Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gib Bogle who wrote (66509)	7/22/2005 10:22:39 PM
From: Slagle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Gib Re: "creationist fantasy" You know that it is very hard to even touch upon the subject of religious differences without being impolite or saying something that offends. And I have no desire to offend for I respect your opinions and probably agree on more than you might think. Only a small part of this controversy has anything to do with religion anyway, it is more like a battleground where the left and right fight over other matters of principle. Conservatives of all stripe want to maximize the amount of local control over almost every activity. The left, lacking the ability to advance their agenda through legislation tries to impose a national agenda through the federal courts. Public education here, meaning K through 12 is not national, but local including funding (other than a 10 to 12% federal contribution) or choice of curriculum or anything else. But years ago various federal court rulings gave rise to the tendency to bring lawsuits over various aspects of public education, including curriculum where a constitutional issue can be claimed. Conservatives resent this federal meddleing in any local matter, so to "punish" the left they make demands that there will be included in any of the "guidelines" resulting from a federal court case over a local school matter elements which the left will find extremely distasteful and self-defeating and to hopefully discourage similar legal actions in other school districts. Of course there is more to it than that, however important the political brinksmanship might be. This IS a Christian nation, with many places running to 90% or even more. Most everywhere schools try to "soft-peddle" these sorts of issues and teach standard science while at the same time not taking a swipe at anyones religion. But on occasion some local soretail or ideologue will attempt to make some sort of issue over the matter and involve the courts. Often it involves an atheist activist teacher who gets canned for making over the top anti-religion statements in the classroom and then sues the school district, which was the plan all along. In the settlement the conservatives demand "equal weight" (though maybe not equal time) for the teaching of the "theory" of creationism along with the teaching of the "theory" of evolution. Knowing that this is the likely outcome reduces the incentive for leftie PACS to fund such lawsuits in the first place. Slagle