The term "useful idiot" is ascribed to Vladimir Lenin and it's generally understood to refer to individuals whose socialistic sympathies cause them to act in a manner antagonistic to classically liberal (libertarian, individualistic, entrepreneurial) societies.

On this page I will accumulate examples of the pronouncements and activities of our "useless idiots". These are individuals whose activities and declarations are indisputably contrary to known facts yet become public knowledge by reason of their celebrity.

US Gov’t Inspected, Grade A Useless Idiot - Rosie O'Donnell

“Renowned metallurgist Rosie O’Donnell proclaimed on TV last Thursday (4/2007) that Sept. 11, 2001, was a more significant date than most of us realized. It was, in her words, ‘the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel.’ This, of course, came as news to steelworkers, blacksmiths, firefighters, manufacturers of samurai swords, and other fools who hadn’t realized that steel is forged in magic furnaces using dragon breath and pixie dust...O’Donnell focused on World Trade Center Building 7, which has become the grassy knoll for 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Asked if the government was responsible for its collapse, she coyly replied that she didn’t know. All she knows is that it’s ‘impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved’ and that, for the ‘first time in history, steel was melted by fire.’ Wink, wink. For the record, fire can melt steel, and buildings also collapse when heat weakens steel. But that misses the point. The point is we shouldn’t have to argue with crazy people. Regardless, it appears that not even the heat of ridicule can weaken O’Donnell’s steely resolve to make an idiot of herself.” —Jonah Goldberg
[I can personally attest to the fact that fire can not only soften but melt and even vaporize steel.-CVDG]

“You know what concerns me? How many Supreme Court judges are Catholic?... Five. How about separation of church and state in America?” [What would she like, robots, perhaps?- CVDG]

US Gov’t Inspected, Grade A Useless Idiot - Al Gore

"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says 'You have to intervene here', you don't say, 'well I read a science fiction novel that says it isn't important'."

US Gov’t Inspected, Grade A Useless Idiot - Sheryl Crow

“I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required.”

US Gov’t Inspected, Grade A Useless Idiot - Betty Friedan

"Certain signs, some of them visible to the layman as well as the scientist, indicate that we've been watching an ice age approach for some time without realizing what we've been seeing... Scientists predict that it will cause great snows which the world has not seen since the last Ice age thousands of years ago." (1958)

US Gov’t Inspected, Grade A Useless Idiot - Susan Sontag

"The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballet et al., don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought  upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history. It is the white race and it alone - its ideologies and inventions- which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself."

US Gov’t Inspected, Grade A Useless Idiot - Paul Erlich

"We've already had too much economic growth in the U.S.. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure."

Giving society cheap, abundant energy...would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun."

"The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970's and 1980's hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." (1968)

"Hundreds of millions of people will soon perish in smog disasters in New York and Los Angeles... the oceans will die of DDT poisoning by 1979...the U. S. life expectancy will drop to 42 years by 1980 due to cancer epidemics." (1969)

"...nutritional disaster seems likely to overtake humanity in the 1970's (or, at the latest the 1980's)...A situation has been created that could lead to a billion or more people starving to death." (1974)

US Gov’t Inspected, Grade A Useless Idiot - Matt Lauer

"The stark reality is that there are simply too many of us. And we consume way too much. Especially here at home....The solutions are not secret: control population, recycle, reduce consumption..."

US Gov’t Inspected, Grade A Useless Idiot - Lamont Cole

"To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem."

US Gov’t Inspected, Grade A Useless Idiot - Charles Wursta (Environmental Defense Fund Chief)

In response to the likely millions to die if DDT were banned: "This is as good a way to get rid of them as any."

US Gov’t Inspected, Grade A Useless Idiots - American Civil Liberties Union

"The ACLU calls on President-elect Obama to sign Day One executive orders banning the use of torture and abuse.' In case you didn't think they were serious, the ACLU wrote: 'There is no room for patience or delay in these areas. We have to hold President-elect Obama's feet to the fire if we're going to turn hope into reality.' Let's take a moment to examine that phrase: 'Feet to the Fire.' In one sentence the ACLU's demands that unsavory techniques be banned from questioning suspected terrorists. In another, the ACLU urges putting the feet of the President of the United States into a flame to force him -- torture him, if necessary -- to do what they want. Interesting, huh!?"  by political analyst Rich Galen

Miscellaneous professional doom-sayers:

Reid Bryson:

"The rapid cooling of the earth since World War II is also in accord with the increased air pollution associated with industrialization and an exploding population." (1971)

"The rapid cooling of the earth since World War II is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization and an exploding population." (1971)

Nigel Calder:

"The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source for wholesale death and misery for mankind." (1975)