A Study in Anti-Evolution Shamelessness

Is it just me... or does anyone else think that if you take the original piece and exchange all of the references to ID with the references to evolution/Darwinism - effectively reversing the author's intent - you actually end up with a nearly-reasonable summary of the issue?

Whenever I see a conservative trashing Darwin, I always think of Darwin's debt to Adam Smith.

Let us not associate the memory of the wise and humane Adam Smith with the Red State boys. Smith belonged to the Scottish Enlightenment, the American right is a key part of the American Enmerdement.

Read the comments on the RedState article if you want to be truly depressed. Or amused, depending upon your outlook.

I absolutely agree with natural cynic. This shows how far the Republican party has strayed from it's traditional roots where lessez faire economics was the underlying economic principal and William Jennings Bryant was a Democrat. Here's the connection: When each independant small businessman/organism is permitted to struggle for his own economic/reproductive advantage unfetterd by controls from above (intrusive government/God), as an unintended cosequence of this action the most ordered economy/ecology with the most benefit for all will be produced. That our "education president" is willing to trash science education for votes is a sin.

I'd like to propose - seriously - a project. It strikes me that many if not most of the pseudo-intellectual arguments from the creos and cryptocreos hinge on some weird and arbitrary, often unstated, definition of "Darwinism", "neo-Darwinism", etc. Can we collect all the definitions that have been articulated, so that when one of the DI spinmeisters uses the term we can ask them to identify which of these definitions they're assuming, or are they introducing yet another one?

(Perhaps there already is such a repository. Does anyone know?)

I suspect the Charles Darwin would be horrified to see his name used to label any idea. Evolutionary theory is so complex and has expanded far beyond what he originally discussed, although his ideas form the basis for the paradigm used today. The term "Darwinism" makes this all sound like a "belief" system (like Buddism) or a "political" system (like Communism). We don't talk about "Daltonism" or "Salkism" or "Einsteinism" or "Pasteurism". The term doesn't seem to be used by scientists at all, but by ID and creation proponents that would like to convince the general public that evolutionary theory is a philosophy or opinion. If our citizens are inadequately educated in science, they won't recognize what science is (and isn't).

Perhaps we should talk about Pasteurism, Salkism, and Einsteinism, especially when ID advocates argue that we should reject them.

We do speak of Pasteurization in food processing, to protect us from disease. Perhaps we should also refer to other beneficial processes by naming them similarly: The treatment of diabetes would be called "Darwinization," as would the breeding of new crops . . .

The term doesn't seem to be used by scientists at all, but by ID and creation proponents that would like to convince the general public that evolutionary theory is a philosophy or opinion.

Enmerdement...I like that.

I'm not inclined to wade into the comments over at Red State, but if anyone else wants to, direct them to this 8/30 piece by National Review's John Derbyshire. Derbyshire -- whose right-wing credentials are impeccable -- treats ID with all the respect and admiration one would expect from Richard Dawkins: http://nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire200508300823.asp

They'd probably say he's not a christian and can't be trusted. Besides, how could he be expected to understand ID? He has neither a degree in Law, nor one in Engineering.

All the intelligent design nonsense will ultimately hurt the conservative cause [which I believe in], I'm afraid. But John Derbyshire is a hopeful light on the right. He has said that Darwinian natural selection is an elegant theory with great explanatory power and intelligent design is religious dogma masquerading as science. National Review has recently backed away from intelligent design a little bit in their August 29 issue. All the letters to the editor in the current issue take the editors to task for not backing off intelligent design even more. Bush's boneheaded statement about intelligent design being a competing theory that should be taught in public schools is very disappointing. I wish he would spend a little of that energy getting the tax cuts made permanent, and maybe even increasing them.

Anti-Evolution Shamelessness?

http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/302

chock-a-block full of science.

I don not understand how Bill can stand to be in the same room with himself. Have you no shame sir?

http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archive... chock-a-block full of science.

