Suppose ...

[unixronin]

... we all wrote in Sarah Palin as President instead of VP?

On a separate but related thought, one of the things that I find most depressing about American politics is not just that the electorate is so deeply and bitterly divided between Democratic and Republican, but that both sides seem to invest so much hatred and vitriol in trying not to heal that rift, but rather to deepen and widen it still further.  Sometimes it makes me wonder whether this century will see a Second American Civil War.

Comments

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

She's anti-gay marriage, and anti-abortion. I don't want her to be President. I'm still mulling over whether or not I want her to be one-heart-attack-away-from-being-President.

She does have some impressive credentials, as you've previously mentioned. But ... I'm not sure they're really enough for me to overcome my "lets get rid of the Republicans for a little while" leaning.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

True, she's personally opposed to gay marriage. But she vetoed a bill would would have denied same-sex partner rights to Alaskan state government employees. She's opposed to abortion, but doesn't consider contraception equivalent to abortion. She's willing to yield on her personal beliefs — unlike many other politicos I could name.


You can't ask any candidate for office not to have personal beliefs, really. There's not much more that you can reasonably ask than that they do their best to keep their beliefs and the performance of their jobs separate. And it looks like Palin does that.

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

Actually, that IS worth considering. I'm personally not in favor of choosing abortions... but I absolutely think it should be an individual choice/right and not one the govt makes for us.

If she's of a similar mind with same-sex marriage and abortion, then that's great. I'd like her a lot more. But, the two examples you gave aren't what I just said. "doesn't consider contraception to be abortion" is great* ... but it's not the same as "considers abortion to be abhorrent but a protected personal choice". Same with your example wrt to same-sex partner rights.


(* let me rephrase that... "doesn't consider contraception to be abortion" is _compulsory_. Any candidate who did consider contraception to be abortion would be as viable to me as a candidate who believes in intelligent design and/or biblically-literal creationism)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Actually, that IS worth considering. I'm personally not in favor of choosing abortions... but I absolutely think it should be an individual choice/right and not one the govt makes for us.

Exactly.

I'm just sorta making the point there that the Bush administration has, through policy, de facto declared it considers contraception equivalent to abortion ... so she'd be at least an improvement on that front.

I'd much prefer an honest social-conservative who actually tries to do her job in an objective and bipartisan way despite her personal beliefs, over (frankly) a mid-to-far-left demagogue who's wrapping himself in a cloak of false moderation until after the election, or an aging self-proclaimed maverick whose record belies the claim and whose policy positions are pretty much those of whichever recent lobbyist walked through his office door flashing the largest wad of money.

And as I've commented elsewhere, there is no perfect candidate. The only way anyone can ever get a candidate who perfectly matches their own views is to run for office themselves.

[skellington.livejournal.com]

Looks like she believes creationism should be debated in public schools.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem with it being debated. Let it try to stand on its merits, such that it has. It'll pretty quickly become obvious that it can't. It's when kids are taught that creationism is fact Because The Bible Says So while evolution is "Just A Theory" that you have a problem.
(As a matter of fact, I think schools should be required to discuss and compare ALL the different major religions' creation myths at least once. It's a good way to learn — and teach — critical thinking skills, and at the same time inoculate kids against dogmatism.)

[skellington.livejournal.com]

The only places I see being appropriate to discuss the biblical theory of creation) and the derivatives (ID, Creationism, etc.) are:

1) A comparative religion / study of the bible as literature / etc. class.

2) A discussion of "how science works" and how the "theory" was discredited. i.e. a discussion of the scientific method, making predictions, paradigm shifts, etc.

3) A VERY brief mention of outdated theories in the area, if other outdated theories are mentioned in their appropriate sections. (I.e. the aether, etc.)

4) In a politics / constitutional law class, where the various court cases that decided it was an unconstitutional intrusion of religion into public schools is discussed.

Debate implies that there is some shred of merit to one of the opposing views. And there's not. We don't "debate" the geocentric model of the solar system and discuss epicycles and all that stuff. Anyone who's pushing for ANY mention of creationism in schools, other than as a historical curiosity, is scamming you. Logical people (like us) believe that the truth will be obvious, but, given many students' preconceptions, any mention at all of the alternate "theory" just makes it sound wishy-washy.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'll go along with those. #2 and #3 seem to fit the case quite nicely, and #2 in particular.

Debate implies that there is some shred of merit to one of the opposing views.

Alternatively, debate is one way of showing if the opposing view has no merit. What's better — to simply declare "Creationism is indefensible" and have done with it, or to make people work out for themselves — by trying to defend it — that there is no actual supportable defense? (One of my physics professors used a similar approach one day in a class discussion of something very similar to the Abdelkader hollow-earth model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth) to illustrate that it is possible, with sufficient willing suspension of disbelief, to construct a false model sufficiently complete that it cannot be disproven by any feasible experimental test.)

[skellington.livejournal.com]

The problem is that, in the structure of a high school class, where you can't easily verify the sources of "data", and you can't reasonably run experiments, and the teachers aren't necessarily experts on evolution, let alone debunking ID/Creationism, "debating" the subject can be very problematic.

Unless you are doing a historical retrospective, there's just no reason to even mention it.