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Politics

Rachel calls bull-pucky

Apr 6th, 2010
by Dan.
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Phil Plait is a Rachel Maddow fanboi and I can’t say I blame him. Though Rachel is fallible and has made mistakes before, more often than not, she hits the proverbial nail on the head, so when she gave her commentary on Climategate, the ACORN “scandal,” and other right-wing nonsense, Phil couldn’t resist linking to her video (and commenting on it…worth a read)… and I couldn’t resist watching it.

Another dead-on hammer-strike.

Phil rightly comments that the far right doesn’t have the copyright on nonsense, but the Republican “unholy alliance” it has formed with fundamentalist religion has led it to its anti-reality stance.

He concludes with this…

Global warming is real. Evolution is real. Vaccines do not cause autism. Homeopathy doesn’t work. These are facts, and they don’t care whether or not denialists spin, fold, and mutilate them. Until we face up to reality, however, they will spin, fold, and mutilate us.

I’ll drink to that.

Reality is fuzzy for Bachmann

Mar 30th, 2010
by Dan.
2 comments

I’m really ashamed that this woman is even electable in this country.

“The media wants you to believe that tea party patriots are toothless hillbillies,” said Bachmann, who instead cast the tea partiers as intelligent, educated and professional people. “This is a very sophisticated crowd. And then these charges from Democrats that they were spit upon, that there were racial epithets — there’s no one who saw anything.”

- Michele Bachmann

(source)

Sure, “toothless hillbillies” is over the top (and I haven’t seen the media make that accusation, anyway), but to say that they are “intelligent, educated, and professional people” is just as over-the-top as the hillbilly comment.

I’m sure there are some intelligent, well-educated tea partiers (well… I assume there are), but if there are, they are being grossly overshadowed by their ignorant (and sometimes bigoted… and sometimes borderline psychotic) counterparts… and it’s not the fault of the media.

Michele Bachmann fits neatly in the “ignorant” slot, though at the risk of being accused of ad hominem attacks, she’s been said to fit neatly in the “bat-shit crazy” slot, too. Bachmann’s ignorance, lies, and misguided rhetoric combine to demonstrate a perfect example of one of the big problems in our country.

That she actually got elected is equally dire.

(via)

Mrs. Mulverhill discovers Libertarians

Feb 17th, 2010
by Dan.
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In the Iain Banks book Transition, where the characters can evidently shift, at will, to alternate realities (I gotta read this book!), one of the main characters, Mrs. Mulverhill, defines one of the forms of government she has encountered.

“Libertarianism. A simple-minded right-wing ideology ideally suited to those unable or unwilling to see past their own sociopathic self-regard.”

I find that amusing, mostly because I know some people who claim to be libertarian who fit the description. I also know some who don’t. As with any attempt at group labeling, the bullet points don’t always apply.

…but sometimes they just do.

(via Pharyngula)

The RNC’s "Purity" Resolutions

Jan 26th, 2010
by Dan.
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The Republican National Committee will be in Hawaii this week for its annual meeting to discuss its agenda. One of the items on the agenda is a series of ten statements dubbed the “purity” test by the media. The actual name is a mouthful: Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates. The idea is that Republican candidates must agree with at least eight of the ten statements in order to qualify for campaign contributions and/or an endorsement from the RNC.

It seems it was originally proposed in November of 2009, but wasn’t taken up for consideration. Reportedly, it will be this week.

I’ve read mixed reactions about the proposal. Some think it’s a good idea. Some think the Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot. Of course, the RNC can do what it wants, and though I can understand their desire to have a sort of litmus test for candidates, this seems somewhat draconian.

Here’s a link to the entire document (it’s a PDF), and below I have a list of each of the ten items along with my commentary on each one.

We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

I’m onboard with that… except for the wording. It seems silly to include the final clause “by opposing bills like Obama’s ‘stimulus’ bill.” Not only are the scare quotes overly dramatic and laden with unnecessary sarcasm, but wouldn’t it be more constructive to give a more positive suggestion about how to reach the goal?

