Well, all this is interesting to me, anyway, and that's what matters here. The Internet is a terrible thing for someone like me, who finds almost everything interesting.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Sorry, no critical thinking allowed in the GOP
I blogged about the Texas Republican Party platform the other day, but I just had to post this. I like how Cenk Uygur gets worked up - as he should! This is just unbelievable, isn't it?
I could be wrong, but I thought it was the purpose of education to take ignorant children and teach them, not to just confirm their existing beliefs. After all, if children are supposed to maintain the "fixed beliefs" they've already got, why send them to school at all?
Yeah, I know - I shouldn't give the GOP any ideas, huh? But how stupid do you have to be to oppose critical thinking skills?
Does a kid believe the Earth is flat? Well, we wouldn't want to challenge his fixed beliefs, then, would we? Has he been taught that the stork brings babies? OMG, we certainly can't teach him about S-E-X! That would challenge his "fixed beliefs."
The rest of the platform is dumb enough, but this really takes the cake! I agree with Cenk 100% when he says that the Republican Party is a national embarrassment. How can Americans still be dumb enough to vote Republican? It just blows my mind!
I'm just as angry as Cenk about this - about the crazies in the GOP and the ineffectual, timid response this will inevitably get from Democrats. Christ, what kind of country have we become? I just don't get it. What has happened to us?
6 comments:
Jeff
said...
Well, that's Texas for you. "We down't knead know book lernin."
WCG, I don't know about you, but I'm running out of witty (allegedly)and insightful (allegedly) comments for you. The tsunami of stupid from the Right is a little too much at this time. I feel like the "meathead" from "All In The Family." After listening to about 5 minutes of Archie Bunker's tortured logic, all Mike could do is stand there and scream.
You're right about the Democrats. They to finally "grow a pair" and quit playing the GOP's stooge.
From my distant perspective over the Pond, the Republicans seem to be running scared. They are scared of the way the world is changing, scared that the USA is becoming increasingly diverse in its ethnicity, culture and religious beliefs. They hanker for a largely mythical golden era in the past (maybe based on the 1950s?) and are frantically trying to turn the clock back as far as they can. It's sad to see - and worrying to those of us who want to see a strong, capable America facing up to the growing problems in the world.
The upside is that this attitude can't last forever. It is inherently untenable, and reminds me of another myth - that of Canute telling the tide to stop coming in.
You're right, Tony, but they can do a lot of damage in the meantime. In fact, that's exactly what they're trying to do.
Oh, they don't see it as damage, I'm sure. But this is their big push to change America enough that it will last for generations (in part, by packing the Supreme Court with young far-right justices who'll have a lifetime to push their agenda).
We've missed enough chances already, just in my lifetime. The Arab Oil Embargo in the 1970s, for example, was a wake-up call we've ignored for 40 years. At some point, we'll just delay too long.
And if billionaires and corporations succeed in buying this election, under the new money = speech rules the Supreme Court has recently given us, that will give them the kind of power which will be immensely hard to combat.
Democrats aren't known for their willingness to fight. They'll capitulate immediately, if that seems to be the way the wind is blowing. We saw that during the Bush administration.
So,... running scared? I'm scared enough myself! The tide may eventually come in, but it might not do us much good by then.
I came across something else in New Scientist magazine this week: predictions by scientists show that the sea level on both sides of North America will be rising over the next century, due partly to tectonic changes and partly to rising temperatures.
The response to this of North Carolina legislators? To debate a bill forbidding coastal managers from predicting that sea level rises will accelerate! Fortunately, the bill was eventually rejected.
The mind boggles....do they seriously think they can make a problem go away by refusing to hear about it?
