Apparently, according to a report from CBS, folks in Northern Colorado are so unhappy with the elitist pinko liberals in Denver, that they are seriously .talking about seceding. They propose to create a 51st state, and are inviting like-minded folk in Nebraska and maybe Kansas to join them.
Readers of this blog know that I frequently pontificate about the dangers of an “us-versus-them” worldview, but it’s increasingly obvious that Americans come in (at least) two very different flavors: oh-my-god terrified and reality-based. The OMG terrified folks wake up each morning to a world that is increasingly multicultural, increasingly technological, increasingly complex, and they want off. This wasn’t what they bargained for, they don’t want to understand it, they don’t like it, and they definitely don’t like the people who seem to accept, deal with and even welcome the scary changes.
They want out.
These are the people most disoriented by the presence of a black guy in the White House….not necessarily because they’re racists (although many are), but because Obama is a symbol of a “new world order,” a symbol of the immensity and rapidity of the hated change. These are the people who were most vicious about Nancy Pelosi when she was Speaker–a woman running the House? Unnatural! These are the people who find “illegals” from south of the border immensely more threatening than those from Canada because they’re brown and speak a different language.
While the rest of us are just trying to cope with a changing world–trying to figure out how to live together on a planet getting smaller every day (and not incidentally, trying to figure out how to save that planet for our children and grandchildren), they are frantically looking for a way back to a simpler past and a world they can understand.
It’s not going to happen. And that makes them crazy.
Recently, as we drove through North and South Carolina on our way to the beach, we were struck by the relative absence of the Kudzu we usually see climbing over telephone poles and fences, and generally taking over large swathes of the landscape. My husband wondered if agricultural researchers have finally found something to control it.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the saga of kudzu, it was originally brought to the US south from Asia–thought to be a low-maintenance plant that could be used along highways–an attractive plant requiring less mowing and less expense. To say that things didn’t quite work out that way would be a considerable understatement; as Wikipedia notes, kudzu
is a serious invasive plant in the United States. It has been spreading in the southern U.S. at the rate of 150,000 acres (61,000 ha) annually, “easily outpacing the use of herbicide spraying and mowing, as well increasing the costs of these controls by $6 million annually.”[1] Its introduction has produced devastating environmental consequences.[2] This has earned it the nickname, “The vine that ate the South.“
Kudzu is the poster child for unintended consequences.
Kudzu makes me think of gerrymandering. No kidding.
The Republican Party, as everyone sentient knows, owes its majority in the House of Representatives to aggressive gerrymandering.(And yes, before commenters weigh in, I know that Democrats would engage in gerrymandering too, if they were in control of those statehouses.) But here’s the dilemma–by creating deep red districts safe from even the remotest Democratic threat, the GOP has created a party image that places recapture of the Presidency pretty much out of reach.
The problem is that these “safe” districts tend to elect the most extreme partisans–the crazies that embarrass the national party and turn off reasonable voters. If polls are to be believed, their antics have come to characterize the party in the popular imagination. For Democrats, they are the gift that keeps on giving–supplying fodder for campaign ads, endless discussions by the television punditry and blog posts. Their presence–and lack of vulnerability–undercuts the efforts of the few adults left in the party to move the GOP at least slightly back toward the middle. As we have seen repeatedly (Farm Bill, immigration), Boehner cannot control them. Why should they listen to party leadership? They’re invulnerable.
These Representatives from the reddest of red districts can thwart responsible legislative efforts. They can bring Congress to a halt. Like Kudzu, they are incredibly destructive. But–also like kudzu–that destruction is indiscriminate. To the consternation of the grown-ups, they have become the Republican brand.
I don’t know whether agronomists have finally found a herbicide that controls kudzu. But unless the GOP figures out how to extricate itself from the unintended consequences of its own gerrymandering, even expanded voter suppression efforts won’t win it back the Presidency.
A representative of an organization I had never previously heard of–despite 15+ years in the ‘groves of academe’ –has mounted a robust defense of Mitch Daniels’ censorship efforts.According to Google, The National Institute of Scholars “was founded to bring together conservatives in academia to fight the “liberal bias” on college and university campuses and to target multiculturalism and affirmative-action policies.”
Titled “Mitch Daniels was Right,” it was an apologist’s spin on the emails, taking considerable liberties with the characterization of their contents. But inaccuracies are almost beside the point. These “scholars” spend their time attacking the value of Howard Zinn’s work–a focus that demonstrates an utter obliviousness to the issue.
Let’s be clear. Daniels was perfectly within his rights to express his opinion of Zinn (who, incidentally, had been critical of Daniels’ tenure as Budget Director, although surely that had nothing to do with Daniels animus..). The Governor was NOT within his rights to dictate what can and cannot be taught in public school or university classrooms, and certainly not within his rights to try to cut off funding for a respected academic program because the scholar in charge of that program had been critical of his education policies. He can criticize, he can generate a conversation with the appropriate people if he feels strongly enough that something does not belong in the classroom, but he is not the “decision-maker,” to appropriate a term favored by the President he last served.
There is a huge difference between a scholarly consensus that–for example–creationism isn’t science, or that the work of a particular historian is too error-ridden to merit inclusion in the classroom, and having an elected official, a government actor, dictate what scholars may teach. That’s why the merits of Zinn’s work are ultimately beside the point. The question is, as I said in my previous post, WHO DECIDES?
