Obama and Romney Respond To ScienceDebate.org Questionnaire

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."

The format of the asnwer is interresting

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama never mention romney's name. Romney mention Obama in comparison 12 time. Furthermore some answer particularly on GW are less than satisfying. But hey. I don't vote so... Have fun all.

Net neutrality

[RoTNCoRE]

So net neutrality is pandering to special interests and "picking winners and losers" according to Romney? Any leader who considers the individual a special interest, and thinks that not backing net neutrality isn't by default picking winners and losers is either an idiot or a liar, or both. Picking winners and losers is your damn job - pretty much the crux of it. The "letting the market decide" BS is letting the powerful corporate interests win. Any "invisible hand" or "let the market decide" crap went out the window with the bailouts.

Re:Fuck me. Romney has a case of..

[hondo77]

I especially like his response to climate change. He says it looks to him like humans are causing it but it's still up for debate. What a weasel.

Re:Net Neutrality

[girlintraining]

Corrupt motherfuckers.

FTFY.

Re:./ed

[vlm]

This was ... far less blatantly biased than I was expecting...

Thanks, I put in a lot of effort to sh1t on both sides roughly equally, yet basically correctly represent their answers. If there's anyone on any side whom I failed to offend, I apologize. They're both awful candidates, in their own individual different ways, so its pretty easy to make fun of them both. I've always been a fan of Mencken, nothing I write is even 1/100th as good as him at his worst, but every day I try anyway...

Re:./ed

[Bam_Thwok]

This Q&A is more evidence that Romney is what everybody has been calling him from the start; basically moderate, smart guy who is cunning enough to play the part needed to get into office. He's a former governor, a distinguished JD MBA, and he hasn't got a deep dark secret besides being a little too capitalistic and a little too obsequious to his Church. I don't think anyone doubts that he would be an excellent director of policy and decision-maker in chief. If there were 535 Romney's in congress who only slightly disagreed with each other on center-right versus center-left policy leanings, we'd all be far better off. But that's not what we'd get with a Romney presidency. Romney is not the leader of his party; Clint Eastwood, Paul Ryan, and Grover Norquist are. What you see in Romney's platform and tempered responses (a four point plan here, a three-pillar foundation there) is not what you will get from the Congress elected along with him should he galvanize the base enough to keep the house and win back the senate. You'd get an agenda dictated by the hard-right and the tea party, with Romney stuck signing into law bills and policies that make government less effective and militate against his reasonable goals. It's actually been pretty sad to see this Faustian bargain develop; Romney got the nomination and has a serious shot at the becoming #45 in the history books, but he's had to pander to the base of the party over which he has little if any serious sway anyway, and will be utterly subservient to their agenda while in office. A fun twist on the lame-duck phenomenon. On the flip side, the GOP gets an electable candidate, but one whose core views they know in their hearts will never really align with their own. It will be hollow, Pyrrhic victories all around.

Re:Well that cinches it for me

[iluvcapra]

Mormons would definitely be hostile to one theocracy, but I suspect they'd be quite satisfied to tolerate openly sectarian lawmaking in Kansas or Louisiana as long as their church gets to keep its monopoly on all public offices and civic leadership in Utah. "Leave us alone to oppress our folk as we see fit" is the original sin of Federalism.

Romney isn't a theocrat, but you get the impression that he, like many Republicans, is pretty casual about church interference in state affairs. They oppose the the concept strictly in principle, but on concrete issues you will generally find them silent as long as the law in question isn't coming after them. There's no question in my mind that many movement Conservatives would acquiesce to a sort of negative theocracy, which is to say they would be satisfied to leave atheists, Muslims, and people of undesirable faith with less rights, as opposed to a positive theocracy, where only one faith is given complete rights. Rubio made this point at the RNC, when he claimed that "faith in out creator" was a foundational American value.

Re:Here be no surprises

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Somebody who looks and sounds a hell of a lot like Obama said it on July 13, 2012.

Wow, you actually linked to a video that included the context of the quote but completely failed to notice that context. I can kind of understand those people who were too incurious to find out the context, but that's not you. You found the context and you pretended it wasn't there.

I am genuinely curious - what is going on in your head that lets you do that and not feel like an outright liar? Is it just blinding partisanship? Or do you do the same thing with the context of Romeny quotes such as, "I like being able to fire people?"

Re:Here be no surprises

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Might well be a good place to drop this link... [movetoamend.org]

I think that idea is misguided populism. The problem isn't that "corporrations are people too" or that "money is speech" - the problem is the corrupting influence that money brings with it (which, is something I think applies everywhere not just politics, but that's a discussion for another time and place).

I like Lawrence Lessig's idea that we might as well embrace these concepts since they are so popular with the people with influence and they at least give us a framework to build on. His idea is to use these concepts in a form of judo - let people and corps donate all the money they want to politicians, but make them do it anonymously. In short, put all the donated money into a "black box" and then (a) let donors secretly rescind their donations if they want and (b) require the politicians to take all of the donations out of the black box in one big chunk after some period of time.

The idea is to disconnect the money from the influence - you can promise a politician that you are giving a million dollars, but you can't prove it. There is no restriction on speech at all - you can "say" all you want with words or money. You just can't tie the two together in a provable fashion.

Apparently something like this system was tried in an election for judges in south florida - the result was that none of the candidates got a single dime.

Re:./ed

[sonicmerlin]

Uh... given that scientists are an insanely tiny minority of the population and contribute the vast majority of human advancement... I would rather fund them in excess.

Romney has an interesting point on Climate Change

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Developed world emissions have leveled off while developing world emissions continue to grow rapidly, and developing nations have no interest in accepting economic constraints to change that dynamic. In this context, the primary effect of unilateral action by the U.S. to impose costs on its own emissions will be to shift industrial activity overseas to nations whose industrial processes are more emissions-intensive and less environmentally friendly. That result may make environmentalists feel better, but it will not better the environment.

Interesting. Imposing a severe carbon tax on America could actually _increase_ global emissions. Unintended consequences.

Re:Mitt Romney must have a degree in BS

[Anonymous Coward]

>> 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 completely disagree. With a few exceptions Romney's answers stayed on topic and provided _reasons_ behind his decision making. Whether you agree or not with his ideas, he did give a little bit of insight into his thinking process.

>> 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 [..]

Again, I disagree. I don't know who I'm going to vote for this time around, (was Obama 4 yrs ago), but it's Obama's election to lose. I _want_ to know why Romney thinks he'll be better. The so-called 'attacking' was on point every time. It created contrast, which is expected in anyone trying to make a case against an incumbent. If he doesn't do it I'm just going to vote for Obama again. Duh.