Comment #46401 Posted by Ken Willis on September 3, 2005 03:41 PM (e) (s) All the intelligent design nonsense will ultimately hurt the conservative cause [which I believe in], I'm afraid.

Comment #46413 Posted by Red Mann on September 3, 2005 08:01 PM (e) (s) I don not understand how Bill can stand to be in the same room with himself. Have you no shame sir?

All of the ID witnesses were being paid $100/hour for time spent in preparation and testimony, except Dembski, who was being paid $200/hour.

I can't go your way, steve, because I've already been there. I was a liberal for many years, until it got too far left for me. Now the left wingers have total control of it, at it seems so to me. I think conservatism of the Russell Kirk brand it closer to being true, correct and beautiful than anything on the left. The left gave us too much totalitarism and genocide in the 20th Century. But unfortunately the right is infected with a disease called intelligent design that threatens to destroy it by alienating people like you. I agree with the main thrust of Panda's Thumb, but in defense of the right's reaction to evolution, too many scientists go too far with their hostility and mockery of religion and religious believers. Of course, some religious believers bring it on themselves by attacking science with a revamped creationism which the call intelligent design.

Well, I never said Left, partly because Left evokes things like Che Guevara, which have nothing in common with your Harry Reid / Hillary Clinton / John kerry liberlism. The terms are all confused now, and saying merely conservative or liberal is insufficient, I admit. But I submit to you that the right puts out a lot of misinformation about the left.

I find most of the people on my side of the fence are Kevin Drum / Paul Wellstone / Howard Dean / Pat Moynihan types, while the impression I had from listening to the right, was that liberals were Castro / Ward Churchill / genocidal-terrorist types. There are too many people who call themselves liberals who have essentially dumb, top-down, bureaucratic, socialistic beliefs, that's true, and a big problem, but many or most of us aren't, and just don't have any relationship at all with the homicidal totalitarian movements you're worried about. In fact, part of Gore's, and Kerry's problems stemmed from the fact that they really didn't want to change much. No big movement behind which to rally people. Their platforms were lists of minor tweaks to the system. Communist Revolution it wasn't.

On the other side, the extreme people on the right really do present a danger that they'll do something like close the EPA, permit local establishment of christianity, or some such. While the right may have talked about limited government, when they get in office, they expand the cost and power of government. If you want to head toward those scary totalitarian situations you mentioned, pass some more Patriot Acts. Give the executive branch unlimited power during an indefinite war.

None of the people labelling themselves as "conservative" on this thread, or site, can be excused for any support given to the current false-Christian, faux-Conservatives that they have allowed to seize power. Through their my-interests-first, intolerance-of-difference casual greed and casual fear the current wars are in full swing. It's YOU who have allowed an inflated central government to abuse our basic freedoms and interfere with the "pursuit of happiness."
Until decent, basically honest and tolerant Consercatives have the gumption to help clean out the nest of the Xian/radical right their positions are unneeded hot air.

Let's discuss and argue about issues and policies, where the labels disappear and the problems are resolvable. When we are passionate only over the philosophy that should be standard, and the median of "truth" in the classroom, our nation will be as perfect as it may be.

All of this is seriously off topic, nevertheless:

What the right objects to in this country is the New Deal and its heirs. With very few exceptions, there simply aren't any significant Marxists lefties around to denounce, unless you count the many Neocons who used to be Trotskyites and still sound like commissars as they try to enforce their party line with hectoring rhetoric.

A reasonable taxonomy of political positions begins by noticing that even the left wing of the Democratic party is made up of social democrats similar in outlook to the SPD in Germany or the socialists in France, i.e. decidely unrevolutionary people who support a capitalist economy moderated by government action. I'm sure you can find somebody, someplace who wants to nationalize the toilet paper factories; but I haven't met any for thirty years. Meanwhile, the Republicans are busy demonstrating that crony capitalism can wreck an economy just as surely as soviet central planning.

Trying to claim that democratic politicians have some affinity with Pol Pot or Stalin is a blood libel calculated to appeal to libertarians, movement conservatives, and other useful idiots, who, apparently, were born yesterday. No wonder ID appeals to so many of them.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are busy demonstrating that crony capitalism can wreck an economy just as surely as soviet central planning.

