Nope, I actually do think that
The other half
And that is why there are several members from #2 that are telling it like it is.
It’s probably just that the Scientists are paid off by the Clinton Crime Family.
It’s not just Republicans that have issues with science.
Most anti-vaxxers I’ve met are leftists and Jill Stein has certainly pandered to them.
Most of the anti-GMO crowd also tends to be leftist and Bernie Sanders took up their banner.
And of course, beforehand he became Mayor of Burlington, Bernie Sanders, when he was writing articles for the Vermont Freeman peddling the debunked theories of a con artist who had died years earlier in prison for fraud claiming that if men developed prostate cancer it was probably because they were humiliated by “an old bitch of a teacher” and that society needed to start encouraging 16 year old girls to start ignoring their mothers and to loosen up and get laid to avoid getting cervical cancer.
I think you would be hard pressed to provide actual evidence that “most” of the anti-vaxx and anti-gmo crowd are non-Republicans. Certainly, plenty of conservative anti-government folks oppose mandatory vaccinations and government food regulations and labeling, for example.
However, even if you are correct, it wouldn’t absolve the Republican Party from embracing anti-science positions on a wide array of topics, from reproductive health, climate change, creationism, green energy, anti-pollution measures, and diet & exercise recommendations. To name a few.
Some individual Democrats are anti-science and/or idiots. I’ve never claimed otherwise. But the Republicans as a whole have embraced anti-science as part of their fundamentals.
Those were among the reasons why I did not supported Sanders, but to put things in perspective: the anti vaccine people from the left were not given the time of the day by Democrats in power, several Republicans in power, many republican candidates and Trump on the other hand…
Point being that in the past I did notice too the anti-vaccine woo woo was strong among a few in the left, but that was not turned into support among the ones that can set policy. The Republicans with anti vaccination ideas are the ones that can get the power to make a mess of things at the CDC and FDA.
And AFAIK Bernie did support GMO labeling but he is not against the science.
Oops
Gigo,
When you insist on scare tactics like GMO labeling, yes, you are anti-science.
Similarly, I assume you’d agree someone who argues that it’s a national tragedy that most 16 year old girls are virgins and that we should start encouraging them to start getting laid as often as possible or else they’ll develope cerivical cancer is a believer in woo, at the very least.
BTW I have to say that by looking at reports and past discussions IMHO in the anti vaccination case, there has been a very recent intentional move from Republicans to make anti vaccination a part of the [del]complete breakfast[/del] long series of litmus tests that conservatives have. Issues with plenty of scientific support that should not had been politicized.
In the past I have noted that issues like evolution, climate change, acid rain, ozone layer depletion, lead in gasoline (and lead in bullets for forest critters) the ones behind the effort to make them political issues are many times powerful interests that are hijacking the political sphere. But in the case of vaccines I do think that a lot of it is a misguided effort from the Republicans to make it a wedge issue and to get the few (but influential and with money) anti vaccers on the left to move to the Republican column, but most importantly: to get their money and influence too.
Again one reason why I did not supported Sanders, but I had to say that you are using a wide brush on him.
Mmm, IIRC this refers to essays Sanders made for a college newspaper, in the middel of the sexual revolution of the 60’s. But AFAIK and more crucial for the discussion here, those ideas are nowhere to be found in Sanders’ current campaign proposals.
The Vermont Freeman was not a college newspaper. It was Vermont’s version of the Village Voice and he wrote them nearly 10 years after he was out of college, married and had kids IIRC. So no, not just a youthful indiscretion.
And it would be OK to toss it at him if he was still talking about it. Anyhow, there were several iffy things coming from Sanders so the majority did not make him the candidate, the deplorables are still having a chance with Trump.
There are two main reasons for not demonizing the people who vote for the other party.
The first is epistemological: everyone thinks that they’re obviously correct, and almost everyone thinks that the political questions that they’re (obviously) correct about are issues of grave national and moral importance. When it comes to climate change or gun control or a hundred other issues, both sides care sincerely about it and both contain people who are intelligent make an effort to be informed, yet one group will be mostly right while the other group is mostly wrong … and you can’t know which group you’re in. You have no objective standing here, no way of getting your emotions and biases out of the way, and living down the street from you is some guy who’s both smarter and more knowledgeable and who thinks you’re 100% dead wrong. So, by all means continue to advocate for your position and we’ll see who wins the debate in the long run, but try to have a little humility and to grant the benefit of the doubt.
