politics and politicians
See other politics and politicians Articles
Title: GOP and the Rise of Anti-Knowledge
Source:
ConsortiumNews
URL Source: https://consortiumnews.com/2015/10/ ... nd-the-rise-of-anti-knowledge/
Published: Oct 30, 2015
Author: Mike Lofgren
Post Date: 2015-10-30 07:52:15 by Willie Green
Keywords: None
Views: 3244
Comments: 37
Ben Carson’s rise to the top of the Republican presidential field shows that many Republicans, especially Christian fundamentalists, have decoupled from the real world — and are proud of it. The more that GOP candidates embrace “anti-knowledge” the more popular they become, as Mike Lofgren explains. By Mike Lofgren In the realm of physics, the opposite of matter is not nothingness, but antimatter. In the realm of practical epistemology, the opposite of knowledge is not ignorance but anti-knowledge. This seldom recognized fact is one of the prime forces behind the decay of political and civic culture in America. Some common-sense philosophers have observed this point over the years. “Genuine ignorance is . . . profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open mindedness; whereas ability to repeat catch-phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with varnish waterproof to new ideas,” observed psychologist John Dewey. Or, as humorist Josh Billings put it, “The trouble with people is not that they don’t know, but that they know so much that ain’t so.” Fifty years ago, if a person did not know who the prime minister of Great Britain was, what the conflict in Vietnam was about, or the barest rudiments of how a nuclear reaction worked, he would shrug his shoulders and move on. And if he didn’t bother to know those things, he was in all likelihood politically apathetic and confined his passionate arguing to topics like sports or the attributes of the opposite sex. There were exceptions, like the Birchers’ theory that fluoridation was a monstrous communist conspiracy, but they were mostly confined to the fringes. Certainly, political candidates with national aspirations steered clear of such balderdash. At present, however, a person can be blissfully ignorant of how to locate Kenya on a map, but know to a metaphysical certitude that Barack Obama was born there, because he learned it from Fox News. Likewise, he can be unable to differentiate a species from a phylum but be confident from viewing the 700 Club that evolution is “politically correct” hooey and that the earth is 6,000 years old. And he may never have read the Constitution and have no clue about the Commerce Clause, but believe with an angry righteousness that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. This brings us inevitably to celebrity presidential candidate Ben Carson. The man is anti-knowledge incarnated, a walking compendium of every imbecility ever uttered during the last three decades. Obamacare is worse than chattel slavery. Women who have abortions are like slave owners. If Jews had firearms they could have stopped the Holocaust (author’s note: they obtained at least some weapons during the Warsaw Ghetto rising, and no, it didn’t). Victims of a mass shooting in Oregon enabled their own deaths by their behavior. And so on, ad nauseam. It is highly revealing that, according to a Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll of likely Republican caucus attendees, the stolid Iowa burghers liked Carson all the more for such moronic utterances. And sure enough, the New York Times tells us that Carson has pulled ahead of Donald Trump in a national poll of Republican voters. Apparently, Trump was just not crazy enough for their tastes. Why the Ignorance? Journalist Michael Tomasky has attempted to answer the question as to what Ben Carson’s popularity tells us about the American people after making a detour into asking a question about the man himself: why is an accomplished neurosurgeon such a nincompoop in another field? “Because usually, if a man (or woman) is a good and knowledgeable and sure-footed doctor, or lawyer or department chair or any other position that could have been attained only through repeated displays of excellence and probity, then that person will also be a pretty solid human being across the board.” Well, not necessarily. English unfortunately doesn’t have a precise word for the German “Fachidiot,” a narrowly specialized person accomplished in his own field but a blithering idiot outside it. In any case, a surgeon is basically a skilled auto mechanic who is not bothered by the sight of blood and palpitating organs (and an owner of a high-dollar ride like a Porsche knows that a specialized mechanic commands labor rates roughly comparable to a doctor). We need the surgeon’s skills on pain of agonizing death, and reward him commensurately, but that does not make him a Voltaire. Still, it makes one wonder: if Carson the surgeon believes evolution is a hoax, where does he think the antibiotic-resistant bacteria that plague hospitals come from? Tomasky expresses astonishment that Carson’s jaw-dropping