Oh please. This is why I despair of a strong alliance with leftists and non-theocratic rightists. No capitalists have killed a few hundred million as Marxists have -- that is a mere statistic, do you grok the human reality? I'd rather have my fate, my life or death fate, be before an ID moron than an amoral Marxist intellectual.

Left-wing scientists have gotten on board with insane Marxism, e.g. Ted Hall or J. Robert Oppenheimer. Redneck illiterates are a danger, but so are the sophisticated, smart cogniscenti who subscribe to totalitrarian crap.

Not to mention that those on the American "left," like Al Gore the former Baptist-minister-wannabe, and John Kerry, the Skull-and-Bones Yalie, actually fought against communists. Had anyone cared or dared to listen, Kerry was decorated for personally killing communists.

And just to confuse things even more, as my friend Pete Seeger occasionally points out, it was the American communists who warned us against Naziism first, and stood against totalitarianism when "conservative intellectuals" urged we not rush to defend England.

Careful American patriots look at the issues and the facts, and weigh the alternatives. We plot our own courses for the future, unfettered by "-isms."

So, yeah, most of those scientists -- must be at least a dozen, or maybe even fifteen -- who are publicly and forcefully opposed to religion, find some comfort standing with others who think things out. Those of us who care about faith and recognize that freedom of worship depends on such careful and thoughtful analysis coupled with action, are proud to stand with them.

Evidently Dembski knows no rabbis, no rabbis' sons, no scientists, and no scientists' sons. If one gets one's ethics from bumper stickers instead of thinking things through to figure out what is the best course of action, one will eventually come to rest as an advocate of "intelligent design."

And no doubt, one will come to rest when action is what is required.

Ed Darrell claims: And just to confuse things even more, as my friend Pete Seeger occasionally points out, it was the American communists who warned us against Naziism first, and stood against totalitarianism when "conservative intellectuals" urged we not rush to defend England.

Oh, come now. You do not appear to understand how vicious the American Communist party was. American Communists were pro-Stalin, one of the most brutal dictators in history. Among other things, its members, such as Manhattan Project physicist Ted Hall, spied for Stalin against the U.S. , with the result that Stalin got the bomb years before he otherwise would have. FDR's Administration was infested with Communists or fellow-travelers spying for Joseph Stalin.

And your hero Pete Seeger?

Sen. Burton K. Wheeler of Montana was the running-mate of Robert LaFollette
as **Progressive** candidate for president in 1924, and was a notorious isolationist in 1939-41. Wheeler gave a speech in Congress on January 12, 1941, in which he said:

"The lend-lease-give program is the New Deal's triple-A foreign policy; it will plow under every fourth American boy."

Roosevelt was furious, but not Pete Seeger. Because Seeger was a member of the Stalin-controlled Communist Party USA, and Stalin had entered a non-aggression pact with Hitler in '39; so like "progresive" Wheeler, Seeger was against helping England defeat Hitler.

Indeed, Wheeler's theme was adopted by the Almanac Singers, the "anti-war" folk group
led by Pete Seeger, in the song "Plow Under."

The first verse ran as follows:

"Remember when the AAA
Killed a million hogs a day
Instead of hogs it's men today
Plow the fourth one under."
CHORUS:
"Plow under, plow under
Plow under
Every fourth American boy."

As a dutiful Stalinist, Seeger abruptly stopped being anti-war the day Hitler invaded the USSR in '41; plowing under every fourth American boys was then mandatory, because the Soviet Motherland had been attacked.

The conceits of leftists intellectuals and artists have caused at least as much harm to this nation as any possible threat from the IDists (and i ardently oppose the latter). You really need to get a clue about the monstrous beliefs and behavior of the CPUSA, including members like Pete Seeger, and traitors like Ted Hall.

