The Pirates' Code

Anti-evolution, hardline conservatives lost control of the Kansas State Board of Education in a primary election there last week (please hold all applause until I'm finished).

I smell a change in the wind, says I.

Maybe this is the bellweather for wrenching free from the clutch the Christian Right has on chesnuts of this country.

Kansas: incumbent Connie Morris, who had once been a school teacher, lost her bid for re-election. She had described evolution as "an age-old fairy tale" and "a nice bedtime story."

She believes that "intelligent design," on the other hand, is true, faith-based, scientific method.

These people have argued for years that "intelligent design" is as legitimate a scientific theory as that posed by Old Man Darwin; That "intelligent design" belongs in a science classroom along side of or better yet, in place of evolution.

By playing the equivalence card, these people have pirated scientific inquiry by dressing up a faith-based idea as science. In essence, they have robbed the marketplace of ideas by selling faked Guccis.

Darwin's ideas might be a little provincial for contemporary genetic wonderkinds, but you can't fault the man for advancing our understanding of empirical science as well as biology and evolution. For his time, his thinking was meticulous and methodical.

Its fundamentalist ideologues like Morris who are the ones setting scientific inquiry back to the age of fable. It is horrific to think these people have been teaching our children.

Seriously though, I'm wondering what exactly these people - the Pat Robertsons, the Billy Grahams, the Ralph Reeds, and well, Morris have done for anyone anyway. Have they done anything to actually help people? Of course not. They are only interested in stuffing their recalcitrant dogma down everyone's throat.

"Intelligent design" is the truth, they say. Any dissent or disagreement is nothing less than mutiny. Godless liberals are made to walk the plank. Then rise up, ye scallawags - just like they did in Kansas.

The prevailing metaphor for free speech in this country was established by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1919. In a dissenting opinion in Abrams V. US, Holmes wrote: "...the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market..."

Well, guess what: The marketplace of ideas has once again dumped these people on a spit of land shrinking in the distance while the ship of state sails off and they are left with nothing but a call on the wind: "Ha Ha!"

Never fear, though. These loonies will be back. Somewhere, they will sail in and strike under the cover of the full moon - when we least expect it. Like the sequel to a bad movie, they follow the pirates' code: "Take what you can. Give nothing back!"

I say: "Argghh! And good riddance to them!"