NAKED N00B
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- Feb 8, 2012
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Last night I tried alcohol. I figured if I killed some brain cells, then their ideas might make more sense. It didn't work. I was still dumbfounded.
I don't understand how such events, which should be taken seriously, can devolve into a chaotic orgy of logical fallacies and mistruths. I'm going to break down my evaluation of each candidate based on the campaign as a whole.
Ron Paul - Probably the worst fit for this country. He has the respectable characteristics of consistency and courage to say what may be unpopular. Unfortunately for Dr. Paul, being consistently wrong is not something which appeals to me. The fact that he could advocate for removing $1 trillion from aggregate demand in a single year is mind boggling. What may be crazier is his desire to return to the gold standard. His debate performances are probably the hardest to understand. He gets the biggest moments of applause, due in large part to his loyal Paulistas, but also because he's a master of buzz words. But he really says very little. His answers usually involve 45 seconds of him beginning to sound like he might explain something, but end with some weak conclusion which doesn't further his argument or oftentimes relate back to the question, such as "that's not America, that's not freedom." What most annoys me about Dr. Paul is his arguments are always based from the perspective that he doesn't need to address competing points. What makes me cry tears of confusion is his regular cop out of "If you understand Austrian economics" or "If you understand the business cycle" followed by some baseless dismissal of any competing arguments. But he wants to legalize drugs and says freedom a lot, so people hop on his bandwagon.
Newt Gingrich - Gingrich is the master. If he can't hide and overcome his past, you know those concerns are serious. I have never seen a candidate who is able to rally like Newt. He says exactly what his audience wants to hear. When put on the spot and challenged, true to his name, he squirms out like a slippery amphibian. He turns the tables and demonizes people asking legitimate questions. Last night he was able to turn around a question about contraceptives, which surely would've shown the Republicans backwardness to moderate independents, to making a wild claim about our current president supporting infanticide. He did a similar thing when challenged about his open marriage claims. When he claims to be protecting the sanctity of marriage, it should be asked why two men in love is a threat to the sanctity while the pillsbury dough boy asking permission to sleep with women who aren't his wife isn't. I can say I respect Newt for his desire to bring fresh ideas to the table. That's an admirable trait amongst the trash.
Mitt Romney is fun to watch in the same sense Maury Povich is fun to watch when they bring on cheating boyfriends. Mitt is caught. He is clearly not a conservative. The evidence is all there. There is video. There is physical evidence. There is written evidence. Yet Mitt sticks to the classic cheater's tactic of deny deny deny. And it seems to be working well for him. I think Mitt would be the best president out of the four Republican candidates because he isn't dedicated to pleasing the reactionaries which make up the Republican base. But for now, that's what Mitt has to do. He has to please the backwards reactionaries. He obviously doesn't put much thought into his ideas, but that's ok. If he put any thought into his ideas he would have an economic plan which was feasible. Can someone tell me how you can aim to get federal spending at 20% GDP, taxes at 17% and still balance the budget? Can someone explain how Romney wants to claim responsibility for the jobs created at Bain in the years after he left but not attribute job losses to Bush in the two months after he left? Can someone explain how you can want equal rights for a group of people, while simultaneously barring them from one of the more important institutions in our culture? Any thought put towards Mitt's hard right rhetoric and it falls apart. But deep down he knows that's not the president he can be. He's even saying cutting spending can be harmful to the economy.
Now, the current front runner. I feel bad for Rick Santorum. He believes what he says. He advocates for who he is. I can respect that. However, he is so set on his own sphere, that anything outside is wrong, no matter what the evidence says. I think Rick Santorum can be perfectly summarized by what he said last night. His views on sex are not unknown. One statement proved who Santorum was in two different ways. When discussing title 20, Santorum said something along the lines of he proposed it to get some programs for abstinence only education, which actually work. This is telling for two ways. The first, and most obvious to me, is the simple wrongness of the statement. Abstinence education doesn't work. That has been shown over and over and over again. Comprehensive sex education does a far better job of cutting down on STDs and unwanted pregnancy, while abstinence only programs do nothing to prevent kids from having sex, but do ensure they don't know the dangers of unprotected sex. The second thing that statement says is sheer hypocrisy. Just before that he said that the difference between him and liberals was that he did not want government programs to support his causes. Here he is, minutes later, bragging about federal programs which don't work and are pushing his views on kids. This is Rick Santorum. It's all about his circle. He can tell you why the things he agrees with are right and why the things he disagrees with are wrong, but don't expect the reasoning for the two groups to match up if you compare.
