Everything that is wrong with our entire country
This article, by the Weekly Standard’s Andrew Ferguson, basically shows us everything that’s wrong about our entire political culture. Ferguson describes a debate sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute in which participants discussed- get this- whether Darwin’s theory of evolution could be used to serve the political ends of American conservatism. No, really:
But Is It Good for the Conservatives? Darwinism and its discontents.
by Andrew Ferguson
They only had two and a half hours to settle some knotty questions–Does reality have an ultimate, metaphysical foundation? Is there content to the universe?–so they had to talk fast. But not fast enough. By the time the formidable panel discussion was over last week, I, as a member of the audience, had even more questions about the nature of reality than usual.
This hardly ever happens at a think tank, even Washington’s most audacious and interesting think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. One reason AEI stands as the capital’s premier research organization is that it alone would think to assemble a quartet of intelligent and accomplished people to debate the implications of Darwinism for political thought and public policy. Specifically, the panel’s title was “Darwinism and Conservatism: Friends or Foes?”
No, chillens, you simply cannot make this shit up. The big brains at AEI are actually debating whether the linchpin of modern biology is compatible with their bizarro political views. Coming next week: “Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation: Does it Lend Credence to the Flat Tax?”
Its moderator was Steven Hayward, the biographer of Ronald Reagan, and in the quartet he conducted were Larry Arnhart, a political scientist from Northern Illinois University; John Derbyshire, an author and a blogger for National Review Online; John West, a political scientist formerly of Seattle Pacific University and now of the Discovery Institute; and his colleague at Discovery, George Gilder, the legendary author of Wealth and Poverty, Microcosm, The Spirit of Enterprise, and Life After Television. (Gilder is routinely and correctly called a visionary, partly because he’s the only man on earth who can imagine life without television.)
If you can believe it, John Derbyshire is by far the sanest person in this debate. Just watch:
[T]he subject of their panel wasn’t the primary question of whether Darwinian theory is true; it was the secondary question of whether Darwinian theory and political conservatism abet each other as ways of understanding and shaping the world: “Does Darwin’s theory help defend or undermine traditional morality and family life? Does it encourage or discredit economic freedom?”
In his remarks, Derbyshire objected that such questions, which were after all the point of the panel he had traveled to Washington to be on, were nonetheless pointless. “Conservatism and Darwinism are orthogonal,” he said. “Neither one implies the other.”
Ding-ding! Yowza! We have an intelligent answer! Darwin’s theory of evolution has precisely zero to do with traditional morality and family life! It has no relevance to questions of economic freedom! It is simple bloody science, people. It has no political ideology.
That sort of party-poopery could easily have ended the discussion right there–except that, as Hayward said, the commingling of Darwinism with political theory and practice has a long and unavoidable history. The relationship has waxed and waned. Most obviously and infamously, Darwinism spawned Social Darwinism, or so Social Darwinists claimed. Its pitiless principle of survival of the fittest was, Hayward pointed out, invoked by the Confederacy’s most articulate theorist, Alexander Stephens, and also by the champions of unregulated capitalism in robber baron America. Throughout the late 19th century, Social Darwinists assumed that Darwin’s theory had disproved the liberal (in the old sense) tradition of natural rights and natural law that inspired the Founding Fathers. John Dewey argued for Darwin’s relevance to social and political arrangements, and so did most of his fellow Progressives: Woodrow Wilson, for instance, who said that “living constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice.” Traces of Social Darwinism can be found too in Hitler and Stalin, both of whom were even worse than Woodrow Wilson.
I love the way this is framed. He’s basically saying that Hitler and Stalin were ideological bedmates of Woodrow Wilson, except that they were just a teensy-weensy bit worse. You know, because they killed tens of millions of people. And stuff.
In light of such unhappy history, Hayward said, “I sometimes wish there could be a separation of science and state to go along with a separation of religion and state.”
It’s a nice idea, but it too might have ended the discussion right then and there, except that Darwinism is once again being used by partisans of a particular political philosophy. This time the lucky philosophy is contemporary American conservatism, and the foremost proponent of the conservative-Darwinian dalliance is Arnhart. He offered a quick summary of his position, which has become popular among right-wingers of a libertarian stripe and has found its fullest expression in Arnhart’s book Darwinian Conservatism.
“Conservatives need Darwin,” he said. Without the scientific evidence Darwinian theory offers, conservative views would be swamped by liberal sentimentality. The left-wing view of human nature as unfixed and endlessly manipulable has led to countless disastrous Utopian schemes. Hard-headed Darwinians, on the other hand, see human nature as settled and enduring and stubbornly unchangeable, and conservatives can wield the findings of Darwin to rebut the scheming, ambitious busybodies of the left and their subversion of custom and tradition. (I’m paraphrasing, by the way.)
Are you shitting me? Arnhart thinks that the theory of evolution- whereby species succeed based on their ability to adapt to and reproduce in changing environments- is evidence that people should always behave the exact same way forever no matter what the circumstances? Holy crap. You must be… daaaaaay-yamn, homey.
Darwinism, he said, supports the conservative view of sexual differences and family life. Left-wingers see these things as social constructions, mere conventions that can be overridden in the quest for personal liberation; Darwin anchors them in nature.
This is, frankly, teh stupid. I grow very, very tired of seeing people projecting ideology onto evolutionary science. I mean, it’s basically a very lazy way of justifying whatever stupid-ass beliefs you have without thinking deeply about why you hold those beliefs. “Fags is icky!” you can imagine Arnhart saying. “It’s agin’t nature! Homos don’t reproduce! Evolution hates ’em!”
Darwinism supports the conservative view of private property and the marketplace, because our innermost desires, shaped by natural selection over thousands of years, include an
unstoppable need to own property and to find gratification in trading our property with others. And Darwinism supports the view of limited, decentralized government, since the selfish human nature revealed by Darwin requires that no single authority be trusted with unchecked power.
Darwin woulda supported invading Iraq! And repealing the estate tax! And wasting government money trying to save Terri Schiavo!
West, the anti-Darwinian, began his rebuttal by pointing out that many leftists have criticized Darwin, too, so no one should think that anti-Darwinism is exclusively an obsession of religious primitives on the right. Kurt Vonnegut, oddly enough, spoke against Darwinian evolution, so anti-Darwinism is an obsession of overrated novelists on the left as well. West’s most important point, though, is that Darwinism is an intellectual package deal. Accepting its larger scientific claims about the origins of life, and about how human nature came to be the way it is, requires acceptance of its much less appealing philosophical suppositions: that the universe is a random, directionless process, that human existence has no point or purpose, that free will and the sanctity of the self are ultimately illusions.
