Obama and Romney Respond To ScienceDebate.org Questionnaire 608
rhsanborn writes "President Barack Obama and Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney have both responded to a questionnaire on the 'most important science policy questions facing the United States.' The questionnaire was created by ScienceDebate.org, a group consisting of many influential organizations in science and engineering. The questions are on many topics including research, internet regulation, and climate change."
Re:inb4 (Score:5, Insightful)
Critiquing science positions: bashing
Calling people you disagree with "tards": sensible debate.
Re:Well that cinches it for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Climate change (Score:3, Insightful)
97% consensus on what? Not the extent of the human contribution. If 97% of climatologists think that 100% of the warming is because of human contribution, then I lose all respect for the science.
Re:Well that cinches it for me (Score:5, Insightful)
http://share.banoosh.com/2012/09/02/romney-obama-the-same/ [banoosh.com]
That they both don't see a problem wiretapping and detaining Americans arbitrarily is very worrying.
Love the global warming answer. (Score:5, Insightful)
From Romney:
So ... more "research" instead of doing anything?
But at least we know that we don't need more "research" to know that Obama is the problem:
Romney cannot spell out what HE would do but he can blame Obama for doing what Obama has done.
Re:Fuck me. Romney has a case of.. (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, his position makes inaction justifiable. Republican's will have us "wait for the science to come in" up until the floodwaters are approaching Denver.
Mitt Romney must have a degree in BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Mitt Romney's answers remind me of students who think that if they make an answer lengthy enough and yet stay away from saying anything concrete they can't get an answer right on a test. I guess no one ever told him it was always content that mattered and not quantity.
I'm not a huge fan of Obama but at least he keeps his answers concise and answer them with out going on for half a page or attacking his and then not answering the question at all. It's like Romney thinks he is in a debate on TV and not actually writing his answers down on for everyone to read an examine closely.
Re:./ed (Score:5, Insightful)
The page is coming up slow. I hope it's already slashdotted, or else it's in for a rude awakening.
I got the GOOG cache and here's a summary
1) What policies will best ensure that America remains a world leader in innovation? with the assumption that innovation = science and technology and not financial scams like the last decade or so.
El Presidente: wanna double funding, personally will prepare 100K STEM teachers, believes in that stupid idea of STEM shortage (aka wages are too high for postdocs)
Rmoney: middle class needs to work harder, need more immigrants, lower taxes on corporations, reduce regulation, stronger enforcement of IP laws, govt research has been a disaster and I'll do exactly the same thing but more
2) Talk about climate change
El Presidente: brags about how the economy has crashed thus the environment is cleaner.
Rmoney: its probably important, but lets do nothing other than talk about it, followed by five minutes of hot air global warming. Does oppose carbon taxes
3) Priority to investment in research, pretty much #1 rephrased.
El Presidente: pretty much #1 rephrased. Spend lots of money in stuff you like.
Rmoney: pretty much #1 rephrased. I'll do the same thing as 'bama but smarter.
4) biowarfare FUD, does we luvs it or no?
El Presidente: its very important
Rmoney:I am a strong opponent of disease and btw did you know my opponent sucks?
5) Edumactiaon. Americans are about average at it. Whadda you think?
El Presidente: Still believes education leads to the middle class, instead of lifetime student debt slavery. Dumb*ss. Also says we need more STEM people to push salaries lower and unemployment higher in STEM fields.
Rmoney: teachers make too much money and if we just make them poorer by getting rid of the unions then the kids will be smarter.
6) Energy. Obviously Rmoney has more than 'Bama because his responses are always twice the length. Aside from that:
El Presidente: I'm personally responsible for clean energy and I blue sky made up a plan that 20 years after I'm outta office the whole USA or whats left of it will be powered solely by sustainable, green, bioengineered unicorn tears.
Rmoney: Did you know my opponent sucks? After we get rid of regulation, energy will be cheaper.
7) Food. Most people think american agribusiness sucks. What you say?
El Presidente: I modernized the FDA so we spend more money. No results yet but I'm optimistic.
Rmoney: Food safety is important and self regulation of industries is the best (editors editorial note, didn't this idiot read Upton Sinclair? how stupid is this guy?)
