The news is unbelievable this week.
In Delaware, Christine O’Donnell, a GOP candidate running against Democrat Chris Coons, stated that the Constitution of the United States does not call for a separation of Church and State! Despite gasps from a shocked audience of law students, O’Donnell stuck to her guns. Indeed, she seemed proud of her blatant ignorance of the First Amendment.
In Bizarroville, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virgina, told Anita Hill it was time to apologize to her husband for accusing him of sexual harassment. Mrs. Thomas called Professor Hill’s office and left this message:
Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.
In Indiana, Democratic Representative Barron P. Hill was booed when he said that global warming was real and caused by human activity. According to a Tea Party activist in the audience, global warming is
a flat-out lie… I read my Bible…(God) made this earth for us to utilize.”
Like many Americans, this voting citizen bases his opinions on his reading of the Bible as well as Rush Limbaugh and other vociferous deniers of facts like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.
Clearly these people just need to be educated. Everyone knows that the truth will set us free. Except, it won’t. Because when confronted with the truth, people will just dig in their heels and refuse to acknowledge anything that contradicts what they already believe. That was the finding of a University of Michigan study conducted a few years back. The study clearly showed that facts that undermine our already existing world view will not change that world view, but rather force us to cling ever more tightly to it. This phenomenon, known as “backfire,” is a “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”
So there is no point in getting people the facts. They won’t believe you anyway. There was one hopeful piece of information from the Michigan study, however. What people need is a hug, not facts. The researchers found that the better people felt about themselves, the more likely they were to accept information that was inconsistent with their world views. In other words, if you told the idiots screaming out that there’s no global warming that they were in fact “good people” and that you “care about them,” they might be more likely to listen to facts and not just “facts.” So perhaps Anita Hill should just give Ginny Thomas a big hug and say “The very fact that you are still married to your husband, a real creep and I should know, means that you are loyal and dedicated.” And perhaps the number of reasonable candidates running against Tea Party wing-nuts can just reach out and hug their opponents and say “You may be as ignorant of the U.S. Constitution as anyone on this earth, but you are not a bad person.”
Because unless we can all agree on some basic facts, like global warming is happening and the Constitution does indeed call for a separation of Church and State, we have to stop believing in this little experiment called democracy. Democracy requires a well-informed citizenry. And a well-informed citizenry apparently requires feeling like we’re not bad people. So instead of presenting the facts during this election season, may I suggest we all just go around hugging one another and reminding each other that American voters may be ignorant fools who have the facts all wrong, but they’re not bad people.
38 Responses to Never Mind the Facts
robertswh - October 21, 2010 at 1:21 pm
WRT Ms. O’Donnell, it might be worth reading the Washington Post’s (corrected) story at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101902501.html
nordicexpat - October 21, 2010 at 2:10 pm
To be honest, I am not sure what O’Donnell was thinking. At first, I was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt: she was objecting to the claim that the words “separation of church and state” are in the First Amendment. And, of course, she is right. However, if you go to 7:16 of the video, she asks, “That’s in the First Amendment?” when Coons talks about “establishment” clause. Either way, she isn’t very articulate about her position, and I wish that, if she really was making a distinction between the establishment clause and the separation of church and state, she went on and defined what that difference is.
She sounds like someone who is half-remembering something she read somewhere, rather than someone who has thought about the issues.
That being said, I think most people do not readily accept facts that change their world view. And calling people ignorant fools isn’t really going to help the liberal cause much. Liberals have never known what to do with populism on the right, and their class prejudices become apparent in their responses to it.
goxewu - October 21, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Can somebody help me out here?
I went to the WashPost story where it states that Ms. O’Donnell said, “So you’re telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase ‘separation of church and state,’ is in the First Amendment?”
If Ms. O’Donnell did indeed say, “…the phrase ‘separation of church and state,” she’s technically right, because that exact phrase, “separation of church and state,” is NOT in the First Amendment.
