Field of Science

Is Tom Toles unfair to the GnOPe?

"We have a winner. I got my 1,000,000th email today complaining that I am not fair to the Republicans. Well, fair is kind of a matter of opinion. I actually think I am mostly fair to Republicans, within the context of cartooning anyway. I do have real trouble with the party in that their pre-eminent, overarching, unbreakable, ironclad and undiscussable principle is that taxes can never go up, even after they have gone down, even back to levels we thrived with before, even for a brand new and unprecedented class of hyper-hyper-hyper wealthy individuals, even when the solvency of the American government is hanging in the balance. Yeah, I have some trouble with that as a first principle, but that’s still not the main thing.
The main thing is they are in absolute, abject and catastrophic denial about a straightforward set of facts that is probably the most important set of facts we face as a nation, and as human beings on planet earth. They have turned their faces away from climate change in a way that is simply and utterly unforgivable. They now apparently DO feel entitled to their own facts, and they live, campaign and purportedly do their jobs in a zone of outright lies. Lies they have every reason to understand are lies, and lies that will almost certainly result in massive destruction and death. Exactly how would you be “fair” to these people?"
Tom Toles

Ed Brayton points out that willful ignorance isn't something exactly new in the USA with this quote from Issac Asimov. "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'."

Tom Toles is an award winning political cartoonist for the Washington Post, and the Phactor has always liked this guy and his even-handed, mild mannered approach to issues. In this case Toles is referring to the "tax-break trickle down" mythology of the GnOPe and climate change denial.

HT to Class M who the Phactor shamelessly ripped off, but PP's got field work to do. Hope he understands.

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