It's coming-out-of-the-closet time. I was a Republican once. Now, saying you're a Republican around scienceblogs.com is a little bit like saying that you're gay in the middle of a Southern Baptist church service. You're just asking for trouble. Then again, I know at least one out gay Southern Baptist who seems comfortable with the apparent contradiction, so I suppose I should just sit back and accept the flaming and belittling that is bound to come.
It's very tough to be a Republican now, given that the party has so visibly allied itself with bad science and antiscience. The fact that John McCain-- the guy I voted for in the 2000 primary-- is talking to the Discovery Institute is ample evidence of that, but the evidence is all over the place. See Chris Mooney's blog and book for a lot more on this.
But, more and more, it seems that Republicans and Conservatives are standing up to identify themselves with just outright stupidity and ignorance. As a physicist, I get annoyed when physicists like Lubos Motl go out and say particularly asinine about women. I'd think that those still willing to identify themselves as Conservatives would be baldly embarrassed by the bersmirching of their name implied by Conservapedia. (And, indeed, at least Andrew Sullivan has come forward to join the bandwagon making fun of Conservapedia-- the same bandwagon I a mnow jumping on.) The claim that Wikipedia has a liberal bias reminds me of the Steven Colbert speech in which he stated in his usual deadpan manner that reality has a well-known liberal bias. Colbert was engaging in parody. The writers of Conservapedia, evidently, are not, or at least are not doing so intentionally.
When I was a Republican, I lived in Berkeley. In Berkeley, the groupthink, one-sided, faith-in-extreme-political-philosophy comes from the left side of the fence. The notion that inflation could go down when Reagan was president, or that the cold war could end partly as a result of his actions, is considered sacrilege in Berkeley. If you're a free-thinking iconoclast, conservatism starts to look attractive just because it's different. There's also the fact that being a Republican in Berkeley means something very different from being a Republican in Tennessee.... I'm not a Republican any more. Far from it. I'm horrified by the things the party is most visibly standing for-- what once at least claimed to be the party of fiscal responsibility and individual freedom now has no even ostensible regard for either, and is now the party of homophobia and creationism. Assuredly I have changed, and my views have changed (my moderate grad student called me an ultraliberal, and I suppose in some ways I am-- but in the last 10-20 years, the nature of Republicans, at least in terms of what receives the most weight and emphasis, has changed as well.
Today, be it global warming, evolution, Biblical literalism, the true state of the disaster in Iraq, and so forth, a fundamental facet of Conservatism seems to be blind denial of overwhelming evidence in favor of toeing the party line and supporting party cronies. Foo. Not for me.
I'm currently in Lubbock, Texas, where I'm giving a talk. There was a letter to the editor by Hayden Hegdal in the local paper (the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal); I don't link to the letter, because this paper like so many are in favor of cutting themselves off from the global web by putting up a registration wall to prevent casual linking. This letter was about vaccinations, and was complaining about the people who avoid vaccinations despite scientific evidence that they do far, far more good than harm. (Read Tara's blog for lots more on this topic.) It contained the following pithy quote:
It is things like this that makes liberals think we are stupid. I am a Republican but I think I'll go back to being a Libertarian until the religious zealots move on to some other party.
I'm not going to say "amen" to this, because the Republicans have so turned me off that it will be a very, very long time before I can get over my suspicion of that party before I'd even consider taking it seriously-- and that's under the assumption that tomorrow the repudiate all the dumb stuff they stand for right now. But I will say that I feel this guy's pain. (The whole Libertarian issue is another one I'll write on at length at some point.)
It's too bad when a political philosophy that many may disagree with, but is at least a viable political philosophy, turns into a philosophy of adherence to ignorance in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Conservapedia is just that, and should be embarrassing to anybody who does call or has ever called himself or herself a conservative.
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Yes, it is an embarrassment, though it's on such a tiny little server I've only ever been able to access it once. But when I get depressed by it, I surf over to DailyKos, where I can browse idiocy on a grander scale.