Y’know, I learned quite a bit in my high school and college biology classes. And shockingly, the idea that the universe is a random, directionless process was not among them. I did learn that human existence has no point or purpose, though, but I could have learned that just by reading the Weekly Standard.
The amorality built into Darwinism, West said, explains why it has so easily been employed by eugenicists of both left and right. Reduced to the material processes of chemistry and physics, life as it is, even human life, no longer seems terribly worthy of respect. “Why not use reason to direct evolution to produce a new kind of human being?” West asked, in devil’s advocate mode. “What’s so sacrosanct about existing human dispositions and capacities, since they were all produced by such a purposeless process?”
Uh, we do use human reason to produce new kinds of people. It’s called mate selection. It’s why people have gotten gradually taller over the years, and why short guys have a tougher time getting dates.
As anti-Darwinians like to do, West has combed the vast corpus of Darwin’s writings to find the creepiest possible examples of the great man’s cold-bloodedness.
Well good for him. I’m glad he’s learned the art of quote-mining.
So Darwinism, viewed one way, can easily be considered morally disastrous. But, responded pro-Darwin Derbyshire, Is it true? “The truth value of Darwinism is essential,” he said. “The truth value always comes first.” If Darwinism is true–and its undeniable success in explaining the world suggests that it is–and if Darwinism undermines conservatism, as West had claimed, “then so much the worse for conservatism.”
Again, I’m amazed by the Derb’s ability to have fleeting moments of sanity. Truth be told, he’s one of my Guilty-Pleasure-Wingnuts. Sure, he’s a creepy bigot, but in an interesting way.
It was left to Gilder to provide a way out of this dilemma, if it is a dilemma. He noted that extremely complex explanations of physical processes can be thoroughly accurate, yet still incomplete–or even beside the point. Consider the microchip, he said. Like the human mind, it is often “presented as a thinking machine.”
“But,” he said, “you can know the location of every molecule and atom in a microprocessor, you can know their movements and how each gate within it is flipping, without having any idea at all of the function the computer is undertaking.” You can explain all these things, in other words, without explaining the most important thing: What’s it doing–and why?
Thus Gilder offered a concession by way of a compromise: “Darwinism may be true,” he said, “but it’s ultimately trivial.”
The most important theory in biology is trivial? What the hell, man. This is embarrassing even by wingnut standards.
It is not a “fundamental explanation for creation or the universe.” Evolution and natural selection may explain why organic life presents to us its marvelous exfoliation. Yet Darwinism leaves untouched the crucial mysteries–who we are, why we are here, how we are to behave toward one another, and how we should fix the alternative minimum tax. And these are questions, except the last one, that lie beyond the expertise of any panel at any think tank, even AEI.
In other words, “Fucked if we know!”
What is truly appalling to me isn’t that some crazy loons get together to debate stupid shit such as whether Darwin should have supported fixing the alternative minimum tax. What offends me is that such people are paid significant quantities of money to ponder such absurd questions. Hell, the fact that AEI exists in the first place almost single-handedly disproves Darwin’s theory.
UPDATE: I have no idea how we even got onto this subject in the comments, but…
…I don’t need no excuse to show clips from the Lost season finale. That is all 🙂
Newton’s theory of gravity is the principle behind trickle-down economics.
God wants taxes to be flat, which is why why he made the Earth that way.
By the time the formidable panel discussion was over last week, I, as a member of the audience, had even more questions about the nature of reality than usual.
This hardly ever happens at a think tank
Guffaw, my good man, guffaw guffaw.
I love the way this is framed. He’s basically saying that Hitler and Stalin were ideological bedmates of Woodrow Wilson, except that they were just a teensy-weensy bit worse. You know, because they killed tens of millions of people. And stuff.
Well. Woodrow Wilson was a complicated man. He was certainly racist and bigoted, as most folks in positions of power were back in his heyday. It was with his cabinet’s support that federal organizations became so segregated. His acceptance of the Southern account of Reconstruction and tepid support of the KKK were really a foot in the door so the South could return to the authority-supported oppression of black citizens.
On the other hand, the fact that he was an idiot same as The Most Evil People To Ever Live really doesn’t have much bearing on Darwin’s arguments.
Did Wilson suck in a lot of ways? Well, yeah. He had an imperial mindset similar to TR’s, and he certainly had many bigoted views. But was he on par, even close to on par, with HITLER AND STALIN. Please. That’s just teh ridiculous.
Ok, the first thing that jumps out atcha is this sense that accepting accepted science is optional. If it helps us politically, well, ok, we’ll agree it’s true. But we can always say it’s ridiculous, and goddidit, and that’s pretty much that. See, we get to choose what science we want to accept. That’s pretty much the antithesis of science.
Second:
Darwinism leaves untouched the crucial mysteries–who we are, why we are here, how we are to behave toward one another
What is it with these “crucial mysteries”. Anybody with a brain can see they DON’T HAVE FUCKING ANSWERS!!ONE!! Just stop it. You want somebody to explain your purpose? Lemme help you out here. You ain’t got one! At least you didn’t get issued one. You need to go out and MAKE one. Your purpose is what you do in the world.
Me? I’m about even. Did a lot of bad. Been working hard at offsetting it, and the fact that I’m even trying counts. Killing people, hurting people, imprisoning people, breaking up families, wrecking their shit, all this is clearly and unambiguously WRONG. The other side of the coin, helping people improve their lots, making at least a little piece of the world a little safer for the innocents, offering blood for blood, and answers when perhaps there otherwise might not be any, that’s how you get a purpose, a meaning, an answer to your metaphysical questions.
Big sky daddies won’t fix shit. But if you roll up your sleeves and help somebody, bring your righteous anger, a shovel in one hand and a rifle in the other, and you tell them you won’t leave when it gets hard, and when it gets hard you don’t leave, well, you’ll be surprised what it does for YOU…
mikey
Also, I’m pretty fucking sure “how should we fix the alternative minimum tax” is still beyond the power of AEI’s thinking.
Damn! Trofim Lysenko could have pulled in big bucks at the AEI. If science doesn’t fit our little ideology, then science just ain’t no damn good.
I sometimes wish there could be a separation of science and state…
I’ll bet this clown wishes he could separate politics from reality.