A anti-evo interlocutor responded to my links on Jonathan Wells incorrect views on homology with the following post. I'm not a biologist so I would appreciate a good response:

"If naturalistic evolution were true one would expect to see conservation of early development in the embyro of different forms of life. That is, very early in the developmental process, we would expect similar animals (vertebrates for example) to develop along similar morphologies ( or forms) then diverge or split into markedly different morphologies as the process continues .

However, just the opposite is observed. The earliest stages of the embryo (from egg to blastula to gastrula) are strikingly different in form and then converge to form a more similar embryo. So it is not just that the Ontology Recapitulates Phylogeny argument is false; it is that the embryos start out radically different and then get closer in form and resemblence. The biology textbooks usually just present the later similarities, cutting off the first half of the diagram. The result is that we are painted a picture of complement morphologies. However, with the early stages being vastly different, this lends little evidence for a common multicellular ancestor via Darwinian mechanisms.

So that is a negative or counter argument against naturalistic evolution from embryology. But the story does not end there- we have positive evidence that there is intelligent design behind the formation of embryos. One example of this positive evidence is found in the embryogenesis of Drosophila Melangaster (fruit fly).

Disruptions in early development are more likely to be harmful than those occurring later. In other words, later developments depend on earlier ones, so the earlier mistakes occur, the more severe they are likely to be. Mutations that arise in early formation of the embryo are extremely disruptive to the further development of the embryo. Embryologists experimenting in this area have demonstrated that disruptions at early levels do one of two things: development ceases and the organism dies or development recovers and proceeds along the same path via a redundant pathway.

I need to stress the importance of some of these developmental genes. A gene that controls development may be necessary for the viability of the organism. In other words, developmental genes exist such that if they are not present, the organism dies. Paul Nelson gives the bicoid gene as an example: After a fruit fly embryo is fertilized, the bicoid messenger RNA, located at the anterior or head pole of the embyo, is translated into protein. The protein then migrates to the posterior pole setting up a gradient (high concentration to low concentration) half way down the body. As the the protein diffuses down the embryo, it acts as a body plan morphogen- it directs the development of head and thorax of the fly. If the bicoid gene is not present the fly dies; the embyo develops with posterior structures at both ends. This gene is logically prior to the organism's existence.

An interesting question follows: How did the bicoid gene come about? Macroevolution holds that new gene sequences arise out of the old one being subjected to selective pressures. But what was bicoid's intial selective role when it first evolved? The gene must exist before the organism can exist. If we arose from a common multicellular ancestor, there must have been tremendous disruptions in the early development of the new animal which we understand to be lethal. When we take a good look at the embryological differences in the egg, blastula, and gastrula stages of the groups of organisms we wish to compare, they are very different in the early stages. One developmental biologist Davidson rightly calls this "intellectually disturbing".

Therefore, we see powerful evidence for intelligent design operating in nature. We have genes that cannot be selected upon because if the genes did not exist, the organism could not exist and some of these necessary genes do not exist in the organism from which they supposedly evolved."

Not to mention that those on the American "left,"

"If naturalistic evolution were true one would expect to see conservation of early development in the embyro of different forms of life.

Therefore, we see powerful evidence for intelligent design operating in nature.

Why oh why do we continue to let the nutters set the terms of the "debate"?

You really need to get a clue about the monstrous beliefs and behavior of the CPUSA, including members like Pete Seeger, and traitors like Ted Hall.

We don't initiate the debate.

Msz:

The Panda's Thumb search engine gives 22 entries when asked to look for "bicoid" - the most recent is:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/08/bicoid_evolutio.html

"It's TIME we began to initate the "debate". They say they have a "scientific alternative to evolution". Fine. Then let's force them to shut their Bibles, shut their mouths, and just SHOW US THEIR SCIENCE."

I think the same way. Every day, I read this blog and see people say as much. So say it!

I am fed up with how threatening and hostile we are to the ID crowd. Are they totally wrong about everything they say? Yes. Do they deserve what can only be described as a form of bullying? No.

This is how I tried to "set the terms." He might reply. He might not. Forcing him to reply to hostility won't get us anywhere.