8) Water, Fresh, without human sh1t floating in it, preferably. Comments gentlemen? ... weird
El Presidente: Spent a lot of money and created a lot of govt jobs, but I'm not talking about results, which is
Rmoney: if we remove regulation and laws we'll have more water
9) The internet, how will you gentlemen try to screw it up?
El Presidente: I support everyone on every side of every issue fully with absolutely no specifics
Rmoney: I will get rid of all regulation especially net neutrality while maintaining the status quo of monopoly providers
10) Remember #8, Water, Fresh? How bout Water, Salty?
El Presidente: Remember #8, Water, Fresh? Yeah ditto
Rmoney: Remember #8, Water, Fresh? Yeah ditto
11) Public Policy Science. Pretty much #1 and #3 rephrased for all 3.
12) Space, the final frontier of govt spending or whatever:
El Presidente: I take all the credit and I made some BS plan that won't take effect until decades after I'm gone and I'll continue to non-commitally "support" space
Rmoney: Nasa needs to be scrapped and rebuilt more pragmatically
13) Natural resources. Pretty much #8 and #10 rephrased for all 3
14) Vaccination / public health, is health good or bad?
El Presidente: thanks for the softball so I can brag about what my healthcare plan might accomplish in the future if all goes well.
Rmoney: vaccines are nice, I love them, don't you too? we need less regulation of critical life support and advanced medical stuff.
Re:Climate change (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm terrified to find myself supporting Romney here, but did you even read your own quote there? He said there was a lack of consensus on "the extent of the warming, the extent of the human contribution, and the severity of the risk."
Now let me quote from your linked article: "The study found that 97 percent of scientific experts agree that climate change is "very likely" caused mainly by human activity."
Nowhere does it say that 97 percent of scientists agree that the average global temperature rise will be X degrees, that the risk is extremely/moderately/not at all severe, or that "mainly" = 100%/90%/80%, etc.
As anti-republican as I am, I have to admit Romney hit this one exactly right. There is overwhelming evidence (which, btw, is way the hell more important than "consensus") that there is warming, and that we are the cause of some significant part of it. But predicting the specific effects, even the exact amount of temperature increase, necessitates a blind faith in models with a pretty poor track record so far.
Of course, the problem is that he's trying to use lack of certainty as an excuse to to avoid taking any action, despite the fact that the science doesn't say anything at all about the best way to fix the issue (or indeed whether it needs fixing...)
Re:Fuck me. Romney has a case of.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not what he said. In fact, this is pretty good news: both candidates actually admit the reality of AGW. He said the size of the effects hasn't been nailed down, and that the science should inform the political solutions rather than dictate them. Pretty sensible, for a politician.
Translation: The polls show that denying global warming would cost more votes than acknowledging it.
Re:Net neutrality (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fuck me. Romney has a case of.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Vice-versa Obama's solution is to impose harsh carbon-usage penalties (taxes), force us to drive teeny-tiny cars (54mpg average by 2025) and even population downsizing through birth limits (not Obama's plan, but the UN's plan). It's entirely possible the globe will go +2 degrees and nothing much will happen to the earth at all.
After all it used to be +10 degrees and life still continued and flourished. I think it's incumbent upon any politician to prove a disaster is coming before he starts forcing people to drastically change their lifestyle.
Vaccinations (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how both candidates completely ignored the heart of the vaccination issue, pretending that the reason vaccination rates have fallen is due to people being unable to afford them or supplies running out, rather than the complete failing of our educational system, which has produced a generation of idiots who think that some celebutard's cry about vaccination-caused autism is somehow more worth listening to than a century of sound medical practice. I forget who originated the quote, but it goes something like "Democracy does not mean that your ignorance has an equal voice with my knowledge."
Anyway, just more of the same political dodging. We can't call people reckless morons for endangering themselves AND OTHERS by refusing to get themselves and their children vaccinated, because they might vote for me! I'd really like to have political interviews where we can tie the candidates down and keep asking the same question until they actually answer it,
Bad interpretation (Score:4, Insightful)
Picking winners and losers is your damn job - pretty much the crux of it.