But was he on par, even close to on par, with HITLER AND STALIN. Please. That’s just teh ridiculous.
Yeah, I’m in agreement with you on that. I’m just noting that he was still a bit of a tool even by his era’s standards. Like I said, he’s one of the more… complicated presidents to discuss.
Though personally, I always thought Warren G. Harding was more of a fucker, even with Wilson’s bigotry.
There’s a weird sort of psychosis involved here. It’s not just the fact that they believe crazy things but that they have to construct bizarre rube Goldberg justifications using contemporary culture. There’s an almost pathological need for everything and anything to justify their entire world view. Everything good and right is either conservative or justifies conservatism.
The Right’s entire purpose is to have everything and everyone serve them.
Can’t they just back evolution because it started spreading as an idea in the late 1800’s and all the good scientists back then who were only white (and probably property-holdin’) men accepted it, and this was way before everything that was perfect in the world was ruined when ‘they’ let black people into schools and then teh black revolutionaries and hippies and hate-filled females jointly tore down Western civilization in the 1960s and 70s?
Evolution was accepted by the scientific patriarchy way back when everything was good, and black people couldn’t vote, and women couldn’t vote, and a young man what spoke up against the government publicly could get thrown in jail or boxed about the ears, and if there was a war nobody ever really complained.
Couldn’t they sell evolution that way, nostalgically, like every other thing they try to sell?
Patkin, I swear I’m not picking on you, but let me step in here to defend Warren Harding.
Yes, he was corrupt. And stupid. A real kleptocrat. But he also released political prisoners — put there by WW and Palmer — when he didn’t have to, when it was politically risky, even. It took a Democrat to throw Eugene Debs in jail; it took a Republican to get him out. Also, Harding was for disarming, and worked for treaties on naval disarmament that Coolidge eventually signed. Also, Harding was subject to a lot of bigotry — he was accused of being of mixed race.
And like Bill Clinton, Harding enjoyed the occasional blow job.
If anyone can use the ‘too clueless to know better’ excuse that was successfully bandied by Reagan’s and Grant’s defenders (and in the latter case, what bullshit that is), it’s Harding. I think he really was sort of clueless as to the extent of the graft machine going on around him. It’s not that he assumed his cronies would be honest, it was that I don’t think he could predict they would be such sloppy and greedy pigs.
By the way, Latin Americans and Caribbeans being killed by Wilson’s imperial policies and puppet regimes simply weren’t concerned about the crimes of Stalin or Hitler, because neither of those guys were in power at that point.
More directly, they did know quite certainly that it was the USA which was imperially interfering (oh, I’m sorry, supporting a Wilsonian policy of “self-determination” determined entirely by the USA) in their lives and either directly or indirectly killing and subverting their hopes for freedom, so it probably didn’t matter as much to them the prospect that somewhere, on some other spot on the globe, a future and worse government might be growing.
This is not a particular criticism of Wilson — in fact, it may only be now, in the 21st century, that maybe, maybe, the average American believes that a Latin American or Caribbean person cannot be slaughtered merely to benefit some American policy.
Maybe.
Like Clinton and Harding, I enjoy the occasional blow job….
mikey
This reminds me of back in the day when I believe it was Galileo, who was mocked for even suggesting that two objects of the same shape, but different size and weight, will fall at the same rate.
Except almost even more stupid.
Evolution was accepted by the scientific patriarchy way back when everything was good, and black people couldn’t vote, and women couldn’t vote, and a young man what spoke up against the government publicly could get thrown in jail or boxed about the ears, and if there was a war nobody ever really complained.
That’s what I don’t get. Conservatives wax endlessly nostalgic about Teh Good Ol’ Days before Roosevelt showed up and rammed through that dastardly New Deal that turned us all into Commies and shit. None of those pesky child labor laws, 40 hour work weeks, unions, social programs etc, to get in the way of their making an honest buck, dadgummit!
But the Robber Baron era they so fondly mythologize was fueled by Social Darwinism. Why the simple biological theory would be so abhorrent to them, when its twisted political offshoot is so revered, is a mystery.
Oh well, no one ever accused wingnuts of being logically consistent. Except other wingnuts.
In light of such unhappy history, Hayward said, “I sometimes wish there could be a separation of science and state to go along with a separation of religion and state.�
And I frequently wish the cabal currently infesting the Oval Office could be made to stop attempting the first and start implementing the second. But that’s because I may be religious but I’m not a gods-damned moron.
Hard-headed Darwinians, on the other hand, see human nature as settled and enduring and stubbornly unchangeable
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
It always amazes me when I find people who make my Catholic high school–which not only taught evolution, but emphasized how you can’t study biology without it–look like hardcore atheists. And they weren’t even Jesuits.
Truth be told, [Derbyshire’s] one of my Guilty-Pleasure-Wingnuts. Sure, he’s a creepy bigot, but in an interesting way.
Kind of a low-rent George Will. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.
Darwinism is based on idolatrous reliance of sensory perception, which is entirely unreliable and subject to the wiles of Satanic deception. True perception of ultimate reality can only be based on completely trustful surrender to Divine Revelation.
Yes you fin’lly made a monkey out of meeeeeee!!!
Still mad at John Locke, nabalzbbfr?
If memory serves, what came to be known as “social Darwinism” actually came before Darwinism, not the other way around. So you can’t even pin that on the old guy with the beard.
I’m glad to see that snorghagen, too, thought of Lysenko. The term “Stalinism” gets bandied about an awful lot by the right, but this need to have everything match the ideological line of the moment would, I think, fit the bill.
As for Wilson, it should be noted that he believed that people in places like the Philippines needed to be taught discipline through colonial rule before they achieved self-rule. This is a frankly imperialist view (and deserves a tiny bit of credit for its frankness, in comparison with our current ideology of imperial conquest). But it’s not quite the same thing as saying that you’re immediately giving people self-rule while you’re in fact occupying them.
As a former Huskie and Political Science undergrad, I actually had the displeasure of taking Arnhart’s course on political philosophy (Aquinas, Machiavelli, Locke, Lincoln). I also responded to his frequent letters to the campus paper demanding we invade Iraq and imprison suspected terrorists without hearings.
Apparently he found time to write them when he wasn’t trying to goad his students into discussing presidential assassination in the classroom, or attending his Federalist Society meetings at the local Beer Hall. His insanity was nearly as much fun as the crazy fat fuck who came up to me after a class in political terrorism and suggested I check out books on poison from the library. I politely declined, without even asking to see his badge.
