BF2S Forums Rick Perry, Republican Presidential candidate

FEOS wrote:

The EPA is a particularly sensitive topic in TX right now. In San Antonio, we've met EPA clean air standards year after year. So what do they do? They raise the standard to a level where an ozone sensor placed in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico wouldn't be able to pass...forcing expensive inspections and other regulation, despite our area meeting or exceeding EPA clean air standards every year.

Jay wrote:

Shocking wrote:

He makes sense and for that some of the ultra conservative repubs ostracize him....

Well, those ultra conservatives are anti-science because people like AR like to use evolution as a club to attack their religious beliefs It's part of the backlash.

Ty wrote:

I'd say renting out a stadium for a Christian prayer session to pray about the problems facing the nation shows where his head is at though. Bush went into Iraq because God told him it'd be a good idea, a sentiment echoed by Sarah Palin. Don't tell me these people don't let religion get into their politics.

Ty wrote:

1) Fuck knows why Bush ordered the Iraq invasion, For Oil? For Saddam? For weapons of Mass Destruction? To get Al Qaeda? Revenge? Spreading Democracy? Fact remains that Bush stated that he believed the Iraq war was a mission from God as did Sarah Palin. Although in credit to Bush he did also say that he wasn't using God as a means to justify the war which is kind of a contradiction but whatever, for him I'll take it as a positive.

2) The rally, or whatever it was, was organised and headed by Perry as a political figure. Clearly we have two different opinions on what separation of church and state actually entails and in my opinion it means more than just financially separated.

FEOS wrote:

Creationism was not a litmus test for the position.

Richard Dawkins wrote:

There are many reasons to vote against Rick Perry. His fatuous stance on the teaching of evolution in schools is perhaps not the first reason that springs to mind. But maybe it is the most telling litmus test of the other reasons...

So every now and then, liberals are treated to a big self-righteous laugh at the expense of some backwoods Christian conservative candidate who "ignores science" by doubting evolution or global warming—or, gasp, both.

Much, for instance, has been made of Texas Gov. Rick Perry's recent suggestion that evolution is a "theory that's out there" with "gaps in it." He even insinuated that evolution and creationism should both be taught in schools—because folks are "smart enough to figure out which one is right."

Sanctimony to red alert!

Now, I have no interest in watching my kids waste their time with creationism, but unlike progressives, I have no interest in dictating what other kids should learn. Remember that these folks, bothered by the very thought of their offspring's hearing a God-infused concept in school, have no problem forcing millions of parents to accept bureaucrat-written curricula at government-run school monopolies. They oppose home schooling. They oppose school choice. They oppose parents choosing a religious education with their tax dollars.

As a voter, like me, you may find Perry's view on creationism disconcerting and a sign of an unsophisticated candidate. But the fact is that the progressives' faith-based devotion to government is far more consequential than Perry's faith-based position on evolution.

Despite the rare political dispute, in the real world, science—real science—is rarely controversial. It's politicized science that is prickly. And science is easy to politicize. Maybe if schools began teaching students that "life" begins at conception and that each zygote, embryo, and fetus is a unique human being in some early stage of development just waiting to be born, liberals would see the point.

No, my kids haven't been chewing over Charles Darwin text or the Holy Bible in elementary school. There's simply no time. Not with global warming out there.

Perry, not surprisingly, was also recently asked about "global warming." He responded that "the issue has been politicized" and that pouring billions of dollars into "a scientific theory that has not been proven and ... is more and more being put into question" is not worthwhile.

It is interesting watching the nation's defenders of reason, empirical evidence, and science fail to display a hint of skepticism over the transparently political "science" of global warming. Rarely are scientists so certain in predicting the future. Yet this is a special case. It is also curious that these supposed champions of Darwin don't believe that human beings—or nature—have the ability to adapt to changing climate.

Like 99 percent of pundits and politicians, though, I have no business chiming in on the science of climate change—though my kids' teachers sure are experts. Needless to say, there is a spectacular array of viewpoints on this issue. The answers are far from settled. There are debates over how much humans contribute. There are debates over how much warming we're seeing. There are debates over many things.

But even if one believed the most terrifying projections of global warming alarmist "science," it certainly doesn't mean one has to support the anti-capitalist technocracy to fix it. And try as some may to conflate the two, global warming policy is not "science." The left sees civilization's salvation in a massive Luddite undertaking that inhibits technological growth by turning back the clock, undoing footprints, forcing technology that doesn't exist, banning products that do, and badgering consumers who have not adhered to the plan through all kinds of punishment. Yet there is no real science that has shown that any of it makes a whit of difference.

So no doubt, it is reasonable for voters to query presidential candidates about their views on faith, religion, God, Darwin, and science. It matters. Sometimes, though, it matters less than they'd like you to think it does.

rdx-fx wrote:

FEOS wrote:

1. The "God" reference WRT Iraq has been overdone. If you look at what was actually said, in context, it's harmless.

2. It's true that no one in elected office is ever "not on the job." However, nobody squawks when the President makes a public show of going to church or speaking at a memorial service and invoking God there...and he's clearly doing it as the President, with a political message. Not a word about those situations. But because Perry speaks at a evangelical assembly, it's horrible...violates separation of church and state, even though the governor's office wasn't involved, nor was the state, in any way (unlike the presidential example). I think people just have a problem with the nature of the gathering (evangelical), not that a politician was involved publicly with religion. "'Cuz those evangelicals is crazy!"

When a Republican mentions their beliefs, the liberals go apeshit critical.
When a Muslim mentions their beliefs, the liberals get all "have to respect their culture and beliefs!"

Cognitive dissonance, or hypocrisy?

Ty wrote:

Yeah but RAIMUS you're missing the main difference. While one side admits that there are things we don't know and strives to understand these the other side shrugs and says "well since we don't know - a wizard did it." One side embraces the unknown and explores it, the other covers themselves in a blanket of willful ignorance and closes its ears. This is the 21st Century, we don't have to live in the stupid ages any more.

It's an attitude more than a result that's the important factor here. You may say 'neither side has conclusively proven much of anything' on the creation of the universe but it's clear that at least one side eventually might while the other hasn't got any closer in the past 2000 years and wont in the future either.

Stingray24 wrote:

Ty wrote:

Yeah but RAIMUS you're missing the main difference. While one side admits that there are things we don't know and strives to understand these the other side shrugs and says "well since we don't know - a wizard did it." One side embraces the unknown and explores it, the other covers themselves in a blanket of willful ignorance and closes its ears. This is the 21st Century, we don't have to live in the stupid ages any more.

It's an attitude more than a result that's the important factor here. You may say 'neither side has conclusively proven much of anything' on the creation of the universe but it's clear that at least one side eventually might while the other hasn't got any closer in the past 2000 years and wont in the future either.

Disagree with their conclusions if you like, but stating that only one side is seeking discovery is simply false.  There is also a hybrid position between the two opposing views which is that God made matter, then set evolution in motion with the big bang.  Neither side will ever prove scientifically that their view of our origins occurred.