Republicans begin to get it, maybe

blacbird

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Maybe. We'll see. But after a week of reality denial, vividly expressed by the genuinely shocked commentators on FOX, saner minds within the Republican Party establishment are emerging. Notable among whom is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who has now said: "If we want people to like us, we have to like them first."

Well, duh. But that puts him ahead of Mitt Romney, Karl Rove, Dick Morris and numerous other shitheads making political statements from the Right during the post-election week. I give him one gold star for saying this.

But what it really signals, along with similar statements by numerous other GOP luminaries, is a shot across the bow of the Tea Party movement. Maybe, just maybe, we'll get some minor amount of more sensible discourse from the Republican Party than we've seen much of in recent years.

In particular, many Republicans are now diving into the abyss of immigration reform, even to the point of suggesting (gasp!) that we might actually need some form of (gasp!) legalization of immigrant workers, or even (gasp!) amnesty. Getting killed at the polls by the fastest-growing minority demographic (Hispanics) will tend to do that, ya know?

Jindal's a player for 2016. He's also a Biblical creationist, from what I've read, and I'm almost certainly not going to support him for a Presidential bid, but it is nice to hear some degree of sense from an important person in the Voldemort Party.

caw
 

Bloo

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Huckabee said something similar on the Daily Show last week I believe. It was a really great back and forth.

Just out of curiosity, is Biblical creationism THAT important of an issue NOT to vote for someone on? I mean there are certain things I agree and disagree with in both parties, and I try to look for the one candidate who most closely expresses my POV (for the record, I am a Republican, and the closest two have been Huckabee [though I waffle on him because of some of his associations and ads, that he means in good faith but don't play well outside of a religious context] and Fred Thompson. I liked McCain and Romeny both before they embraced the more Conservative sides of the party. I consider myself a Roosevelt/Reagan Republican LOL). I think it's going to come down to Christie, Rubio, Ryan, or Jindal.
 

blacbird

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Just out of curiosity, is Biblical creationism THAT important of an issue NOT to vote for someone on?

For me, yes. I'm a geologist, specializing in paleontology, and Biblical creationism just drives me nuts. It is a denial of objective observational reality in exchange for an assumed belief based . . . assumed belief. It is a denial of the entire principles of science. Period. I can't in good conscience support politically a person having that extreme a disconnect with observable reality.

caw
 

RichardGarfinkle

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Huckabee said something similar on the Daily Show last week I believe. It was a really great back and forth.

Just out of curiosity, is Biblical creationism THAT important of an issue NOT to vote for someone on? I mean there are certain things I agree and disagree with in both parties, and I try to look for the one candidate who most closely expresses my POV (for the record, I am a Republican, and the closest two have been Huckabee [though I waffle on him because of some of his associations and ads, that he means in good faith but don't play well outside of a religious context] and Fred Thompson. I liked McCain and Romeny both before they embraced the more Conservative sides of the party. I consider myself a Roosevelt/Reagan Republican LOL). I think it's going to come down to Christie, Rubio, Ryan, or Jindal.

Depends on what you mean by Biblical creationism. If you mean a belief that the universe was created by God, that's not a major problem.

If you mean Young Earth, there is no evolution and it doesn't matter what scientists work out by examining the universe because this one way of interpreting Genesis says everything anyone needs to know, then yes that's a reason not to vote for someone.

It's not the belief that's the problem it's the method used to examine information that's the problem. People elected make decisions that affect our lives. Faith can be useful or not in that circumstance depending on the person, but ignoring reality isn't faith.

And it's not a loling matter. Evolution is the basis of biology, biology is the basis of medicine. It's not abstract and distant, it's as close as what kind of research receives funding and whether or not we end up with a next generation of doctors and medical researchers.

ETA: Also how open is the hypothetical believer in Biblical creationism to the beliefs or lack thereof of others. A person who thinks that religious freedom applies only to their religion is a qualitatively different kind of candidate from one who feels that what's open to their religion should be open to others and to the non-religious.
 