Help! I’m trapped on an island!
Well, than maybe you shouldn’t have blown up the sub, John!
Don’t you tell me what I can’t do!
This is the weirdest counter-intelligencia panel I have ever read about.
They can’t figure out the “evasive” liberal mind. Change is downright frightening. They hope they can out maneuver mutable liberalism and corner/contain it? They will probably wreck havoc in the process.
Do liberals ever have disturbing “think out of the political box” discussions like this one?
But the Robber Baron era they so fondly mythologize was fueled by Social Darwinism.
Yep. social darwinism is pretty much all there is to libertarianism.
But to confuse matters, it was because of a reaction to *social* darwinism that WJB came to denounce so vociferously *scientific* darwinism, ending his days as a blooming idiot creationist in a TN courtroom.
So he turned out bad and wingnutty, but credit where due: he was right and humane and, if you like, the good sort of Christian in/while opposing social darwinism.
Don’t you tell me what I can’t do!
I just want to know how you’re still running around after being shot.
Mary- the Island healed him. I mean, it fixed his shattered spine, it’ll fix one measly gunshot wound.
Why can’t the island heal the writing?
I gave up on Lost a while ago.
On the other hand, I suspect dark matter is a very good political match for conservatives. Saddam hid the WMDs in dark matter.
above even your usual high standards, Brad. hilarious.
But to confuse matters, it was because of a reaction to *social* darwinism that WJB came to denounce so vociferously *scientific* darwinism, ending his days as a blooming idiot creationist in a TN courtroom.
And the weird schizophrenia continues to this day on the Right. The whole Reaganite, Norquist-fueled “drown the gummint in the bathtub” philosophy is predicated on the idea that the poor are lazy, inferior, etc., and that nothing should be done to help them. It’s straight Social Darwinism.
But it’s propagated by people who think that the Earth is 6,000 years old, and we were all plunked down on this rock last Tuesday after lunch, fully formed (except for a missing rib, of course.)
I still want to know where Kate’s horse went. And the polar bear. And what about Walt?
Why can’t the island heal the writing?
I gave up on Lost a while ago.
Un-give up on it. It got VERY VERY VERY VERY good in the last half of the third season. Don’t get me wrong- I had pretty much given up on it too. Then I tuned in to the ep where we found out how Locke got crippled, and DAMN I was hooked again. And since then it’s been great. Trust. Me.
Kate’s horse was a hallucination manifested by the Island, much like Jack’s dad, Hurley’s buddy “Dave” and Mr. Eko’s brother.
The polar bear was brought there by the Dharma Initiative in an attempt to quicky adapt animals to foreign climates. The bears escaped from their cages and last much longer, ironically, than every member of the Dharma Initiative did 🙂
No Shit, man! I’m STILL Waiting for Godot…
mikey
Wait…what?
I believe that most of these types, Reagan, etc., don’t believe the Biblical nonsense, not literally.
To them it’s actually unimportant when and how the Earth or life was formed. That’s what sets them apart from both rationalists and creationists. They probably hate both camps, because both sets of people on the reason / Bible divide think these are significant questions which should be settled.
The formation of the universe and the Earth and life are only interesting to the Reaganite types only insofar as the answer gives them power. No more, and no less.
If Kate’s horse was a hallucination, why was Sawyer able to see and touch it? That’s my only problem with that idea–I don’t buy mass hallucinations, and the show hasn’t used that idea otherwise as far as I can remember. The other stuff, yeah, hallucinations, but I’m still bothered by the horse.
But anyway, yeah, Lost’s second half of the season was great–they basically redeemed themselves.
OK, sorry for the threadjacking.
I’ll consider giving it a second chance when it’s hot and moving lots is less appealing in the dog days of summer. I found it works best in binge viewing anyway. But the first chunk of this season was utter, undiluted shite, and the now wait 3 months move just killed it for me. That and Adebesye dying. (You may know him as Mr. Eko, but to me he’ll always be Adebisi to me.)
Ooops. Tried to stop n edit that. Shouldn’t comment with a full mouth.
OK, sorry for the threadjacking.
Personally, I love that there are two completely separate themes running simultaneously. The idea that some think tank wingnuts think that Darwinism somehow validates their idiotic worldview is no weirder than the plot twists in Lost.
So who else thinks that the Evil Black Cloud on the island is a physical manifestation of Hobbes’ Leviathan?
Ok, me neither. 🙂
Actually, people have been getting taller due to improved nutrition. It has nothing to due with hating on short men.
Also, when did Vonnegut dis evolution? I have a feeling that someone misread some satire somewhere.
Hate to say it, but yer both right n wrong on the taller thing. White people are a little taller, even accounting for the impact of improved nutrition. But people as a whole haven’t really changed the height range we exist in. When whiteys first made it to Patagonia* they found comparatively giant natives, who if I remember right remain the tallest on average population recorded.
*- insert extended frank black “los angeles” quote here
You know what is missing from their panel of “experts”? A fucking scientist.
Accepting its larger scientific claims about the origins of life, and about how human nature came to be the way it is, requires acceptance of its much less appealing philosophical suppositions: that the universe is a random, directionless process, that human existence has no point or purpose, that free will and the sanctity of the self are ultimately illusions.
Why? They never explain why this is. It’s just considered a given. Why does evolution – and apparently only evolution, and not something complicated like quantum field theory – need to explain any deep, philosophical questions about human nature? That really isn’t science’s job and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. For cryin’ out loud, don’t these people know philosopher’s need shit to do?
I didn’t know about Kurt Vonnegut’s stance on evolution, though I think the author greatly mischaracterizes that stance. From what I gather, Vonnegut saw a hand in things, albeit one with a wicked sense of humor. Having read a couple of books, that revelation completely fails to bowl me over, lessen my enjoyment of his books or respect for his wisdom, nor does it send ary a quaver in my trust in the theory of evolution being the best explination availible for the state of life on this, the third stone from the sun. Not being a conservative, I can do that and not feel like I’m failing any ideological litmus test. Same thing allows me to dig on Hank Williams Jr., if you’re ever curious.
I think I’ve figured out where the vast bulk of resistence from a depressingly large amount of our fellow Americans who consider themselves “conservative” to the ball-smackingly obviousness of stuff like evolution or climate change. You know, the guys who claim it’s all a “scam” of some sort, like all scientists are in one it for some incredibly dopey reason. To wit, liberals think there’s something to it, SO IT’S EVIL!!!! SHUN!!! SHUN!!!!
