What would a political group stand to gain by using fear tactics?

Question

Ok so global warming is a fear tactic, but for what purpose? It makes no sense, they have nothing to gain from all these lies.

Answer 1

One of the main solutions to global warming is a carbon tax, a tax on energy. This utilizes the basic law of economics, the higher the price the lower the consumption. If you increase energy prices, people will use less.



For a small extremist minority, this is a way for controlling globalization. Cheap energy is vital to the expansion of industry.



For the more mainstream view, there is a belief that reducing energy consumption is good for society, regardless if global warming is true or not. Environmentalists have been saying that way before global warming became an issue.



There is oil independence. There is a belief that many of our world's problems and wars are caused by Western society's dependence on middle east oil.



Many people also have a Malthusian pessimistic view of society. They think that future generations are doomed by our greediness. We are using too much energy today, and not saving any for future generations.



The problem these political groups, especially the environmentalists, they do not think of the consequences of their actions. 30 Years ago, they decided that DDT was bad for the environment and as a result millions of people in third world countries have died of malaria.



Look at the use of bio fuels. Because we are now using food the feed cars instead of mouths that has driven up the price of food world wide. With the result that many poor people can not afford food any more and are starving.



Can a poor person in America afford the extra cost to heat up their house? Can he afford to insulate his house, to make it more energy efficient?



If a company decides that this carbon tax is making their company unprofitable and decide to close and move to a country like China, (that has no pollution controls), what about that factory worker? What happens to his/her family?



Do you want to live in a society with so much regulation? In England now you can get fined for idling your car.



If you do not believe me, there is a technology being developed called CO2 scrubbers. What these machines do, is suck up co2 from the atmosphere. But if implemented that means we can continue on, without changing our ways. The leftists are apposed to this idea, why? Why have you not heard of this technology?

Answer 2

If the public believes them, they may gain political power. It is hard to imagine a more important objective to a political group.



On the other hand, if they happen to be right, it would be a case of Nero fiddling as Rome burns to pretend that the group is using mere fear tactics. What is a fear tactic when there is a legitimate reason for fear?



So one has to evaluate the reality before deciding on the issue of fear tactic or spreading the bad news.

Answer 3

These are two separate issues.



Global warming is science, not fear tactics. Scientists are the ones sounding the alarm about global warming, and they have no role in politics.



It is true that politicians use fear to manipulate voters. However, this is mostly done by Republicans, and their party is the one resisting addressing global warming.



In 2004, Vice President Cheney said that if we elected Kerry over Bush, "If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again -- that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States,"

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/07/cheney.terror/



Cheney and Bush used the fear from 9/11 to get Bush re-elected. That's just one example. Just look at all the lies that have been spread about Obama this past year - that he's a secret Muslim, a terrorist, that he's going to turn the US into a socialist state, etc. Republicans are trying to make us afraid of Obama.



At the same time, many Republicans are trying to convince us that global warming is a massive hoax. They're using fear tactics a little bit, because Republicans are afraid that in order to address global warming, the government will have to take serious action like enacting a carbon tax, and Republicans are deathly afraid of big government and taxes.



But global warming itself is not a fear tactic. It's science, pure and simple (see link below).

Answer 4

Fear is the means to gain power, and control. And those who fall for these lies are in a sense giving up there freedom for a false sense of security. Both sides are a sad state of affairs, no one should give in to these fear tactics.

Answer 5

The whole political fear/con thing is utterly stupid, to work it would mean both sides of politics in most of the large western countries and China and Russia are all in it together, with the aim of controlling us and putting a new tax on us, apart for the fact that the tax would effective reduce most of using things like fuel which we are already tax on, so governments would actually get little more from us as taxes. The control thing is also a stupid circular argument because if they were doing this they already have the control some think they are trying to get.

This sort of nonsense is just the usual conspiracy rubbish that has been repeated many times from secret groups controlling the world to Aliens and men in black and Illuminati to communist theories all are just utter BS, some sad individuals think they are real others like to just spread them to cause trouble.

