Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said during a Thursday interview on Fox News that colleges have become so overly sensitive that “it’s almost like they’ll put you in prison” for rejecting mainstream climate science.
“Only certain opinions are acceptable on college campus,” Paul told Fox’s Gretchen Carlson. “It’s almost like they’ll put you in prison for challenging the religious dogma on climate change.”
Paul and Carlson were discussing free speech on college campuses, a conversation that has been reignited by a recent spate of incidents at the University of Missouri, Yale University, and Ithaca College.
The libertarian-leaning Republican argued that college students today have “become intolerant and they really have no sense of humor.”
“We’ve become overly sensitive,” Paul said in the interview. “People can’t tell a joke, people can’t have an opinion… I think we need more robust debate.”
Paul himself took issue with climate science during Tuesday’s GOP presidential debate on Fox Business.
“The planet’s 4.5 billion years old,” he said. “We’ve been through geologic age after geologic age. We’ve had times when the temperature’s been warmer, we’ve had times when the temperature’s been colder. We’ve had times when the carbon in the atmosphere’s been higher.”
Watch part of Paul’s Fox interview below.
…and not embracing all the crackpot ideas based on fantasies and no facts.
Wait, that’s pretty much sums up his social, economic, and foreign relations “policies” as well.
I would love for a moderator to ask some of the GOP candidates to define what science is, an actual definition. It’s not a difficult question but I have a feeling they would all stumble.
Rand Paul is such a douche. Don’t you just love the way he refers to “climate science” as “an opinion”? He said “only certain opinions are acceptable…” No, Rand, it’s not an opinion; that’s exactly why it’s called “climate science”. Now, an opinion might be something like, “I think Rand Paul is a total ass hat who panders to a gaggle of credulous morons otherwise known as THE GOP BASE”. Factual as that really is, it also happens to be my opinion.
I believe that challenging basic arithmetic will get you executed and/or laughed at for being an idiot. Same difference.
“We’ve become overly sensitive,” Paul said in the interview. “People can’t tell a joke, people can’t have an opinion… I think we need more robust debate.”
I agree, Senator Paul. And in that spirit: You are a fucking idiot.