Here We Go Again

According to the Indianapolis Star,

 Four legislators, including Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, chairman of the Education Committee, say “serious questions have been raised about whether academic freedom, free speech and religious liberty have been respected by BSU in its treatment of professor Hedin, its subsequent establishment of a speech code restricting faculty speech on intelligent design, and its cancellation of professor Hedin’s … class,” the lawmakers said in a letter to Gora.

For those with cloudy memories, the roots of this particular “inquiry” are described here.

Why, exactly, do Hoosier voters are continue to elect people who do not understand the difference between science and religion, the operation of the First Amendment’s religion clauses or the difference between Free Speech and government speech?

Let me spell this out—not that Senator Kruse or his theocratic cohorts will listen.

Academic freedom insulates the academy from the Senator’s own efforts to dictate the content of courses taught by the University. It does not protect a professor who is teaching discredited or inappropriate materials— I don’t have “academic freedom” to teach flower arranging in my Law and Policy classes; a historian does not have “academic freedom” to insist that the Holocaust didn’t occur; and a professor of science does not have “academic freedom” to substitute creationism for science.

Freedom of speech and religious liberty allow Senator Kruse to believe and promote any cockamamie thing he wants. It does not give him—and it most definitely does not give the legislature, which is government—the right to demand (overtly or covertly) that a public university give equal time in science class to an unscientific religious belief.

Can creationism be taught? Sure—in a class on comparative religion, or in a history of science class, or as part of a political science class’s exploration of the ongoing tension between religious orthodoxy and science.

Senator Kruse and his cohorts do raise a question that Hoosier voters should take seriously: When will the General Assembly stop spending so much time on religiously-motivated efforts to marginalize gays, keep women second-class and pregnant, control what Hoosiers drink and when, and teach religious dogma in our public schools? When will they start paying attention to the economy, the quality of life in our state, and the other genuine problems we elected them to address?

I don’t know about you, but I’m not holding my breath.

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An Exercise in Restraint….

The other night, at a dinner party, I practiced biting my tongue. Hard.

One of the couples present was visiting from Texas, and they looked—and drawled—the  part. Forgive me the stereotype, but if you’ve ever wondered who in the world votes for people like Rick Perry or Louis Gohmert, I think I know…

Parties aren’t the place for unpleasant behaviors, so I actually participated in two conversations: one verbalized, one in my head.

After some general chatter from those present about the unusually brutal winter, the wife smirked, “I guess that shows those liberals who are always talking about global warming!”

I was quiet.

I didn’t say, you twit. It’s climate change, and the escalation of unusual weather patterns is precisely what “those liberals” have been warning about.

A few minutes later, someone mentioned news coverage, and the wife once again spoke up. “I never watch NBC or CBS or—of course—MSNBC. I watch Fox, because Fox gives both sides.”

I choked. “Really?” I said mildly, wondering what my blood pressure might be.

I didn’t say, I guess you aren’t aware of all those studies showing that Fox audiences know less than people who don’t watch any news at all. (My husband, sitting across the table, later shared that he’d barely suppressed the impulse to tell her he prefers Al Jazeera. I would have given a lot to see her reaction….)

I remained pleasantly noncommittal when she speculated that Pakistani Muslims had probably hijacked the missing plane.

At that point, everyone at the table became aware of the husband, who had stopped explaining to a couple from London why “the King’s English” isn’t really proper English, in order to pontificate about America’s descent into socialism. After sneering about “those people” who were “going through” the assets of the entrepreneurs and “makers” who had earned them, he let out a knowing sigh. “They’ll never learn.”

I asked him—sweetly—what he’d done prior to his retirement. He’d worked for government.

You know—the institution that pays its employees with tax money that has been extorted from the makers.

I murmured something about a migraine…so sorry…and left.

My jaw should unclench in a day or so.

 

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Walking and Talking

In a speech last week in Washington, D.C., New Jersey Governor Chris Christie sang from the Republican playbook in criticizing President Obama’s recent economic interventions.