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waylander

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Just out of curiosity, is Biblical creationism THAT important of an issue NOT to vote for someone on?


It depends on whether you want the rest of the world to laugh at your president.
 

Opty

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Jindal's preaching of being more inclusive and his speaking out against Romney lately come across to me as very superficial and incredibly conveniently timed. He's definitely doing it mainly to establish himself as a leader in the party, shaking off the horrible "President of the Audio/Visual Club" image he got from his horrible response speech to the President's State of the Union a few years back. He's obviously making his bid to be a major player in 2016 which makes me doubt his sincerity. I'm not gonna hold my breath that this is the harbinger of a major shift within the party rather than simply a bunch of power-grab posturing.
 

Sheryl Nantus

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Just an aside here. From a Canadian perspective.

Brian Mulroney, a former Prime Minister, engineered the Free Trade Agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico. His party was thoroughly turfed in the next election.

And I mean TURFED.

They went from holding over two hundred seats to having four. They could hold caucus meetings in a Volvo. They were decimated.

They rebuilt. With nothing more to lose they went back to the basics and built the party back UP again to the point that it's once again one of the three major political parties in Canada.

I suspect the Republicans are having their "Come to Jesus" moment and are going to be considering the options they wouldn't have thought about before being trounced.

It might be good. It might be bad. But I wouldn't rule out them making a strong return.

The Democrats shouldn't write them off. I wouldn't.

jmo, ymmv.
 

robeiae

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Jindal's preaching of being more inclusive and his speaking out against Romney lately come across to me as very superficial and incredibly conveniently timed. He's definitely doing it mainly to establish himself as a leader in the party, shaking off the horrible "President of the Audio/Visual Club" image he got from his horrible response speech to the President's State of the Union a few years back. He's obviously making his bid to be a major player in 2016 which makes me doubt his sincerity. I'm not gonna hold my breath that this is the harbinger of a major shift within the party rather than simply a bunch of power-grab posturing.
Agree.
 

Monkey

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There are things I like about Jindal and things I don't, but until I see a serious shift in Republican politics - acted on, not just talked about - I won't be able to vote for any Republican for national office in good conscience.
 

Xelebes

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Just an aside here. From a Canadian perspective.

Brian Mulroney, a former Prime Minister, engineered the Free Trade Agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico. His party was thoroughly turfed in the next election.

And I mean TURFED.

They went from holding over two hundred seats to having four. They could hold caucus meetings in a Volvo. They were decimated.

They rebuilt. With nothing more to lose they went back to the basics and built the party back UP again to the point that it's once again one of the three major political parties in Canada.

I suspect the Republicans are having their "Come to Jesus" moment and are going to be considering the options they wouldn't have thought about before being trounced.

It might be good. It might be bad. But I wouldn't rule out them making a strong return.

The Democrats shouldn't write them off. I wouldn't.

jmo, ymmv.

The PC's decimation in 1993 was forecasted in 1985. Bubbling constitutional issues and a centralisation/anglicisation process that began long before Mulroney was what did them under. The Conservatives today are a blend of old Social Credits (the Mannings) and Progressive Conservatives and not merely made up of old Progressive Conservatives.
 

Shadow_Ferret

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RE: creationism - I understand blac, given your indoctrination, why this is a make or break issue for you. But - if I may - do you think that you might be cherry-picking something rather insignificant from an overall performance & policy perspective because it allows you to feel authoritative in your banishing of any & all who don't agree w/ur own position on the matter, and with whom - oh, what a coincidence! - you also would not agree with on just about anything else. I mean, fine, don't like a guy for being a ... whatever, but it just seems like a construct for shutting down discourse on other probably more substantive issues. Could it be that you don't have as firm an argument against these other issues?
Being anti-science is insignificant?
 

veinglory

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Well, all it relates to is educating kids to compete in a global market, slowing climate change, separating church and state and trivia like that.
 

