Please Stop Making Fun Of Conservatives For Hating Facts

Let us have a little fun this morning by playing a game. Late Monday this little exchange on Twitter caught our eye. First, we have this tweeted question from Emily Atkin, an environmental reporter for ThinkProgress. It's a perfectly reasonable question in our admittedly libtarded eyes.

The tweet was linked with extra commentary by one Mollie Hemingway, a libertarian wingnut at Ben Domenich’s Plagiarism Salad Bar and Soft Yogurt Machine, otherwise known as The Federalist.

Ho ho, yes, conservatives care about reality and base their policy positions on it, obviously! For example, in the case of “campus rape culture,” while statistics indicate a significant   percentage of women report being sexually assaulted in college and the problem is widespread enough that 86 colleges are currently being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for Title IX violations related to their handling of such cases, conservatives believe the “reality” is that there is not a culture on campuses that, at the very least, enables sexual assaults without notable consequences for the perpetrators.

This got us thinking. Are there any other recent examples of “conservatives caring about reality” so darn much that they actually ignore reality if it gives them a talking point or a policy victory they can gloat about? Here’s a few we thought up just off the top of our heads!

• Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona and his infamous “not intended to be a factual statement” moment, when he had to walk back his assertion that over 90 percent of Planned Parenthood’s activities are related to abortion. (The correct figure is more like 3 percent.) But it didn’t matter to conservatives, who seem to think Planned Parenthood is basically a slaughterhouse that women ride through on a conveyor belt, entering at one end pregnant and coming out the other end totally baby-free, probably with a tiara and a bottle of Moet & Chandon White Gold handed to each of them personally by Cecile Richards.

• Global warming. Doesn’t matter how many scientists in how many countries write how many peer-reviewed papers and articles and books, conservatives in America will deny it to their dying breaths. Which they will all take just before the water from the rising oceans engulfs Washington and drowns everyone on Capitol Hill.

• The Hobby Lobby case. As you recall, the owners of Hobby Lobby, the Green family, sued the Obama administration over its requirement that the company’s health plan cover female contraception. At issue were four specific contraception methods that the Greens believed were abortifacients. Now, medical science says these methods are not abortifacients. Even the Supreme Court admitted that they are not abortifacients. But the conservatives on the court determined that because the Greens’ religion made them sincerely believe that these contraceptives cause abortions, they should get an exception from the mandate. The hell with reality, you’re all special snowflakes who shouldn’t have to wrestle with it if you don’t wanna! Now excuse us, yr Wonkette has a date with Alison Brie and a hot tub full of vinaigrette.

• Trickle-down economics. Oh Lord, don’t get us started on trickle-down economics.

And these are just examples we came up with during the five minutes we spent taking a shower. What did we miss? Feel free to tell us in the comments, which we do not allow.

Also we hope this helps Ms. Hemingway, and isn't too shame-y for her.