Gene Expression

(The following short comment resulted in me being banned from FreeRepublic and Ann own site as well.)

In thinking about Coulters' new book, I am reminded of the grand review by Whittaker Chambers of "Atlas Shrugged" by the right wing atheist Ayn Rand. He begins:

"Since a great many of us dislike much that Miss Rand dislikes, quite as heartily as she does, many incline to take her at her word. It is the more persuasive, in some quarters, because the author deals wholly in the blackest blacks and the whitest whites. In this fiction everything, everybody, is either all good or all bad, without any of those intermediate shades which, in life, complicate reality and perplex the eye that seeks to probe it truly."

Now, when it comes the "The Jersey Girls", I give Ann a great hurrah, I dislike them as heartily as she does and her comments are well overdue, and seem to have made the liberals go wild in fits and spasms because of the truth that she reveals about their cowardice in hiding an obvious political crusade behind the untouchable veil of widowhood.

What is distressing is her sad description of Darwinism, a simple rehash of exploded creationist claims such as the "tautology" issue, which are an embarrassment to thinking people. Many works exist that can explain evolution, the cornerstone of modern biology and medicine. There are also materials that explain the history and the politics of the Evangelicals in attempting to suppress or obscure it over the last century. A good starting point may well be the decision of the Republican Judge Jones in the Kitzmiller case. One wonders if Coulter has even taken the effort to read it. Just beware of getting your science from a pundit.

Her central and mistaken claim is that religion is essential to the conservative cause, or that anti-religion is essential to the liberal one. She has apparently also failed to read Dr. Michael Crichton in his essay "Environmentalism as Religion", and many other texts that refute her thesis.

Ann, I am a Republican and conservative because "I oppose Pseudoscience, Epistemic relativism and those disciplines or schools of thought whose truth claims are prompted by the political, ideological and moral commitments of their adherents."

Ann, I believe in the great ideas of the Enlightenment, which our founders encased in our constitution to provide and protect individual liberty. Those ideas include both a hatred of tyranny from an aristocracy, and deep suspicion of civil power in the hands of the churches.

Ann, I am for liberty under law, for private property and pluralism. I think these ideas are still worth defending by not only intellectual expression but also with military might if need be.

Call me Godless Ann, but call me a conservative.

Posted by: Thad Peters | August 5, 2006 10:36 PM