If I started a political discussion that was off the point here I apologize, but I really enjoyed all those posts about the right and the left. I'd have to say that I probably agree with everything Mona has ever thought or said. As for the rest of you all who weighed in and who appear to be on the liberal or left or whatever side of the spectrum, while I can't support your vision of how the world works I am completely on your side regarding the main purpose of Panda's Thumb. I always do what I can to convince my conservative friends who drink the kool aid mixed up by Demski, Behe, Johnson and Wells that the stuff is poisonous. BTW, on the political subject I have found a couple of great books that go to the heart of much of what you all were talking about. They are The Passing of an Illusion by Francois Furet and Double Lives by Stephen Koch. Both authors are anti-communist and both seek to demonstrate how intellectuals were seduced by communism, but other than that I could not tell whether they are on the right or the left. These are not political screeds, just darn good accounts of 20th Century intellectual history.

"Homunculus" thinks that he's been subject to "bile and vitriol?"

Good heavens! He should try standing up in a Texas small town school district and saying that he's concerned that his kid doesn't understand evolution because the schools don't emphasize it. Then he'll learn what bile and vitriol are really all about, ten times over -- and he may have to move.

In contrast, our questions about the science behind intelligent design are milktoast.

I am fed up with how threatening and hostile we are to the ID crowd.

Here we are, with a reconsituted Supreme Court about to overturn the rule of constitutional law and destroy whatever democracy we have left in this country, and we are re-fighting sixty-year old debates about the Red Menace.

Surreal.

Here we are, with a reconsituted Supreme Court about to overturn the rule of constitutional law and destroy whatever democracy we have left in this country, and we are re-fighting sixty-year old debates about the Red Menace. Surreal.

— 'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank

[sigh]

Dude, do you realize what a huge waste of time and effort it is to re-fight 60-year old battles?

Who the heck are you fighting -- IDers, or "liberals"?

One of the biggest weaknesses in the anti-ID movement is its utter inability to tell who are its friends and who ain't, and it's happy willingness to shoot those who are, rather than those who ain't.

Dude, the Cold War ended a long time ago. Do try and keep up.

The CP was a tiny lunatic fringe that never had anything approaching a realistic chance of ever gaining power. Mostly, it's sole purpose was to serve as a focus for anti-"liberal" right-wing crusades.

I'm not a dude. Further, Pete Seeger, Ted Hall, J. Robert Oppenheimer, The New Republic's literary editor Malcolm Cowley...the intellectual class in the '30s and '40s was replete with those who had developed a love affair with Joseph Stalin, and many joined the CPUSA. The best and brightest do not constitute a "lunatic fringe." A fringe does not manage to deliver the atomic bomb to a murderous tyrant like Joseph Stalin. Communist American physicists -- genius grads of the best universities -- did that.

Further, many, many *liberals* were deeply alarmed by CPUSA subversion and control of the labor unions, and the attempt to take over the Democratic Party. Arthur Schlesinger, labor leader Walter Reuther, Sidney Hook and John Dewey, and later Steve Allen -- scores of liberals were deeply anti-CPUSA, and for good reason; the CPUSA sought to impose Stalin's agenda on every institution in which it involved itself. These anti-Communist *liberals* formed Americans for Democratic Action in the late '40s to save the Democratic Party, and it was a battle, but they succeeded. (It was a battle because a lot of the "best people" were mebers of the CPUSA, say, Lillian Hellman, or fellow-travellers, say, I.F. Stone.)

I would suggest that it is you who needs to "keep up." Among the books you might turn to are John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr's The Secret World of American Communism. (Klehr and Haynes are remowned historians who were granted access to the archives of the former Soviet Union.) Far-left intellectuals have committed some dangerous follies, and it would behoove us to learn some historical lessons in that regard.

In any event -- and whether or not the Cold War is over -- I was moved to post as I did by praise for Pete Seeger and the CPUSA's supposed moral superiority on the matter of fascism. That is a crock, and praising people who pledged themselves to a murderous totalitarian monster like Stalin is, frankly, obscene.