To check, I tried to play the WashPost’s video link, which wouldn’t work. So then I went to YouTube.com, where I found both a long (8 mins.) excerpt containing the “separation of church and state” exchange, and a short (29 secs.) clip of same. In neither one does Ms. O’Donnell say the two exculpatory words, “the phrase.” But the short clip ends abruptly, right at the point where she might have said it (though it’s syntactically unlikely), and the long excerpt–through which I simply surfed until I found the exchange–might have contained a previous, similar exchange. But it’s very unlikely, since the two versions are, as far as I can tell, are identical in inflection, pauses, etc.
My tentative conclusion is that Ms. O’Donnell is guilty as charged; she didn’t know that the CONCEPT OF “separation of church and state” [emphasis mine] is in the First Amendment. My tentative question now is: Why and how did the WashPost reporter, Ben Evans, insert the potentially crucial “the phrase” in quoting Ms. O’Donnell?
wjohnson15 - October 22, 2010 at 6:02 am
That phrase separation…. isn’t in there although others have pointed out that Jefferson clarified in letters afterwards. So she isn’t a historian she’s a witch! Burn the witch! Dumb is smart! Smart is dumb!
doug1943 - October 22, 2010 at 7:30 am
Perhaps the argument would be more well defined if we asked the following question: did the men who wrote the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, believe that prayer in state-supported schools should not be allowed? Or did their “non-establishment of religion” clause refer to something else?
eelalien - October 22, 2010 at 8:22 am
“Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”
Thomas Gray, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” (1742).
Truer words have rarely been as appropriate to the times, as well as the society, currently embracing the sentiment.
doug1943 - October 22, 2010 at 9:20 am
No one likes to hear ugly facts that slay his most cherished views. And this applies right across the political spectrum, and equally across the IQ spectrum, even unto the very fringes: study the response of Noam Chomsky to stories that the gallant revolutionaries of the Khmer Rouge might be, um, genocidal maniacs.
lsimpson33 - October 22, 2010 at 9:49 am
Read the Treaty of Tripoli. Enough said
goxewu - October 22, 2010 at 10:09 am
Re doug1943′s first comment:
Although the first public school in the United States was founded in 1635 (it’s what is now the Boston Latin School*), for about 50 years after the Revolution, American children were schooled at home, if at all. Thomas Jefferson proposed a tax-supported public school system, but there were no takers. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century that public schools as a system of education began, and not until about 1850 that any state laws were passed requiring children to attend school.
So the question, “Did the men who wrote the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, believe that prayer in state-supported schools should not be allowed?” is absurd. The men who wrote the Constitution didn’t believe or not believe that prayer in state supported should be allowed because there weren’t any state-supported schools in which to allow or not allow it.
* Boston Latin didn’t admit female students until c. 1970. Women were another thing that “the men who wrote the Constitution” didn’t think much about.
22221103 - October 22, 2010 at 10:19 am
I can answer doug1943 who asks “Perhaps the argument would be more well defined if we asked the following question: did the men who wrote the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, believe that prayer in state-supported schools should not be allowed? Or did their “non-establishment of religion” clause refer to something else?” The answer is the founding fathers did not want the federal government establishing one religion as the state religion. That was what they fled from in England and other european countries who had one religion as the official religion. They were not saying that you could not freely express your religion in the public, at work, or even in the government. If they acatually believed that they never would have had prayrer open congress every day like they have done for over 200 years.
They were not saying you couldn’t point up to God after scoring a touchdown or huddle with others and pray on the field, or sing a song about your faith in school, or a teacher share his/her faith with a student, or a city display a nativity scene on public property. Over the two centuries, the liberal left has slowly aroded away at what the founding fathers meant with the establishment clause.
drj50 - October 22, 2010 at 10:35 am
Some distinctions need to be made re. church and state — distinctions that are too often missed in these discussions.
“Establishment” was a technical term referring to the designation of a particular denomination as the official state religion and supporting that denomination with tax receipts. We do not have anything like that. Displaying seasonal religious symbols in a public park at private expense is hardly the same as taxes used to maintain church buildings and pay ministers’ salaries (as has been the case with “established” churches in Europe). We as a nation may decide that we do not want such displays, but they are not what the framers of the Constitution were talking about.
