By: Phil Williams

I appreciate the freedoms of assembly, association, and the freedom of speech. I have no problem with people gathering to share their thoughts and opinions. We must be able to assemble peaceably to share thoughts and opinions without persecution or backlash of any kind. Having said that, it doesn’t mean that I have to trust every assembly of opinionated pundits. In fact, there are some whose gatherings only serve to make me trust them less.

I try not to let myself delve too deeply into conspiratorial darkness, but there are a few groups that I believe are intent on wreaking havoc. Certain groups, once out in the open, speak their nonsense about what they will do if the rest of us don’t get on board with their agendas. Every once in a while, there’s a gathering that just seems next level — as if something more is happening than just a cavalcade of opinions. As if evil just massed itself in one place and celebrated plans for world domination.

Sound extreme? Maybe.

The two that give me the most pause are the annual gatherings of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, and the United Nations Climate Change Conference known simply as the COP.

From these two meetings we hear calls to action that sound like sub-plots from a Hunger Games movie, met by applause by the world’s elite who look like Hunger Games characters. Calls to eliminate fossil fuels, to eat bugs, to eradicate national borders, to eliminate cultural norms, to erase biological truths, to declare crises where there are none, and to declare peace where there is none.

The WEF and the COP are the incubators of liberal progressive power grabs, fully sanctioned and attended by world leaders. They’re agenda items make it into the policies, regulations, and laws of the nations of the world.

This year’s UN climate conference, christened COP28, met in Dubai, The United Arab Emirates. A star-studded affair, with grand speeches and a heady atmosphere that comes from being in a room where everyone is important and every speech is like a sermon filled with words of life-changing evangelism. According to the United Nations website: The world came together to agree on ways to address the climate crisis, such as limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, helping vulnerable communities adapt to the effects of climate change, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

Impressive. Noteworthy. For the greater good.

Then they announced how they plan to engage the world in their quest for all that is good, right, and fossil-fuel free. First off, “after 30 years of waiting” more than 190 nations agreed to a framework to transition away from fossil fuels. Not climate activists and intellectual elites, but actual nations signing on to the COP28 agenda.

But that wasn’t good enough. A spokesman for Africa Movement Building Space, adamantly stated: Proposing a transition away from fossil fuels may sound like a step in the right direction, a glimmer of hope amidst chaos. However, let us not underestimate the cunning tactics of fossil fuel giants and petrostates. They will cleverly disguise their products as ‘transitional’ fuels, especially in the most vulnerable corners of our world. Yet…Even the once unyielding fossil fuel giants and petrostates are now witnessing the inevitable – a world that’s free of their toxic grip.

Guess who the “petrostates” are? You got it. The evil U.S. of A. is a charter member along with the UK and Germany. To atone for our sins, we pledged a joint commitment of $700 million for a global climate reparations fund. Nice.

That was followed by a U.S. pledge of $3 billion for a “Green Climate Fund” for reducing emissions and adapting to climate change in developing countries. Which then drew a rebuke because apparently we pledged the same amount during the Obama years but only paid $1 billion…just $1 billion. But don’t worry because COP28 also launched the first ever task force on international taxation to “tax polluting industries” worldwide with “the potential to unlock billions.”

Biden’s climate czar John Kerry was there representing the United States in an official capacity, lest anyone think that we are not fully on board with the whole climate-change-is-an-existential-crisis mantra. But the one attendee that really got me was the U.S. Department of Defense. What is the DoD doing at COP28? Aren’t their wars to be fought, bad guys that need killing, threats that need stopping, tyrants that need toppling, or something?

Apparently climate change is the one true existential threat we face and therefore it is a matter of national security. It is imperative therefore that our uniformed warfighters attend the annual gathering of evil henchman known as the COP. The DoD was quite proud of its attendance and issued a press release to describe the climate change resilience of the various branches of the military, the commitment to combat global climate change by the armed forces of the United States, and to highlight the attendance of multiple high level DoD officials, announcing: The Defense Department’s role as a global leader in managing the impacts of climate change on resilience, peace and stability.

These are not rational people, but irrational people are ignored at great risk. Global taxation? Global climate reparations? And the fact that our military is bragging about its participation in an international conference in which the U.S. is excoriated as an evil “petrostate” is something we should not stand for.

The COP is a joke, but the COP is also serious. It is past time for the U.S. to instigate a COP-out.

By: Phil Williams