We had a little discussion a couple of weeks ago with a couple of Christian Reconstructionists, a group who want to throw out parts of the constitution, institute a theocracy, and introduce stoning for homosexuals, adulterers and disobedient children, exactly as laid out in the Bible. These adherents of CR happen also to be vocal creationists.
So, yeah, I do take them seriously. Three hundred years ago we were hanging witches in this country. I'm sorry, but a significant number of your co-religionists seem to have moved not a bit from the mind set that permitted those horrors.
The Discovery Institute have said, in writing, that the teaching of ID in schools is a wedge strategy to get the teaching of religion into schools. Why wouldn't I take them at their word? Why should I trust instead the reassurances of someone I suspect of dissimulating his real motives?
That more resembles the behavior and the understanding of a Liberal, than someone who purports to be ‘Right Wing.’
The Professor, since he knows a little history, remembers that fundamentalist Christians in this country were until recently Democrats who voted for statist economic policies. Now he has to endure being lectured by these johnny-come-latelys about what a conservative is.
If you don’t want to be subject to the tyranny of the mob, remove the excuse for the tyranny. Instead, you seek to entrench the federal grip, by giving them further opportunities to strengthen precedents establishing their control over local schools.
With the massive assumption of federal control of education at the behest of the current President, a little judicial oversight of school districts scarcely seems worth worrying about. In any case, this battle was lost when the 14th amendment was passed. The US Bill of Rights is now binding on the states. You can't go back 150 years to the aftermath of the civil war, any more than you can go back 300 years to theocracy.
That’s a whole boatload of assumptions there, Professor, all of them wrong (if by johnny-come-lately you mean lately come to this blog, then that’s not an assumption because it’s a matter of record; otherwise you’re wrong on that too). I wasn’t aware that, here in Freeper-Town, proper deference to members of the old-line families was commanded of those who live over on the other side of the tracks.
You’ve propounded quite the templet there, Professor, and it seems, in your mind at least, anyone, who disputes anything you say, or who says something to your disliking, has to fit that templet. Another Liberal gig! (thank you Rush, for proposing and explaining this hypothesis)
This is not the first time Scientists have hit me with this templet, and I’ve put it off to a distemper occasioned by frustration. I can understand that. We all fall prey from time to time. But I’m getting a little tired of it. Instead of attacking what I say, you impugn my motives and then attack those. Another Liberal gig.
“Three hundred years ago we were hanging witches in this country. I'm sorry, but a significant number of your co-religionists seem to have moved not a bit from the mind set that permitted those horrors.”
Guilt by association. Still boogieing in the Liberal mode. Will you be suggesting next that I am a member of the former slave-holding class?
“With the massive assumption of federal control of education at the behest of the current President, a little judicial oversight of school districts scarcely seems worth worrying about. In any case, this battle was lost when the 14th amendment was passed. The US Bill of Rights is now binding on the states. You can't go back 150 years to the aftermath of the civil war, any more than you can go back 300 years to theocracy.”
A little judicial oversight of school districts scarcely seems worth worrying about until said oversight steps on your toes; then you’ll be howling like a banshee. Federal control of education isn’t just Bush’s idea. It dates back to the Carter Administration when Carter proposed an education department and got it past Congress. Even prior to that, the peoples resources (mistakenly called federal funds) were being sent to the states (that was the excuse for creating a Secretarial level Ed. Dpt.), but the creation of the federal education department was a sign of the shape of things to come. If you’re genuinely Right Wing, then you know that federal control, not mere ‘oversight,’ whatever that term means, follows close on the heels of ‘federal’ money. Since you’re apparently not willing to concede this fact in the present context, presumably because of my lack of trustworthiness, then I find myself again ‘lecturing’ you on the obvious.
I’m well aware of the implications of the 14th Amendment (and more than a little amused at the quandary of the judiciary in their desperate desire to see the 1st Article made binding on the states, and the 2nd Article not made binding). Notwithstanding, I cannot essay to identify any article which places education under the authority of the federal government, since the articles of the Bill of Rights “altogether respect personal liberty.”
I would prefer that government have nothing to do with education, wishing to bar government authority from asserting any control over the minds of the people, because I do not trust government to discern the true from the false, or to honestly report on it when it does. If we just absolutely must have government involved in education, then let it be at the local level, so when an error in policy or educational practice occurs, the whole nation does not suffer from the error. But that raises complications, since fragmented sovereignty makes control of the people enormously more difficult. That’s why Marxist/socialists favor highly centralized government. What’s your excuse?
I don’t trust you either, Professor, any more than you trust me. So what do we do? Stand around and take potshots at each other’s motives? Break off contact altogether? Or do we discuss the issues? Some of them are pretty darned interesting. I think it’s more than a little important to go back to the future 229 years to a society that had a better grip on government by the consent of the governed than any other I know.
So, here’s to the once and future Republic. May we sing praises to its resurrection as we mourn its passing.