Update: In light of the ongoing discussion on profanity; How in the
FUCK did this crappy, offhand set of disjointed comments of mine ever end up on the reco list? (You see, sometimes, some of us,
really need that profane word to convey the depth of our sentiment)
Over and over I see the same mistake made. On Air America by callers, on blogs by well meaning writers, even in news papers and on talk shows. Intelligent Design Creationism is equated with theism and evolutionary biology is left by default as the atheist position. This is simply inaccurate and more importantly, it's exactly what the IDCists want. Below, some elementary review and reminders that not one of these neocon scumbags can be trusted--don't ever cut them any slack or show them the slightest bit of respect, don't ever be afraid to call them bald-faced liars and conmen to their face on live national broadcasts. If someone is arguing for science and it turns out they also support Bush: Fucking call them on it for chrisakes, same for gay people who support the GOP or women who defend Bush. Don't let them ever get away with that shit.
Now please, Air America Callers, I love you guys but some of you are really weak on this and you need emergency remedial instuction. When most reasonably informed people say the word evolution, they generally have in mind two related concepts ... and they're not atheism, or the Big Bang, or the formation of life from non-living precursors. They are:
- Common descent
- Natural Selection
But these two are not the same thing. Common descent merely means that two or more species share common ancestors if one goes far enough back in time. That kind of thing can be verified with comparative biology, paleontology, evolutionary development, and comparisons of genetic material.
Natural selection on the other hand is one explanation for how a single species might change and/or diverge into two species over time. Basically that inherited characteristics confer a non random differential in mortality, morbidity, and fertility among members of the same species, and those traits which work the best are preferentially selected for and refined over time.
One is an inferred fact, the other a theoretical explanation for that fact.
But the attraction in IDC for most folks is the implication that it is friendly to a Creator entity and that traditional evolutionary biology is not. And over and over I see folks playing right into this stereotype. This is important: Intelligent Design Creationism is not an argument for God. It is a set of arguments against both natural selection and common descent. It's typical for the proponents of IDC to use rather outdated arguments against natural selection and go on to assume they have weakened common descent, but the point is that neither common descent or selection are anymore God friendly or God hostile than IDC. And that's the unstated premise that most folks let the IDCists get away with scot-free.
If a devout believer gets the idea that evolution is atheism and IDC is the opposite, there is little chance of persuading them that IDC is bullshit. They won't come right out and say it, but when you attack IDC in those circumstances, they perceive it as an attack on their faith. And when you ask them to be open minded about evolution, in their minds you're asking them to openly question that same religious belief. This is a pointless quest. The only way they're going to give up on IDC in this situation is if they reject their core beliefs, and most people aren't going to do that.
The purveyors of the IDC con-game understand this basic dynamic and they're not hesitant to play it for all it's worth. To give them credence in anyway, to attempt to 'work with them' or 'bring them into the discussion' is utterly futile. They will demand respect, then assume by respect they have endorsement, then vault from the assumed endorsement to the conclusion that they have the 'right' to take over your life, your thoughts, your very mind. And that pretty much is a microcosm of the entire theocratic agenda, IDC is merely a test case.
And BTW, if you don't feel qualified to take on the IDCist asshole, and frankly few people are so into it they can wallow in that cesspool of confabulation and obfuscation and outdunk the native denizens for pearly shit logs, then don't ever be afraid to just go right on and link ID to the neocon SOBs and segue onto a nice pithy reality-based knock-out punch. Leave that fucker gasping for breath, choking, and not enough time to distort and bullshit their way through all the truth you've thrown in their ugly little lying pieholes. Truth really is a frame, one of the best in fact ... you listening Hillary, Biden, Kerry?
Anyway, where was I in this rant? Oh yeah ... In that larger picture, you wanna 'work' with moderate Republicans? Like who, John McCain? Good Lord, McCain wouldn't even stick up for his own wife and daughter when they were being smeared by Rove and a two-bit governor from Texas. WTF makes anyone think this guy will stand up for anything?
