Santorum Part III: The ironic winners, if he prevails

Okay, we've had a brief survey of our generation's would-be Nehemiah Scudder. Just last week's short list  of recent "Santor-isms" was enough to give any modern or compassionate or sane person the creepy heebie-jeebies. Do you doubt that I could go on and on? (See Parts One and Two)

Scary?  Sure. Can one envision the outcome, if a guy like this who wants "fire in the sky" and an end to the United States (all of it implicit in his prayed-for Book of Revelation End Times) ever gets his hands on nukes? Does he distill the terrified, future-shocked rage of those imbibing Culture War, making clear that this truly is Phase Three of the American Civil War?

(See  a much more detailed, though somewhat more partisan, litany of Rick Santorum's astonishing views: Agenda for the Dark Ages. I say "more partisan" because my complaints about Rick have very little to do with old-fashioned "left-vs-right.)

"Oh, don't worry," our sincere "moderate Republican" friends tell us.  "Romney will get the nomination. And Mitt doesn't mean all the extremist, red-meat, never compromise, worship the rich crap he has to shout, in order to appease the base and get nominated.  As soon as he clinches it - the very second that he has the nomination locked-up - Mitt will charge for the center as quick as a cat!"

Yep, that is what they are saying. And it's a measure of how deep the moderate GOP "ostriches" have to stick their heads into a pit of rationalizations, that all that sounds like a goooood thing to them.  In my last installment, I explained how they are right about this, because it fits the nominating pattern that the GOP follows perfectly. And it is still depressing as all get out.

But for the moment, let's ponder a different path. What might be some unforeseen consequences if the True Conservative were to come out on top with the GOP nomination, handing it to Honest Rick Santorum.

== There would be silver linings! ==

Well, it could offer hope to guys like me  - (moderates with a strong Adam-Smithian streak, who dream of a return to Yankee-style pragmatic politics) - that a Santorum nomination might be the long awaited Last Straw.

Oh, what if! Suppose those millions of good, decent "ostrich" conservatives are capable - at long last - of recognizing and admitting how thoroughly their once-noble movement has been hijacked by cynical oligarchs and outright crazy-people. If anything could ever achieve that miraculous psychological breakthrough, then putting Santorum at the GOP helm ought to do it. At long last.

Some are calling it the GOP's "McGovern Moment,"   but I look even farther back in time, to 1947, the year that democrats and liberals gathered the courage to separate from their own, in-house crazies. (And the left DOES contain those! In far smaller numbers now, than today's right, but  lefty-loons do exist.) I call it the Miracle of '47. You should look it up.

Oh, but will personality trump common sense yet again?  So far a single mantra has worked for conservative ostriches to keep them allied with monsters -- "Yes, my side has gone nuts, but Democrats are just as bad or worse!"  Will that crazy, fact-free chant finally fall apart? Indeed, maybe those millions will start to remember adults like Buckley and Goldwater and finally decide -- after November's trouncing -- to stand up and retake their movement. Reforging an adult conservatism that America needs, for balance.

From hard experience, I won't hold my breath.

== The real winners in a Santorum nomination? Libertarians! ==

Oh, oh, but the GOP tent holds yet another group that's exercising utter denial. I must now must turn and speak to my poor libertarian friends.

All right, your infatuation with Ron Paul has been fun.  And yes, I find him both admirable in some ways and spot-on when it comes to certain issues. But he has not been good for your movement.
Honestly. Do you expect Paul to change the GOP from within?  Or to affect at all the ongoing oligarchic putsch, combined with bedroom policing "social" hysteria?

The Paul Phenomenon only feeds a loony delusion that the GOP is somehow your "hold the nose" second-best choice. That somehow, in some twilight zone universe, the democrats are... worse?  A crazy idea if you actually list policies that might get negotiated with one major party or the other.

But here's another thing that Libertarians ought to be pondering, right now: If, by some amazing twist, Rick Santorum actually gets the Republican nomination, then this will be the year that the Libertarian Party finally gets more than 1% of the national vote!

