Herd Watching

My friend runs the Political Virgin website and in an attempt to be supportive I have agreed not to get overly argumentative and evil in the comment stream there. Honestly it has been worth it because I have really enjoyed viewing this election through her fresh eyes. That being said, I will respond to her post as my way of commenting on the Palin / Biden debate :)

In general? I am giving the evening to Palin. It wasn’t enough to turn the tide on the election but frankly I doubt it could have been no matter what she did. I am basing the win on the complete lack of substantive attacks from the left in the twitch media*. She answered all the criticisms, acquitted herself well and once again showed how amazingly well she connects with many voters.

In short, she reminded me why she scares the hell out of the far left :)

I’ll skip over PV’s comments on Biden. This is basically just opinion stuff and not really open for objective discussion. There are a few points though that I think are indicative of the problem in this election – the illusion of substance over reality. When you couple with a bias that says to disagree is to be against intelligence or science, you get people making bad judgments for bad reasons.

“And a moment that, for me, struck to the heart of things - climate change and its causes.  Palin repeated her stock answer word for word (including her bizarre reversed phrases) that she doesn’t think humans have caused it, and that the cause doesn’t matter.” – PV

Skipping the sentence structure comment what do we have here? Palin saying exactly what the science actually supports…

“I’m not one to attribute every man — activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man’s activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.” – Sarah Palin

When you pull the politics out of the climate change discussion and ignore the activist organizations (many of whom were howling a few years ago about a global winter to come because man is evil) you have to go look at the facts. The scientific facts are these:

• there is some indication the global climate may be changing though there is far from clear evidence of this
• absolutely none of the computer models the climate change alarmists use to make their claims have accurately predicted a significant fraction of the data collected in the real world – in short, these models are provably incorrect
• there is conclusive proof that the earths climate undergoes cyclical change due to forces which far, far outstrip mans potential impact and are beyond our current ability to control or reverse

In fact governor Palins comments are completely accurate in terms of the science. That is, the real science… not the stuff Al Gore and Obama / Biden have been huffing. In fact I agree with Biden here…

“BIDEN: Well, I think it is manmade. I think it’s clearly manmade. And, look, this probably explains the biggest fundamental difference between John McCain and Barack Obama and Sarah Palin and Joe Biden — Gov. Palin and Joe Biden.” – Joe Biden (emphasis mine to show point of agreement)

Yeah Joe, it sure does. McCain and Palin are dealing with the facts as they actually exist, as the science shows and without putting a political spin on it. You and Obama are selectively using the some scientists to re-enforce the popular fears and myths so you can appeal to the far left environmentalist whack jobs and the anti-capitalist fringe for political gain. All the while trying to paint those grounded in reality as denialist idiots. Yup, that about sums the whole campaign up for me.

The same thing goes for economic policy and national security as well. McCain sees these as issues with nuance, and Obama is using the crudest. broadest strokes to paint it in a way that will appeal to his base. They don’t want to deal with things as they actually exist, they want “hope” and “change”. What they are getting is their own mythology fed back to them.

PV goes on to say this… and it is here that her own biases lead our dear Virgin astray.

“That point is my core problem with the Bush administration, and the core problem I see with the McCain/Palin ticket as well. Politics aside - when top level science is ignored and supressed, when expert opinions are dismissed, when leaders stubbornly cling to their beliefs even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary - things go wrong, very, very wrong.” – PV

Her core assumption is that conservative Republicans’ are somehow “anti-science”. This bias is informed by her views (no doubt) and the Creationism debate where a miniscule fringe of the Republican support base has lost their minds. The simple reality is that, on a national scale, her fears and assertions here are unfounded. Not only has there been no Republican push to include creationist dogma into the educational system there isn’t even a whisper of such a thing. However she still believes these views somehow dominate the party or that there is any significant “anti-science” base within it. In fact, when you look at the things the Republican party does actively support science is all over it.

Even more interesting is that this mythical anti-science stance is then used to draw the conclusion that this is why the Republican ticket doesn’t share Obama / Biden’s views on climate change. She has bought wholesale into the illusion being sold – that the science is clearly supportive of the Obama / Biden view and that to oppose their assertions or remedies is to deny science itself!

In fact nothing is further from the truth.

It is the Obama / Biden view that claims a level of surety that the real science simply does not support. It is the Obama / Biden view that has no interest in dealing with all those bothersome facts. The view that climate change is conclusively man made (and in fact that a single concept of “climate change” is conclusively occurring right now in a measurable way) is not a scientific conclusion but rather an article of faith used and promoted to support a political and social agenda.

And there, my friends we have the real tragedy of the current election. An intelligent, well meaning person like PV has now not only bought into an conclusion that lacks conclusive scientific support but is convinced that the position that actually does follow the science is a symptom of a policy of scientific denialism that simply doesn’t exist. This cuts to the real core of the problem… McCain / Palin are not seen through any lens of objectivity but are interpreted only through the lens of bias.

This works to Obama’s favor of course because objectively he is a none entity. As a legislator he almost doesn’t exist, as a leader he is entirely without leadership and as a politician he views are utterly without distinction in his party. He is a man who barely exists at all with one sole exception – Obama is the perfect Rorschach inkblot for a group of people who are confused and angry to hang their “hopes” for “change” upon. Many Obama supporters see things through bias lenses because for the most part it is only someone who is more interested in what they think they see than what they actually see could be an Obama supporter.

Note my distinction there. I know many folks who will be voting for Obama who are doing so for objective, well thought out reasons. They dislike McCain’s policies, or they think it is time for a minority president, or they want us to pull out of Iraq or whatever. They are not really supporters of Obama the person or the entity. They are supporting Obama simply to send another messages with their vote. That is all well and good.

What I have not yet met is someone who supports Obama the man for any reason they can actually point to and back up. They cannot point to a single issue he has taken a hard stand on, a single legislative action he has take or a single act of leadership in his entire career. The eventually simply mumble about “hope” and “change”. In the end they will get all upset about being asks for their reasons and say something about me the questioner being a racist.

Congratulations PV, you have been deflowered :)

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