For as long as this blog has been around, Bobby Jindal has been a source of controversy in the comment threads. Should South Asian Americans support him because he is an undisputedly intelligent politician and desi like us, or is it okay to turn our backs on him because we fundamentally disagree with his policies and the type of America that he represents? Both answers are of course correct, depending upon what matters most to you as an individual voter.
When the media reports on a political stories there is nothing they enjoy more than a stark contrast between two people or viewpoints. That is one of the reasons that the Obama-McCain race is generating such excitement this year. Almost everyone (except maybe Nader supporters) believes that Obama and McCain have a very divergent vision for the next four year. Because of a law working its way through the Louisiana legislative process right now, the next few weeks will also provide us with an incisive look into the mind and soul of Bobby Jindal. Will he govern according to his religious beliefs or according to accepted scientifc fact? Whether or not he is chosen as McCain’s running mate this year, one thing seems clear: eventually he will be on a national ticket.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Sunday that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal “would be far and away the best candidate” to appear on the Republican presidential ticket with Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
Gingrich, who appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” heaped praise upon the former congressman, saying that he is a “spectacular” governor and predicted that Jindal would be a presidential candidate in the future. [Link]
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As the New York Times reported two weeks ago, there is a proposed law working its way through the Louisiana legislature right now that is going to stick with Jindal, for better or for worse, for a very long time.
In the Legislature, the climate for a conservative Christian agenda is warmer than in years. Some of that agenda, including a school voucher program for New Orleans that Mr. Jindal calls a “scholarship plan,” is being pushed vigorously by the governor. On other parts, like a bill favored by Christian conservatives that opponents say is a stalking horse for teaching creationism, Mr. Jindal has been well in the background, though legislators say they think the governor would sign it, as he has raised doubts about evolution. [Link]
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p>The Louisiana Science and Education Act is nothing but a thinly-veiled attempt to allow the arguments of Creationism to be taught in Louisiana schools alongside evolution. This in a state that already has some of the worst school systems in the country.
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p>Every lawmaker in Louisiana knows that Jindal supports Creationist ideas. The problem he has is trying to sign these proposals into law in Louisiana without seriously hurting his national appeal among Independents. He is navigating this issue in two specific ways. First, he is studiously avoiding the spotlight when he can:
Still, for a governor whose campaign in 2003 ran radio advertisements extolling the Ten Commandments and attacking liberals, the approach has been studiously low-key and nonideological. Mr. Jindal himself has been nearly invisible at the Capitol, lawmakers and Louisiana reporters say.
Hot-button terms and issues are avoided. Cloning will not get state financing but also will not be criminalized, and Mr. Jindal is nowhere to be seen on the Louisiana Science Education Act, which promotes “open and objective discussion” in the schools of “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”
A hearing for the bill last week was packed with Christian advocates — it has already passed the State Senate unanimously — and it was proposed to its legislative sponsor by a Louisiana Family Forum member. Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University and a critic of the bill, testified that it was “designed to permit teaching intelligent design creationism in Louisiana public schools,” though there was no mention of creationism or intelligent design in the bill. [Link]
The second strategy Jindal is using is to cleverly manipulate the public’s understanding of the law. A perfect example is this interview he gave on CBS’ Face the Nation
this past Sunday. Unless you are well-versed in the manipulation tactics used by Intelligent Designers, whose “educational approach” was soundly thrashed in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, you might think he is making a perfectly reasonable argument in favor of science here:
REID: Let me make a sharp turn here to a different issue, an issue that has raised some controversy. Now, you were a biology major in college. I think you had a double major. But you were a biology major, and you support the teaching of intelligent design in schools. Do you have doubts about the theory of evolution?Gov. JINDAL: A couple of things. One, I don’t think this is something the federal or state government should be imposing its views on local school districts. You know, as a conservative I think government that’s closest to the people governs best. I think local school boards should be in a position of deciding the curricula and also deciding what students should be learning. Secondly, I don’t think students learn by us withholding information from them. Some want only to teach intelligent design, some only want to teach evolution. I think both views are wrong, as a parent.
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p>REID: But how about you personally? Where do you stand personally on the issue?