comments make him more popular among Republican voters, but he concludes without fully answering the question he posed. It is an important question: what has happened to the American people, or at least a significant portion of them? Anti-knowledge is a subset of anti-intellectualism, and as Richard Hofstadter has pointed out, anti-intellectualism has been a recurrent feature in American life, generally rising and receding in synchronism with fundamentalist revivalism. The current wave, which now threatens to swamp our political culture, began in a similar fashion with the rise to prominence in the 1970s of fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. But to a far greater degree than previous outbreaks, fundamentalism has merged its personnel, its policies, its tactics and its fate with a major American political party, the Republicans. An Infrastructure of Know-Nothing-ism Buttressing this merger is a vast support structure of media, foundations, pressure groups and even a thriving cottage industry of fake historians and phony scientists. From Fox News to the Discovery Institute (which exists solely to “disprove” evolution), and from the Heritage Foundation (which propagandizes that tax cuts increase revenue despite massive empirical evidence to the contrary) to bogus “historians” like David Barton (who confected a fraudulent biography of a piously devout Thomas Jefferson that had to be withdrawn by the publisher), the anti-knowledge crowd has created an immense ecosystem of political disinformation. Thanks to publishing houses like Regnery and the conservative boutique imprints of more respectable houses like Simon & Schuster (a division of CBS), America has been flooded with cut-and-paste rants by Michelle Malkin and Mark Levin, Parson Weems-style ghosted biographies allegedly by Bill O’Reilly, and the inimitable stream of consciousness hallucinating of Glenn Beck. Whether retail customers actually buy all these screeds, or whether foundations and rich conservative donors buy them in bulk and give them out as door prizes at right-wing clambakes, anti-knowledge infects the political bloodstream in the United States. Thanks to these overlapping and mutually reinforcing segments of the right-wing media-entertainment-“educational” complex, it is now possible for the true believer to sail on an ocean of political, historical, and scientific disinformation without ever sighting the dry land of empirical fact. This effect is fortified by the substantial overlap between conservative Republicans and fundamentalist Christians. The latter group begins with the core belief that truth is revealed in a subjective process involving the will to believe (“faith”) rather than discovered by objectively corroberable means. Likewise, there is a baseline opposition to the prevailing secular culture, and adherents are frequently warned by church authority figures against succumbing to the snares and temptations of “the world.” Consequently, they retreat into the echo chamber of their own counterculture: if they didn’t hear it on Fox News or from a televangelist, it never happened. For these culture warriors, belief in demonstrably false propositions is no longer a stigma of ignorance, but a defiantly worn badge of political resistance. We saw this mindset on display during the Republican debate in Boulder, Colorado, on Wednesday night. Even though it was moderated by Wall Street-friendly CNBC, which exists solely to talk up the stock market, the candidates were uniformly upset that the moderators would presume to ask difficult questions of people aspiring to be president. They were clearly outside their comfort zone of the Fox News studio. The candidates drew cheers from the hard-core believers in the audience, however, by attacking the media, as if moderators Lawrence Kudlow and Rick Santelli, both notorious shills for Wall Street, were I.F. Stone and Noam Chomsky. Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus nearly had an aneurism over the candidates’ alleged harsh treatment. State-Sponsored Stupidity It is when these forces of anti-knowledge seize the power of government that the real damage gets done. Under Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia government harassed with subpoenas a University of Virginia professor whose academic views contradicted Cuccinelli’s political agenda. Numerous states like Louisiana now mandate that public schools teach the wholly imaginary “controversy” about evolution. A school textbook in Texas, whose state school board has long been infested with reactionary kooks, referred to chattel slaves as “workers” (the implication was obvious: neo-Confederate elements in the South have been trying to minimize slavery for a century and a half, to the point of insinuating it had nothing to do with the Civil War). This brings us back to Ben Carson. He now suggests that, rather than abolishing the Department of Education, a perennial Republican goal, the department should be used to investigate professors who say