One of the key differences between the Republicans and Democrats

The Louisiana legislature is going to cripple the teaching of evolution. Not exactly a thrilling story in modern America - I mean, shocker, some Deep South state government is pissing in the face of science education and separation of church and state. Who knew? Oh, right, anyone conscious. For me, while tragic, and obviously everyone should do everything they can to stop this kind of nonsense from happening, it is a reason to reflect on one of the biggest differences between Republicans and Democrats.

Here it is: Republicans don't give up. Let me repeat that: Republicans don't give up.

Democrats, on the other hand, do.

I reflect on this because, I mean, I'm going to bring up three words that no one had heard of in years, and some of you perhaps never: Equal Rights Amendment. The amendment was simple - to guarantee all Americans equal rights regardless of race or gender, and giving Congress the power to make laws to insure this. It wasn't ever ratified, and it is dutifully reintroduced - in a purely symbolic way - every year since '82, but I can't remember the last time that someone actually talked about it.

On the other hand, the Republicans are fighting, still fighting, the Scopes Monkey Trial - and that was in 1925. They're still fighting the New Deal. They're still fighting Roe v. Wade. I can't think of a single issue that the Democrats have fought for like the Republicans have fought on those three issues. Year after year, they just haven't given up. They have this view of the way the world should work, and they fight for it. Tirelessly. Relentlessly. Without cease.

Because the Democrats, who routinely mistake compromise for appeasement, do give up fighting for things like the New Deal (much less the Great Society), the ERA and for the progressive humanism of government, the debate can be controlled by the Republicans and conservatives. Because they do teach their children, and their children's children, that destroying the New Deal, secular education, civil rights, etc., are the highest political values. Even when the Democrats have been right, they . . . have given up.

Which is probably why I'm not a Democrat (oh, god, I'm not a Republican, either!). Even when they've been right, rather than tirelessly fighting for what is right, they've allowed "political expediency" to shape their politics and policy.

An IDer lays it on the line about faith and reason!

Over at Stardust's blog she posted about the movie Expelled. Like pretty much all atheists, she's offended at the links between Hitler's genocide and evolutionary biology. I'm offended! It's offensive! It's a terrible slur and not true.

But this is about Stardust's post about Expelled, right? Right. Well, her blog was trolled by a a fundie Christian who thought Stardust was being ridiculous. It's . . . amusing. The fundie is a young woman of about 17 years of age who is full of vim, vigor and idiocy. I will let her speak for herself:

And, in response to your question, "What are ID's scientific predictions, what are its unifying principles, and what experiments have been done to support your ID theory? WITHOUT THE MYTHOLOGY BOOK." Alright, telling me to do so without the Bible is like telling you to prove one of your bunk theories without the world or without your brain.

WHOA! I mean, you don't get it much clearer than that! When I read this quote to my wife, she said, "That's your primary objection to religion in a nutshell." Yes. You have this person who's saying that the problem with evolution is that it relies on our knowledge of the world, and that is irrelevant to what's in the Bible.

So, no, she can't prove intelligent design without the Bible. Which means it's not science, of course. On the other hand, what's in the Bible is more important than the mere world and reason.

I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

Hypocrisy with intelligent design proponents?! NO WAY, right? RIGHT? There's no way they'd lie . . .

For several months I've known that Ben Stein, a hack of an actor, has decided to get into the intelligent design craze by making a movie, Expelled, which purports that biology is keeping intelligent design out of biology. Well, duh. And astrology is kept out of astrophysics but why is it no one has a problem with that? ID isn't science, so, duh, ID proponents are being kept out of science. Part of what science does, when it works, is separate the crazy nut jobs from scientists. When ID does something scientific, folks will change their mind. I mean, OK, you people think that some designer introduced genetic changes into terrestial life - prove how, when and/or where and then you'll be taken seriously. Until they, just continuing to assert that a designer exists is going to be thought of as religious whitewashing of evolution, something that's been going on for a hundred and fifty years! So, duh, intelligent design is being kept out of science by scientists.

Beyond the inane concept of the movie, itself, is the tricks they thought they had to pull to get scientists to talk to them. On his blog, PZ Myers explains how they tricked him. One of the producers of Expelled contacted him under false pretenses, asking to do an interview for a totally different movie.

I just love it that people think that intelligent design isn't a total chimera invented by religious people to give specious credibility to their corrupt and decadent archaic worldview.

But wait, there's more! This NY Times article says that several scientists were contacted under exactly the same false pretenses, including Richard Dawkins and Eugenie Scott.

According to the NYT interview, Ben Stein said that there were no false pretenses and "no one asked what the movie was about." Of course they didn't! They'd already been told what the movie was about, it's just that they were lied to.

I love this stuff. Just the pure chutzpah of it. The absolute contempt not only for the truth, but the subtext that the truth just isn't important. I mean, if I was Ben Stein and I'd just learned that my producers had lied in order to get people to agree to be interviewed for this movie, I'd be sorry. I'd be mortified. Instead, he's, like, "Oh, they never asked." Fuck you. They didn't ask because your producer told them. What a mealy mouthed little twerp!

But, hey, I guess when you so clearly have nothing resembling the facts on your side you've got to do something else. Just the level of contempt for the truth and trickery is astonishing to me, even after all these years of it.