We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

Again with the unnecessary “Obama-style” word choice. Why not just “We support market-based health care reform?” I think a simple approach to health care reform would be a good choice, but of course there needs to be regulation. There is some good in the current healthcare proposal… no exclusions for pre-existing conditions, for example… but something leaner would be better. On the other hand, if the current proposal doesn’t pass, healthcare reform will be essentially dead for another few decades. I suppose I can say that I, too, support market-based health care reform, but it really depends on what is meant by “market-based health care reform.” There’s plenty more to say here, but I’ll just leave it at that, since the statement is so vague.

We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

This statement is mostly meaningless in what it supports, but says more about what it opposes. Republicans are notorious for being climate change deniers, and it almost seems that their denial stems from their dislike for any solution that costs money. I don’t know what is meant by “market-based energy reforms” but gauging from what I hear from many Republicans, it means letting companies pollute all they want, drilling for more oil, burning more fossil fuels, and flipping the bird to the environment… and to science.

We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

Hooray! This is one that I support 100%!… and it’s strangely specific compared to most of the other statements. The union push to eliminate anonymous voting is basically giving them free rein to use precision bullying and intimidation tactics. They complain about corporate intimidation of employees, but the fact is that, with secret ballots, neither the company nor the union knows how any individual voted. That’s as it should be.

We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

I’m of mixed opinion here. I support legal immigration and assimilation into American society. The rest of the statement is a non sequitur in reference to the first part. You don’t support legal immigration by opposing amnesty. The two are related but not dependant. I’m undecided on the amnesty issue.

We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

“We support victory.” That’s meaningless tripe. Everyone supports victory. It’s not a question of whether someone supports victory or not. It’s a question of whether victory is even possible… which it probably isn’t in any meaningful way. Invading Afghanistan was understandable and (mostly) warranted. Invading Iraq was not. That aside, these people have been fighting amongst themselves for longer than our country has been in existence and suddenly we think we can resolve all their problems? Not gonna happen. Waste of money. Waste of time. Waste of human life.

We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

Yes. I support this as well, but the caveat is that it depends on what they mean by “effective action.” The recent Republican track record on this is less than stellar.

We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

The Defense of Marriage Act is nothing but blatant rights-removing, religion-based bigotry and homophobia. No… I don’t support this statement in the least.

We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion;

This statement is laughable because our current system is all about rationing and denial of health care. Are they suggesting that everyone should have unlimited health care coverage? Isn’t that… *gasp!*… socialistic? As for government funding of abortion… I don’t care if it’s government funded or not as long as the right to have an abortion isn’t restricted. However, I do support protecting the lives of “vulnerable persons.”

We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership;

I’m okay with this statement, too, assuming it doesn’t mean that Average Joe and Frank the Felon can stock up their houses with automatic weapons and RPGs. The statement is vague on that point. I think existing regulations are fine for the most part… waiting periods and registrations are nothing insidious.

So, overall, the statements are a bit too vague to just accept unconditionally… and a few of them are vague to the point of meaninglessness… and at least one is reprehensible. It doesn’t seem to be a collection of statements on which the Republicans want to hang their future, but it will be interesting to see what they decide.

However, it looks like I would pass the test because I support at least eight of the statements. In most cases, my support is conditional, but given the vagueness of some of the statements, I think it’s only fair that I add the necessary detail on my own. But even though I’m not a Democrat, I don’t think I’ll be calling myself a Republican any time soon.

They still have a long way to go.

These few things aside…

Jan 24th, 2010
by Dan.
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I was watching some news commentary shows this morning and it just reinforced my view that, from a fiscal standpoint, I agree so much more with Republicans than I do with Democrats.

Regardless of stripes, it seems that politicians can’t seem to answer simple questions. So much so that when one actually does answer a question directly and clearly, it seems like the fabric of space-time has been torn asunder.

That aside, I would almost consider myself a Republican if it weren’t for their blatantly anti-science positions… and their love affair with the religious right…  their disdain for education and intelligence… and their tendency to spout disinformation when it serves their purposes (okay… Democrats do that, too, but Republicans are just better at it).

