I recently wrote about how the Bush administration is losing the war on Terrorable diseases (to borrow a John Stewart line) undermining scientific progress in order to replace it with pure faith (in lobbyists).
I just noticed two more topics where the Bush administration is trying to undermine science and expert advice in the same manner; by saying things are too generic or ineffective to be believed and thus should be replaced with belief in an autocratic/theocratic decision (for sale to the highest bidder). The more policy areas that fall under this fog (science=uncertain, faith=certain), the further backwards in time America will go. Here‘s the first topic:
They “are increasingly trying to portray contraceptives as ineffective and trying to redefine some of the most popular and effective methods as abortion — such as birth control pills and emergency contraception,” said Cynthia Dailard, senior public policy analyst for the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which advocates family planning.
If these Christianists were genuinely interested in curbing abortions, they’d support the use of contraceptives. But their goal is to turn back the clock, to bring back the days when women had no control over reproduction. Like right-wing Muslims, they rage against modernity itself.
And here is the second topic:
The most embarrassing moment came when Bush loyalists argued that the United States could not follow the Geneva Conventions because Common Article Three, which has governed the treatment of wartime prisoners for more than half a century, was too vague. Which part of “civilized peoples,� “judicial guarantees� or “humiliating and degrading treatment� do they find confusing?
[…]
Jane Mayer provided a close look at this effort to undermine the constitutional separation of powers in a chilling article in the July 3 issue of The New Yorker. She showed how it grew out of Vice President Dick Cheney’s long and deeply held conviction that the real lesson of Watergate and the later Iran-contra debacle was that the president needed more power and that Congress and the courts should get out of the way.
To a disturbing degree, the horror of 9/11 became an excuse to take up this cause behind the shield of Americans’ deep insecurity. The results have been devastating. Americans’ civil liberties have been trampled. The nation’s image as a champion of human rights has been gravely harmed. Prisoners have been abused, tortured and even killed at the prisons we know about, while other prisons operate in secret. American agents “disappear� people, some entirely innocent, and send them off to torture chambers in distant lands. Hundreds of innocent men have been jailed at Guantánamo Bay without charges or rudimentary rights. And Congress has shirked its duty to correct this out of fear of being painted as pro-terrorist at election time.
Perhaps Monty Python said it best:
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise…surprise and fear…fear and surprise…. our two weapons are fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency…. Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…. Our four…no… amongst our weapons…. amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear, surprise…. I’ll come in again. […] Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms – oh damn!