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p>Gov. JINDAL: As a parent, when my kids go to schools, when they go to public schools, I want them to be presented with the best thinking. I want them to be able to make decisions for themselves. I want them to see the best data. I personally think that the life, human life and the world we live in wasn’t created accidentally. I do think that there’s a creator. I’m a Christian. I do think that God played a role in creating not only earth, but mankind. Now, the way that he did it, I’d certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. I don’t want them to be–I don’t want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness. The way we’re going to have smart, intelligent kids is exposing them to the very best science and let them not only decide, but also let them contribute to that body of knowledge. That’s what makes the scientific process so exciting. You get to go there and find facts and data and test what’s come before you and challenge those theories.
This is the new “strategy” that has been adopted by ID-ers. They want to say that putting creationist ideas next evolution and letting kids decide is a better way to do science. You notice how he uses the phrase “facts or theories or explanations withheld?” This is pure manipulation. He is frightening people into thinking that education is being denied to their children. In fact, there are no facts or even theories associated with ID/Creationist ideas. Knowing that their strategy won’t work if they single out evolution alone, the ID/Creationists needed to find another scientific theory to lump together with evolution so that they could say, “see we aren’t just picking on evolution.” Global warming provided the perfect second issue (another wedge issue). NPR’s Science Friday last Friday did a great job of deconstructing the manipulating tactics being used by the Intelligent Design community. Bobby Jindal is following the script laid out for him perfectly. You have to admit he speaks well.
In a letter last week to Louisiana Speaker of the House Jim Tucker, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s CEO and the publisher of Science magazine Alan I. Leshner wrote of the “Louisiana Science Education Act”:
The bill implies that particular theories are controversial among scientists, including evolution. But there is virtually no controversy about evolution among the overwhelming majority of researchers. The science of evolution underpins all of modern biology and is supported by tens of thousands of scientific studies in fields that include cosmology, geology, paleontology, genetics and other biological specialties. It informs scientific research in a broad range of fields such as agriculture and medicine, work that has an important impact on our everyday lives.
Backers of the bill, including the Louisiana Family Forum and the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, are longtime supporters of attempts to teach creationism or intelligent design as science. The judicial courts have ruled that both of these are religious concepts that do not belong in public school science classrooms. In fact, it was Louisiana’s own “creation science” law that the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in 1987. [Link]
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p>Much of the press and blogosphere think they discovered that Jindal once performed an exorcism this week. In fact, Manish reported it here almost four years ago as further evidence of Jindal’s extreme religious views.
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p>My cousin Manan also forwarded me this article today, a long interview of Jindal in Details magazine. In it they re-cap his entire history and explain how he became a conservative Christian in the first place. Reading it will provide good context in which to evaluate his current support of Creationism is classrooms.
So as we wait to see if McCain taps Jindal we have to figure out which Jindal we’d get. The articulate and intelligent and accomplished Jindal or the one that would advocate exorcising our educational system of reason.
Anyone who want to get elected has to pander on something–look at Obama (v. Goolsbee) on free trade. Intelligent Design is stupid, yes, but school vouchers are good and the Dem’s are in bed with the corrupt teachers’ unions. LOL–it’s fair to pick on Jindal on this one point, but it is only one point–he’s impressive on rationalizing health-care (w/out a gov’t takeover), ant-corruption, smart tax policy that isn’t anti-business, etc.
I agree completely. All politicians pander, like Obama’s new position on Jerusalem. Jindal isn’t pandering here however. He believes this stuff and he may make it into law. That’s the difference.
I know McCain’s reputation of being straight has gotten him into trouble in the past, but I don’t think tapping Jindal is the way to fix that. As for Jindal, being tapped by a dude is something that not even an exorcism will cure him of. Unless he wants a Haggard reputation, that is…
Which one to pick – Creationism? No abortion exception even for rape? Ban on stem cell research?
Sounds suspiciously like an extreme rightwing agenda to me, parts of which he is putting in place in his state already. One Dubya is enough.
And the right-wingers complain that the po-mos are marxist with their relativism… it would be hilarious if these guys didn’t wield so much power.
