Monday, October 10, 2005

 

Of Peasants and Pitchforks

Jacob Sullum, a nationally syndicated columnist writing a commentary in the right-wing Washington Times, notes the courtroom controversies over the Dover intelligent design case and the Pledge of Allegiance. He writes:
"Both cases are ostensibly about separation of church and state. But they also highlight the need to separate school and state."
This dangerous sentiment is increasingly being articulated by religious, right-wing opponents of public education. We see it in the appointment of an anti-tax activist with no education experience or training as Kansas Education Commissioner.

It is also apparent in places like Dover where school boards choose to spend increasingly hard to find tax dollars defending lost causes in court rather than investing in the task of educating the school children placed in their care.

Creationists and intelligent design activists think the world went wrong as far back as the 18th century. It was during the Enlightenment, after all, that some very bad people first proposed the utterly absurd notion that human reason might be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny to build a better world.

An educated public is key to that enterprise. That is why Obscurantism has become the real religion of the creationist and intelligent design crowd.

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