Science Policy

http://sharp.sefora.org/people/presidential-candidates/barack-obama-presidential-candidate/

This is a science policy questionnaire answered by Barack Obama.

Politics are fucked. What a confused world we live in. I've been hearing vicariously about the RNC in St. Paul, and it is exactly as I imagined it: terrible and disgraceful.

Aside from police state brutality mandated by a malleable court room that answers ultimately to constantly changing laws and a 'sacred' constitution that changes fluidly with the emotions, but not the rationality, of current events... When reading this questionnaire, I am reminded of the ultimate flaw of democracy: What about the other 49%? In the answer to almost every question, I see a response with a held tongue, aware first and foremost of votes, not of truth. And my immediate response is that of empathy. Every time I see Obama speak, I see myself, driven by an urge for change, yearning to say the ultimate truths about issues, but pandering to a typically uneducated, lay audience.

Particularly, global warming really grinds my gears. Here's an issue that's still being considered by a large percentage of the US population (though not outside the US) as a partisan, debatable opinion issue, rather than scientific fact, even though it is the most peer-reviewed subject of any scientific issue in the past. And of those who are aware of the scientists views, many of them think of the scientists' reports as a result of an agenda, or a spillover of partisan opinion. Anyway, to anyone even marginally educated on the issue, it is obvious that extreme avenues need to be taken, (as have been taken by other countries already), to fix the problem. The current agreed goal of 80% reductions by 2050 are simply not going to cut it by any standards, as has been shown by numerous scientific projections. I am sure that Obama & company understand this, (or at least that 'Company' has informed him of the facts, and that Obama believes them), but that to propose change of such a drastic nature would very simply be the difference between election and non-election for presidency. Even though the facts demonstrate that this is a decision of the most drastic that we've seen in human history, political candidates must tiptoe around the issue like it's welfare or something.

So this is a form of government in which, given the all-or-nothing nature of elections, can propose no drastic change whatsoever if election is to be even considered, to appeal to that 51%, the average man's average.

Doesn't this spell catastrophe? And the worst part about it is that we're brainwashed into thinking that democracy is the unquestionable patron saint of governments. And it doesn't even seem to be for lack of options. We're certainly not in the 'best of two evils' situation that commonly excuses a poor choice of government. For instance, a government that has various, influential parties whose power varies respectively to the percentage of the populace that voted for them seems like a more fair system. Frankly, democracy seems like a capitalistic society in which 51% of the populace dominates the other 49%.

It's depressing to live in a society in which no drastic change can be proposed until drastic change is demanded by 51%. I mean really, how much does it take for a society that watches FOX News, or no news at all, to have 51% of a populace that demands change of a specific nature? We think how we're told to think. Period. And if we think differently, we are exactly that: different. We are certainly not 51%.

This all said, the answers that Barak Obama supplied were the most outspokenly straightforward that they could be, given all of the above. His campaign represents a genius straddling of the line between honorable and electable.

Go Obama!