It’s showdown time! Finally, all of the ridiculous claims, promises, and behaviors of the candidates are over with and it is time for American to vote. I am lousy at predictions so I won’t even attempt to go there. However, since every mid-term election tends to be a place where the pendulum swings away from the party in power, it doesn’t take much intelligence to note that the Republicans are going to make significant advances. However, we could have predicted that on the day President Obama was voted into office. It is the way of our democracy to swing back and forth.
Since I live in Nevada, I want to concentrate on the campaign to select one of our Senators. Obviously John Ensign our Republican Senator (and neighbor) doesn’t have to fight for his political life this election. His future is a bit more settled for now.
The eyes of the nation are on the Harry Reid vs. Sharron Angle contest. Many see it as a critical competition that will help determine who gets control of the United States Senate. Those of us in Nevada see this and much more.
Do we replace the individual who has risen to the prominence and power of Harry Reid with a political neophyte? Does it even matter that he is the leader of the Senate? Is there any benefit to Nevadans for having him in such a power position of leadership? Will we see any difference in our everyday lives if Sharron Angle gets elected? That my friends, is not a question anyone has easy answers for.
I am lousy at prediction of future events so you can take this with a grain of salt. I predict that Sharron Angle will defeat Harry Reid on November 2nd. My reason for this is that politically, she just refuses to go away. There was no legitimate reason for her to defeat Sue Louden in the Republican primary. In any other election cycle, (minus the tea party crowd) she would have been a small blip on the radar. However, Sue Louden did a horrible job in the last weeks of her campaign and allowed herself to be marginalized and defeated by someone who most believed didn’t have a chance.
Most political observers in Nevada had predicted a Louden primary victory and a landslide victory in the general election over Harry Reid. There was very little chance that Reid was going to be able to overcome the “anyone but Harry” crowd. Enter Sharron Angle.
Sharron Angle is a political neophyte as compared to Harry Reid. She is not politically savvy and often has a hard time talking because she spends so much time trying to take her own foot out of her mouth. She suffers from political hoof in mouth disease. She has turned what should have been a Republican landslide into a close race. Now that we are down to the final day of the campaign, polls show that she has a slight lead that is within the statistical margin of error.
This campaign will be won or lost on turnout. Democrats outnumber Republicans in Nevada by a number that should give them victory in this election. The real question is whether Democrats will feel enough urgency in this midterm to go to the polls. If Democratic turnout is strong, Harry Reid has a chance to pull off one more electoral miracle. If Democrats aren’t motivated enough to put down their morning coffee and go to the polls on Tuesday Sharron Angle will be our Senator for the next 6 years.
Let me say out loud that Sharron Angle left me no choice but to not support her. I have watched her intently since the beginnings of her campaign and I just can not make the decision to support her. Regardless of how I feel about Harry Reid, Sharron Angle had the opportunity to win my vote, but she failed. My reasons are all related to her personal stances on issues that are meaningful to me and my family. A politician with her professed stances and ideas is someone who does not represent my beliefs regarding every topic that I consider to be a “major deal”. In honor of David Letterman I want to give you my TOP ELEVEN REASONS WHY SHARRON ANGLE LOST MY VOTE
REASON # 11 – HER POSITIONS ON SOCIAL SECURITY AND UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS - In one of Sharron’s most obvious instance of foot-in-mouth disease she basically shared her feelings that those on Social Security and those who receive unemployment benefits are somehow taking advantage of handouts from the government. Never mind that we pay our whole life into both of these systems. Never mind that the policies of the past administration have made such significant contributions to the joblessness that Nevada is experiencing. Those who are unfortunate enough to lose their job are somehow taking handouts from the government.
REASON # 10 – HER STANCE ON THE REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS OF PREGNANT WOMEN (RAPE AND INCEST SURVIVORS) She has stated that women who have survived the horror of rape or incest and have gotten pregnant as a result of these things should not have the right to terminate their horribly destructive pregnancies. She said they should “make lemonade out of lemons.” Obviously Sharron has never had to face this issue personally. I wonder if she would drink lemonade made from rotten disgusting lemons?