In what way is that the role of the president?
The presidents job should be VERY FAR away from that role. They should not be picking individual winners or losers, they should be thinking of ways to help people in general, not in groups.
If you claim the president should be picking "winners and losers" then you are also in support of:
1) The war on drugs (winner, drag cartels, looser, drug users).
2) Banks (banks that are "too big to fail" will be constantly refreshed with government funds).
3) Wars where you decide who in the nation gets to rule.
It has always struck me as funny that so many people that want to keep companies out of the government are seeking to draw them in via net neutrality. Once Comcast is told what to do by the FCC do you think lobbying will go substantially down, or up? And the best part is then Comcast can do whatever it likes because the rules came "from the government". If you loved the torrent throttling they tried to get away with you should be delighted with the total torrent ban in effect once network neutrality rules start allowing the government dictate how networks should be run - and who they can reach. After all, neutrality means only that you must be able to reach equally VALID network endpoints...
Re:Fuck me. Romney has a case of.. (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>net neutrality "a solution looking for a problem."
The problem is a company holding a monopoly (or duopoly) over the last ~25 miles of the internet. Net neutrality is simply a form of government regulation to prevent the monopoly from abusing its customers, just as the government regulates the electric, natural gas, and water monopolies.
Re:The format of the asnwer is interresting (Score:5, Insightful)
Romney's campaign is on the attack because he's the contender, he has to point at Obama and convince people they made a mistake in 2008.
Obama is the incumbent and just has to convince the people who voted for him to vote for him again. It's not a hard sell, and incumbents frequently win extra terms. He'd have to screw up somehow or just be very, very unlucky to not be re-elected. The economy could be that luck factor, but attacking or even seeming to stoop to Romney's attack level will make it seem like Obama takes Romney seriously and it could cause him to forfeit some or all of his Presidential advantage. The President always has an advantage, but only if he keeps acting presidential.
Obama has a lot more to lose by looking like an attack dog than Romney, but make no mistake, it will be plenty made up for by the Super PACs on both sides going at it. There is some pretty breathtakingly vicious stuff coming out from the Democratic side as well. Just don't expect to see Obama standing directly behind it.
Re:Well that cinches it for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Kinda doubt that Romney wants a theocracy. Unless you think he is an idiot you don't really believe that either. Mormons are a distinct minority with a history of persecution, on religious grounds. So unless he thinks his election will suddenly result in millions and millions of conversions it would be kinda daft to want to make a religious state that would, if history is a guide, have his people on the short list of those who go against the wall first. The fact they might go after the godless commies would be scant consolation.
Please try to think before mindlessly parroting the standard talking points. Sometimes they don't apply. Sometimes they don't apply in such a screamingly obvious way that it just makes you look like a total idiot.
Re:Fuck me. Romney has a case of.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you understand? Giving tax breaks to the wealthy and ending all government regulation and letting big corps do whatever the fuck they want is the CURE ALL of the 21-st century. It will make the economy strong, give us all great jobs, improve education, and make your dick bigger! Just give the wealthy and big corps everything they want and we'll all live in a fucking paradise on earth!
Add in "And Obama sucks!" and I think that pretty much sums up Romney's answers to every question on this survey.
Re:Fuck me. Romney has a case of.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well reducing fuel consumption and slowing population growth are good to do anyway, so we should do those things regardless of climate change.
Re:Well that cinches it for me (Score:5, Insightful)
The president isn't supposed to be "in charge". He's merely supposed to execute the laws that have been passed by the Real body in chage: The Congress.
Here's a fun game to play: listen to a speech by a presidential candidate, and count the number of times that he promises to do something, or complains about what his opponent will (or will not) do, or (in the case of the incumbent) talks about what he's already done, or (in the case of a non-incumbent) complains about what the incumbent should have done.
Now count up how many of those things are actually the job of the executive branch. Most of the time, that number will be zero.
Sometimes I think I would vote for anyone who I honestly believed would just do the president's job.
Re:Well that cinches it for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Kinda doubt that Romney wants a theocracy.
I would be more accurate to say Romney wants a "Corporatocracy" or "Oligarchy of the Wealthy." All the Jesus shit is just a means to that real end.
