Tea Party Decoder Ring, please

by Doctor Science

The NY Times article Tea Party Gets Early Start on G.O.P. Targets for 2012″ quotes Indiana Tea Party supporter Mark Holwager:

“Heartland America doesn’t feel the same way as people in the cities,” he said. “We do believe in religion, we go to church all the time, we shoot and fish, and love our families.”

Two-thirds of this matches the “God, Guns, Gays” formula for “social conservatives”, and covers issues where Mr. Holwager may suspect he differs from a typical New Jersey coastal elite (that’s a joke, son).

God: I guess by “religion” and churchgoing Holwager means “Protestant Christianity”, because NJ is not irreligious compared to IN. But we do have an awful lot of Catholics, not so many just plain Christians.

Guns: Mr. Holwager is nicely ambiguous about what kind of “shooting” Indianans do a lot of. In 2009, Indiana hunters legally killed 132,752 deer, while NJ hunters only bagged 52,784. At the same time, Indiana also has a higher murder rate than NJ, especially by firearms. So whether he’s talking about shooting animals or shooting humans, he’s quite right: Indianans *do* shoot more.

Gays?: But how might Holwager think “we love our families” is something that is *different* between Indiana and, say, New Jersey? And how might that difference map to the “Gays” part of the social conservative trinity? Or is he aluding to something else — is “love of family” a code phrase of some sort?

I mean, to my decadent ears “we love our families” implies, “and we love & accept all the queer people in them.” I’ll go out on a limb, here, and guess that’s probably not what Holwager means. Is this code for abortion rate, which is definitely higher in NJ? That could be it, given that energized Republican Congressmen are all charged up to reduce federal funding for abortion by re-defining what kind of rape “counts”.

What else might “we love our families” mean? Does anyone have a decoder ring?

214 thoughts on “Tea Party Decoder Ring, please”

  1. I surmise that the dog whistle is that we love our traditional, intact, nuclear families, with a father, a mother and children (especially if the mother does not work outside the home).

  2. This is easy to understand. These sorts of statements are not meant to convey information. They are meant to affirm loyalty to a group, and to profess the goodness of the group. The quoted statement is the human equivalent of grooming the other members of your tribe, and then urinating in the direction of your neighbor’s tribe.
    Its a form of non cognitivism, or expressivism.
    Lots of politics work this way. You think republican politicians who claim to be unsure about President Obama’s citizenship are really crazy morons? They’re not. They’re just saying that because its a difficult to fake (this is a term of art in this context) indicator of group loyalty. Its almost unfair to evaluate them as if they mean what they say, because they’re not saying it for its meaning. The underlying message when a republican politician says something like that is “I am one of you. If I weren’t, would I say something this dumb on national television? Only those who are willing to make fools of themselves in this way can be trusted to truly hold the group above their own self.”

  3. Phyllis Schlafly, an Indianan, and President of the Eagle Forum, “Leading the Pro-Family Movement since 1972,” will tell you what “we love our families” means.

  4. It could mean,
    “We love our community being organized around our conventional families in a way that heathen communities are not.”
    That is, the “our families” does not refer to actual individual families, but rather “families” of a certain type as a critical feature of society. That would be somewhat akin to saying “We love our mountains,” or something, though the sentiment may be stronger.

  5. You know I’m pretty sick of the stereotype of the snobbish city person. To find a real godawful I’m-better-than-you smug superiority attitude, go to a small town.

  6. To find a real godawful I’m-better-than-you smug superiority attitude, go to a small town.
    Precisely. It’s the reason people move out of small towns into the cities.

  7. You left out the italics – they meant to say “we love our families…” It’s a negative pregnant implying that unlike the cultural elitists of the midwest, the folks on the coasts make Sodom & Gomorrah look like Bible camp.

  8. “Heartland America doesn’t feel the same way as people in the cities,” he said. “We do believe in religion, we go to church all the time, we shoot and fish, and love our families.”
    WTF does this guy know about people who live in cities?
    The whole “Heartland America” thing is so freaking tedious it makes me want to puke.
    Holwager needs to get out more and meet some people who aren’t exactly like him.

  9. The “we love our families” line probably is, as has been mentioned, just a bit of standard boilerplate group-bolstering: but coming from a Teabagger, it’s probably the unspoken corollary, “dog-whistle”, if you will, that is the more important part of the commentary, i.e.:
    …and we will viciously and violently fight to maintain our right to pass along our prejudices and extreme political obsessions to them without contradiction”

  10. I’m pretty sure that if you’re talking secret decoder rings, and you’re not applying them to something printed on the back of a cereal box, you’ve gone wrong. Likewise dog whistles, if you’re not talking about dogs.
    “Secret decoder rings” and “dog whistles” are just excuses, when one’s opponents aren’t saying something satisfyingly outrageous, to put words in their mouths they didn’t utter.
    I’m guessing that, by ““We do believe in religion, we go to church all the time, we shoot and fish, and love our families.”, he means that they believe in religion, go to church all the time, shoot and fish, and love their families. And, sure, he’s implying that people in cities don’t do these things, or at least not as much. But don’t you think ill of your enemies, too?

  11. Yes but most of us would admit that even Nazis* can have a happy family life without that detracting from their general loathability.
    Some people prefer to keep animals instead of shooting them and the way some people shoot animals qualifies themselves to become targets (bears and wolves should be trained in the use of SAMs and light flak)
    Btw, why should fishing in the sea** be morally inferior to fishing in lakes and rivers?***
    No to forget that ‘the heartlanders’ also love to shoot up churches (that they don’t like), make ‘family values’ a religion (in a way that crashes with the bible in places) and go to the government all the time to fish for mammon (while denouncing it in principle). And if I see the ‘love’ the self-appointed speakers of the heartland show, I would hate to be in their families They would soon sleep with the fishes if I were.
    *this is not to be construed as equating the TP with the NSDAP
    **that’s were I used to fish and I am an inland-big-city guy.
    ***just a natural extension of their argument that city <> heartland.
    => city = coast
    => (since city = coast and city <> fishing) coast = no fishing (of any value to Americanness at least)

  12. I’m pretty sure that if you’re talking secret decoder rings, and you’re not applying them to something printed on the back of a cereal box, you’ve gone wrong. Likewise dog whistles, if you’re not talking about dogs.

    Brett, you’ve lost me here. Are you saying that one cannot speak metaphorically, and communicate anything? Or are you saying that you lack any ability to understand metaphors? Or, if not one of those, what?

  13. But don’t you think ill of your enemies, too?
    Oddly enough, I don’t think of folks like Mark Holwager, or Tea Partiers in general, as my “enemy”, and it would strike me as highly peculiar if they considered me to be one of theirs.
    I don’t care if people go to church, shoot and fish, and love their families. Quite a number of folks I know, many of whom live in cities in the dreaded liberal coastal northeast, go to church, shoot and fish, and love their families.
    And quite a number of folks I know don’t.
    So what?
    Does Holwager want some kind of medal for his church-going, shooting and fishing, family-loving ways? Does he think he’s some kind of special, extra-church-going, extra-shooting-and-fishing, extra-family-loving guy?
    The Holwagers of the world need to get over themselves. They’re just normal people, like everybody else.
    Hackneyed stereotypes and metaphors are not the exclusive province of liberals and lefties.
    If Holwager’s feeling threatened by scary liberals from the big city, he should get to know some. It would probably go a long way toward alleviating his anxiety.
    He might even develop a taste for good deli.

  14. What Patrick said.
    This is “we are like THIS [good], not like THOSE PEOPLE OVER THERE [bad, obviously].” Nothing more.

  15. sure, he’s implying that people in cities don’t do these things, or at least not as much. But don’t you think ill of your enemies, too?
    The thing is, Brett, the “God” and “guns” parts of his statement have some referrents in reality: “his people” *do* go to Just Plain Christian church more, and they *do* shoot guns more. The “love our families” part, though, has no obvious reference. I need a decoder ring because it’s something that seems to be important to him, but which has no clear meaning — or rather, the meaning it would have to me is pretty clearly *not* what he intends.
    I also was reminded about slacktivist’s post on “Pro-Family” means anti-families — that organizations (or people) who stress they are “pro-Family” are opposed to things that help many actually-existing families.

  16. I wonder how much the heartland view of the coasts is influenced by the fact that pretty much all of the cop shows on TV are set in coastal cities. (OK, the original CSI is in Las Vegas. But nobody mistakes that for a heartland location.) And all of those shows are full of horrific crimes and horrible people — they may get caught and punished, but they are still horrible people.
    Now, likely you don’t see that sort of thing around you. And most people don’t, regardless of where they live. And you don’t see it on TV dramas set near you either, just those set on the coasts. So obviously something is really, really wrong in the coastal cities.
    Now if someone would just set a crime show in Omaha or Indianapolis, maybe it would shift the perception….

  17. Self congratulatory nonsense is hardly the exclusive province of the right (maybe I should go off on Sean Penn declaring that anyone who slanders Hugo Chavez should be sent to prison). Here, Dr. S is taking the words of one goober and imputing them to millions. I recall one of Dr. S’ posts in which she went on, for quite a while, on Republicans splitting with science, and of course, liberals were the good guys, blah, blah, blah.
    Finding someone who disagrees with you in a particularly stupid way makes it easy to minimize and marginalize anyone outside your cocoon. But then, that’s what cocoons do to people, across the spectrum.

  18. McK,
    Here, Dr. S is taking the words of one goober and imputing them to millions.
    Well, yes. But after all isn’t this close to an echo of Palin’s comments about “real America,” and views expressed more commonly on the right?

  19. wj: Now if someone would just set a crime show in Omaha or Indianapolis, maybe it would shift the perception….
    Fox did that with The Good Guys, set in Dallas. Although the crimes were more “hilarious” than “horrific.”
    The show didn’t even make it a full season, though.
    Of course there are all the crime shows set in Chicago, which is a Midwestern city. But it’s, y’know, Chicago, which is apparently now shorthand for “everything that’s wrong with teh ebil libruls.” So that probably doesn’t count, either. Chicago is, like, San Francisco with Boston’s mobs, New York’s corruption, and Canada’s climate. No good, god-fearing individual would go there.

  20. The sentiment that cities (and their inhabitants) are evil and cut off from the good and healthy rural life is by no means an American specialty. The German Heimatroman/film is based on this axiom. It has also been an all-time favorite of racists from the 19th century on. They considered the city a Rassengrab (race grave = place where (pure) race dies and gets buried by mongrelization). I think some blame can be put on Rousseau there who popularized the meme that evil comes from moving away from ‘good’ nature towards ‘civilization’.

  21. Here, Dr. S is taking the words of one goober and imputing them to millions.
    You should quote her doing that, McKinney, ’cause I don’t see that anywhere, unless “he”, “him” and “Holwager” refer to millions.
    Yes, Sean Penn can be an ass. You should do a guest post, if someone can arrange that.

  22. FWIW, there’s an article in the latest ESPN: The Magazine (not available online, so far as I can tell) about the big-time recruiting of top HS girls to play college basketball. Certain schools, it is alleged, play up the “family values” of their programs, which defenders say is just general boosterism, but others say is code for “At least you won’t be coached/seduced by lesbians here [unlike at unnamed X University].” Interesting.

  23. Harmut,
    The sentiment that cities (and their inhabitants) are evil and cut off from the good and healthy rural life is by no means an American specialty.
    Think also of “la France profonde.” The rural-urban value conflict is, I think, a feature of the history of many countries.

  24. Now if someone would just set a crime show in Omaha or Indianapolis, maybe it would shift the perception….
    Well, Close to Home was actually set in Indianapolis, Saving Grace was set in Oklahoma City, Chase is set in Dallas, etc,: so “crime shows” aren’t exclusively the province of “coastal” America.
    Of course, a great many TV shows “set” in various US cities are all filmed on the same backlot in Hollywood, with only the uniforms on the cops and the license plates on the cars to differentiate the locale. Amazingly, so many of them are also “set” (literally) in New York: which certainly has enough local film resources
    of its own – I know, they block my neighborhood streets often enough….

  25. Here’s a decoding, if you like. We “love our families” means we didn’t move away from them to the anonymous city. The things we do and say are constantly discussed, judged and remembered by our relations.
    Obviously people in cities may love their families, but it feels like the ones who moved away from *us* aren’t so much a part of the family any more.

  26. “The “love our families” part, though, has no obvious reference. I need a decoder ring because it’s something that seems to be important to him, but which has no clear meaning — or rather, the meaning it would have to me is pretty clearly *not* what he intends.”
    I donno; Seems pretty clear he’s imputing a lack of love for families to his political opponents. Asinine, but not exactly unclear. No need for any secret decoder ring here.

  27. You are incorrect, since it is unclear (to me, at least) what policy position a “lack of love for families” implies. Is there something to substantiate his claim re: lack of love? He is not sufficiently specific for us to even be able to attempt to falsify his claim. An unfalsifiable claim doesn’t contribute much to a discourse; in this case, as has been noted, I have to guess that his intent was to vaguely gesture in the direction of “family values” policies like, e.g., denying gay people the right to marry or adopt children.
    Of course, that is only a guess, since he was so unclear.

  28. I don’t know, Julian. If I say there is no god, is that unclear (or, rather how unclear is it)? It’s not falsifiable, nor does it imply a specific policy position.
    I mean, I understand what you’re saying about the statement. What are we supposed to do with it, right? That’s not clear. But I think Brett is right about the statement itself.

  29. I read through all of this to see if there might be anything novel but didn’t find anything. The code is that the heartland is right and the cities (particularly coastal) are left. Most all commenters here have already a concept of what that means to them. Since many politicians on the right campaign on issues related to self-defined ‘family values’, and rarely do we see politicians on the left use this terminology, why would ‘we love our families’ used here require any decoding that general political campaigning would not?
    One demographic that needs to be recognized is that the ‘heartland’ is everywhere in the U.S., with ‘cities’ interspersed, more in some regions (coastal) than in others. So statistics for urban versus rural expressed political values will track similarly in both New Jersey and Indiana. How have the cities grown over time? Two major sources have been immigration from other nations and movement of individuals and families from the ‘heartland’. And both of these sources bring more diversity in values to the ‘cities’ than will reside in the ‘heartland’.

