For a while my only news source was the N.Y. Times. One day I was surprised to read an Opinion letter by Brownback denying that he disbelieved in evolution. I Googled around to discover he was reacting to the backlash from the high-IQ types (100 and up) after his pandering to the morons in his base.
But this letter “supporting evolution” was quite strange. I don’t think he ever admitted that species evolve into other species, just hinted that he understood things like dog-breeding. I sent a letter to his campaign asking for clarification but never got an answer.
There’s little relationship for either party between its form in the more rational era and that of post-modern post-rational America. Whenever I read any Doper mentioning oldtimer’s party affiliation as though it had relevance to today’s politics, I think: There’s a Doper who needs his ignorance fought.
While that doesn’t happen (often) anymore, there are more…“civilized” methods actively in use by the Republican Party. Vote-caging, deceptive advertising (flyers to heavily minority precincts saying that election day is X date, where X is the day AFTER election day), intimidation (flyers to heavily hispanic precincts saying that you need 3 forms of ID to vote or you’ll be deported by INS), purging voter rolls of anyone with a name similar to a convicted felon’s, disparity in voting machines/stations/polling places that disadvantage minority precincts, etc. Florida was an archetype for this in 2000. They purged their voter rolls of primarily black voters based on an erroneous list of convicted felons.
Yes, I shouldn’t have said “flip-flopped” so much as “filtered”. The anti-civil rights Democrats pretty much all became Republicans, and the pro-civil rights Republicans eventually got completely marginalized or purged. The fact that there are only 2 (possibly 3) moderate Republicans (out of what? 47?) in the Senate shows this.
We’re getting away from evolution here, but the Pubs are big on voter restrictions. Here’s a linky about voter ID laws:
Hey, if students are voting Democratic, just don’t accept student ID’s as valid and you can keep them from voting at all. Plus poor people are more likely not to have an ID from the DMV- people who happen to be more likely to vote Democratic. Clearly the will of the people is Republican leadership!! :rolleyes: It’s a mandate!!! :rolleyes::rolleyes:
Ah yes strawmanning. :rolleyes: I don’t support any sort of gerrymandering-just divide the state into as natural districts as possible (ie all of one metropolitian area if small enough going into one Congressional district)
I believe the context indicated it meant ethnic/racial minorities.
According to this 2007 gallup poll 68% of republicans deny evolution (vs 37% of independents and 40% of democrats). That doesn’t tell you what the senators themselves say though, but it is a reasonable guide to the nation as a whole.
A different poll found only 14% of the public believe in evolution by natural selection, the remainder believe in creationism or intelligent design with 4% unsure.
So it is hard to say. Part of me thinks politicians just pretend to promote creationism or theism when they privately believe in evolution, but who knows. Part of me thinks most probably do the opposite, privately believe in creationism but not profess it openly for fear of losing support. The motive to say one thing in public and something else in private exists for both viewpoints.
