No, what I’m doing is pointing out that his opinions are a) wrong and b) delivered with right-wing spin. As such, you should not take what he says about matters political at face value.
You seem to be making some unsubstantiated leaps from what he's written, to "right-wing", to "wrong".
Just because you don't agree with what someone has written doesn't mean you can dump them in a camp you don't like, and just because you do so doesn't mean that you can discount him entirely on all such matters.
Considering the variable produced by code in question is never used, as shown by two comments in this thread, indicates to me that ESR is wrong.
Which is odd, because ESR is an expert programmer, so one would assume he'd check to see if this was a case of dead code. He does not do this, and instead prattles off wingnut talking points on climate gate.
ESR a programmer? Do you ever read the mailing list of the major FLOSS projects out there? Read them and search for his name. It was even the theme of a webcomic in the past: http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/show-them-the-code
Before what? I don't remember there ever being a time when esr wasn't a deranged wingnut.