The Republican Message

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The few sound bites of Mitt Romney that manage to slip their way past my defenses are so laughably stupid that I can’t help wondering what sort of moron responds to them.  Jon Stewart (of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show) recently remarked on it, and I had to agree on almost every point, except that, of course, I don’t agree that a presidential candidate must disclose every little detail of how he or she will respond to every conceivable eventuality, once in office.  Romney, of course, waffles about everything, and that's the opposite extreme.  Either he’s dissembling like crazy, and will adopt a liberal agenda once in office, which would be nice for me, but wrong for those who elect him, or he’s not outlining his conservative agenda in order to win moderate “undecided” voters, of which there are a large 8% in our state, in which the incumbent (Obama, if you’re reading this in the distant future, in which case, greetings from 2012!) leads by 7%.  I know all this because my wife forgot to go to the phone bank she had promised to help out with last evening, and she was laying all this information on me in a burst of remorse.

Meanwhile, in a quite unrelated matter, an article by a political scientist in the New York Times was brought to my attention.  It asks, Is Algebra Necessary?   I saw a similar question a year ago, and gave a response to it.  Why do we teach algebra to seventh-grades, you ask?  Because it is impractical to wait until a student’s mathematical interest and talent is discovered, and then pack into a short time all the mathematics that is needed to bring this person to the point where he or she can study, say, engineering or computer science.  Teaching math is a long process, despite the claims of websites that promise instant results.  But some math-phobes refuse to concede the necessity for universal training in intermediate-level mathematics for all students, and other math-phobes are not quite intelligent enough to understand the argument.  But no matter how you look at it, mathematics will continue to be regarded by the vast majority of people as a necessary evil, like vegetables, or fiber, or broccoli, or TAXES.

[Added later: Let's talk about what we use algebra for.  What is algebra?  It is the art of symbolically manipulating abstract formulas.  If you can get away with never reasoning hypothetically, you can get away without algebra.  But planning is reasoning hypothetically.  You can only avoid hypothetical reasoning if you assume that nothing is going to change.

OK: we use mathematics, specifically algebra, in:   Economics. Computer programming.  Business models.  Design.  Air traffic control.  Banking.  Is that enough?  If a kid is destined for any of these occupations, she has to take algebra in seventh or eighth grade, well before it is obvious that that is where her future lies.  In contrast, any moron can get into Political Science, and spew indignant nonsense, and they usually do.  The category of human beings I an unashamedly prejudiced again is political scientists.  Politicians one can understand.  But it takes a special kind of person to believe that politics is a science, and I diligently stay away from them.]

When you come right down to it, Republicans of the last several decades have gotten a lot of mileage by telling the middle-class that they should not have to pay taxes, and should not have to eat vegetables.  You are too good for this drudgery, they say.  You belong to the greatest nation on earth; you should not have to pay taxes; you should not have to bankroll the health insurance of unemployed layabouts in (insert your least favorite depressed community here: Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Miami).  We’re assuming you already have perfectly good health coverage right?  Right!!!  Of course you do.  You don’t?  But do you want Obama telling you exactly what coverage you should be having, and having to pay an arm and a leg for coverage YOU DON’T NEED??  Of course you don’t!

Some of you remember that genius of deception, Ronald Reagan.  He combated Jimmy Carter’s call for growing up, and facing the consequences of runaway energy consumption by saying: Nonsense!  This is the greatest nation on Earth, and we can certainly guzzle all the gasoline we want if we jolly well please.  (“There you go again,” he said to his Democrat opponents, when they brought up any sort of realistic problem with energy or the environment.)  The message always was: You are too good to have to worry about things such as the economy, health care, poverty, education, housing.  This is a great society, and Ollie North and a few of my buddies will look after everything for you.  Just don’t vote those crazy Dems in.

And what did we get?  Twelve years of growth of government, deregulation of the banking sector, raising taxes, and a war.

You’d think people can see through this by now.  You can’t go for too long without eating your vegetables, no matter how many pills you swallow.
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