Filigree

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I challenge why a scientific and reason-based education and career could ever be called 'indoctrination'. Blac's points come from a worldview where every hypothesis is tested by new data. Sure, there are ground rules that have been tested to the point of being solid theories (like gravity, for example). But everything else is up for vigorous review. Indoctrination is the opposite of what responsible scientists do.

Using the word to describe science-based worldviews is very much the same dog-whistle linguistic code that heralds the far-right's 'equal weight' and 'teach the controversy' false dichotomies.

I know many religious physicists, engineers, astronomers, and biologists (Episcopalian, Methodist, Mormon, Calvinist, Muslim, Hindu, and Shinto among them) who have no problem blending their spiritual beliefs with the realities of science. None of them take issue with evolution, the speed of light, or the extrapolated age of our universe. 'God uses big tools', they say, and move on.

In the case of Young-Earth Creationism, I have to agree that I could not in good conscience vote any proponent of it into office. Not locally, and not nationally. It's a bigger deal to me than reproductive rights, in fact. When we have people on government science committees who neither understand nor trust science, we cannot develop sane and rational science policies. The rest of the developed and developing world will not stop to consider or excuse our religious sensibilities. Nor will nature.

Countries shackled by ultra-religious mandates and restrictions on science are probably not going to advance as far or as fast as more progressive countries that teach actual science and math.

I want the US to remain on the leading edge of that curve. So, yes, I want to know well beforehand what a candidate believes and how his or her belief will color his administration.
 

Monkey

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Oh, don't worry about the GOP needing to get its head on straight.

I'm worried about the GOP needing to get it's head on straight because I don't just want the GOP to stay relevant, I want to be able to vote for them again. I want at least two parties with platforms that I can more-or-less support fighting over which is the best of several good ideas/paths/policies. That's what would be the best for the USA, and since I live here... yanno...

The donkeys are going to screw this up & probably sooner rather than later.

Define "this."

Heck, they would have already screwed it up if the media wasn't so willing to be forgiving of the issues a president (or - for that matter - a candidate they really, really swooned over) with a (D) beside his name vs. one w/an (R).

Fox News is one of the largest, most watched sources of news in the US. Online, news can be tailored to the viewer, and comes in whatever flavor the viewer seeks, ultra Liberal, ultra Conservative, and all sorts of flavors in between and outside the scale. "The Media" is not a monolithic group, nor, statistically, did it favor one candidate over another in this last election. The "it's all the Liberal Media's fault," is nothing more than a last-ditch effort among conservatives to explain why more people don't agree with them.

Edited to remove response to the "personal" section of an earlier comment.
 
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Sheryl Nantus

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The PC's decimation in 1993 was forecasted in 1985. Bubbling constitutional issues and a centralisation/anglicisation process that began long before Mulroney was what did them under. The Conservatives today are a blend of old Social Credits (the Mannings) and Progressive Conservatives and not merely made up of old Progressive Conservatives.

But they came back from four seats to be, again, one of the major parties. They re-invented themselves and kept the name while taking in new blood and attempting to adjust their positions to get votes.

I'll agree to disagree about the 1985 forecast. A lot can happen in eight years and I don't think anyone could have foreseen that much of a disaster in the voting arena.

:)
 

kuwisdelu

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RE: creationism - I understand blac, given your indoctrination, why this is a make or break issue for you. But - if I may - do you think that you might be cherry-picking something rather insignificant from an overall performance & policy perspective because it allows you to feel authoritative in your banishing of any & all who don't agree w/ur own position on the matter, and with whom - oh, what a coincidence! - you also would not agree with on just about anything else. I mean, fine, don't like a guy for being a ... whatever, but it just seems like a construct for shutting down discourse on other probably more substantive issues. Could it be that you don't have as firm an argument against these other issues?

I don't consider a fundamental misunderstanding of science to be "rather insignificant."
 

Xelebes

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But they came back from four seats to be, again, one of the major parties. They re-invented themselves and kept the name while taking in new blood and attempting to adjust their positions to get votes.