The founding fathers clearly were not opposed to inclusion of some sort of shared (lowest common denominator) religious language in government documents — see the Declaration’s references to “Nature’s God,” “their Creator,” and “reliance on the protection of Divine Providence” — all understood within a generally Judeo-Christian context (that would have included the Unitarians among them). We live in a broader religious (and non-religious) context that may call for a different approach, but we should be careful to distinguish our preferences from what the founders actually said and did.
Too often in recent years, the first amendment has been understood to mean that policy debates should not include religious viewpoints because of the “separation of church” and state. But the use of “church” in this context refers to financial support and official recognition of a specific denomination, not to the expression of religious points of view.
@lsimpson33: the complex history of the relationship between religion and government, even in the lifetimes of the founders, means the that Treaty of Tripoli settles very little.
mavprof - October 22, 2010 at 10:43 am
On O’Donnell’s amateurish lapse–perhaps in response to Coons’s robotic repetitions of the phrase “separation of church and state” (words, as mentioned, not in the text of the document)–I think nordicexpat’s got it right, in spite of goxewu’s “guilty as charged” verdict. Later in the debate when O’Donnell asked Coons to name the five freedoms identified in the First Amendment (religion, speech, press, assembly, petition), Coons could only come up with one–you guessed it–”separation of church and state,” and then appealed to the moderator to intervene.
jffoster - October 22, 2010 at 11:00 am
Quoth Nordicexpat:
” Liberals have never known what to do with populism on the right, and their class prejudices become apparent in their responses to it.”
Indeed. Thank you, Nordicexpat.
goxewu - October 22, 2010 at 11:27 am
The “Constitution” consists, in a practical sense, of the document itself, all the still-binding court decisions concerning laws whose constitutionality has been challenged, and all laws on the books whose constitutionality might conceivably be challenged but hasn’t been.
There is always a tension among what the text of the Constitution says, what its authors might or might not have “really meant,” and two hundred years of court decisions interpreting the document in radically changed social and political circumstances. The 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, for instance, would probably be incomprehensible to the Constitution’s framers: Those 3/5ths persons free and going to school? The schools paid for by taxpayers? The Americans with Disabilities Act would probably be likewise a mystery to the framers, as would the concept of the Federal Government regulation something called “airwaves.” And so on.
And re mavprof:
My “guilty as charged” verdict does not apply to the question of whether or not Ms. O’Donnell is a general ignoramus, but only to the question of whether or not she knew at the time of the debate that the CONCEPT OF the separation of church and state indeed has a First Amendment basis. From the tapes, it’s pretty clear that she didn’t.
I’m still interested, though, in why a reporter from the Washington Post, a newspaper considered notoriously liberal by the right, would insert two exculpatory words than Ms. O’Donnell didn’t utter into his crucial quotation from her.
mavprof - October 22, 2010 at 11:29 am
drj50 makes several important distinctions between “separation of church and state” and non-establishment with regard to the founders’ and contemporary understandings of the First Amendment that seem to elude Ms Essig’s hasty condemnation of Ms O’Donnell’s “blatant ignorance of the First Amendment.”
While Ms Essig’s posting has yielded some interesting and thoughtful comments, it’s hard to ignore the preening condescension and acerbic sarcasm in her message as she juxtaposes her self-righteous dominion of “facts” (read: assertions that beg for informative and argumentative development) with the childish phantasmagoras of “idiots screaming,” denizens of “Bizarroville,” “Tea Party wing-nuts,” “ignorant fools,” and “vociferous deniers of facts.” Save the hugs, but perhaps a dash of humility might help persuade . . .?
22221103 - October 22, 2010 at 11:31 am
Is it true the Mr. Coons could not come up with the five freedoms included in the first amendment? If so, I’m not hearing much about that in the liberal press or blogs. Ms O’Donnell asked Mr. Coons what the five freedoms were and he could only come up with “separation of church and state” which is actually not one of the five freedoms.
