Evolution & the Patriot Act

First off, Ben, I like what you wrote about Kyoto and I think you're generally right on that. : )

A Pennsylvania district court logically decided that religion must be separate from public schools' curriculums, as a matter of separation of church and state. It's a victory for classical liberals in the country. As an afterthought, the judge could have drawn a broader conclusion: Why not outlaw the creation of truth through legislation? Around the world, less well checked and balanced governments use laws to create and/or remove scientific and historical truth from school curriculums. Commiting curriculums to science alone might be a more long-term solution.

Though, I'm really not sure what the public thinks on the matter. On the one hand, I remember a CNN poll a few years ago that found only 42% of americans subscribe to Darwin. On the other, there have been plenty of great editorials/speeches/arguments made recently that show that "intelligent design" theorists clearly break usually most, and sometimes all of the laws of scientific inquiry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method).

Read more on the court case itself here, and draw your own conclusion about its implications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District

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Btw, Ben, I was looking for some topics to discuss....and here's what happened:

I clicked that link near the bottom called "TTLB," and I clicked on their #1 rated web log. There was some few sentences were so full of sarcasm is reference to pre-assumed prejudices, so I had difficulty understanding them. All I could say for sure was that that blog was suspicious and seemed unreliable.

http://instapundit.com/

I could have mistaken their words, but I think that they were claiming that 'because most people supported the Vietnam War despite protests, then most people do not care if George Bush spies on their home phone calls.'

There are many flaws in this argument. I would like to respond in a general fashion by attacking W.Bush's "War on terror." George Bush has said over and over again that "the terrorists hate freedom," and has used the argument that these "terrorists" pose such a deadly threat to us in order to break the first amendment, the Geneva convention, among other agreements and contracts. Again, there are so many overgeneralizations and false assumptions in W. Bush's ideology that I don't have time to address them all now. I'll say this:

John McCain's anti-torture, anti-degrading treatment amendment to today's military appropriations bill was passed. Bush and Cheney opposed it, but it was passed, by a wide majority in Congress, and with significant electorate participation. Moreover, there is now increasing debate about withdrawing from Iraq.

In the very least, this news shows that the electorate is not taking Bush's proclamations about the ever-present threat of evil, freedom-hating terrorists* dead seriously.

Stalin's "kulaks," hitler's "Jews," McCarthy's "communists" ... Many ambitious people in history have created an "evil" enemy class to scare others and boost their own ideology & power. W. Bush and his administration has employed this tactic for several years now, and the effect seems to be wearing off, just as it did after several years in all those other cases.

I predict that the American people will show resistance to havingtheir conversations spied on, and will not buy the same old "don't let the terrorists win!" argument. It's true, in the past, the ACLU has had only some support in opposing the Patriot act, but the renewal of this act has been becoming increaseingly difficult since its creation.

(This argument is predictive and not proscriptive, just to keep any commentators on the right track.)