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THE DARK SIDE: Put your money where your mouth is

By: David Ziemer, [email protected]//June 9, 2011//

THE DARK SIDE: Put your money where your mouth is

By: David Ziemer, [email protected]//June 9, 2011//

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David Ziemer
David Ziemer

So, who wants to head down to Body Ritual with me and get a new tattoo?

A recent editorial in the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald by a fellow named Richard Glover suggests that anyone who rejects his myth of man-made global warming be branded with tattoos. That way, in 20 years time, at which point he believes global warming will be undeniable, the children will know who the guilty culprits were.

It’s a view typical of progressives. Glover even acknowledges his proposal is “a bit Nazi-creepy.”

Yet, he is drawn to it anyway. The dark side of his nature genuinely looks forward to a future when people like me are spit on for having opposed tyranny today.

Of course, I have a pretty dark side, too. Thus, the name of this column. I genuinely look forward to a day in the future when the children can mock the tyrants of today who believe in man-made global warming and seek to tax me on account of their myth.

The difference is that it never occurred to me that they should be forcibly tattooed for their patently ridiculous beliefs. I have always figured that the Internet was more than sufficient to permanently preserve their attempts to destroy all human liberty.

But now that the idea has been suggested, I like it (or at least a slight modification of it).

Let’s make a bet. I am more than willing to head over to Body Ritual right now, and get the following tattooed on my body: “Man-made global warming is a myth” with today’s date underneath.

However, I want one of my progressive friends to join me, and get a tattoo asserting the opposite. We’ll each pay for our own tattoos, but 20 years from now, we must get back together. I am quite confident that, by then, this boondoggle will have been exposed for what it is.

By then, I’m sure it will be quite apparent that all worldwide human activity combined can’t affect the climate any more than the activity of a single colony of ants. You will then pay me for the cost of my tattoo, taking into account the time-value of money.

And of course, I’ll do the same if, in 20 years, anyone still takes this nonsense seriously.

You say that’s not enough incentive for you? All right, let’s make this interesting, and get copyrights on the tattoos, like the tattoo artist who tattooed boxer Mike Tyson’s face and is now suing the producers of some moving picture for infringement.

We’ll copyright both tattoos and hold them in a non-profit corporation we both control. If I win the bet, we dissolve the corporation and donate the copyrights to the Federalist Society. If you win, we donate them to the American Constitution Society.

We need one ground-rule, though. No tattoos above the neck or below the elbow. I am David Ziemer, you know, and it is important for a man of my position to be able to go golfing in a golf shirt without any ink showing.

I’ve got to warn you about two things, though. First, I’m pretty good at calling “myth” when governments and progressives try to defraud me. For 25 years now, I’ve been eating pork as rare as the beef steaks in any fine restaurant, knowing that trichinosis is a myth. Just last month, the government finally admitted as much, and acknowledged that pork does not need to be cooked to 160 degrees to be safely eaten.

Second, for me to get a new tattoo is no big deal. I already have several, including the citation to Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905), tattooed on my right bicep. If I’m wrong about the myth of man-made global warming, I’m probably also wrong about my conviction that liberty of contract is the most basic human right of all.

So, if you are right, the children are going to be spitting on me in 20 years on account of my tattoos whether we make the bet or not.

Those caveats out of the way, who wants to gamble on the fate of the planet?

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