22221103 - October 22, 2010 at 11:46 am
goxewu – The 3/5ths persons was a supreme court decision, the Dred Scott decision – not in the consitution. An example of the supreme court getting the constitution wrong.
lexalexander - October 22, 2010 at 12:02 pm
[[Quoth Nordicexpat:
” Liberals have never known what to do with populism on the right, and their class prejudices become apparent in their responses to it.”]]
’cause all liberals are 1) in the same class, even if you don’t specify which class that is, and 2) prejudiced against other classes.
Yeah.
Sure.
Right.
innocentpasserby - October 22, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Article 1, Section 2: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
I agree, too, with lexalexander. To assume that considering (or even calling) someone an “ignoramus” or an “idiot” reveals a class bias seems instead to reveal a pretty strong class bias of its own. There is nothing in such terms of opprobrium to suggest a class position unless you yourself assume that only certain classes are ignorant.
sand6432 - October 22, 2010 at 12:45 pm
This mostly intelligent discussion has pointed out the complexities involved here about just what “the separation of church and state” means and how it relates to the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers’ intentions, and subsequent court interpretations of the Establishment Clause. By no means does it follow, as Laurie Essig so blithely assumes, that “the Constitution does indeed call for a separation of Church and State” in any simple way. Her own lack of understanding is as much on display here as Christine O’Donnell’s. She would do well to bone up on the now massive literature on this controversial topic. A good place to start might be: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZMXI_jqypaMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Patrick+garry,+Wrestling+with+God&source=bl&ots=LH4SwzGQE0&sig=3Sqb1T0fU3fAK-w1MP5INqPOIPU&hl=en&ei=Rr_BTPHmNIK0lQfJ7JHVCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false — Sandy Thatcher
22221103 - October 22, 2010 at 12:52 pm
I did see that I need to correct myself. The 3/5ths is in the constitution. Without this, the constitution probably would not have been ratified by all the states, including the southern states. The 3/5ths was not a settled issue at the time as the northern states didn’t want it but the southern states did. This is contrary to the settled issue of people being able to express their religious freedom in the public sector.
doug1943 - October 22, 2010 at 1:25 pm
When people assert that the Constitution *does* call for a separation of church and state, what they invariably mean is that it *should* call for such a separation.
The second is a perfectly coherent and honorable position. But it’s not the same as the first.
If, of course, as someone has argued here, “the Constitution” means what Federal judges say it means, then that’s something else. But this is not what Ms O’Donnell was saying. She is probably aware — although perhaps I’m stretching here — of the history of this issue over the last few decades. She’s just claiming, so far as I can see, that these judgments are based on something else than the clear words of the original Constitution.
mavprof - October 22, 2010 at 1:36 pm
22221103: There is a video recording of the Coons-O’Donnell debate at: http://www.wdel.com/video.php?v=wdelsenatedenate.flv
The query Ms O’Donnell made to Mr Coons about the five First Amendment freedoms is located around the 48-49 min mark.
On the whole, Mr Coons was pretty effective in his presentation, though he literally misquotes the First Amendment freedom of religion and non-establishment clause twice as well as uses “separation of church and state” as synonymous with the freedom-non-establishment clause.
unusedusername - October 22, 2010 at 2:05 pm
The constitution didn’t say that blacks were 3/5 of a person. It said 3/5 of the number of blacks would be used for drawing congessional districs. Remeber, the south wanted them to count as a full person, since that would give them more seats, while the north wanted them to count for nothing.
goxewu - October 22, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Re unusedusername:
If, for purposes of determining Congressional districts, the framers counted only three-fifths of the black population in arriving at the delegation-determining populations of those districts, then, perforce, each black person counted as only three-fifths of a person in the population. unusedusername has made a classic “distinction without a difference.”
