Watching the Republican debates is like getting a pinhole view of some strange bizarro land. It’s a place where logic and reason are frowned upon, and hollow grandstanding statements get loud applause. Oddly enough this place is very appealing to a large portion of our society.
Just to clarify, the earth is not 6,000 years old. The scientific consensus is that humans developed through the process of evolution. And the terrorists don’t want to kill us because we’re free and happy. For the most part, they want to do that because of our thick-skulled international policies.
These aren’t fringe ideas; they’re fairly common to the sane thinking world. But there is such a large wave of anti-intellectualism that these half-qualified presidential candidates are exploiting the stupidity for votes.
During the recent CNN debates, candidate Mike Huckabee was asked if he believed in evolution, and if he believed that the earth was 6,000 years old. He said he didn’t know. If he actually doesn’t know that the world is older than 6,000 years, he’s either an idiot or has a complete disregard for science. Any child who’s seen Jurassic Park could easily tell him that the world is older than that.
John McCain said he does believe in evolution, but also believes intelligent design should be taught in schools. Imagine for a moment that an intelligent design scientist actually existed and came to speak to a group of students. What exactly would that scientist say, that the scientific method proves that a conscious being created earth? Intelligent design is the perfect example of how legitimate science is being derailed by egotistical politicians gunning for votes.
Rudy Giuliani’s high point during the series of debates came when he scoffed at unlikely candidate Ron Paul for suggesting our international policy lead to the attacks on 9/11. Giuliani said he had heard some absurd explanations, but he’d never heard of that one. The audience roared with applause.
If he’s never heard of that then maybe he’s incompetent and illiterate. Not only did the 9/11 Commission say that our international policies are causing a backlash, but Osama bin Laden addressed a letter to the American people back in 2002 explaining that our support for Israel and our international policies in general are the reasons he is promoting attacks against us. There’s no doubt that he’s a religious zealot, and uses it to help stoke the hatred against us. But it’s also obvious that we are perpetuating the hate through our ethnocentric policies, and starting idiot wars, like the one in Iraq.
Of course a candidate’s ultimate goal is to become more appealing to a larger number of voters. And even though education is supposed to be a high priority, there’s a rather large part of the voting population who hold superstition and pride higher than logic. So if a candidate has to sacrifice reason and logic in order to get more votes, then we can fully expect 2 + 2 to equal 9.