Why is inaction not justifiable? (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, his position makes inaction justifiable.
Why is that bad?
Would you rather they panic and we get the AGW equivalent of the Patriot Act, causing a lot of harm for very little real gain?
With politicians you WANT the default action to be "none", because otherwise you just get ill-informed bullshit codified into law.
A USEFUL course of action must be clear. We already know we have dropped carbon emissions to Kyoto levels already, so why in fact SHOULD we do anything more at the moment?
Republican's will have us "wait for the science to come in" up until the floodwaters are approaching Denver.
And you would prefer we double the cost of heating and gas for poor people before an inch of rise is observed?
Condensed Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: How will you deal with [scientific challenge]?
Obama: Create/expand a government program or incentive (with no explanation of what existing programs will have to be cut to compensate)
Romney: Eliminate government regulations and let the industry take care of itself (with no explanation of how to deal with inevitable industry abuses)
(How much you trust their answers or are concerned about their non-answers will probably depend on how much you subscribe to their political philosophy.)
Re:Love the global warming answer. (Score:4, Insightful)
Romney described his energy policy as a "No Regrets" policy. I'm sorry, that's a policy of how you're going to deal with waking up next to somebody you don't remember meeting, not a policy for deciding what to do about the biggest technological challenge of the 21st century (and what has been a losing battle for quite some time now).
Also, that last sentence is a lie. Obama has been quite clear about the goals of his energy policy, namely slowly reducing the use of oil in favor of alternatives as they become economically viable. He wants the new energy sources to be manufactured in the United States if at all possible. He's picked an Energy Secretary who's a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and basically given him the assignment of directing research and subsidies and the like towards those goals, which so far has yielded:
- Simple advice like painting roofs white (yes, this actually helps, a lot, even though most media who covered it laughed at the idea)
- new fuel-efficiency standards with the goal of dropping carbon emissions once the new cars are dominating the roads.
- Some increased development of solar cells.
- Some complete duds like Solyndra.
What the Romney campaign is actually trying to do is convince people that $4/gallon gasoline has anything to do with Obama's energy policies, when there's absolutely no evidence to back up that claim.
Re:Well that cinches it for me (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately too many people don't object when he walks-around issuing commands (or executive orders) as if he were the law-maker.
In observing online US political commentary over the last few years, it has been my experience that many people object when he doesn't (or don't understand when he can't).
Re:Here be no surprises (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fuck me. Romney has a case of.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to be clear, the UN's sinister plan to reduce population consists of only:
Educating women to increase their personal economic choices, making birth control available and education men and women in their proper use so they can decide when to have children.
I am glad people like you are around to save us from this.
Re:Here be no surprises (Score:4, Insightful)
8 out of the top 10 largest PAC's fund Obama, including the banks, lawyers, and unions, RIAA/MPAA, etc.
When you have money, you'll realize you can actually afford to buy out both sides.
Re:Here be no surprises (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn. That's a lot of cash that could have otherwise been put to useful purposes.
Re:Here be no surprises (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone that has $100M of net worth has no connection to normal humans.
Hey honey want to take the kids to dinner this weekend?
No, we can't, we had to buy clothes & shoes for them.
Re:Here be no surprises (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not ironic, it's greedy. It just gives you an idea of how much these people stand to save in taxes if Romney is elected that they're putting that much money into getting him elected.
Re:Well that cinches it for me (Score:4, Insightful)
As head of the executive branch, he can choose which laws to bother worrying about executing and which ones he doesn't really care about. He can exert control over who the FBI will go after and whom will be prosecuted, and he can issue pardons.
Re:Well that cinches it for me (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to creating law by edict, the Supreme Court is far more guilty than any President.
The president is limited by what executive orders can do. And executive orders are limited because they can be very easily repealed by the successor.
But a Supreme Court creates permanent law, and even worse, permanently bends the course of entire categories of laws and there's fuck-all that either of the other branches of government can do without amending the Constitution.
If you're worried about a branch of government that's grabbed far more power than intended by the Constitution, you have to put the Court first on the list.