something he doesn’t agree with. The mechanism to bring these heretics to the government’s attention should be denunciations from students, a technique once in vogue in the old Soviet Union. It is not surprising that Carson, himself a Seventh Day Adventist, should receive his core support from Republicans who identify as fundamentalists. Among the rest of the GOP pack, it is noteworthy that it is precisely those seeking the fundamentalist vote, like Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, who are also notorious for making inflammatory and unhinged comments that sound like little more than deliberate trolling to those who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid (Donald Trump is sui generis). In all probability, Carson will flame out like Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and all the other former panjandrums of a theological movement conservatism that revels in anti-knowledge. But he will have left his mark, as they did, on a Republican Party that inexorably moves further to the right, and the eventual nominee will have to tailor his campaign to a base that gets ever more intransigent as each new messiah of the month promises to lead them into a New Jerusalem unmoored to a stubborn and profane thing called facts.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Willie Green (#0)
This piece would have us all believe that republicans are the the source of antiknowledge. In fact the democrats and socialists are just as guilty. The reality is, we live in a culture filled with propaganda and public relations manipulation to a point where reality, and reality-testing has become irrelevant to manipulative word games and descriptive semantics.
20 O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge— If any group that is "anti-knowledge" it would be the demoncrats. The scam of man made global warming or global warming pushed by demoncrats is the ultimate proof positive of their stupidity. When confronted with show your proof of any claims that have come true they call you names instead! New Socialist are the same as the old socialist. You know Nazi's! Facts have no place in a socialist policies because if they did socialism would die a horrible death.
20 O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge— Well said. Socialist claim to be knowledgeable but are in fact propagandist who wish to enslave free citizens with ungodly laws through lies and force.
Last I checked Willie, pediatric neurosurgery is real world science cause and effect. What gets leftists in a lather is when a man of concrete science, cause and effect reveals the junk science of the left. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."---Romans 5:6
Wow good one.
"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."---Romans 5:6
Here is an example of the science denying left : "Despite receiving a subpoena from the House of Representatives, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) continues to defy the summons to explain itself regarding a controversial climate study it had released back in June. An aide to the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology said the NOAA has refused to provide documents related to a report that suggested there has been no reduction in global warming rates, as was initially thought." http://www.techtimes.com/articles/101035/20151030/noaa-scientists-refuse-to- comply-with-house-science-committee-subpoena.htm What have they got to hide ? Thier report is just another way to 'hide the decline' ;or in this case 'hide the hiatus ' . Even IPCC scientists admits the pause. If the taxpayers are funding their research then we definitely have the right to demand it be available to our representatives in government . Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
This is the most concise and critical analysis of the politics of the right in 2015, that I've read. Good find Willie Green. "we are tartets from evil doers!!!" [ and ] U looked up birfer on the dcitionary. It isn't a movie. "Listen piece of shit. Call me anti American again and your're banned. I don't like you." - aka stoned -
Last I checked, expertise in such a narrowly focused specialty is often accompanied by obtuse and misinformed opinions on other topics.
Do we know that the JBS was promoting the fact that Fluoridation of water was a communist plot, or was it the opinion of somebody tied to the Society? Fluoridation is a very strange policy as it does virtually nothing for the teeth, and is industrial waste. I am thinking that it is now a minority of countries that allow it to happen as the long term effects are not just simply tooth discoloration.
The above is a link to an article in Lancet, where they call fluoride a neuro-toxin and link it it autism and other problems.
You mean like the Clinton Crime foundation? You realize The NYTs is a PAC for the Clinton campaign. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."---Romans 5:6
The authors anti-gun conclusions make me nauseous.. As do yours, - and Willie's...
