The truth became dangerous for the Republican Party when it ran out of arguments

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/07/mitt_romney_and_the_republican_party_do_not_want_to_disclose_basic_truths_for_fear_that_someone_will_use_these_facts_against_them_some_day_.html

The GOP’s War Against Facts
The truth became dangerous for the Republican Party when it ran out of arguments.
By Dahlia Lithwick and Raymond Vasvari

Posted Monday, July 23, 2012, at 3:42 PM ET

Someday political scientists will try to date the decline of reasoned discourse in America to the moment when the left and the right began to invent their own facts. Climate change deniers, the purveyors of lies linking abortion to breast cancer, and creationists will all be blamed for the end of meaningful debate between liberals and conservatives. But that’s not quite right. The real end of civic discourse can be traced to the new conservative argument that facts themselves are dangerous.

It’s a dangerous contention not just for what it hides, but also for what it reveals: a lack of any other arguments.

It’s tough times for facts in America. First Mitt Romney—interviewing for the position of president—declined to release his tax returns because, as he explained, the Obama team’s opposition research will “pick over it” and “distort and lie about them.” He isn’t actually claiming that his opponents will lie. He’s claiming he’s entitled to hide the truth because it could be used against him. As Jon Stewart put it, “You can’t release your returns, because if you do, the Democrats will be mean to you.” These are tax returns. Factual documents. No different than, say, a birth certificate. But the GOP’s argument that inconvenient facts can be withheld from public scrutiny simply because they can be used for mean purposes is a radical idea in a democracy. It has something of a legal pedigree as well.

Probably not coincidentally, last week Senate Republicans filibustered the DISCLOSE Act—a piece of legislation many of them once supported—again on the grounds that Democrats might someday use ugly facts against conservatives. The principal objection to the law is that nasty Democrats would like to know who big secret donors are in order to harass, boycott, and intimidate them. The law requires that unions, corporations, and nonprofit organizations report campaign-related spending over $10,000 within 24 hours, and to name donors who give more than $10,000 for political purposes. Even though eight of the nine justices considering McCain-Feingold in Citizens United believed that disclosure is integral to a functioning democracy, the idea that facts about donors are dangerous things is about the only argument Senate Republicans can muster. Last week even Justice Antonin Scalia told CNN’s Piers Morgan that “Thomas Jefferson would have said the more speech, the better. That's what the First Amendment is all about. So long as the people know where the speech is coming from.”

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. Republicans seem to want a rigged playing field in their favor

whether it's in regards to campaign funds (support Citizens United) or transparency (oppose DISCLOSE Act, don't make Romney release his tax records) and they will do anything to get their way.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Well it is well known that facts have a liberal bias...

[Ezlivin]

3. Who needs arguments when you OWN the voting machines?

They have no fear because they know they can steer the election.

Relentless gerrymandering and black-box voting machines give them what they need.

[1-Old-Man]

4. The Republican Party has replaced faith for fact

When the religious right took power in the Republican Party, and you can date that from whenever event seems most relevant to you, the need for fact went right out the window. Faith has always been an easy replacement for fact, it requires no particular clarity of thought, no investigation, no research. You are simply told a story and you have to be willing to accept it without meaningful inquiry, what better training ground for that approach to Government than god-fearing religion?