Rick Santorum. Not Fooled by that “Science” stuff!

Mitt Romney today opined that Climate Change is real.

Retribution was swift. The Republican ignorance machine went into overdrive. Crosses were waved, exorcisms were performed. They finally settled for a scarlet “S” carved on his chest.

Sickening.

Here’s what Rick Santorum, the latest declared presidential candidate for the Republican Party, said:

I believe the Earth gets warmer, and I also believe the Earth gets cooler. And I think history points out that it does that. The idea that man, through the production of CO2 — which is a trace gas in the atmosphere, and the man-made part of that trace gas is itself a trace gas — uh, is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd when you consider all of the other factors — El Niño, La Niña, sunspots, uh, uh, you know, moisture in the air — there’s a variety of factors that contribute to the earth warming.To me there is opportunity for the left — it’s a beautifully concocted scheme. It’s been on a warming trend so they said, ‘Oh, let’s take advantage of that and say that we need the government to come in and regulate your life some more because it’s getting warmer.’ Just like they did in the ’70s when it was getting cooler, they needed the government to come in and regulate your life because it was getting cooler. It’s just an excuse for more government control of your life and I’ve never been for any scheme or even accepted the junk science behind the whole narrative.

Pretty amazing that in our country a presidential candidate from a major party can get away with such aggressive ignorance. It seems that the constant presence of Sarah Palin and her word throw-ups has made ignorance chic again – nay a requirement – if you want to run as a Republican!

Mitt Romney, who has been trying to dumb himself down to meet his party’s requirements by denying his major achievement in Massachusetts – the Universal Health Care plan that is essentially identical with “Obamacare” – couldn’t quite go far enough. So he said today that he did believe the world’s scientists’ virtually unanimous claim that we have  Global Warming and that it was man made.

The response was immediate and merciless! Rush Limbaugh, the Republican chastity tester, immediately declared that Mitt Romney had committed suicide. You will not sully our party with science, d’ya hear! “Mitt Romney”, said Limbaugh, “had bought into the biggest hoax of the century, the Climate Change Conspiracy, to take control of the free market system of the world.”

Enter Rick Santorum, spouting the Republican-endorsed mumbo jumbo. Watch here:

If any candidate in Europe or even Asia, Africa or South America said what Santorum is saying, I wonder how long his political career would last. Everywhere but in Tea Party America this would be considered gibberish.

Today I read in the newspaper that Iran has authorized its traffic police, when making routine stops, to arrest people for not dressing with Islamic modesty. Ironically the same day, today,  Alabama has passed a new law making it a criminal offense to give an undocumented alien a ride in your vehicle. Traffic police can arrest you if your passenger turns out to have insufficient papers to justify being in the U.S. I guess Alabama has a ways to go equal Iran – it hasn’t stipulated a Southern Baptist dress code yet.

I read too that 80% of the people in Pakistan believe that 9/11 was a hoax. With our Republicans I think only about 70% think the climate debate is a hoax. The Republicans, to their credit, are still not at Talibanic levels yet.

Oh, let’s give them time. They’ll get there.

The chart below shows the level of acceptance of Evolution in developed countries:

People Accepting Evolution as Valid Science

It shows that only 39% of Americans accept Evolution as fact – a level below almost every country in the developed world.

We are at the vanguard of reversing the gains of Enlightenment, which brought the West out of the dark ages. Thanks to the Republicans we are now leading the world back into medieval times – maybe the Taliban and the Republicans have a lot of common goals!