If academic freedom means anything, it means that scholars make these decisions free of government interference. I get to be horrified when a creationist is given a science classroom because there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that says creationism isn’t science. I get to sound the alarm when someone teaches that the Holocaust never occurred, because historians of every ideology overwhelmingly acknowledge that it did. If Daniels was entitled to dictate what constitutes acceptable history or “good” science, we would soon find ourselves in a world where Ted Cruz and Michelle Bachmann are making decisions that should be made by the scholars in those disciplines.
Michael Kammen disagreed with Daniels’ belief that Zinn “intentionally falsified” his work. While Kammen might not recommend the use of Zinn’s book in schools today, it is “only because it was written 35 years ago and there are now more balanced and judicious treatments of the US survey.” Kammen also rejected Daniels’ view about banning Zinn’s work from professional development classes for teachers: “I think that some teachers might need to know about its emphases because when Zinn wrote the US history textbooks omitted a great deal. Although it is not a great book, it remains a kind of historiographical landmark. Teachers should at least be aware of it.” And Kammen emphatically opposed the idea of politicians deciding what books should be used in schools rather than historians and teachers: “Absolutely not!”
As John K. Wilson wrote on the Academe blog of the AAUP,
Of course, these critics of Zinn don’t necessarily represent a historical consensus about his work. There are many historians and educators who praise Zinn’s book. But there’s a big difference between academic criticism of a historian’s work, and a desire to see politicians banning him from the classroom. There are plenty of thinkers whom I strongly condemn, such as David Horowitz, but I don’t want to see him banned from classrooms. In fact, I’ve taught his work in my own classes.
No one objects to the fact that Daniels criticized Zinn’s work. Daniels’ attack on Zinn is so purely political (“anti-American”), so dishonest (“purposely falsified”), and so stupid (“phrenology”) that it raises serious questions about Daniels’ ability to do or even understand academic work.
But what’s most objectionable about Daniels is his desire to censor to Zinn’s work. And contrary to what he believes, that effort to censor teaching Zinn’s book is not supported, not even by the historians Daniels cites to justify what he did.
By focusing their arguments on the merits or errors of Zinn’s work, Daniels’ defenders not only miss the point: they reinforce the perception that Daniels does not belong at a major university.
Well, I see that the Star has a story quoting one of Governor Pence’s political appointees; said employee is predicting a huge increase in health insurance premiums, caused, of course, by the hated “Obamacare.”
The prediction is interesting in light of recent news from elsewhere. On July 17, Reuters reported “Many New York state residents who buy health insurance next year will most likely see their premiums cut by half as President Barack Obama’s healthcare law creates subsidies that may increase the number of people in this market by the hundreds of thousands.”
News reports suggest that other states anticipate similar decreases. Evidently, officials in other states know something ours don’t.
Even if you are stuck in backward Indiana–even if you don’t live in New York, or one of the other states anticipating reduced premiums, you still may be one of the 8.5 million people who will get a check from their health insurance companies this summer. The checks are rebates required by the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) from companies that failed to spend at least 80% of premiums received on actual medical care. Insurance companies that fail to pay out 80% on claims are obliged to send the difference between what they did spend and 80% back to the policyholders.
Has there ever been such an outrageous assault on the American Way of Life?
But never fear, policyholders–the House GOP just took its 39th vote to repeal this affront to liberty, and to protect you from its horrors. In fact, protecting you from Obamacare is so important, they haven’t done anything else.
Joe Carr believes a day is fast approaching when pastors will be charged with hate crimes for preaching that homosexuality is a sin and churches will face lawsuits for refusing to host same-sex weddings.
“It’s just a matter of time,” said Carr, the pastor of Waynesville Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia. “What’s happening in Europe – we’re going to see happen here and we’re going to see it happen sooner rather than later I’m afraid.”
And that’s why the congregation will be voting next month to change their church bylaws – to officially ban the usage of their facilities for gay marriages.
“We needed to have a clear statement,” Carr told Fox News. “It’s to protect us from being forced to allow someone to use our facilities who does not believe what we believe the Bible teaches.”
In how many ways is this unbelievably stupid?
First–and most important–the U.S. Constitution has this provision called the First Amendment. The First Amendment includes something called the Free Exercise Clause–and that Clause absolutely prohibits government from telling churches what to preach or who to marry. Your church can preach hate, it can ban gays, blacks, unwed mothers or smart-ass bloggers–your church can refuse to conduct same-sex marriages, interfaith marriages, or marriages between ducks and drakes…whatever your doctrinal pleasure, no matter how unwelcoming or bizarre.
READ MY LIPS: the government can’t make you change your theology or your practices. You are safe from the assaults of the homosexual hordes.
Feel better?
On the other hand, if the government actually could impose its will on your church–if there was no Free Exercise Clause, and if (as you seem to believe) a Supreme Court decision mandating equality could be applied to churches and religious bodies–do you seriously think that changing your bylaws would protect you? Try to think (I know it’s hard). If your church changed its rules and declared its church van would no longer observe the speed limit, do you really think that would protect you from getting a ticket?
And by the way–if you own your church, you get to say who uses it. Even if your bylaws don’t spell that out.
