Admittedly, once I heard Art Robinson, 4th District congressional candidate, was a climate change denier I didn’t give him much thought despite the gazillion signs everywhere. Emails insinuating his opponent, incumbent Peter DeFazio, is dodging debates were typical of campaign shenanigans, poorly crafted and insulted my intelligence. Still I wasn’t curious enough to learn anything about him because now he had two black marks in my estimation.
1) If Robinson is wrong about climate change, (and he is), my granddaughter may face a very bleak future.
2) It is disrespectful to assume your targeted audience is dumber than you are
Last week I posted the debate at the Eugene City Club between Defazio, Robinson and Bielstein. While almost nothing Robinson said resonated with me, for the first time I could see why people I believe to be intelligent are attracted to him. In‘Conservatives Without Conscience’, author John Dean discusses the ‘authoritarian conservative’ and more importantly in this case, ‘authoritarian followers’. Citing Bob Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba, who writes that authoritarianism depends upon an authority ‘figure’ and must’…involve submission to established authorities’.
Robinson, confidently presents himself as an authority and therefore attracts authoritarian followers, those who submit to established concepts. As environmental, social and economic conditions continue to change radically and dramatically, seeking solace in the established view, even if it is too entrenched to adapt to inevitable change, may be part of Robinson’s appeal. Dean points out in his book that authoritarianism is predominantly a conservative condition.
Finally, I decided to do a very little digging into Art Robinson. DeFazio for Congress has a selection of recent quotes from Art Robinson you can read here. One quote that especially stood out for me was this one –
In January 2003, Art Robinson wrote an article in his newsletter, responding to a headline on MSNBC that read, “Caltech has fewest black freshman”. Here is one line from his response.
“Even though it has relaxed its standards, Caltech has continued to admit based on merit and ability. Moreover, its applicants are weighted toward those who seek severe, difficult, total-immersion training in science – an experience few women and blacks desire.”
Source: Art Robinson’s Access to Energy newsletter, January 2003.
Robinson apparently has a very narrow range of acquaintance which in itself bodes ill for a huge contingent of his potential constituency.
3) Limiting access to a valuable brain trust, i.e., women and people of color demonstrates an amazing lack of leadership
Robinson claims on his bio to have been President and Research Professor of the prestigious Linus Pauling Institute. What he doesn’t mention is that he was forced out of the position
Pauling sends a memorandum to Robinson, asking that he consult with an Executive Committee, consisting of Pauling, Robinson, and the Executive Vice President, Richard Hicks, before making important decisions. Within a few hours after receiving this request, Robinson, following a discussion with Hicks, notifies him by letter that he is “terminating” his “Fund-Raising Services Agreement” with the Institute because his “efforts to raise substantial donations, chiefly from affluent individuals and foundations, have, unfortunately, fallen short of expectations.” When Pauling asks Robinson why he had fired Hicks, of whom Pauling had become fond, Robinson states that for two months he had been dissatisfied with Mr. Hicks and that when he received Pauling’s memorandum, he decided that the time had come for him to act. Pauling, who had asked Robinson that “he consult with [him] before taking any important action,” is so disturbed by Robinson’s firing of Hicks that he feels he can “no longer” have “trust and confidence in him.”
On June 19, Pauling asks that Robinson resign at once as President of the Institute. Robinson asks for, and is granted, thirty days to think about Pauling’s request. Pauling also asks Robinson to leave the Institute, so that he will not “interfere with the new administration.”
Robinson goes on to punish the Pauling Institute for casting him out with a series of frivolous lawsuits impairing the borrowing ability and therefore research on critical matters.
Despite a dismissal, Robinson persists
In June, after the earlier lawsuit, which has been dismissed and amended twice, Robinson files new lawsuits in San Mateo County Superior Court, making additional charges against Pauling and his Institute. Robinson actually files six suits, bringing to eight the number of actions he has brought. The new suits ask a total of $67.4 million in damages.
After five years a settlement was reached for $500,000
4) The legal costs probably exceeded the settlement so the entire ordeal was nothing but spite. We have enough spiteful people in Congress.
Finally, what is all this about public education and child abuse? Who is this guy, really?
Robinson’s quotes speak for themselves, Scott. There are no arrows thrown here at your candidate, merely an honest reaction to his own statements. If DeFazio had said them, I would have reacted just the same.
Your candidate chooses to promote an unsafe policy toward climate change and energy production in my opinion. This reason alone is enough for me to discourage people from voting for him.
Again, the claim about restoring individual rights and rule of law are hard to swallow from a republican candidate after the trampling of both during the Bush administration.
For the record, I am proudly unaffiliated with any party these last twenty odd years but many moons ago was a loyal republican.
Good luck and may the best man win
Hello again,
If you talk with Mr. Robinson you won’t have to guess, or rely on me to interpret for him, or shoot arrows first then paint bullseyes around them.
I’m less concerned with what you want to do than with how you propose to get your way: You can force me or persuade me. If you’re unwilling to work within a constitutional framework, it appears you favor the former. While focusing on “my” paragraph you said nothing about that vital last line, which only reinforces that appearance.
Last word to you…
Thank you, Scott, for the thoughtful defense of Art Robinson. Since we will get nowhere arguing nuance over things like ‘debate’ or ‘forum’ or what constitutes politically and racially insensitive statements I am going to focus on your paragraph.