In fact, there will be a flood of liberty-minded refugees fleeing to the LP. A tsunami the likes of which you've never seen before. Who knows? If that surge waxed high enough in the polls, the LP candidate might even get in on a debate or two! Hey, it happened for Ross Perot in 92!

Am I off base here?  Just look at how many of Ron Paul's supporters find they cannot stomach anyone else on the GOP side. "While other GOP presidential candidates have seen their fortunes wax and wane with voters, Ron Paul has enjoyed steadfast, if relatively low level, support from an obsessively loyal base of backers. But if his long-shot bid falls short, his supporters may balk at throwing their votes to a rival."  

For that reason, ironically, it seems logical that libertarians in Michigan and Arizona should right now ponder voting Santorum! Forget nostalgia for Ron Paul. That love affair was sweet but it's not gonna change anything if it leads to Romney and another 1% year for the LP. On the other hand, a GOP that finally ends the hypocrisy and confesses what it has become? A GOP that finally drives out freedom lovers?
That could transform everything. I salivate for the day when the Libertarian Party rises to replace the GOP as the main one opposing the democrats, arguing fairly and openly and sagaciously about market solutions as legitimate alternatives to state solutions.  The resulting discussions and arguments will finally contain substance!  They'll be honest. And they won't be about helping return us to feudal dark ages.

Think nationally. Think about the future of liberty-oriented politics.  Ron Paul has had his shot.  Now clear a path for Gary Johnson to actually get somewhere, in the fall.  Hold your nose one last time and vote... (heaven help us)... for Scudder.

== Late Addendum ==

I know this will crush some of my libertarian-romantic friends.  But have you noticed how - in the debates - Ron Paul never takes a swipe at Mitt Romney?  Always, always, he comes out swinging hard at whomever happens to be Romney's top rival of the moment!  This is too consistent for it simply to be explained by "Mitt and Ron are friends."

Now see this analyzed in a very very disturbing article.

Or google "Paul-Mitt Alliance". It seems, my friends, that you may have been sold out.

Santorum Part II: More Choice Samplings of Culture War

Well, he survived the debate and we're all breathlessly awaiting the results from Michigan and Arizona, to see if this marvelous theater will go on.  My own fascination with Rick Santorum is partly rooted in the fell prediction that Papa Robert Heinlein made, in his future history, way back in the 1950s... that a fundamentalist preacher would win the presidency on a court decision, without a plurality (sound like 2000?) and thereupon clamp down a theocracy as "Prophet of the Lord." That character was named Nehemia Scudder and it all happens in 2012.

But in fact, I do not expect Rick to win the nomination, this time around. That is because Republicans always follow a very precise pattern in their nominations.

(1) if there is a recent or sitting Vice President available and running, they always choose him. (In fairness, the dems do that too, almost as consistently.)

(2) If there is no available veep, they then nominate the guy whose "turn it is." The fellow who came in second for the nomination last time.  Reagan in 1980, Dole in '96, McCain in 2008, etc.  Hence, following that rule, it will be Romney in 2012…

...only dig it... that means Santorum in 2016.  Was Heinlein off by only a little bit? I'll conclude this series with a comment on that. Including a prediction for how the GOP base will deal with it when -- the very second after he is nominated -- Mitt Romney instantly charges for the Center as fast as he can.

But first, let's get back to Rick Santorum, the gift that keeps on giving.

 == Rick's Roll Goes On and On... ==

What's he been saying lately?
 
State and federal governments should not have a role in operating schools. 

No abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Women should "make the best out of a bad situation."

Birth control is "harmful to women."

The government should ban or refuse to pay even for pre-natal testing.

When Santorum's press secretary, Alice Stewart, called Obama a "radical islamist" to an open mike, was that just an innocent slip of the tongue?  Or an inadvertent, but Freudian-honest rolling-out of what she - and many Santorum supporters - commonly say and believe in private?

And it goes on. Did Rick call Obama Hitler? See how he denies it... then weaves a draw-your-own-conclusions tapestry that inescapably says exactly that.