The second reason is practical: to cast our political opposites as dupes and/or moral monsters invites them to do the same, and that leads to a vicious circle that is both non-conducive to problem-solving & compromise, and fucking intolerable from an aesthetic standpoint. Most of the time, the bigger problem isn’t the people who are probably wrong, it’s the people who might be right but who are throwing shit (either metaphorically or literally) at the other people.
Your list is nonsense.
The problem with that post is you are mixing scientific fact with political policy decisions. There is no “scientific stance” on trans bathrooms, abortion, gay marriage, Merrick Garland, school busing*, Affirmative action (just to list the obvious ones).
Keep in mind that even if a certain policy is show to “work”, that does not give it the backing of science. For instance, there are lots of things that the government can do that would reduce crime, but we don’t allow those things to be done because they violate what we have established as the rights of citizens.
I agree with you that we see more anti-science on the right than on the left, but you do that cause no favors by making the same mistake yourself when you insist that issues of pure political policy are scientifically sound just because you back them.
*If anything, school bussing was shown to be, overall, a policy failure, not a policy success, if that is what you are implying.
Global Warming- sure, denial of GW is denial of reality
Trickle-down economics- sure, in the immortal words of Rocket J. Squirrel, “that trick never works”
Gay Marriage- not a matter of fact, but support of it is the more enlightened position.
Trans bathrooms- again, not a matter of scientific fact, but a matter of kindness to those who are in the minority.
Abortion- not a matter of fact, there are people who genuinely believe this is the taking of a human life.
Sex ed- a bit of a push, but abstainance only sex ed doesn’t work, as Sarah Palin can attest.
Obama’s presidency- yes, the continued opposition of every single thing he proposes is not supported by reason.
Benghazi- focus on this as if Hillary could have stopped it but chose not to is quite detached from reality.
stonewalling Merrick Garland- dangerous dereliction of duty to the point of about to cause a constitutional crisis.
School busing- what? The 1970s called and wants their outrage back.
banking deregulation- Yes, this was a mistake caused by willful disregard for reality.
the Iraq War- Yes, even though my candidate was fooled into support of it.
Birth control- Why do people opposed to abortion hate contraception? Makes no sense.
tax cuts for millionaires- belief that millionaires would only create jobs if they didn’t pay so much in taxes is akin to belief in the Tooth Fairy.
Mexican Wall (lol)- Yeah, right.
Supporting Donald Trump- Right again
Affirmative action- There are some logical arguments against so I wouldn’t say this is a matter of fact.
Well, that was easy! I guess you told him! 
However, as I scan down that list, for every item I can think of a major fallacy that the Republicans have incorporated at one time or another (and in most cases, still do) as a fundamental part of their platform (and I can think of even more, like promoting gun culture, or promoting the role of religion in government and public policy). Global warming is unproven / a hoax / not caused by human activity. Cutting taxes for the wealthy always improves life for the middle class, so it’s always the right thing to do. Being gay is: a disease / can be cured / will destroy and corrupt families and undermine the fabric of society if allowed to go unchecked (and God agrees!). Etc, etc, etc. [ETA: Just noticed that BobLibDem already provided a more complete rebuttal.] Sometimes they actually seem proud of flouting science and reason, because those are considered “elitist”.
Liberal platforms and positions aren’t always right, but they do generally arise from an honest attempt to apply logic and reason to our best knowledge of how the world actually works. Furthermore, by “liberal” here I mean “liberal by US standards”, which would simply be considered boringly centrist in most of the world.
That’s partly true, but there’s still the scientific concept of empiricism that applies to many of them – i.e.- both sides might agree on the desired social outcome (presumably no one wants social unrest and racial violence) yet one approach much more than the other has historically been shown to be much more likely to lead to the desired results.
I can and do respect conservative positions when it simply comes down to a difference in values. If conservatives want to promote free enterprise solutions to social ills and argue that the inequalities therein are intrinsic and just the nature of life, I can accept the argument even if I choose to disagree with it. But in so many cases, that’s not what we’re dealing with – we’re dealing with asinine policies that can’t possibly work and are (for example) just disguised handouts to wealthy political donors. In many cases we’re dealing with policies based on fake counterfactual premises, basically a con job on the public.
And both sides could probably agree that if all else were equal, we should lean on the side of freedom. Science is capable of answering whether or not trans bathrooms and gay marriage pose hazards (which isn’t to say that I’m aware of scientific studies of trans bathrooms) and so the likely non-danger of these combined with the love of freedom produces a policy recommendation.