  30. I don’t think that there’s a lot of nuance in what he’s claiming. I think Brett is pretty close in his reading. I would like to emphasize, however, that the collocation, here, of religion, guns and family is not a mistake. Part of it is, no doubt, a defiant echoing of the ‘cling to guns and religion’ saw of the last election, but there is also a very strong implied sense that religion and guns are what keeps a family safe from the harmful ideologies of the coastal types. I also think there’s an underlying fear of demographically driven cultural change in this and a sort of bunker mentality.

  31. A South Park reference comes to mind. Kyle is competing in a spelling bee with the home-schooled kids, the final word he has to spell is “krocsyldiphithic.” He asks to hear it in a sentence, and the judge says “Krocsyldiphithic is a hard word to spell.”
    So, while you can always say statement X is clear because
    statement X = statement X
    that property (the identity property) is not sufficient to achieve “clarity” by a reasonable definition.
    With regard to “there is no god,” I think that’s more clear to most of us because we’re familiar with the debate about the existence of god. But yes, actually, “there is no god” is not entirely clear. Are you referring to the concept of god, or god himself? How are you defining “god?” Judeo-Christian? What if it’s just a really old being who is omniscient but not omnipotent? And so on. The reason I am pretty sure I know you mean “there is no X where X is an immortal omnipotent omniscient being or beings responsible for the creation of matter and the universe” is because we talk about that all time.
    However, w/r/t “loving their families less,” I can make up examples of things that would constitute such a deficiency, but I really don’t know which ones he means. Do city people visit their families less often? Or do they have more divorces? Or more incest/rape/domestic violence? The set of “loving family less” is quite big and is, in my view, vague.

  32. I think I am being nitpicky to just avoid being wrong, and vague is a term with a spectrum of meaning, so I will concede that my objection boils down that he was too vague for my taste but not for others. Still, my taste! It is offended!

  33. Urban populations exhibit diversity in values and skills among individual members while rural populations exhibit greater homogeneity in values and skills among individuals. Individuals living in urban societies tend to exhibit a specialized set of individual skills rather than a diverse set whereas individuals living in rural societies exhibit much greater diversity in individual skills. I have lived for extended periods in both environments, so this is my opinion based on my experiences. These very different life styles may very well influence how political life is approached.
    I read the Times Tea Party article and I can relate to it. I was involved at the precinct level in the move to replace Senator Bennett and I can see the same going on with Senator Hatch. These Senators have served their constituency well but both have been there too long and had (have) become Washington good ole boys. Same thing when Jason Chafetz replaced Chris Cannon in the House.
    I’m not really a tea party activist but my thoughts and actions will align with theirs fairly well.

  34. What else might “we love our families” mean?
    You might want to reexamine the assumption that it means something.

  35. Hogan may very well have it right, well-worn phases don’t necessarily mean much, and that goes double when they are said in the context of politics.
    But so much as it means anything, I’d suspect that Brett has it right. Its main function in solidarity–we love our families, HOORAY FOR US! Its secondary function is to insinuate that city people might not love their families quite as much, perhaps as an appeal to parents whose children moved to faraway cities for various reasons.
    Suspecting it is about gays is a huge stretch. Most of those willing to be nasty about gays still don’t bother disguising it much. Abortion is slightly less of a stretch, but still a stretch. Why can’t it just be the insinuation that city people aren’t quite as family oriented?

  36. Here’s one instance of how ‘we love our families’ could differ. Maybe in the ‘heartland’ ‘we love our families bigger’. I have 2 daughters, one has 4 children and the other has 3. The one who lives in a rural setting is considered by peers in the country to have a small family (accompanied by few judgements about that circumstance) whereas the one who lives in a large city is viewed by peers in the city as having a large family (some of them judge that as an act of selfishness and suggest that one should have been enough).

  37. Urban populations exhibit diversity in values and skills among individual members while rural populations exhibit greater homogeneity in values and skills among individuals.
    This is very true. And this diversity is one of the major drivers for why cities are so much more economically productive than rural areas.
    Individuals living in urban societies tend to exhibit a specialized set of individual skills rather than a diverse set whereas individuals living in rural societies exhibit much greater diversity in individual skills.
    I don’t understand this. I live in a city and talking to my neighbors I hear a much greater diversity of skills than I’d seen while visiting the country. I can see how this statement might be correct if you define skills to be ‘hunting, fishing, farming, gardening, and other stuff’, but that seems like an absurd definition. Reading ancient greek, building robots, and designing new musical instruments are no less skills despite the fact that they’re probably more likely to be practiced by the urban crowd.

  38. One demographic that needs to be recognized is that the ‘heartland’ is everywhere in the U.S., with ‘cities’ interspersed
    Exactly wrong.
    You can stop at “the ‘heartland’ is everywhere in the U.S.”.
    Look, living in the country is different from living in the city. Also, living by the ocean is different from living in the desert. Also, living in the mountains is different from living down in flat-land. Also, living where it’s cold in the winter is different from living where it’s warm all year round.
    Whatever floats your boat.
    People should live where they want to live, how they want to live. Make your choices and enjoy yourself. Be happy. Mazel tov.
    But leave the ‘heartland’ thing aside, please.
    People use that language to indicate that their point of view and experience is somehow more authentically American, or maybe just flat out more authentic, than other folks’.
    It’s a load of crap.

  39. The Heartland was the original “Real America” right? Actually, come to think of it, it almost certainly wasn’t the *original* one. Just the direct predecessor.

  40. Suspecting it is about gays is a huge stretch. Most of those willing to be nasty about gays still don’t bother disguising it much.
    Right. No one has ever tried wrapping up gay-bashing in a friendly-sounding euphemism like “family values” or “protecting the sanctity of marriage.”
    You never cease to amaze me, Sebastian.

  41. Brett: But don’t you think ill of your enemies, too?
    Not really. At least, not about the basic idea that most people value their family and their community and have strongly-held moral values that they have a right to use as the basis of their political activities.
    I actually think most people on both sides think most people on the other side are perfectly nice, decent people who care about their families. This kind of crap finds a limited audience.
    Fun to argue about, though. And I am always amused by the idea that the cities are some hellhole of depravity. Not only are the cities primarily full of boring married middle-class people (hard for them to be otherwise since 80% of Americans live in cities) but almost all the gays and sexual deviants I know are also married, often with kids, all extremely boring in a basic sense.
    The one lesson that people have had to learn over and over again is that when someone tells you that group X is nothing like you decent people – is amoral and strange and gross and whatever – it is always a lie intended to get you to do their dirty work for them.
    Absolutely everyone on the planet cares about their family and friends and community and has a basic assumption of goodwill towards strangers. Because we’re programmed to do it, because we’re grown-up monkeys who evolved in cooperative groups and that’s what we do.
    I think it’s quite nice, but then, I’m programmed to think that it’s quite nice. Not something I lose sleep over.

  42. MckTexas: “Here, Dr. S is taking the words of one goober and imputing them to millions.”
    Yes, enough with the takings and the imputations. Shame on the good Doctor.
    Better the heartland conservative Republican way, in which the millions choose the biggest, dumbsh*t goober among them (say, Sauron Angle, in goodoleboy’s territory — pick your poison) and elect them to high office as their representatives in the rhetorical and imputational departments , and where the words and imputations about the odd habits of the heartland folk (shooting fish, for example) and of the cityfolk (proposing to send their tax money to rural hospitals, for example, so heartland Medicare parasites don’t have to drive to the city for their lead poisoning treatments) are imputed, amplified, repeated, and represented ad nauseum on any old cable news network as the views of the millions…….
    ….. in other words, you.

  43. Seb, I think UK might have a point. Many of the a-holes who use “family values” mean, among other things, gay people are bad. Still, this was a needless post about a single douche bag that has produced much about very little.
    HSH–while its true that Dr. S was complaining about one person, she conflated that with Tea Party followers universally. Otherwise, no need for a Tea Party decoder ring, just a douche bag Decoder ring. As for a guest post, I really don’t have much to say . . .

  44. Mr. Holwager argued that there is a disconnect between Tea Party supporters and many of their representatives in Washington.
    The above comes just before the Holwager quote from the Times article. It is Holwager who presumed to be speaking for Tea Party supporters, so he would be the one requiring any decoder ring to be of the Tea Party variety. The guy wasn’t simply speaking extemporaneously about his thoughts, leading Doc Sci to assume a Tea Party association. Holwager did the imputing here, not Doc Sci, so the your lack of a quote of Doc Sci is understandable.

  45. Still, this was a needless post about a single douche bag that has produced much about very little.
    A “single douche bag” quoted in the NYT might be someone with a unique viewpoint, newsworthy because of its uniqueness. Or he might be someone who is quoted because his viewpoint is typical of a significant segment of the public. I’m sure those are not the only possibilities, but I do wonder whether McKinney thinks Mark Holwager fits into either category.
    –TP

  46. I am detecting a strong whiff of “No True Teabagger Scotsman” coming from this thread.
    Also, I’ve been reading Neal Stephenson’s Anathem lately, and it occurs to me that much of the nonsensical “pro-family”-esque rhetoric under discussion here stands as an excellent real-world example of bulshytt, as described in the book.

  47. When Heartland America speaks of loving its families, it used to mean that what the patiriarch says is law. Outside the house and away from the patriarch, wife, daughter, son and all might have other opinions. Near the patriarch, they all agreed with him.
    Fear and hypocrisy are Heartland family values.

  48. but I do wonder whether McKinney thinks Mark Holwager fits into either category
    I think, if someone wants to write an article to make a point, they pick the foil that best makes the point. The NYT does it, so do most other media outlets. Holwager may be a big piece of cheese in Indiana or he might be someone who gave a really incendiary quote that made for good press. Either way, I couldn’t tell you. Whether he is truly a spokesperson for Tea Partiers, who knows? Who cares? Sean Penn is way better known than Holwager. Intellectually honest conservatives will not impute Penn’s BS to liberals and progressives across the board because Penn is a known outlier. Holwager’s “we love our families” statement is just stupid. Why anyone pays attention to it is beyond me. If even a sizeable portion of Tea Party sympathizers feel this way, why would anyone else care?

  49. Mark Whatsface didn’t sau anything that Sarah palin didn’t say over and over and over. Or is she just some goober?

  50. Mark Whatsface didn’t sau anything that Sarah palin didn’t say over and over and over. Or is she just some goober?
    Thank you. That needed saying.
    If even a sizeable portion of Tea Party sympathizers feel this way, why would anyone else care?
    Because a “sizable portion” of a sizable chunk of people can swing a close election in ways that directly impact people like myself and people who are important to me. But hey, you live in Texas, so we know you love your family.

  51. SOMEBODY around here is certainly hung up on Sean Penn, and it doesn’t appear to be anybody I’d classify as a liberal. Brings to mind the old saw, “Throw a rock into a pack of dogs, and the one that yells loudest is the one that got hit.”

  52. Mark Whatsface didn’t sau anything that Sarah palin didn’t say over and over and over. Or is she just some goober?
    When Palin says something that simple-minded (I didn’t “if”, I said “when”), then take her up on it.

  53. McK TX —
    I wasn’t talking about Holwager’s comments to mock “some goober”. He’s a locally significant Tea Party supporter, at minimum, and he was willing to be quoted by the NYT.
    None of the other things he said struck me as at all unusual, so I assumed that — as a good spokesperson would — he was sticking to established talking points. In that context “we love our families” seems a very *odd* talking point, to me — as though he’s trying to say or signal something else.
    Brett:
    But don’t you think ill of your enemies, too?
    I try not to think *ridiculous* of them, though. Or to say things that only make sense if I don’t think they’re human.
    Not to mention the fact that using “enemies” to talk about a different faction of one’s own political party seems wildly out of line … I take it back. It’s quite natural for one group of Republicans to see another as “enemies”, because they’re both struggling for control of the same party and people. Fights between Democrats and Republicans can be much more diffuse.

  54. In that context “we love our families” seems a very *odd* talking point, to me — as though he’s trying to say or signal something else.
    Thanks for the link. He is the website guy for the Tea Party of Jennings County, Indiana, population 27K and change. I agree he meant something by his statement. The implication is that stupid liberals and regular Republicans don’t love their families. It’s the kind of really stupid thing that idealogues say about themselves to diminish their opposition all the time. If questioned closely on his statement, he’d look like the idiot he most likely is. That he’s willing to be interviewed by the national media is entirely consistent with a large ego, but is probative of nothing else. Why worry about, or focus on, random stupidities and impute them so broadly? There is much else to worry about that really matters, or at least, is more interesting.

  55. Why worry about, or focus on, random stupidities and impute them so broadly?
    First, they aren’t random.
    Second, how do you define “so broadly?” Where do you find evidence in the comments of such broadness?
    If these stupidities are repeated and common talking points, they are repeated and common talking points. Maybe most Tea Partiers don’t believe them. They should complain. But I’ve yet to see this universal conflation you mention here:
    HSH–while its true that Dr. S was complaining about one person, she conflated that with Tea Party followers universally.
    Quote, please.
    And why shouldn’t people care if there’s a large political movement in this country whose members and leadership allow, without noticable complaint, insulting nonsense to be spouted on their behalf? Whether they believe it or not, it’s worrisome that there’s so little evidence that they don’t believe it.
    Also, too, why does it bother you that it bothers others, McKinney? Why should you care?
    (And when are you coming to Philly/Jersey to hang out with us family-hating, coastal, urban, elitist commies?)

  56. Title of Post: Tea Party Decoder Ring, please
    Concluding sentence: Does anyone have a decoder ring?
    Also, too, why does it bother you that it bothers others, McKinney? Why should you care?
    (And when are you coming to Philly/Jersey to hang out with us family-hating, coastal, urban, elitist commies?)

    I am bothered by the trivial nature of each side being offended by the other side’s self-congratulatory nonsense as well as by the self-congratulatory nonsense itself. It is one of the least significant aspects of public discourse there is, IMO.
    As for a visit with you bomb-throwing commies, my hope is sooner rather than later, but nothing on the travel calendar yet for that neck of the woods. Unfortunately. Atlanta in a couple of weeks, but nothing up north for a while anyway.