== "Fairness" is When YOU Want More... ==

"Just like we have certifying organizations that accredit a college, we'll have certifying organizations that will accredit conservative professors. If you are to be eligible for federal funds, you'll have to provide an equal number of conservative professors as liberal professors." See this interview with Santorum.

So, governments should not operate public schools, and big federal interference is bad... but it should hammer down on colleges to force them to hire 50% conservatives?  Wow.  What's the principle here, Rick?  Fairness and equal time?

Hm... then why do the GOP and Fox scream bloody murder over any mention of restoring the old equal time rule in broadcast news?  The notion that the viewers deserve to see and hear rebuttals to outrageously partisan declamations on partisan cable "news" channels?

Why no opposing opinions or rebuttals... at all?  That's the policy on Beck, Limbaugh, Fox&Friends, Hannity and so on.  Only the resident "adult" at Fox, Bill O'Reilly, has the guts to bring on some guests with challenging viewpoints. Rarely. You say it's the same on the Left?  Not.  Jon Stewart has more opposition guests on his one show than the entire Fox network. He treats them courteously and hawks their books. They come back often and eagerly! There's a word for what Stewart does. It is Courage.

And thus, those who do the opposite are cowards.

Heck, I'd settle for a 10% rule, because having tough, smart opposition voices just that often on Fox would demolish their hypnotic trance.  Rupert and Roger desperately fear the day their captive audience might hear alternative viewpoints. Or even -- (shudder) -- facts.

It seems that "equal time" is right and proper, depending entirely on who is getting "equalized."

Oh but I saved the best for last. It is by far the most important aspect to all of this, even though it will strike many of you as troglodytic and obscure.  Because it shows where millions of our neighbors have been wandering, in their minds and in their increasingly fury-drenched attitude towards the rest of us.

== The role of religion: Rallying the faithful... vs the majority ==

Here's the part that Rick Santorum considers paramount. And so we should take his word on that and spare the time to  pay close attention, because the moral and logical essence is astonishing.

Santorum proclaimed that mainstream Protestantism is "gone from the world of Christianity" -- thereby dismissing all of the communions who are members of the National Council of Churches  as heretical, and thus classifying - by inclusion - all Americans who abide by mainstream Protestant sects such as Lutherans, Episcopalians and Methodists. By all means. link to hear his speech laying out how Satan personally seeks to destroy America, and has so far succeeded in corrupting our colleges and our mainstream Protestant churches:

"And so what we saw was this domino effect, once the colleges fell and those who were being educated in our institutions, the next was the church. Now you’d say, ‘wait, the Catholic Church’? No. We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic. Sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it."

What a guy!  I'd be delighted... at one purely political level... if I weren't also terrified.  This, after all, being the year that Papa Heinlein forecast the election of a radical fundamentalist "prophet of the lord" named Nehemiah Scudder.

Woof.  How do you answer stuff like that? Is the intention of all this to make half of Americans view the other half as purely satanic enemies?  For it is no less than that.  Can the United States of America govern itself when we're no longer arguing over negotiated policy solutions, but over pure and essential damnation?

Before you shrug, consider what this means. These folks try not to say it before an open mike, but their pastors (e.g. of Sarah Palin's church in Wassila) make plain that they both pray for and expect all of the events described in the Book of Revelation (BoR) to befall us in the very near future, and that those who do not hold to their exact doctrines are inherently in for grotesque torment and eternal damnation. (Do, by all means, read Revelation and see what they pray for, including "fire from the sky," lavish agony for the vast majority of us, and an end to all democracy and to the United States of America.)

Many of us were already used to being consigned to that category by the BoR-fetishists. Only now Rick makes it clear -- it includes a majority of his fellow citizens.

But let's return to that bit about Satan personally having it in for the good old USA.  Consider it logically.

Let's suppose that someone, say Satan -- (or else an immensely rich foreign royal family with its eye on ending and replacing Pax Americana) -- did conspire and plot to see the U.S. ruined.  Would the devil -- or those princes -- not want exactly this volcanic fury vented by Rick Santorum and his allies?