Science is also capable of studying how sapient a creature is, including a fetus, although again I am unaware of any studies for small fetuses. But it should not be impossible to show that an embryo is less capable of thoughts and feeling than, say, a cow, and assuming each side agrees that the more sapient are more worthy of protection, a case could be made that one should not prohibit early abortion if one still allows cattle slaughter.
Mostly, I’m talking about the inherent racism of the Republican Party as represented in your comment above. The idea that Black Lives Matter, a grassroots movement that is trying to address a problem that clearly exists is really a pro-crime, pro-violence movement. The idea that blacks should just shut up and do what they are told. The fact that Trump rallies have people screaming N***** the top of their lungs, and wave the Confederate flag and it’s all somehow the Democrats fault.
And the willful ignorance of the GOP: the fact that they conveniently forget facts that don’t support their fear based world view. The fact that they forget that Al Gore said “Almost a century and a half ago, Senator Stephen Douglas told Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency, “Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.” Well, in that same spirit, I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country. Neither he nor I anticipated this long and difficult road. Certainly neither of us wanted it to happen. Yet it came, and now it has ended, resolved, as it must be resolved, through the honored institutions of our democracy.”
To be a member of the GOP is to willfully ignore their history of hate. The GOP has been pandering to hate and bigotry for decades. That is not a conspiracy theory, they admitted to it. They have admitted that when Ken Mehlman, then chair of the RNC apologized for the Southern Strategy. The GOP also willfully ignores that the redder the state, the more likely that it takes more in federal tax dollars than it gives.
I’m supposed to be nice to a party that has just launched a mainstream political movement that is openly based on white nationalism and who think blacks aren’t entitled to free speech while they support armed thugs who occupy federal lands? At what point am I allowed to stop pretending that these ignorant, violent racists don’t make up the plurality of the GOP?
My actual words, which you quoted, were:
“conservatives have picked the factually and scientifically wrong side”
Not everything on the list has had scientific input, but everything on that list relies on facts, which conservatives are ignoring.
You mention, for example:
“trans bathrooms, abortion, gay marriage, Merrick Garland, school busing*, Affirmative action”
as being the obvious ones. Let’s consider those.
It is also a fact that trans people are in danger of being attacked by straight people - usually male people in the male bathroom.
Conservatives, in making a law forcing people to use a specific bathroom, are using the power of the state to force trans people into difficult situations as a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist in reality.
It’s also a fact that the people who had security called on them in the wake of these laws weren’t even trans.
Conclusion: Conservatives are ignoring facts and reality in creating a solution to a non-existant problem.
It is a fact that most abortions take place for economic reasons. It is a fact that the number of abortions decline when people have access to free birth control.
It is a fact that women should be entitled to bodily autonomy. A woman’s body is not a public accommodation. A woman is not a slave to her fetus.
It is a fact that fetuses don’t even have brains or developed nervous systems until late in the game. They don’t feel pain early on. It is a fact that third trimester abortions are only legal for health problems.
It is a fact that conservatives ignore all of the above (some of which is, indeed, medical science).
It is a fact that conservatives have nothing but their faith-based beliefs about “life” to support their positions.
It is a fact that conservatives are trying to enact policies that would take away a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, purely on the basis of conservatives faith-based beliefs.
It is a fact that conservatives have committed murder and terrorism in the name of their faith-based beliefs.
Conclusion: Conservatives are ignoring fact & medical science, as well as commiting terrible crimes, in an attempt to impose their faith-based ideas on non-conservatives.
3, Gay Marriage
It is a fact that there is no evidence that gay marriage causes any social problem whatsoever.
It is a fact that conservatives have nothing but faith-based reasons for believing that gay marriage is wrong - well, nothing but faith and an ignorant understanding about the history of marriage and its social function.
Conclusion: Conservatives attempting to deny gay people the right to marriage are denying their fellow citizens of their civil rights, solely on the basis of non-factual beliefs.
4. This is getting too long. I’ll just note in passing that the facts are that conservatives refusing to work with a black president and undermining efforts to alleviate segregation are all examples of institutional racism - a status quo which conservatives have been trying to defend, often with bloodshed, since the first constitutional convention. Yes, I know, that this paragraph will be met by loud howls of “THAT’S NOT RACISM! YOU’RE THE RACIST FOR CALLING US RACISTS!” from the conservatives in the audience, but - nobody falls for that so I don’t really care.
Are you sure about that? Didn’t the GOP used to be the party of the blacks?