(h/t Crooked Timber) Earlier this year, the right-wing blog Right Wing News sent out a survey to 240 right-wing blogs asking them about a variety of topics. They only got 63 responses, most from marginal blogs, but the results are telling.
First of all, there's the 61 (out of 63) who think the surge should go forward. Of course. If we don't Win In Iraq (TM), then their entire worldview, centered on the idea that the US can go beat the crap out of anyone we don't like, any time we want, especially those who are "different", fails.
Then there's the 53/63 who think that Democrats want us to lose in Iraq for political reasons. Yes, because this disastrous war has been nothing but a political and personal boon for all of us Haters of America. Those of us who have been against the war from the beginning have really been motivated by a desire to lose and weaken our country, rather than any connection to reality or that we thought that Iraq was a distraction from the real danger.
But then we get to the fourth question.
Do you think mankind is the primary cause of global warming?
Yes (0) -- 0%
No (59) -- 100%
You may need to pause and read that one slowly. Yes, the anti-intellectualism of the right continues to grow, and continues to invalidate a whole body of scientific knowledge. Remember, this is an issue over which there is essentially no debate in the scientific community. Every major national or international scientific organization which has released a report about climate change says that the evidence is incontrovertable - the activities of the human race have contributed to changing the climate of the planet. And not one of these neocons believes it. Not one. This isn't an argument about the uncertainty of what the results of climate change will be. This isn't an argument that, while we're affecting the environment, there is a reasonable debate about what we should do in response. This isn't a question of how it affects the economy. This is a flat-out rejection of science, of the knowledge that is gained through the rigorous exercise of the abilities of the human mind.
What makes this weirder is that there's no significant religious component to this debate. It's not evolution, or the Big bang, where religious fundamentalists choose to rely on no textual authorities other than the Bible. Hell, even the Liar in Chief admitted that there might be something behind the science in his last SotU. This is willful ignorance, determined incuriosity, and an unshaking attachment to a belief, not because there's any evidence supporting their side and not because God told them to think a certain way. The culture of anti-intellectualism, of instinctively rejecting any information that comes to them from a source that isn't FoxNewsApproved, that might cause them to question, well, anything, has so taken root that these Luddites are willing to ignore mountains and mountains of data, just to remain in their safe little bubbles.
Their safe, little, warming bubbles.
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1 comment:
It doesn't surprise me too much.
The first (maybe the only) principle of modern conservatism is "me first; fuck you." It's still arguable that for most adults who are alive today, global warming will not change their lives materially. (It may not be true, but it is at least arguable). So, since all the really bad stuff like massive famine, extinctions, land loss will likely occur after they are dead, they don't worry too much about it. In fact, they deny it completely so that way they won't be inconvenienced in the slightest.
Where this denial does get a little surprising to me is that it basically proves that these people don't really care what happens to their own children and grandchildren. That's taking juvenile Randian self-obsessed orthodoxy all the way to the absolute limit, to the point that they've stopped caring what happens to their own children.
The Family Values party at work.
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