That is a crock, and praising people who pledged themselves to a murderous totalitarian monster like Stalin is, frankly, obscene.

That is a crock, and praising people who pledged themselves to a murderous totalitarian monster like Stalin is, frankly, obscene.

I think she was correcting a historical view rather than attacking anyone's 'ideologically purity' in beating off antiscience. Off topic, sure, but so was much of the posting in this thread.

-Schmitt.

But, Mona, Seeger and the others saw their error and changed their ways. In the meantime, while they were "communists," they wrote large contributions to our patriotic music, contributing to our American freedom mythology -- with songs like "If I Had a Hammer," "Turn, Turn, Turn" (quoting Ecclesiastes), "This Land is Your Land," "Roll, Columbia," "(Did you have a friend on) The Good Reuben James," and others -- while enlisting or reporting for duty after being drafted.

My point was, simply, one has to pay attention to the issues and not flail madly away at the issues your "enemy" endorses.

Not to mention, because every one already knows, that Stalin was anti-Darwin every bit as much as the Discovery Institute.

Do you know who are your fellow travelers, Mona?

That is a crock, and praising people who pledged themselves to a murderous totalitarian monster like Stalin is, frankly, obscene.

Such blind rage rather glosses over the fact that both Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill "pledged themselves to a totalitarian monster like Stalin," in order to win the war.

I am not enraged, and Churchill and FDR did not pledge themselves to Stalin. They entered into an alliance of convenience while being fully aware that they were dealing with the devil, to defeat a more immediate devil.

By contrast, SCORES of Western intellectuals literally prefered Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union to their own democracies, and went underground to spy for Stalin against their own countries -- Churchill and FDR intended to keep the Manhattan Project data from their ally Stalin; it was idiot left-wing scientists who handed it to him anyway. These hoped for Stalin's victory over their own countries -- whether that hope was unlikley to be realized is not the point. That so many "smart people" worked for Stalin, that they gave Stalin the horrid atomic bomb well before he otherwise would have had it, because of a popular ideological infection in the intellectual class, is the point.

Well-educated, leftist Westerners sold their souls to a brutal tyrant, and those who did not betray their own countries via espionage, avoided it only by the grace of not having been asked. To be a CPUSA member was to be willing to do anything for Stalin. There is no known instance of a Communist Party member refusing to spy for the USSR, except when the risk of being caught was assessed as too high, usually in consultation w/ the KGB -- no moral compunctions are in the historical record.

CPUSA members were morally bankrupt; they denied the truth that the Purges occured, or the genocidal famines. How you could hold up a toady of Stalin, like Seeger, as a hero is truly beyond me. When it was Moscow's policy to oppose fighting Hitler, Seeger, like *ALL* CPUSA members opposed fighting Hitler, and went into agit-prop mode about "imperialist wars" and the like. (Those who would not go along did not remain in the CPUSA.)

Then, when the USSR was attacked by Hitler, Stalinists like elite screenwriter Dalton Trumbo began contacting the FBI to report all who requested copies of the anti-war book he had written during the Hitler-Stalin Pact -- a book that was meant to defeat FDR's desire to come to England's aid. That is, the good Stalinist Trumbo "named names" when it served Stalin's interests. Not before, and not after.

I feel that defending CPUSA members is little different than wanting to give a fair hearing and nod of approval to Nazis. So, I am not enraged, but am as aroused to indignation as I am when facing Holocaust deniers. People who were on board with murderous tyrants are not role models, they are not heroes, period.

Do you know who are your fellow travelers, Mona?

Well, yes. Anyone who refuses to betray a democracy that operates under the rule of individual liberty and law.

But you said this: Seeger and the others saw their error and changed their ways

When did they (and who are "others") identify an error, what did they identify it as, and how did they change their ways? That is not a rhetocial inquiry; I do not know that these things have happened.

And yeah, some nice folk music passed into the culture thanks to some Stalinists. Hitler gave us the Volkswagon, and he hated and legislated against smoking.

