In the text from his speech entitled "Restoring American Leadership In Science; Time to Take Back Anti-Science Washington", John Kerry makes these statements:
"We need to go on the offensive. It's time to make America-all of America-a "reality-based community" once again. To do that, we have to outline a compelling and inspiring innovation agenda for our country.
"That means restoring the building blocks of American innovation: significant investment in basic research...
"That means sweeping away political and ideological interference with science boards, funding decisions, and most of all reporting of results.
"That means a national commitment to give every child incentives to study science, math and engineering.
"And that means making science a true priority, more important than the false priorities of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans; subsidies for private corporate interests; and runaway spending on crony-filled and incompetent federal agencies that often don't believe in their own public missions.
"When we do that - when we restore faith in science - and give Americans a compelling innovation agenda that they can be excited about - we will be in much better position to attack global warming. And attack the problem is exactly what we're going to have to do. But we have to attack it carefully, and tactfully. We can't overstate the science or oversell the argument. Doomsday scenarios turn people off, even when they're accurate. And we have to argue in terms peopleunderstand. When you say the sea level might rise eight inches in 80 years - that means nothing to most people.
"We need to make practical arguments that resonate with the American people.
"And we must do so in a manner that recognizes the global nature of the challenge and respects the competitive position of U.S. businesses internationally.
"It comes down to outlining achievable goals that people feel they have a stake in.
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That's a small part from the speech he plans to give. We've all heard the phrase by now: "Reality Based Community". But that phrase should BE the Democratic party political platform. We should turn the entire political debate into a showdown between the forces of reason and light on one side and the forces of medievalism, superstition and darkness on the other.
The ancient church had long debates and schisms over unanswerable questions of faith such as how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Galileo was forced to recant his view of a heliocentric universe (after all it was "just a theory" at the time). Questions such as school prayer, when life begins and "intelligent design" should be framed in this way.
"Reality Based Community" should absolutely be the theme, the catchphrase, the trademark of the opposition. When puffed up preachers start doing their "God said it, I believe it, His word is good enough for me" bit, the Reality-Based debater should ask the true believer to just turn to the section of the Bible that deals with DNA, techtonic plates or basic household electrical wiring.
"Reality-Based" talk shows could invite faith based guests to pray their microphones and spotlights on. The debate would be over before it started as the true believers sat in darkened silence.