{"id":7241,"date":"2017-12-25T10:23:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-25T15:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=7241"},"modified":"2017-12-25T10:26:27","modified_gmt":"2017-12-25T15:26:27","slug":"this-sad-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=7241","title":{"rendered":"This sad year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I suppose the most astonishing aspect of this dismal year has been the realization of how little a lot of Americans know about their own country, about its history, ideals, and mechanics of self-government.  Seriously: There is something grossly out-of-kilter when a fundraising advertisement ends with the words &#8220;Thank you, President Trump, for letting us say, &#8216;merry Christmas&#8217; again&#8221; and the insult passes with scarce public remark and is quickly forgotten because it&#8217;s buried beneath <i>other<\/i> lies and insults.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Rv8r0h4tNaU\" frameborder=\"0\" gesture=\"media\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>It is time to stop indulging ignorant fantasists, to stop pretending they have something to say, and that it deserves respect.  It does not.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Resolute ignorance &#8212; <i>faith<\/i> &#8212; is not a virtue, but an inexhaustible engine of harm.  When a Holy Man urges you to accept implausible and downright garish claims on &#8216;faith,&#8217; and in the service of faith to commit harms against others (<i>Leviticus&#8217;<\/i> teachings about sexuality, for instance), he summons you to intellectual dishonesty and serves only some combination of his own insecurities and avarice.<\/p>\n<p>Somewhere in America, on this very day, somebody got out of bed and was struck with an insight: &#8220;Damn.  Why did I never see it?  It&#8217;s so obvious!  I am the incarnation of &#8230; SOUPY SALES!!&#8221;  Should we take that seriously because, <i>you know<\/i>, neo-Soupy has faith?  Of course not.  The final word on the subject must be given to Friedrich Nietzsche: &#8220;A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<li>\n<p>Biological evolution by natural selection is real; it really happened, and it is still happening.  Humankind is not a complete, final product that popped-up out of nowhere one day, like a toadstool, but a point on a continuum.  We may die out, as have millions of other species, or we may persist for hundreds of millions of years as, say, cockroaches have.  <i>Genesis<\/i> is wrong, and we who have done the hard work of understanding that are tired of you who won&#8217;t &#8212; and <i>really<\/i> tired of your relentless subversion of public education.  Go away.<\/p>\n<li>\n<p>David Barton is not a historian; he is a whore who specializes in servicing ignoramuses.  America was founded by Enlightenment thinkers who meant to break the long train of bloodshed and ruin at the hands of the churches; it&#8217;s right in the Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. \u2014 That <SPAN style=\"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #a8f2f5\">to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men<\/span>, deriving their just powers from <SPAN style=\"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #a8f2f5\">the consent of the governed<\/span>, \u2014 That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is <SPAN style=\"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #a8f2f5\">the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it<\/span>, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers <SPAN style=\"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #a8f2f5\">in such form, as to them<\/span> shall seem most likely <SPAN style=\"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #a8f2f5\">to effect their Safety and Happiness.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Y&#8217;all should recall, too, the Preamble of the United States Constitution:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><SPAN style=\"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #a8f2f5\">We the People of the United States<\/span>, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, <SPAN style=\"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #a8f2f5\">do ordain and establish this Constitution<\/span> for the United States of America.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Founders could not have been plainer: They intended a country of thinking men and women who decide for themselves how their affairs shall be organized.  It is a national disgrace that an incandescent theocrat like Roy Moore, a plain enemy of America&#8217;s foundational ideals, nearly assumed a seat in the Senate.<\/ul>\n<p>All of this nonsense must be confronted where and when it is encountered, and drowned in ridicule and ignominy; after all, it is the morons who don&#8217;t know these things who have handed the country over to an authoritarian proto-fascist who thinks our Constitution is a bother.  2018 will be the decisive year; it we won&#8217;t fight for our country, we will lose it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I suppose the most astonishing aspect of this dismal year has been the realization of how little a lot of Americans know about their own country, about its history, ideals, and mechanics of self-government. Seriously: There is something grossly out-of-kilter &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=7241\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7241"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7241"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7249,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7241\/revisions\/7249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}