Sensible human beings can be skeptical of certain aspects of evolution, climate change or any number of scientific phenomenon. Sensible human beings then educate themselves and learn. But these kooks? These people are no different than the Time Cube guy. It’s just spread-out goofy.
So Darwinism, viewed one way, can easily be considered morally disastrous. But, responded pro-Darwin Derbyshire, Is it true? “The truth value of Darwinism is essential,� he said.
God damn wingnuts are always suffering under the dual burden – too stupid to know and too stupid to know that they don’t know.
What is this false choice? If evolution did not furnish us with morals, then what did? The sky-daddy? I think certain wingnuts need to catch up with the past, say, 50 years, of game theory, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and some very nice work on eusocial insects. And if they’re unwilling or unable to keep abreast of the literature, then they need to shut the fuck up before they cause their readers to become as ignorant and misled as they are.
Ok, going out on a limb here and may say some dumb stuff, but here goes.
“Social Darwinism”, while favored as a n excuse by conservatives and reactionaries as a rationale for “Fuckyou! I got mine!” philisophy, it’s always had about as much relationship with Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection as “Christian dentity” groups have to do with the United Church of Christ: Same name, maybe a couple psalms, but a fundimentally radical shift in understanding.
For social darwnism, the concept is “Survival of the fittest”; a naturalst version of Calvinism. If I do well, it’s because I am best/fittest/blessed at what I do. If others don’t do well, it’s because they are somehow inferior, unfit, or damned.
But survival of the fittest has always depended on the environment. If you live in a laissez faire capitalist system where economic power is the dominant, then of course it will encourage those who are able to take advantage of it. If you can get away with something, those who do it become most successful. Change the rules, and you change the rules to thrive. Nature has no single standard as to what the “Superior” form of life is: Is algae more successful than a shark? Are lions better than elephants?
In it’s odd way, Evolutionary theory supports both Democracy and Dictatorship: change the rules for success, and you can get a different success. Quality of life for the many, or extreme luxury of the few? Both systems “Work”, and it’s a value judgement as to which you work for.
For conservatism though, there have been several strikes against Evolutionary Theory. First, as the science accumulates, it moves further and further away from supporting a conservative power structure as the only TRUTH, and so the eagerness to adopt it fades. Second, the rise of Fundamentalism as a rejection of modernity in religion. This new bastion of authoritarian supporters of conservative values have turned against this edifice of modernity that challenges their preconceptions, and used “Darwinism” as a scapegoat for all the ills of modern society. Oh, if only they could destroy that evil darwinian cult, all would be right with the world! The last was the repudiation of Fascism during the Second World War. The defeat of the fascist Axis was so thorough, and the crimes so appalling, that many abandoned those fields for fear of guilt by association. While racism and classism did not die with the Reich, the labels of “Social Darwinism” and “Eugenics” were so contaminated, that conservatives would shift back to excuses for their beliefs without the veneer of science. Finally, the rise of Communism and it’s atheist ideology helped to cement common cause between conservatives and fundamentalists, and accept the idea that “Darwinism = Atheism = Communism”
That’s my thought. I could just be talking out of my ass though.
Vonnegut doubted evolution?
Vonnegut was a theist?
Only someone who has not read the man’s work would suggest such an absurdity.
Read his book Galapagos for crissakes. Humans devolve into seals. It’s satire. Read Mother Night where he imagines himself to be a Nazi.
Friggin’ Conservatives!
How can our own species be so fucking stupid?
I guess Twain was a racist too.
Shorter AEI wingnuts: Science – Does it clothe our all-consuming lust for power or make it nekkid?
So it goes.
Well as all proper Americans know or should know if not for the brave armies of the US of A, Germany would have won the first world war, and then because there was no Versailles Treaty there would have been no Hitler. So Woodrow Wilson is clearly responsible for the rise of Nazism.
These connections are pretty easy to make with even the simplest understanding of history!
I’m sure that the folks at the AEI will come up with even better arguments in future.
Unfortunately I’m not sure that you can make Woodrow Wilson responsible for Stalin, since it was the Germans who shipped Lenin to Russia in 1917 or thereabouts.
While I had never heard of before of the “Confederacy’s most articulate theorist, Alexander Stephens” I’m impressed that he was able to get a copy of the Survival of the Species (published 1859) so quickly and inject it into the debate about slavery.
I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned their “overrated novelist” crack about Kurt-freakin-Vonnegut.
They denied a writer has talent because he doesn’t agree with them. Remember the sarcastic, backhanded Fox News obituary? Filled me with murderous rage.
There’s nothing I hate more than when people say that there’s no difference between Conservatives and Liberals (thinking that’s made a brief comeback with the Pelosi war-funding stuff), because RIGHT HERE THERE IS A DIFFERENCE: I may not agree with Chuck Heston on his homoerotic gun love, but shoot…that guy was probably a better Moses than the original Moses.
What was that conservative jackass that wrote a book about how not only was Noam Chomsky wrong about politics…but just to be petty, his findings in linguistics are pretty fraudulent, too! I mean, I guess I stopped right before the chapter entitled “I wasn’t going to mention this earlier…but I really hate his thick glasses!”
Where’s Harlan Ellison when you need him?
I’ll never forget how he pummelled the guy who wrote “The Prestige” because he sassed a dead writer.
Chris Priest’s last words to Ellison?
“You wouldn’t dare hit me in front of all these people.”
Ha. HA.
The Tao of Physics… The Seven Dancing Wu-Li masters… all those bullshit 1980s attempts to graft bastardised mysticism onto misunderstood quantum physics… they are what this Darwinism / Morality symposium reminds me of.
Not that I ever read any of them myself, you understand.
The Social Darwinist line of thought was designed to justify an elite robber baron class living like kings over masses of the poor. They were rich and powerful, therefore they must be superior to the poor. There was no obligation to tend to the poor, they had lost the great game of evolution. No conscience, no remorse, just a simple idea that personal worth was determined by how much stuff you had.
The problem that Social Darwinism had was that while it justified an elite robber baron class living like kings over masses of the poor, it also justified the poor forming large mobs, going to the homes of the rich, and hacking them to death with machetes.
>>That sort of party-poopery could easily have ended the discussion right there–
Yeah, you should never put out poopery before a party. Stinks up the joint. Perahps a nice scented candle?
