Re: Federal Prisons Are Beginning to Force Trans Inmates Off Hormone Therapy

On May 27, 2026 at 8:53:58 AM MST, "zendejo" wrote
<[email protected]>:

> On 5/26/26 10:05 PM, Brock McNuggets wrote:
>> Liberals want evidence-based regulation and oversight to help ensure clean air
>> and water, safe food, and human rights. This includes following the scientific
>> evidence about climate change and food safety, and things like
> 
> Like THIS:
> 
> https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/follow-the-climate-change-money
> 
> How big is the Climate Change Industrial Complex today? Surprisingly, no
> one seems to be keeping track of all the channels of funding. A few
> years ago Forbes magazine went through the federal budget and estimated
> about $150 billion in spending on climate change and green energy
> subsidies during President Obama’s first term.
> 
> That didn’t include the tax subsidies that provide a 30 percent tax
> credit for wind and solar power — so add to those numbers about $8
> billion to $10 billion a year. Then add billions more in costs
> attributable to the 29 states with renewable energy mandates that
> require utilities to buy expensive “green” energy.
> 
> 
> Worldwide the numbers are gargantuan. Five years ago, a leftist group
> called the Climate Policy Initiative issued a study which found that
> “Global investment in climate change” reached $359 billion that year.
> Then to give you a sense of how money-hungry these planet-saviors are,
> the CPI moaned that this spending “falls far short of what’s needed” a
> number estimated at $5 trillion.
> 
> For $5 trillion we could feed everyone on the planet, end malaria, and
> provide clean water and reliable electricity to every remote village in
> Africa. And we would probably have enough money left over to find a cure
> for cancer and Alzheimers.

The post reads less like an evidence-based argument and more like a familiar
style of ideological grievance rhetoric: selective statistics, emotionally
loaded framing, and a shift from the original topic (trans inmates and hormone
therapy) into a generalized attack on climate science and public spending.

Psychological/profile observations (not a diagnosis):

* Strong in-group/out-group framing (“leftist group”, “planet-saviors”)
* High distrust of institutions and expert consensus
* Preference for rhetorical contrast over direct evidence
* Uses financial magnitudes to provoke emotional reaction without contextual
comparison
* Employs “whataboutism” – redirecting from climate policy to malaria, cancer,
African electrification, etc.
* Shows signs of motivated reasoning: the conclusion (“climate policy is
corrupt/wasteful”) appears to precede the evidence selection
* The writing style suggests someone more interested in ideological signaling
and provoking opponents than careful policy analysis

Fact and logic check:

1. Climate spending figures
    The cited Heritage Foundation article is opinion/commentary, not primary
research. Heritage is a conservative advocacy organization, not a neutral
scientific or budgetary body. The Forbes estimate and CPI figures are likely
broadly based on real categories of spending/investment, but the framing is
misleading.

Key omissions:

* Much of the spending is infrastructure, energy transition investment,
research, grid modernization, disaster mitigation, and private-sector capital
– not simply “handouts.”
* Fossil fuel industries also receive massive direct and indirect subsidies
worldwide.
* Climate damages themselves cost trillions through fires, floods, crop
losses, health impacts, and infrastructure destruction.

2. “$5 trillion could feed everyone, end malaria, provide clean water…”
    This is rhetorically powerful but economically simplistic bordering on
meaningless.
    Problems:

* These are long-term recurring global problems, not one-time purchases.
* Spending categories are not interchangeable.
* Much climate investment itself includes electrification, water
infrastructure, resilience, and public health improvements.
* Preventing climate destabilization is directly related to food security,
disease spread, drought, and infrastructure reliability.

3. Implicit claim that climate concern is mainly profit-driven
    This ignores:

* The overwhelming scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change
* Independent evidence from atmospheric physics, temperature records, ice
cores, ocean heat content, glacier retreat, etc.
* The fact that fossil fuel industries themselves represent a vastly larger
and historically entrenched economic complex

4. Logical structure
    The post never actually refutes climate science.
    Instead it argues:
    “Large amounts of money are involved -> therefore climate concern is
suspect.”

That is not a valid logical inference. By that logic, military spending,
medicine, agriculture, or road construction would all become inherently
fraudulent.

Is anything worthy of reply?
Possibly, but only if the audience is persuadable. The post itself is mostly
ideological performance.

The only potentially productive reply angle:

* Distinguish between whether climate change is real versus debates over
optimal policy responses.
* Point out that criticizing spending priorities does not invalidate the
underlying science.
* Note that climate damages themselves already impose enormous economic costs.

A long rebuttal is unlikely to change the author’s views. A concise response
focusing on the core logical flaw would probably work best.

Suitable short Usenet summary:

Post is mostly ideological rhetoric rather than a scientific argument. It
never actually disputes the evidence for anthropogenic climate change – it
argues that because large sums of money are involved, climate policy must be
suspect. That is not evidence against the science.

The Heritage link is an opinion piece, not primary research. The “$5 trillion
could solve everything else” claim is also a false tradeoff: climate
mitigation, infrastructure, energy systems, food security, and public health
are interconnected, not mutually exclusive.

Main takeaway: criticism of specific climate policies or spending priorities
can be legitimate, but it does not invalidate the underlying climate science.



-- 
It's impossible for someone who is at war with themselves to be at peace with you.