John Huntsman came out and admitted he actually believes in Evolution and Anthropogenic Global Warming, thereby eliminating any chance of being nominated by the Republican Party. Huntsman said he actually trusts the vast majority of scientists. Hunts man said: "This is an issue that ought to be answered by the scientific community; I'm not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we'd listen to them. I respect science and the professionals behind the science so I tend to think its better left to the science community – though we can debate what that means for the energy and transportation sectors."
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/huntsma...Normally people expect everyone to agree with the facts and to trust the experts when they are making decisions that effect people's lives and the fate of the world, but tain't so for the Tea Party.
The radicals in the Tea Party and the evangelical community are driving the debate in this country, and all of the presidential candidates need their votes, so they are all competing with each other to win their votes by declaring how crazy they are. It is a lot like a shark feeding frenzy without much thinking going on.
The Tea Party has yet to determine which of the candidates are ideologically pure enough to support. Apparently Michelle Bachman isn't crazy enough, so Rick Perry entered the fray and declared that he doesn't believe in Global Warming or Evolution. Of course all of the other Tea Party candidates share this disbelief, but haven't been crazy enough to say it outright, while the establishment candidate Romney, is rational enough to believe the facts, but also smart enough to pretend not to.
There is a whole plethora of beliefs that every Republican candidate must advocate with conviction, or they will loose that critical Tea Party Evangelical vote. The debate is not about whether the Republican Dogma is true or not, it is about faith in the dogma, and who is the best at proselytizing .
Because the Democrats have no real liberals left that are willing to challenge Obama, no one in the country is challenging anything the extreme right wing is saying, and in the media feeding frenzy the invective and the craziness just keeps getting more extreme.
Liberals and conservatives may talk to each other, but they rarely understand each other, because their world views, their basic framework that they use to understand how the world works, are diametrically opposed.
As a liberal I think that my world view is evidence and fact based, and I rely on the best evidence, the best science, and the experts to guide me in areas that I don't really understand.
Tea Party conservatives distrust, science, they distrust the experts, and they distrust facts, preferring to believe the ideological nonsense fed to them by Fox news and hate radio.
Here are a few of the myths that are Republican dogma that is going unchallenged.
1. Keynesian economics and the stimulus did not work.
In fact the stimulus created 2.4 million jobs and kept us from going into a depression. The stimulus was not large enough and too much went to tax cuts instead of things that would create jobs, and the banks refused to ease lending, but the economy behaved just as Keynes predicted.
http://www.beezernotes.com/wordpress/?p=...If you look at graphs of growth in the economy and the stimulus money spent, you see that the economy grew (slowly but surly) until the stimulus money was gone. Now with no stimulus money left, with austerity programs kicking in, and the public sector loosing jobs, the economy has slowed down, and unemployment will get worse.
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr...2. We have a spending problem not a revenue problem.
We have been spending a lot in the past dozen years because we were attacked and started two wars, and doubled military spending, but we refused to pay for this, borrowing instead. On top of that we gave huge tax breaks to the rich which brought revenues down. Then the economic meltdown and recession further reduced revenues, and necessitated spending to end the recession.
We now have the lowest taxes in 60 years and 95% of America is in a depression, while the other 5% lives high on the hog. This averages out to a slow recovery but most Americans know that only the rich are doing well, while infrastructure is crumbling and the nation is in decline.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/05...http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/?p=45823. Taxes Kill Jobs
The theory is that tax cuts create jobs and taxes kill jobs, but the history shows the opposite. Clinton raised taxes and created 40 million jobs. Bush cut taxes and created none. The truth is that if tax cuts are targeted to small businesses they may create jobs and if enough tax cuts can be given to the poor and middle class they may spend more and stimulate the economy, but tax cuts to the rich have little stimulative effect, because they just save it, and most tax cuts to corporations go to the big international conglomerates, who just take the money and move the business overseas.
http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/2010...In fact 2/3rds of corporations pay no taxes.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/1...The rich only pay 17% taxes.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/irs-hig...So it is refreshing to hear of One Republican politician that lives in the world of reality, and trusts the scientists and experts. We already saw what happens when ideology overrides rationality when Bush crashed the economy. Now the crazies are pushing the same failed policies and myths.
I only hope more will join and base their policies on the real world, and that they will also listen to the expert economists who are telling us that this is not the time for austerity. Borrowing has never been so inexpensive, so now we should create Jobs, rebuild our infrastructure and invest in the future, and if we are to balance the budget we need to do it when we are recovering, cut the military spending and reverse the tax cuts to the rich that caused the debt. If the economy grows the deficit will shrink because more workers will be paying taxes and less will be dependent on government services.