We Must Eat the Right to Save Civilization

For several years now there have been long loud complaints that our educational system is educating our children into imbecility. That left leaning professors offering an atheistic, post-modern, humanist, existential, deconstructionist historical perspective were turning out children who held degrees but failed to believe in, not God, but truth. Or at least the knowability of truth. Such graduates then went into the real world where they were compelled to make honest left-right. up-down, this-that decisions and being totally unprepared to do so they made a hash of it to say the least. It even went so far that a certain chief executive challenged what a questioner could mean by the word, "is".

This of course really is post-modernism run amok. The idea that truth is unknowable in any final sense and language is useless to help us discern it has never been more on display. And, happily, people had a visceral reaction to this shining example of intelligent inanity that sent them screaming over the edge as they asked, "Is this guy serious?"

The problem is that this reaction was short lived because while most people understood that the CEO had just uttered an absurdity, they could not say why. After all even the most ardent of nay-sayers to this statement would still comfortably say things like, "Well that's true for you..." when it was their opinion in dispute.

This is true even today, and if you don't believe it then I have a science experiment for you. The next time someone argues with you about something you say ask this simple question, "Well, do you think I am wrong?" and watch as they fumble all over themselves with the fact that yes they do think you are wrong but do not want to say so because they do not wish to offend you and they don't really know for sure if they have a leg to stand on if they do say so. Rather what they believe, at least intellectually if not actually, is that the truth which they propound has more truthiness than your truth and therefore should be believed. And if you doubt me on this, then wait and see if they something like, "Well... I did't say that..." or some gibberish of that sort, and then see what happens when you say, "The reason I ask is that I think you are wrong." By the way, I would recommend you be pretty thick skinned before trying this because your average post-modern soaked academician will at this point have a melt down which would make the 'China Syndrome' look like warmed over coffee.

The point is that we live today in an America which actually has been overthrown by post-modern thinkers who don't believe anything and expect us to believe that is right, but are not prepared to give us one single reason why. While at the same time peacefully at night they rest in the sleep of the strong certain that they have enough sycophantic jabber-jaws around them so that they may feel secure in the ocean of absurdity that the halls of higher thought have become.

Really.

That is why news media is now no longer concerned with telling both side of a story, or even the truth, but rather in shaping the news so that those who consume it will feel safe in their presumptions never once daring to hear someone who may disagree with them. Of course they may think they have because the person they listen to talks about people who disagree, but does so in a way as to shape what has been said and to lampoon dissenting opinion to protect the thoughtless sleeper from ever being roused from his lethargy of group think.

It is the same reason that news shows have become either celebrity scandal mongers or tsk tsk human interest shows which are aimed at pulling your heart strings while never telling you one damn thing.

The same reason that bookstores now divide the political aisles into left and right leaning authors so as not to have to put up with complaints from those disconcerted loud talkers who accidentally read a book jacket which broke a cobweb somewhere deep down inside.

Oddly enough the same is not true of the Christian section but the Christian Right knows nothing about Christianity and therefore this, while funny, is not terribly surprising.

And in the latest and greatest example of this herd sheltering phenomenon the Texas Board of Education has bowed out to public outrage and written Thomas Jefferson (ya know as in the) back into the history books even though he was not a Christian and believed in church state separation.

Really. I could not make this up.

Here's the thing. Down here in the land of illiterate rednecks we likes our edumication to teach that Reagan was the greatest pres-o-dint ever and ALL ABSOLUTELY ALL ALL ALL ALL ALL of our fore fathers were Christians. That this country was founded on Christian principles by Christian men who never sinned or told lies and those men gave us (wipe the tear from your eye here) the greatest country on God's Green Earth. And we hates us some ni... uh... je... uh... liberals, yeah that's it, liberals teaching our yung unns anything what says differ'nt. Thems all commies, fags, muzlums and democrats and we ain't tolleratiin their ilk round bout here.

See! If someone wrote it as fiction no one would believe it, but thanks to the thinkers in the world Thomas Jefferson is no longer fit for consumption by Texas school children.

Why?

Simple. You see since the founding fathers all have to be Christian, and since Christianity is a theist religion (theism is the belief that God not only creates but sovereignly rule over his creation nano-second by nano-second a belief most Christians no longer hold to btw) a document like umm.... I dunno.... The Declaration of Independence which says "When in the course of human events... and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the LAWS OF NATURE AND NATURE'S GOD ENTITLE THEM..." cannot possibly be a Christian document because it ascribes the source of Law as being nature and not God. This is Deism which is the belief that God is a cosmic watchmaker who wound it all up and let it run its course. Of course many so-called Christians believe this is just what happened, but to persist in this belief is to be outside the realm of orthodoxy, and in so doing be no more a Christian than Jefferson was. That coupled with the whole messy separation of church and state thing that Jefferson wrote about along with his belief that Religion would die as men's rationality progressed just pee all over the idea that he was a Christian.

So if you're Texas and you are more interested in the Myth of America than history and are more interested in thinking rightly than in right thinking (seig heil) then you need to do away with messy and inconvenient fact.

So old Tom had to go, but thanks to the outrageous level of stupidity that this decision clearly outlines dogma has given way to protest and Tom gets to stay.

But the simple fact that Texas could even think of doing this scares me something awful. As well as (insert interlocutor here) those who will say, "Well the Liberals do it!" Yes of course the only way to deal with people who you think are wrong is to sink to their level. The difference is no liberal would say that the Declaration is not a paramount achievement of human effort no matter if they disagree with John Witherspoon having signed it or not, and they would never think of disallowing Jefferson's inclusion in the history books because he.... say, owned slaves for example. The personal foibles of great men do not disallow their inclusion in the historical narrative for historical feats.

Here are some other conservative values the Right does not embrace.

1. The government does not have the right to legalize religion any more than it can make it illegal.

2. The government does not have the right to say that consenting adults cannot get married.

3. If your state wants to tax you, it is not the federal government's problem.

4. If your federal taxes are too high it is not your states problem.

5. A respect of law demands you not secede from the union but rather participate in it.

6. It is up to you and your local community to outlaw abortion and not for a judge to overturn Roe.

7. The army is not the solution to your problems.

8. Southern Asian people blowing each other up and spilling over wars which endanger the oil supply is tough luck for the consumers and not the problem of the government.

9. You must pay your taxes even if you don't want to.

10. Jesus wants you to pay your taxes.

11. Gun toting beauty queens do not make good presidents even if they are babes.

12. God is everybody's God and who goes to Heaven is up to Him.

13. It might not be you or your preacher.

14. Jesus really does want you to pay your taxes.

15. So does Paul.

16. So does Peter.

17. A theocracy is not a conservative form of government it is fascism.

18. If you want to live in a theocracy move to Iran.

19. Not everybody believes in Jesus.

20. The government cannot legislate that everyone believe in Jesus.

21. Stop losing your mind over a cross in California you have never even seen.

22. Since you don't bother to obey the Ten Commandments stop shrieking every time someone wants them removed from a court house.

23. If you want religion taught in school send your kids to a Catholic academy.

24. Or a Muslim school.

25. If you are going to defend the Bible, read it.

AND FINALLY

Thomas Jefferson is one of the greatest Americans who ever lived and he was not a Christian...

Neither was Franklin...

So get over it.

Just thinking.