Or he may even be ignorant enough to even believe that the Constitution allows the government to enslave us in order for people who can't or won't work to have cosmetic surgery to improve their self-image. Ring any bells,Willie? Carson really scares the hell out of you,doesn't he? Why? Is it because you see a "darkie leaving the Dim Plantation" as a threat to your power base? If Jews had firearms they could have stopped the Holocaust Clearly a falsehood. The German Jews HAD guns,but turned them in because,being Jews,they figured ignorant Goys would do their fighting for them. (author’s note: they obtained at least some weapons during the Warsaw Ghetto rising, and no, it didn’t) An aberration. It FINALLY dawned on a few of them that they weren't REALLY "God's Chosen People",and that since they were going to be killed anyhow they might as well go down fighting. The vast majority refused to fight,and just got on the trucks. It is highly revealing that, according to a Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll of likely Republican caucus attendees, the stolid Iowa burghers liked Carson all the more for such moronic utterances. NOT as revealing as the total arrogance and sense of self-superiority on display by Bloomberg and the rest of the eastern Jewish establishment,who clearly consider themselves to be intellectually and culturally superior to "all those farm people". Journalist Michael Tomasky has attempted to answer the question as to what Ben Carson’s popularity tells us about the American people.... Ah,yes! Yet one more unbiased intellectual. You are batting 1000 so far today,Willie. You have posted brain-farts by TWO "journalists" (really Goebbels wannabes) that I personally want to hurt. Read the link below for proof of how open-minded and pro-American this turd in a bus station toilet bowl really is. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/394194/its-not-sour-grapes-michael-tomasky-just-hates-south-charles-c-w-cooke The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky has today offered his readers a wildly intemperate rant against the South, during which he describes the region as a “reactionary, prejudice-infested” sort of place; charges that the people who live there are flatly opposed to ”tolerance, compassion, civic decency, trans-racial community, the crucial secular values on which this country was founded”; and wonders aloud if it would be better for the Democratic party to gas the place to death as a vet might a dying dog. “Practically the whole region,” Tomasky suggests, has rejected nearly everything that’s good about this country and has become just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment. A fact made even sadder because on the whole they’re such nice people! (I truly mean that.) Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/394194/its-not-sour-grapes-michael-tomasky-just-hates-south-charles-c-w-cooke I guess that passed for intellectualism in "Willie World"? Well, not necessarily. English unfortunately doesn’t have a precise word for the German “Fachidiot,” a narrowly specialized person accomplished in his own field but a blithering idiot outside it. In any case, a surgeon is basically a skilled auto mechanic who is not bothered by the sight of blood and palpitating organs (and an owner of a high-dollar ride like a Porsche knows that a specialized mechanic commands labor rates roughly comparable to a doctor). And here he is,reverting to type,and going "all German on us". Nothing the left loves better than dictators,while managing to get in a little whine to let us know that HE owns a Porsche and can afford to pay the high repair bills. Anti-knowledge is a subset of anti-intellectualism, and as Richard Hofstadter has pointed out, anti-intellectualism has been a recurrent feature in American life, generally rising and receding in synchronism with fundamentalist revivalism. ROFLMAO! "Anti-intellectualism" defined as disagreeing with leftist self-style intellectual Jews! Hofstadter was so far left he cited Karl Marx as a major influence on his "thinking". One one more anti-American Jewish leftist from the northeast. For these culture warriors, belief in demonstrably false propositions is no longer a stigma of ignorance, but a defiantly worn badge of political resistance. We saw this mindset on display during the Republican debate in Boulder, Colorado, on Wednesday night. Even though it was moderated by Wall Street-friendly CNBC, which exists solely to talk up the stock market, the candidates were uniformly upset that the moderators would presume to ask difficult questions of people aspiring to be president. They were clearly outside their comfort zone of the Fox News studio. I think it is absolutely hilarious,as well as ironic,that "tools" like this leftist fool are so completely ignorant of reality that they don't understand the basic truth that big corporations are world-wide fascists that LOVE making money and buying influence,and that fascist is nothing more than the adult version of the communism all these childish "intellectuals" are so deeply in love with. "Come the revolution",and ALL of those shitheads will be operations shoves or rakes instead of computers. Well,not the ones like Hofstadter. He's been busy serving as plant food for a couple of decades now. The good news is he is finally contributing something useful. State-Sponsored Stupidity I'm not even going to read this. I already know all I need to know about the Dim Party,public schools,and the northeast. Carson really scares the hell out of you lefties,doesn't he? What he should do is hire a few of you to campaign with him,and let you go up on stage to rant and rave about the evils of America,freedom,thinking for yourself,and capitalism before he goes up on the stage. His polling numbers would soar! Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
Meanwhile, in reality land... Were Jorge and the RINOcratic kleptocracy "socialists" - or just contemporary examples of Oligarchic shyteheads wobbling along upon the prince of this world's jackwagon?
