PZ Myers: Republicans are "stagnant, festering slime." And that's just the beginning!

You got to love PZ Myers who writes the superb science blog, Pharyngula.  He believes we have a responsibility to challenge and call out people who say and believe stupid things.  It bothers him a lot when society and the MSM feel they must treat stupid ideas and the lies of stupid people with respect. 

And nowhere is stupidity more evident than in religion and the Republican Party, two of Myers' favorite targets. Yesterday it was the Republican's turn to be the target of one of Myers' wrathful rants.  He writes about a college professor who finally got fed up with the College Republicans on campus and responded to one of their emails with this great response (and I quote): "Fuck You, Republicans."  A bit uncivil, perhaps.  Myers writes:

But you know what? I approve of incivility and disrespect towards organizations that deserve it, and the Republican party is currently the party of know-nothings, hypocrites, liars, and greed — it's the stagnant, festering slime towards which all the worst elements of society now gravitate. The problem isn't college professors snarling at them, it's that the party itself encourages short-sightedness, idiocy, and hatefulness. So, until the grown-ups wake up and clean out the bigotry and ignorance from their own house, I think it's only fair for us to air our vigorous disgust with them.

I highlighted the parts I especially like.  Every word of his response is true.  The Republican Party is no longer a bunch of thoughtful conservatives whose main goal is to make America better.  They now intentionally appeal to the haters, the disgruntled, the bigots, the stupid, and the angry - and then feed them lies to make them even angrier.  They no longer give a damn about America, their only goal is to destroy the left, Obama, and the Democratic Party.  Yet the press treats them like they are still the party of Lincoln.  I can say with almost certainty that if Abraham Lincoln tried to get the Republican nomination for President in 2012, he would get less votes in the primary than Donald Trump.  He would be Tea Partied to hell.  Yikes!

--Trakker

Comments

[horsec]

We are too polite

Richard Feynman, "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out," (c)1999, Ch. 'The Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society,' ISBN 0-7382-0108-1, page 111.

... the arguments going back and forth; and some biology. In other words, it will be necessary that science become relevant. The remark which I read somewhere, that science is all right so long as it doesn't attack religion, was the clue that I needed to understand the problem. As long as it doesn't attack religion it need not be paid attention to and nobody has to learn anything. So it can be cut off from modern society except for its applications, and thus be isolated. And then we have this terrible struggle to try to explain things to people who have no reason to want to know. But if they want to defend their own point of view, they will have to learn what yours is a little bit. So I suggest, maybe incorrectly and perhaps wrongly, that we are too polite. There was in the past an era of conversation on these matters. It was felt by the church that Galileo's views attacked the church. It is not felt by the church today that the scientific views attack the church. Nobody is worrying about it. Nobody attacks; I mean, nobody writes trying to explain the inconsistencies between the theological views and the scientific views held by different people today - or even the inconsistencies sometimes held by the same scientist between his religious and scientific beliefs.

[Trakker]

For some reason religion is considered a subject that is off limits for criticism. Why? I don't get it.