  57. I am bothered by the trivial nature of each side being offended by the other side’s self-congratulatory nonsense as well as by the self-congratulatory nonsense itself.
    Apparently you aren’t, because you’re on the side of the self-congratulatory nonsense from the right wing. You’re just objecting when we point out how objectionable and hateful the people on the right are by trying to dismiss the objections. But the fact is that you cleave yourself to a delusional culture in which the sentiments of Mr. Mark Holwager are considered normal: but you only get upset when it is pointed out that this is who you are and whom you associate with. I realize the fact that you have to get defensive when it’s pointed out how, frankly, crazy the ideological movement you belong to is, but saying, “well I object to both the sentiment and pointing out the sentiment” is just an evasion. This sort of rhetoric is standard fare from the right. I don’t think it’s unfair to remind the public time and time again what we’re dealing with: a culture full of people who eat this stuff up like candy.

  58. “Right. No one has ever tried wrapping up gay-bashing in a friendly-sounding euphemism like “family values” or “protecting the sanctity of marriage.”
    You never cease to amaze me, Sebastian.”
    First, if he had said something about “protecting the sanctity of marriage” that would have been completely different and you would have much more ground for suspicion.
    Second, the fact that some people have used ‘family values’ to mean ‘anti-gay’ does not mean that anytime anyone uses ‘family values’ it means ‘anti-gay’. The linkage is not nearly so tight as you seem to be claiming. Now if you wanted to offer further evidence that this particular use, by this particular person, has that particular meaning, I’m open to it. But I see literally none of that here. And he didn’t even use “family values”, which at least sometimes has been used in an anti-gay fashion, he used “love our families” which to my knowledge has not been used in an anti-gay fashion in large scale public discourse.
    It is self congratulatory claptrap. It is an almost meaningless phrase to show political solidarity. It is almost certainly stupid. Feel free to criticize on those grounds. If you do that, he looks silly. But if you want to call it anti-gay, or racist, or some knockout punch that consists of overreading or what anyone who doesn’t already agree with you will see as overreading, you’ve turned an opportunity to make him look silly into an opportunity to make yourself look silly.

  59. And he didn’t even use “family values”, which at least sometimes has been used in an anti-gay fashion, he used “love our families” which to my knowledge has not been used in an anti-gay fashion in large scale public discourse.
    You go, Sebastian! Give it all you got! There’s literally nothing you won’t do to give the Tea Partier the benefit of the doubt, and show that even when the people who criticize him from the left are right…they’re still wrong. Because people on the left are always wrong, even when they’re right…or they’re right, but in the wrong way…or they’re right, but for the wrong reasons…
    Do you never tire of it? Do you really not see how transparent it’s become, not to mention how screamingly tedious?
    Now if you wanted to offer further evidence that this particular use, by this particular person, has that particular meaning, I’m open to it. But I see literally none of that here.
    I’m sure you don’t. When Trent Lott said that electing Strom Thurmond as President in 1948 might have saved the country “all these problems,” you didn’t “see” a reference to racial segregation. Maybe he was talking about housing policy! So I know full-well how weirdly selective your vision can be.
    you’ve turned an opportunity to make him look silly into an opportunity to make yourself look silly.
    Thank you for your concern.

  60. Second, the fact that some people have used ‘family values’ to mean ‘anti-gay’ does not mean that anytime anyone uses ‘family values’ it means ‘anti-gay’.
    Sure. It could mean ‘anti-abortion’.
    The “family values” mantra is a shining example of right-wing political correctness. Politically, being pro-something always sounds nice, noble, uplifting — in other words, correct. So we get “pro-life”, and “pro-family”, and “pro-states’ rights” as PC descriptions of meaner, baser, more divisive sentiments. Over time, even a mantra gets shopworn. So “family values” evolves into “we love our families”, for instance. But it remains a fatuous bit of political correctness.
    –TP

  61. TP – so what does it mean when progressives say they are for family values also? And I want to clarify that this is a serious question. More than once i have heard Democrats say that conservatives don’t own the market on family values.

  62. D’jou guys eat yet?
    D’jou know, is Glenn Beck going to talk about George Soros on tonight’s show? D’jou hear Soros and the State Department and the Obama Administration, and the S.E.I.U and other unions, and the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Marx Brothers and Chinese Communists have big plans for New Zealand, otherwise know as Tel Aviv down under?
    D’jou know Beck is going to check Soros for lice on his next Christmas special?
    When Obama is called a Marxist by Bill Sammon at FOX News, I suspect Sammon means merely that Obama’s favorite Marx Brother is Zeppo because the President admires the latter’s sweet awkwardness in the musical numbers.
    On the other hand, when the Tea Party carried signs depicting Barack Hussein Osama as a witchdoctor last year, I’m pretty sure they were merely inquiring innocently about WHICH doctor the new healthcare plan would permit them to patronize and would they still get free scooters.
    When the Tea Partiers packing weapons carried signs threatening “Next time, we’ll use ’em!” last year, I think Jared Loughner succumbed to a certain amount of silliness. The signs might have been referring (one hopes, given the gene pool) to condoms, but more likely they meant they would use those coupons they’d saved for the Sambo’s freedom meals next time they were in town.
    Barney Faggot. D’jou know him? And has anyone heard of Dick Armey lately since he and his saluting namesakes were run out of town those many years ago? I don’t think he’s surfaced since to lead any causes, being totally discredited. Probably minding his own business.
    I think “Heartland America doesn’t feel the same way as people in the cities. We love our families” can be translated harmlessly and avedisly as “Heartland America doesn’t feel the same way as people in the cities. We love our families, including Uncle Ernie, who is a little light in the loafers, but I wouldn’t share a shower with him or share a drink from the same cup.”

  63. TP – so what does it mean when progressives say they are for family values also? And I want to clarify that this is a serious question. More than once i have heard Democrats say that conservatives don’t own the market on family values.
    Actually, I would like to hear what conservatives think family values consist of first, if you please.

  64. so what does it mean when progressives say they are for family values also?
    It means we value and respect the family as a social unit. It means we love, value, and respect our own actual families. It means we want public policy and society in general to support families and family life.
    And please leave the “also” out of it, there’s nothing “me too” about it.
    Serious question, serious answer.

  65. “Actually, I would like to hear what conservatives think family values consist of first, if you please.”
    What russell said.

  66. Russell, I think you are saying what most people who aren’t wearing their family values on their sleeve take it to mean. When politicians on the right use that term, it is intended to do several things. First, imply that people who disagree with them on policy grounds lack family values and, second, to imply that single parents, gay couples, etc. aren’t “family”. It’s one of the ugly sides of social conservatism that many generic conservatives don’t care for.

  67. ” When politicians on the right use that term, it is intended to do several things.”
    Really? All of them? How “right” do they need to be? Right of me? Right of Lieberman? Right of DeMint?
    Its one of the ugly sides of social progressivism that anyone who might not agree on every issue somehow gets tarred with the brush that they think single parents, gay couples, etc. aren’t “family”.

  68. What russell said.
    Thanks Marty.
    As a practical, hands-on matter, I don’t see much difference between conservatives and liberals when it comes to family.
    I agree with McK’s analysis, and also understand and agree that conservatives as a group are a larger and more various population than the folks who are, if you will, conservative for a living.

  69. I will speak only for myself. I’m a product of the Deep South and when I turned 18, I left home and went to the big city (up north, not Atlanta). I spent the next decade doing what single guys traditionally do, interrupted by a stint in the military, until in my late 20’s I connected with a lady I thought would be an excellent partner for the long term and who had a personal value set compatible with mine. We both wanted to have children and teach them those values so they would grow to maturity and have opportunities to repeat this process. So we had this family and worked diligently to instill our family values in them. We have been doing this for 45 years now with 3 children and 7 grandchildren as a result. So far, it’s working, at least, for one more generation. Two daughters are married and they have the seven children, and my son, the musician, has not chosen to get married, and I think that’s a good thing from the standpoint of our family values, since it would make a most difficult life for a family with children.
    To me, personally, it’s straightforward and simple. I teach my children what I value and what I don’t. Much of it takes, some of it doesn’t. And none of it requires the evil postures frequently under discussion here, or any decoding for that matter.

  70. I will speak only for myself. I’m a product of the Deep South and when I turned 18, I left home and went to the big city (up north, not Atlanta). I spent the next decade doing what single guys traditionally do, interrupted by a stint in the military, until in my late 20’s I connected with a lady I thought would be an excellent partner for the long term and who had a personal value set compatible with mine. We both wanted to have children and teach them those values so they would grow to maturity and have opportunities to repeat this process. So we had this family and worked diligently to instill our family values in them. We have been doing this for 45 years now with 3 children and 7 grandchildren as a result. So far, it’s working, at least, for one more generation. Two daughters are married and they have the seven children, and my son, the musician, has not chosen to get married, and I think that’s a good thing from the standpoint of our family values, since it would make a most difficult life for a family with children.
    To me, personally, it’s straightforward and simple. I teach my children what I value and what I don’t. Much of it takes, some of it doesn’t. And none of it requires the evil postures frequently under discussion here, or any decoding for that matter.

  71. It’s one of the ugly sides of social conservatism that many generic conservatives don’t care for.
    And yet the latter empower the former as often as they can, as much as they can. Where, for example, are the “generic conservatives” who “don’t care for it” enough that they voted for the DADT repeal?
    Catsy was right. The “no true Scotsman” in here is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

  72. Really? All of them? How “right” do they need to be? Right of me? Right of Lieberman? Right of DeMint?
    I was speaking generally, but to address your larger question: if someone sincerely believes in family values, a la Russell, they have no need whatsoever to say so out loud, much less strut their ‘values’ stuff in public at political rallies. I won’t wear an American flag lapel pin because I don’t feel the need to to announce that “I’m an AMERICAN!”, even though, it should be fairly obvious from other threads that I view America as an exceptional country. The conservative ‘family values’ clique is, by and large, icy toward any nontraditional, non-nuclear family. They are particularly hostile to the notion of gay marriage or civil union.
    But, just as some on the left like to say they believe in science or are reality-based–implying those on the right do not or are not–preening oneself as being committed to family values is a cheap shot at one’s opponents. Always has been, always will be.

  73. And yet the latter empower the former as often as they can, as much as they can. Where, for example, are the “generic conservatives” who “don’t care for it” enough that they voted for the DADT repeal?
    Catsy was right. The “no true Scotsman” in here is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

    Phil, normally I let your bile pass. Catsy’s too. But this time, let me refer you to Ted Olson. Do a little research and have a nice day. 🙂

  74. On the other hand, when the Tea Party carried signs depicting Barack Hussein Osama as a witchdoctor last year, I’m pretty sure they were merely inquiring innocently about WHICH doctor the new healthcare plan would permit them to patronize and would they still get free scooters.
    Why do I bother, when CMI always does it better?

  75. McTX, as long as we’re name-dropping, let’s not forget Mike Castle, Charlie Christ, Gordon Bennett, and so on. If and when Ted Olson runs for office, all true Scotsmen conservatives will vote for him, no doubt. But if he has to run in a GOP primary, I suspect that won’t amount to a majority.
    –TP

  76. ‘On the other hand, when the Tea Party carried signs depicting Barack Hussein Osama as a witchdoctor last year, I’m pretty sure they were merely inquiring innocently about WHICH doctor the new healthcare plan would permit them to patronize and would they still get free scooters.
    Why do I bother, when CMI always does it better?’
    this style of invective directed broadly at groups is unappealing to me. the reason I don’t have friends is because i would need to invoke too often the expression ‘who needs enemies when you have these friends’. Much of what the tea party stands for publicly I can support. That doesn’t mean that everything anyone who can be associated with the tea party as a group says or does I support. Those who paint with this broad brush perhaps have some evil in their heart, regardless of how amusingly couched. I refuse to belong to groups or have friends. I have family and acquaintances so I can keep my problems manageable.

  77. TP–yes, that is the problem, here in Texas as much as anywhere. I chatted a couple of years back with the former finance chairman of the Harris County Republican Party. Pretty much verbatim, he said “I don’t know what you call it, but it ain’t being a Republican”. The ‘family values’ wing of the party is a significant force. The bigotry barely gets by today. Ten years from now, in the rear view mirror, there will be a lot of backing and filling.

  78. Charlie Christ

    Although some might have thought him to be the second coming, he was, alas, only Charlie Crist.

  79. “I’m sure you don’t. When Trent Lott said that electing Strom Thurmond as President in 1948 might have saved the country “all these problems,” you didn’t “see” a reference to racial segregation. Maybe he was talking about housing policy! So I know full-well how weirdly selective your vision can be.”
    Are you talking about some other Sebastian? One who didn’t write for example this “Trent Lott elected to GOP Minority Whip
    Great move! I’m sure GOP Senate members were thinking to themselves: “Huh, the Democrats seem to be attracting a lot of attention with some corrupt members of the House. What can we do to compete with that? Hey, I know! We could re-elect Lott, the guy drummed out of leadership for being affiliated with racists, to a position of power.”
    I know you don’t like what I’m saying, but that doesn’t make me a Trent Lott fan. I can recognize all sorts of racist and anti-gay comments. I just don’t think they are hiding under EVERY bed, EVERY time.

  80. Mark Whatsface didn’t sau anything that Sarah palin didn’t say over and over and over. Or is she just some goober?
    When Palin says something that simple-minded (I didn’t “if”, I said “when”), then take her up on it.
    Well that would be every speech she made as a VP candidate and every speech in her repotoire for her current grifter act. One expample is her oft repeated praise of “little pockets of real America” addressed to all-white small town audiences in red states.
    Surely you aren’t suggesting here that Sarah Palin has ever said anything that wasn’t simple-minded?
    Seriously.

  81. Another odd aspect of Holwager’s statement (“Heartland America doesn’t feel the same way as people in the cities”) requires that he means two kinds of cities: those bi-coastal, evil ones; and, presumably in contrast, the virtuous cities out West. This is because the area between the 100th meridian and the Sierras is actually the most urbanized region in America, in that a larger percentage of its population lives in urban areas than anywhere else in the USA. (Patricia Limerick at the University of Colorado has written a lot about the implications of that fact.)

  82. I may be wrong — I usually am — but I suspect Ted Olsen is more frightened right now by what is going on to the right of MacT and GOB than he is by what’s happening to the left of me.
    And I’m not just talking about gay issues.

  83. Brett:

    “I’m pretty sure that if you’re talking secret decoder rings, and you’re not applying them to something printed on the back of a cereal box, you’ve gone wrong. Likewise dog whistles, if you’re not talking about dogs.”

    Brett Bellmore on January 02, 2011 at 07:05 PM:

    I not only heard those words, but got the crap beaten out of me by my peers, but had no clue that they had anything to do with sexual practices, until I was at college. It’s not like nerds get invited to participate in PE locker room conversations, after all. Being a social pariah can leave you pretty clueless about that sort of thing.

