Bad News about Your Constitutional Rights

You probably thought that the Constitution guarantees your rights to free speech and religion, even if the new federal administration tries to restrict its critics or the dissenters to its version of Christianity. But this is not true. The First Amendment only guarantees that Congress shall not restrict free speech or religion. It does not say that the Executive Branch cannot do so. This is not good news.

I tried to post an essay about this, but Blogger would not allow me to do so. Not sure why. But here is a link to the essay on my science blog. Please go there to read it.

Was What Happened on November 8 Stupidity? Unfortunately Not.

Many progressive thinkers such as myself were stunned at what seemed like the utter stupidity that led to the election of Donald Trump. But then I realized it was not stupidity at all. It was typical human intelligence. The key word is human.

Intelligence did not evolve so that animals in the hominin lineage could understand the world better or keep facts straight in their minds. Those are two of the functions of intelligence but not the most important. The most important benefit of intelligence, during human evolution, was so that some individuals could bend the facts, warp reality, and create delusions that would trick other individuals into following, supporting, or helping them. That is, the major function of human intelligence has always been to gain individual advantages, whether by using the truth or by using lies. (A good liar has to be very intelligent.) Not what is best for a country or the world, but the individual. Trump acted in a supremely effective fashion to gain advantages for himself.

Though it makes me sick to think about it, I must admit that Donald Trump seems to have the genius of knowing how to manipulate people. He knew exactly how to evoke a resonant sympathy with what is in the hearts of most people: racism, sexism, and general hatred. All of his words were in the service of these purposes. He knows that human intelligence does not primarily care about facts, but rather beliefs and impressions. When he mocked disabled people, he was evoking the old childhood memories of bullies on the playground.  He played our brains like the keys of an organ. In this way he was able to completely deflect attention away from the evil things he has done. He did not appeal to our love of humankind or our logical understanding of the equality of races; instead he stirred up hatred of anyone who is different from him. He got his followers chanting “Make America Hate Again” (oops, sorry for the slip) without ever specifying which Yesteryear America he was talking about. The Great Depression? The Confederacy? The wars of extermination against Native Americans? Trump disabled, in his followers, the very ability to ask or even recognize the existence of such questions.

Democrats just don’t get this. Every time, over and over, Democrats cite facts as if they matter. Well, apparently they don’t.

For me, the problem is that Trump has used the rest of us as raw material for his own individual expansion of power. But maybe the solution is also individual. What do I do now? Maybe all I can do is pay attention to and enjoy the direct responsibilities that I have, rather than to try to fix the world or to even nudge it a little away from catastrophe. And who knows? Maybe in my writing and teaching I will end up changing the minds of some people—not to get them to share my political opinions (which I cannot do at a public university) but to start using their brains in a more empathetic and logical fashion. I got up this morning and taught two classes. I was really depressed but I managed to make those two classes some of the best I have ever taught. I even invented, on the spot, a new activity for student involvement in learning about how nerve transmissions work. Maybe some of my readers and students will start noticing that there is more to the world than just their deep visceral hatreds and prejudices. And I can do this no matter who is president.

There might be a kind of truthful and pure intelligence that evolved somewhere in the universe in some species; but that place is not Earth and that species is not Homo sapiens.

I also published this in my science blog. The two blogs are actually different most of the time.

t I have, rather than to try to fix the world or to even nudge it a little away from catastrophe. And who knows? Maybe in my writing and teaching I will end up changing the minds of some people—not to get them to share my political opinions (which I cannot do at a public university) but to start using their brains in a more empathetic and logical fashion. I got up this morning and taught two classes. I was really depressed but I managed to make those two classes some of the best I have ever taught. I even invented, on the spot, a new activity for student involvement in learning about how nerve transmissions work. Maybe some of my readers and students will start noticing that there is more to the world than just their deep visceral hatreds and prejudices. And I can do this no matter who is president.

There might be a kind of truthful and pure intelligence that evolved somewhere in the universe in some species; but that place is not Earth and that species is not Homo sapiens.