REASON # 9-HER STANCE ON SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. Well of course the Constitution of the United States does not use the term “separation of church and state”. Her implication here is clear. In her world, the country was founded by “Christian people” and we are a “Christian country”. No Sharron, even as a Christian, I can come to the conclusion that the country was founded on the opportunity to worship as one pleases, or not worship at all. The founders were trying to make this a place that was diametrically opposed to where they came from. They were attempting to escape the tyranny of the Church of England. Notice that there is no “Church of the United States”. I am a believer. I am not one who believes the government should bow down to or be controlled by a particular spiritual persuasion.
REASON #8 – HER ATTEMPT TO GET LEGISLATION ENACTED THAT WOULD NOT REQUIRE INSURANCE COMPANIES TO COVER MAMMOGRAMS AND COLONOSCOPIES. Well of course she doesn’t. She is a Republican. She does not want anyone telling any business how they should operate. No one should tell insurance companies to cover any effort to reduce the presence of two of the most deadly diseases we all fear. Of course, she probably doesn’t worry much about the fact that not covering these life-saving procedures will result in the insurance company paying out millions to cover those who are affected by these diseases. In her world, she better hope she stays healthy. I just don’t think she thinks that far ahead.
REASON #7- HER STANCE ON ABOLISHING FREDDIE MAC AND FANNIE MAE. Freddie and Fannie are a mess. As one who works in the industry most impacted by their presence, I can say that there are real problems. abolishing Freddie and Fannie is like using radiation treatments to solve an infection. There is no way getting rid of these two organizations is even remotely possible. No Sharron, you treat the problem without destroying the patient.
REASON #6 – HER BELIEFS THAT GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT A MAN MADE PHENOMENON. When the tobacco companies did their best to persuade the public that smoking was not addictive nor a contributor to cancer, they did it by attacking the science. Big corporations attacking science that proved that the big corporation produced a product that killed people. Those in the forefront of the campaigns to stop the conversation about global warming are doing so by attacking climate science. The result will be the same for them. Those who attack the science that supports contributions of humans to the climate mess we have created will also eventually proven to be supporters of the corporations that are contributing to the problem. For now, we get to listen to Sharron Angle tell us that the science is not clear. Clearly her commitment to corporate America is greater than her commitment to the physical environment their activities degrade. Instead we get to listen to juvenile comments like “look it’s snowing, I told you global warming is a hoax!”
REASON #5 - JUST TOO MANY IGNORANT COMMENTS!
Spoken to students at Rancho High School when questioned about her political ads that denigrate Hispanics. ”So that’s what we want is a secure and sovereign nation and, you know, I don’t know that all of you are Latino,” Angle told the Hispanic group. “Some of you look a little more Asian to me.”
“As your US Senator, I’m not in the business of creating jobs.”
“these programs that you mentioned — that Obama has going with Reid and Pelosi pushing them forward — are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that’s really what’s happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment.”
REASON #4 – HER STATED BELIEF IN THE POSSIBILITY OF “2ND AMENDMENT REMEDIES. Basically, if we don’t get our way in this election, we can always revert back to 2nd amendment remedies. Guns and violent overthrow of the government is legitimate because you disagree with it because it is currently run by individuals who think differently than you. Here is my admittedly callous descriptions of her stance. If we lose, we can always shoot em! For the record, I am a gun owner and have been for 45 years. It’s not about guns folks. It is about responsibility.
REASON # 3 – HER DECISION TO MARGINALIZE HISPANIC VOTERS. When presented with the very real possibility that she was not going to make inroads into the hispanic vote in Nevada her campaign hit the reset button and began a series of attack ads portraying individuals coming over the border as dark, scary, and dangerous. When confronted by a group of students at Rancho High School she responded that some of them didn’t even look hispanic, they looked Asian. In other words, “Why are you complaining about my ad, you don’t even look hispanic?”