    Brett, you’ve written many times about how you’re clueless about “that sort of thing.” Could you pick one answer from one column, rather than one from column a and one from column b?
    Which is it? You’re sure of the implications of words, or you’re “pretty clueless about that sort of thing”?
    Or is it variable? Or? I don’t want to ask a multiple choice question, nor ask you to write an essay. A short clarification, however, might help all of us, perhaps.
    Meanwhile, why are you sure? Please show your work. Thanks!

  84. What are Dog-Whistle Politics?
    Are you suggesting that, say, you know better than Taegan Goddard’s Political Dictionary?

    dog-whistle politics
    A type of political speech using code words that appear to mean one thing to the general population but have a different meaning for a targeted part of the audience.
    The Economist: “Over the past few weeks, a new expression has entered the Westminster lexicon: dog-whistle politics. It means putting out a message that, like a high-pitched dog-whistle, is only fully audible to those at whom it is directly aimed.”
    SEE ALSO:
    1. whistle-stopping
    2. smoke-filled room
    3. one-minute speeches
    4. politics ain’t beanbag
    5. soft power

    How familiar are you with the concept?
    And, remember, attempting to prove a negative is problematic.
    Thanks!

  85. GoodOleBoy:

    Urban populations exhibit diversity in values and skills among individual members while rural populations exhibit greater homogeneity in values and skills among individuals. Individuals living in urban societies tend to exhibit a specialized set of individual skills rather than a diverse set whereas individuals living in rural societies exhibit much greater diversity in individual skills. I have lived for extended periods in both environments, so this is my opinion based on my experiences. These very different life styles may very well influence how political life is approached.

    I pretty much agree with you.
    Jay C:

    […] Of course, a great many TV shows “set” in various US cities are all filmed on the same backlot in Hollywood,

    You mean inside and outside of Vancouver and Toronto.

  86. Marty:

    Its one of the ugly sides of social progressivism that anyone who might not agree on every issue somehow gets tarred with the brush that they think single parents, gay couples, etc. aren’t “family”.

    Marty, in the same sentence you’re objecting to the notion that “anyone who might not agree on every issue somehow gets tarred with the brush,” while doing the same thing yourself.
    Would you like some cites on how many dozens and dozens and dozens of times you’ve made this exact contradiction with this exact complaint on this blog?
    Would that help? What would help you notice that you consistently engage in this self-contradiction? Because you really do have a consistent pattern here, and it’s not difficult to give you quote after quote after quote of you doing over and over and over. It’s also been pointed out to you many times, but you do seem to keep right on with it.
    Yes, human beings generalize about The Other. Period, full stop.
    It’s not a matter of just the people you don’t like doing it, especially when you consistently not only do it, but you consistently do it in the same sentence.
    Maybe you might wish to rethink this technique? It’s just a suggestion, but it would make conversation with you a bit less repetitive.

  87. But this time, let me refer you to Ted Olson. Do a little research and have a nice day. 🙂
    So you can think of exactly one person off the top of your head, who is not even an elected official, which makes your response a non-response, since I specifically asked about “generic conservatives” who voted to repeal DADT. That just about tells me what I need to know.
    For the record, to the extent that we are — almost as always — using “conservative” and “liberal” to stand in for “Republican” and “Democrat” there were eight of 42 Republican senators who voted for the DADT repeal. No Democrats voted against, one did not vote.
    So if there are “generic conservatives” who “don’t care for” that whole dog-whistle “family values” stuff, they are either such a distinct minority within the GOP that they’re hardly worth noticing, or they will roll over for current trends in intra-party divisiveness rather than stand on principle, or they truly believe their constituents — that is, the people who elected them — will not re-elect them if they do anything in support of gays (or single-parent families, or . . .).
    I’ll let you decide which of those things is true, although you’ll almost certainly not respond, since apparently acknowledging uncomfortable facts is now “bile.”
    But, just as some on the left like to say they believe in science or are reality-based–implying those on the right do not or are not–preening oneself as being committed to family values is a cheap shot at one’s opponents.
    Ah, I love the smell of false equivalence in the morning.
    By and large, the current GOP leadership — and, in fact, much of the rank and file — doesn’t believe in science (i.e., are young-earthers and evolution deniers and global warming deniers and “homosexuality is a choice” people) or are, again, willing to pretend they don’t in order to please the people who can return them to office.
    It’s fun to believe “both sides do it.” It really, really is. But sometimes one side really, really is worse.

  88. Personally I think the term ‘family values’ has become so toxic that I would not use it to describe what it originally meant but look for some other words.

  89. Are you talking about some other Sebastian?
    No, Sebastian, I am definitely not. You were very clear that in your opinion, Trent Lott’s allusion to “all these problems” that were caused by not electing Strom Thurmond in 1948 was not a reference to racial integration, despite the fact that the preservation of segregation was the entire raison d’être of Thurmond’s candidacy. No, Trent Lott was referring to something else. He had to be.
    Not that you were a fan of Trent Lott, mind you, not that you weren’t happy that he’d been drummed out, but still, you had these million angels dancing so beautifully on the head of a pin, and you found a hair on one of them that hadn’t been split, and that just wouldn’t do, so off to the races we went.
    You don’t remember that, apparently, which isn’t surprising in the least.
    And like a schmuck, I took the bait. As the Brits say, more fool me.

  90. Sorry, I for some reason thought you were talking about the original statements which got Lott drummed out. The thread you are quoting compares the Trent Lott eulogy of Strom Thurmond to Octavia Nasr’s “Sad to hear of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot”.
    Both of which are statements about someone on their death which seem to be other than mere boosterism for the (very) objectionable parts of Thurmond’s and Fadlallah’s positions. Which in context seems to apply to this particular conversation, well, not at all.

  91. Which in context seems to apply to this particular conversation, well, not at all.
    Of course not. And you win again.
    As always, I’m sorry I bothered.

  92. Surely you aren’t suggesting here that Sarah Palin has ever said anything that wasn’t simple-minded?
    I have repeatedly said that pretty much everything SP says is a tired, pointless cliche` and that she is empty, vapid, shallow and without substance, not to mention syntactically challenged.
    SP didn’t form the Tea Party. My take is that she co-opted them and her people at the local level are doing the same. The Tea Party, early on, was focused on spending and taxes and pretty much nothing else. SP talks that talk (okay, she mindlessly parrots that talk) but she tacks on her social/religious overlay. It will take a while to see if the tax/spend Tea Party gets swallowed by the social conservatives or whether they separate. Maybe in progressive corners, conservatives all look the same. I can’t fix that, but just as there are battles within the left, so there are battles within the right.

  93. Maybe in progressive corners, conservatives all look the same.
    Not really.
    The Tea Party, early on, was focused on spending and taxes and pretty much nothing else.
    McKinney, a sincere question here: is there a high-profile figure within the Tea Party who reflects what you see as the positive aspects? From the outside, it seems that people like Palin, Bachmann, and Christine O’Donnell increasingly represent the Tea Party to the world at large, and as you suggest, that means that hot-button social issues are going to suck up a lot of media oxygen and detract from what you see as the core message.
    If you had your druthers, who would you like to see as the public face of the TP? Who exemplifies what it really is (or should be) all about?

  94. McKinney, a sincere question here: is there a high-profile figure within the Tea Party who reflects what you see as the positive aspects?
    Not that I am aware of. My sense of the Tea Party, at the outset, was that it was a loosely organized group of people who were primarily concerned with the level of national debt, taxes and the burden on the private sector–concerns that I have as well. The weakness in the TP movement is that it had no leaders, and those few spokespeople who came forward couldn’t keep their other agendas to themselves. Lacking a leader, and politics abhorring a vacuum, SP filled the void.
    From the outside, it seems that people like Palin, Bachmann, and Christine O’Donnell increasingly represent the Tea Party to the world at large, and as you suggest, that means that hot-button social issues are going to suck up a lot of media oxygen and detract from what you see as the core message.
    I think Palin is now the Tea Party leader and Bachmann et al, having paid due homage, get to be second among equals. But, they can’t dance to any tune other than SP’s. Nor can anyone else. For the time being, she is a king/queen maker.
    If you had your druthers, who would you like to see as the public face of the TP? Who exemplifies what it really is (or should be) all about?
    Hard to say. My issues and the early Tea Party have overlap, but (1) I am not a ‘joiner’ and (2) people that loud put me off. So, I really can’t say who in that group I’d like to see lead it. Two people I think–heavy emphasis on the word think–reflect my take on things are Christie and Ryan; and I know only what I get bits and pieces of in the media. I don’t think there is a viable, authentic conservative on the national scene.
    The “should be” part of your question I take to ask: what should modern conservatism stand for, socially, economically and politically? Maybe one of our esteemed Headliners will raise that very question. Should that happen, I predict a lively discussion in which Phil, Catsy and I reach, finally, common ground.
    UK, thanks for the question. Wouldn’t mind kicking this around over a drink someday.

  95. I don’t think there is a viable, authentic conservative on the national scene.
    Well, if it’s any consolation, and at the risk of entering the No True Scotsman vortex, I would say pretty much the same thing about viable, authentic progressives (Glenn Beck’s loopy fever-dreams about Barack Obama notwithstanding). Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders aren’t exactly poised to take over the Democratic Party anytime soon.
    Just wondering, do you follow UK politics at all? Would the Tories, as currently constituted under Cameron, represent something closer to the kind of conservatism you espouse? From over here, they do, at least, seem blessedly free of the God-Guns-Gays foofaraw.
    I’m not a fan of “coming together” for its own sake, which is one of the things that drives me up the wall about Obama. Politics is adversarial by nature, and far too many people in this country treat that incontrovertible fact as some sort of tragedy. But I read Larison pretty regularly, and while I’d find precious little common ground with him on the role of government in domestic matters, I’m always impressed by his take on foreign policy, the military, and empire. Same with the libertarians at High Clearing.
    If modern conservatism looked a little more like that, I still wouldn’t be a fan…but I think it would make for a much healthier political discourse, which would be a good thing for all of us.

  96. Just wondering, do you follow UK politics at all? Would the Tories, as currently constituted under Cameron, represent something closer to the kind of conservatism you espouse?
    Not much but from what I’ve read, there seems to be a fair amount of common ground.
    From over here, they do, at least, seem blessedly free of the God-Guns-Gays foofaraw.
    I understand the reference. It is a common take on the left of a large portion of the American right’s rank and file. God, guns and gays are actually 3 separate issues that neither side has really taken the time to appreciate. The right needs to get out of the God business other than the traditional, ceremonial stuff. Firearms ownership is perceived by many as a right, a personal right. A right not unlike the right to marry. The God/Gay nexus runs counter to the gun theory. Gun rights supporters should support gay rights, including the right to marry.
    Politics is adversarial by nature, and far too many people in this country treat that incontrovertible fact as some sort of tragedy.
    Here, we’ve had nearly three decades of increasingly unproductive partisan rancor, or at least that is a perception many hold. A facet of that perception is that short term point scoring impedes if not prevents long term, useful policy making. I am in this camp. If we had productive, useful clashing, that would be different, but we don’t. Unfortunately.

  97. The right needs to get out of the God business other than the traditional, ceremonial stuff.
    Fat chance. Believe me, I’d love to see BOTH parties get out of the religion business completely, but as long as any portion of the American voting public is convinced that when/where/how often candidates for office go to church, or whether they even believe in a deity, is a qualifying factor, it’s never going to happen.
    People want candidates that “share their values,” and in America, that requires very public belief in a deity.
    Firearms ownership is perceived by many as a right, a personal right. A right not unlike the right to marry. The God/Gay nexus runs counter to the gun theory. Gun rights supporters should support gay rights, including the right to marry.
    It would be wonderful indeed to convince people of that, but chances are that if I know that you (the generic “you,” not you, McKinneyTX) have a very broad view of the Second Amendment, I already know your views on gay rights and religion, too. (And abortion, and women’s rights issues, and a host of other things.) Works the same way in reverse: If I know you oppose gay marriage, I know you probably have a broad view of the Second Amendment. (Yes, this works on the liberal side, too.)
    So what are generic conservatives doing to separate the three in the minds of voters?

  98. I don’t understand how anyone who is focused on taxes and spending can vote Republican unless they WANT more state level user fees etc that have the effect of shifting the cost of running government services down the income heirarchy and WANT increased deficits.
    Another anomally: Santorum thinks there is no right to privacy in the Constitution and that state governments can, if they choose, outlaw birth control. But he claims to be anti-big government. I don’t know what his thinking, if you can call it that, is on gun control.
    I know there is a lot of nonsense talked all over the political spectrum which is why I base my understanding of political parties’ philosophies on the policies the politicians support and the laws they enact, not what they say. With Republicans the discrepancy between what the polticians say and what they do is a Grand Canyon.
    AS a side note: an increasing number of state level Tea Partiers are pro-puppy mill. The link bertween the Tea Party the Repubican party and puppy mills is particularly blatant in Missouri.
    Where I live the Tea Party is mostly anti-immigrant and racist. I know this because I am acquainted with many local activists. They are very nice people in most ways, people that I like and respect for their work with dog rescue (our Tea party is not into puppy milling, thank god!), and it really makes me sad to hear them saying the stupid Beck and Faux stuff they say: telling anti-Muslim jokes, complaining about Obama supporting Mexico’s annnexationn of parts of Arizona, …I’ve more or less trained them not to say stuff like that around me, but…

  99. So what are generic conservatives doing to separate the three in the minds of voters?
    I make the case whenever and wherever I can, as pointless as that is in Texas given the captivation of the Republican Party by the family values crowd. I supported Bill White for governor. He got creamed.
    I don’t understand how anyone who is focused on taxes and spending can vote Republican unless they WANT more state level user fees etc that have the effect of shifting the cost of running government services down the income heirarchy and WANT increased deficits.
    Well, cause/effect and imputed desire/intent may make this a less than useful response, but my thinking and perhaps a few others is that it is better for the states to determine what level of social services it wants to provide and tax accordingly than pay the money to DC and hope to get some of it back. That is one part of the equation. Another is entitlements. I find the “SS/Medicare/Medicaid is going broke” evidence more compelling than the “it’s really only Medicare/Medicaid and if we can just hold down costs . . .” case. My view is that benefits/coverage have to be trimmed. There is only so much we can pull out of the private sector. Finally, there is defense. It’s time to come home, from Iraq, Afghanistan and Germany. Less so Japan and Korea. Until we work out and have a proven track record of compliance with a bilateral conventional and nuclear arms deal with the PRC, we have to keep our powder dry for that contingency.

