If you ever wondered what is wrong with the GOP, look no further than the candidates running in the Republican primary for retiring Congressman Howard Coble’s seat. In a single forum, they laid out their bigotry, callousness and ignorance. To a group of school kids.
In front of an audience of middle school students at Greensboro Montessori School, the GOP made sure that their ignorance was on full display. First, two candidates cast doubt about climate change. Only in America is there widespread doubt about climate change–and that only comes from one party. One candidate even went so far as to say we should be worried about a looming Ice Age. So much for science.
And then there’s frontrunner Phil Berger, Jr. When a sixth-grade girl asked him about his support for marriage equality, she says he compared it to people marrying dogs. Maybe he said it and maybe he didn’t but she heard it from somewhere and it’s been an acceptable line of reasoning for bigots that the GOP refuses to condemn. The goal of arguments like that is to make people less than human to justify discrimination and abuse. Phil Berger, Jr., needs deny that he made that argument and then condemn it and the people who perpetuate it.
On the coal ash spill, the candidates sided squarely with Duke Energy. One said “accidents do happen” (Duke is the largest power company in the world, not a toddler at the dinner table) and we shouldn’t “encroach on the rights of companies.” Screw the rights of those downstream. And Berger is concerned that Duke might be punished at all. He wants to move regulatory control to Congress so any regulations can get bottled up in gridlock like everything else in Washington.
On too many issues, the GOP is the party of deceit–and they are seriously fooling themselves. Right now, they are cheering for voter fraud in order to justify voter suppression. They deny climate change to justify polluting. And like the bigots who defended slavery and segregation, they use religion to justify their discrimination against gay people.
I don’t believe most of the Republican leadership really buys these arguments. They just use them because the ends justifies the means. And the end here is more profit and the voting support of provincial and narrow-minded people. It’s a disgraceful and shortsighted way to run a party. While the GOP may benefit in the short-term, they’ll pay a price in the long run. That’s how politics works.
Combined, these candidates make one helluva case to elect Laura Fjeld.
It seems to me as if the DEM’s have a very good chance of winning District 6, if they select the right candidate. Ms.Fjeld has raised alot of money but has no experience or voting history. According to North Carolina Voting Department, she just became a Democrat in 2012, which was also the first time she voted. On the other hand we have Bruce Davis, who has been a county Commissioner for 12 years, spearheaded getting the land for the Field of Honor, and was apart of bring Honda Jet and Fedex to the TRIAD. This will be a very interesting race, and entertaining from the Republican side
Yes, very responsive to their rich white corporate polluting constituents. We know this.
There’s actually a fair amount POPULAR doubt about climate change all across the West. The difference is that center-right parties there are more responsible than their constituents.
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/why-dont-republicans-believe-in-climate-change/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
If a conservative is speaking, a conservative is lying.
“Geek can take care of himself”?
Geek needs to come out of his mom’s basement and check out reality once in a while.
Hey, it’s Tom’s quote. Certainly once you go past the usual “rah rah our side is great and your side sucks” stuff here, it’s much more difficult… but most here are cheerleaders.
Realizing what a futile effort it is to convince republicans that common sense matter, facts matter, reality matter, science matter etc., I must respond to your comments here. I challenge you to consider this, what type of country, democracy or reality would exist without the foregoing? I wonder, at times, why support a party such as the republicans that have done absolutely nothing to solve existing problems facing this nation but instead have obstructed progress based purely on hatred of the opposing party…the democrats and especially this BLACK POTUS. Their focus is based on winning elections, hook or crook, voter suppression etc., not fair and equal pay, a tax system that benefit everyone, job creation, healthcare for those needing it, the list is long and exhausting…….I ask, how and what do republican policies do for you and your love ones, your neighbors experiencing joblessness, etc.?
Who are the nuts outside of the republicans? I’ll concede that both sides are filled with corruption but nutcases, I just don’t hear the same nonsense from the left regarding settled issues like marriage equality and the environment.
Mike — you’ve never lived thru a conversation with someone who hasn’t updated their “knowledge” of “global warming” for the past 10 years. FYI, that entire Al Gore “hockey stick” thing was abandoned about 10 years ago by even “mainstream” environmentalists, and HADCRUT shows that we haven’t have any global temp increase for almost 18 years, but… hey, I’m the one who isn’t using “science”, right?
FYI, that Mann “hockey stick” thing was debunked based on bad statistical methods, including a “trick” to “hide the decline” (their own terms). Most of the hard core “climate science” stuff over the past decade has been dealing
As far as “marriage equality”, there isn’t any conversation. Someone likes me asks some questions based on our thoughts — and no, one of them is NOT “thus saith the Lord” — and someone on your side has a meltdown, and that’s it. Did you see the news on Mozilla (“Firefox”) this week? Seriously, this is one where even gay people are jumping ship from the “nonsense” on your side. (BTW, gay guys also bought food at Chick-Fil-A when that uproar hit too, ’cause they didn’t like the tactics). And then there is that “gay mafia” term from Rush… wait, it’s from Bill Maher?!?!
And do you want to see my video that I took of the union nutcase in Michigan, as he yelled at me ’cause I crashed his little party? When that didn’t work, the union goons made themselves known…
The debunking of the debunking has been thorough and overwhelming and if liberals were not such wimps they would hold all conservatives fiscally responsible for the environmental damage to come. Our children still might.