I thought catholics don’t believe in the literal interpertation of the bible. Thus creationism is only an allegory…?
I thought catholics don’t believe in the literal interpertation of the bible. Thus creationism is only an allegory…?
that’s the most bizarre thing. catholics can be creationists if they so choose, but it certainly isn’t necessary, as evidenced by the teaching of evolution in most good parochial schools. additionally, when jindal was at brown the biology curriculum was very heavy on evolution (not always true of biology majors). my own assumption is that he’s not a tard, he’s just pandering to the cross-eyed yokel set at right-wing politicians are wont to do. i lean right myself and know people who work in the right-wing pundit class, very few of the non-tards (e.g., the non-blowhards) give creationists any credence, but they often keep a low profile because the yokel-suckers are big into this stuff and are important vote-banks for stuff that matters (small government, etc.).
though there are some genuine brown tards on this issue. e.g., babu ranganathan, who is always showing up in my RSS which crawls for “evolution.”
If you read the Details article and past evidence we’ve linked on SM I think the pandering argument is weak. Pandering is an understandable part of politics. This is clearly more than pandering.
If you read the Details article and past evidence we’ve linked on SM I think the pandering argument is weak. Pandering is an understandable part of politics. This is clearly more than pandering.
i don’t deny he believes in some superstitious stuff; no offense, he’s catholic, he believes in transubstantiation. i’ve read his semi-creationist rants too. you can be a hard-core traditionalist catholic convert as ramesh ponnuru is and still accept the mainstream science as the church generally encourages (schonborn aside). yes, he might not be a panderer, but that’s not because he’s a roman catholic, it’s because he identifies with southern culture and part of that is rejection of the modern world 🙂
“Should South Asian Americans support him because he is an undisputedly intelligent politician and desi like us, or is it okay to turn our backs on him because we fundamentally disagree with his policies and the type of America that he represents”
I’m not sure what you mean by “we fundamentally disagree”. Once again SM reveals its leftwing bias. I don’t really mind the leftwing bias, but be honest about it and please don’t claim to represent the entire South Asian community’s views. I do not support Jindal because he is brown but because I agree with some of his ideas. Yeah I disagree with the Creationist agenda and anti-abortion views but he really is a reformer in other areas of governance.
Louisiana politics is so corrupt and inefficient. School vouchers may or may not work but I’m willing to take an incremental step in the direction of school vouchers to see how it pans out. I don’t think school vouchers will worsen Louisiana public education (its already really bad). Jindal’s healthcare reforms, his new ethical codes, reduction of regulations and pro-business attitudes endear me to him.
Louisiana politics is so corrupt and inefficient. School vouchers may or may not work but I’m willing to take an incremental step in the direction of school vouchers to see how it pans out. I don’t think school vouchers will worsen Louisiana public education (its already really bad). Jindal’s healthcare reforms, his new ethical codes, reduction of regulations and pro-business attitudes endear me to him.
i know louisiana-origin liberal dems who accept jindal as a necessary evil. it isn’t like the alternatives are pro-choice and progressive in the democratic camp.
I can understand why it would be correct to support him for being undisputedly intelligent. However I do not see why being a desi qualifies as a correct reason for supporting him. Am I missing something?
baton rouge is worth a mass? 😉 couldn’t resist myself….
Yes, that’s right–I would be more inclusive and say the White House is worth Mass–so, what’s the problem? BS views of “authenticity” get me nowhere–Jindal, on the other hand, is going places!!
-I would be more inclusive and say the White House is worth Mass–so, what’s the problem?
i think that jindal has pretty much boxed himself in being as socially right-wing as he is. i have no great issues with people that are pro-life (e.g., unlike some supporters of abortion rights i don’t ascribe great malevolent intent to them), but no exception for the life of the mother is beyond the pale. he needs to sellout on that position if he wants to be taken seriously as a national, as opposed to yokel, politician. catholics are 25% of the american populace, and have been for a century, but only one catholic president so far, and he was by many accounts and operational secular humanist, so that doesn’t seem a genius move to me (granted, i don’t think catholicism is a bit hurdle per se, but he’s already an exotic). if i had to bet i assume that jindal’s conversion is a sincere one. but if piyush jindal had been raised in dubai he might have admired the religious zealotry of the local muslims and opened himself up to the message of the prophet. IOW, the priors matter, and there’s a lot of cognition which occurs on the implicit/subconscious domain.
