Greetings From Idiot America

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0207GREETINGS

Greetings From Idiot America

Creationism. Intelligent Design. Faith-based this. Trust-your-gut that. There's never been a better time to espouse, profit from, and believe in utter, unadulterated crap. And the crap is rising so high, it's getting dangerous.

By Charles P. Pierce

[fargon]

Oh Please think of it as another point of view, are we supposed to honor other points of view. No wait this one is not PC.

Did you read the whole article?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by fargon

Oh Please think of it as another point of view, are we supposed to honor other points of view.

Not indiscriminately. The point of view in which knowledge, expertise, education, and intellectualism are viewed as a danger should not be honored. The point of view in which "the gut" trumps evidence should not be honored.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I see this wasn't the issue with Edwards on the cover. Anyway, we have more important things than dinosaurs and stem cells to think about, like the NFL, American Idol and floating interest mortgages

I love this from it:

The rise of Idiot America is essentially a war on expertise. It's not so much antimodernism or the distrust of intellectual elites that Richard Hofstadter deftly teased out of the national DNA forty years ago. Both of those things are part of it. However, the rise of Idiot America today represents--for profit mainly, but also, and more cynically, for political advantage and in the pursuit of power--the breakdown of a consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good. It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people whom we should trust the least are the people who best know what they're talking about. In the new media age, everybody is a historian, or a preacher, or a scientist, or a sage. And if everyone is an expert, then nobody is, and the worst thing you can be in a society where everybody is an expert is, well, an actual expert.

Another point brought up elsewhere, that is not a creationist museum, it is a Christian museum.
If it were a creationist museum it would show creation stories from many cultures and backgrounds, not just one.

[Cicero]

That's backwards fargon. The scenario here is that it's the newest in PC. Some of us "old-school" thinkers prefer the old "lame" methods of reproducible results.

[Kitsune]

Americans of a certain age grew up with science the way an earlier generation grew up with baseball and even earlier ones grew up with politics and religion.

I'm hoping that, in the future, we'll look back on history and see a clear reason why the US began taking steps backwards and revolted against sound methodologies in an attempt to push complex problems to the side as the rest of the modern world continued to make progress. Maybe we'll identify some reason for culture backlash, some generational gap, some error in education.

Dare I take the political route and blame this on 9/11?

[manephelien]

It's funny really how Americans keep yakking about freedom of speech and freedom of thought, when some at least would like to put people in jail for not being Christian (Jewish is okay, other religions less so), militaristic and unquestioning in their support of a certain view of the "American Way". Proper education which teaches critical thought is the ultimate antidote to that sort of world-view, and that's why they're attempting to subvert education to their own ends. Seen from Europe it's scary. Nehemiah Scudder can't be far away.

That was one of the funniest posts I've seen in a while, thanks!

Originally Posted by Kitsune

I'm hoping that, in the future, we'll look back on history and see a clear reason why the US began taking steps backwards and revolted against sound methodologies in an attempt to push complex problems to the side as the rest of the modern world continued to make progress. Maybe we'll identify some reason for culture backlash, some generational gap, some error in education.

Dare I take the political route and blame this on 9/11?

Regan and the moral majority coinciding with the death of journalism.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by manephelien

It's funny really how Americans keep yakking about freedom of speech and freedom of thought, when some at least would like to put people in jail for not being Christian (Jewish is okay, other religions less so), militaristic and unquestioning in their support of a certain view of the "American Way".

Who's being jailed?

[manephelien]

None yet, but it can't be far behind. Not when people are barred from peaceful protests when there's a chance the prez might see it.

[yesman065]

Originally Posted by manephelien

It's funny really how Americans keep yakking about freedom of speech and freedom of thought, when some at least would like to put people in jail for not being Christian (Jewish is okay, other religions less so), militaristic and unquestioning in their support of a certain view of the "American Way". Proper education which teaches critical thought is the ultimate antidote to that sort of world-view, and that's why they're attempting to subvert education to their own ends. Seen from Europe it's scary. Nehemiah Scudder can't be far away.

Originally Posted by manephelien

None yet, but it can't be far behind. Not when people are barred from peaceful protests when there's a chance the prez might see it.

I must be coming on board late here - What the heck are you talking about?

[Clodfobble]

He's telling us the sky is falling, yesman!! RUN!!

Furthermore, he's pointed out that not every single American is in agreement with every single other American! (Unlike Europe, of course, where everyone always concurs and the BNP is representative of the population as a whole.) I, for one, am really relieved to have this insight. Now I know who I have to put in jail first.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by yesman065

I must be coming on board late here - What the heck are you talking about?

Here. Happily the backup system, the courts, worked in this case, but it's been happening everywhere for years. Maybe more protesters will be able to get $80,000 after this precedent.