Liberty and Justice for All!

The Gambit is against teaching Creationism/ID in schools. Jindal supports it.

The Gambit supports keeping the helmet law. Jindal opposes it.

Now, the Gambit reprinted Jeremy Alford’s articlediscussing Jindal’s tight ship and how “Melissa Sellers has become Public Enemy no. 1 to many reporters at Louisiana news outlets”. She has already become famous for removing people from mailing lists and otherwise having a very tight ship, keeping the Governor in a press vacuum as much as possible unless she can control the setting. However, included in the Gambit was a piece by Clancy himself discussing the preview of Melissa Sellers and her tactics. The Press Secretary from Hell nearly threw a tantrum about not being allowed in the Gambit endorsement meeting. She could not just sit still. She apparently paced back and forth and even went as far as to put a glass against the wall to hear what was going on! The woman is obsessed!

So the Gambit staff knew Jindal’s positions on helmet laws and ID. The Gambit, who is usually rather liberal, knew his extremist stance on gay marriage and abortion. The Gambit knew the kind of people that Bobby Jindal surrounds himself with. Yet they endorsed him anyway?

This tells me one of two things.

A) They are really that stupid

B) They knew that Jindal was a bad choice for Louisiana but knew it would create four years of stories that they would be able to write about. They could write on how Jindal lied to them, how he hasn’t kept his end of the bargain, and how he turned out to be a wolf in sheep clothing. They would sell advertising in their newspapers and keep raking in the dough.

These are the only to reasons I can think of. Anyone have any other good possibilities? I’ll add them.

Ben Nevers, a Democrat, has proposed SB 561 , a bill that opens the door wide open for teaching creationism in the classroom and destroying the scientific process. Here are the words that will cause the problem.

I loved him in Ferris Beuller, I loved his game show, I even like his eye drop commercials. Perhaps it is the inner nerd in me, or perhaps it is the way that his dry delivery still comes off as very funny. However, Ben Stein’s new project had me really scratching my head. I knew he was a fiscal conservative but I have quickly learned that he is also quite the social conservative as well. Jews, especially those who are not Hassidim, tend to be more socially liberal. At least this has been my experience as a Jew, raised by Jews, and educated by Jews until 8th grade.

So it shocked me that Stein would do a movie about how people who promote the idea of intelligent design are being persecuted by all of us. He suggests that we are a country that supports the right of free speech in every other aspect of our lives, but not science. He sees something very wrong with that, to the point that he felt like he needed to make a movie. 

This is one of the problems that I have with creationists/ID’ers. You absolutely have the right to free speech. However, just as some people have the right to say what they want to say, others have the right to reject what people say as being false. The Constitution does not require other people to promote your speech as valid, correct, or an alternative… regardless of whether they agree with you or not. Futhermore, if Stein and others had their way, these people would be required to accept ID and creationism and wouldn’t that violate THEIR free speech rights if THEY are told what to say? So, the idea that the scientific community is somehow stifiling the first amendment right to free speech of those who support the idea of an intelligent designer is horribly flawed.

Another point is that intelligent design/creationism is not an actual scientific theory, so why on earth should scientists feel guilty for not accepting it as such? Everything I have read by someone promoting ID goes from a bunch of things that they feel could only be done by an intelligent designer and then just say “so see, because I say it has to be done by an intelligent designer, that means there must be an intelligent designer”. Kinda like the “loose change” idiots of the right wing.

My personal beliefs tell me that there is an intelligent designer. I believe in God and by looking at everything around me I cannot see how it cannot be done by an intelligent designer. However, my beliefs don’t belong in a scientific classroom because they are not science. Science does not care about who. Science and intelligent design can exist in harmony, as long as people realize what belongs in the science class and what belongs to matters of faith.

The end of the trailer was a cute play on his Ferris Bueller scene. That does not make up for the fact that this movie is probably very misguided and will probably reach many of the same false conclusions that those who wish to push creationism (in any form) on us will tend to come up with.

You can read more about the movie on the wikipedia page.