I am not a politician, so I really cannot understand what they are saying sometimes. A lot of times they talk in circles and sometimes they talk in such generalities that there seems to be no meaning or rationale behind it. But it’s most confusing when they say one thing with authority and conviction one day, then turn around a month later and say something quite different. With even more authority and conviction.

Here’s an example of switching positions. For the last 15 years, good conservatives’ answer to climate change echoed the Koch brothers, the Oil Institute and Fox News. There was no such thing as climate change. It was a lie made up by liberals who wanted bigger government. It was made up by almost all scientists who wanted to get rich off their scientists’ jobs. It was a natural event done by nature all the time and we needn’t get all excited. Well, all their answers changed all at once several months ago.

Were they finally convinced of climate change because of the weather we have been suffering? When the scientific evidence piled up higher and higher, did that make them change their minds? Was it things like the Defense Department admitting that it must now plan for massive unrest in the world due to climate change and rising oceans? Are these guys in the Pentagon hard-headed enough for them? Well, no. Now they have decided that they can’t give an opinion on climate change because “I am not a scientist.” What?

These are same men who will gladly interpret the Constitution down to the smallest detail. Yet they are not a Constitutional lawyer. They will pontificate about class warfare and the poor’s lack of ambition but they are not sociologists or anthropologists.

They tell us how we should change Social Security and Medicare. Invest the money. How we should restructure our tax code and lessen the taxes on corporations and the rich. Pass the tax burden down to the poor. This will create jobs and happiness in the land. Never mind that it has never worked and is making a mess out of Kansas where the governor is bankrupting the state with his harsh tax cuts. But they are not economists or tax lawyers or investment counselors.

They speak for the poor yet all of them are millionaires. They plan wars yet none of them are generals. Few of them have ever served in the armed forces and very few of them have had family serve. They interpret history and the Bible. Do you see any ministers or historians in Congress?

They just pile their expertise on us. You don’t hear them pleading ignorance to any of this.

Rick Santorum said that the Pope had no right to speak on climate change because he was not a scientist. He apparently never took into consideration the Pope’s master’s degree in chemistry. That’s pretty close to being a scientist. A lot closer than most. And the Pope was speaking about our duty to God to take care of His creation and his concern for the poor who will do almost all the suffering under climate change. He was also speaking as a minister. Also a lot closer than most.

So why do the politicians do this? Why do they speak in meaningless generalities and platitudes? Why do they dodge tough questions? Especially about something that could change our world catastrophically and maybe kill us all? I am not a politician but I have a theory — because the media and we voters let them get away with it.

That brings up a more important question. Why do we let them get away with it? Why doesn’t someone just ask “If you are not a scientist, yet you are in charge of our environmental actions in government, why don’t you ask a scientist? A real one. A climatologist, even someone from your own congressional agencies who did studies confirming it? Huh? And why are your actions and voting very much like you do not believe in it? Huh?”

One final word. These same “experts” are trying to reverse Roe v. Wade and ban abortions without actually reversing Roe v. Wade. They are making embarrassing and even painful tests and procedures like vaginal probes mandatory, doing inspections of facilities that would strain a full hospital to comply with, making counseling mandatory and forcing a woman to look at sonogram views of the fetus. All of this to make the woman “understand” her actions. Now they also want to restrict birth control. They are not psychologists or obstetricians or ministers or even, dare we say, women.

Now say it very slowly: “I can’t speak on this, either. I am not a …”