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Comment by fuzz4lyfe | Hacker News Reader

Your view of modern republicans is outdated. Many Republicans are non-religious like myself and align themselves closer to the views of the founding fathers. We simply see the rampant corruption in government and propose it is a better solution to limit governmental power as opposed to increasing it.

If I were to paint democrats in a similar manner they would all be bike lock wielding liberal arts professors and that would be unfair.

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The difference is that these things are written into Republic party platforms and are not merely the views of individual Democrats, and the average Republican voter absolutely picks up on this. Thus, even if bureaucrats considers themselves Republican, they appear to be Democrats to these voters.

What party platform document are you referencing? I've never seen that.

I believe he is refering to this[1]. Each party publishes one each election year.

[1] https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/media/documents/DRAFT_12_FIN...

Care to quote the passage? Its 60 some odd pages long.

"religious individuals and institutions can educate young people, receive government benefits, and participate in public debates without having to check their religious beliefs at the door."

"The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution. Its unreliability is reflected in its intolerance toward scientists and others who dissent from its orthodoxy."

The scientists like Spencer and Legates who "dissent from its orthodoxy" that the GOP trots out for its voters actually dissent due to their religious beliefs. https://www.cornwallalliance.org/2009/05/01/signers-of-an-ev...

That seems a little post hoc and doesn't mention teaching creationism in public schools. I get there are things in there that people disagree with but I was looking for the point made previously. Simply citing a large document and not having read it isn't arguing in good faith.

I didn't cite that large document. Claiming that I did is not arguing in good faith.

The particular example of creationism comes from the Texas GOP's platform. https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/06/28/the-texas-repu...

You can certainly see echoes of it in the national platform. That is no mistake.

That article is from 2012 and is about the Texas GOP. It seems like this claim was not true.

I never claimed it was in the national platform. You are once again arguing in bad faith.

I don't live in Texas in 2012, so that isn't part of my parties platform. I suppose you agree with every element of every state democrat platform ever published. Well post Jim Crow of course.

Texas is the largest GOP state, and as the other poster showed, that faith based stuff is mirrored at the national level.

> "religious individuals and institutions can educate young people, receive government benefits, and participate in public debates without having to check their religious beliefs at the door."

That's not directed to science. It's directed to the separate issue of public education being a vehicle for eliminating religion from childrens' education, and replacing religious social values with government values developed by education boards. It's a legitimate concern when the government is deciding how you socialize your kids, and leaves you few avenues for opting out. (Also, it's a model that's by and large uncontroversial in most of Europe.)

As to your second quote, it appears 10 pages later. Is there some sort of connection you're trying to draw between the two?

> As to your second quote, it appears 10 pages later. Is there some sort of connection you're trying to draw between the two?

Both are examples of pushing faith above science, which is the whole point of my argument.

> public education being a vehicle for eliminating religion

Public education does not do anything to eliminate religion except where they disagree, as in evolution vs. Biblical creationism.

> Many Republicans are non-religious like myself and align themselves closer to the views of the founding fathers. We simply see the rampant corruption in government and propose it is a better solution to limit governmental power as opposed to increasing it.

Surely the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016 should call into question how large of a subset of the Republican party this represents.

Republicans wouldn't elect the Trump that Democrat media outlets show, they would elect the Trump that Republican media outlets show. Listen to a Republican describe Trump and you'll hear about someone a sane person could plausibly vote for. Would a Republican vote for a womanizing Russia-serving friend of Epstien? No way! A charismatic business-oriented people's man? You bet!

> Would a Republican vote for a womanizing Russia-serving friend of Epstien?

If the alternative is a Democrat? You bet.

A Democrat who sold uranium to Russians and whose husband is a womanizer and of a very good friend of Epistein no less.

> A Democrat who sold uranium to Russians

The Democrat you're referring to never owned any Uranium to sell.

> whose husband is a womanizer and of a very good friend of Epistein no less.

A fault of association with a womanizing friend of Epstein vs. a fault of actually being a womanizing friend of Epstein's does not seem like a very strong reason. The real reason they voted for Trump is the R next to his name.

>The Democrat you're referring to never owned any Uranium to sell.

Yet millions flowed to her foundation upon the completion of that sale[0], getting paid for something you don't own is worse.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton...

Millions flowed to her foundation before the sale, too. Claiming she was paid for that deal is conspiracy theory lunacy, no different from Biblical creationism and climate science denialism. https://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/facts-uranium-one/

A Republican would probably be willing to vote for a Democrat as Democrats perceive them, but not a Democrat as Republicans perceive them.

Probably not. I grew up during Clinton’s “welfare to work” and continuing Reagan’s deregulation and trimming federal employment rolls. I always thought it was ridiculous that Republicans called Democrats “socialists.” Now when you have the crowd boo-ing candidates for saying socialism isn’t the answer, I’m not sure Republicans are wrong about what Democrats want. Maybe it was just the shadow of Reagan and Newt Gingrich that kept things on the rails for a couple of cycles.

Those booing crowds don't even know what socialism is and have likely confused it with Scandinavian-style social democracy. I can count on one hand the number of actual socialists I have ever met in the US, so that position is absolutely fringe.

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