I don't understand how such events, which should be taken seriously, can devolve into a chaotic orgy of logical fallacies and mistruths. I'm going to break down my evaluation of each candidate based on the campaign as a whole.
Ron Paul - Probably the worst fit for this country. He has the respectable characteristics of consistency and courage to say what may be unpopular. Unfortunately for Dr. Paul, being consistently wrong is not something which appeals to me. The fact that he could advocate for removing $1 trillion from aggregate demand in a single year is mind boggling. What may be crazier is his desire to return to the gold standard. His debate performances are probably the hardest to understand. He gets the biggest moments of applause, due in large part to his loyal Paulistas, but also because he's a master of buzz words. But he really says very little. His answers usually involve 45 seconds of him beginning to sound like he might explain something, but end with some weak conclusion which doesn't further his argument or oftentimes relate back to the question, such as "that's not America, that's not freedom." What most annoys me about Dr. Paul is his arguments are always based from the perspective that he doesn't need to address competing points. What makes me cry tears of confusion is his regular cop out of "If you understand Austrian economics" or "If you understand the business cycle" followed by some baseless dismissal of any competing arguments. But he wants to legalize drugs and says freedom a lot, so people hop on his bandwagon.
Newt Gingrich - Gingrich is the master. If he can't hide and overcome his past, you know those concerns are serious. I have never seen a candidate who is able to rally like Newt. He says exactly what his audience wants to hear. When put on the spot and challenged, true to his name, he squirms out like a slippery amphibian. He turns the tables and demonizes people asking legitimate questions. Last night he was able to turn around a question about contraceptives, which surely would've shown the Republicans backwardness to moderate independents, to making a wild claim about our current president supporting infanticide. He did a similar thing when challenged about his open marriage claims. When he claims to be protecting the sanctity of marriage, it should be asked why two men in love is a threat to the sanctity while the pillsbury dough boy asking permission to sleep with women who aren't his wife isn't. I can say I respect Newt for his desire to bring fresh ideas to the table. That's an admirable trait amongst the trash.
Mitt Romney is fun to watch in the same sense Maury Povich is fun to watch when they bring on cheating boyfriends. Mitt is caught. He is clearly not a conservative. The evidence is all there. There is video. There is physical evidence. There is written evidence. Yet Mitt sticks to the classic cheater's tactic of deny deny deny. And it seems to be working well for him. I think Mitt would be the best president out of the four Republican candidates because he isn't dedicated to pleasing the reactionaries which make up the Republican base. But for now, that's what Mitt has to do. He has to please the backwards reactionaries. He obviously doesn't put much thought into his ideas, but that's ok. If he put any thought into his ideas he would have an economic plan which was feasible. Can someone tell me how you can aim to get federal spending at 20% GDP, taxes at 17% and still balance the budget? Can someone explain how Romney wants to claim responsibility for the jobs created at Bain in the years after he left but not attribute job losses to Bush in the two months after he left? Can someone explain how you can want equal rights for a group of people, while simultaneously barring them from one of the more important institutions in our culture? Any thought put towards Mitt's hard right rhetoric and it falls apart. But deep down he knows that's not the president he can be. He's even saying cutting spending can be harmful to the economy.
Now, the current front runner. I feel bad for Rick Santorum. He believes what he says. He advocates for who he is. I can respect that. However, he is so set on his own sphere, that anything outside is wrong, no matter what the evidence says. I think Rick Santorum can be perfectly summarized by what he said last night. His views on sex are not unknown. One statement proved who Santorum was in two different ways. When discussing title 20, Santorum said something along the lines of he proposed it to get some programs for abstinence only education, which actually work. This is telling for two ways. The first, and most obvious to me, is the simple wrongness of the statement. Abstinence education doesn't work. That has been shown over and over and over again. Comprehensive sex education does a far better job of cutting down on STDs and unwanted pregnancy, while abstinence only programs do nothing to prevent kids from having sex, but do ensure they don't know the dangers of unprotected sex. The second thing that statement says is sheer hypocrisy. Just before that he said that the difference between him and liberals was that he did not want government programs to support his causes. Here he is, minutes later, bragging about federal programs which don't work and are pushing his views on kids. This is Rick Santorum. It's all about his circle. He can tell you why the things he agrees with are right and why the things he disagrees with are wrong, but don't expect the reasoning for the two groups to match up if you compare.
