Month: October 2012 (Page 3 of 3)

I recently began another historical journey through the American Civil War (as I am wont to do) with The Coming Fury: The Centennial History of the Civil War, Volume 1. Unfortunately, my recent “reading” has been anything but. My literary consumption has, in fact, taken place via the spoken word. That is to say, I have been listening to audio books. To my own misfortune, this makes it very difficult to review books. I would like to be perceived as a fair person, so I try to include the words of the author when I review books. Unfortunately, this medium does not lend itself well to making notes. Writing anything down while driving is considered unsafe. Apart from book reviewing, however, I am often unable to do something more important. When I hear quotes from an antebellum Southern Democrat, I cringe. In many cases, it is like the words were taken from a modern Republican politician. I should say, rather, that the rhetoric sounds similar except for a fact that most Southern Democratic fire-eaters were considered learned men. In today’s Republican Party, ignorance is considered such a badge of honor that politicians purposely exaggerate regional accents, knowingly use poor grammar, and interject obsolete slang phrases into their daily speech.

But I digress…

The point is that the Republican rhetoric of 2012 is recycled from a century and a half ago. It strikes me as interesting that we rarely hear in the media that the obsession the Constitution by people who fail to understand it at all is not new. The only differences between the Confederate Constitution and the U.S. Constitution are the addition of the Christian god, the protection of the institution of slavery, and the focus changing from the rights of the individual to the rights of the states. In other words, the Constitution was rewritten in such a way as to codify explicitly what the pro-slavery politicians claimed was already implied.

Amusement parks have signs that declare, “Must be this tall to ride.” Why is it that we can’t have something similar for using the trappings of science? People who disbelieve the single most fundamental theory of the life sciences, evolution, are free to suck down all the antibiotics money can buy. People who believe in prophecies and other such bullshit are allowed to use computers. People who …

Nevermind.

This is an exercise in futility. In a way, I understand the frothing rants of those mentally afflicted with Randism. The typical Randroid feels victimized by people (read: filthy peasants) making use of things he created (with the exception of herself, women are basically props in Ayn Rand’s world) without paying him exorbitant royalties. The use of science should have its own “royalty” of sorts. Those users should be required to accept science, even that with which they disagree on political grounds. You see, disagreeing about something as absurdly obvious as anthropogenic global warming is a de facto denial of science. As such, it is adequate cause to revoke the “capitalizing on scientific findings” license of any person.

Buffoonish beliefs in fairies, angels, and supply-side economics would leave a rather large fraction of the population reduced to the status of hunter-gatherer (or, perhaps more appropriately, involuntary dieter). Come to think of it, the evangelicals would likely be quite happy about it.