What is it with Republicans vs. Science? (1 Viewer)

[Heathen]

For the life of me, I can't understand it. What is the GOP's beef with science? You have the 'i didnt come from no monkey' crowd, sure. They fought science in schools for awhile and some still do.
But a lot of people are well educated yet have this almost cultish, 'their side vs our side' attitude about basic science as if it threatens their very core compass. People who are lawyers, doctors, PhD candidates..
very intelligent human beings by merit in the least. Yet they seem to lose their better judgment and give into 'what does my side say' when scientific issues arise....

Is it religion? Is it social issues which tie into religion?

The pandemic has turned a disturbing number of one side of the political spectrum into science denying anti-vaxxers. Already, we've seen what 'conservative'
approaches to a pandemic end up costing us (hundreds of thousands of lives, embarrassment from our allies across the globe). Those are just the facts. Even
Democrats are to blame in red states where their constituents cause them to lose their spine and peer pressure to delude their own reality (John Bel Edwards - a DINO, for example, Manchin, etc.).
And in all honesty, a 'D' by their name doesn't make those people any less complicit.

What is it about conservatism that so opposes science these days? Has Covid not already shown that when you fight basic biology with ignorance, we all lose? Or is this just a broader problem
with the US being so right wing that anything outside 'keep your head down and do as i do' is slandered with propaganda (Communist, Marxist, any 'ist' that sounds scary).

Maybe this doesn't even warrant a discussion. But it's frustrating that the richest country on Earth is so shamefully poor at being scientifically competent - at least with regard to
its citizens views on public health. I just don't get us sometimes.

 

[coldseat]

As if almost on cue. This is the moderate, non-Trumpy Republican that's supposed that captured the middle and independents.

Glenn Youngkin pulled off a remarkably clever trick en route to becoming the first Republican governor of Virginia in almost a decade. He energized supporters of Donald Trump but kept those appeals under the radar, while running as a center-right businessman-turned-politician offered up in what has become his trademark “cheerful suburban dad” packaging.

But this balancing act is already facing its first big governing test. How Youngkin manages it will be highly illuminating with regard to how much space there is inside the GOP for a politics that isn’t relentlessly shaped around the preoccupations and pathologies of Trumpism.
In the coming days, one of Youngkin’s first big moves will likely face a sustained legal and political challenge. Youngkin just rolled out a new executive order that ends masking requirements in schools, instead stating that any parent can opt out without providing a reason.

But numerous Virginia school districts immediately announced that they will continue requiring masks in accordance with previous policy. Some said they will remain aligned with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

...

What makes Youngkin’s move particularly ugly is that he’s hinting he’ll follow the path of fellow Republican governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. DeSantis threatened to withhold funding from school boards that kept mask requirements in defiance of his effort to bar them and sought to punish them in other ways.

Youngkin is making similarly menacing noises. He vows to “use every resource within the governor’s authority” to force school districts into compliance, while piously insisting it’s time to “listen to parents,” as if all parents monolithically want an end to mask requirements and only school boards want them.
But Youngkin’s effort to paint school districts as power-mad bureaucrats trampling on the rights of parents is running headlong into a counterargument: Though the legal issues here are complex, the school districts might have the law on their side, and Youngkin might be the one abusing his power.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/18/glenn-youngkin-executive-order-mask-mandates/

 

[Booker]

Happened to come across this earlier today....

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

That's not surprising, we are very much like Russians.

In the 18th and 19th centuries an awful lot of folks got off a boat from Russia. They were an early immigration wave that came here before, during, and after our founding, and has since settled in and have had children and then more children here.

I think when one includes all Slavic peoples we're a bit more English than we are Slavic, but it's close.

I wouldn't attribute it to anything like that. More like a lot of Americans have some weird fetish with 'muh free-dums' to the extent it prevails over common sense.

 

[zztop]

I wouldn't attribute it to anything like that. More like a lot of Americans have some weird fetish with 'muh free-dums' to the extent it prevails over common sense.

that + when their free-dums trample over those of others. A mindset that somehow THEIRS are more important than others

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

that + when their free-dums trample over those of others. A mindset that somehow THEIRS are more important than others

This where the whole 'God wills it' thing comes into play. Interpretation of scripture has the consistency of silly-putty.

 

[MT15]

Anti-science indeed:

Florida Department of Health confirms Dr. Raul Pino put on leave for encouraging Orange County Department of Health employees to get vaccinated

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has banned vaccine mandates in the workplace, and the state has seen a surge in Omicron cases.

www.wmfe.org

So in the new R authoritarian state of Florida, a public health official, a physician, is relieved of his duties for sending an email to his county employees encouraging them to get vaccinated and boosted. They are “looking into” the matter to see if he can be charged with a crime.

This is some straight up North Korea shirt right here. And regular R people like some on this very site think the democrats are authoritarian? What a joke.

 

[dtc]

Quick example when michelle bachman said HPV vaccines cause mental retardation:

Michele Bachmann says HPV vaccine can cause mental retardation

After criticizing Texas Gov. Rick Perry for mandating a vaccine for school girls, Rep. Michele Bachmann added some scary

www.politifact.com

She must have had one.

or two.

 

[SamAndreas]

I wouldn't attribute it to anything like that. More like a lot of Americans have some weird fetish with 'muh free-dums' to the extent it prevails over common sense.