REASON # 2 – HER INABILITY TO REMOTELY CONSIDER THE POLITICAL STANCES OF OTHERS EVEN WHEN THEY ARE MEMBERS OF HER OWN POLITICAL PARTY. Even Republican State Legislators who worked with Sharron in the past have made a great deal of noise about her absolute inability to work with others, forge compromises and get anything done. Many significant Republican leaders in the State of Nevada have urged us not to elect her! She was voted the worst legislator in the Nevada Assembly several times by her peers. Those who know her voting record have given her the name “41 to Angle” as the result of the fact that she was the only dissenting vote on so much legislation
Do we really need a person with that record representing us in the nations’ capital?
REASON # 1 – HER INABILITY TO DEAL WITH THE NATIONS PRESS THAT SHE WILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH REGULARLY WERE SHE ELECTED.
“We need to have the press be our friend. We want them to ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported.” – Sharron Angle
I will admit that this is my pet peeve! Sharron has literally run from the press and will only answer questions she deemed appropriate. (Appropriate generally means questions that enable her to pronounce her way of thinking) The press has a responsibility to investigate statements, actions, and potential policies of those running for elected office. They have a responsibility to the American people regardless of their political associations.
When Sharron Angle made the decision to run from the press, she made the decision to run from the people of Nevada, to run from her policies, to run from her way of thinking, and to keep us in the dark with regard to her qualifications. However, she has only recently told us that she will talk to the press after she gets elected. This one bugs me! As someone who had to listen to Sharron tell Harry Reid to “man up” over and over. Here is my comment. “Sharron, man up, answer the $%^&*# question!”
As someone who was just about ready to vote against Harry Reid, there is no way that I can do that now. A vote for Sharron Angle violates almost every political belief that I have. I never really thought any one candidate could so thoroughly encompass all that I disagree with.
Yet, she will probably be my representative in the U.S. Senate. Which basically means, I have no representation. If that is the case, I will cast my gaze onto the election campaign of John Ensign on the next cycle. Until then, we will be represented by Sharron Angle and a man who under investigation for having his parents pay 96 grand to the husband of the woman he was having an affair with. (By the way she lived down the street from me, and the house is now in foreclosure because they can’t get jobs!) Never a dull moment in Nevada!
ROADBLOCKS TO DISCOVERY
There are times in my life where I think back to the years I spent teaching high school science and wonder about the type of things that I would be presenting to my classes had I remained in the profession. The choice to leave the teaching profession had nothing to do with a loss of faith in the profession or a lack of enthusiasm for presenting scientific discovery and theory to young people about to make their mark on their world. Sadly, the decision was made for largely economic reasons.
The collection of scientific data and the application of scientific inquiry has been a fascination of mine since I can remember. I have always been attracted to the mental processes involved in critical thinking and scientific discovery. The courses I took that led up to my degree in Biology were not work for me. Teaching high school science was not work for me. Both were a place of fascination and discovery. The fascination with these things has obviously been passed down to both of my children, one with degrees in Chemical and Mechanical Engineering and working towards a doctorate, another with a degree in Psychology, one semester away from a Biology degree and on her way to med school. Earnest inquiry is obviously an important part of life for members of this family.
With that being said, of late I have been taking a hard look at climate science and the effects our lifestyles have on the environment we are supposed to be preserving for future generations. I can remember teaching long ago about what was called the “greenhouse effect”. At that time the scientific theory supporting this phenomena was basically in its’ infancy. Since that time, years of scientific data and inquiry have brought about a greater understanding of causes and effects brought about by the waste products of our lifestyles. As with any scientific data and theory generated within the scientific community, what we know today is different from what we knew a year ago.
This should not come as any surprise to any taking the time to read this information. Sometimes it takes a great deal of time for those who think a certain way to change their way of thinking. Sometimes what we know at a certain time is absolutely inaccurate. What we know today, will be replaced by new discoveries. If science is about any particular thing, it is about collecting data and seeing where that data leads. Scientific inquiry and theory must be challenged. Over time, the process of challenging “truth” results in new understanding. It has always been so. Let me give you a few examples.
Galileo believed that the earth moves around the sun, a fact that is now well-established. However, the Roman Catholic Church waited 359 years to admit that Galileo was correct. For the life of me, I don’t understand how belief in Galileo’s theory in any way challenged the beliefs of the church. Yet the Vatican condemned Galileo, the man Albert Einstein called the father of modern science. It wasn’t until 1992 that the Vatican officially withdrew its’ condemnation.
