(Part 3) Top products from r/moderatepolitics

If you'd like some classics as far as liberals are concerned, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money is one of the most defining works in economics. It's a tough read (it will challenge you as a 14 year old), but if you can wrap your head around the ideas, you'll be smarter for it. I will say that the book is about 80 years old, and while not completely out of date, these theories have been developed further since then.

Silent Springs is an excellent environmental recommendation, but if you wanted something newer, Earth in the Balance by Al Gore is a good bet.

On civil rights, I think that reading some of Martin Luther King's letters present an exquisite and articulate arguments for the right to live a life with dignity and without discrimination. Although you know full well what he was all about, the arguments stand strong on any civil rights issue.

If you are looking for something of a compilation, Liberalism and Its Critics is an excellent and easier read that will present you with a diversity of ideas from a wide range of authors ranging from conservatives to liberals to communitarians to libertarians.

Edit: Typos

Here he compares the CO2 alarmism to believing in magic:

>I haven’t spent much time on the details of the science, but there is one thing that should spark skepticism in any intelligent reader. The system we are looking at consists in two turbulent fluids interacting with each other. They are on a rotating planet that is differentially heated by the sun. A vital constituent of the atmospheric component is water in the liquid, solid and vapor phases, and the changes in phase have vast energetic ramifications. The energy budget of this system involves the absorption and reemission of about 200 watts per square meter. Doubling CO2involves a 2% perturbation to this budget. So do minor changes in clouds and other features, and such changes are common. In this complex multifactor system, what is the likelihood of the climate (which, itself, consists in many variables and not just globally averaged temperature anomaly) is controlled by this 2% perturbation in a single variable? Believing this is pretty close to believing in magic. Instead, you are told that it is believing in ‘science.’ Such a claim should be a tip-off that something is amiss. After all, science is a mode of inquiry rather than a belief structure.

And here he describes the global warming movement as a "cult".

>“As with any cult, once the mythology of the cult begins falling apart, instead of saying, oh, we were wrong, they get more and more fanatical. I think that’s what’s happening here. Think about it,” he said. “You’ve led an unpleasant life, you haven’t led a very virtuous life, but now you’re told, you get absolution if you watch your carbon footprint. It’s salvation!”

If you read the other comments here you will see that I said that oceans will absorb more CO2, that a greater number of clouds will reflect more heat back into space, and that a greater number of plants will process more CO2. I agree with Lindzen. Where do you think I formed my opinions from? It was from books like this, which reference Lindzen and others, and from Lindzen himself. Lindzen is a leader in this field.

GET A GRIP SON!

Study philosophy! Seriously, just get a big ol' book on the history of philosophy like this one and wade your way through it. A good amount of political thought is based on philosophy, so understanding it is essential to truly understanding politics. You'll find yourself pondering the great questions like "What is the value of equality? Is it compatible with freedom? Is government necessary? Is there a such thing as a Just War? Are morals relative?", and your answers to these questions will determine where you lie politically. (I haven't actually read the book I linked to, but I've heard it's good and I don't want to recommend you that $100 textbook I read.)

Now, when you wade into the terrifying mess that is contemporary politics, you should learn and keep in mind all of the logical fallacies, because you'll hear lots of them. There isn't really any place to "get started" with this, just look around for sources of unbiased information. Never trust the mainstream media, don't trust fringe activists either. Of course they're both right from time to time, but you're better off doing in depth research on any position. If your like me, that means you'll be ambivalent about most issues simply because you don't have the time to learn about them. That's okay, sometimes it's best to just say "I don't know".

Here are three textbooks that cover that a zygote is a unique, living, human life.

Care to provide any sort of statement on why, exactly, a zygote, which is scientifically human, alive, and unique, is not a human life? If you want to argue personhood, that's not science, that's philosophy of the mind, and we can go down some dark paths about what constitutes a human. If you want to argue science, there's no argument to be made.

Even people like Peter Singer concede this, because there's nothing to be argued against it. People that want to try and argue against it are trying to morally rationalize their decisions or wants, at least be consistent with it.

As a general principle? No, I don’t believe so. It’s not even psychology; it’s game theory and economics. Read a book.

Here, I’ll get you started. Try this on for size and argue with an idea instead of attacking people’s motivations.