Guiltier. The core of socialism is wrapped around the lie that you can change human nature at it's root,while using jelaousy,one of the prime survival traits of human nature as it's prime tool. Socialists/communists use jealousy to get votes by convincing idiots that they are going to have all the luxuries enjoyed by the middle and upper classes without having to work for it,and that it's not going to cost THEM anything. No bigger lie has ever been told. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
No,what makes their heads want to explode is that it is a BLACK MAN promoting hard work and responsibility as a way to succeed in life,and saying that becoming government mules is just another form of slavery. A BLACK MAN! The most reliable "foot soldiers" they have on the Dim plantation,and the very people they count on the most to do all the fighting and dying for THEM,"come the revolution". The "INGRATITUDE AFTER ALL WE HAVE DONE FOR YOU!" It really is more than they can deal with. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
Good find Willie Green. You have GOT to be kidding! It focuses entirely on slamming the so-called "right" (actually the semi-left as there is no political right in America anymore),who are marginally less guilty of all this than the left,which the article doesn't even mention. It is a pure propaganda piece. Nothing more. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
All those words strung together,and they don't mean a thing the way you combined them. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
Heh. Consider the source and OP. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."---Romans 5:6
Yes, correct. Putting aside the argument that "the other side is just as bad" - do you agree or disagree with the premise? Why? "we are tartets from evil doers!!!" [ and ] U looked up birfer on the dcitionary. It isn't a movie. "Listen piece of shit. Call me anti American again and your're banned. I don't like you." - aka stoned -
Guiltier. The core of socialism is wrapped around the lie that you can change human nature at it's root,while using jelaousy,one of the prime survival traits of human nature as it's prime tool. Socialists/communists use jealousy to get votes by convincing idiots that they are going to have all the luxuries enjoyed by the middle and upper classes without having to work for it,and that it's not going to cost THEM anything. No bigger lie has ever been told. I won't argue with the meat of that. The left follows the theoretics of Crutical Theory while the political right attempts to refute it by picking up their bible to quote mythology then standing for the pledge of allegiance as if pure emotional symbolism is a refutation. Real life is buried somewhere beneath a mountain of bull shit spun by both sides.
Yes. The entire premise seems to be formulated around "I HATE AMERICA,AND I HATE FREEDOM!" The rest is just filler by someone paid by the word. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
I think you and many others overestimate the actual power the Thumpers really have. They are the alleged Republican "blacks". Useful when they need donations and bodies to show up waving signs in support during elections,but once the elections are over they are put back in their boxes until they are needed the next time. If the religious right had any real influence,do you seriously think abortion would still be legal? If there is one issue they gather around,it is abortion. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
I'm not sure we're talking about the same article....here is the author's opening sentence: "...Ben Carson’s rise to the top of the Republican presidential field shows that many Republicans, especially Christian fundamentalists, have decoupled from the real world — and are proud of it. The more that GOP candidates embrace “anti-knowledge” the more popular they become..." any other thoughts? "we are tartets from evil doers!!!" [ and ] U looked up birfer on the dcitionary. It isn't a movie. "Listen piece of shit. Call me anti American again and your're banned. I don't like you." - aka stoned -
They gather around the only issue they understand.
