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I haven’t been very kind to single-issue voters who impose a “litmus test” in order to determine who they’ll support. So it pains me to admit that I seem to have developed one myself.

I simply will not ever vote for a candidate who rejects science and the scientific method.

In my defense, I think the acceptance of science–including recognition of the importance of the theory of evolution and the implications of global climate change, to cite just two examples–is a “marker” for an individual’s entire worldview. Someone who fails to understand the difference between a scientific theory–a construct based upon mountains of empirical data and subject to falsification–and “I have a theory, aka a wild-ass guess”–is simply not equipped to deal with the world as it is. He or she brings an intellectual bow and arrow to a nuclear conflict.

I believe that ideology should give way to evidence. When the evidence is mixed, it’s understandable that people will apply their own interpretations to it, seeing it through their preferred lens; when it is overwhelming, a failure to conform one’s theoretical preconceptions to that reality is a sign of dangerous rigidity–even, in extreme cases, mental illness.

People who reject science end up believing that women’s bodies can reject a “genuine” rapist’s sperm. They convince themselves that abortion causes breast cancer. They confuse climate with weather. They are convinced that homosexuality is a behavioral choice. In multiple ways, they fail to honor demonstrated facts. (They also tend to be the same folks who reject history in favor of a mythological “Christian Nation” past–after all, if you can ignore overwhelming scientific consensus in favor of an “inerrant” bible, you can certainly rewrite America’s past.)

There is a clear partisan divide at work: A 2007 Gallup poll found that 68% of Republicans do not believe in evolution. That compared with 37% of independents and 40% of Democrats. (Pretty pathetic numbers overall, but much worse among Republicans.) The best predictor of belief in creationism and rejection of science was weekly church attendance.

Let me be clear: I can respect a candidate who opposes abortion on deeply-felt moral grounds (although not the anti-woman, anti-contraception “personhood” theocrats). I can vote for a candidate whose preferred policy to combat climate change differs from mine. I can respect a candidate who is not yet ready to endorse same-sex marriage if that candidate is otherwise willing to extend civil rights to GLBT folks, although I will only vote for such a candidate when his opponent is worse. I cannot, however, respect a candidate who rejects science and reason. And I will never cast a vote for such a candidate.

If that is a litmus test–if that makes me a “single-issue” voter–so be it.

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Kaiser Family Foundation is a respected, non-partisan, nonpolitical think-tank focused on medical research. The Foundation has just released its analysis of Paul Ryan’s plan to “reform” Medicare; the high (or low) points of that analysis are instructive. According to Kaiser,

• Nearly six in 10 Medicare beneficiaries nationally could face higher premiums for Medicare benefits, assuming current plan preferences, including more than half of beneficiaries enrolled in traditional Medicare and almost nine in 10 Medicare Advantage enrollees. Even if as many as one-quarter of all beneficiaries moved into a low-cost plan offered in their area, the new system would still result in more than a third of all beneficiaries facing higher premiums.
• Premiums for traditional Medicare would vary widely based on geography under the proposed premium support system, with no increase for beneficiaries living in Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Wyoming and the District of Columbia, but an average increase of at least $100 per month in California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada and New York. Such variations would exist even within a state, with traditional Medicare premiums remaining unchanged in California’s San Francisco and Sacramento counties and rising by more than $200 per month in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
• At least nine in 10 Medicare beneficiaries in Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts and New Jersey would face higher premiums in their current plan. Many counties in those states have relatively high per-beneficiary Medicare spending, which would make it more costly to enroll in traditional Medicare rather than one of the low-bidding private plans in those counties. In contrast, in areas with relatively low Medicare per-capita spending, it could be more costly to enroll in a private plan.

Ryan insists his plan would save money. And it would. It would save the government money, by shifting the costs of medical care back to the people the program was supposed to help–the elderly, and especially the low-income elderly.

This is Ryan’s basic approach to fiscal responsibility. His central insight (big thinker that we keep being told he is): We can save the government lots of money by eliminating or greatly reducing programs like Medicare. We can privatize social security and send Medicaid back to the states where it would almost certainly die (approaches Ryan favored until the campaign ixnayed that talk), saving taxpayers–especially rich ones–billions. (Of course, we could also cut defense spending, but that’s sacred under the Romney/Ryan approach). Or we could take the approach favored by Grover Norquist, and just get rid of government altogether. Drown it in a bathtub.

What pisses me off isn’t that some people, including Ryan, reject the very notion of a government that provides a safety net. People are entitled to their political positions, just as I am entitled to mine. What pisses me off is that they lie about it.

Ryan knows his “remake” of Medicare would cost seniors more money. If it is such a great idea, he should be able to explain why we should embrace it. Instead of lying about it, Mr. Serious Thinker should have the balls to defend it.

