{"id":246,"date":"2005-12-22T08:25:32","date_gmt":"2005-12-22T13:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=246"},"modified":"2009-09-22T12:15:40","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T17:15:40","slug":"utter-idiots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=246","title":{"rendered":"Utter IDiots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Leon H. at RedState writes in <a href='http:\/\/www.redstate.org\/story\/2005\/12\/21\/113454\/58'> Intelligent Design (The Debate Isn&#8217;t Helping)<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nIn other words, my feeling about Krauthammer, Derbyshire, et al is<br \/>\nbasically this: if you wish to denigrate ID and insult its proponents,<br \/>\ngo find an ID discussion board (they are legion) and do so there &#8211;<br \/>\ndon&#8217;t use the pages of NR or your token space in the WaPo to do it<br \/>\nin. What possible benefit to the cause of conservatism could come<br \/>\nabout by you propounding your opinion on a topic which is neither your<br \/>\ncalling nor your area of expertise, and which will insult a<br \/>\nsignificant portion of the Republican coalition?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What a load of disingenuous crap this is!<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not a conservative, myself, and dislike conservatism for many reasons that I have <a href='http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=153'>written about elsewhere<\/a>. But I can sympathize with conservatives who desire to put distance between themselves and the ID movement, which combines purblind stupidity with dishonesty about its actual aims in a way I&#8217;ve previously only seen in gun-control proponents.<\/p>\n<p>The ID movement&#8217;s claim that it&#8217;s not about end-running the First Amendment and turning schools into instruments for the propagation of Christian dogma is <em>just<\/em> as transparently specious as most gun-grabbers&#8217; claims that they don&#8217;t aim to render the Second Amendment a dead letter.  Both gangs are enemies of liberty and the U.S. Constitution, and for precisely the same reasons.  It&#8217;s hardly startling for anyone, conservative or otherwise, to want to avoid being associated with any movement that lies wholesale about its objectives.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s before addressing the numerous gaping logical holes in the &#8220;intelligent design&#8221; argument.  U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones, deciding Kitzmiller vs. Dover on December 20th, nailed many of these in his <a href='http:\/\/news.findlaw.com\/hdocs\/docs\/educate\/ktzmllrdvr122005opn.pdf'>opinion<\/a>.  To actually buy the ID argument requires either a complete inability to do critical thinking or a zealot&#8217;s refusal to exercise it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What possible benefit to the cause of conservatism&#8221; he asks. Maybe&#8230;just maybe&#8230;Krauthammer and Derbyshire would like to demonstrate that there are some conservatives who are neither liars, religious zealots, nor plain-and-simple idiots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leon H. at RedState writes in Intelligent Design (The Debate Isn&#8217;t Helping): In other words, my feeling about Krauthammer, Derbyshire, et al is basically this: if you wish to denigrate ID and insult its proponents, go find an ID discussion board (they are legion) and do so there &#8211; don&#8217;t use the pages of NR&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=246\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Utter IDiots<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1248,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/1248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}