Fantasy Island - Are Republicans losing their grip on reality?
Not really a GD, but more apropos here for discussion than elsewhere. This article is a near perfect encapsulation of my concerns about the Republican Party. I am a registered Republican because once, long ago, I believed we were the party of grown ups. Now we are borderline clowns.
I am a registered Democrat, but I believe that Republicans had the grownup edge prior to say 1977. At that point the trends began to reverse. Still, the complete collapse of the Republican’s policy apparatus only occurred last decade: it might be dated from the point that Paul O’Neill resigned from the treasury.
Paul Krugman once worked for the Reagan administration. There was a time that sensible people could work in the political center for either party. Today, all Republicans bluster about the deficit and all but a couple rule out tax increases as a method of partially closing the gap. It’s silly.
So … declining to give a public opinion on something that has nothing to do with his elected office is a bad thing? I wish we had more of that, frankly.
What I’ve been saying for years now.
When I moved out west, and tried to register Republican (I failed, but that’s another story), I told the little communist filling out the forms that “The Republicans need me more than the Democrats do” to help bring the party toward the center. He told me, “The Republicans don’t want you.”
He was right. At this point, they wouldn’t want Reagan, either.
You think a state governor has, or should have, nothing to do with public education policy in his state? Even when the particular governor has specifically claimed educational reform for his agenda?
Considering that so many Republicans run their office like a church, using religion as a basis for legislation, his views on the FACT of evolution and the Myth of creation has everything to do with his office.
One’s views on a scientific theory has nothing to do with his or her abilities as a politician.
Wrong, since science is the best source of knowledge we have on how the world actually works. A politician who lets fantasy trump science is going to do a bad job because he’ll be making his decisions based on falsehoods.
Politics isn’t a pure science, and plenty of people whose ideas on certain things were bizarre (such as Tolstoy in his religious and ethical views) were brilliant in other areas.
Irrelevant, since no one said it was. Science does however have a great deal to say on all sorts of things a modern American politician has to deal with; and if he considers a bunch of primitive myths even remotely as important as science in his decision making he’s going to do a rotten job.
The governor’s views on creationism are relevant because the state funds the public schools and Christie poses as a reformer. The fact that he finds it necessary to dance around this matter of science speaks poorly of his base. (Incidentally, I suspect this reveals his Presidential ambitions: the fundi wing in NJ is fairly weak.)
Reagan won the 1980 nomination in part because the moderate vote was split between a number of candidates: Reagan had the far right to himself. That was the last election where Republican Presidential candidates made an effort to seem reasonable, serious and centrist during the primaries: John Anderson even ran on an increase in the gas tax.
Today the situation is reversed. Methinks the dark horse candidate Jon Huntsman could win the nomination if he played his cards right. But even if he won, he would be stuck with the Washington Republican caucus, none of whom are moderate.
Boom. This.
Tell me, who would you sooner trust to be in office…
Candidate A ignores basically all science. He doesn’t trust “evolutionists”, he rejects climate change resources, and fails to understand radioactive decay. He also completely ignores the advice of any financial adviser he hasn’t hand-picked. He instead relies on his religion for all the answers, and what it won’t provide, he demands of his closest advisers.
Candidate B is a scientist, who has studied climate change extensively and understands the phenomenon well. He understands the basics of evolution well enough to know that it is a fact, and knows that radioactivity is a problem. He relies on experts from all sides of all fields for his opinions on major socioeconomic fields.
Candidate A misunderstands and laughs at “fruit fly research”, doing everything short of saying “If I get elected, I’m going to try to remove funds to it”. He ignores the recommendations of various economists to consider raising taxes, and goes with his “gut feeling” regarding issues. He ignores climate change as a reality, because his religion says so, and because “he doesn’t trust scientists”. He tries to push a religiously-influenced agenda in schools, teaching our students outdated falsehoods; everything this side of “the earth is flat” is fair game. He also will see no issue with dumping radioactive waste where it could seep into ground water, because “what’s the worst that could happen? I don’t believe in that ‘radioactivity’ mumbo-jumbo”.
Candidate B endorses funding to critical scientific institutions. He takes the recommendations of economists (the actual experts) when making his policies about the economy. He listens to the ecologists who have actually studied global warming before making a policy on it. He teaches our students only the scientifically agreed-upon, most up-to-date facts.
Can you see, even for a moment, why a person’s acceptance or rejection of a scientific theory (one that is so well-established that you might as well say “I don’t trust scientists” if you are to deny it) might make a difference?
But hell, let’s ignore that for a moment. Let’s focus on why someone’s stance on evolution matters, directly related to their politics.
An anti-evolution candidate is likely to push intelligent design in science classes, wasting god knows how many man-hours of both students and teachers on religious propaganda that has no relevance in today’s world and is simply false. That’s why this matters, even beyond the abstract of “if you don’t trust evolution, you’re probably not going to listen to any scientific theories that have less than 200 years of extensive attempts at disproval and mountains of evidence, and probably won’t listen to the experts that disagree with your preconceived notion on any issue”. It’s an actual, concrete issue in and of itself.
Unfortunately, Candidate B is also a Technocrat. 
The Republican Party is built on a foundation of lies. It’s real purpose is to allow the very wealthy to loot the country. However, since this true platform is unlikely to garner the party many votes, Republican candidates run on two make-believe ones: Christian nativist tribalism, or libertarian economic utopianism. Neither make-believe platform exists because it does a good job of solving real-world problems. They exist solely to convince the Republican base to vote against its own self-interest. This is pretty much how things have been for the last 30 years. Only lately the old lies have become creakier and the new lies are crazier.
This magical thinking affects both parties. Both seem to be in denial about the long run costs of low skill immigration from Mexico. Both seem to think that they can turn places like Iraq, Afghanistan & Libya into liberal democracies.
Such a question reveals how a candidate handles factual information.
“Yah, Creationism is completely true!”
Ok. How did you come to this conclusion? How do you deal with the mountain of evidence in favor of the other position. If elected, can we expect you going to deal with every issue that comes across your desk in such a dogmatic, I-don’t-give-a-damn-about-facts manner? Does this mean you will also have utter disregard for our legal system, which at least recognizes the value of facts and reasoning? Do you think, like Huckabee, that our youngsters ought to be forced to read fundamentalist revisionist history ‘at gunpoint’?
On and on. Goddamn right it is my business. Want to keep you opinions to yourself? Stay out of the public sector!
So what? Most politicians are liberal creationists who deny the implications of evolution. Are you going to call them on that?
:rolleyes: Chen, your Bell-Curve-bullshit racial theories are not “the implications of evolution.”
That has got to be the silliest cite I’ve seen this year.
That depends. In a just and proper world, the policy would not be determined by his views. Instead he would pull together a spectrum of experts from different disciplines and perspectives, put them together and have them come up with a policy. It would then be up to him to listen to that policy.
He may give them a general direction, but leave the actual shape and final form to informed and knowledgeable people. So his personal views matter a whole let less than the form of the review he is putting in place -
But I do concede that if such a thing should ever happen we would be living in Nirvana