“We don’t have an income inequality problem,” Christie blustered. “We have an opportunity problem in this country because government’s trying to control the free market. We need to talk about the fact that we’re for a free-market society that allows your effort and your ingenuity to determine your success, not the cold, hard hand of government determining winners and losers.”

Aside from the somewhat bizarre assertion that we don’t have an inequality problem, most Americans (this one included) would agree with that basic assertion. Assuming a level regulatory playing field—a set of rules ensuring that everyone “plays fair”—the market should be the arbiter of business success and failure. We regularly quibble over the need for some of those rules, but it’s a rare politician or citizen (Republican or Democrat) who advocates government control over the economy.

Of course, there’s talking the talk and there’s walking the walk.

After his speech, Christie returned to New Jersey and signed off on a government regulation that blocks Tesla from selling its cars in the state. According to Slate Magazine,

The rule change prohibits automakers from selling directly to consumers, as Tesla does. Instead, it requires them to go through franchised, third-party dealerships, as the big, traditional car companies do. In other words, it requires that the middle-men get their cut. The Christie Administration made the move unilaterally, via the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. It was urged on by lobbyists for the state’s existing car dealerships, which fear the competition. The upshot is that Tesla will be forced to stop selling cars at its two existing dealerships in the state, and drop its plans to build more. It’s unclear what will happen to the employees of those dealerships.

There’s socialism, and then there’s corporatism and crony capitalism.

There’s rhetoric, and then there’s reality.

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What If?

Like many Americans, I’ve been semi-obsessed with the plane that disappeared over Malaysia. Apparently, it just vanished without a trace. As the days go by with absolutely no good information, the mystery grows.

In the absence of real data, a science-fiction devotee (I plead guilty) can let her mind run wild.

What if?

What if the aircraft was snatched from the skies by aliens from another planet? And what if, after examining the passengers and crew, the aliens returned them all unharmed and proceeded to make their existence—and the existence of many other inhabited planets—known?

How would we quarrelsome, primitive Earthlings react to the knowledge that we are (a) not alone; (b) not superior; and (c) vulnerable?

How would the clerics and high priests of Earth’s multiple religions incorporate this new information into their theologies? What measures would our “We’re number One!!” politicians advocate? (John McCain and Dick Cheney would probably go on Fox News, blame Obama, and urge a nuclear attack; Putin might actually put his shirt back on. Who knows?)

And what about all of our unhappy, modernity-rejecting bigots? The Aryan Nation, KKK and other white supremacists, the assorted “pro-family” homophobes, the good “Christians” who think all Muslims are terrorists, their Taliban counterparts, the anti-Semites and innumerable others who see Earth as an assortment of tribes forever divided between “us” and “them”? Faced with a new “them,” would they be able to adjust their definition of “us” to include all of humanity?

How would the civic, religious, intellectual and political life of our planet change if we had to confront irrefutable evidence that we are not alone, not unique, and not the Center of the Universe?

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Unbelievable

I spend a lot of time and energy promoting informed civic participation.

The problem is, informed participation requires accurate information. With the possible exception of loudmouth pundits on television and talk radio, I think we are all pretty weary of the fact-free slugfest that has replaced reasoned political debate. It has become a tired truism, but the ability of citizens to access credible information about our governing institutions is critical to our ability to engage in self-government.

Inadequate media coverage of local government is bad enough. When we can’t even rely on the accuracy of the information that is provided, either by local government officials or what’s left of our local media, how are citizens supposed to make informed decisions?

State government has reportedly been “cooking the books” over job creation figures for some time. The City-County Council recently had to subpoena the Mayor’s office to get information about a public document—a lease—that should have been a public record. And now—stunningly—we are told that the 30 million dollar deficit that threatened the viability of IPS and the jobs of hundreds of teachers, the looming 30 million dollar deficit that justified so many questionable decisions, never existed.

Think about that.

A while back, I posted about students who defended their disengagement from political life by saying they simply didn’t believe anything they read—that they considered it all to be spin and disinformation, and since they didn’t trust either the media or government to tell them what was really going on, they felt justified in opting out.

These days, it’s pretty hard to argue with that. And that doesn’t bode well for our American Experiment.

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