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When I get a chance, I check a few blogs on both the left and right, just to see how the “wings” are portraying what they see. I see exaggerations from both sides–but I have to say, there really isn’t much question who is crazier. There is spin, and then there is “are you f***ing kidding me?”

Yesterday, Crooks and Liars posted a poll to Daily Kos, asking respondents to rank the week’s most egregious examples of loony-tunes. Here were the contenders–all Republican:

Arkansas state House candidate Charlie Fuqua, for claiming that all Muslims in the U.S. should be deported.

U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, for claiming that doctors perform abortions on women who aren’t pregnant.

Jack Welch, for accusing the Obama administration of manipulating the latest jobs numbers.

Georgia Rep. Paul Broun, a member of the science and technology committee, for saying that evolution and the Big Bang theory are ‘Lies straight from the pit of hell.’

Meanwhile, three Republican legislators from Arkansas have weighed in with noteworthy contributions that the pollster somehow missed: Jon Hubbard has said and written that slavery was not so bad compared with normal African life at the time of American slavery; Loy Mauck has described President Abraham Lincoln as a terrorist; and Charles Fuqua (yep, same guy who wants to expel all Muslims) expressed support for the death penalty for rebellious children.

This isn’t spin. Each of these statements was widely reported in credible media sources. How has it come to this? How could presumably sane American citizens elect people like these? How have we come to the point where most Americans simply shrug off these displays of monumental ignorance and/or bigotry? This isn’t a matter of contending positions or policy differences–this is lunacy.

When did the general public become so desensitized to the GOPs descent into radicalism, and its rejection of reality? What happened to turn the party of sober fiscal conservatives and thoughtful social liberals–the party that I used to call my own–the party of Gerald Ford and Dick Lugar and Bob Orr and Bill Hudnut–into some sort of dangerous cult?

I feel like we’re the rabbit in the old Tom and Jerry cartoons–the one who is plopped into that pot of water that is slowly, diabolically heated…so slowly that the rabbit doesn’t notice the water boiling until it’s scalding him. In the years since Reagan (who, by today’s standards, was a commie), the delusional quotient has been rising gradually, incrementally, inexorably….until we’re suddenly in the deep water of an alternate reality.

How much hotter does it have to get before we come to our collective senses?

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There has been plenty of hand-wringing over the current emphasis (okay, infatuation) with high-stakes testing. Teachers have complained that they feel forced to “teach to the test.” Educators have pointed out that subjects not being tested–art, music, civics–get short shrift, despite their undeniable value.

Less often noted is the incentive to “game the system”–the temptation of school administrators faced with less than satisfactory test results to fudge the numbers. To cheat.

This week, the Superintendent of Schools in El Paso, Texas, was sentenced for just such behavior.  According to news reports,

One charge stems from García directing six unindicted co-conspirators and others to fraudulently inflate student test scores so struggling schools would appear to meet federal accountability standards, which are based on 10th-grade state standardized exams.

The scheme involved school district employees changing grades from passing to failing to keep some students in ninth grade, holding Mexican transfer students in ninth grade regardless of their transcripts and implementing credit-recovery programs so intentionally retained students could catch up to their appropriate grade and graduate on time.

García received $54,000 in bonuses that were stipulated in his contract if the district did well on state and federal accountability standards.

 Most school officials, of course, don’t engage in such blatant law-breaking. Instead, they spin results. They play games calculated to make their performance look better. Here in Marion County, Dr. White’s administration has been particularly generous with so-called “waivers” that allow students to graduate without passing the mandatory tests; the administration has also seen a mysterious increase in students purportedly leaving the system to be “home schooled,” and thus not counted as drop-outs.

If we really are intent upon reforming the nation’s public schools, we need to revisit some foundational questions. What are the skills and attitudes we want our schools to provide? What can be measured by testing and what can’t? How should test results be used in assessing teacher performance? What safeguards do we need to put in place to insure that Superintendents and others aren’t gaming the system? How do we create rewards for good performance and honest reporting, and avoid providing perverse incentives that encourage cheating?

And perhaps the hardest question of all: how do we shift our resources and emphasis back to the all-important classroom and hardworking, dedicated teachers, and away from the bureaucrats concerned mainly with protecting their turf?

In an ideal world, non-teacher school system employees would see themselves as support staff, there to provide classroom teachers with resources and services they need in order to do the important job of actual instruction. Superintendents would not see themselves as important executives entitled to big bonuses when those teachers do well, but as ombudsmen of a sort, encouraging and enabling classroom success.

Someone needs to remind these guys they aren’t bankers.

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