(no subject)

[timelets]

Unfortunately, we can no longer agree in our country on rather simple biological facts. It appears we've lost the capacity to determine whether a particular drug cures a particular disease, or a particular physical action causes death.

If Martians were interested in figuring out whether hydroxychloroquine can treat COVID-19 in infected homo sapiens they would be able to determine purely biological outcomes of the proposed treatment. Similarly, Martians would be able to perform an autopsy on a dead man and determine the cause of his death, e.g. asphyxiation vs heart attack. It would be just a matter of biology, not a matter of public debate. Our country can't do that.

Since we lost the capacity to establish and agree upon simple biological facts, it's highly unlikely that we as a society can understand and agree upon more complex social facts. If we can't agree on facts, we can't agree on actions. This is not acceptable. The Fucking Moron (tm) who pretends to be the President of the United States and discourages facts has to be gone.

Comments

[chuka_lis]

увы, Вы правы.

[tijd]

Jeane Kirkpatrick was a Democrat who served as the Ambassador to the UN in Reagan’s administration in 1981-1985:

“Totalitarian ideologies, including Marxism, are inevitably, invariably, anti-empirical. Not only do they deny that there is any sort of objective truth, they deny effectively empirical verification and procedures of empirical verification because they make truth, and not only truth, but reality, dependent on power relations, i.e., truth and objective reality are ultimately defined in a totalitarian ideology by those people who hold power. There is an elaborate ideological justification for this, according to which only Marxists are capable of seeing through the layers of obfuscation with which the existing exploiting powers have shrouded reality. Only the bearers of the totalitarian ideology have the capacity to de-mystify and define reality. <...>
As our lives revolve around values, they also revolve around meaning and epistemological stability. We must recognize and defend a concept of meaning to which that concept of value is, of course, absolutely essential: a concept of epistemological stability, if you will, a concept of reality which is not, in fact, a function of power and does not shift from day to day to fit the political needs of a totalitarian group.“
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-myth-of-moral-equivalence/

[timelets]

Great find! Thanks!

[tijd]

This is unrelated but I found another relevant quote:

“When the richest nation in the world can't manage its own economy;

When the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness;

When a nation that has been known for a century for equality of opportunity is torn by unprecedented racial violence;

And when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration -- then it's time for new leadership for the United States of America.”

That was Richard Nixon accepting a Republican nomination in 1968: http://www.4president.org/speeches/nixon1968acceptance.htm