The Dark Ages, Coming to a Campus near You

On Halloween, a preacher came to our campus (Southeastern Oklahoma State University) and started yelling about how much God hated women (he said that all women on our campus were sluts), how much God hated Muslims (his shirt read “Allah is Satan,” even though Allah is the translation of the same word the Old Testament uses for God), and how black people should just accept their inferior lot and let white people rule them, all in the name of God.

I borrowed these photos from the Facebook posting by Amy Elizabeth Kennedy.

He had permission to come and speak outdoors by the clock tower (well, what passes for one on our campus; a clock on a pole) but he got that permission by lying to the university staff about what he was going to do. He said he was coming to share the Gospel, but of course there was no Gospel whatsoever in anything that he said.

He accomplished his purposes. He wanted to make people angry. He succeeded in making all of the students who heard him upset (not one student took his side, not even our redneck Trump-supporting students). Some of these upset students simply went away. But when the preacher started verbally attacking black students, one black student started to get physically rowdy (wouldn’t you?) while several other black students held him back. The situation got so tense that police had to escort the preacher off campus. His visit was, to him, successful. He wanted to show us how much, according to him, God hates us, and he succeeded in doing that. He wanted an angry response, and he got it. Now he can go back to his donors and say, “See, what did I tell you? I told you Satan would attack me.” (I have heard fundamentalist Christians say that the hostility of the world is proof that you are doing God’s will. By that definition, Hitler was doing God’s will.)

And he left behind him an impotent and confused discussion about how to prevent such incidents in the future. Everyone seems to be saying that we cannot restrict any form of free speech on campus. This is ridiculous. We already restrict speech that would, for example, recruit terrorists or encourage murder. Speech is not unlimited and never has been. I believe that anyone speaking on campus should be sponsored by a class or by a recognized student organization. If we let just anybody come and speak, no matter how hateful their words, how can we be sure they don’t have guns also? And maybe, for all we know, this preacher did.

The story had a different ending on All Saints Day at East Central University. East Central knew this preacher was coming. When he arrived, he proceeded to exercise his first amendment rights, only to discover that the marching band, at exactly the same time and place, was exercising theirs. Guess who won!

I do not know the name of this preacher’s “ministry,” but whatever it is, he should rename it “Make Jesus Look like an Asshole Ministry.” Because this is what he succeeded in doing. Say all you will about how most Christians are not like him. But such a large number of self-identified Christians are hate-filled racists, though few of them are so vocal about it, that I wonder whether this preacher might represent the norm of American conservative Christianity. I suspect that, in fact, this man reflects what American Christianity is like. Good Christians who preach peace and love may, in fact, be a minority in this country, at least among fundamentalists. All you have to do is see the breathtakingly large number of fundamentalist Christian organizations that endorse Donald Trump, whose entire message is how much he hates anyone who fails to revere him; Donald Trump, whose slogan should be, Make America Hate Again.

The impression I took away from this incident is not that Jesus is an asshole—this incident had nothing to do with Jesus—but that on the whole, at least in America, religion is a negative force and I hope we get rid of it as much and as soon as possible. When you consider what America is like, and the Bible Belt states more than the others, you can get an idea of the fruits of religion. Poverty, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and violent crime are rampant in the most Christian parts of America. In order to find a society in which people are, by and large, nice to one another, you have to look at countries such as France. When I visited, as a family member not just a tourist, I was astonished at how well people treated their neighbors and fellow citizens and visitors. The sooner we can become more like France, and leave Christianity behind, we will be a better society. A society that, in fact, more closely resembles Jesus. We need a secular society if we are to survive as a free country.

I am sure it has not escaped the attention of anyone that fundamentalist religion is pushing—perhaps significantly—toward the establishment of a religious dictatorship. Remember, they have guns and they believe God has given them permission to use them however they want.

I am particularly angry that I spent so much of my life suckered into religion. I lost decades of my life to having my brain warped by creationism and fundamentalism. Though I left doctrinal Christianity behind over a decade ago, it took an incident such as this to allow me to see how ugly and despicable my erstwhile religious views were.

Creationism is not about science. It has one purpose only: to support a hatred version of religion and get it established in a powerful position so that they can control the thoughts and lives of the rest of us. Arguing science with a creationist? Don’t bother. They don’t even know what’s in the Bible, much less about science.

I also published this essay on my science blog.