But I like the way (generally) the Republicans (used to… pre-Bush) handle money.

Those stupid scientists!

Jan 21st, 2010
by Dan.
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Calamities of Nature - Hot Debate From Calamities of Nature comes this comic (the image here is just the first panel). I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I’ve heard a similar argument made by Sam Harris concerning the word “elite” in a Newsweek essay about Sarah Palin and politics last year. Not exactly the same argument, but related.

The comic brings up a valid point (though highly simplified to fit into three panels) and I’ve commented on it before… with no small amount of disdain. The point is relevant to more than the topic addressed and I’ve encountered the same seeming inconsistency-of-thought regarding evolution, the age of the Earth, cosmology, and a few other science-related topics.

It’s an attitude that science is great… unless it conflicts with your political or religious ideology… that it’s better, in that case, to trust someone who’s not too educated, not too intelligent, not too well informed, not too “elite”… rather than someone who is highly trained in the related field.

Here’s the excerpt from Sam Harris’s article (to save you the time of searching the Newsweek article for it):

Ask yourself: how has “elitism” become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn’t seem too intelligent or well educated.

It’s a huge problem in this country today.

Palin gets welcomed into the fold

Jan 12th, 2010
by Dan.
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Sarah Palin is joining Fox News as a regular commentator, according to this MSNBC article (and every other news agency on the planet, it seems). It’s a perfect fit, of course, and she can pal around with the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, people who mimic her own thin grasp on reality.

Of course, the money quote from Palin is…

It’s wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balanced news.

I read that and almost burst from the monumental absurdity of it.

The Satisfying Purity of Indignation

Dec 11th, 2009
by Dan.
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From Obama’s Nobel acceptance speech (emphasis mine)…

The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach — and condemnation without discussion — can carry forward a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.

Thanks to M. Duss at the Wonk Room for pointing out the highlighted text. Duss says about the highlighted bit…

That’s a wonderfully succinct description of the simplistic and destructive ideology that drove George W. Bush’s foreign policy, and which Bill Kristol is still trying heartily to convince himself and others hasn’t been discredited. This isn’t to say that Obama hasn’t retained some troubling elements of Bush’s national security policy, which progressives will continue to challenge and debate. But I think it’s hugely important to recognize that the key foreign policy conceit of the Bush years, the idea that America is in an existential struggle with a monolithic, undifferentiated Islamofascist other, has been discarded. And America — and the world — is safer for that.

I’ll go a step further and say that it applies to many of the “Tea Party Patriots” and their vitriolic outrage toward anything and everything surrounding Obama, non-Christian religions, homosexuality, abortion, and a number of other issues. Their arguments and manufactured controversies, mostly vapid, provide for them the “satisfying purity of indignation” that rational thinking and critical analysis do not.

Hardly befitting someone claiming to be a “patriot.”

Who to believe?

Dec 10th, 2009
by Dan.
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“Who to believe on climate change mystery: scientists or conservative pundits?”

- Josh Marshall

It seems like the answer should be obvious.

(via)

Right turn, Clyde… or not.

Dec 1st, 2009
by Dan.
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I’ve mentioned before that I wish the Republican party would “go back to being the fiscally conservative, small government party they used to be instead of the religious, anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-environment party they are now.”

Andrew Sullivan, over at The Daily Dish,  seems to have the same idea, but in more detail. Andrew and I are not alone, either, since I’ve seen links to his post from two other blogs today, as well as a post by Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs who also put together a list of why he’s parted ways with the Right. No doubt there are plenty more who agree with these folks.

Here’s a sampling of items from both posts that I find particularly noteworthy (though I recommend going through the full posts of both blog authors).

From Andrew Sullivan:

  • I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.
  • I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.
  • I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.
  • I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.
  • I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy
  • I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.
  • I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.