“The continuation of big, out-of-control government guaranteed by career politicians vs. restoration of constitutional government under the stewardship of citizen-representatives.”
Herein lies the rub. Crippling government regulatory agencies with this hyperbolic ‘out-of-control’ government is bad meme and pushing for small, deregulated policies enabled the current crisis we are in to take told. De-regulation, (i.e. small govt) has cost consumers, utility ratepayers, home and auto buyers, credit card users, etc.. billions of dollars. Those ‘stolen’ dollars did not get funneled back into local economies and, obviously, did not create new jobs.
Yet you propose we perpetuate a policy of small government where all the empirical evidence shows it doesn’t work. Read my post http://mgx.com/blogs/2010/09/25/orc-wants-corporate-welfare-what-is-in-it-for-coos-county/ on this subject and then read http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/CHAS-89LPZ9?OpenDocument
Robinson, running as a Republican, will have a hard time convincing anyone he is running on a ‘restoration of constitutional government’ after all the collective affronts to the constitution during the GOP controlled House, Senate and White House.
Another concern I have is, Robinson is regarded as possibly too extreme in his views to caucus effectively with fellow Republicans if he were elected.
Finally, I am also a scientist and a woman. As a woman I have never met a chauvinist who didn’t have a daughter, or wife, or sister or a mother so I don’t find you employing his daughters as a defense for saying women aren’t interested in scientific immersion very plausible.
As a scientist and researcher I can confirm scientists argue over the interpretations of studies all the time, myself included. Robinson and I definitely do not agree on many matters relating to energy or climate science.
Ms. Geddry,
I respectfully recommend you do more than a very little research. You can talk to Mr. Robinson yourself at any campaign appearance. He never leaves until all questions are answered, and then he will stand there and talk to you after everyone else has gone. You may not like everything he says, but you will like him.
If you are interested in opposing responses to the points you brought up, I can offer another look at some of them. For example, there is another side to the Pauling incident. Dr. Pauling believed vitamin C to be a cure-all beyond what his own research showed to be true. Robinson pointed this out to him, Pauling did not want to hear it, and things went downhill from there. That is the actual cause of the lawsuit. This is on Robinson’s website, an article by Tom Bethell in American Spectator. You may not like that magazine, but facts can be checked out or disproved, regardless of where they appear.
Mr. Robinson does not wish to deny access to anything because of race or sex, or anything else. Two of his six kids are female: One is a veterinarian and the other is pursuing an advanced degree in nuclear engineering. That does not change the larger picture of how often, comparatively, women and blacks pursue hard science degrees. I suspect Mr. Robinson has hard data that informs his opinion on this. If you have info to the contrary Mr. Robinson will gladly stand corrected. I’ve personally heard him say this.
You can read about public education and child abuse (and racism) on Mr. DeFazio’s whoisartrobinson.com website, but you have to make an effort to get the whole truth, because it is only partially presented. If you click on the child abuse quote it will take you to the Robinson newsletter, and there is the quote, sure enough. But note this is Vol24, #10. Click on the pink AccesstoEnergy logo at the top, then go to the side of the page that follows and click on Vol 24 #8. Here is where you will get the full context. Robinson calls attention to a study that showed home-schoolers performed far superior to public school kids on a range of subjects: A difference on the order of 85% to 55%. Also, these results were across the board broken down by race: whites, blacks, and hispanics were statistically equal. The public schoolers were not: whites were at 55%, blacks much lower at 25%, and hispanics, I think, 20 or 25%. Robinson’s comment? “Imagine the howls of racism and child abuse that would be heard from the public schools and their unions if these numbers for home schools and public schools were reversed.” This is the answer to “what is all this about public education and child abuse?.” Mr. Robinson explained all this after the “debate” at the City Club (it was a “forum”, not a debate, so said the president-elect). Robinson had rented an adjoining room, challenged Mr. DeFazio to a real debate, and DeFazio declined. Incidentally, that DeFazio website will give you a (barely) passable overview of Robinson, even though one is supposed to come away with a negative impression. True, some items are incomplete, others are purposefully misleading, but an intelligent undecided or open-minded person could start there, easily do a little more research and discover the full truth, which would serve Mr. Robinson well.
Mr. Robinson has been called names for saying positive things about nuclear energy and ideas for disposal of nuclear waste. I ask, before you pass judgment, that you remember he is a scientist, he is curious, he is used to looking at hypotheses, theories, and evidence. He will not discard so-called wild ideas (or accept them) because of peer-pressure or name-calling. This is the antithesis of authoritarian behavior, incidentally. He has said that one of his good traits is that he knows what he knows, knows what he doesn’t know, and is pretty good at not getting them mixed up.
I could go on in this vein but it seems inappropriate, debating individual points and playing gotcha. What’s important, especially this year, is the fundamentals: The continuation of big, out-of-control government guaranteed by career politicians vs. restoration of constitutional government under the stewardship of citizen-representatives. In short: Liberty, individual rights, the rule of law.
Do these clowns on the right THINK about this when they run for office? Are they so sure the right lemmings will run to them regardless of how nuts they are?
One would assume as much.
I think that Alternative Universe just caught up with us.
And the rest of us are supposed to pretend these people are qualified to run this nation?