“But,� he said, “you can know the location of every molecule and atom in a microprocessor, you can know their movements and how each gate within it is flipping, without having any idea at all of the function the computer is undertaking.� You can explain all these things, in other words, without explaining the most important thing: What’s it doing–and why?
This is one of the more retarded statements in the world. Has he ever heard of debugging? When debugging we take every instruction, take its contextual data and reverse engineeer what the original intent was and try to figure out which step is failing. Disassemblers and de-compilers do this tautologically.
We know the data, we know the steps, we know the parameters. With that the rest can be logically inferred. It’s an O2 operation tops, as you have 4 logic gates, and depending on your cpu 57 -200 operations which are all gate ops combo. From there you can infer into higher languages based upon their compiler rules. When managed you can ask ask every object to describe itself perfectly. It’s how you serialize a class into xml. You reflect over it and dynamically generate the code required to serialize it.
Even in a non-closed systems where you have unknown ops you can run statistical sampling methods to use a bayesian analysis to present a reasonable picture of what is happening, especially if you take care of the anomalies.
It’s called deductive reasoning you fucktard.
I work on a project which takes a language definition file, automatically generates code parsers for it, and then connects that into my multi-indexed graph so we can perform predictive queries in 1% of the time of our competitors. Syntax changes are trivial as you have to re-run the meta-programming code generators every time you want a query language change. Adding a new verb or constraint to direct graph traversal is trivial.
It’s like saying “if man were meant to fly god would have given him wings”.
Completely fucking ass-tarded.
Try it sometime.
I need to come up with a suitable moniker for those too stupid to get the next step. Tweezer-crotch and scapula-wings don’t seem to make the cut.
Perhaps you’re being too harsh on these Charlies? Maybe all they were attempting was to map out the ground Steven Pinker has covered
After all, if no account of human nature grounds your politics – your view of how people do and should live in a state and what institutions mediate their interactions – you very probably don’t have a particularly deep political theory. Darwin clearly has at least something to say about the nature of the human animal. Apply the standard American Projection Operator – Red State, Blue State – and you’re left with the natural question of whether Darwinian accounts of human biology / psychology / sociology fit better into conservative or liberal worldviews.
Oh, by the way, what do others here think of Peter Singer’s A Darwinian Left?
Seriously, what could be more deterministic than a closed system with all of the logical rules defined? Like tic-tac-toe? There are only 362880 possible ways to play that game. Less if you stop playing after someone wins. 362856 in fact assuming 5 play game.
The algorithm has no loops and is completely factorial.
Yes, I’m aggrieved at their sly, back-handed insult to Vonnegut. How dare they? Probably they dare because they’re too stupid to understand what makes him a great writer and Ayn Rand a crap one.
And as for Darwinismestnessness, I’d like to see them dig the essence of morality out of cellular biology, say. After all, if they don’t like Darwinestitudinousness, they can at least all get alongside cellular biology: we’ve all got cells, and they can attribute those cells to their Hairy Sky Fairy if they like, no monkeys required.
How about Boyle’s gas law? That’s pretty funky, and not at all dangerous for a wingnut. Although they could fuck anything up without even raising a sweat, I think.
Gravity, maybe?
err, 15120 combos for a 5 step game.
[…] Unbelievable, I know. Read Brad’s response for a point-by-point takedown. […]
Visigoth,
If Ellison punched Priest, it was for writing a critical account of Ellison’s failures surrounding the publication of The Last Dangerous Visions. He sassed a living author, not a dead one…
Evolutionary science does NOT equal Darwinism! “Darwinism” has become a buzzword for the Wing-nuts. Darwin made a great start, but comparing modern evolutionary science to his brilliant, yet simple, tenets is akin to saying that Einstein was a loon because he didn’t completely understand curved space.
On the plus side, if they’re arguing about this, they’re less likely to try and invade Iran…
“Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation: Does it Lend Credence to the Flat Tax?�
The flat tax is weak to remain flat, bowing to the ultra left wing, Darwinian hegemonic force of gravity. It deserves no further consideration. Stop tempting Satan.
I don’t know jimmiraybob, you could say that Gravity sucks, as does the Flat Tax, therefore Newton created the Flat Tax. QED.
Ok, I really, REALLY wanted to stay out of this. I have a cold and would rather be in bed and besides, I hate arguing online. I’d rather just read the snark from the Sadly No! crew before going on the Tbogg. However, since this is my area of expertise, I have to say SOMETHING, re: Wilson. This will be a long post, so fair warning.
First, let’s get the worst stuff out of the way. Wilson’s record on civil liberties during WWI was awful, probably the worst ever civil liberties record for a US President. To be fair, the repression was, in part, a reaction to an actual threat from German (and Austrian) campaigns that started well before the US entered the war. People now forget how active Germany was in trying (and often succeeding) to start fires in munitions factories, on ships, blowing up rail yards, etc. That said, the Wilson administration (especially AG Palmer and Postmaster General Burleson) went way, way overboard in their reaction to a real sabotage campaign. That said, there was no excuse to jail Debs, but while a Republican freed him from prison, during the war it was Republicans like TR that wanted him hung. You can add context to his record here, but there’s no real excuse. On civil liberties he gets a big fat “F.�
Race: Always the third rail in discussing Wilson. Born and raised in the deep south during the Civil War and Reconstruction he believed in white supremacy and as President allowed most of his cabinet to Jim Crow the federal workforce. Not every department did so. The Labor Department in particular, refused to go along. The big departments however, the Post Office and Treasury, were run by two ardent segregationists (Burleson and McAdoo) and not only segregated their workforces, but demoted and fired black supervisors. Wilson defended the policy as necessary to reduce “tensions.� Again, a huge mark against Wilson. For all the Republicans using this to bash Wilson though, when Harding and Coolidge were in office they did nothing to reverse it. Of course, that doesn’t excuse Wilson for allowing it to happen in the first place and he ends up near the bottom of US Presidents on race relations. Having read so much of his private correspondence though, I don’t think he was even the most racist president of the 20th century. I think Nixon has him beat and TR wasn’t much better than Wilson. At least Wilson appointed Jews and Catholics to major positions, something you could NOT take for granted in 1913.
BTW, Wilson probably never praised “Birth of a Nation.� I’ve done a lot of research tracing the quote and it appears to have basically been an invention by Thomas Dixon or even by his second wife. Wilson thought the Reconstruction-era clan was too violent and thought the reborn era Klan was a bunch of thugs, telling a friend that it was one of the worst things to come along. Still, being less racist than the KKK is the definition of “low hurdle.� Again, he gets a big fat “F� here as well.
