Considering Republican/libertarian disconnect from down to Earth facts.

During my recent forays into commenting at some right-wing websites I've been re-exposed to the Republican faith-based reasoning, which is a sort of oxymoron considering the self-certitude they project and their unwilling to reflect, or learn anything new, let alone change.  I mean it's like they think there's nothing anybody else can teach them.  

In fact, it's worse, anyone who presents information about our world that they don't like, is considered an enemy.  Becoming an "enemy" invites any tactic; misdirection, dirty tricks, manipulative lies, and just plain insults.  All are considered fair-play and a God Given Free Speech Right for them*.

That the "opponent" has a free speech right to have his/her work and words honestly represented to the public, doesn't even cross their minds.  Instead, engaging in vicious destructive slander towards serious professionals who are considered "enemies"  is considered good fun.

In any event, I read a most interesting article worth sharing, "Why Are Republicans the Only Climate-Science-Denying Party in the World?," by Jonathan Chait at New York Mag.com, it does a much better job than I ever could of putting all this into a relevant context, I will share large sections, but encourage you to read the complete article.
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"Why Are Republicans the Only Climate-Science-Denying Party in the World?"

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/whys-gop-only-science-denying-party-on-earth.html#

Of all the major conservative parties in the democratic world, the Republican Party stands alone in its denial of the legitimacy of climate science. 
Indeed, the Republican Party stands alone in its conviction that no national or international response to climate change is needed

A new paper by Sondre Båtstrand studies the climate-change positions of electoral manifestos for the conservative parties in nine democracies, ...

Nor can a fealty to free-market theory alone explain the change, either. Free-market ideology traditionally recognizes a role for government when it comes to “externalities,” or actions that impose costs on others. Pollution is the most classic case of an externality — a factory whose production pollutes the air, or a local stream, should have to pay the cost. ...

It is also worth noting that the Republican Party used to fit in with the pattern of other international conservative parties. The Nixon administration created the Environmental Protection Agency and passed the Clean Air Act. The first Bush administration passed amendments strengthening it. Both of those presidents are considered, correctly, to be aliens to the conservative movement. The conservative movement has always opposed environmental regulation, and Republican leaders since the first President Bush — the GOP Congress since the era of Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, and the current Republican presidential field — have followed conservative thinking. ...

Indeed, administrators of the EPA from previous Republican administrations have endorsed Obama’s climate program, but they lack any influence or even legitimacy within the party today. ...

Rabid opposition is not the only quality that sets the GOP apart from other major conservative parties. The fervent commitment to supply-side economics is also an almost uniquely American idea. The GOP is the only major democratic party in the world that opposes the principle of universal health insurance. The virulence of anti-government ideology in the United States has no parallel anywhere in the world. …

… And so the “moderate” Republican climate position is that action is pointless, … 

… The more right-wing position within the party — endorsed by the party’s leading presidential candidate and the chairmen of the science committees in both houses — is that thousands of climate scientists worldwide have secretly coordinated a massive hoax. And then the even more conservative position, advocated by the second-leading candidate in the polls, holds not only that climate science is a massive hoax, but so are evolution and the big bang. The “moderate” candidates are still, by international standards, rabid extremists. It is the nature of long-standing arrangements to dull our sense of the peculiar, to make the bizarre seem ordinary. From a global standpoint, the entire Republican Party has lost its collective mind. ... (emphasis added - LINK)

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And then there's this:

Why Republicans are scared of everything and everyone right now

The world is changing. So is the Republican Party, but not in the same way.

By Daniel W. Drezner - September 30, 2015 

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a regular contributor to PostEverything.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/30/why-republicans-are-scared-of-everything-and-everyone-right-now/

It's about a revealing study that presents some "pretty incontrovertible" evidence that the most conservative Republican's of 1985 to 1990 would be among the most liberal members these days.  

This seems important for people with a rational experience-based perspective towards life on Earth to learn about and appreciate.  Weird days are heading our way and those who trust in science and humanistic principles of rational dialogue and constructive debate (that we can all learn from) - have these passionate Republican/libertarian/TeaParty characters to deal with, time to understand them a bit better.  

http://voteview.com

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(* Yes I believe extreme conservatism and religious fervor go hand in hand.)