  100. God, guns and gays are actually 3 separate issues that neither side has really taken the time to appreciate.
    I understand the distinction you’re drawing here, and it’s perfectly valid. (I personally do not read the 2nd Amendment as guaranteeing a personal right to gun ownership, but I also realize that I’m out on the lunatic fringe on that issue by US standards.)
    But I still think of GGG as a useful lumping-together of the kinds of emotionally fraught social issues that tend to distract attention from some really pressing stuff. I think you would agree with me that we’d all be better off with more discussion and debate of the boring nitty-gritty of (un)employment, tax policy, the budget, regulation, foreign and military policy, etc., and a little less of (paraphrasing here) “Barack Obama is going to take your gun away and give it to Black Panthers” or “The liberals want to make it illegal to believe in God” or “If two dudes get married, every straight marriage becomes meaningless.”
    To my mind, GGG is a useful heuristic because in each case you’re talking about people getting extremely exercised about imagined threats. When I see the histrionics of many social conservatives it’s just mystifying: No one’s going to take their guns away. No one’s going to tell them they can’t go to church. No one’s going to make them marry someone of their own gender (or even make them like the idea of other people doing it). But somebody may very well ship their jobs off to India tomorrow, which would have a far more immediate effect on their lives than any of the GGG stuff. Shouldn’t that be getting a little attention too?

  101. I think you would agree with me that we’d all be better off with more discussion and debate of the boring nitty-gritty of (un)employment, tax policy, the budget, regulation, foreign and military policy, etc., and a little less of (paraphrasing here) “Barack Obama is going to take your gun away and give it to Black Panthers” or “The liberals want to make it illegal to believe in God” or “If two dudes get married, every straight marriage becomes meaningless.”
    I agree completely.
    To my mind, GGG is a useful heuristic because in each case you’re talking about people getting extremely exercised about imagined threats.
    I would say the threats are incredibly remote but not imaginary in the literal sense–there is always enough chatter on the left about gun control to give the NRA a red flag to wave and there are always enough church/state separation lawsuits on hugely tangential matters as to supply plenty of grist that mill too. But, as you say, nothing of consequence is going to happen. And, actually, gay marriage is neither remote nor imaginary, it’s going to happen eventually. What people don’t realize is the impact on anyone but gay people who want to get married will be minimal to nonexistent.

  102. McK:

    The “should be” part of your question I take to ask: what should modern conservatism stand for, socially, economically and politically? Maybe one of our esteemed Headliners will raise that very question. Should that happen, I predict a lively discussion in which Phil, Catsy and I reach, finally, common ground.

    I don’t mind giving that a shot in brief.
    Some background: my father worked on Ford’s campaign, and he raised me. He proudly displayed a framed photo of himself with Reagan. Growing up, I lived in an apartment with lots of elephant motifs. Conservatism and the Republican Party, at their most idealized, are not alien to me. My father grew more liberal with age, while the rebellious leftism of my teens has mellowed with time, to the point where we’re both pretty much on the same page these days–but I grok the idealized form of conservatism that so many conservatives seem to think the Republican Party of today still represents.
    So what do I think conservatism and the GOP should stand for?
    1. Providing necessary checks and balances to liberal idealism–not with blanket obstructionism or knee-jerk opposition to anything that liberals say is a good idea, but tempering the liberal urge to do everything for everyone by asking the questions that need to be asked: how will we pay for this? Is there a simpler way to do this? Does it need to change? What are the risks in that change and how do they balance with the potential good? Conservatives should, in IT parlance, be a “Change Management” team: a complete pain in the ass if you’re someone trying to make the case for change, but a necessary process element that gives change a sanity check.
    2. Strengthening families–not by trying to use the government to control people’s sex lives or dictate what form those families must take, but by encouraging stable partnerships and supporting policies that help make it easier to keep a family healthy and intact.
    3. Responsible firearm ownership–which needs to begin by having a serious reckoning with the way our culture, and gun culture in specific, romanticizes and fetishizes guns and gun violence. We have gotten to a place with gun culture in America that is very sick, dysfunctional, and dangerous. It’s not just the ready availability of firearms–it’s the way that our culture reveres them as symbols of freedom and masculinity. The NRA should be leading the way on this kind of cultural change–instead, they are a huge part of the problem. Hollywood gets a fair share of blame for this too, but they’re in the business of selling entertainment. The NRA is ostensibly in the business of promoting responsible firearms ownership, and needs to start acting like it rather than as just another appendage of the Republican Party.
    4. Fiscal responsibility–which is not the same thing as “small government”. I’m not going to dig too deeply into this one; it’s a post all on its own.
    5. Dealing with science and reality as they are. Once upon a time, conservatives used to be the “grown-ups” in the room. The ones who were supposed to provide a reality check to all those pie-in-the-sky hippy ideas. How are they supposed to provide any kind of meaningful check on liberal idealism when the GOP is engaged in a campaign of anti-intellectualism, rejection of science, and a whole-hearted embrace of dishonest, bad faith argumentation?
    6. Reducing abortions and teenage pregnancy. Not with punitive criminalization and ignorance, or by undermining availability of contraceptives and family planning, but by embracing the only methods proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies (and thereby abortions): thorough, age-appropriate sex education, wide availability of contraceptives, and low-cost family planning services. Abstinence-only programs and social stigma have demonstrably failed to accomplish this–but rather than reevaluate their policy advocacy in the face of new evidence, most conservatives cling to those policies because the ones that do work are favored by liberals.
    That’s just a start.

  103. Catsy
    1. Agree, for the most part. Sometimes, if we can’t pay for a program with honest accounting and realistic projections, “no” is the correct answer. But, generally, I agree.
    2. I mostly agree, but I sense an unstated cost factor and perhaps issues with what the policies are that might strengthen families.
    3. The word ‘responsible’ is probably a consensus in theory but is loaded. Hollywood plays its role, so do these games people play with body count being the object. The real issue is the people we want to be responsible, by definition, are not. They are gang members, drug traffickers, lunatics etc. The vast, overwhelming number of firearms owners are outside this class.
    4. Another day then.
    5. Again, what is meant by this? You want young earthers to renounce? Not going to happen. You want people of faith to accept Big Bang and evolution as an improbable series of great good luck, chaos organizing itself into the world we live in and to accept that all of this happens without an external push of some kind? Why would anyone care what someone believes in this regard? Global warming? I know, the evidence is in, but we’re pretty cold down here in Houston, expecting snow for the second time in less than 5 years with no snow that I can recall for the previous 40 years. And, its pretty much been warming since the last ice age.
    6. I think the Republicans are closer to the majority view on this one than Democrats when it comes to legalization. As for the other items you mention, my default position is “local option” not national dictate. Abortions are down, these days, but I have no idea why.
    I think this is a good topic for its own thread.
    And then another thread where the same question is asked of liberalism.

  104. You want people of faith to accept Big Bang and evolution as an improbable series of great good luck, chaos organizing itself into the world we live in and to accept that all of this happens without an external push of some kind? Why would anyone care what someone believes in this regard?
    McKinney, I don’t think many people have a big problem with the belief that god may have had a hand in the big bang or evolution. What seems to be the issue with regard to these things is the total denial that they have a significant probability of being true, the dismissal of the scientific evidence supporting the theories, and the strength of the theoretical bases, piles of evidence aside. I’d say the same thing about climate change, though I don’t think there’s as much Hand of God at issue, and I’d say the evidence for climate change isn’t quite as strong as it is for evolution (which has been clearly witnessed in action in our lifetimes), but probably on par, speaking extremely generally and without a ton of confidence, with that for the big bang.
    The science is what it is, regardless of the potential involvement of a god.

  105. Almost two years in advance of the 2012 election, and we’re already worrying about who’s running, before they’ve even declared?
    Not. Playing.
    Or…it could be fun, worrying about just what chaos Jello Biafra might inflict on the national presidential debates.

  106. I know, the evidence is in, but we’re pretty cold down here in Houston, expecting snow for the second time in less than 5 years with no snow that I can recall for the previous 40 years. And, its pretty much been warming since the last ice age.
    How was your summer last year? And I like the “pretty much.” It’s been warming pretty much faster since the industrial revolution, though.

  107. You want young earthers to renounce? Not going to happen. You want people of faith to accept Big Bang and evolution as an improbable series of great good luck, chaos organizing itself into the world we live in and to accept that all of this happens without an external push of some kind? Why would anyone care what someone believes in this regard?

    With respect, the issue isn’t what you or some random other person believes. The issue is that Creationism is not science. It’s not testable or negatable. The problem is that some social conservatives want it taught in science class as an alternate, competing, just-as-likely-to-be-true theory as currently-accepted actual scientific theories.
    It’s the scientific equivalent of trying to sell a plastic Delorean model as a working time machine.

  108. Briefly, before I run out:

    Again, what is meant by this? You want young earthers to renounce? Not going to happen. You want people of faith to accept Big Bang and evolution as an improbable series of great good luck, chaos organizing itself into the world we live in and to accept that all of this happens without an external push of some kind? Why would anyone care what someone believes in this regard?

    And this is exactly what I’m talking about.
    There are places for faith. I think religion is, on the balance, a pretty toxic and malignant thing, but I recognize the things that drive many humans to seek it out, and that it’s not going away anytime soon. More to the point, I recognize that everyone has a right to seek spiritual fulfillment in their own way.
    But where faith and religion come into conflict with science and facts, public policy must come down on the side of reality rather than fantasy. Otherwise you put real lives, real people, and the integrity of the entire process at the whims of whatever magical space unicorn one person or another believes in. You cannot make good public policy that starts with a rejection of the legitimacy of science.
    Young-earthers are no different than flat-earthers, when it comes down to it: delusional people who believe in things that are demonstrably untrue, such as the ridiculous notion that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. The science that disproves young-earth creationism is no less established or rigorous than the rejection of flat-earthism–it’s just harder for the average person to grasp. But just because the science is hard for the average person to grasp doesn’t mean that their inability to grasp it has to be respected as a legitimate viewpoint. They have a right to their beliefs. But their beliefs are not a legitimate source of public policy, any more than is a belief in reincarnation or ancestor worship.
    I don’t expect these people to change their beliefs overnight. That’s not the context or the point here.
    The context is what conservatism–and by extension, the GOP–should be about. And in this context, the embrace of anti-intellectualism and rejection of science is one of the biggest cancers killing modern conservatism and what’s left of its credibility. If conservatives want to be the grown-ups in the room, if they want to have a respected role in the national conversation, they need to push the young-earth nonsense and other similar anti-science movements to the fringes of the party. We’re not talking about a debatable philosophical disagreement here–we are talking about the difference between dealing with reality and dealing with fantasy. It’s all well and good to say that there are lots of people who think this way and aren’t going to change–but they’re demonstrably wrong on the facts, and shouldn’t be allowed to inflict their fantasies on the rest of the country.
    If the GOP is unwilling or unable to push those voices to the fringes and start dealing with reality, then that really says a lot about the future of the party–none of it good.

    Global warming? I know, the evidence is in, but we’re pretty cold down here in Houston, expecting snow for the second time in less than 5 years with no snow that I can recall for the previous 40 years.

    Thank you. Case in point.
    You are conflating weather with climate. You’re simply wrong on the facts in a very basic way. I don’t know whether it’s misinformation, lack of education in climate science, or simply an inability to grasp the science. It doesn’t really matter: the upshot is that the doubt you just expressed based on how cold the weather’s been in Houston is not a reasonable doubt that is grounded in science or any relevant facts.
    You have a right to your opinions, and to be ignorantly skeptical of anthropogenic global climate change because you had a cold winter. But your opinions shouldn’t form the basis for public policy.

  109. Seriously: there are just endless questions that cannot, and will not, be answered by any young-Earth creationist cant.
    At least, not in any scientific way. Satan put that 2000-foot-thick layer of dead crinoid (animal) parts under a mile and a half of other rock isn’t a remotely scientific explanation.
    If your religion doesn’t seem to correspond to reality, something has to change. For me, I just decided that there was something of faith that I didn’t understand properly, but what there was to see out in the world cannot be denied. That way lies insanity.

  110. Global warming? I know, the evidence is in, but we’re pretty cold down here in Houston
    C’mon, McKinney — you’re smarter than that.

  111. You are conflating weather with climate. You’re simply wrong on the facts in a very basic way. I don’t know whether it’s misinformation, lack of education in climate science, or simply an inability to grasp the science. It doesn’t really matter: the upshot is that the doubt you just expressed based on how cold the weather’s been in Houston is not a reasonable doubt that is grounded in science or any relevant facts.
    You have a right to your opinions, and to be ignorantly skeptical of anthropogenic global climate change because you had a cold winter. But your opinions shouldn’t form the basis for public policy.

    Perhaps equating weather with climate change is a bad idea, but I hear proponents of climate change do it all of the time. And, they point to warming trends here and there as evidence of climate change f/k/a global warming. And, of course, computer projections. I have no problem with the idea the planet is warming. I am a history/archeology fan and sea levels have been rising for ten thousand years. With no real harm to the human species. Just the opposite. I also have no problem with the notion that human beings contribute to global warming. Where I part company with the “science” is when I hear the prescriptions for accommodating what looks like, we are told, a sure thing.

  112. C’mon, McKinney — you’re smarter than that.

    I’ve been swayed by intelligent counterargument, but I think I can say with certainty that the above, which translates roughly to “quit being a dumbass”, has never had much traction with me.

  113. Or possibly it translates as “this is stupid even for you”. Whatever it’s intended to mean, it could be an exemplar for supercilious.

  114. Whatever it’s intended to mean
    It’s intended to mean that MKT knows full well the difference between weather and climate, but chose to throw that little pearl out there anyway, for reasons known only to him. When someone who likes to present himself as an intelligent, reasonable, independent-thinking conservative coughs up a hairball worthy of Sean Hannity, it’s disappointing. Hence my reaction.
    The fact that his response when called on it was an evidence-free “But the other side does it all the time!” doesn’t exactly reflect well on him either.