On a side note, when you read the letters and books and the press from the 1910s the amount of casual racism, even the common use of the word N***** is still jarring to modern eyes. We forget how common it was on both the left and on the right.
Latin America: He intervened 4 times (counting off the top of my head). The Dominican Republic and Haiti, both of which led to long-term occupations. At least in Haiti you can say that Haiti in 1915 was pretty much a failed state given over to anarchy but that doesn’t excuse the occupation at leas tin the long term. (Side note, FDR always liked to brag that he wrote the new Haitian Constitution, he was WW’s Asst Sec of the Navy.)
Mexico in 1914 and 1916. People today don’t realize how much pressure that was on Wilson in the US to invade and occupy Mexico. TR was practically having fits over Wilson’s refusal to “defend US honor!� The Hearst press, which was in every major US city at the time, was screaming bloody murder (Hearst owned a LOT of Mexican land). Some background: a reformer (Madero) had been elected President in Mexico in late 1910 and in February 1913 he had been ousted in a coup by a conservative General named Huerta (inauguration was in March at the time so Taft was still in office). Wilson was lobbied (especially by American businessmen) to recognize Huerta. (He told a businessman he’d invade if the businessman’s sons enlisted and were in the first unit to invade. The businessman in question backed down. Yellow Elephants are nothing new) Wilson refused and by early 1914 he had lifted the US arms embargo allowing the Mexican revolutionaries to buy arms in the US.
In April 1914 he ordered the US to occupy the port of Veracruz after receiving a report that a German ship full of arms for Huerta was about to land there. Wilson had been assured that the Mexican people would welcome US troops with open arms as they were acting against a dictator (sound familiar?). When the Mexicans resisted the occupation (several hundred died) Wilson refused to allow the US military to go past Vera Cruz and move deeper into Mexico. The War Department was itching to go all the way to Mexico City and were furious that Wilson refused. Then Wilson even accepted international arbitration by the ABC countries (Argentina, Brazil and Chile) to negotiate a withdrawal from Mexico, which the US did in late 1914. That’s why when some talking head talks about Bush being “Wilsonian� it makes my teeth grind.
BTW, I’ve heard several commentators claim that Wilson occupied Vera Cruz for the oil. The only problem is, Vera Cruz was NOT the Mexico oil port, Tampico was, and the US had to pull its fleet out of Tampico harbor to go to Vera Cruz. In effect, the US abandoned their military presence near the Mexican oil fields.
Of course the second intervention was in 1916 after Pancho Villa attacked Columbus New Mexico. Wilson had almost recognized Villa as Mexico’s leader, until Villa lost to Carranza in the post-Huerta war between revolutionary factions. Given the raid into Columbus I find it hard to condemn Pershing’s mission into Mexico to catch Villa. Wilson at least tried to keep the expedition from expanding into a general war, again despite the Republicans (and Hearst) screaming for just that. Of course the Mexicans are not as understanding of Wilson’s actions, nor would I be in their shoes. But he really did want the revolution to succeed, and even sent John Reed’s articles from Mexico to his British ambassador to try to convince the Brits to stop backing Huerta.
Versailles: Let’s not forget that he was one of several world leaders there. Clemenceau, Lloyd-George, and Orlando all wanted their pound of German flesh. The RW loves to tar Wilson with WWII as if he wrote the damn treaty all by himself. Sorry guys, he did the best he could given the European demands. It was a bad treaty but could have been much, much worse.
BTW, so long as we’re on Versailles, it was the Aussies that killed Japan’s “Racial Equality� clause, not Wilson.. The Aussie PM stirred up the US west coast papers about the “yellow peril� and how if the clause was made part of the treaty Japanese immigrants would flood the western US. A s a result Wilson was told that if the clause was part of the treaty every US senator from West of the Rockies (that’s 10 Senators) would vote “no.� Neither Wilson nor Lloyd-George was enthused about the clause anyway so they let it die.
I should also note that most historian reject the “US entered the war to protect Wall Street� crap. Wilson owed zilch politically to Wall Street (the big banks backed Taft in 1912 and Hughes in 1916) and no one in Washington knew how badly the French and Brits were doing until AFTER the US entered the war. It was a well-kept secret how thin their resources were getting (and quite a shock to Washington after April 1917.)
Philippines: Wilson hoped to get actual independence through Congress, but when that was a non-starter he at least supported the Jones bill which allowed home rule and replaced the American local rulers with Filipinos. It was probably the biggest step towards independence anybody could have gotten through Congress until FDR.
Woman’s Suffrage. He was a late convert. He voted for it in a New Jersey referendum, but wasn’t really enthused. He claimed that woman’s actions during the World War changed his mind, but I think it was his daughters who lobbied him on it for years. His support finally helped the 19th amendment pass Congress and he helped lobby Tennessee to be the 36th state to ratify. FYI: if you watch “Iron Angels� keep in mind that the movie “credits� Wilson with actions taken by others, such as the DC police chief (who answered to Congress, not Wilson). Wilson didn’t get along with Alice Paul’s Woman’s Party, but he was pretty thin-skinned and if you pushed him he’d cut you off. He got along fine with other woman’s suffrage groups and they probably did more to win his support than did Paul.
Finally, let’s not forget the progressive record: the first 8 hour day, the first child labor laws, tariff reform (which draws snoozes now but the high republican tariffs really were a tax on the working class to profit business), the Federal Reserve (another winger whipping boy at the time because it was too much federal interference in the free market! It was considered quite the radical progressive reform by the right wing. The big banks at the time hated it.), appointing the first Jewish member of the Supreme Court (Brandeis, who was considered a radical reformer in 1915), the first income tax (aimed at the upper income brackets, workers and most middle class paid nothing), he did finally help push woman’s suffrage through Congress, he vetoed the Volstead Act, and he vetoed restrictive immigration laws (which passed in the 1920s)
I’ve studied US history for several decades now, earned a Ph.D. in early American history, and work as an actual professional historian so I’m not just a history “buff� like those clowns at AEI. If it wasn’t for the huge failing marks for civil liberties during the war and for his racism, Wilson would be remembered as the most successful progressive reform president before FDR. But then, if it were not for Vietnam, LBJ would be remembered as a great reformer as well. Sometimes an otherwise good leader has feet of clay.
