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[nenjin]

I gotta say Onion, I'm disappointed. Dry humping a Seth McFarlane gag to rip on Nebraska is pretty weak for the US' preeminent satire news rag.

[Strife26]

I gotta say Onion, I'm disappointed. Dry humping a Seth McFarlane gag to rip on Nebraska is pretty weak for the US' preeminent satire news rag.

The North Dakota section was pretty weak too.

[mainiac]

There's a big difference between scientific expertise and political expertise. What Adams was talking about was a collection of scientists, philosophers, etc.

Yes but Adams was talking about them for scientific guidance while the DNC provides political guidance.

You hate experts telling you what to do in politics because it's political but you think that these scientists and philsophers wont be political?  How would you feel about Milton Friedman, an esteemed economist and noted fascist, setting your labor standards?  How did you like having the Supreme Court decide Citizens United?

[Sheb]

Actually, aren't most people here happy with having a strong supreme court?

[Phmcw]

Well professional politicians are very good at winning elections regardless of their competence at doing the actual job. Which is one of our big issue right now : how well they fare is not directly correlated to how well they do their job.


Professional scientist are good at getting peer reviewed result (and at making good presentations) so how they fare is largely correlated to how good they are at their job.

[mainiac]

Actually, aren't most people here happy with having a strong supreme court?

Well they dont approve of the way it's handling it's job: http://www.gallup.com/poll/4732/supreme-court.aspx

It's still a lot more popular then congress but Donald Trump is a lot more popular then Congress.  And the approval has been trending downward over the timeframe when they did two controversial decisions, Citizens United and Obamacare.  I would suggest that if they were making more such decisions they would enjoy the unpopularity of Congress.

[Sheb]

I'm quite surprised the approval was so high back in 2001 after they handed the presidency to Bush.

[mainiac]

I'm quite surprised the approval was so high back in 2001 after they handed the presidency to Bush.

Al Gore was a graceful loser.

[TempAcc]

Well professional politicians are very good at winning elections regardless of their competence at doing the actual job. Which is one of our big issue right now : how well they fare is not directly correlated to how well they do their job.


Professional scientist are good at getting peer reviewed result (and at making good presentations) so how they fare is largely correlated to how good they are at their job.

Depends, you can at times go a long way as a scientist without having anything decent under your belt. About a decade or so ago there was this case of a south korean medical geneticist or something who made this claim about some sort of breakthrough in stem cell research, and got millions in funding from the government and brought together a pretty impressive team of made up of some of the most respect names of the field in the world, then it was found out he faked his entire research. Apparently he expected the all star team he put together to actualy pull it off and then get credit for it, and then it didn't happen.

He got caught, but its still pretty impressive how far he got just on fake research.

[Phmcw]

Depends, you can at times go a long way as a scientist without having anything decent under your belt. About a decade or so ago there was this case of a south korean medical geneticist or something who made this claim about some sort of breakthrough in stem cell research, and got millions in funding from the government and brought together a pretty impressive team of made up of some of the most respect names of the field in the world, then it was found out he faked his entire research. Apparently he expected the all star team he put together to actualy pull it off and then get credit for it, and then it didn't happen.

He got caught, but its still pretty impressive how far he got just on fake research.

That is not relevant to my argument, but maybe I didn't present it clearly.

As a politician, you get judged on your ability to win an election, and your job is to run a country and further your citizens' interests.

As a scientist you get judged by your ability to produce peer reviewed research, and your job is to make science.

The scientist is judged on something much more relevant to the ability to do his job than the politician.

[Sheb]

Not really. Normally politicians that fails at their job don't get re-elected. For high office (such as the presidency), it's normally expected that the politician in question will have a long experience in government so that we can judge his record and see how good he is at governing.

[mainiac]

I wouldn't quite say that unsuccessful elected officials lose office but it puts a ceiling on their ambitions.

[nenjin]

Yeah, I'd second that. Failure is also a subjective term in politics depending on what is going on. Failing to provide for disaster relief for your area and watching it get decimated might be considered a general failing for any politician. Not acting on something that is important only to a sub-section of the electorate might not be. I.e., the failure to not implement a bathroom bill might piss off conservatives but would be rewarded by democrats.

Besides. We have politicians publicly admit to banging a mistress, hiring prostitutes, doing drugs, been found guilty of blatant corruption, etc.... and they still get re-elected.

Also, apparently Americans CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH.

Seriously though, you can easily read that as "the public would be talking about all of Trump's shady and possibly unethical business dealings rather than his message." You know, the exact reason those documents are released in the first place, to catch shit like this. What's the adage conservatives always like to use? "If you're not guilty then you've got nothing to hide?"

[Rolepgeek]

I think that's an authoritarian slogan, not a conservative one.

Try to use that in connection with gun law, for example.

[Frumple]

It's not like our political parties are particularly shy about hypocrisy. It's definitely a slogan you see very much predominately on the conservative side of US politics, though.