All things considered, I guess I'd rather stay in Oz.


I have long believed that New England should secede. My theory is that we could become a North American Switzerland. The yahoos in the rest of the country would be glad to see us go. Other States in the Northern tier could come along at their option.

The rest of the country would rapidly sink into third world status because the fundamentalists would take over in a heartbeat. Name a country where scientific or cultural progress and fundamentalism, of whatever religion, co-exist.

Recent developments in Kansas bring this to mind. The Board of Education of Kansas is set to mandate the teaching of "intelligent design" which, to anyone who has bothered to look into it, is clearly a total fraud dressed up in pseudo-scientific wrapping. According to the LA Times:

The hearings in Topeka, scheduled to last several days, are focusing on two proposals. The first recommends that students continue to be taught the theory of evolution because it is key to understanding biology. The other proposes that Kansas alter the definition of science, not limiting it to theories based on natural explanations.

Silly me. I thought science was precisely and only about finding natural explanations for natural phenomena.

If and when these people take over the country what remains of our scientific lead will vanish. It's already happened in stem cell research. So I say we should get out while the getting is good. Imagine, our own Supreme Court, with rational people on it. Why, New England is even the last remaining preserve of that rarest of creatures: the moderate Republican.

One counter-attacking strategy worth pursuing in Kansas and elsewhere: If the Christians get to teach that their version of creation may just be right, then the equal protection clause and non-establishment clause would seem to mandate that all the other religions get to teach that their particular creation myths or quasi-scientific mumbo jumbo may just be right too. Personally, I think we made a mistake abandoning paganism, and I think the kids should be taught that the world was created by Chronos, or whoever the hell the Greeks gave the credit.

In fact, the fundies have had their own tactics shoved down their throats in other contexts. At their request Congress passed a law requiring schools to allow Christian student groups to use school property for meetings, etc. Trouble is, it allowed, and to be constitutional had to allow, all groups the same access. In Salt Lake City, Utah that they had to get rid of all extracurricular activities because otherwise they would have had no choice but to allow a gay-straight alliance group to meet in school facilities. They might think twice about teaching creationism if they had to give equal time to American Indian creation myths, for example. A similar tactic might work to stop prayer at high school football games. How many of them would want to say a prayer to Allah or Vishnu after they've crammed the Lord's Prayer down everyone's throat?

But of course strategies like that are at best holding actions. They depend upon the existence of judges with a bare minimum of intellectual honesty, and judges like that will soon be history. So we need to get out. It's time for another Hartford Convention.
Posted: Saturday - May 07, 2005 at 12:58 PM          

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