Minorities are ... mindless - agitated - hateful --- helpless pawns - Marxists - devils !
If you ... don't use exclamation points --- you should't be typeing ! Commas - semicolons - question marks are for girlie boys !
Carly Fiorina ... " a leftist broken down socialist govt fixed by a leftist broken down socialist govt " --- did you miss that !
If you ... don't use exclamation points --- you should't be typeing ! Commas - semicolons - question marks are for girlie boys !
For a practical example of anti-knowledge, there would be Hillary "informing" family members at the casket ceremony that the death of their loved one had resulted from a youtube video. Lies and deliberate falsehoods would appear to be anti-knowledge.
I'm not sure we're talking about the same article....here is the author's opening sentence: "...Ben Carson’s rise to the top of the Republican presidential field shows that many Republicans, especially Christian fundamentalists, have decoupled from the real world — and are proud of it. The more that GOP candidates embrace “anti-knowledge” the more popular they become..." any other thoughts? I see no reason to change my thoughts. The opening tirade against Carson was what ignited my opinion that this whole hit piece revolved around "I HATE AMERICA AND I HATE FREEDOM!" After all,from the POV of the left,Carson running as a conservative sets off the "Just WTF does this darkie think he is????" howls of outrage from the left because an educated and successful black man chosing to run for president as a conservative runs counter to everything they believe,and they think he MUST be ground into dust because of it. Not that what passes for Republicans these days are much better. If the Dims are 99 percent evil and anti-American,todays Republicans are 95 percent evil. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
No,they have and understand many other issues,some of which you probably agree with. They just choose to focus on that one because it is the most important issue to them. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
You forgot to mention "projection", that is blaming someone else for what they themselves do... Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
What was it that Reagan said about Leftards? Something about they aren't stupid they just know so much that isn't true... Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
any other thoughts? That they've decided not to participate in the current "LA LA LAND PC WORLD" that Leftards have created and vehemently claim is real... Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
That's what handouts, drugs, racism and Common Core are for, to keep them dumb and voting for Leftards... Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
Yep. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."---Romans 5:6
Breaking the Gordian knot code ... the only alternative for secular practicing jews is communism --- they organize the mindless masses from the top ! If you ... don't use exclamation points --- you should't be typeing ! Commas - semicolons - question marks are for girlie boys !
GOP and the Rise of Anti-Knowledge
#2. To: Willie Green, idle bablings, contradictions (#0)
1 Timothy 6:20New King James Version (NKJV) Guard the Faith
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#3. To: rlk, Willie Green (#1)
This piece would have us all believe that republicans are the the source of antiknowledge. In fact the democrats and socialists are just as guilty. The reality is, we live in a culture filled with propaganda and public relations manipulation to a point where reality, and reality-testing has become irrelevant to manipulative word games and descriptive semantics.
#4. To: hondo68, Willie Green, idle bablings, contradictions (#2)
1 Timothy 6:20New King James Version (NKJV) Guard the Faith
#5. To: Willie Green, CZ82, liberator, tomder55 (#0)
Ben Carson’s rise to the top of the Republican presidential field shows that many Republicans, especially Christian fundamentalists, have decoupled from the real world — and are proud of it. The more that GOP candidates embrace “anti-knowledge” the more popular they become, as Mike Lofgren explains.
#6. To: hondo68 (#2)
#7. To: redleghunter, Willie Green, CZ82, liberator, (#5)
#8. To: Willie Green (#0)
GOP and the Rise of Anti-Knowledge
#9. To: redleghunter (#5)
Last I checked Willie, pediatric neurosurgery is real world science cause and effect.
#10. To: rlk (#1)
#11. To: All (#10)
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422%2813%2970278-3/abstract
#12. To: Willie Green (#9)
Last I checked, expertise in such a narrowly focused specialty is often accompanied by obtuse and misinformed opinions on other topics.
