A science and reason party needed more than ever

 I thought I hadn't blogged at all here since 2006, but realize I had once just about a year ago.

Well, as I look more and more likely to distance myself from the Green Party in the future, and for various reasons, am not voting in this year's election cycle, it is needed more and more than ever.

First, coronavirus.

Yes, prez candidate Howie Hawkins supports the need for a vaccine, and doesn't seem conspiratorial. Too many Greens, though, are. And, sadly, the national convention took no position on this.

Related? Jill Stein's going off on Wi-Fi four years ago has enabled the 5G-coronavirus conspiracy theorists within the GP.

Meanwhile, the party as a whole is less enlightened on GMOs than the SPUSA. (Unfortunately, the only candidate besides Howie that the SPUSA had in its 2019 convention was and still is constitutionally ineligible by age.)

Add in that Howie, while more right than wrong on Russia, has / had top China-stanners Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers as top campaign advisors, and has been on sites like Black Agenda Report's Margaret Kimberly's special program.

I tell many others that I vote Green in part on foreign policy and now we have top Greens all kowtowing to China.

Finally, Howie's treasurer, Travis Christal, and the party's Presidential Candidate Support Committee, never responding to my emails about the "letter of interest" filed on behalf of Jesse Ventura? Last straw.

Well, I didn't register to vote at my new address, and no worries. 

The Texas Supreme Court has said, reading between the lines, that if David Bruce Collins and Kat Gruene did somehow win their Senate and RRC races, at a minimum, they'd have to retroactively pay the new filing fees and at a maximum, might be booted. And since I ain't voting for Howie, that's that.

So, now, neither Dems nor Greens own my vote.

Sounds reasonable, no?

Who could argue with a "Science and Reason Party"?

Well, me, the person who invented this blog almost 13 years ago and hasn't written here since 2006, might.

Look at the number of people practicing "scientism" and trying to apply science to philosophical or aesthetics issues. And, those philosophical issues are ones that often affect government, political philosophy (and political science).

And, even if people can't be fully charged with "scientism," it's still easy to bend science in particular political directions. Look at Steven Pinker. Ph.D. in psych from Harvard, but I certainly wouldn't agree with a fair chunk of his politics, nor do I agree at all with many of his ev psycher ideas that sometimes influence his political stances. Jordan Peterson? Ph.D. in psych at McGill, arguably Canada's premier university. Ditto on my general take on him.

But, per Tevye, it IS reasonable if one remembers the "and reason."

Now, a claim that we're highly rational critters, as a species, might be called "philosophism." Per David Hume, the reason need always follow the passions. But, Hume adds that it does "Need" to ... as in passions, as our drives and motivators, must be subject to the slow thinking of reason as much as we can.

The combination is why I grow uncomfortable with the Green Party after long-ago abandoning Democrats for presidential choices and other places where a more left third-party option was offered.

Unofficially on vaccines, and officially on GMOs, the Socialist Party USA has a more science-grounded stance. That's examining passions in the light of reason. The SPUSA isn't perfect on some other issues. But, true reason allows that, even with filtering of passions, they never go away.

After all, the only good Buddhist is a dead Buddhist.