Raging, hate-propelled civil war? Demonizing our neighbors over any disagreement? An end to all chance for Americans to negotiate with one another as free minds, willing to learn and adapt in the face of evidence? To make us incapable of negotiating with our neighbors as calm adults.

Wasn't that our strength, the eager optimism of our song?

And who'll be laughing with delight the day that music dies?

==Return to Part 1
or continue to Part 3

From Religion to Biology: Destiny & the Singularity

== Biology!  Biology is Destiny! ==

Family living conditions in childhood are associated with significant effects in DNA that persist well into middle age. Researchers found clear differences in gene methylation between those brought up in families with very high and very low standards of living. More than twice as many methylation differences were associated with the combined effects of  wealth, housing conditions and occupation of parents (that is, early upbringing) than were associated with the current socio-economic circumstances in adulthood.

Now let’s be careful.  This is not Lamarckianism (inheriting of acquired traits by the next generation). Though another science report seems to imply that result in methylization studies, as well! No, what this shows is that the effects of childhood conditions can last for life, beyond mere malnutrition stunting of the brain or general health or psychological damage caused by poverty.  Those latter effects should be enough to convince anybody that society should invest in the children of the poor, even if adults are consigned to libertarian perdition, for their foolish choices.

But the new result reinforces the lesson. I consider myself to be a style of libertarian. But anyone who rejects socialist intervention to help poverty-wracked children is not only evil but also now clearly shown to be batshit crazy. And wrong.

An MORE waw-biology! Fascinating.  You’ve heard of “jumping genes” or retro transposons - that shift from one chromosome to another?  It turns out these events actually take place surprisingly often. According to one recent estimate, they occur in many or most brain cells, perhaps several hundred times within each cell. Each neuron is likely subjected to a unique combination of insertions, leading to a genetic variability within populations of cells.The full significance of this "genomic plasticity" is still not clear, but the authors suggest that it could influence brain development and behavior. It may, for example, partly account for the differences in brain structure and behavior between identical twins, and could even affect thought processes by subtly influencing the changes in nerve cell connections that occur with experience.

“The full significance of this "genomic plasticity" is still not clear, but the authors suggest that it could influence brain development and behavior. It may, for example, partly account for the differences in brain structure and behavior between identical twins, and could even affect thought processes by subtly influencing the changes in nerve cell connections that occur with experience.”

==From Religion to the Singularity==

I had loads of fun at the recent Singularity Summit 2011. I gave a talk to all those folks who think that technology will soon empower us to construct super-intelligent artificial intelligences, or perfect intelligence enhancing implants, or even cheat death. The title:  "So you want to make gods. Now why would that bother anybody?" in which I present some Singularity-tilted theology.

And while we are reaching across the Great Divide... Science and Religion Today interviewed me in a brief Q & A re: “Can altruism be addictive?” riffing off of the new volume Pathological Altruism, in which I have two articles.

For more on observation flaws built into human nature... see a fascinating story about "validity bias" where people routinely misjudge their own competence and procedures, even in the face of evidence. This especially applies to my longstanding call for neutral Predictions Registries. Read this and ponder how hard it is to be a mature person in this modern world.

And now, getting even more cosmic! All folks in or near the U.K. be sure and look into a unique symposium taking place at the British Interplanetary Society in London on 23rd November, dedicated to the philosophy of Olaf Stapledon. My peer and fellow “Killer B” - Stephen Baxter - will be delivering a very cogent paper.

== Interesting Developments ==

Ah, speaking of singularities. Ever get the feeling you were born too late to get the good stuff?

See 12 visions of the future of computing, biotechnology, energy, and more, from the editors of Technology Review comes TRSF, an 80-page anthology of original near-future science fiction stories.  A very worthy volume filled with unusual insights and optimism for the can-do spirit. (I’ll be in a future volume, but this one rocks!)

From sea-floor... Scientists have discovered a community of 4-inch amoebas living at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest known part of the world's oceans.