Answer 6

they have there goal to gain by using fear tactics. that is the whole meaning behind any political group, to achieve there goal.

Answer 7

Global Warming is not a fear tactic. True scientists report their findings exactly as they are. If all of you look a little deeper into the Bush administration you will find that Bush has put his oil buddies or economist into key positions that have always been held by respected scientists. Both Bush and Cheney were heads of oil companies, do you think it is in their favor to put caps on greenhouse gases? Who will it hurt the most? Did you know Condoleezza Rice was on the boards of directors for Chevron, they even named an oil tanker after her but quietly changed the name after she was appointed to the Bush admin. Did you know the "former chief of staff (2001-2005) at the White House Council on Environmental Quality was a lawyer for the American Petroleum Institute for 10years w/ a bachelor's degree in economics and had no scientific credentials to qualify him for this position"? Did you know "he later altered scientific documents repeatedly inserting qualifying words to enhance the sense of scientific uncertainty? He ordered an estimated 650 changes in 1 document alone." Do you know that after leaving the White House he went to work for Exxon Mobil? Did you know that "in 2001 the Bush admin. asked the U.S. National Academy of Science(NAS) which is both independent and nonpartisan to conduct its own review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and that the panel confirmed the conclusions of the IPCC that global warming was occuring & that the change was linked to industrial greenhouse gas emissions"? Did you know "that over 8000 U.S. scientists have signed a statement in 2004 declaring that:

When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict w/ its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process throughwhich science enters into its decisions..."

No? Did you know our war w/ Iraq was not based on intelligence form the CIA or FBI but on Bush's own desire? Do you believe this administation had our best interests in mind or was it based on Bush's own personal ideaology? Do you believe the Bush administation might have lied to us about a lot of things?



GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL, research this administration, there is plenty of documentation if you look for it.

Answer 8

Fear is a well known tactic for people control, it was used by Hitler to great effect. He often said that to control the people you must first give them something to fear.



Even long before that when there was civil unrest in England the king of the time would go to war with a neighbouring country (normally france!) to unite the people and bring an end to civil unrest, through a common enemy.



Similar tactics have been used in recent times to get people to support a pointless war, remember the WMD's? A perfect case of scare tactics to get support for an immoral act of war, did they find any WMD's? No! This tactic has been used in many countries many times. Its a well known method of civil control.



Look at how civil liberties where reduced with the patriot act for example after september the 11th. The public were scared at the time and supported it.



Whats to gain? More control over the people, power, tax and money. Power corrupts all men. If governments had it their way we would all have id chips in our necks so they could track us, sounds scary, but it has been suggested! The only way that would work is if they worked us into a frenzy about terrorists and that they were needed to fight the war on terror.



What do environmentalists benefit? The end of the fossil fuel age, preventing the third world developing, stopping us eating meat, slowing population growth, starving industy etc... it meets many of their core anti-capitalist ideals. Remember, they want man made global warming to be real as sits within their ideals, as they believe it so strongly they are happy to trick those who wouldnt change otherwise into action with scare stories. If they reported that global warming was happening but it was only partly caused by man and the net benefits were good, would anyone do anything to change their lifestyle? I doubt it.



What do businesses have to benefit, well if your a carbon trader or own a hydrolake, lots of money. Look at Al Gore, hes making a mint from global warming whilst having proably one of the biggest co2 footprints on earth, justified by buying carbon credits from himself.

Answer 9

CONTROL. You could also word this question this way....... What would a bully gain by using fear tactics? They may wish to induce a sense of panic in the general public to exert some control over them.

Answer 10

Well it is more than a political group when you start looking deeper into it. One very rich man decided to implement the dream of Karl Marx all on his own and has been using stock and money market manipulation to achieve that end. The current crisis has brought his pogrom almost to success. All the money that evaporated from the stock market is not gone, it is in his Bank account.

Answer 11

Control, and manipulation. In the case of global warming, you can already see the results in terms of 'going green' and people changing the ways they think and live. It ultimately determines the way people vote and contribute.