Earlier today, I had the opportunity to ask some old prep-school chums about something I consider to be absurd: the U.S. Supreme Court’s considering the idea that the president of the United States should enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution.
One such “chum,” the only conservative in the group, pointed out that presidents have done things in the past, e.g. dropping the first atomic bomb and sending troops into Vietnam, for which he could have been criminally charged. Such immunity would enable the president to do what he thinks right, and not be worried about going to prison for it.
An interesting response, to be sure, though both of these examples are potential war crimes, which are prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In any case, this seems to be red herring. What we’re concerned about here is something very real and concrete that would definitely be, and, in all likelihood will be, prosecuted within state or federal jurisdictions.
In particular, there is ample evidence that Donald Trump tried to overthrow the U.S. government, which, if he had been successful, would have made him a king, rather than a public servant. Are we saying that this is a valid direction for our nation to take?
There are so many tragic aspects to life in today’s United States that it’s hard to name them all.
For my money, one of the saddest elements to the American zeitgeist is its glorification of ignorance.
Up until recently, if you wanted to know what science believes about anthropology, climate change, or particle physics, you asked a scientist in the relevant discipline, who not only has a college degree, but normally a ton of education on top of that.
Now, you ask a congressional Republican, preferably, an evangelical Christian.
To the author of the meme here (if it’s an actual human being, vs. a Russian bot): to the best of my knowledge, the only actual major “scientific fraud” in world history was “Piltdown Man.” In 1912, a pseudo-anthropologist attempted to fool the scientific community into believing he had discovered the “missing link” between apes and humans.
Now, are there examples of instances when the science of the day turned out to be incorrect?
Of course, and new instances of this surface every day.
Think of how little when scientists believed 200 years ago is still intact today. Perhaps most obviously, Newtonian mechanics has fallen to relativity and quantum physics, but there are hundreds of other paradigm shifts in health and medicine, psychology, cellular biology, chemistry, and particle physics.
Contrary to what conspiracy theorists want you to believe, science is not a set of facts; it’s a methodology whereby we come to learn more about ourselves and the world around us.
Are there other methods by which we “learn?” Sure. Some uneducated guy goes on YouTube and becomes convinced that our consumption of fossil fuels is not causing the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans to rise. I would argue that this conduct is inferior to the scientific method.
Renewable Energy
Trump’s Only Real Talents: Attracting Attention and Controlling Morally Weak People
Trump is not an idiot. His IQ may not be too high, but he’s smart enough to know how to conduct himself in his lifelong quest to amass more wealth and power at the expense of everyone else on Earth.
Trump’s Only Real Talents: Attracting Attention and Controlling Morally Weak People
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