How Progressive Are You?

[Berkut]

It doesn't.  The supposed conflict between science and religion was conjured up by demagogues on both sides to boost their own standing, and has gone on so long and become so ingrained that people who aren't themselves demagogues believe it.

I can assure you that there is actually a conflict between science and religion.  When some people are saying that they've done some math based on how long folks allegedly lived in their holy book, and they've come up with a universe that is 6,000 years old, that's a claim that flies in the face of everything we know about the universe.  When they pursue it through the peer review process, that's alright.  After all, I'm sure that scientists have made ridiculous claims like that over the years, and that's what peer review is for.  However, when they try and do an end run around the process and slip their lunacy into science education in public schools, that's a conflict.

Besides, demagogues are the ones who write the laws these days.

But it is a conflict that the crazy nutters have consistently lost in almost all cases.

[viper37]

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/progressive_quiz.html

I scored 355/400, which apparently puts me to the left of Karl Marx.

Oh, and the map:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/progressive-map/

Arkansas

229/400
satisfying.

[Neil]

But it is a conflict that the crazy nutters have consistently lost in almost all cases.

But it won't stop them from trying, nor will it stop them from doing their level best to hijack the Republican party.

[Neil]

I suspect that this is the real reason for Vinnys hysterics.

"What? They don't want to pay me to study gas clouds! DAMN THEM ALL!!!!!"

Perhaps, but he's right to feel that way.  People who oppose basic research should be damned.

[vinraith]

I suspect that this is the real reason for Vinnys hysterics.

"What? They don't want to pay me to study gas clouds! DAMN THEM ALL!!!!!"

Perhaps, but he's right to feel that way.  People who oppose basic research should be damned.

They certainly don't deserve to be voted for, which is the comment I made that started all this in the first place. I should really start keeping a list of politicians that refer to science spending as "pork" or the like.

Berkut seems to think he's found a new avenue of personal attack, but I said at the beginning of all this that one reason I couldn't vote Republican is because they'd like to kill my funding.

[derspiess]

Ehm, science spending can be pork, just like any other spending.  Just being 'scientific' doesn't make it holy.

[vinraith]

Ehm, science spending can be pork, just like any other spending.  Just being 'scientific' doesn't make it holy.

"Pork," as best I can tell, just means "spending I don't approve of" in political-speak. If it ever had a more substantive meaning, it's lost to the ages.

But for the record, I mean those that refer to good science spending as "pork."

[Barrister]

but I said at the beginning of all this that one reason I couldn't vote Republican is because they'd like to kill my funding.

But it's your base premise that several of us have questioned.   

[Berkut]

I suspect that this is the real reason for Vinnys hysterics.

"What? They don't want to pay me to study gas clouds! DAMN THEM ALL!!!!!"

Perhaps, but he's right to feel that way.  People who oppose basic research should be damned.

They certainly don't deserve to be voted for, which is the comment I made that started all this in the first place. I should really start keeping a list of politicians that refer to science spending as "pork" or the like.

Berkut seems to think he's found a new avenue of personal attack, but I said at the beginning of all this that one reason I couldn't vote Republican is because they'd like to kill my funding.

But that isn't true. We had a Republican in the White House and in control of Congress, and unless I am mistaken, you still had funding...right?

My point is just that you are making much ado about, well, not nothing, but certainly not much. I don't recall any religiously motivated opposition to spending on general science research unless it touches on the taboo, and even then it is pretty ineffectively opposed.

Quite simply, the Republican Party is not nearly as dominated by the religious whackos as you think, or want to think.

[Berkut]

Ehm, science spending can be pork, just like any other spending.  Just being 'scientific' doesn't make it holy.

"Pork," as best I can tell, just means "spending I don't approve of" in political-speak. If it ever had a more substantive meaning, it's lost to the ages.

But for the record, I mean those that refer to good science spending as "pork."

It is pretty simply defined, and well understood:

The term pork barrel politics usually refers to spending that is intended to benefit constituents of a politician in return for their political support, either in the form of campaign contributions or votes.

I am a huge fan of science spending, and as a general rule support it almost without exception. The idea that it is somehow special or holy though, and any opposition to it can only possibly be based on religious zealotry AND that this religious zealotry is SO effective that it forces poor Vinny to not vote republican is simply ridiculous. The further idea that somehow the scientists are under siege from "anti-intellectuals" is preposterous. Talk about a desperate desire for victim-hood. We spend vast sums on science research in America, more than any other country in the world, I suspect.

Vinnny, you aren't going to vote republican not matter what - the stance of the religious nuts on science spending is totally irrelevant to your position on voting Republican.

[Berkut]

I'm curious when it was that I claimed the only reason the Republican party was anti-intellectual and anti-science was because of the religious right. Certainly that's a major component, but it doesn't seem to be the only one.

Your premise is flawed - the republican Party is not anti-intellectual or anti-science to begin with, so WHY it is those things doesn't really matter.

[Barrister]

Huh - Vinny had written a post, but then deleted it. 

[Barrister]

Your premise is flawed - the republican Party is not anti-intellectual or anti-science to begin with, so WHY it is those things doesn't really matter.

Well I'm trying to give Vinny the benefit of the doubt here.  Maybe there have been motions to take away his kind of abstract science research funding that I'm not aware of.  Maybe it's at the state level in (Ohio?).

[vinraith]

Huh - Vinny had written a post, but then deleted it. 

Replying to Berk's willful misrepresentations and trolling is a bad habit I'm trying to break. Come to think of it, so is reading threads he's shat all over. Damn.

[Berkut]

Huh - Vinny had written a post, but then deleted it. 

Replying to Berk's willful misrepresentations and trolling is a bad habit I'm trying to break. Come to think of it, so is reading threads he's shat all over. Damn.

And Vinny, as usual, goes on the personal attack when he cannot respond to the argument.

So predictable when his world view is challenged.

I am a huge fan of science spending, and as a general rule support it almost without exception.

I am such an anti-intellectual troll! ZOMG!