The Religious Right
Alright let me start with an apology for the length of time since my last post. Apparently my bosses decided that my doing no work whatsoever and getting paid for it was a little silly. So I spent the last two weeks stuffing mountains of envelopes, FUN!
Anyway (3 of 4 my four sentences have started with A so far…yeah wanted to let you know…in case you were doing a study on that sort of thing…but forgot to be counting for it…because you’re stupid….stupidhead) I’ve been ragging on liberals a lot, so it’s about time I knocked conservatives around for a bit.
So Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist took a stand a few days ago by differing with President Bush over stem cell research and it’s about damn time a vocal member of the Republican party whose name doesn’t rhyme with a fictional movie character from the Simpsons based on the current governor of California stood up for the members of the party who’d prefer it not be turned over to the right-wing wackjobs. Go ahead, TRY and diagram that sentence…I dare you.
I have the misfortune of growing old enough to vote just as my party was ripped out of my hands by a collection of people who still think we should be debating if the Earth is the center of the universe. Where’s my Reagan Revolution dammit? What happened to a belief in small government and laissez-faire attitudes towards not just economics, but everything? When did the Republican Party turn into Army of Christ?
But thankfully there is a new hope, with Senator Frist taking a stand that not using embryos for research is just plain fucking stupid. How anyone can disagree with this stand is mind-boggling to me. How can you think using these soon to be discarded embryos to further research into God knows how many diseases is disrespecting life? “Oh you’re going to make multiple embryos and then just throw out the ones you don’t need? No biggie…but no taking cells from them on their way to the garbage can…that’s just unnecessary.”
The evil empire struck back, though, when Bush came out supporting the teaching of Intelligent Design in our school systems. Now thank heavens he made the qualification that local government, and not Washington, should set school curriculum (where was this clear thinking during No Child Left Behind?), but still Intelligent Design? You’re kidding me right? Don’t get me wrong, Intelligent Design might very well be the case, but what precisely are you going to TEACH? “And maybe there’s a dude in the sky guiding our development along…Yes Johnny?...Well no we don’t have any evidence for that…because you can’t really prove it…Well I guess it does seem like kind of silly to have a theory you can’t prove…Well you’ll just have to deal with that Johnny…Johnny, please put your pants back on.” Because sometimes when little kids get confused they take their pants off…I don’t know why.
And then a jedi came back...but yeah, here’s my problem with Intelligent Design. The argument is the universe is so well-designed (Please, please, control your snickers) that something intelligent must have created it since all complicated things arise from intelligent design, namely ours (i.e. cars, watches, computers). Here’s the problem, any counterexample to be given (something complex not created by the human mind) falls under the purview of the theory. Trees are complex, but that’s cause of intelligent design. So are lions, but that’s intelligent design. Stars are complex in their own way…intelligent design. It’s a self-fulfilling theory. And that’s why you can’t really teach it.
Now if you want to highlight that evolution is not PROVEN beyond a shadow of a doubt, feel free, but then do it for everything else too (gravity, time, triangles having 180 degrees, and everything else, because nothing is totally provable…not even the triangle thing, trust me it bummed me out too)
In related news, South Korea cloned a dog, and none-too-soon. Because when I think of the problems in the world, what usually comes to mind is “not enough dogs”. Seriously though, it’s for research into diseases or something, and that’s always good by me. I’m waiting for the right-wing knee-jerk “playing God” bullshit to start soon though. I like how people think cloning is going to cause us to churn out animals/people by the millions. It’s not like Star Trek just yet folks, the clone still has to be put in a womb and be born. Anyway, I’m trying to think of a clever sign involving cloning be sacrilege and Lassie, but I’m not coming up with anything.
Maybe a Dog/goD palindrome play on something…
So long story short, the 2008 Republican nominee for president better support stem cell research, oppose turning our schools over to the Vatican, and not give a goddamn about gay marriage or I might have to vote libertarian. Help me John McCain, you’re my only hope…
(originally written August 4th)
Anyway (3 of 4 my four sentences have started with A so far…yeah wanted to let you know…in case you were doing a study on that sort of thing…but forgot to be counting for it…because you’re stupid….stupidhead) I’ve been ragging on liberals a lot, so it’s about time I knocked conservatives around for a bit.
So Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist took a stand a few days ago by differing with President Bush over stem cell research and it’s about damn time a vocal member of the Republican party whose name doesn’t rhyme with a fictional movie character from the Simpsons based on the current governor of California stood up for the members of the party who’d prefer it not be turned over to the right-wing wackjobs. Go ahead, TRY and diagram that sentence…I dare you.
I have the misfortune of growing old enough to vote just as my party was ripped out of my hands by a collection of people who still think we should be debating if the Earth is the center of the universe. Where’s my Reagan Revolution dammit? What happened to a belief in small government and laissez-faire attitudes towards not just economics, but everything? When did the Republican Party turn into Army of Christ?
But thankfully there is a new hope, with Senator Frist taking a stand that not using embryos for research is just plain fucking stupid. How anyone can disagree with this stand is mind-boggling to me. How can you think using these soon to be discarded embryos to further research into God knows how many diseases is disrespecting life? “Oh you’re going to make multiple embryos and then just throw out the ones you don’t need? No biggie…but no taking cells from them on their way to the garbage can…that’s just unnecessary.”
The evil empire struck back, though, when Bush came out supporting the teaching of Intelligent Design in our school systems. Now thank heavens he made the qualification that local government, and not Washington, should set school curriculum (where was this clear thinking during No Child Left Behind?), but still Intelligent Design? You’re kidding me right? Don’t get me wrong, Intelligent Design might very well be the case, but what precisely are you going to TEACH? “And maybe there’s a dude in the sky guiding our development along…Yes Johnny?...Well no we don’t have any evidence for that…because you can’t really prove it…Well I guess it does seem like kind of silly to have a theory you can’t prove…Well you’ll just have to deal with that Johnny…Johnny, please put your pants back on.” Because sometimes when little kids get confused they take their pants off…I don’t know why.
And then a jedi came back...but yeah, here’s my problem with Intelligent Design. The argument is the universe is so well-designed (Please, please, control your snickers) that something intelligent must have created it since all complicated things arise from intelligent design, namely ours (i.e. cars, watches, computers). Here’s the problem, any counterexample to be given (something complex not created by the human mind) falls under the purview of the theory. Trees are complex, but that’s cause of intelligent design. So are lions, but that’s intelligent design. Stars are complex in their own way…intelligent design. It’s a self-fulfilling theory. And that’s why you can’t really teach it.
Now if you want to highlight that evolution is not PROVEN beyond a shadow of a doubt, feel free, but then do it for everything else too (gravity, time, triangles having 180 degrees, and everything else, because nothing is totally provable…not even the triangle thing, trust me it bummed me out too)
In related news, South Korea cloned a dog, and none-too-soon. Because when I think of the problems in the world, what usually comes to mind is “not enough dogs”. Seriously though, it’s for research into diseases or something, and that’s always good by me. I’m waiting for the right-wing knee-jerk “playing God” bullshit to start soon though. I like how people think cloning is going to cause us to churn out animals/people by the millions. It’s not like Star Trek just yet folks, the clone still has to be put in a womb and be born. Anyway, I’m trying to think of a clever sign involving cloning be sacrilege and Lassie, but I’m not coming up with anything.
Maybe a Dog/goD palindrome play on something…
So long story short, the 2008 Republican nominee for president better support stem cell research, oppose turning our schools over to the Vatican, and not give a goddamn about gay marriage or I might have to vote libertarian. Help me John McCain, you’re my only hope…
(originally written August 4th)
posted by drs at 5:30 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home