone hasn’t done the crime is not except for showing that the case in support of guilt is weak, not true beyond a reasonable doubt. (Proving negatives is only possible once the argument for the positive is in place, otherwise on is shooting in the dark!)

The biggest difference between myself and modern Progressives is that they believe we can achieve liberal ends through the use of state power. I think that is a dangerous delusion, which is inimical to the very goals that are being sought. State power does not benefit the poor and powerless over the long-term. It is always used by the rich and the powerful.

Ultimately the big problem is that there are no grants for scientists to demonstrate that carbon has little effect. There are no Institutes of Natural Climate Change, but plenty that are devoted to UnNatural Forces.

It's a monopsony, and the main point is not that the scientists are necessarily corrupted by money or status (though that appears to have happened to a few), but that there is no group or government seriously funding scientists to expose flaws.

All politicians today assume office with the claim of having jurisdiction over the lives of people who did not vote for them, of people who opposed them or did not vote at all. The question for libertarians is: how can one human being properly assume immense power over the freedom and person of unconsenting others. If rights, like freedom of speech and association, are inalienable and equal-to-all, then how can you cast a vote that transfers control over my rights to another person? Especially, how can you do this against my will and over my protest? For a libertarian, the answer is clear. You cannot transfer or nullify another person's rights by making an X on a ballot. All you can do is enable a power-seeker to assume a patina of legitimacy when he claims jurisdiction over and uses force on the unconsenting.