I'm a skeptic. I think it makes sense to have reasons for what I believe, so I apportion my belief to the evidence. You're welcome to disagree. Please, tell me I'm wrong. I probably don't agree with anyone about everything. Why should disagreement be a problem? Check the Pages section below for series posts and links to book reviews and game posts, as well as contact info. Unfortunately, I rarely blog at all, anymore. So don't expect new posts. - Bill
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. - Robert Wilensky
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong - Richard Feynman
The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other. - Sir Francis Bacon
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you've only founded a superstition. If you test it, you've started a science. - Hal Clement
No matter how many times a theory meets its tests successfully, there can be no certainty that it will not be overthrown by the next observation. This, then, is a cornerstone of modern natural philosophy. It makes no claim of attaining ultimate truth. In fact, the phrase "ultimate truth" becomes meaningless, because there is no way in which enough observations can be made to make truth certain and, therefore, "ultimate". - Isaac Asimov
The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. - Treaty of Tripoli, passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams (1797)
I don't doubt the sincerity of dowsers, but even after we've demonstrated that they can't produce results that are any better than chance they'll still go away believing in their abilities... It is like the mother whose son is caught shoplifting on tape. She wonders why someone would want to frame her child by producing a fake video. - James Randi
During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church ... imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. - Mark Twain
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. - Bertrand Russell
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. - Friedrich Nietzsche
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. - Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.
This is not about proof. Science does not use proof. We favor evidence, and the work consists largely of the slow accumulation of evidence in support of ideas, not magically potent proofs that establish an idea as unassailable. - PZ Myers
No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. - President Barack Obama
The formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat. - Shekhar Gupta
We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs. - Carl Sagan
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. - Sam Harris
To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man. - Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1553
Democracy is not about majority rule; it is about minority rights. If there is no culture of not simply tolerating minorities, but actually treating them with equal rights, real democracy can't take root. - Thomas L. Friedman
We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason. - Thomas Macauley, 1830
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men. - Edward R. Murrow
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. - Thomas Huxley
There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. - Arthur Schopenhauer
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. ... Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. - President Thomas Jefferson
To be elected in America, no matter from what party, the candidates have no choice but to year after year pledge to lower taxes further and further. We have become the nation of Ken and Barbie, looking good but very poor at the math. - Rack Jite
Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them. - Steve Eley
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle. - Molly Ivins
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. - H. L. Mencken
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill
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6 comments:
Well, that's Texas for you. "We down't knead know book lernin."
WCG, I don't know about you, but I'm running out of witty (allegedly)and insightful (allegedly) comments for you. The tsunami of stupid from the Right is a little too much at this time. I feel like the "meathead" from "All In The Family." After listening to about 5 minutes of Archie Bunker's tortured logic, all Mike could do is stand there and scream.
You're right about the Democrats. They to finally "grow a pair" and quit playing the GOP's stooge.
From my distant perspective over the Pond, the Republicans seem to be running scared. They are scared of the way the world is changing, scared that the USA is becoming increasingly diverse in its ethnicity, culture and religious beliefs. They hanker for a largely mythical golden era in the past (maybe based on the 1950s?) and are frantically trying to turn the clock back as far as they can. It's sad to see - and worrying to those of us who want to see a strong, capable America facing up to the growing problems in the world.
The upside is that this attitude can't last forever. It is inherently untenable, and reminds me of another myth - that of Canute telling the tide to stop coming in.
And I keep feeling like I'm beating a dead horse, pointing out the craziness that just keeps coming.
I don't know, Jeff. Standing and screaming doesn't accomplish much. Then again, I guess that's all I'm doing here, isn't it?
You're right, Tony, but they can do a lot of damage in the meantime. In fact, that's exactly what they're trying to do.
Oh, they don't see it as damage, I'm sure. But this is their big push to change America enough that it will last for generations (in part, by packing the Supreme Court with young far-right justices who'll have a lifetime to push their agenda).
We've missed enough chances already, just in my lifetime. The Arab Oil Embargo in the 1970s, for example, was a wake-up call we've ignored for 40 years. At some point, we'll just delay too long.
And if billionaires and corporations succeed in buying this election, under the new money = speech rules the Supreme Court has recently given us, that will give them the kind of power which will be immensely hard to combat.
Democrats aren't known for their willingness to fight. They'll capitulate immediately, if that seems to be the way the wind is blowing. We saw that during the Bush administration.
So,... running scared? I'm scared enough myself! The tide may eventually come in, but it might not do us much good by then.
I came across something else in New Scientist magazine this week: predictions by scientists show that the sea level on both sides of North America will be rising over the next century, due partly to tectonic changes and partly to rising temperatures.
The response to this of North Carolina legislators? To debate a bill forbidding coastal managers from predicting that sea level rises will accelerate! Fortunately, the bill was eventually rejected.
The mind boggles....do they seriously think they can make a problem go away by refusing to hear about it?
It's faith-based thinking, Tony. They just know they're right, and the end justifies the means, right? :)
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