Giuliani? You wanna work with Rudy? Rudy covered for Bush when he was running full tilt for cover after freezing up on 9-11 and leaving New York to fend for itself. That was a big "Fuck You NY, my politics are way more important". Now he's in direct opposition to the crazies in the GOP who run what's left of that unfortunate party on their most cherished issues, another "Fuck You". He won't stand up for his own city or his own Party and you think he's gonna stand up for anything? Anyone who thinks this scumbag gives a shit about anything besides his own political skin has their head up their ass.
And it's an odd fundamentalist that argues until they're blue in the face (A hopeful sign that they'll soon pass out and hopefully never recover) that God uses all these cool, nifty natural ways to interact, like killing everyone with floods, or disease, or hurricanes, but we just have to, HAVE to GODAMMIT, include supernatural bullshit in the study of the natural world... But then, they are really fucked up human beings, whose initial premise is that logic and factual evidence doesn't count. Definitely a choice group for any representative constituency. Because, well, lets face it: When you get busted lying your ass off, it always pays to have a bunch of morons who will toss reason and evidence aside and swallow whatever jizz the neocon shitheads happen to find convenient to shoot down their throats. I mean if you're up for Murder One and the prosecuting attoney's happen to have a video of you committing the crime, wouldn't you rather have a jury and a judge who reject any evidence presented by the prosecution apriori without even looking at it? Hell, I would. Lets include some supernatural explanation in that trial and see how the iDCists feel about it ...
Do it over and over, turn that discussion into a referendum and an opportunity to bash the shit out of the neocons and sooner or later, the conservatives themselves will start nervously telling the creationists to Shut The Fuck Up.
The bottom line is that IDC offers no testable explanations, it is not an argument for God or a 'designer'-one that happens to be able to create a universe form nothing using sheer will ... but isn't you know, God or anything. These people represent the ugliest side of conservatism, they cannot be trusted to stick for any principle, they have zero morality and they're ethically bankrupt. They'll stick a shiv in you at the first chance. So don't play their game, ever, on anything, ID or reproductive rights.
Now, the main point when dealing with pragmatic folks: ID will never provide a cent of revenue for your state or local economy. It will in fact chase mountains of research money, venture capital, and brainpower away from that region. It's that simple. I mean literally; there is no profit in it at all. Zero. Nada. The reason some Rethugs oppose global warming science and/or pollution regs and want to muck with that is because there's a lot of short term quarterly gains to be made ignoring and wrecking the environment. That's just not the case with IDC. It's an utterly pointless endeaver financially. And if you think these creeps, the powers that be at the top of the Mt. Talking Point, don't take that into consideration, you don't know who you're really fighting here.
Do you want an economy which runs on capitalism and innovation?
Or do you want one that runs on magic?
Cuz that ole magic thing hasn't panned out so well in the SIX-THOUSAND FUCKING YEARS it was tried all over the world.
In short, I really do get tired of them being treated nicely by "us". And by "them" I mean the entire stinking coalition of allegedly reasonable people with the Crightons (Short for Christian Right) with "us" being the compliment of that set. Stick their heads down in that fetid punch-bowl full of day old shit in the full studio light & sound and let them take a nice deep drink of the folks they're in bed with--and stop cutting these shitheads any slack.
Because the pragmatic libertarion conservatives and the whacked out religious lunatics truly cannot stand each other. All they need is a little push to bring that fragile partnership down. And it'll come apart real ugly, with all the elegant grace of a nasty divorce between a gold-digging trophy-whore, married to an old pervert who goes broke.
Update: I'll have some more pointers tomorrow--and in the next day or two another premium example of GOP cronyism. But right now I'm so cynically disenchanted that I feel like America deserves all the wonderful gifts that the neocons and their supporting IDC slinging, ignorant assholess can provide.