I'll agree to disagree about the 1985 forecast. A lot can happen in eight years and I don't think anyone could have foreseen that much of a disaster in the voting arena.

:)

Well, it wasn't forecasted. Imminent, but not necessarily forecasted.
 

MAP

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I challenge why a scientific and reason-based education and career could ever be called 'indoctrination'. Blac's points come from a worldview where every hypothesis is tested by new data. Sure, there are ground rules that have been tested to the point of being solid theories (like gravity, for example). But everything else is up for vigorous review. Indoctrination is the opposite of what responsible scientists do.

Using the word to describe science-based worldviews is very much the same dog-whistle linguistic code that heralds the far-right's 'equal weight' and 'teach the controversy' false dichotomies.

I know many religious physicists, engineers, astronomers, and biologists (Episcopalian, Methodist, Mormon, Calvinist, Muslim, Hindu, and Shinto among them) who have no problem blending their spiritual beliefs with the realities of science. None of them take issue with evolution, the speed of light, or the extrapolated age of our universe. 'God uses big tools', they say, and move on.

In the case of Young-Earth Creationism, I have to agree that I could not in good conscience vote any proponent of it into office. Not locally, and not nationally. It's a bigger deal to me than reproductive rights, in fact. When we have people on government science committees who neither understand nor trust science, we cannot develop sane and rational science policies. The rest of the developed and developing world will not stop to consider or excuse our religious sensibilities. Nor will nature.

Countries shackled by ultra-religious mandates and restrictions on science are probably not going to advance as far or as fast as more progressive countries that teach actual science and math.

I want the US to remain on the leading edge of that curve. So, yes, I want to know well beforehand what a candidate believes and how his or her belief will color his administration.


This. Anyone who believes that creationism is a valid scientific theory seriously doesn't understand science or has some major fallacies in their logic. I don't want someone like that to be a leader of this country on any level.

I don't have a problem with someone believing in any type of God. I believe in God. But that is very different than ignoring or undermining evidence because it doesn't align with their own personal beliefs.

So yeah, being a creationist is a big deal and enough to not vote for a cannidate.
 

clintl

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It might be good. It might be bad. But I wouldn't rule out them making a strong return.

The Democrats shouldn't write them off. I wouldn't.

jmo, ymmv.

I'm not writing them off. I'm sure they will. They came back from Watergate, so they can come back from this. But they need to change if they're going to come back.
 

AncientEagle

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Fox News is one of the largest, most watched sources of news in the US. Online, news can be tailored to the viewer, and comes in whatever flavor the viewer seeks, ultra Liberal, ultra Conservative, and all sorts of flavors in between and outside the scale. "The Media" is not a monolithic group, nor, statistically, did it favor one candidate over another in this last election. The "it's all the Liberal Media's fault," is nothing more than a last-ditch effort among conservatives to explain why more people don't agree with them.
(Bolded.) This is a part of the "they just didn't understand our message" explanation. Which is like a used Yugo dealer convincing himself that people aren't buying his cars only because he hasn't clearly explained how wonderful they are.
 

Maxinquaye

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Well, I don't know. The sudden darling Latino of the GOP was asked a simple question: How old is the earth? He refused to answer the question.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/84043.html?hp=f2

Maybe that's because he doesn't believe in creationism. Maybe that's because he does believe in it. I don't know. But in either case, he doesn't say because he doesn't dare to have a valid, solid, scientific opinion. This is a very serious problem for the GOP, because the GOP have power - and they use that power to scuttle the future of the country by paying obeisance to a minority whose ideal would be extremely detrimental to most people that aren't white, straight, or male.

So, to the OP. I'm highly doubtful that there will be anything else than an ameliorated "message" without actual substance. That way they can sway a few more percent of a conservative Catholic latino population. If they can run a Mormon as a presidential candidate, I think a Catholic base (and maybe a Catholic candidate) would be even more acceptable.
 

waylander

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Anyone who says something like 'there are different theories and I don't want to judge between them' is a creationist who is trying to avoid acknowledging it.