Booker posted a video after I posted my post, that video got to the heart of it, it's religion, both the US and Russia are experiencing a post-critical phase in religious redevelopment.

Russia especially hard is going through it because of the Soviet regime repressing religion for 70 years.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

Happened to come across this earlier today....

Thank you to whoever's bright idea it was to invite the bible belt into the Republican party.

 

[B4YOU]

On Friday there was a Right to Life protest in DC. I got on the train and none of them had their nose covered (a form of mask protest) and half didn’t wear a mask. It’s a federal requirement to mask on the train just like a plane. It’s posted everywhere. Thirty-three percent of DC workers take public transportation including immune compromised individuals.

It’s not just ignoring science and the rank hypocrisy of protesting for life while going unmasked, but a breakdown in the social contract. We are ripe for violence and authoritarianism.

 

[H B Lowrey]

Anti-science indeed:

Florida Department of Health confirms Dr. Raul Pino put on leave for encouraging Orange County Department of Health employees to get vaccinated

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has banned vaccine mandates in the workplace, and the state has seen a surge in Omicron cases.

www.wmfe.org

So in the new R authoritarian state of Florida, a public health official, a physician, is relieved of his duties for sending an email to his county employees encouraging them to get vaccinated and boosted. They are “looking into” the matter to see if he can be charged with a crime.

This is some straight up North Korea shirt right here. And regular R people like some on this very site think the democrats are authoritarian? What a joke.

Goldwater warned the nation about these folk back when "conservatives" were actually conservative.

 

[Eeyore]

I don't think that it's just science. It's education in general. More specifically, education for those who can't afford private school, and/or books.

Idaho House Republicans kill library budget, citing ‘harmful’ materials, pornography - East Idaho News

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — On what was slated to be the second-to-last day of the legislative session, Idaho House Republicans killed the budget for the Idaho Commission for Libraries after debate over controversial materials in libraries. The bill died Thursday in a 33-36 vote. The budget before...

www.eastidahonews.com

 

[zztop]

Theres not a recent climate change topic, so I guess I'll put this here since it is semi-related to the topic title

An Iowa meteorologist started talking about climate change on newscasts. Then came the harassment

Chris Gloninger faced intensifying harassment as he did more reporting on climate change during local newscasts.

apnews.com

 

[SamAndreas]

Theres not a recent climate change topic, so I guess I'll put this here since it is semi-related to the topic title

An Iowa meteorologist started talking about climate change on newscasts. Then came the harassment

Chris Gloninger faced intensifying harassment as he did more reporting on climate change during local newscasts.

apnews.com

I'm finding more absolute rejection without explanation lately. They act like it's a mental illness for anyone to consider any aspect of warming or climate change.

We bought an almost new, used, electric car yesterday. We'll be picking it up Monday. We bought it in the San Francisco Bay area because the more local car places don't have them. There are a fair number of them here, but most of them were brought in by people who shopped a long way from home.

Car dealers tend to be conservative types, I wonder if their resistance to selling electrics in the red portions of the state is a political thing. If it is, they're shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[CoolBrees]

People fear what they don't understand.

R's don't listen to opinions, which are not their own, as potential new sources of information or perspective.

Rather they see them as a threat.

 

[Neworleansfan]

Pandering. And also, less educated population is easier to fool.

 

[zztop]

Under Trump, National Science Foundation Cuts Off All Funding to Scientists

National Science Foundation staff were told to freeze outgoing funding days after NSF leadership introduced a new policy that requires that grants be screened for “alignment with agency priorities”

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[MT15]

Ed Martin, interim US Attorney for DC is sending letters to some of our most respected medical journals mentioning their tax exempt status in a vaguely threatening way. Bolding in last paragraph is mine. How many more times will this administration violate the Constitution before Congress acts?

““We were surprised,” says Dr. Eric Rubin, the editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, one of at least four journal editors to get a letter from Martin and probably the most prominent. “Other journals had gotten letters before, so it wasn’t a shock, but, still, a surprise.”

In addition to Rubin’s journal, Martin has sent letters to JAMA, which is published by the American Medical Association; Obstetrics & Gynecology, a journal of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; and CHEST, which is published by the American College of Chest Physicians. There may be others.

“We were concerned because there were questions that suggested that we may be biased in the research we report,” Rubin says. “We aren’t. We have a very rigorous review process. We use outside experts. We have internal editors who are experts in their fields as well. And we spend a lot of time choosing the right articles to publish and trying to get the message right. We think we’re an antidote for misinformation.”

Rubin says the letter mentioned that the journal has tax-exempt status.

“It does feel like there’s a threatening tone to the letter and it is trying to intimidate us”, Rubin says.”

“The letters don’t cite any specific examples of supposed bias or say what action Martin might take.

But others say the letters raise serious concerns.

“It’s pretty unprecedented,” says J.T. Morris, a lawyer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group. He says the First Amendment protects medical journals.

“Who knows? We’ve seen this administration take all sorts of action that doesn’t have a legal basis and it hasn’t stopped them,” Morris says. “And so there’s always a concern that the federal government and its officials like Ed Martin will step outside and abuse their authority and try to use the legal process and abuse the court system into compelling scientific journals and medical professionals and anybody else they disagree with into silence.””

Medical journals hit with threatening letters from Justice Department — NPR

The interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has sent letters to several leading medical journals asking for information about their editorial practices.

apple.news