ID types operate with the factually incorrect notion that there is a scientific debate about evolution. Right wingers also operate with a factually incorrect idea. They seem to think that contemporary liberals have some similarity to 1930 fellow travellers. I'm old enough to have known a lot of left over communists--I once spent an entire night arguing with the chairman of the communist party of Massachussetts--and I can report to one and all that the old line Marxist Leninists hated liberal democrats in 1968 with a white hot passion for many of the same reasons that conservatives hate them in 2005. Of course quite a few of the conservatives who endlessly denounce liberals are literally the same people who as denounced 'em when they were lefties. David Horowitz isn't the only idiot radical who made a second career as an idiot reactionary.

(sigh)

Children, can y'all take it outside on the playground? Some of us would like to fight IDers here.

Rev. Dr. Lenny Falnk writes: How about you? Who the heck are we fighting, anyway --- the IDers, or the "marxist commie liberals"?

Dudes (or dudettes), we need to learn to recognize who are our friends, who ain't ---- and then shoot the ones who ain't, not the ones who are.

Believe me, I fight the sci-cres and their incarnation as IDists. The burr under my saddle got stuck when seeing a diversion to attacking ALL on the right, and then praise for Pete Seeger.

I don't even think of myself as "right," but have affinity with some so described. But someone who thinks Pete Seeger is cool likely would see me that as a total reactionary.

Anyway, this thread has been SOOOO hijacked. I'm sorry for my contribution to that. I won't post any more OT stuff in this thread.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are busy demonstrating that crony capitalism can wreck an economy just as surely as soviet central planning.

To which Mona responds:

"Oh please. This is why I despair of a strong alliance with leftists and non-theocratic rightists. No capitalists have killed a few hundred million as Marxists have --- that is a mere statistic, do you grok the human reality? I'd rather have my fate, my life or death fate, be before an ID moron than an amoral Marxist intellectual."

LOL. Was there an argument in there somewhere? I guess you don't dispute that fact this adminstration has no clue on how to govern.

You despair? Oh dear Scarlet, don't we all?

"Left-wing scientists have gotten on board with insane Marxism, e.g. Ted Hall or J. Robert Oppenheimer. Redneck illiterates are a danger, but so are the sophisticated, smart cognsigentiwho subscribe to totalitrarian crap."

And capitalists like Ford, Prescott Bush got into bed with Hitler.

Oppenheimer was a communist, and Orwell was a socialist. I can't find anything they wrote which suggest they were supportive of Stalin or mass murder in the name of communism or anything else.

Perhaps you can enlighten me.

Oppenheimer was a communist, and Orwell was a socialist. I can't find anything they wrote which suggest they were supportive of Stalin or mass murder in the name of communism or anything else.

Perhaps you can enlighten me.

I just posted that I would not further contribute to thread derailment. But I have so much to say in answer to the above. Only, however, if told it is ok by Lenny or some other PT author.

Only, however, if told it is ok by Lenny or some other PT author.

You could maybe start a thread on the politics in The Bathroom Wall. I, for one, being a history buff, would like to see how the discussion evolves.

Lenny,

When dawinfinch assaulted Christians by calling them "Xians", I don't see a specific post by you correcting him, and telling him to only fight IDers, and not to spew his vile bigotry here. Was your pleas to stop fighting among ourselves also aimed at the vile, disgusting bigot, darwinfinch? Just wondering...

Lenny, When dawinfinch assaulted Christians by calling them "Xians", I don't see a specific post by you correcting him, and telling him to only fight IDers, and not to spew his vile bigotry here. Was your pleas to stop fighting among ourselves also aimed at the vile, disgusting bigot, darwinfinch? Just wondering...

Oh, Dear Oscar! Boris slurs my name without even spelling it right!

I'd think, given the topic, this might be some sort of satire, but that certainly isn't borne out by the rest of his rantings.
Boris, why not AT LEAST address me directly? Perhaps you have and I've missed it. Have I? Or am I simply a convenient stick to use against Lenny?