The ideas of the free market, fiscal conservatism, and individual freedom are still good ones. It's a shame one party isn't a clear beacon for those ideals, but they're worth hanging on to. For example, when it becomes possible to make policy to deal with global warming, those three principles I listed will be essential.
The 'free market, fiscal conservatism, and individual freedom' have been abandoned by GOP (except by lip-service) long time ago and embraced by Democrats for at least four decades now. Only those who believe in Limbaugh version of Democratic Party do not see it.
The fellow in charge of Conservapedia - who is, allegedly, a fully grown adult - insisted for quite a while on referring to Wikipedia as 'Wackypedia' in his articles because, apparently, it "conveys an important and valid point."
That point being, presumably, "this site is run by a bunch of muppets. You'd be much better off at Wikipedia."
Setting aside the political things -- have you actually looked at any of the Conservapedia articles? They're kind of ... limited. For example, their article on Christianity is about four lines. One of their objections to Wikipedia is the claim that the article on the Renaissance doesn't give any credit to Christianity -- but their article, which is much shorter and quite limited, doesn't really mention Christianity either. A lot of the scientific terms that are defined on Conservapedia are the kind of limited dictionary-type definitions you get in a high school science textbook; it looks from the citations like that was exactly what the writer did, merely using a "conservative-approved" textbook instead of the more common classroom texts.
Unless their articles improve informatively or become more notably biased conservatively, Conservapedia is just a game, not worthy of being even compared to Wikipedia, bias or no.
It's a sad state... especially when I see good old fashioned Republicans, embarrassed by the current administration, try fighting a losing battle and turning a blind side to what has happened to their party yet still thinking their party represents what it used to represent. I think many are afraid to leave their party behind for fear of being branded *gasp* a liberal.
If you think its OK to be a Republican and you feel that your party has been hi-jacked by the extreem right then fight back and reclaim your party. America need sensible party politics and sadly the world needs America.
My graduate advisor (chemistry, mid-1990s) was pretty conservative in the old sense. Then again, he emigrated from Czechoslovakia in the 60s, which probably accounts for quite a bit. I have no doubt what his opinions of the science entries in Conservapedia would have been -- he didn't suffer fools particularly gladly.
At the time, that research group probably averaged a bit left of center (by US standards). However, no one really cared about politics in the lab, let alone made a big deal out of it, even when people had fairly significant disagreements. I imagine this experience is pretty typical of academic research groups, excluding the very few where a primary investigator is well out on the political fringes and activist about it.
It's good to hear you say that. A couple years ago I referred to the Bush/Cheney/Rove version of the Republican party as the "party of treason and torture and pseudoscience," and a number of people became upset with me for my services as messenger. "Kill the messenger" is a time-tested tactic*. I am not a member of any political party, and consider myself to be a centrist, but when 6 or 7 state GOP platforms include support for ID, or even for good old-fashioned Creation Science**, the voting decisions become very easy.
* It failed all those tests.
** Republican Party of Iowa State Platform, plank 3.4: "We support the teaching of alternative theories on the origins of life including Darwinian Evolution, Creation Science or Intelligent Design, and that each should be given equal weight in presentation."
The top captions aren't quite right, but this cartoon is pretty funny. It's more funny-peculiar than funny-ha ha, however.
Regrettably, we no longer have two axes of thought in this country. There used to be conservative democrats and liberal republicans. Choice is a concept increasingly foreign in this country. We all shop at the same big box stores and get fed the same goop by the media. If I was a big conspiracy theorist, I would think that Madison Avenue actually runs the country, and the government is just a front for the whole thing.
(Here endeth the random rambling rant.)
Don't affiliate with a party. The R party no longer stands for fiscal responsibility or for small unobtrusive government. Why the alternative to being a 'faith driven' R has to be abandoning all reasoning and becomming a 'feelings' driven D is beyond me.
Long ago I was a left wing liberal, but I never became a Republican even though I too have sinned and voted for such. Horrors.
The claim that Wikipedia has a liberal bias reminds me of the Steven Colbert speech in which he stated in his usual deadpan manner that reality has a well-known liberal bias.
Ha! That was my exact reaction!