From Charles Johnson (reasons why he parted ways with the Right):

  • Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)
  • Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)
  • Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)
  • Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)
  • Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)
  • Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)
  • A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)
  • Hatred for President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source)

I think all of those issues are critical issues with the Right, but I tend to focus in on the anti-science, anti-intellectual issues like evolution and climate change… and then I just continue down the path of monumental incredulity at the crap that is touted, supported, and defended by what used to be a fiscally and bureaucratically conservative and responsible party.

I will grant that not all Republicans are this way, but the party in general (or as Andrew Sullivan puts it… “in so far as it means the dominant mode of discourse among the institutions and blogs and magazines and newspapers and journals that support the GOP”) has taken on the self-righteous air of superiority, while in practice, promoting ignorance, hatred, and the idea that the better educated you are, the smarter you are, and the more experience you have, the less qualified you are to partake in intellectually challenging endeavors.

If this country is going to improve its status (and it does need improving) or even maintain its current position in the world, the Right needs to change its ways or get out of the way, because its current pattern of blocking science and education, glorifying ignorance, and pounding its virtual fists on the podium of bigotry doesn’t cut it and it won’t cut it in the future.

As Charles Johnson said:

The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

I won’t be going over the cliff with them.

I won’t be jumping off that cliff, either.

Sarah Palin and the political spotlight

Nov 20th, 2009
by Dan.
1 comment

Sarah Palin - Going Rogue Back in 2008, during the presidential campaign, I wrote about Sarah Palin in a post titled “Folksy” doesn’t belong in the White House. By that point, I’d gotten enough information about Palin to make up my mind about the election and her poor qualifications, anti-intellectualism, and “folksiness” disqualified her for my consideration, costing McCain my vote.

Since that time, Palin has turned into a Republican darling for reasons that only reinforce the new Republican image; an image that emphasizes (and practically glorifies) lack of education, dogmatic dismissal of science, hate-fueled misinformation, and general ignorance. Republicans used to be the party of fiscal responsibility… the party of smaller government and lower taxes… the party that wanted to keep government as unobtrusive as possible. I liked that. Now, it’s the party of “no,” the party of science denialism, the party of right-wing, fundamentalist religion, the party of self-righteous moral proselytizing and intrusion into private, personal matters, the party of selective free speech (free speech as long as it’s speech of which they approve), and the party of unwavering faith in misinformed, spiteful “leaders” like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity.

I digress.

Palin has worked hard to maintain her position in the Republican spotlight and recent polls show she has fairly strong support among Republicans when it comes to presidential contention. That indicates the lamentable state of the American voting public.

Christopher Hitchens wrote a piece for Newsweek about Palin’s appeal to “populism” and her constant denigration of the “Washington elite.” Says Hitchens…

Sarah Palin herself can apparently never tire of contrasting her folksy provincialism with the pointy-headed intellectuals, and with those in the despised city of “Washington,” where her supporters want—it would seem against her own better instincts—to move her.

It’s an interesting point. Palin rails against Washington and the “elite” but seems to have a strong desire to become a Washington insider herself… as if her poor qualifications actually make her more qualified. She is (again from Hitchens)…

[...] anti-Washington except that she thirsts for it, and close enough (and also far enough away to be “deniable”) to the paranoid fringe elements who darkly suspect that our president is a Kenyan communist.

Palin, by any rational standard, is “out there” in her views on a number of issues… not the least of which are creationism and the exorcism of witches. Her statement that she hopes our soldiers are being sent to Iraq on a “task that is from God” is also disturbing on a number of levels. Someone with her purported beliefs should not be in charge of this country if we are to be successful… and free.

Hitchens concludes (and I agree)…

Sarah Palin appears to have no testable core conviction except the belief (which none of her defenders denies that she holds, or at least has held and not yet repudiated) that the end of days and the Second Coming will occur in her lifetime. This completes the already strong case for allowing her to pass the rest of her natural life span as a private citizen.

Here’s hoping for that.

Political Wish

Nov 5th, 2009
by Dan.
2 comments

I wish the Republican party would go back to being the fiscally conservative, small government party they used to be instead of the religious, anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-environment party they are now.

Just sayin’.

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