Charles

Look at what Ben Stien and all them are doing right now. They are saying “you are intolerant.”

And then they put out a bill saying, we are going to teach people to question.

If you oppose that, you play into that narrative. Its that simple. Don’t make the issue whether you are tolerant or not. Say, “my theory can stand up to questioning” and then do it.

You know, it was not just Darwin’s birthday recently, but Lincoln’s too. And what Lincoln and other republicans did to hurt slavery is they partially changed the subject. They held up the bodies of men like Elijah Lovejoy, who died defending his press from an antiabolitionist mob. They passed states-rights measures designed at thwarting slavery. They asked whether the South would allow a “Northern Man with Northern Principles” to become president. They made the intolerance and outright hypocrisy of the slaveholders a serious issue and they won that debate. They elected Lincoln in 1860, they got a civil war, they won it and then shoved freedom down the south’s throat (and i say that with approval).

That tactic was used for good by Lincoln et al., but it could be used by others for bad goals, such as the promotion of faith in the guise of science.

If someone says “they have questions” about evolution, it is never the right answer to shout “creationist!” The right answer is to hear the question and answer it. Yes, even if they question is fed to them by people whose motives you question.

So when you oppose a bill that merely calls on people to question, yes, you look intolerant, and you allow them to change the subject to whether or not you are intolerant. Its a losing strategy.

Don’t play into their trap.