As the year 2015 staggers to a close, punch-drunk from enduring eleven rounds of pummeling by a tag team of assaults against western civilization, it is not too soon to take inventory of the most notable entries in the realm of political con jobs. But where to start? Obamacare, Black Lives Matter, Hillary is Honest — so many frauds, so little time! Dealing with just one of them, like the alleged campus rape epidemic, for instance, would require interviews from self-proclaimed victims spouting melodramatic charges, which are rinsed away by cold showers of obdurate facts that leave the rest of us enlightened even though the accusers still end up smelling bad. And that takes a thousand words or so, including video clips and a clutch of statistics from reliable sources, leading to a conclusion of clarification and debunking. Then it’s time to move on to other outbreaks of political or academic hysteria that have macro-aggressed their way across our fair land.

But one has to start somewhere, and here we have space to cite just two. The first one is a real favorite, the minds-on-fire frenzy that has propelled global warming (or man-induced climate change) to a position of front and center in elite consciousness, culminating in an international confab of leaders in Paris. The problem is complicated by the fact that devotees of climate change orthodoxy constitute a $1.5 trillion interest group, almost all of it induced by government fiat (spurring huge private investments, as well, of course). And the fact that modern civilization, with all of its incalculable benefits, is based on the consumption of fossil fuels bothers the true believers not one bit.

Why should it? First, like elites everywhere, climate change advocates are not affected by the consequences of their beliefs, plus they control media, academia, and the government, which is all that they need. Further, climate purists have induced some congressmen and academics to threaten criminalization and imprisonment of those who disagree. Wherein lies the key to understanding the whole climate change fraud and the suicidal policies its advocates pursue. Any time a government yearns to destroy free speech and imprison (or kill, as some militants have insisted) dissidents for the purpose of imposing massive controls over society means that the pretext for such actions is based on lies. Why don’t climate change enthusiasts allow the marketplace of ideas to sort out the veracity of competing arguments about the fate of the planet? Because they don’t dare, that’s why; the truth might win. In the meantime, America’s adversaries gaze with jaw-dropping incredulity at anxieties over a fictitious climate apocalypse, probably concluding that leaders of those countries meeting in Paris have gone insane.

Of course, insanity can be expressed in various ways, as George Orwell taught, and this leads us to another fraud on our list, centering on the word “progressive.” What does this word mean? The answer is that in spite of its agreeable connotation, in fact progressivism is based on the total rejection of the country’s founding principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. That is, convictions based on individualism, the pursuit of happiness, life, liberty, and God-given rights are considered outdated or oppressive or both; and principles of constitutionalism — separation of powers, limited government, popular accountability — are held in contempt by progressives.

What do progressives believe, then? The roving mobs in America’s universities and their craven administrative enablers have for the past several months displayed progressive beliefs for all the world to see — collectivism based on race, gender, and class, enforced by official dictates and nurtured by reeducation camps. The insanity here is accepting as “progressive” a system that in fact is retrograde, backward, hearkening more to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century or even to medieval times dominated by kings, privileged aristocracies, and status ascription based on birth. In short, it’s hard to conceive of a fraud more striking than modern progressivism.

Does this make progressives unpatriotic? Interestingly, progressives shriek with indignation when accused of not loving America. In fact, they do love their country, just not the one they happen to live in right now, and certainly not the Republic that has existed since 1787. It is the country they want to create on the ruins of the old that claims their greatest allegiance and to which they devote their wildest fantasies.

All of which, of course, is not a revelation to observers who have followed these trends for decades — nothing new here, just preaching to the choir. That being the case, it remains important that there still is a choir to be preached to, a very great one comprising the vast majority of the American people. And with the right leadership, this immense choir can be stirred into action, exposing frauds, debunking lies, restoring sanity. Absent that, expect jackboots of climate change dogma and progressive ideology to continue pounding their way across America.