'I am not a scientist', say Republicans, so let's just ignore the people who are

Rss@dailykos.com (hunter)
Monday, October 20, 2014, 4:55 pm
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The Rude Pundit notes that the Republican "I am not a scientist, so let's do nothing" talking point that gets used for climate change does not similarly extend to the panic of the moment.
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on why we shouldn't do anything about climate change: "I'm not a scientist. I'm interested in protecting Kentucky's economy."
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on why we should take strict measures to prevent the spread of Ebola: ""I'm not an expert on this, but it strikes me that it would be a good idea to discontinue flights into the United States from that part of the world."
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I am not an expert, so we should probably just do whatever I say is a good conservative talking point that doesn't get used often enough.
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Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal on why he doesn't want to say how much human activity contributes to climate change: "I'd leave it to the scientists to decide how much, what it means, and what the consequences are...Let the scientists debate and figure that out."
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Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal on why we should act preemptively to stop Ebola's spread: "It's pretty clear they refused to take common sense steps and call for the ban of these flights...That's been something I've been calling on for quite some time now. This is just common sense. Why in the world wouldn't we do this?"
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You told us common sense dictated that we shouldn't be monitoring the nation's volcanoes, presumably because monitoring them ruined the element of surprise when one blew. Your common sense, to use the scientific term for it, sucks.
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So the climate experts are telling us that climate change is real, and the medical experts are telling us that any safety we feel from banning direct flights to West Africa won't be real, and in both cases the answer is to ignore the experts and just do the thing that ideology demands because it feels good. Well, at least it's consistent. You can base a whole movement around it.
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