#13. To: Jameson, willie green, Y'ALL (#8)
This brings us inevitably to celebrity presidential candidate Ben Carson. The man is anti-knowledge incarnated, a walking compendium of every imbecility ever uttered --------- If Jews had firearms they could have stopped the Holocaust (author’s note: they obtained at least some weapons during the Warsaw Ghetto rising, and no, it didn’t). Victims of a mass shooting in Oregon enabled their own deaths by their behavior. And so on, ad nauseam.
Willie Green: -- GOP and the Rise of Anti-Knowledge --- This is the most concise and critical analysis of the politics of the right in 2015, that I've read. ------- Jameson: --- Good find Willie Green.
#14. To: Willie Green (#0)
And he may never have read the Constitution and have no clue about the Commerce Clause, but believe with an angry righteousness that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.
#15. To: Justified (#4)
(Edited)
Socialist claim to be knowledgeable but are in fact propagandist who wish to enslave free citizens with ungodly laws through lies and force.
#16. To: rlk (#1)
This piece would have us all believe that republicans are the the source of antiknowledge. In fact the democrats and socialists are just as guilty.
#17. To: redleghunter (#5)
What gets leftists in a lather is when a man of concrete science, cause and effect reveals the junk science of the left.
#18. To: Jameson (#8)
This is the most concise and critical analysis of the politics of the right in 2015, that I've read.
#19. To: Willie Green (#9)
Last I checked, expertise in such a narrowly focused specialty is often accompanied by obtuse and misinformed opinions on other topics.
#20. To: sneakypete (#18)
It is a pure propaganda piece. Nothing more.
#21. To: sneakypete (#18)
It focuses entirely on slamming the so-called "right"
#22. To: sneakypete (#16)
(Edited)
This piece would have us all believe that republicans are the the source of antiknowledge. In fact the democrats and socialists are just as guilty.
#23. To: Jameson (#21)
Putting aside the argument that "the other side is just as bad" - do you agree or disagree with the premise?
#24. To: rlk (#22)
The left follows the theoretics of Crutical Theory while the political right attempts to refute it by picking up their bible to quote mythology then standing for the pledge of allegiance as if pure emotional symbolism is a refutation.
#25. To: sneakypete (#23)
The entire premise seems to be formulated around "I HATE AMERICA,AND I HATE FREEDOM!"
#26. To: sneakypete (#24)
If the religious right had any real influence,do you seriously think abortion would still be legal? If there is one issue they gather around,it is abortion.
#27. To: rlk (#26)
(Edited)
#28. To: Willie Green (#9)
(Edited)
#29. To: Willie Green (#0)
In the realm of physics, the opposite of matter is not nothingness, but antimatter. In the realm of practical epistemology, the opposite of knowledge is not ignorance but anti-knowledge. This seldom recognized fact is one of the prime forces behind the decay of political and civic culture in America.
#30. To: Jameson (#25)
The entire premise seems to be formulated around "I HATE AMERICA,AND I HATE FREEDOM!"
#31. To: rlk (#26)
They gather around the only issue they understand.
#32. To: Justified (#4)
Socialist claim to be knowledgeable but are in fact propagandist who wish to enslave free citizens with ungodly laws through lies and force.
#33. To: sneakypete (#31)
No,they have and understand many other issues,some of which you probably agree with.
#34. To: Jameson, sneakypete, redleghunter (#25)
especially Christian fundamentalists, have decoupled from the real world —
#35. To: sneakypete (#14)
Carson really scares the hell out of you,doesn't he? Why? Is it because you see a "darkie leaving the Dim Plantation" as a threat to your power base?
#36. To: CZ82 (#34)
That they've decided not to participate in the current "LA LA LAND PC WORLD" that Leftards have created and vehemently claim is real...
#37. To: rlk (#26)
(Edited)
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]