Jeff's Lunchbreak: 2012 Political Litmus Test Update

Litmus Paper A little while back, I wrote an entry titled 2012 Political Litmus Test. I looked at the candidates positions on climate change and evolution, since those are both well supported by the evidence, and well enough known that everyone should have been exposed to that evidence, so there's no good rational reason to doubt them. Well, I wrote that entry early on in the campaigning. And if there's one thing politicians are known for, it's pandering. Since there are really only two candidates left in the running, I'll just look at their current positions, and ignore the rest of the field.

Mitt Romney has backpedaled on his acceptance of global warming. Here's what Romney had to say this past October.

My view is that we don't know what's causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.

Source - Think Progress

As far as I know, he still accepts evolution.

Newt Gingrich has also backed away from supporting climate change. In a town hall meeting in Iowa, he said that global warming "hasn't been totally proven", and that even if it had been, he'd no longer support a cap and trade strategy to address it.

Source - Mediaite

There's also the matter of his upcoming book, where he has decided to cut a chapter on global warming.

Source - The Guardian

Gingrich has recently made some disparaging remarks about evolution. In the quote below, I included just a bit more, to highlight his contempt for the separation of church and state.

The idea that taking school prayer out in 1963 made the country better? I don't see any evidence that children who don't spend a moment recognizing that they're subservient to God... [I think the video was edited here -JRL] I'll let you approach God in any way you want to. There's an enormous difference between a culture which believes it is purely secular, and a culture which believes that it is somehow empowered by our Creator. I always tell my friends who don’t believe in this stuff, fine, how do you think — we’re randomly gathered protoplasm? We could have been rhinoceroses, but we got lucky this week?

Source 1 - YouTube
Source 2 - Think Progress

Actually, that part about approaching God any way I want to really pisses me off. What about those of us that don't believe in any gods? Are we non-existent? Or just not worthy of any consideration?

So, going back to the point of that original Political Litmus Test blog entry, I no longer see any Republican candidates worthy of consideration. Someone living in a fantasy land, or someone willing to lie on something so obviously true, is not someone I want running the executive branch of the federal government.