  115. It’s intended to mean that MKT knows full well the difference between weather and climate, but chose to throw that little pearl out there anyway, for reasons known only to him. When someone who likes to present himself as an intelligent, reasonable, independent-thinking conservative coughs up a hairball worthy of Sean Hannity, it’s disappointing. Hence my reaction.
    There is another explanation: I am not conversant in the jargon of global warming/climate change and I was not consciously aware that the difference between the two is so significant, largely because much what I hear about global warming comes from hearing people point out current examples of warming. So my use of the nomenclature may lack precision. I accept that the world is getting warmer and that human beings play a role. I just don’t accept the apocalyptic scenarios and proposals for meeting these problems, if, in fact, that is what they are going to be. The fact of global warming may be established science; what this world will look like in 100 years is a forecast, a prediction.

  116. There is another explanation: I am not conversant in the jargon of global warming/climate change and I was not consciously aware that the difference between the two is so significant, largely because much what I hear about global warming comes from hearing people point out current examples of warming.
    OK, then I withdraw the charge. I’m not entirely sure what you mean by people pointing out “current examples of warming” — if it’s something like “Arctic sea ice melted at its fastest rate ever last year,” that’s current, but it’s climatic, and it’s a hell of a long way from extrapolating from the weather in one location at one given time.
    If there are people out there saying things like “It’s been so hot [here, in this one location] this summer, it must be global warming!” — well, they’re guilty of the same error. But I really don’t see a lot of people saying that on national TV, whereas “It’s snowing in Atlanta — in your face, Al Gore!” has become a Fox News staple.

  117. With no real harm to the human species.
    McKinney, “the human species” is a vastly different thing now than it used to be. Maybe sea levels have been rising for 10,000 years. But for about 9,800 of those years, there just were not very many members of the human species around to be inconvenienced, and the inconvenience of abandoning mud huts to an encroaching shoreline was not catastrophic. Things are different now.
    In Mark Twain’s riverboat days, the Mississippi tended to wander hither and yon as it meandered toward the Gulf. Quite often, it would cut its banks, shortening itself by tens of miles as it abandoned one of its big, lazy loops. A whole town, built on the former “shoreline” of the loop, would find itself landlocked and impoverished. It would have been small comfort to tell the town’s inhabitants that the river had been doing that sort of thing for 10,000 years.
    The Mississippi River got along fine without “the human species”; so did the planet Earth. Changes in the river’s bed or the planet’s climate (or even the shape and location of its continents) never bothered anybody when there was nobody around to be bothered. But we are here now, and changes that used to bother nobody would be a major inconvenience nowadays.
    –TP

  118. If there are people out there saying things like “It’s been so hot [here, in this one location] this summer, it must be global warming!” — well, they’re …
    … probably Australians, South Africans, or Argentines 🙂
    –TP

  119. I’ve been swayed by intelligent counterargument, but I think I can say with certainty that the above, which translates roughly to “quit being a dumbass”, has never had much traction with me.
    Er, at the risk of being contrary, you yourself have made that argument when I have linked to or mentioned Sadly, No! here. Perhaps you’ve simply outgrown it?

  120. The context is what conservatism–and by extension, the GOP–should be about. And in this context, the embrace of anti-intellectualism and rejection of science is one of the biggest cancers killing modern conservatism and what’s left of its credibility. If conservatives want to be the grown-ups in the room, if they want to have a respected role in the national conversation, they need to push the young-earth nonsense and other similar anti-science movements to the fringes of the party.
    Indeed, following the “creationism” tag at Bad Astronomy or Pharyngula or any of dozens of other science blogs shows how deeply entwined the current GOP is with young-earth creationism to the extent of constantly trying to get it enshrined in schools despite court after court after court finding it to be an Establishment Clause violation. The only conclusion to be drawn is that the current GOP has as a goal that your children be raised stupid.
    (To pre-empt the inevitable, I don’t like it any more from the left than I do from the right. The left has more than its share of anti-science woo-woo, the most recent and damaging of which has been the antivaxxers, although that’s less a phenomenon of “the left” generally than uninformed paranoia exacerbated by some bad apples. But, as with SO many of these phenomena, the people in policy-making positions who hold these kinds of damaging beliefs tend to be conservatives.)

  121. “Well, cause/effect and imputed desire/intent may make this a less than useful”
    It isn’t imputed desire to say that national level Repubicans want to increase the deficit. It’s what they do whenever they have a majority and it is what Grover Norquist mewant when he talked about drowning the government in the bathtube. Norquist didn’t have an office in Congress and Monday morning meetins with Congresional Republicans for years just to talk to himself.

  122. “any more than is a belief in reincarnation or ancestor worship.”
    Catsy,
    Some great points here but I am struggling with the clear scientific proof against reincarnation. Not to mention that I am not sure that ancestor worship has a lot of negative public policy consequences.
    Nor that our current level of understanding of our world or universe is any less likely to be considered a “whim of whatever magical space unicorn one person or another believes in” a thousand years from now.
    I am sure that religion and science rarely conflict on any meaningful public policy decision, unless you want to count the never ending discussion of the beginning of life, in which case science isn’t any better at guessing than religion.
    Teaching two conflicting belief systems, or ten, shouldn’t be such a big problem for anyone who thinks they are raising intelligent children.

  123. Some great points here but I am struggling with the clear scientific proof against reincarnation.
    This is not how science works. Absent any actual evidence for reincarnation, science is not obliged to offer anything at all.
    Nor that our current level of understanding of our world or universe is any less likely to be considered a “whim of whatever magical space unicorn one person or another believes in” a thousand years from now.
    That’s right, the Large Hadron Collider and animism and Christianity are all just, like, facets of the same thing, maaaaaaaan. (does bong hit)
    I am sure that religion and science rarely conflict on any meaningful public policy decision
    Really?
    Teaching two conflicting belief systems, or ten, shouldn’t be such a big problem for anyone who thinks they are raising intelligent children.
    Exactly what “conflicting belief systems” aside from biology should be taught in high school biology classes?

  124. “That’s right, the Large Hadron Collider and animism and Christianity are all just, like, facets of the same thing, maaaaaaaan. (does bong hit)”
    I can imagine someone 500 years from now saying exactly that, but then I liked Star Wars when it first came out.

  125. Yes, well, we don’t live 500 years from now, we live today. And today, we deal with what we know about the Universe, which includes several centuries of accumulated knowledge in physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, anthropology and history, and none of which is compatible with young earth creationism.
    Still: Exactly what “conflicting belief systems” aside from biology should be taught in high school biology classes?

  126. Because, I mean, your statement about “teaching conflicting belief systems” and, hey, kids are smart! they can handle it! . . . is the kind of statement that you probably believe makes you sound reasonable and sophisticated, but instead is the kind of thing that gives cover to the “Teach the controversy!” crowd.

  127. Teaching two conflicting belief systems, or ten, shouldn’t be such a big problem for anyone who thinks they are raising intelligent children.
    Does the phlogiston theory count as one of the “conflicting belief systems, or ten”? How about alchemy, or astrology?
    The often execrable George Will once wrote something I agree with: education is the process of putting ideas into children’s heads, not letting ideas out of them.
    It takes TIME to get ideas into children’s heads. In the US especially, school time is limited. So teachers do not have the luxury of recapitulating all the false turns and blind alleys that humanity’s slow but cumulative acquisition of “ideas” has taken; they have enough to do just getting the bottom line across. They tell little Johnny or Suzie that F=ma because that’s the “idea” that PHYSICISTS have settled on as the best working hypothesis. They don’t have time to waste explaining Aristotelian physics, and leading a class discussion in which they ask Johnny or Suzie to evaluate Newton’s and Aristotle’s “conflicting belief systems”.
    The working hypothesis of BIOLOGISTS — not biology teachers, but biologists — is evolution by natural selection. Little Johnny and Suzie can take all the time they want, at home or at church, to learn about other hypotheses. Their biology teachers have their hands full just getting the bottom line ideas of biologists into Johnny and Suzie’s heads.
    –TP

  128. Phil,
    I don’t “think” it makes me sound reasonable, sophisticated is another thing altogether. But after raising four kids, with a few grandkids in middle school, they pretty much sift through it and figure out what they make of it.
    Why is there a “Teach the Controversy” crowd versus just teaching that millions of people believe these two conflicting things and millions believe they are somehow not in conflict and pretty much everyone decides for themselves?

  129. “They don’t have time to waste explaining Aristotelian physics, and leading a class discussion in which they ask Johnny or Suzie to evaluate Newton’s and Aristotle’s “conflicting belief systems”.”
    Except that they do in fact do that. You do know they both exist right?

  130. Science is not a belief system. Science is a methodology. Teaching science should not be about teaching the ‘facts’ that we have deduced from the practice of science. It should be about applying the methodology of science to appropriate objects of study.
    It’s perfectly okay for a HS science teacher to believe that human biology is the result of divine intervention based on his or her religious teachings. It is not okay to try to dress those beliefs up in the guise of scientific knowledge when the scientific method points to other conclusions. It’s also perfectly fine for that teacher to say that he or she puts more personal stock in the revealed knowledge of his or her religion in this matter rather than in the best conclusions based on science. Just don’t conflate the two and stick to teaching the thing you are paid to teach. It’s not that hard.
    If a teacher wants to teach something other than science s/he should probably look for some job other than being a science teacher.

  131. I’m ok with all that nous. Pretty much word for word.
    There are places around the edges, maybe even outside science class that it would be fine to note that the big bang theory isn’t exactly proven, that what existed before the big bang and what actually caused the big bang and, oh well, as many questions as we think we have answered are unanswered.
    People who think we have THE answers from science rely on just as much faith as those who think we have THE answers from religion. Almost everything we KNEW from science 500? – 1000? years ago is no longer true. It is an article of faith that that won’t happen again. Or hubris.

  132. Science done right considers the possiblility that it is wrong. Evidence can point in one direction for a time, until new evidence turns that which is thought to be most likely to a new direction. But the best we can figure at any point in time remains the best we can figure until something else comes along. Sometimes the new doesn’t destroy the old, but makes clearer the limitations of the old, a la Einstein and Newton. That really has nothing to do with making stuff up without evidence.
    Why is it that people who reject science want to dress up their faith-based beliefs as science? If you have faith, you don’t really need science to support your beliefs. And you’re free to believe what you like. But if it’s not science, don’t pretend it is. Science is about evidence, not faith. Science allows for doubt. Faith does not.
    One thing that always jumps out at me with regard to faith as opposed to science is the arbitrary specificity of faith-based beliefs. That’s why I like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, what with all those noodley appendages.

  133. Almost everything we KNEW from science 500? – 1000? years ago is no longer true. It is an article of faith that that won’t happen again. Or hubris.
    Nearly every scientist I know — and yes, I am friends with actual scientists — would happily admit that we have not achieved the sum of knowledge and that everything we know about the universe is always provisional and subject to disproof. How many people would say the same about their religious beliefs?
    it would be fine to note that the big bang theory isn’t exactly proven,
    Uhhh . . . so far nearly every testable hypothesis that’s been made about it has been confirmed. That’s pretty close to “proven” in the world of science.
    that what existed before the big bang and what actually caused the big bang and, oh well, as many questions as we think we have answered are unanswered.
    Who thinks we have those two questions answered? Again, scientists will say that those questions are not only unanswered, but in all likelihood unanswerable.
    Why is there a “Teach the Controversy” crowd
    Because there is a well-organized group of mendacious, evil people out there attempting to undermine high school science education, that’s why.
    versus just teaching that millions of people believe these two conflicting things and millions believe they are somehow not in conflict and pretty much everyone decides for themselves?
    So you DO think high schools should teach something other than biology in biology class. Good to know.
    Also, the two specific things at issue ARE in conflict, and I suspect you know it but get some satisfaction out of appearing to be a mediator of some sort.

  134. Science is not a belief system. Science is a methodology. Teaching science should not be about teaching the ‘facts’ that we have deduced from the practice of science. It should be about applying the methodology of science to appropriate objects of study.

    ^
    |
    This

  135. Its one of the ugly sides of social progressivism that anyone who might not agree on every issue somehow gets tarred with the brush that they think single parents, gay couples, etc. aren’t “family”.

    Marty, in the same sentence you’re objecting to the notion that “anyone who might not agree on every issue somehow gets tarred with the brush,” while doing the same thing yourself.”
    Gary, your lack of paying attention and just attacking me at random is getting tiresome. The above is a rewordered quote that I, of course knew was too broad because it was a restatement of McK’s too broad sentence in the comment right above it, which was the point. Pay attention.

  136. It’s also perfectly fine for that teacher to say that he or she puts more personal stock in the revealed knowledge of his or her religion in this matter rather than in the best conclusions based on science. Just don’t conflate the two and stick to teaching the thing you are paid to teach. It’s not that hard.
    As a product of a Catholic education from grades 1 through 12, I heartily agree. A lot about that education was less than ideal, to say the least, but there was never the slightest suggestion that what we were taught about evolution in biology class somehow clashed with or canceled out what we were taught in religion class. It was simply never an issue.
    It’s not a question of “science vs. faith.” It’s a question of science vs. fundamentalism.

  137. I also have no problem with the notion that human beings contribute to global warming. Where I part company with the “science” is when I hear the prescriptions for accommodating what looks like, we are told, a sure thing.
    I get very frustrated with this argument (which I hear a lot), because it’s as if all of the myriad other negative externalities of our dependence on fossil fuels are suddenly forgotten. If AGW isn’t a “sure thing,” we might as well just blithely go on exactly as we’ve been doing.
    Wouldn’t a more conservative approach to the question be to err on the side of caution? And even if AGW turns out not be such a “sure thing,” but it spurs us to move away from our dependence on inherently finite fossil fuels and towards cleaner, renewable sources of energy…honestly, what could possibly be the harm in that? No more of those awesome oil spills, smog alerts, and strip-mined mountains?

  138. Again I have to defend phlogiston against being thrown it in with non/pseudoscience.
    Phlogiston in my view is the textbook example of how a ‘wrong’ (not just incomplete) theory can nonetheless be very valuable to the scientific progress. As a working model it led to numerous discoveries that formed the basis for chemistry as we know it today.
    Therefore phlogiston has in my opinion a rightful place in science class.
    Alchemy on the other hand led to progress in practical things but was, if taken seriously, never a science but something between philosophy and religion. Better tools were a by-product (some religious movements improved furniture etc. but the religion was not primarily about the holy chair).
    I think it was Pauli who said that there are three types of theories: right, wrong and not even wrong.