Fresh from today’s news: “THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Let me put it in personal terms. So your son or daughter has a disease and you go to 100 doctors. 97% of them, 97 of the hundred say this is the cause and this is the cure. And 3% say this is the cause and this is the cure. That is what it is on the climate science. 97% of experts say this and 3% say that and conservatives are saying I’m going go to with the 3%. That’s not conservative, that’s Trotskyite radicalism.”
So seriously, my doubting of Al Gore’s pronouncements are akin to a group that killed 100 million people? So I should be hunted down by the full forces of the US Gov’t like we used to do for communists? Seriously?
What’s next, TEA Party people are in favor of child molesting?
Your comment was nothing but imagined conversation that I may or may not have had in addition to a bill maher. Was that supposed to prove anything? Yes bill maher is a nutcase, yes if those conversations between myself and the imaginary people had occurred I may have thought them nutcases too but thankful none of those people real or imagined are running for office. Only republicans take their nutcases serious.
Re-read what YOU said. I’m commenting on that. And if you think that “only republicans take their nutcases seriously” I’ve got a lawyer friend who once defended the Black Panthers I’ll introduce you to.
No you are not. You’re using straw men and bill maher to suggest that the left is full of nutcases. You are simple mistaken and provide very poor rhetorical tactics to hide your lack of foundation.
“Ad Hominem” and other debate terms are frequently used by conservatives and their surrogate moderates to justify the unjustifiable while sounding fru fru in the process.
It’s simple really. When Dems are running things we have fiscal responsibility and surplus in the budgets. When Republicans run things, they say they want fiscal responsibility, but do the exact opposite. Every Rethug president has increased the debt. By a lot. We need more Dems to do the right thing. Not rethugs who lie, cheat and steal elections.
False equivalency. The number of nutcases who are candidates and elected officials among Republicans is breathtakingly large, made worse by those few in the party who remain silent even though they disagree with the nutcases.
My seat of the pants guess is Republicans are five or six times more likely to be delusional, meaning they don’t believe in science or evidence. Sure some Democrats are equally delusional, but the ratio is smaller.
“False equivalency” then you got ahead and make one. Gotcha.
Irony. Making a criticism of false equivalency and then making a false equivalence.
Double Dog Irony. Having a philosophy that is essentially composed of false equivalence and criticizing the critic of false equivalence.
Well spoken sir.
Is this where I point out that your side has just as many nutcases? I mean, is that the game now? The goal here is to elect the best of a cast of nutcases. Anyone crazy enough to run is probably crazy enough to commit, at least if we still had mental institutions.
Who on the left is spewing lies as egregious and bigoted? Names please.
You’ve never listened to a Moral Monday protest, have you? You’ve never seen union violence? Did you hear of the Mozilla story this week? Did you hear about that WV politician who called NRA members “Pure Trash” last week? Did you hear about that college prof who called on all people who don’t buy the Al Gore “Hockey Stick” thing to be arrested and imprisoned? (BTW, most climate scientists rejected that hockey stick thing a decade ago.)
Seriously, this is a conversation that the Dems just don’t want to get into. ‘Cause, quoting a rabbi from Indy, “We all have our crazies”. The crazies came out during the Occupy movement, and basically killed it with their excesses (defecating on cop cars, pissing on church alters, rape, drug use, graffiti, to name a few). The crazies are there at every union event. The crazies are there at every Moral Monday event. And seriously, do you really want to CELEBRATE an abortion?
Here’s a thought — how about looking at “your side” and identify the crazies and distancing yourself from them? Then maybe people will listen to what you have to say, and engage you in conversation, and maybe — just maybe — you’ll convince someone of your views.
Fair warning — I used to hang out with liberal / left activists, and have tons of first-person stories. I know the liberals well, certainly much better than most liberals understand conservatism. As Tom Mills posted elsewhere, “Geek can take care of himself.”
If a conservative is speaking, a conservative is lying.
And from yesterday’s news (betting these are NOT TEA Party people, correct?): “As a partner venture capitalist at Google Ventures, Kevin directs the flow of capital from Google into the tech startup bubble that is destroying San Francisco,” the flyer said. “The start-ups that he funds bring the swarms of young entrepreneurs that have ravaged the landscapes of San Francisco and Oakland.”
The protesters held up signs that said, among other things, “I’m a gonna snip your balls.”
If a conservative is speaking, a conservative is lying.
Both sides are not the same. The Devil’s greatest trick was convincing moderates that he didn’t exist.
Well spoken, sir. I remember when the Republican party deserved my respect. The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, support for science, American Indians, the list goes on. But when they clean house of the likes of Richard Lugar for being too liberal, you know they’re doomed. Where are the Mark Hatfields and Warren Rudmans of this generation? Instead we’ve got a clown car full of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul types, and a firm belief in fairy tales, from science through economics and most of public policy.
So one of this crew will probably go to Congress, where the GOP already has a dysfunctional majority, locked in by gerrymandering, that refuses to address the needs and concerns of the American people – unless they’re rich old white guys or evangelical Christians. Meantime, they’ve lost the popular culture, and their insistence on legislating morality and corporatism in the same breath look increasingly desperate and ignorant.
The US *needs* two parties. When one of them fails to believe in government, and refuses to do the people’s business, it’s bad for us all. Where did all the grown ups in the GOP go? They got pushed out by the social conservatives with their Culture War agenda, and the 1% financed it as long as they got their way, laughing all the way to the bank.
But now the GOP has run out of foot soldiers in the cities and suburbs who are a good fit to the 21st century. It will get worse before it gets better.