And a generation of young scientists starts packing their bags...
To where?
To somewhere other than science
WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants
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Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Congress can’t turn over the expenditure of taxpayer funds to people who aren’t politically accountable. If Congress doesn't stop the executive and the Supreme Court overrules any legal blockades then ... I guess they can and are doing so RN.
> Congress doesn't stop the executive Congress won't stop the executive because the party that won the executive also won Congress by almost 4 million votes. That's not a sign of the system not working, it's a sign of the system working as intended.
No, that's not accurate. Trump has subverted Congressional leadership to his dictatorship, and they routinely abuse their power to stop Congress from voting on things Trump finds politically inconvenient. The House is in recess right now to dodge a vote on the Iran War that Trump would be sure to lose.
Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a lovely thought but it assumes, as with so many other things about our republican form of government, that the political appointees are good faith actors, at least with respect to funding of science. There are many reasons to suspect that the goal here is not just control of funding, but the defenestration of science more broadly because scientific findings tend to conflict with assertions politicians would l…
> That's a lovely thought but it assumes, as with so many other things about our republican form of government, that the political appointees are good faith actors, at least with respect to funding of science. It doesn't assume that. It's simply a factual matter that the rules that govern the country are those of the constitution. And the institutional principles of particular fields are subordinate to the constituti…
The statement, "everything is just people" begs the question. That question is about appropriate roles.
No one is debating that Congress has the power of the purse. That is one of their primary roles. They appropriate, but obviously cannot and should not make every detailed decision, particularly where expertise is required and political neutrality is preferred. Accountability is another primary Congressional role. That comes through oversight, not day-to-day decision making on behalf of those being overseen.
Even if it were desirable to have politicians making decisions in place of scientists, granting that decision-making power to political appointees instead of Congress actually undermines the public's representation and further shifts the balance of power to the Executive.
Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s Congress and they are. The executive branch does not hold the power of the purse, and the fact that you can casually use that phrase in reference to the executive branch shows how far we’ve fallen as a country in a decade. A very sad state of affairs.
This Congress has deferred to the president so hard, it's difficult to see where one ends and the other begins. Based on recent primaries the R party is only becoming more sycophantic. At times they don't even cotify their subservience through the usual measures like legislation and committees, except where needed to slap down any roadblocks to the unitary executive.
They (Republicans in Congress) are all terrified of Trump, with some good reason (not that this excuses their dereliction of duty in any way).
It doesn't matter how aligned you are with his worldview, how much you vote alongside his wishes, if you aren't 100% loyal to him personally at all times you're politically dead in the Republican party in much of the US.
While Trump's ability to sway normal elections is next to non-existent anymore (see: the vast majority of special elections held since his inauguration where Republicans are getting roflstomped by Democrats), his endorsement still decides Republican primaries because there's still a lot of brainwashed Republican cultists on the Trump train.
Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants
#55I'm curious to see how this is defended by the party members here. Science should be guided by science, not ideology.
The country runs on the principles of the constitution, not the institutional principles of science. Control over spending of taxpayer funds always must remain within the political system. Voters can always choose to turn over those decisions to scientists they trust. For much of the 20th century, that’s what voters did. But if they don’t trust the priorities of the current scientific establishment, they can also cho…
No, what it means is that scientists are vulnerable to punishment for speaking their minds about the administration. I will not live like that.
Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants
#56Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants
#57Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants
#58Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants
#59and so continue the decline to a dumber, poorer, nastier nation
Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants
#60Wait, wasn't that post revolution USSR / Mao's China ? Or in their words, only correct science is "Marxist" science
When Republicans start proposing Communist policies, they are MAGA, not Republicans.
Neither cited countries are/were communist, they are authoritarian. That’s the political system of government, capitalism and communism is the economic system.