  139. Timely! Marty’s right, nothing to see here, no conflict, no sir:

    An unsettling Penn State University study published last week indicates that one of of eight biology (biology!) teachers reject evolution. Thirteen percent of 926 participants in the National Survey of High School Biology Teachers said they openly taught creationism or its kissing cousin intelligent design in the classroom.
    Equally disturbing is the fact that 60 percent of biology teachers said they don’t teach much about evolution at all out of fear of offending religiously fundamentalist students and their families. From LiveScience:
    Only 28 percent of high school biology teachers followed the National Research Council and National Academy of Sciences recommendations on teaching evolution, which include citing evidence that evolution occurred and teaching evolution thematically, as a link between various biology topics.
    As one Michigan biology teacher infuriatingly told researchers, ”I don’t teach the theory of evolution in my life science classes, nor do I teach the Big Bang Theory in my [E]arth [S]cience classes… We do not have time to do something that is at best poor science.”

  140. I get very frustrated with this argument (which I hear a lot), because it’s as if all of the myriad other negative externalities of our dependence on fossil fuels are suddenly forgotten. If AGW isn’t a “sure thing,” we might as well just blithely go on exactly as we’ve been doing.
    Ok, I agree up to a point. Would it be better for a lot of reasons to use cleaner, more renewable fuel? Sure, for a lot of reasons. Do we put industrial policy in the hands of the UN or Congress or whatever to regulate and ration the right to used fossil fuels? No. Does the West forswear fossil fuels while India, the PRC, Russia et al continue as they are? No. Still, I am fine with cleaning up our own act. Were I king for a day, we’d start building nukes like crazy, financed by the feds and with a mortgage, interest repayments etc, i.e. an actual asset on the fed books that pays a return.
    On the religion/science thing, I agree fully and then some that the Bible is not a science text and does not offer an alternative, scientific or even factual description of the formation of the universe and our place in it. The Bible has no place in a science class. A Republican candidate who made such a statement likely would not survive the primary.
    What science can’t explain satisfactorily, i.e in fairly plain language, demonstrating cause/effect, etc. include: what preceded Big Bang, how does an entire universe (or multiple universes) fit inside a small marble, why does that marble blow up, how and why did the ensuing chaos order itself, what are the odds of the universal constants sorting themselves out and informing the direction of the universe down to life on earth, the formation of, first, recombinant DNA and then the formation of that first simple cell that turns out to have the code for every form of life on earth locked in its DNA, the evidence for plant to animal evolution, how did modern human beings evolve from a population so small we can barely find a trace of it when the evolutionary model calls for natural selection among a large population, how did homo sapiens sapiens evolve at such a rapid rate (100,000 years or less, as best I can tell) given the time spans over which our predecessors languished and explain the tool kit change 40,000 years ago (sure, the theory is it was cultural, but that is just a guess and what was the cultural change anyway?).
    Plausible assumptions, theories and scenarios have been constructed that are consistent with and offer explanations of these events, but they are still assumptions/scenarios/theories, not fact-based, proven propositions. What I hear often when I raise these questions is along the lines of: look, the big picture is so well established, so widely known to be true that we know in time that the answers to these other questions will be revealed. Simply because we don’t know the answers today, doesn’t mean we won’t eventually discover them.
    Maybe I’m talking to the wrong people. Maybe the answers to my questions are right here.

  141. Yes, but Phil, the real unreported scandal is the extent to which the agents of scientific methodology have infiltrated and intimidated churches and Sunday school classes.
    Someone loves their family, and that someone doesn’t live in Cleveland, but that’s all I’m saying, and I dare Sebastian to infer anything more (Sebastian is rarely in the mood for jokes, which is why I’ve stopped joking. But I still act funny, not ha-ha funny, but some other funny)
    I detect no dumbassery in this thread, with the exception of whatever contribution I bring to the table.
    I agree with Slart that Dumbassedness is not a legitimate field of scientific inquiry and, in fact, I wish the Obwiariot as represented in this discussion thread would be provided a wider venue so that OBWI smart folks of various persuasions could show the culture how these questions should be discussed.
    I wish the reasonable gentleman MCK-T would forgo his law practice and get himself a seat on the Texas State Board of Education. Which, come to think of it (sometimes I can’t help joking) might be an upside for all of us of returning to the 91% high bracket of the 1950s.)
    We don’t have a media show in this country of any importance which might feature MckT and Uncle Kvetch, for example, exploring issues.
    Now, if the two of them could cage-fight, maybe they could each find an agent.
    Alas, the value of the rich vein of Dumbassedness in this culture is not determined in the peer reviewed journals but rather by the free market, or via political election, which is why none of us here get paid for our commentary.
    The professional Dumbasses command the big salaries and increasingly the corner offices in the Statehouses and the House of Representatives.
    What is written at OBWI has no value because the market has spoken:
    http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/02/03/prince-of-tides/
    The answer to these big questions, as someone cracked on another comment thread, is the Tides Foundation, which rules both wave motion and the Egyptian Revolution.
    By some odd math that perhaps Slart can explain to me, the more the denominator is lowered in our market calculus, the higher the tax bracket. And the more the tax brackets are lowered, the larger the supply of Dumbassedness.
    Audience share, which OBWI does not possess, says those are facts.

  142. Do we put industrial policy in the hands of the UN or Congress or whatever to regulate and ration the right to used fossil fuels? No.
    ?!?!
    Of course Congress regulates the use of fossil fuels (I don’t know what the word “right” is doing in there but I find it really bizarre, so let’s just set it to one side for now). Gasoline taxes, fuel efficiency standards, energy efficiency standards for buildings and appliances…and on the other side, of course, the fossil fuel industry is highly subsidized in all kinds of ways…
    You’re not seriously arguing that the fossil fuels industries are or should be completely free of regulation, are you?
    Or maybe you’re arguing that energy policy should be set like it was back in the previous decade, by Dick Cheney and the CEOs of the oil and coal producers in a closed meeting, and Congress (and the press, the American people) should just butt out?
    Plausible assumptions, theories and scenarios have been constructed that are consistent with and offer explanations of these events, but they are still assumptions/scenarios/theories, not fact-based, proven propositions.
    Yes. And any science teacher worth their salt is already teaching them as such. I have no idea what you’re driving at here.

  143. People who think we will eventually answer every question through science are wrong, and are not thinking scientifically. Every answer leads to more questions. The more we come to know, the more we come to need to know. Each worm in the can is a can of worms.
    People who think science is about absolute certainty are also not thinking scientifically. They are confusing an attempt to be as certain as possible with actual certainty. Some things are so well established that they can be said to be as certain as anything can be (gravity), which, without getting too epistemic or ontological, is less than absolutely certain, given the limitations of knowledge itself.
    Science is about doubt. That’s why it requires evidence, observation, data and logic, rather than faith.

  144. McKinney, in scientific methodology, everything aside from actual, observable facts about the world — e.g., water freezes at 32F, the speed of light in a vacuum is 186,000 miles/second, the inverse square law, arachnids have 8 legs — is either a hypothesis or a theory. Hypotheses need to be tested; theories have attained the level of provisional proof, pending additional evidence and investigation.
    Evolution is a theory. So is the Big Bang. So is gravity. So is stellar evolution.
    We don’t have answers to a lot of the things you question above. (We do have answers to a lot of them, too.) But we do have ways of getting to answers, or at least deciding how we’d go about finding them.
    To take just one: how does an entire universe (or multiple universes) fit inside a small marble. Gravity alone is sufficient to explain how a neutron star is able to be only 12km in radius, yet weigh twice as much as our own sun. (And yet we don’t even understand how gravity works yet!) This suggests that this question is, at least, an answerable one: Gravity, one of the four basic forces (that we know of) can create small objects of unimaginable density. It’s a great starting point! And there are almost certainly physicist doing work in the field right now!
    Similarly, why does that marble blow up may be an answerable question. We know that matter is energy and energy is matter. (Thanks, e=mc2.) We know that even tiny amounts of matter contain enormous amounts of energy. We know that the interactions of the basic forces under certain conditions of pressure, temperature and volume can result in some surprising reactions. So that provides starting points for answering that question.
    Gravity seems like an immensely powerful force — and it is! — and yet, despite the fact that it can accelerate you to more than 100mph when you fall off a tall building, the electromagnetic force will stop you instantly when you hit the ground. At the quantum level, these forces interact in really, really weird ways that may ultimately prove to either be unexplainable, or can’t be explained in “n fairly plain language.” Like I said, we can explain in plain language what gravity does, and describe mathematically how it behaves, but we don’t know what it is.
    All of which is prelude to saying that lists of questions posed like yours is is often a lead to a “God of the Gaps” argument, which isn’t a good way of approaching these questions at all. A question like “how did modern human beings evolve from a population so small we can barely find a trace of it when the evolutionary model calls for natural selection among a large population” . . . to what “small population” are you referring? Modern humans? Our closest ancestors?
    (Dawkins has a good chapter on this in his book Why Evolution Is True in which he starts with a modern rabbit, and starts going backwards through generation after generation looking at its parents, and their parents, and so on. You start getting to animals which look a little less like what we think of us “a rabbit” but which were undeniably the succeeding animal’s parents, until millions of years ago, you have an animal which looks almost nothing like “a rabbit,” but which unquestionably birthed an animal which would parent the next one, and the next one, and the next one, until we get to something that is “a rabbit.” We can get beings that are incrementally closer to what we have today without an instant speciation event.)

  145. Or maybe you’re arguing that energy policy should be set like it was back in the previous decade, by Dick Cheney and the CEOs of the oil and coal producers in a closed meeting, and Congress (and the press, the American people) should just butt out?
    Don’t worry, Darrel Issa is working on that for you.

  146. We don’t have a media show in this country of any importance which might feature MckT and Uncle Kvetch, for example, exploring issues.
    Well, there’s that Bloggingheads thingy, but unfortunately I’ve never watched one because the whole idea strikes me — perhaps wrongly — as really silly.
    Now, if the two of them could cage-fight, maybe they could each find an agent.
    I’m a lover, not a fighter. No cage fights. How about some competitive drinking?

  147. Actually, I highly recommend the Dawkins book I referenced above, except it’s called The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. (Why Evolution Is True is Jerry Coyne.) It provides a great layman-oriented, high-level view of the evidence for all we know about the evolution of life on Earth. Some of it I had never heard before, but is really amazing, like the Belyaev fox domestication experiments in which silver foxes were bred for obedience and domestication, and against all expectation, they started to both look and act like domesticated dogs, including increased vocalization, rounded ears, curled tails and collie-like markings.

  148. “A Republican candidate who made such a statement likely would not survive the primary.”
    Quick, someone advise Republican candidates of this new benchmark.

  149. “I’m a lover, not a fighter. No cage fights. How about some competitive drinking?”
    Uncle Kvetch, from what I’ve gleaned here, MckT has the scientific evidence (repeated blood samples) that show his mastery at competitive drinking.
    My heart is with you, but I think MckT will kick a8s.
    “Science is about doubt.”
    Well then, science is done in the land of the fave and the home of the certain.

  150. I used the phrase “industrial policy” and by that I meant a regime, which through direct rule making or indirectly by imposing user fees, that rations who can use fossil fuels, when, how much and for what purpose. This is a general description. Cap and trade would fall within this general description, even though it may achieve its ends through means other than those enumerated.
    Phil, thanks. That was interesting.
    to what “small population” are you referring? Modern humans? Our closest ancestors?
    My take on human evolutionary thinking is that modern humans evolved in Africa from a small group of pre-modern humans. A very small group. The predecessor of this group is unclear to me. There is minimal to no fossil or tool evidence of this group. I am fairly sure no one holds that we descend from neanderthal. That leaves erectus (ergaster and heidelbergensis are in the mix but disputed) as our straight line ancestor but a very limited archeological record that ought to parallel, but doesn’t, neanderthal’s foot print, which is fairly extensive. You can find dates for homo sapiens beginning 100k or even 40k or 50K years ago. What is missing is the fossil record to document HSS’ immediate or even 2d or 3d removed direct line ancestors. Because the basic theory of evolution holds that mutation and natural selection, over time, cause a specie to evolve, usually favorably, and it takes a large population to accomplish this result, you would expect a very large archeological record of HSS’ predecessors, given our complexity and the many evolutionary sub developments it would take to get from erectus to HSS, yet that record is not there. More the opposite, really.

  151. what preceded Big Bang

    This question doesn’t really make sense. spacetime itself didn’t exist prior to the Big Bang. No spacetime; no time.
    The only possible observer, to assess passage of time, would be God. The only way to find out, then, would be to ask God.
    There are other possibilities, too: like, if there was another universe that could somehow observe this one, but the time passage recorded would be on their timescale, which may not even map linearly onto the timescale of our early universe.
    I don’t think the current cosmological theories preclude the existence of God; they just sort of point to that perhaps Genesis doesn’t mean exactly what we think it means.
    Which is convenient, I agree.
    Also: I might have been misreading McK, but it seemed that he was making the classic mistake of mixing discussions of cosmology with those of abiogenesis. The two are in fact quite distinct, and flaws in one don’t necessarily condemn the other.

  152. This question doesn’t really make sense. spacetime itself didn’t exist prior to the Big Bang. No spacetime; no time.
    I’ve heard that. The marble existed in nothing and was everything? How do we know that? Is that demonstrable or assumed?
    but it seemed that he was making the classic mistake of mixing discussions of cosmology with those of abiogenesis.
    In order to make that mistake, I would have to know more about this stuff than I do. Really, what I do is read the popular stuff on Big Bang and evolution and ask questions. If you are saying that cosmology (origin and formation of the universe) is a different question from the formation of life in terms of what happened and why, I agree. But that marble held, inter alia, the stuff of life.
    That said: Phil, I just went to Amazon and bought both books. To be continued . . .

  153. McKinney, do you have a source for your assertions about the (pre-)human fossil record? (snark-free, serious question)

  154. I used the phrase “industrial policy” and by that I meant a regime, which through direct rule making or indirectly by imposing user fees, that rations who can use fossil fuels, when, how much and for what purpose. This is a general description. Cap and trade would fall within this general description, even though it may achieve its ends through means other than those enumerated.
    I see. I’m not entirely clear on what would qualitatively distinguish such a regime from the collection of taxes, subsidies and regulations we have now. It seems to me that cap & trade would represent a difference in degree, but not in kind, from current policy. But I’m not all that up on the intricacies. Besides, based on what I do know, I’d probably prefer a carbon tax to C&T anyway.
    Beefeater martini, on the wet side,* up with a twist. Skoal.
    *That’s assuming good vermouth: Noilly-Prat or nothing.