Is sub-sea mining (of metal-rich sulfide muds near old oceanic “smokers”) about to take off? How will it change things?

To space... A Rover’s Eye View: Watch this three minute time-lapse video of Opportunity’s thirteen mile trek across the desolate surface of Mars, from Victoria Crater to Endeavour Crater—a journey spanning three years.

The moon may be a harsh mistress, but Russian scientists say they want to establish a colony below the lunar surface. According to Russian space official Sergei Krikalyov, recently discovered volcanic tunnels could provide natural shelter for the first colonists.

== But At Least Art Thrives! ==

See this 2009 cartoon by Joel Pett that distills a point I'd been making for years. Everything we must do re Climate Change are things we ought to do anyway (TWODA). "Ruin the economy?" Who wants that! A strawman. Efficiency is next to godliness.  Use this argument. Pry open skulls... or we’ll get Nehemia Scudder!

Absolutely stunning Sapporo beer commercial is a fest for the eye.  Amazing.  Watch it in color! (Thanks Stefan.)

A cute little practical joke from the early days of computers.

A serious aside... A critical but neglected transparency law could be updated for the 21st century if a new congressional proposal succeeds. The  (S. 1732), introduced by Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) on Oct. 18, would update the Privacy Act of 1974 . The Privacy Act governs what actions federal agencies must take when collecting personal information on American citizens and how agencies use and share it.

Artist John Powers writes a fascinating riff, comparing Star Trek to the American dream... and weaving in a number of my own observations about the underlying design of the 200 year American Experiment.

== Brief Political Stuff ==

Read this. Our civil war is no longer left-vs-right. It is about bewildered American pragmatists and a "side" that's gone mad. "Mike Lofgren recently retired from a lengthy career as an esteemed Capitol Hill republican staffer a respected, knowledgeable figure. Read  Lofgren wrote for Truth Out, published yesterday with this headline: “Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult.” How I miss Goldwater & Buckley!

Here's the source.

See a map of which states are the most/least violent.  Even the first impressions are devastating to the big fib of “civility” in Red America. Now take into account that New York and California and Illinois have an excuse... dense cities and lots of immigrants and urban poor and drugs... And even so score way above average. New England does best of all.  So much for the moral superiority of Limbaugh-land.

Ever seen the maps for teen sex, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, divorce, domestic violence, and transmission of STDs?  Same story.  The preachy folk who claim to have a better handle on morality are, well, on average far less moral.  And their man Bush managed to make every measure of national health and middle class economics plummet during his reign. By all means, let’s heed their advice!
Interesting changes in the degree that the international uber-rich can “helvetian-hide” their booty from the tax-men.

Here’s a quotation from one of the world’s top technology pundits, Mark Anderson:

“For me, there is no more poignant example of the Bush 9.11 era, and the need to get beyond it now. Like two slides, I picture, first: an army of soldiers surrounding bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora, and then being ordered by Team Bush to wait until the locals can get there and participate, at which point the enemy has escaped.

“I compare that slide to the story of this year: after a year in secret investigation and preparation, Team Obama finds a likely target compound in Pakistan, orders in Seal Team Six via stealth choppers, uses overwhelming force, and shoots to kill. DNA samples are taken to confirm ID, and the body is dumped ignominiously in the ocean, with no propaganda pics for the enemy, and no burial process or site to rally round.” What a difference.  And yet, which man is called a “wimp”?

A vastly detailed and deeply disturbing article in Bloomberg about the Koch brothers. Seriously, read at least the first ten paragraphs or so.

Sorry, but if we’re to prevent Nehemia Scudder... (Heinlein called 2012 his year!) .. we are all gonna have to get more active.  And some of you must wake up.


== Oh, If Only... ==

Finally, one prays something like this will happen. From The Onion: Nation Finally Breaks Down and Begs its Smart People to Just Fix Everything!

Alas, look at history.  At the obstinate delusional stupidity that ran every previous civilization and keeps threatening ours.  Shall we bet on this?  Sigh.