The New Know Nothings

Stupid Republicans: The National Journal reports in its recent poll of Republicans in the House of Representatives that only thirteen percent believe that global warming is real.

It’s too bad that George Tenet neutralized the expression slam dunk. We need to send a few thousand climate scientists up to Capital Hill to explain to these yahoos that the case for human caused global warming is “irrefutable,” as resoundingly affirmed in the latest UN report, which followed similar conclusions from our own National Academy of Sciences and pretty much every one else who bothers to read the newspaper once or twice a week.

The number of climate reports with similar findings and dire warnings seems to grow every day. What we should do about global warming might remain a matter of discussion and controversy, but that it’s happening and human caused has been settled science for at least a decade.

Apparently, the only way to get a majority of Republicans to accept this is if we could find a link to Al-Qaeda. If Al-Qaeda were building a series of massive coal-fired power plants in the Iraqi outback, Republicans might agree to a surge of engineers to the region to install scrubbers or force them to change over to wind or solar, two things they have more of than oil. Arguably, the whole thing would demonstrate that Al-Qaeda is more crafty and dangerous than even the Bush administration imagined.

I’ve never agreed with much of conservative doctrine, but at least there seemed to be a doctrine there that was based on some kind of vision of reality. If you don’t approve of race mixing, you’re going to be opposed to racial integration. If you believe life begins at conception, I can understand your opposition to abortion. But when studies show that abstinence-only sex education has absolutely no effect on sexual activity among teens, what do Republicans want to do? Increase funding for abstinence-only sex education.

It’s too bad that “know nothings” has already been taken as a party name. Contemporary Republicans seem to be staying in office, albeit in fewer numbers, on a slam-dunk policy of “I don’t know nothing.”