In practical terms, though, black people counted for nothing, since most of them were slaves in “their” Congressional districts and couldn’t even move about freely in them, let alone vote for Congress. There were free blacks in the North, some of whom might have been able to vote, but if I recall my Revolutionary history correctly, they were very, very few.
goxewu - October 22, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Lots of commenters, including moi, get things wrong when they comment. But 22221103′s contention that the three-fifths rule is not in the Constitution but instead in the Dred Scott decision has got to land in the Brainstorm Boners Hall of Fame.
Here’s the three-fifths rule, in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
It was hilarious enough (if you’ve got a mordant sense of humor) that 22221103 did a nice Christine O’Donnell imitation (“What, you’re telling me that the three-fifths rule is in the Constitution?”), but placing it instead in the SCOTUS Dred Scott decision of 70 years later (which said, essentially, once a slave always a slave anywhere in the U.S.) is on a whole other level of wrongheadedness. Even though 22221103 corrected him-/herself on the Constitution, one still wonders what on earth 22221103 thought the Dred Scott decision was all about. That Scott wanted three-fifths of his freedom?
goxewu - October 22, 2010 at 3:50 pm
BTW re mavprof:
Although I disagree with mavprof almost all the time, credit where due to his reasonable and objective “On the whole, Mr Coons was pretty effective in his presentation.”
We liberals ought to keep our wits about us, too, and not defend EVERYTHING that conservatives attack, e.g., NPR’s firing of Juan Williams for those particular comments. Demand an apology, suspend him from the air for a while, even dock some pay–but fire the guy?
And while I’m alienating myself from some of my fellow lefties: While Ms. Thomas’s phone call to Anita Hill was, as a tactic, bonkers indeed, I’ve always thought that Justice Thomas didn’t do it. The real, nonpolitical fault with Justice Thomas was–and is–that, as a legal mind, he’s not the sharpest crayon in the box. But to try to keep a black judge off the Court on the grounds that he wasn’t not bright enough was for liberals absolute no-go territory, no matter how far right the guy was. So the anti-Thomas forces found Anita Hill and convinced her, so to speak, to take one for the team. She did, it didn’t work, but her career was rather nicely cushioned after that (e.g., Oklahoma to Berkeley). Yes, I read all the coverage at the time, David Brock’s book, Jane Mayer’s and Jill Abramson’s rebuttals, Brock’s recantings, etc., and I–who think Justices Thomas and Scalia are absolute disgraces to the Court and that Justice Alito runs a close third to them–still think Brock had it right the first time.
trendisnotdestiny - October 23, 2010 at 12:03 am
Gox,
That’s not what she said — (the ex-girlfriend of Clarence Thomas)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/us/politics/23thomas.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
goxewu - October 23, 2010 at 10:08 am
Re trendisnotdestiny:
Stipulated that Clarence Thomas is a sexist troglodyte who was, to put it mildly, crude in his relations with some women. That said:
1. If you’re going to smear somebody effectively, you do it with something plausible. In Thomas’s case, it was sexual harrassment. Accusing him of, say, funny money business wouldn’t have worked as well because he had (as far as I know) no smelly trail of funny money dealings.
2. If (in the days before the Internet more or less obviated the need) keeping a cache of pornographic magazines and frequenting dirty bookstores were grounds for keeping men–straight and gay–from assuming Federal office, the Government would be entirely female. (Which might not be such a bad idea, but that’s another discussion.)
3. Just because Thomas behaved badly with other women, doesn’t mean he did with Ms. Hill.
4. The ex-girlfriend has a rather flimsy story of why she never testified, or made a real effort to testify, as the confirmation hearings.
5. The ex-grilfriend’s comments come out now, years and years later, when she has a book to flog. (What does one think the book would have sold without the NY Times story?)
trendisnotdestiny is sort of the flip side, for me, of mavprof. I generally agree with what he/she has to say, but every once in a while he/she goes way over the top as a true believer.
trendisnotdestiny - October 23, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Gox,
First, I own my “over-the-top-ness”; it happens no doubt
Second, I do have to stipulate that the gotcha smear power plays are odious, especially during election time. Also, I acknowledge the difference between tangible evidence and here-say (i.e John Kerry’s Swiftboat Brigade).