One last note; the RW still hates Wilson for believing in an evolving Constitution. It’s the exact opposite of the “original intent� that Scalia and his ilk want. Wilson thought that as a peoples’ definition of freedom changed, so would their interpretation of the Constitution.
[…] the writers and commenters over at Sadly, No! have already done us the favor taking this line of thinking apart, dismembering it, dousing its remains in gasoline, setting it on […]
I need to come up with a suitable moniker for those too stupid to get the next step.
“Republican”?
Kurt Vonnegut, oddly enough, spoke against Darwinian evolution…
West is an idiot from the DI, so I was pretty sure he’d been hoisted on his own quote-mining petard. I think this must be the quote he found. Took all of 30 seconds to find.
I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can’t help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That’s why we’ve got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.
Can’t detect sarcasm there. Must be sincere.
Visigoth, the reason you’ll “never forget how [Harlan Ellison] pummelled the guy who wrote “The Prestigeâ€? because he sassed a dead writer” is because he never did.
That was Charles Platt. (You could look it up on Ellison’s own website. Though he’s got a long history of rewriting events to suit his image, so much so that his prospective testimony about L Ron Hubbard’s creating Scientology as a scam was deemed unreliable by a judge a while back.)
And the reason why he isn’t around to beat up guys (even as a fictional anecdote) is because he’s too busy finishing up The Last Dangerous Visions before he and the rest of the writers in that thirty-year-overdue book are all dead themselves. –Oh, and suing somebody because he thinks the First Amendment shouldn’t apply to people who make fun of him.
While I had never heard of before of the “Confederacy’s most articulate theorist, Alexander Stephens� I’m impressed that he was able to get a copy of the Survival of the Species (published 1859) so quickly and inject it into the debate about slavery.
Stepehns was Vice President of the Confederacy. He didn’t get along with Jefferson Davis, was regarded by most of the Confederate leadership as a nutjob, and spent most of the war tending to his own affairs in Georgia, ocasionally surfacing to protest against the Confederate government’s interference with states rights.
HDBimler: The Tao of Physics… The Seven Dancing Wu-Li masters… all those bullshit 1980s attempts to graft bastardised mysticism onto misunderstood quantum physics… they are what this Darwinism / Morality symposium reminds me of.
Not that I ever read any of them myself, you understand.
Actually it’s just The Dancing Wu-Li Masters — maybe you’re thinking of dwarves.
I’ve, uh, also not read many of those books, and if nothing else I found it fascinating, in a “hey is that bong cashed” kind of way, that the vague language of quantum uncertainty is similar to the descriptions of nature and reality that you’ll find in Buddhist texts from a thousand years ago. Like, wow, man.
But that’s even harder for conservatards to grok. Deterministic Darwinism, absolutely; it fits in their mental models that everything is either 0 or 1. But the notion that it’s not 0, nor 1, nor even 1/2, but in fact indeterminate is too much for them to grasp. Like trying to teach non-Euclidian geometry to kindergartners. Or evolutionary biology to Republicans.
Oy. All I can say is oy, and I’m not even Jewish.
Among real historians, rather than the nimrods at the AEI panel, there is a lot of doubt whether or not Darwin’s theories were ever used to support robberbaron capitalism. The key work by Robert Bannister:
http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/175_reg.html
Bannister argues that the term “social Darwinism” was invented by opponents to the robberbaron types who then used it as an insult. No one actually ever was a social Darwinist therefore.
The Dancing Wu Li Masters is crap (but had breaking news re Alain Aspect’s experimental proof of Bell’s inequality). The Tao of Physics, though turgid, is pretty thought-provoking, and shouldn’t be tarred with the same brush.
Let us not forget that the founders of quantum mechanics also drew these parallels between eastern mysticism and modern physics:
http://www.mathematik.uni-muenchen.de/~bohmmech/BohmHome/sokalhoax.html
Beaten to the Sokal hoax love.
Quantum physics metaphors employed in arguments seem an awful lot like Frazer’s Contagious Magic. Or like pimping your ride.
Bun Bun vonWhiskers: The problem that Social Darwinism had was that while it justified an elite robber baron class living like kings over masses of the poor, it also justified the poor forming large mobs, going to the homes of the rich, and hacking them to death with machetes.
*snerk* Yeah baby!
It’s not gravity, it’s Intelligent Falling!
In a perfect, a herd of Tyrannosauruses would come over and devour every one of those master debaters.
These people are political Paris Hiltons: rich, useless, blueblood douchebag idiots who deserve to get shivved in prison, but hopefully after a prolonged session of gay prison rape.
Mikey says:
What is it with these “crucial mysteries�. Anybody with a brain can see they DON’T HAVE FUCKING ANSWERS!!ONE!! Just stop it. You want somebody to explain your purpose? Lemme help you out here. You ain’t got one! At least you didn’t get issued one. You need to go out and MAKE one. Your purpose is what you do in the world.
Me? I’m about even. Did a lot of bad. Been working hard at offsetting it, and the fact that I’m even trying counts. Killing people, hurting people, imprisoning people, breaking up families, wrecking their shit, all this is clearly and unambiguously WRONG. The other side of the coin, helping people improve their lots, making at least a little piece of the world a little safer for the innocents, offering blood for blood, and answers when perhaps there otherwise might not be any, that’s how you get a purpose, a meaning, an answer to your metaphysical questions.
Big sky daddies won’t fix shit. But if you roll up your sleeves and help somebody, bring your righteous anger, a shovel in one hand and a rifle in the other, and you tell them you won’t leave when it gets hard, and when it gets hard you don’t leave, well, you’ll be surprised what it does for YOU…
Mikey: I always enjoy your comments and this one is a keeper — thanks!
I’m a bit late to this thread, but I liked this line:
AEI stands as the capital’s premier research organization
to which I’d add, “as long as you ignore Georgetown University, George Washington University, and (just a short subway ride away) the National Science Foundation.” They use the word “premier”, but I don’t think they know what it means.
They use the word “premier�, but I don’t think they know what it means.
“The one most likely to give me and/or my conservatard friends a bagful of cash and a semi-credible tagline for my next pimped op-ed piece” is what they mean by “premier research organization”. It’s the free market at work, after all — what higher meaning could you expect?
[…] fine folks at Sadly, No! present us with another round of wingnut wankery. And while Bradrocket does a most excellent job of mocking the anal-leakage-inducing sophistry of […]
[…] Unbelievable, I know. Read Brad’s response for a point-by-point takedown. […]