Well, let me put in a small plug for DarwinCentral, a web-forum for (mostly) libertarian and libertarian-conservative pro-science people, many of us refugees from other fora that have been taken over by the religious right. We're every bit as disgusted by the modern GOP as Rob says we should be, but most of us are equally or even more suspicious of the other guys.
http://forum.darwincentral.org
I'd say we're about 25% scientists and 75% scientifically-literate laypersons. We're remarkably unflamey, but that may be partly a result of relative consensus on most issues. We do however get a little heated on the topic of anthropogenic global warming, where we're all over the map. :-)
So aside from the religious nuttery, no other discernible differences between Libertarians and Republicans...
I thought so all along, but it's nice to see others affirm the view.
The same degradation of the word "Republican" can also be said of the word "Christian" which now means "anti-abortion, anti-gay and anti-science".
So aside from the religious nuttery, no other discernible differences between Libertarians and Republicans...
The term "Libertarian" is so broad as to be nearly useless. There are libertarians just like you describe. There are libertarians that are basically anarchists. There are ACLU-style civil libertarians. There are libertarians who are Ayn Rand adherents. There are libertarians who are shills for the oppression of big business. There are libertarians like Lawrence Lessig. They're all over the place.
The same degradation of the word "Republican" can also be said of the word "Christian" which now means "anti-abortion, anti-gay and anti-science".
Often, yes, that term has unfortunately come to mean that, much to my chagrin. However, there is a difference. There is a single national "Republican" party with a platform in the USA. There is no single national "Christian" entity. There are lots that claim to be the definitive "Christian" entity, but nobody has exclusive access to that claim. As such, the word Christian hasn't been quite so degenerated by its extreme fringe.
The 'free market, fiscal conservatism, and individual freedom' have been abandoned by GOP (except by lip-service) long time ago and embraced by Democrats for at least four decades now.
No doubt that the Democratic party is more free-market and fiscal-conservative than the Republican party right now, but as for individual freedom? No party really believes in that. Every party believes in the freedom for all to do what members of that party approve of, and little else.
Here's one way to tell a modern Republican from a modern Democrat. A modern Republican is somebody who thinks that the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution is too dangerous to really be supported in the modern world. A modern Democrat is somebody who thinks that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution is too dangerous to really be supported in the modern world.
Well, I was using it as you quoted it.
With a capital L. The quote says, I was a Libertarian, then I went over to Republicans, and now I'm back with the Libertarians again, but only temporarily. It's like a group that's intimately familiar and the going from one to the other doesn't require a passport or even a litmus test. More than fellow travelers certainly.
And are Randians really that different?
Civil libertarians aren't even in the same proximity with the Libertarian Free-State, crypto-Randians. They shouldn't be in the bunch because they have that "civil" designation and they cover the political spectrum.
I don't see civil libertarians going on about property rights. See wikipedia difference.
Libertarian capitalism, and economic libertarianism is a whole new level of crazy that pales next to Republicans because they're the ones agitating dumb-ass Republicans into untenable tax positions.
While reading this, I just kept thinking about this wonderful post from a few years ago by John Rogers, I miss Republicans. And I was surprised to hear you used to be a Republican when you mentioned it, because I've been reading you for a little bit now, and your current views don't reflect that at all. If you were still a Republican, I would be shocked, for the reasons you mentioned, but as you aren't, I don't see any need for shame.
Re Republicans
The fact is that the Republican Party has been hijacked by the religious right which has as its goal the conversion of the US into a Taliban/Iranian style theocratic state. All one need do is to observe how the Republican presidential candidates are pandering to these hijackers, even McCain and Giuliani who should know better.
From the letter
It is things like this that makes liberals think we are stupid. I am a Republican but I think I'll go back to being a Libertarian until the religious zealots move on to some other party.
The problem that the writer has is that most libertarians have settled with the Republican party. They've made their pacts with the devil. There are virtually no Libertarians (party types) running anywhere, and so most people who would identify as big-L Libertarians will vote for Republicans. Heck, even Ron Paul, the Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1988, is a Republican representative in Congress from Texas. I voted for him (a protest vote, of course), but I was appalled to receive a letter from him asking for a coampaign donation for...Jesse Helms of NC. Libertarians are a joke.