Third, you make an excellent point about the internet and male sexuality in the country. Despite this point, however, I see that there is a vacancy in the discussion of the power differentials between Hill and Thomas (employer-employee)as well as the weak denial of responsibility for soliciting sexual information from a female co-worker who is lower down on the ladder in any “troglodyte” context
While I would have ceded this argument long ago because my post was mostly an effort to just chime in with what I thought was a cute response (I doubt that it is much anymore), now you have provided some things to really engage.
QUOTE
“Just because Thomas behaved badly with other women, doesn’t mean he did with Ms. Hill.”
True, but patterns of behavior or pertinent information that is intentionally hidden from view that alters the public’s perception
does mean that we should be weary of those who deny events first without providing the least amount of context for why Anita Hill would be making these comments (besides just personal or political assassination).
Just because he behaved badly with other women, doesn’t mean he won’t again. As a therapist, we are taught to neither disregard one piece of information nor to inflate the one we have.
QUOTE
“The ex-girlfriend has a rather flimsy story of why she never testified, or made a real effort to testify, as the confirmation hearings.”
This was discussed on NPR’s Friday. Apparently, the reason why she did not want to testify was due to her not wanting the personal attention that comes with being grilled by all white-male judiciary committee headed by Joe Biden at the time. Also, there are many reasons why people choose not to come forward (their stories being flimsy are almost exclusively not among the most important). If the standard for accuracy is getting up in front of politically ravaged crucible and answering questions about your sex life, well I think most of us fit into that category of avoidance.
QUOTE
“The ex-girlfriend’s comments come out now, years and years later, when she has a book to flog. (What does one think the book would have sold without the NY Times story?)”
Hadn’t heard about the book Gox, NPR reporters suggested that the only reason why she came forward now (The Why Now Question) is that moron (Mrs. “Tea Party” Thomas) made news with her now famous telephone answer machine message wanting an apology. It is never too late to re-write a wrong!
In terms of your last comments, the only thing that I have to say is that I like you (Goxewu-he/she) whether we agree or not. I like bright minds who clearly and passionately state their points. I may not be right here and a book or article by the ex does change the dynamic. However, me thinks you likey the arguing more than the context!
“If you post it, Gox will come”
Peace
goxewu - October 24, 2010 at 8:45 am
I like trendisnotdestiny, too. (I can envision mavprof and t_paine and a few others wanting to throw up.) But…
Again, Thomas’s general conduct with women is as much evidence for, “Hey, this would be a good thing to fabricate an instance of because it fits,” as it is for Hill’s testimony being true.
Again, the ex-girlfriend’s reason for not testifying is flimsy. We’re talking about the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice here. Ms. Hill was willing to testify about Thomas’s sexual conduct, wasn’t she?
Perhaps my psychiatrist, if I had one, would say that deep down, my subconscious animus toward a woman trying to prevent a man from getting something he wanted was more powerful than my conscious political animus toward a stupefyingly rightwing and simplistic-minded male legal mind. But, in the absence of that, I tend to think my hunch (and that’s all it can be, either way, in a he-said/she-said debate) that Hill was–not to put to fine a point on it–lying, which goes against my political interests, is better than the hunches of those people who–admit it, now–desperately want the charges against Thomas to have been true.
Finally, thanks to trendisnotdestiny, for the wake-up call, “If you post it, Gox will come.” Too true. I don’t do the morning crossword puzzle; for morning-coffee fun, I do “Brainstorm” instead, and it’s gotten out of hand. A little cold turkey is in order. Think I’ll just wander in the wilderness for a while.
trendisnotdestiny - October 24, 2010 at 9:41 am
Gox,
QUOTE
““If you post it, Gox will come.”
This wasn’t meant in anyway as a criticism; more of acknowledgment of your consistency in maintaining interesting dialogues and enjoyment in reading them….