in any case, i think most of the anger from non-christian brownz has been due to the double-talk that jindal seems OK with. one the one hand pander to the christian right and diss the pagan-primitive-superstitious religion of his hell-bound ancestors. on the other hand be glad when the suckers dole out money for their race-brother 🙂 bobby jindal deserves all the praise which a louisiana politician is warranted on the national level.
btw, re: abortion, change is always in the air. ronald reagan signed legislation decriminalizing abortion in california before roe, and george h. w. bush was pro-choice until he flipped in 1980. conversely, al gore jr, dick gephardt and jesse jackson started out as pro-life democrats. so it’s possible.
Jindal’s genetics professor speaks out.
That is why a lot of South Asians support him.
First please stop with the idiotic “fundamental bias” comments. For the last time, a BLOG is not a person or an institution like the Supreme Court. It is a blog! Individual people have both thoughtful opinions and biases. Now as to fundamentally disagree, I mean the way I fundamentally disagree with his ideas about teaching creationism in public schools.
I think it was Orwell who warned against believing that one’s political opponents had to be either stupid or insincere– that either were wrong about their position and too dumb to realize it; or they knew perfectly well that their position was wrong and were only lying about it to pander or mislead or some other low reason.
Nevertheless, given the following quote from Jindal, I’m going to accuse Jindal of exactly that:
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is one of the tropes the creationists trot out all the time, and the argument is fundamentally wrong– the 2nd Law states that entropy must increase in a closed system .
Example: my apartment is messy as hell, a high entropy system. My mom announces that she’s coming to visit, sending me into frantic paroxysms of cleaning– thus reducing the entropy in my apartment. But my apartment is not a closed system, it is an open system since it is open to the input of free energy (my cleaning attempts). But if one considers the entire system (i.e. apartment plus surrounding environment) entropy has indeed increased. In other words, I may have decreased the entropy in my apartment, but adding in the increase of entropy caused by the conversion of ATP in my cells, the use of electricity for the vacuum cleaner, the adding of soap to water, and so on, there has in fact been a net increase in entropy. There is therefore no contradiction in seeing a local decrease in entropy.
Same things applies to the Earth– you can see a local decrease in entropy on the Earth, because the Sun is a source of free energy. It’s just that any local decrease on the Earth will be more than matched by the increase in the entropy of the Solar System as a whole.
Likewise, Jindal says “there’s no theory that explains how you can get organic matter from inorganic matter.” There is in fact extensive experimentation and theorizing on this very subject, most famously the Miller-Urey experiment which simulated the atmosphere of early Earth and found that amino acids could be synthesized by sparks of lightning in the mix.
Here’s the thing: there’s no way Jindal doesn’t know this. There’s no way he graduated from an Ivy League University with an Honors Biology degree and didn’t at some point run across the Miller experiment. There’s no way someone of his intelligence and training could so fundamentally misnderstand the Second Law. So he’s pandering.
Syllogism? Syllogism:
Major Premise: anyone using entropy or biogenesis as an argument against evolution is either ignorant or pandering. Minor Premise 1: Jindal uses both entropy and biogenesis as an argument against evolution. Minor Premise 2: Jindal is not ignorant. Conclusion: Jindal is pandering
OK, but as someone pointed out, every politician panders. But this is worse than your average run-of-the-mill pandering. This is like Bill Frist diagnosing Terri Schiavo from the clips of her on CNN, and using his credibility as a Harvard surgeon to do it. It’s one thing to assert a position with inflammatory rhetoric, or to hop on an issue just to ride the bandwagon. Jindal’s pandering is a conscious and calculating denial of facts which he knows to be true, and he’s using such scientific credibility as he has to do it. Basically in order to remain popular at the polls with his base and to hell with the effect on the educational system.
