Monday, March 31, 2014

GOP Renews “Facts are Stupid Things” Discourse

When the data is inconvenient, decry it as skewed. This has been the conservative mantra for years – maybe starting way back in the 80s when Reagan announced that “facts are stupid things.” Two recent examples demonstratre this adherence to blind faith in their ideological commitments; as dangerous a fundamentalism as any in existence.

The first revolves around the growing success of Obamacare enrollments, which have now topped 6 million on their way toward 7. Republicans have decided that these numbers just can be true: TNR. In fact, they went on the Sunday Talk Shows to sell this tale to their millions of minions, claiming the Obama administration is "cooking the books". Fox News, of course, embraces the claim of one conservative Senator, without any foundation, that the numbers are exaggerated but too many other news outlets also allow these lies to go largely unchallenged.


The second involves their continued, long absurd claim that global warming either doesn’t exist or is not caused by human activity. A recent IPCC Assessment report (Slate) showed the essentially universal consensus among scientists that not only is the planet warming, and that this warming is based on human activity, but that we are already starting to feel the effects. Even as population continues to grow, food production rates are already dropping. Million of people will be displaced as sea levels continue to rise and even more extreme weather events are in the offing. But the climate-doubters are at it again, from WSJ’s denier-in-residence Matt Ridley to the silly Daily Mail claim that it will benefit tourism in the arctic circle. 


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