Camp in Rindge combines the Constitution, conservative principles and a ‘climate realist’

[Keith and stuff]

Camp in Rindge combines the Constitution, conservative principles and a ‘climate realist’

Camp in Rindge combines the Constitution, conservative principles and a ‘climate realist’
By TONY MARQUIS
Monadnock Ledger-Transcript
Monday, July 10, 2017
http://www.ledgertranscript.com/Camp-Constitution-in-Rindge-11201932

Selective quotes below. Click on the above link to read the full article.

Smithsonian Institution scientist and “climate realist” Willie Soon began his Camp Constitution lecture titled “The Climate-Change Hoax” with a question.

“How many people think that carbon dioxide, the so-called satanic gas, can be really dangerous for the whole climate and the whole Earth itself?” he asked.

None of the dozens of campers ages 5 to 15, the teenage staff members, the handful of parents or other speakers at Camp Constitution in Rindge raised their hands.

“Zero? Y’all can go home now,” Soon said.

Soon spent the next 50 minutes talking about how energy taxes were taxes on the poor, and how the sun, not carbon dioxide, was the primary driver of climate change. Digs at former Vice President and environmental activist Al Gore and former President Barack Obama got more laughs. A comment about getting rid of the United Nations was met with applause.

Soon pointed out that according to his research, a person exhales carbon dioxide at a level of 10,000 parts per million, so the next time someone tells a camper that carbon dioxide is dangerous, “you tell them to stop breathing” -- a joke that was met with more laughter.

Midway through the lecture, Soon encouraged the younger campers to think for themselves.

No other camp like this

“You don’t have to agree with us, you can run your own camp,” said Hal Shurtleff, director of Camp Constitution, talking about criticism his camp has received while sitting at one of the tables in the dining hall of the Toah Nipi Retreat Center in Rindge.

Camper: ‘Best classes’

The camp opened Monday with a class on the Constitution, taught by Shurtleff. It followed with a lecture titled “Crimes of the Educators” by Alex Newman, who writes for the John Birch Society’s The New American magazine, among other publications. After Newman, the John Birch Society president, John McManus taught a class about “The New World Order.”

Manus, who taught a handful of classes at the camp, has spoken at Tea Party events. Over lunch, McManus spoke about his class.

“I asked fourth graders, if you’re $20 trillion in debt, would you give away money?” McManus said. “They said, ‘No.’

“I said, please run for Congress.”

Other camp speakers included Larry Pratt, executive director of the Gun Owners of America and Pastor Earl Wallace, of the Liberty Christian Fellowship church in Half Moon, New York, came to teach two classes: “Applying 10 Commandments to Advocate for Bill of Rights in Contemporary Issues” and “13 Rules for Radicals Used to Redistribute Wealth & Wreck the Republic.”

“Our challenge is there are more public school children that need this information, because they’re not going to be able to grow up in the America that we grew up in,” said Wallace, who is also a former high school English teacher.

Alex Peik, 14 of Hollis, has been coming to the camp since he was nine. He called Monday’s classes, including Soon’s, the “best classes, for a first day.”

His father, Rod, who introduced Soon and is a member of the John Birch Society, said he attended public schools and his family has made several sacrifices to make sure his five children have the best home school education he can provide.

“It worked for me, but it could have been a lot better,” said Rod Peik of schooling.

Rod Peik, who attended Monday’s classes with his son, said parents who choose home school tend to learn libertarian, but that he’s “never going to agree with everything” said at the camp. The son echoed his father.

“I’m not going to know any more than any of the speakers that are going to be here, so I’m not going to disagree,” Alex Peik said. “But I’ll do my own research to makes sure what I’m hearing is correct.”