There was some speculation over at Democratic web sites such as D-Kos about Democratic libertarians, but that's not going to go anywhere.
Re:
They literally have no choice. Most of the rational moderate conservatives have fled or are considering fleeing the GOP. The indies are leaving in droves, and Reagan democrats have run away screaming from Bushism. If they don't court the extremist right, the GOP candidate probably couldn't win local mayor or dog catcher in asmall town.
What puzzles me is why the religious right still falls for it. Bush had the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court. Can anyone think of a single general abortion ban/bill that was seriously considered, much less passed? The RR got swindled, hugely. Not that I'm complaining, but if I was a member, I'd be somewhere between livid and apathetic.
I am neither an R or a D, but lately have been voting mostly Republican. I would say that the Democrats are far more anti-science than the Republicans. Oh, I'm sure people who think they are scientists are bristling at that now. I should explain that by science, I do not mean people in white lab coats or the AAAS. I mean real science; the process. I think the difference is that the people with lab coats in academia are much, much quicker to call the Republicans on it and rail against those "unsophisticated hick" Republicans and forgive the "sensitive and poetic" Luddite (being at Vandy, perhaps a better name would be "Agrarian") Democrat BS because of emotion. Or if you're a single guy, because risking getting lumped together with overly sensitive, mush-headed poets get you laid and risking being lumped in with supersticious hicks will get you ostracised.
So it seems to me like "SCIENCE" as a community and the Republicans are at odds about important issues like federal funding of stem cell research and... federal funding for stem cell research. Whereas the Democrats desire to replay the whole Church Galelio thing gets almost a complete pass from the community. But for me science is not about the scientific community. It is a process. And if the guys in lab coats aren't following it, then they are really not scientists and all the and conferences and titles and journal publications in the world don't change that. Again, I'm not saying the Republicans don't have science problems too, but I think the watermelons in the Democrats are a far greater threat to the honesty of the scientific method than anything else right now. And the reluctance of most people with various scientist titles on their office door or business card to address left-wing threats to good science is one of the things that makes it so dangerous.
But I guess this is a safe attitude for me because I need science as a tool, and I don't need to keep on good terms with the anti-scientific members of the "scientific community" by denouncing the unpopular and embracing what latest outrage is fashionable with the rest of the faculty to either get laid or get tenure.
As for John McCain being a conservative... ha, ha that's funny. John McCain is a "what's good for John McCanie"ite. Long before he was upsetting you by going to the Discovery Institute, he was sunggling up to the Americans for Gun Safety (which is a blandly named anti-gun rights group trying to push themselves off as reasonable) and even starring in "gun safety" PSAs for them. And don't get me started on his disdain for the 1st Amendment.
I understand what you mean about the Libertarians. But until they have the power to win elections voting for them will dillute the anti-communist/fascist vote and we'll get even more aggressively statist elected officials. So, I put on my "scientist" hat and do the rational game theory approach to the problem. I tell pollsters that I'll vote Libertarian, in an attempt to give them a chance to build up a potentially viable campaign. Then when I'm in the voting booth I vote for the most anti-statist candidate that I think will win. Fortunately in local elections here in Texas, that is sometimes the Libertarians. But in the Federal elections, even the Communist Party USA is often clever enough to encourage their members to vote Democrat insted of Commie or Green. The perfect is the enemy of the good, after all. I want my rights protected, not to get to put a "don't blame me..." bumper sticker on my car as I wait for my some of my property to be confiscated for the good of the community.
Latly, Rob, do you honestly believe that the Democrats are more pro-free market than the Republicans are? I would be interested in hearing your arguments about that. Really, that's not some snide remark. Because I've heard a lot of Democrats try to argue why we should be less concerned about having a free market and more concerned about achieving fair outcomes. Fair, of course, being defined by their opinions and social preferences. I've heard them argue about how individuals ability to enter into contracts for employment or purchases or whatever should be restricted by the government, and that "stakeholder interest" and "social good" should trump the rights of private property owners to use their property as they wish, and "obscene profits" should be confiscated and redistributed to the proletariate er constituants. But you are the first person in a LONG time that I've heard promote the democrats because of their comitment to free market principles. I know you undestand what a free market means, and that you're probably not the kind of guy to just spout stuff you heard around the academic watercooler. So I hope you'll indulge my curiosity and consider posting your arguments on this point some day.
