Like Salon points out, 97 percent of scientists stand behind the theory of evolution. Even Mitt Romney and the Roman Catholic Church accept it, so what’s Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s problem?
Why won’t he come clean and state outright whether he does or does not believe in evolution?
Instead, U.S. citizens are looking down the barrel of a conservative presidential candidate who won’t even come clean about that simple issue, largely considered fact by a vast swath of the informed public.
When questioned on the subject in the midst of a trade mission in London Wednesday, Walker took the 5th and refused to fess up his answer.
Scott Walker, asked in London if he’s comfortable w/ the idea of evolution: “I’m going to punt on that one.”
— Jessie Opoien (@jessieopie) February 11, 2015
Taking the matter one step further, Walker also insisted that politicians shouldn’t be asked about their beliefs regarding evolution, and perhaps he is right in a certain light.
Walker re: evolution: “I’m going to punt on that one as well. That’s a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or another.” — Philip Klein (@philipaklein) February 11, 2015
Scott also stated:
There’s not a play card, if you will, that tells me how to vote or how to act on certain issues. So, it’s not like issue by issue it drives me. But, the larger context, not only the policy decisions I make, but how I make them, how I interact with people, how I treat people. All of those things are, without a doubt, driven by my faith.
Oh, but there is a “play book” from which Walker could make his decisions, if the United States truly had a direct democracy – it’s called the vote.
See, what politicians think about any given issue should be irrelevant beyond their own, personal, singular vote. They are not elected to reign as kings and queens, making all their decisions for the childlike, innocent, and ignorant public. They are no wise men or feminine oracle by a long shot. Nor does the model which currently stands as the accepted protocol for the operations of contemporary American governing reflect a true democracy.
No, politicians are not elected to make decisions for the people, but instead to facilitate the decisions the people make for themselves. That is a true democracy — so yes, Scott Walker is correct: he shouldn’t be asked about his personal beliefs regarding evolution, because they should be irrelevant.
Of course, that’s if government operated as it should, “in a vacuum,” as they often say in the scientific community. That’s the process of a direct democracy, where the people vote on everything and the politicians simply carry out the will of the people.
And frankly, in the Golden Age of the Internet, there is no reason why we shouldn’t have access to local, state and federal political websites where citizens can log in and vote on any number of issues on the agenda at any given time, from home. In such a scenario, as government should certainly start to lean towards running, Scott Walker is absolutely correct. Leave his religion out of it and he can use it to help determine his own private vote. It has no place in his elected position.
But then, one quickly has to reckon with the fact that the way the world (and politics) should run is seldom the way it does run, of course, and that is certainly the case in our current empty shell of a democracy here in the United States.
As things do stand right now, politicians do make decisions for the people, more times often than not. They seldom have such hard data as an official vote from constituents from which to work from in order to facilitate their governing. Instead, they hear a little from all sides of any given issue, leaving them essentially at a stalemate, then typically rest their decision-making on whoever gives them the most money or helps most in keeping their fingers on the driving wheel of power. Tangled up in that is most definitely, one can be sure, their own personal beliefs swaying their perspectives and decisions.
So it is particularly disturbing when one moves beyond how the world and politics should work and listens to what Walker says regarding being questioned about evolution in the face of how the world and politics do work. He’s hiding, cowardly, behind a false assertion as to the myth of America and democracy – how things should be run – all while holding onto the strings of political money and power under the corrupt and broken manner of how things currently do run.
But you can’t have it both ways, Walker. Nope, you can’t, and people notice when you try. Believe it.
People don’t forget Walker’s close ties to his religion. He may not say outright he disagrees with science when it comes to evolution, but people notice that he certainly doesn’t come outright and say he agrees with it, either, while he simultaneously remains publicly outspoken for his faith. For example, Walker stated in a Christian Post article back in 2013:
[Faith] plays a key role in my life in general, not just in politics.
So folks can see right there that Walker’s faith does, in fact, sway his leadership and decision making in office, and in the current operation of our American government (so very far from a direct democracy), when politicians almost always make decisions for themselves, beneficently on behalf of the “public good,” Scott Walker not only does not have a right to deny answering when questioned about his beliefs regarding evolution; he has a responsibility to answer, and answer definitively.
Amen.
H/T: salon.com | Featured image: Flickr
Send to Kindle