Re:Here be no surprises (Score:5, Insightful)
You live is this strange thing called a society. You went to its schools, you drive its roads, you use the water and sewers that run to the place you live. We have places like Mogadishu or the bush in central Africa where you and you money can go and have a lovely time all by your selves. Just don't yell when a lion eats you or a bandit shoots you, because you won't be able to protect yourself with your money (save the purchase of a lion gun.)
If you really are someone completely out for themselves, with no interest is creating a cohesive society that looks after others and creates a strong and workable infrastructure for the benefit of that society, by all means, find yourself and island an go away nobody's stopping you depending on how much island you can afford. The rest of us look at the cost having a society capable of providing the basic needs for all or most, such that we can work together to create something even greater. I don't see that as an evil or a wrong. Of course the current government does use money in ways I don't agree, so I vote scallywags out whenever I get the chance.
Re:Here be no surprises (Score:4, Insightful)
We're talk about fair shares. Presently, the burdens are dreadfully imbalanced. Take away the priviledges and loopholes and all the extra crap and let's all get some equality. Then we can talk about wanting to hold onto what we "earn."
And seriously. "Income" is money which comes through commerce. Wages are NOT income. They are an equal trade of work for pay. You want to talk about "earning" don't talk about people doing commerce. They didn't work for it -- their employees did and they got paid for their services. The rest is income which should be taxable... payroll should not be.
What bugs me more than the wealthy who want to keep their money (I totally understand that) are the people who are not wealthy who want to protect the interests of the wealthy because they hope to somehow be wealthy one day. (A very poor chance of that happening statistically speaking.)
People should keep what they earn. Investment money is not earned money. Money through running a business? Somewhere in betweenm but there's a LOT of grey area in there isn't there?
Re:Here be no surprises (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how it's the racist party trying to defend their agenda. Obama was talking about infrastructure and basic Keynesian economics prove it true. Government investment in infrastructure allows businesses to succeed. In all honesty though your perception of redistribution is broken. Those who own a business rely on others for success. Now the Republicans are lying about what the statement means while avoiding the obvious philosophical issue that they're constantly running from.
Re:Here be no surprises (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a completely valid series of points.
This is one of the situations that really aggravates me. So many are operating on these distilled little platitudes that are supposed to represent greater ideologies, and applying them in a way that's completely uncompromising. And as we hear every day, compromising what you believe in is the same as weakness of will. Right?
So we get people that were lured by ideas of personal responsibility and fiscal conservatism spouting nonsense about how we need to remove all regulation, and let the markets sort things out. Or we get people throwing trash cans through a Starbucks because they think we should have let our largest financial institutions fail. God forbid anyone take a second and realize that sanity is usually somewhere in the miles of middle ground between any two textbook ideologies.
I wish we had the time and inclination to actually improve our collective quality of life through careful consideration. Instead we shout at each other, and say awful, untrue things. Meanwhile, we don't accomplish much of anything for our own benefit.
I'm no advocate for any kind of authoritarian rule, but sometimes I wish I had the ability to just freeze this circus in its tracks, and get people to talk to each other like civilized human beings.
Re:Well that cinches it for me (Score:4, Insightful)
It might be you were just too credulous before.
I think you misunderstand what was "bad" about McCarthyism. It's not about people being guilty, it's about denouncing them in show trials without Constitutional rights or dignities. Who cares if you've got the right man if you go after him in a way in an unjust and despicable way that discredits the entire process? Had Joe McCarthy been a Communist plant himself, he could not have done more damage to the cause of Anti-Communism. He turned all of his victims into martyrs, wether they were actual spies, or (as was usually the case) were simply members of the CP in the 30s and 40s.
I see. Someone called you "McCarthyite" and it hurt your feelings. Well, Republicans can be right even if McCarthy was wrong; only an Ann Coulter would have the nutso idea that exonerating Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn would somehow validate anything a Republican says of believes today. I assure you I do not spend my time researching alternative history in order to prove that the Japanese Internment wasn't really Franklin Roosevelt's idea, or that JFK was actually going to end the Vietnam War, because these issues are irrelevant to Democratic party politics. Just as McCarthy is irrelevant to the modern Republican Party.