There was a time when people thought it was absolutely suicidal to get on a ship and sail the ocean blue. Fears of falling of the edge of the earth were very real. It took a while but eventually it was proven that Earth indeed was round and that there was no place to fall off!
A more recent example is related to my experiences teaching about the condition now known as AIDS during the 1980’s. I can remember the first time I gave information to my Anatomy and Physiology classes about a condition that was affecting homosexual males in the San Francisco area. There was intense interest in the topic, and questions about the disease came at me at a rapid-fire pace from my high school juniors and seniors in my classes. Since the knowledge of the causes and effects were largely unknown at first, I could only present information that was “known”. At that time, female students had no fears about contracting the disease. At that time, males in my classroom who were heterosexual had no fear. All I could tell them with any degree of accuracy was at that time only a small population of male homosexuals had contracted the disease. Anyone who was not a homosexual male living in San Francisco had no fear of contracting the disease. What we knew at that time was limited. As the months and years passed my teachings on the subject changed dramatically. As discoveries were made, the “truth” about AIDS changed. Such is the nature of scientific and medical discovery. At that time I can remember telling my classes that the worlds body of medical knowledge would double every five years. The ever-changing nature of science is fascinating to me. After a while, I learned to preface my comments with the following statement: “The data indicates that this is the truth, future data may force us to make changes in what we believe”.
Pure scientific inquiry is not impacted by ideology, political pressure, or potential for financial gain or loss. Pure scientific inquiry is accomplished without any forces that affect the ability of the inquirer to make discoveries, interpret data, and continue to challenge accepted “truth”. The Catholic Church’s condemnation of Galileo was brought about by “spiritual ideology”. Basically, the Vatican’s believed that the theory being espoused by one of the great minds of that century contradicted their set of beliefs. That which contradicted their belief was a threat to their existence, and as such, must have been generated by forces contradictory to their way of thinking. Galileo was put on trial and forced to recant his theory under the penalty of death. He then lived under house arrest for the remainder of his days. Ideology, whether spiritually based, or politically based, impedes discovery. It also tends to restrict legitimate scientific inquiry.
Sadly, political pressure also impacts and impedes discovery. When the processes of science are impeded by political pressure, the process of discovery is stifled and the inhabitants of the planet suffer. I will be addressing the topic of the impacts of political pressure throughout my writings in the future.
There have always been financial restrictions on the processes of scientific inquiry. In a nutshell, if a scientific discovery impacts the financial future of a corporation or individuals, there will be incredible amounts of money spent to restrict any loss of income by those whose financial gain will be affected. If you don’t believe this, try to discover how much money was spent by the tobacco industry to stifle research and cloud the truth regarding the health effects of smoking. The amount of money is staggering.
Getting back to my initial question about what I would be presenting to my science classes had I remained in the teaching profession, I think I would spend more time teaching about the importance of the process of inquiry and discovery and do my best to warn my students about forces in place that restrict their expression.
Any roadblock to inquiry and discovery impedes progress and endangers the inhabitants of our planet. For those who doubt this, take a look at the history of the research funds made available during the Reagan Administration and how this restriction impeded discoveries that would have saved lives. Funding was restricted and people died because of a lack of understanding caused by a lack of discovery. Don’t believe this because I brought it up. Do your own research on it. You will discover what many already know, that the AIDS research was significantly restricted by a lack of funding. Political, ideological, and financial roadblocks worked together to keep us in the dark about a disease that killed thousands.
In 2011, these same roadblocks exist in ways that restrict scientific inquiry. The costs of these roadblocks are incredibly high. As a resident of the country and the planet, you can’t afford to be in the dark about these things. My goal is to get individuals to recognize and question ideological, political, and financial pressure and view the results of scientific inquiry for what they are in their pure state without the noise that influences opinion and increases ignorance.
In my next post I will present specific information about past efforts to stifle scientific inquiry and expression and why these efforts were so effective and costly to all of us.
Categorized in Commentary and Science In The Crosshairs
Tags: Religion & Science, Science & Politics, Scientific Inquiry