Fast Takes: How Flock advances freedom, inside fake ‘climate science’ and other commentary

Libertarian: How Flock Advances Freedom

“Critics of Flock and ALPR technology, predominantly libertarians and leftists, say that the cameras create an unconstitutional system of ‘mass surveillance’,” observes Sam Raus at City Journal. But “Neither response advances liberty,” as “public order is a foundation of our freedoms, and securing it helps keep us free.” “In countless instances, these cameras have served justice and upheld the liberty of law-abiding people,” like child abductions. They helped catch a “a mass killer in Oregon responsible for five deaths in a remote, rural location.” But do watch those using the tech: “Flock may represent a new and unfamiliar application of technology,” but “what matters is whether governments are using these tools within clearly defined and sensibly designed legal limits.”

Iconoclast: Inside Fake ‘Climate Science’

The advocates at World Weather Attribution claim that the Aug. 26 disaster in the Himalayas “was the result of human-caused global warming,” fumes Roger Pielke Jr. at The Free Press. Yet “WWA scientists have now” done this “more than 120 times since its founding in 2014: They issue a press release and technical report after a significant weather event,” then “purport to explain how much climate change has tilted the odds for such events.” Media eat it up, but WWA does no “legitimate analysis that would actually link the weather event to climate change. They simply assume it.” Want to show that “increases in global patent applications” worsened “a 2019 typhoon in Japan”? Pielke has used “the WWA’s attribution methodology” to do so. Beware: The WWA’s witchcraft may soon be “displacing legitimate climate science. which to date has been assessed periodically and authoritatively by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”

Optimist: Quit Teaching Kids To Fear the Future

“The picture of a dying planet bears little resemblance to the measurable world around us” indeed: “The Earth is getting greener” — yet over half of 12,793 Americans aged 16 to 25 in one survey “said climate change made them hesitant to have children,” marvels Frank Lasee in The Hill.” Such problems shouldn’t be “reasons to surrender.” Past generations “faced world wars, depressions, and nuclear standoffs,” but their “human ingenuity cleaned our air and rivers, tripled crop yields, cut extreme poverty by two-thirds, and greened a massive share of the planet.” Parents, “two generations have been taught to fear the future. Let’s teach the next one to build it.”

Eye on Taiwan: Keep on Deterring Xi

“When President Trump returned from his Beijing summit in May, he said the situation with Taiwan should ‘stay the way it is,’” recalls Jason Hsu at The Wall Street Journal. Ahead of Xi Jinping’s arrival at the White House this week, “expect more reassurance, talk of stability, and an emphasis on mutual respect,” but don’t “assume China’s posture in the Taiwan Strait hasn’t changed much”: In fact, “Beijing is on the march.” For years, China has encroached on the island democracy via “‘salami slicing’ tactics in which no single act seems to merit war.” With every “new encroachment,” Xi redefines the “status quo” that both nations then “pledge to preserve.” “The cumulative effect is a weakened Taiwan being slowly coerced into surrender.” “ ‘Stay the way it is’ isn’t sound policy.”

Border beat: ‘Abolish ICE’ Really Is the Agenda

The rallying cry “Abolish ICE” shows “Democrats are increasingly, and openly, committed to undermining the rule of law across the land,” Jenny Beth Martin argues at the Washington Examiner. “To too many” of them, not just “the far-left fringe,” the phrase is “a promise.” Notice: “All but seven Democrats in the House voted against” funding the Department of Homeland Security at all this year so they could “block funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection.” “Voting to defund federal immigration law enforcement efforts is as extreme as it gets — it doesn’t just contribute to lawlessness at home, it goes further, to erode national sovereignty as it weakens our border security.” Voters “should remember that” in November.

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board