In BoBo’s World, Pointing Out How Much The GOP Hates Data Is Bad Manners

[phantom power]

Republican members of the House of Representatives have decided that knowledge of what actually is happening in US society and its economy is just too….

I don’t know what…

Inconvenient?…Unfortunate?…Too…useful?…Too important to the actual act of governing?

That last is the one, I think. Representative Jeff Duncan, out to make sure that his great state of South Carolina doesn’t lose the lunacy title to its sibling to the north, has introduced a bill that would bar the US Census [PDF] from conducting any surveys or censuses except for the constitutionally-mandated decennial one.

... It’s a simple syllogism. If the data show that tax cuts, or austerity, or universal gun ownership don’t actually solve all economic and social ills, then, who needs data?

Ladies and gentlemen, your modern Republican party.

Oh, and with a nod to Mr. David Brooks and his paean to disinterested opining: this is engaged writing. I got a horse in the race. I think the Republican party in its present form constitutes a clear and present danger to the Republic. I believe it needs to go the way of the Whigs, so that we can go about the business of constructing an actual second party to engage the necessary debate our politics requires.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/05/01/in-bobos-world-pointing-out-how-much-the-gop-hates-data-is-bad-manners/

[Electric Monk]

1. k&r