Dana has an interesting article about urbanism at the RNC. "The Republican National Convention," she reports, "[was] swarming with people who say climate change is unrelated to human activity. Like evolution, many social conservatives will tell you, global warming is 'just a theory' advanced by secular intellectuals, and so requires no urgent action." There's no real way to phrase this such that it doesn't sound wildly partisan, but two of the emotionally resonant beliefs that many on the right pour a lot of time and energy into require a genuine hostility to empiricism. They require you to believe propositions that, based on the current evidence, are inarguably untrue. This isn't the case for the most forms of supply siderism (at the extreme level it's generally just very dishonest) or the opposition to universal health care or the desire to restrict choice. But creationism in schools and the willful effort to ignore the evidence on man-made climate change are in a category unto themselves. And most all Republican politicians have to evince, at the least, a deep sympathy for these positions, and many soak in applause from forthrightly echoing them. I can think of some unpopular, and maybe even unwise, beliefs that afflict the left, but I can't really think of anything in the same category of proud, even aggressive, know-nothingism.
