Disappearing inconvenient data
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Bruce Bartlett and the dangers of Republican know-nothingism
Bruce Bartlett goes off on some of the denialist behavior from the GOP. Bartlett writes: When a study doesn’t support their dogma, the GOP censors it: Nonpartisan Tax Report Withdrawn After G.O.P. Protest
Original study still available here: Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945 (PDF)
Bartlett discussed how Republicans destroyed much of Congress’s analytical ability when they took over in 1995: Gingrich and the Destruction of Congressional Expertise
He adds “This is part and parcel with poll denialism, global warming denialism, and the general right wing disdain for facts and reality.”Note: Before making any kneejerk partisan reaction to this, note that Bartlett — Like Stockman and others — sre not trying to mske a pro-Democrat argument; rather, they are acknowledging a major societal concern when one of the 2 major political parties have foresaken science and reality and facts when they disagree with their agenda.
(Dan here…I am willing to bet this is a non-partisan issue to some extent and age old way of supporting agendas…but if data cannot be trusted to have a bit of independence, where does that leave us?)
I also posted about this report and the Republican attempt to bury it. When a lie is that ugly it does not like to view its own reflection.
Perfect opportunity to mention this again. The four pillars of the conservative world view are ignorance*, prejudice*, magical thinking, and a general denial of reality.
The latter manifests itself in a variety of ways: false choice, false equivalence, direct denialism, as in AGW and the New Deal, and then most virulently in wanton suppression of real world facts and data.
JzB
* just read the first chapter of The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk. He takes PRIDE in these things.
JzB
I’d suggest that your four pillars would be better attributed to the ruling class’s method of directing the conservative mind. Conservatism could conceivably have a basis in reality though Republicanism (not the concept, but the mind set of the membership) has far more difficulty being so. Something like the old Southern Democrats, no issue is too significant to escape ideological distortion.
WJMcCabe quotes from study at In 127 words blog
…changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.
… top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.
“A piny woods minister in Mississippi thus addressed his congregation: “My brethring and sistern, I air a ignorant man, follered the plow all my life, and never rubbed agin nary college. As I said afore, I air ignorant and I thank God for it. (Bro. Jones responds, ‘Well, parson, you ought to be very thankful, for you are very ignorant.’)”
From “Tupelo” (1905, p. 517), by John H. Aughey
Well, not sure why the Republicans are given the honor of disappearing facts
The fact is that the facts that are disappeared are those inconvenient to the ruling class which is bipartisan.
One track mind here, but I wonder how a Ryan-as-President would handle ever increasing AGW-enhanced storms and their damage? Would he and his party claim that people and religious institutions can best handle these on their own? That they are better off without government help? And that there’s God’s hand in whatever residual damage there is? The latter sounds cruel, but remember it is Senator Imhofe who has opined, “My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”
Yes, the church should stand up and pay $400000 a year to care for the workers’ exploited at each walmart.
The constitution says: general welfare, common defense and domestic tranquility, but right wing hypocrits define common defense as empire and perpetual war, while they deny the other two reasons for the constitution.
Ryan, and other hypocrit conservatives say that “charity” is a religious thing and everything from SS, food stamps to medicaid is a religious affair.
Ryan also believes that the commandment against killing meant murder and they define abortion as murder but nuking Iran is not murder.
Right wing right to life hypocracy!
They also call school choice sending tax money to fund right wing bible hypocrits brainwashing their kids.
Katherine Stewart of the UK’s Guardian had a piece today on how climate change denial in the USA is backed by many elements of the religious right … It is a matter of theology. She claims the reason is that anti-science in the case of climate coincides with anti-science in the case of evolution.
See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/04/america-theologians-climate-science-denial
More inconvenient data for the GOP courtesy Business Insider (via Naked Capitalism):
http://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-bushs-first-term-vs-obamas-first-term-2012-11
That chart shows private and public job growth for W vs. Bogama. Why is this election even close? Oh, right.
This ain’t new, of course. The CIA wasn’t finding much evidence of illicit weapons in Iraq, so Cheney brought in a “competitive” team to assess intelligence data – and order up data they thought should be available. The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research – a tiny shop compared to any other intelligence agency in DC – was able to determine that those aluminum tube were not suited for use in a centrifuge – more likely meant for rockets – so INR’s chief was hounded out of office and nearly the entire staff was replaced by people who couldn’t tell yellow cake from angel food.
The “junk science” effort was privately funded, but its most eager consumers on DC were in the Republican caucus.
And women who are raped have a natural protection against pregnancy – prima facie evidence that pregnant women could not have been raped and so don’t “deserve” access to abortion. It’s all the same attitude, manifested in different ways depending on circumstance.