The HBO show by Goldwaters grandaughter was great,he was not impressed with the religion/politics mix nor was he anti-gay having a gay grandson,but he sure is what we called conservative back then.
Here's one way to tell a modern Republican from a modern Democrat. A modern Republican is somebody who thinks that the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution is too dangerous to really be supported in the modern world. A modern Democrat is somebody who thinks that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution is too dangerous to really be supported in the modern world.
Nicely put. I too was once a conservative at UC (albeit the Santa Cruz campus) for many of the same reasons you were. I was also recently accused of being far-left (I was called a "communist sympathizer" by a conservative student) I still think there is much intellectual force to the baseline ideas of conservatism: individualism, checking the power of government, respect for tradition, and generally leaving people alone. Today's conservative movement demonstrably stands for none of these things.
I suspect that what caused the change was the shift in power. When the conservative movement was on the outside looking in, vigorous debate was the norm, and conservative pundits were much more often held to standards of rational argument. That changed when the Right took power, and the energy of conservatives shifted from promoting ideas to staying in office.
That changed when the Right took power, and the energy of conservatives shifted from promoting ideas to staying in office.
Mmm hmm. That's also probably part of why the Democrats look more dynamic and thoughtful today than they did when they had been in control of the House of Representatives for a couple of decades running....
-Rob
Chris-- when it comes to politics, we're not going to agree on very much, so there's probably not a lot of point to a whole bunch of back-and-forth. However, I'll answer a couple of things:
I would say that the Democrats are far more anti-science than the Republicans.
At the moment, I fear, I find this comment absurd.
You can find seriously antiscience constituents in both parties. When I lived in Berkeley, it was so easy to see the "stars and crystals we're all connected smoke pot and you will know everything new age and understand the universe la la la la" set as an integral part of the Democratic party, because there was a lot of that set around, and they all had outspokenly liberal politics. Meanwhile, the conservatives all tended to be more hard-headed and evidence based.
Nowadays, though, the Republicans are very often substituting ideology for science. Yes, Democrats and liberals do that too; read "The Blank Slate" by Steven Pinker for an excellent example of that. But right now, as Chris Mooney documents, the Republicans are the most egregious violators. There are numerous examples of government agencies telling people to downplay or even not publish their conclusions when there is science that could be interpreted as threatening to policy.
This I really don't understand:
Whereas the Democrats desire to replay the whole Church Galelio thing gets almost a complete pass from the community.
It's not the Democrats replaying that; it's the Discovery Institute and all the other various Creationist groups that are doing that! You know, those groups that many prominent Republicans cozy up to and/or vociferously argue in favor of.
Latly, Rob, do you honestly believe that the Democrats are more pro-free market than the Republicans are?
Not really, no. Both parties are all about control and power and so forth. However, the Republicans have in the passed advertised themselves as being pro-free-market, and probably still do-- but they are very much not pro-free market. (By the way, I don't believe that radical "hands off" Libertarians are pro-free market either. You can't have a free market without some regulation. When a monopoly takes over, it has effectively as much power as a heavy-handed regulating government; even though it's not legislated, that's not really a free market.) I have seen quite a number of examples where I sat back and thought, woah, there was a Democrat arguing what sounded like a classic Republican free-market position... but I can't pull any off of the top of my head.
In any event, I know what free markets are, but I don't know that I really understand them and their implications well enough to have a fully educated position on all of it.
Free culture, on the other hand, is something I'm very much in favor of -- the Lawrence Lessig sort of stuff. Both parties are monsters when it comes to that, but there is a slight pluarality of Democrats over Republicans among the tiny number of politicians who seem to have their heads screwed on straight on those issues. (I would vote for Democrat Rick Boucher for president in a heartbeat if he were up!)
-Rob