Simanaitis Says
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A PLEA FOR SCIENTOCRACY
IMAGINE GOVERNMENT ADOPTING SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES of observation, measurement, experiment, and refinement of hypotheses. Instead we have hypocritical jackasses following whatever conspiracy theories happen to come to what passes for mind.
Consider the Republican Party’s current assault of Trump’s 34 convictions. Just as he denied veracity of the 2020 Presidential Election, they are now denying efficacy of the judicial process.
The simplest scientific assessment would dismiss either of these inane points of view. For example, CBS News, January 27, 2024, reports a “Stanford Study: No Evidence of Voter Fraud in Pennsylvania, Other States During 2020 Election.” This adds to the evidence of other assessments since 2020.
Trump’s trial has a thoughtful analysis by Alan Feuer in “Extraordinary Circumstances, Ordinary Due Process,” The New York Times, May 31, 2024. Feuer writes, “During a rambling speech at Trump Tower on Friday, Mr. Trump continued to assail the trial as ‘rigged,’ repeating a litany of falsehoods and misleading claims about the proceeding. He also persisted in attacking Justice Merchan, calling him ‘a devil.’ ”
Feuer continues, “But even though his broadsides were not supported by the facts, Mr. Trump succeeded in turning his assault on the case and those involved in it into a campaign issue. While Mr. Biden has often been averse to addressing his adversary’s legal woes, he felt compelled on Friday to push back against Mr. Trump: ‘Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years, and it literally is the cornerstone of America,’ Mr. Biden said at the White House. ‘The justice system should be respected.’ ”
In the meantime, Republican spokeswoman (more’s the pity) Majorie Taylor Green wants “to ‘Defund’ the Entire State of New York over the Trump Verdict,” according to Bryan Metzger, Business Insider, June 3, 2024.
Image by Department of Justice/Shuttershock via The Guardian.
Back when the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago over confidential documents lodged in bathrooms, MTG tweeted “DEFUND THE FBI” and another intellectual giant of the Right, Matt Gaetz joined her. Yet another, Arizona’s Kari Lake said, “We must fire the Federal Government.”
I rather doubt that the Scientific Method would have any impact on any of these individuals.
Fauci’s Hot Seat. Republican whackos have been after Dr. Anthony Fauci since the beginnings of the Covid pandemic. In particular, his evolving views on mask distribution, shutdowns, and social distancing reflected the latest findings of the scientific community—at a time when his boss Trump was down-playing the pandemic’s severity.
“Fauci Testifies About COVID Pandemic Response at Heated House Hearing,” by Kaia Hubbard and Alexander Tin, CBS News, June 3, 2024, describes his grilling by a Republican-led subcommitee about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Needless to say, people showed up to heckle. And, as reported by Justin Baragona in Yahoo! News, June 3, 2024, “MTG Comes Unglued, Turns Fauci Hearing into Absolute Shitshow.”
Baragona writes, “MAGA congresswoman and professional attention-seeker Marjorie Taylor Greene turned Dr. Anthony Fauci’s House testimony into a freak show on Monday when she pointedly refused to call the former White House chief medical adviser ‘doctor’ and demanded he be prosecuted for ‘crimes against humanity.’ ”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the Covid pandemic. Image from CBS News.
What hope does science have against a bleached blonde, bad built, butch body? As Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett so alliteratively put it (now trademarked “to help elect people so Democrats can take back the House in November.”).
Gee. Maybe some of them might be scientifically trained. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024
Simanaitis Says 
When i was in first grade, the Russians launched Sputnik. Overnight, our nation’s public schools increased math and science classes. Yet today, we’ve fallen, our K-12 trailing at least 16 other modern industrial democracies, we producing a quarter per capita the engineers, scientists, doctors as Pakistan, China, India.
There is even more than democracy at stake this coming November 5th. Science, rationale, logic are also on the chopping block.
Thank you for the above, Monsignor Simanaitis.
We should forward the above to everyone in our greater circles who does not grasp what hellish future is otherwise in store.
As they say, you can’t fix stupid. It’s the breadth of the stupidity that is so disconcerting.
Mr. Biden said at the White House. ‘The justice system should be respected.’ Yet democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer told the SCOTUS justices that “we are coming after you” two years ago regarding the Dobbs decision abortion rulings. Then Pres. Biden still finds a way to ignore the SCOTUS reversal ruling on the student loan forgiveness programs. Well…so much for that.
Fauci did well, but someone needs to call these political idiots what they really are, just come down on them, expose their attention-grabbing efforts. Instead, to avoid contempt charges and media crucifixion, subjects of their inquisitions must act no more than mildly annoyed. There ought to be a law…
I had written a response to this thread, but decided to scrap it (despite being quite happy with what I wrote) and heeded mum’s advice which was if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all.
That said, while I won’t question the sanity/intelligence of a politician, I do have to question that of voters who can’t filter out the dross and make an intelligent decision.
I do believe that it is a civic duty to vote (you can’t complain about a lack of democracy and then choose not to exercise the hard won right, that our ancestors were willing to sacrifice their lives to protect). I agree with my brother though, that all ballots should have an additional choice: ‘none of the above’. Despite the costs, if ‘none’ wins, another vote should be held with new candidates.