To correct the character assasination in #46779 (which I quite accidentally stumbled upon, since Boris didn't even have the gumption to upbraid me, much less simply inquire, about my abbreviation) I don't consider fundamentalists at all deserving of the title of "Christian," any more than I would grant Senetor McCarthy as having deserved the self-described label as an "American Patriot." I therefore have used the shorthand to distinguish the politicized fanatics from those who actually, in their way, attempt to study and follow Christ's teachings, which I consider admirable indeed, instead of abusing it for their purposes, which I do consider pretty "vile."
Actually, I originally switched to "Xian" because I tired of typing "Christian" with quotations (bigotry as well, in your dictionary of self-righteousness, probably). As "bigotry" goes, isn't this is a pretty limited "assault"? Or is that just to big a chip for your sensitive shoulder to bear, Boris?

I live in harmony and love with friends who are standard, active Catholics, relatives that are born-again, and a mother-in-law who is a JW, since none of these people engages in the sort of ugliness and dishonesty I see whenever, WHENEVER, Christian Fundmentalism raises its public heads.
If I'm a bigot, the world would be far better served by my sort of bigotry, which can be corrected in person merely by request, than by your truly over-the-top bullshit.

I will engage you no further without the introduction of a third party, even in my own defense, but I may say I do not respect you personally, at all.

(..didn't even spell my name right! Talk about lack of courtesy!)

Speaking of "vile, disgusting bigotry", though, perhaps you'd be so kind as to explain to us why IDEA allows only Christians (fundamentalist ones, I'd wager) as officers in its little club? Why aren't, say, Jews allowed as officers. Or Muslims. Or Hindus. Is there some legitimate scientific reason for that (ID is, after all, just science, right?) or is this just plain old-fashioned religious bigotry we are seeing? Here's your chance to show us your deep-rooted opposition to vile bigotry ... . . Or not.

Humungulous has a new essay posted at Redstate.org: Foundations Matter: Intelligent Design's first problem with Darwinism

It was my impression that the X was originally used by the groups themselves and not necessarily an insult, assault, slur, sign-of-bigotry etc. So I thought I'd check google as the quickest (if not completely reliable) resource. It seems that annoyingly advert-ridden Snopes site, among others, agrees with me (and with the book of Kells and other such ancient texts I've seen).

These are people who wish to wield ultimate power, yet receive applause as martyrs. It's enough to take someone's god's name in vain: their vanity and pride!
In the old days, when I was silly enough to spend time arguing with fundies on other forums (and never was I even once moderately impressed with ANY of their "qualities" as people) I began using the expression as a shorthand. Christians usually didn't blink an eye, since they could see that I could disagree, very strongly, but still considered them as people, equal to myself.
Again, if someone honestly engages me and finds the expression upsetting, I avoid using it, nor do I use it to mischaracterize Christianity, but to distinguish (with a barb) one portion of it as de-de-despicable.

Ah! Tricked back into mud-wrestling with people I wouldn't have coffee with a second time! Curse you, Boris, you fiend!

Boris seems to have run away, though, since Lenny seems to be waiting (again.)

(Vain of me to think it possible someone might notice, but an earlier promise I made when discussing these issues has been kept. I will abandon this thread entirely, now. Pardon my own ravings, if they bored you.)

It was my impression that the X was originally used by the groups themselves and not necessarily an insult, assault, slur, sign-of-bigotry etc.

The Greek letter chi looks like a capital X. Chi is the first letter of christos. Next question.

Speaking of "vile, disgusting bigotry", though, perhaps you'd be so kind as to explain to us why IDEA allows only Christians (fundamentalist ones, I'd wager) as officers in its little club? Why aren't, say, Jews allowed as officers. Or Muslims. Or Hindus. Is there some legitimate scientific reason for that (ID is, after all, just science, right?) or is this just plain old-fashioned religious bigotry we are seeing? Here's your chance to show us your deep-rooted opposition to vile bigotry ... . . Or not.

Well, Boris? I'm still waiting ... .