  155. Is that demonstrable or assumed?
    It’s somewhere in between. That particular viewpoint has a theoretical basis and some supporting evidence, but has yet to find laboratory verification, or a laboratory suitable for such.
    If god created the universe and there was nothing before he did so, where did he come from? If it was all (i.e. life, the universe) too perfect not to have happened without a designer, why wouldn’t the same hold for the designer? Who designed the designer? And so on…
    Creation ex nihilo is a conundrum, at least for our limited minds.

  156. Agh.
    My ideal martini: 4-inch(ish) long twist of lemon with oils expressed on the inside of a glass that’s been dunked in liquid nitrogen (or just very, very cold); leave the twist, pour cold-unto-treacliness(?) Tanqueray 10 until the glass is just short of in danger of sloshing some over the side.
    While doing this, have a bottle of vermouth in the next room; no closer.
    Consume while still cold enough to force tardigrades into hibernation.

  157. You can shake the gin over ice, I suppose. If it’s cold enough, though, that’s not necessary.
    That’s how I like it.

  158. Beefeater martini, on the wet side,* up with a twist. Skoal.
    *That’s assuming good vermouth: Noilly-Prat or nothing.

    Ok, so some ground rules: equal amounts of spirits followed by some kind of nonviolent, minimally physical contest. I am a Vitamin V guy when not hitting the red wine.

  159. “Or just freeze the damn Tanqueray and sip it from the bottle, oh, was that my out loud voice?”
    Phil,
    Please note that sophisticated is rarely whata I am accused of, or shoot for.

  160. Or just pour a good vodka over ice, swirl to chill thoroughly, and sip. Best with a blue stilton and crackers, but holds up well with beef grilled rare.
    Now this is creationism I can get on board with . . .

  161. McKinney, do you have a source for your assertions about the (pre-)human fossil record?
    It’s hard to prove a negative, i.e. the absence of a record.
    Here is one example if you google “human evolution”: http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/species.htm.
    What I am hoping to find, inter alia, in the books Phil recommended is a quantification of the fossil record going back 500K years or so, specifically: how much of a particular specimen, identified as which specie, was found where and what are the date ranges?
    We have ample evidence of neanderthal, and plenty of evidence of modern man along with good evidence of erectus. The rest is sketchy, at least that I’ve seen reported. Also, another interesting thing is the tool kit stays stable across specie, i.e. the hand ax appears to have been used by erectus and neanderthal virtually unchanged. Again, that is my take on what I’ve read, not an assertion of fact.

  162. What’s all this martini nonsense? I like a good dirty martini every now and then, but can’t we all just drink single malt like gentlemen?
    Which reminds me, this year I am a participant in the Winking Lizard World Beer Tour, in which I attempt to try 100 different beers over the next 12 months. I’ve already made some good discoveries, including this delightful concoction.

  163. By the way, in “the Last Question”, there is the following:

    They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.

    (see? I’m fully on topic! 🙂

  164. I had a big ol’ thing typed up about certainty and doubt and the scientific method, but HSH just rendered most of it moot. Well done, sir.
    What I will add is this:
    For something like the flatness of the planet, we can rely on our own senses: we can see its curvature when we’re high enough in the air, and we’ve all seen hundreds of photographs of our homeworld from space that date to before it was possible to convincingly fake them. You can explain orbital mechanics and the theory (yes, as HSH eloquently illustrated, it’s still only a theory!) of gravity to someone, but ultimately what makes the flat-earthers an eye-rollingly fringe group is that even those who cannot grasp the science can trust their own eyes.
    Most areas of science aren’t so cut-and dried, and cannot be proven by direct observation in a way that will satisfy a layman skeptic who doesn’t trust scientific methodology in the first place. That doesn’t mean they are any less scientifically sound, or that we should use a responsible level of uncertainty in the conclusions as an excuse to dismiss the entire body of evidence.
    The point of all this is that if we intend to wait until there is 100% certainty about the causes, nature, and scope of climate change, and 100% agreement among scientists about such–in other words, until these things are proven to the satisfaction of layman skeptics with the same level of certainty as the roundness of the earth–we will never take action until it is too late, if even then.
    At some point you have to look at the body of evidence and say, “we can’t be certain–but we’re certain enough when you consider the consequences of inaction.”
    There is a line of argument popular among some born-again Christians: the notion that even though Man cannot prove whether or not the Bible is right, do you want to reject God and risk eternal damnation if you’re wrong? The message in this is that the permanent consequences of going to hell are so dire that it’s not worth taking the chance of being wrong.
    While the premises underlying this argument are weak, the logic is sound: some outcomes are so dire that it’s foolish to risk those outcomes by inaction in the face of uncertainty: at some point the body of evidence needs to be enough to say, “we can’t take the chance.” This line of thinking underlies countless aspects of our national security. Why should it not inform our actions that affect the future viability of life on this planet?

  165. My younger brother has been in the Peninsula Winking Lizard on a number of occasions. I’ve been there on only one occasion; they do have a rather nice selection of fermented barley products.

  166. There is a line of argument popular among some born-again Christians: the notion that even though Man cannot prove whether or not the Bible is right, do you want to reject God and risk eternal damnation if you’re wrong?
    First formulated by a Catholic, but one who was about as close to born-again as Catholics ever get.

  167. Ok, so some ground rules: equal amounts of spirits followed by some kind of nonviolent, minimally physical contest.
    Hmmm. I stink at darts. I think it should be structured like “the talent portion of our competition,” as they used to say at the Miss America pageant (maybe they still do)…that way we can each play to our strengths. I’ll take either classical singing, electric bass (give me a couple of weeks to practice and I can play London Calling [the album, not the song] note-for-note), or conjugation of irregular French verbs. Over to you.
    My ideal martini: 4-inch(ish) long twist of lemon with oils expressed on the inside of a glass that’s been dunked in liquid nitrogen (or just very, very cold); leave the twist, pour cold-unto-treacliness(?) Tanqueray 10 until the glass is just short of in danger of sloshing some over the side.
    I love the idea of a liquid-nitrogen-frosted glass. Gotta try that. I’ve never had Tanqueray 10. After Beefeater I like Bombay Sapphire quite a bit too, but our “everyday” gin is New Amsterdam…almost as good as Beefie but much more affordable.
    Totally with you on the importance of coldness; it can’t be overstated.
    While doing this, have a bottle of vermouth in the next room; no closer.
    Nope, sorry, you lost me. I never grokked that whole fetishization of dryness, although it does make for some great one-liners (Churchill’s “Turn towards France and whistle the Marseillaise,” for instance). Vermouth is intrinsic to the drink for me. But then I’m someone who can enjoy a nice vermouth on the rocks, all by its lonesome. “Say yes,” sang the mighty Burt Bacharach all those years ago, and who are we to argue?
    I like a good dirty martini every now and then, but can’t we all just drink single malt like gentlemen?
    Well, of course we can! What the hell is there to do when the gin runs out?

  168. Phil, why does it take a full year to try only 100 different kinds of beer?
    Oh, they give you a year, but I won’t need it. Frankly with the week I’ve had I could get about 70% there tonight.

  169. Over to you.
    Well, I’m screwed. Can’t sing, dance, play an instrument. I am awful at darts as well. Billiards/pool? Gin rummy? More drinking? First one to pee?
    Frankly with the week I’ve had I could get about 70% there tonight.
    Understood. I had that week last week. Hope it works out.

  170. I’d have to go with table suffleboard on a sufficiently long table. Drinking and playing that game has a cosmological effect – it makes the sun come up during what should still be the middle of the night. It also makes wives angry. I mean, how is it my fault that the sun came up before I got home? I don’t control the sun.

  171. I’ve never had Tanqueray 10. After Beefeater I like Bombay Sapphire quite a bit too

    I’ve had Bombay Sapphire, too. It’s my second-favorite gin. Tanqueray 10 is everything a gin should be, while being some other things that one hadn’t, through lack of imagination, yet thought a gin should be.
    But it’s fairly dear. Sapphire is an acceptable fallback.
    Re: single malts, well, the ones I like most tend to be hard on the wallet. For a sure thing, I’d tend to go Ardbeg. But I’m an earthy sort.
    For reference, Tanqueray 10 goes for under $55 a handle, while an acceptable single-malt (Bunnahabhain or Ardbeg) are more like $43-$48 per 750 ml. Sapphire is $33 a handle, which is more my speed.
    None of which is really all that germane to me at present, because I’ve left off drinking for the most part.

  172. Cool. We’ll have to discuss it at happy hour once I’ve completed my austerity regime for fiscal recovery. I’m going to be sitting on a bag of lentils for a few more weeks.

  173. Late to the party, but I just had an epiphany on this “science is just a kind of faith” idea that keeps popping up.
    “Science” tells me that alcohol is made of molecules. I have never seen a molecule. Oh, I’ve seen models of molecules, and drawings of molecules, but then I have seen statues of angels and icons of saints, too.
    So I have to concede that “science” is as much a matter of “faith” for me as “religion” is to some people. Astronomers, paleontologists, biologists, chemists, physicists have all written things that I have read and believe. But I can hardly claim to have personally tested their theories. That alcohol is made of molecules is something I take “on faith” in quite the same way as somebody takes it “on faith” that Christ turned molecules of water into molecules of wine at Canaa: we both “know” what we “know” because we read it in a book.
    My point is not to defend my preferred sort of “faith” against the other kind. I am only saying that, as a non-scientist, I have to concede this: if you define “faith” broadly enough, then my belief in “science” is indeed a matter of “faith”.
    –TP

  174. “Science is magic that works”.
    The internets tell me that this is a quote from Cat’s Cradle and I seem to recall it’s so.
    and what is the 3rd hit? Moe Lane!
    I may never have seen an alcohol molecule, but I know how to make them. And their effect when consumed.
    Even we scientifically minded types have to take some things on faith. Do I have the skill (or the time) to build the instruments that I could use to measure the speed of light for myself? Or any other basic physical constant? No.

  175. I have to concede this: if you define “faith” broadly enough, then my belief in “science” is indeed a matter of “faith”.

    You can reduce almost any two things to a level of generality that they are comparable in some way.
    The problem is that in defining “faith” broadly enough to encompass science as a kind of faith, you’ve redefined the word into meaninglessness. At that level of reduction, anything that you believe to be true is a matter of faith.
    That’s not what faith actually means, though. Faith is belief in the absence of evidence. We cannot observe molecules with the naked eye, but even without molecular photography the existence of molecules has been accepted science for a century now.
    A better (and fairly topical) analogy would be the existence of extrasolar planets. We cannot directly observe them. We can’t prove to a layman that they exist. But we know they do, to a high degree of certainty. Why? Because among other things, we can observe the change in magnitude when a distant star is occluded at regular intervals by an object in orbit around it.
    You could say that for a layman to accept these things–for someone who does not, for example, grasp the complexities of astronomy and orbital mechanics–it requires a certain amount of faith in science that they themselves do not understand. But this is faith only in the colloquial usage of the term: it would be more accurate to say that such a person trusts science–or more accurately, they trust the methods by which good science is done. They trust it because it has a centuries-long established track record of delivering trustworthy, concrete, measurable results that they can see with their own eyes every time they start their car, use their phone, or merely exist in a house that has electricity and does not collapse in a strong wind.
    Earned trust and blind faith are not the same thing.

  176. Not just that, but if you consume enough alcohol molecules, you can see them. Well, I don’t really know this. It’s just my hypothesis. Time to test it!

  177. “Earned trust and blind faith are not the same thing.”
    Faith is in fact not belief in the absence of evidence. People of faith find evidence all around them.
    However, it is belief in the absence of a repeatable methodology, or proof. Yes, molecules exist, we can see them, their existence can be proven. They are different in that way.
    There are places in science where the hypothesis becomes unproven, or unprovable, where I believe the conclusions become a matter of faith and thus bad science.
    An example only:
    I think the direst predictions of the climate change scientists fall into this category. I am onboard all the way up to the end of the world in 30 years scenarios. We need to have an active, aggressive cultural change program.
    BUT, I don’t believe it has to be completed “tomorrow” anymore than I believe 2012 is “end of days”. In both cases I could be wrong, but in both cases I am being asked to believe it on faith.

  178. Not just that, but if you consume enough alcohol molecules, you can see them. Well, I don’t really know this. It’s just my hypothesis. Time to test it!
    I have conducted extensive tests, and my finding is that if you consume enough alcohol molecules, you can see pretty much anything.
    Admittedly my tests were conducted under not very controlled conditions.
    Not controlled at all, come to think of it.

  179. I think the direst predictions of the climate change scientists fall into this category.
    But those predictions are among a number of possibilities presented. They predict various scenarios with various degrees of confidence or various likelihoods. Climate scientists don’t say, “I predict this particular scenario with certainty. It will happen.” They might say they’re quite sure about something very general, like average global temperatures or sea levels continuing to rise, without specifying rates, allowing for a wide range of more specific scenarios. But the more specific you get, the less confidence there is. And for all the scenarios at a given level of specificity, some will be considered more likely than others. It ain’t Jesus.

  180. HSH: And at some point you have to take stock of all the different outcomes and their probabilities, weigh the total likelihood of a bad outcome, and ask whether or not we’re okay with taking the risk of doing nothing just because we’re not quite sure which flavor of “really bad” is more likely.
    When the overwhelming majority of the planet’s scientists who have the most experience with climate science disagree only on which flavor of “really bad” we are likely to get, we are far past the point where “do nothing” is a responsible position to take.

  181. Iirc the Braggs, who developed the methods (x-ray diffraction) that allowed to ‘prove’ for the first time the material existence of atoms (as opposed to just using atoms as the best hypothesis/theoretical model to describe certain phenomena) did not accept their own results as proof because it was still indirect. That is, they showed what one would expect if atoms were real but did not show the atoms themselves. To use a hypersimplified analogy: If one fires a shotgun several times into a dark room and later finds that the holes in the wall leave a silhouette of a human being then a reasonable assumption would be that there was something human-shaped in the way of the pellets. The positivists would claim that in absence of a body this would not be a sufficient proof (there are indeed possibilities that can do without a pellet catcher in the path even if they are quite silly).

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