The 2012 American Presidential Election

Darwin’s idea is arguably the most powerful ever to occur to a human mind. The power of a scientific theory may be measured as a ratio: the number of facts that it explains divided by the number of assumptions it needs to postulate in order to do the explaining. A theory that assumes most of what it is trying to explain is a bad theory. That is why the creationist or ‘intelligent design’ theory is such a rotten theory.
        -Richard Dawkins

The way I see it there are two main things at stake in this presidential election. The first is the ever-widening gap between rich and poor in America. This isn’t an opinion or a liberal talking-point; this is a measurable fact. Period. Obama fell short of allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire—tax cuts for the richest Americans—but I think this will be one of his primary goals if given another term. Romney doesn’t seem to be bothered in the least by America’s fast slide into a nation of a super-rich elite and a poverty-stricken underclass without much in the way of possibilities.

The second thing at stake in this election, which explains the forward by Richard Dawkins, is that a victory by Romney will unleash the religious crazies to once again descend upon Washington. During the Obama administration we have thankfully heard very little from the religious fanatics and the rule of law has pretty much been the order of the day. We haven’t anguished over whether or not children should or should not include “under God” in the stupid pledge of allegiance that they are coerced into mouthing every damn day in our public schools.  I said the pledge very day as a kid and I don’t think it had any effect on me other than boring the living shit out of me.  But the American Taliban have greater ambitions than keep the word “god” in a mindless memory exercise, they want to call a full retreat from progress. Evolution, abortion, birth control, stem cell research, you name it and they are against it.

The problem with the positions of conservatives is that we’ve already been where they want to take us and we didn’t like it very much. They basically want to take us back to 1912 or earlier, back before income taxes and women’s suffrage and safe and legal abortion and birth control and all of it. They have actually declared that “progressive” is a filthy word, that’s “progressive” that comes from progress.  That is what the Republican Party has become. I never much cared for their politics but in the past 20 years they have simply jumped into the deep end with the religious right. And Romney is a Mormon, one of the kookiest cults ever hatched.