From someone who is out of hand here in the Storm of Brain on a regular basis, I appreciate need for self-care. However, you are a major form of entertainment for readers and your most recent foray into the wilderness left Brainstorm without one of its most conscious voices…
Peace
PS (Mavprov & T_Paine you may vomit now)
doug1943 - October 25, 2010 at 1:37 am
Goxewu is a national treasure. In this age of mad partisanship, he/she/it stands out as someone who seems to reach conclusions based on the facts, as opposed to his/her/its political beliefs. Weird. I hear there’s a job vacancy going at NPR: please apply.
gadoglover - October 25, 2010 at 9:01 am
I find it rather telling that Ms. Essig cites only the apparent (and as some posters here and other commentators have noted elsewhere, the examples used here are not as crystal clear as Ms. Essig seems to believe they are) faux pas of the political “right.”
Yet another example of the “balance” of the modern American academy. It is little wonder that so many Americans consider us irrelevant and shrill apologists for the left.
wturnertsu - October 26, 2010 at 12:29 pm
The Constitution, thanks to the foresight of “Our Founding Fathers” can be amended. Blacks, by and large, weren’t “free” when the original document was written and adopted. Fortunately, the document provided a possible remedy, to what was already recognized as being one more of the many ambiguities, existing in Americans’ economic, political and social life.
The document was meant to be a living, breathing entity, an instrument, the Founders had hoped and prayed, that a future ENLIGHTENED populace would use wisely to address issues and concerns, unique to their own contemporary era. Included in their hope and prayer was the notion that decent, honest, principally, men, would man the press. A press beyond corruption. They were wrong! The media is corrupt and the American people are as uneducated and mis-educated as any peoples on the face of the earth: How can you have more prisons and lock-up more people and at the same time, object to raising taxes to pay for such? How can you insist upn a large, well-equiped military and demand lower, or no, taxes? How can you insist that an unemployed, single woman give birth, then vote to cut-off aid to both her and her child, after birth occurs.
We’re missing an educated populace and an unbiased media/press.
dvacchi - October 27, 2010 at 11:11 am
It seems the author’s point here is to advance a not so veiled opinion that Global Warming is real. While providing no basis in fact, she ironically makes the point of her article. Welcome to the Christine O’Donnell club – you’re just like her! You might also want to look at some other elements of the Constitution while you’re at it instead of selectively looking at the 1st Amendment.
Here’s two facts for you to consider:
1. There have been a lot of record low temperatures over the las few years, as well as record highs. One can only conclude from this that weather patterns are different, but this is not evidence of Global Warming. (look I even capitalized it – lol)
2. Over 32,000 scientists globally (people who know about this kind of thing as experts) soundly refute the notion of Global Warming as “unsupported by fact”. Makes me take pause…
I think Global Warming is an opinion run a muck – environmentalists troubled by littering in the 1960s have been pushing for greater respect for the environment and when we all largely stopped throwing trash on the ground, they didn’t let up. They had moved on to recycling (a process which probably contaminates the environment too) and when we started doing that well, they didn’t notice either because they moved on to Global warming. Yikes! What’s next? believe the sky is falling?
ulyssesmsu - October 27, 2010 at 9:29 pm
The public is so damned ignorant. They don’t “know” the obvious “truth” that certain people, mostly political liberals [surprise!]–have “announced.” Global warming–established fact (except, of course, it isn’t). Separation of church and state–in the Constitution (except, of course, it isn’t).
These issues are open to debate–but no matter! Those damn ignorant rubes [conservatives] just won’t listen to “facts.” Don’t think for yourself–just believe what the “elites” tell you to believe. Discussion, discourse, and public debate be damned! Just shut up and think what we tell you to think!
And, of course, if anyone has a non-left-wing view of an issue, it must be because they are brainwashed by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin. It couldn’t be because they have thought about the issue and formed their view by careful, logical thinking. No! They’re too dumb to think–brainwashed sheep!
gabigabigabi - November 15, 2010 at 3:43 pm
that study is frightening!! it’ll be interesting to see what future researchers do to follow up on it (what kind of interventions are pragmatic for an entire population??).