Krugman: The Ignorance Caucus

[deminks]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/11/opinion/krugman-the-ignorance-caucus.html?_r=0

Last week Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, gave what his office told us would be a major policy speech. And we should be grateful for the heads-up about the speech’s majorness. Otherwise, a read of the speech might have suggested that he was offering nothing more than a meager, warmed-over selection of stale ideas.

To be sure, Mr. Cantor tried to sound interested in serious policy discussion. But he didn’t succeed — and that was no accident. For these days his party dislikes the whole idea of applying critical thinking and evidence to policy questions. And no, that’s not a caricature: Last year the Texas G.O.P. explicitly condemned efforts to teach “critical thinking skills,” because, it said, such efforts “have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”

And such is the influence of what we might call the ignorance caucus that even when giving a speech intended to demonstrate his openness to new ideas, Mr. Cantor felt obliged to give that caucus a shout-out, calling for a complete end to federal funding of social science research. Because it’s surely a waste of money seeking to understand the society we’re trying to change.

Want other examples of the ignorance caucus at work? Start with health care, an area in which Mr. Cantor tried not to sound anti-intellectual; he lavished praise on medical research just before attacking federal support for social science. (By the way, how much money are we talking about? Well, the entire National Science Foundation budget for social and economic sciences amounts to a whopping 0.01 percent of the budget deficit.)

(end snip)

[riderinthestorm]

1. I'll K&R this... nt

[abelenkpe]

2. K&R nt

[longship]

3. Whoa! Seriously good editorial!

Critical thinking! What a concept!

R&

[kardonb]

8. whoa...

what a revolutionary idea : THINKING , RATIONAL THINKING . For that , the republican party would have to (horrors ) enter the 21st. century .

[applegrove]

4. They want all the information in the hands of corporations. Only the rich

and ceos will have access to good information. Seeing as how the main assumption in economics is "given perfect information people will behave.....". So it will be market failure all around if social science research is not funded for the public good.

[Still Sensible]

5. K & R n/t

[WillyT]

6. HUGE K & R !!!

[DallasNE]

7. Window Dressing 101

Hide from view things like comments on rape and the problem is taken care of. But they are sure to slip up on the messaging because someone will get caught off guard on camera and it will all bubble back to the surface. Like Krugman says, it is the underlying policy that has to change and there is no evidence that that is about to happen any time soon so the ignorance will continue. Since there can be no compromise with ignorance it is important to constantly point out why the GOP talking points reflect an ignorant position. It will be tough to do, however. Why? Today Lindsey Graham was on TV for about the 15th week in a row talking about nothing but Benghazi so the problem spills over into MSM and how they choose to cover the issues and with such dishonesty. A free press would be indeed helpful and their love affair with demagogues like Lindsey Graham show that day is far off in the future, if ever.

[blackspade]

9. Excellent.

[calimary]

10. They'll ALWAYS be the "Stupid Party."

And proudly so.

[dotymed]

11. Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine eom