Let’s hope the Courts throw out the bill. Doubt it, but it could happen.
Speedy
Archives are fun. 😉 Thanks for the blast from the past, Abhi.
Sri Aurobindo:
Avatarhood would have little meaning if it were not connected with the evolution. The Hindu procession of the ten Avatars is itself, as it were, a parable of evolution. First the Fish Avatar, then the amphibious animal between land and water, then the land animal, then the Man-Lion Avatar, bridging man and animal, then man as dwarf, small and undeveloped and physical but containing in himself the godhead and taking possession of existence, then the rajasic, sattwic, nirguna Avatars, leading the human development from the vital rajasic to the sattwic mental man and again the overmental superman. Krishna, Buddha and Kalki depict the last three stages, the stages of the spiritual development. Krishna opens the possibility of overmind, Buddha tries to shoot beyond to the supreme liberation but that liberation is still negative, not returning upon earth to complete positively the evolution; Kalki is to correct this by bringing the Kingdom of the Divine upon earth, destroying the opposing Asura forces. The progression is striking and unmistakable.
Though exactly not what Aurobindo implied, someone else interpreted Dasavatharam as “Matsya (life in water), Koorma (amphibian), Varaha(land animal) , Narasimha (half man half animal denoting man evolving from his animal instincts), Vamana (the dwarf indicating the incompleteness of the development of man), Parasurama (uses axe so necessary to survive in forest), Sreerama (kingdom, use of bow and arrow meaning fighting from a distance rather than fighting at a close range using the axe), Balarama ( the agriculturist- man moving on to become a food producer) , Sreekrishna ( the advanced version of man – more intellectual – maybe the first known Consultant and Service provider) and yet to come saviour Kalki
which Carl Sagan replicated in Cosmos (at least, I remember being completely wowed by it as a kid because that’s where I first learn this idea). Although maybe Jindal was too busy watching Partridge Family reruns to find a name for his future wife.
Somewhat surprising given the fact that he’s Catholic as opposed to Southern Baptist
This argument over Bobby Jindal’s belief in Intelligent Design is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Bobby is brilliant and has a legitimate chance to actually become VP or President of this country within the next dozen or so years. (And, unlike a certain over-rated, over-promoted Senator from Illinois, Bobby will be a highly qualified chief executive). Whether you are a Republican or Democrat, the emergence of Jindal is the greatest thing to happen to American Desis.
i thought you were insisting that his behavior on far-right issues is “inauthentic” and just about pandering. personally, i think that whether it is pandering or not, the most important point is what razib made: he is very clearly identified with those positions both by supporters and opponents because of explicit statements he has made on all these issues, so he has to act on them at least to some extent, and it doesn’t really matter whether he believes them or not.
for what it is worth, i think that if he has stated these positions as far back as in college and has maintained them since, either he is so committed to succeeding that he will do whatever is necessary to continue the sham even if he doesn’t believe them, or he really believes what he has said for the last 15 years, and well before he began a political career. i think the second explanation is more intuitive, but either explanation (“all his stated beliefs are a potemkin facade”) is reason enough to not vote for him.
despite everything i said, i am curious to understand what was outstanding about his health-care record that it makes you ignore all the other stuff. can you elaborate? this is a genuine question as i hear about his stellar reputation in this area all the time.
There’s a town call Smallville. The residents of the town pay property taxes, a substantial portion of which goes towards the school district to pay for the buildings, teachers, administrators, trips and the like.
Now, the school has been teaching that 2+2=4 all along. However, a bunch of taxpayers demand that the school teach 2+2=5 because that’s their belief. Impossible, say the some other taxpayers. The school should teach the truth, not some mumbo-jumbo. Jindal comes along and says that every taxpayer has the right to what’s taught in schools, and as such, there is scope to have two separate classrooms where in one 2+2=4 is taught, and in the other 2+2=5 is taught. Parents are free to send their kids to the classroom of their choice.
I have no problem with this system, as long as … let’s say a situation arises where another bunch of taxpayers demand that the school teach that 2+2=4 on sunny days, and 2+2=5 on cloudy days…. that would be yet another classroom within the same school.
This is not an ID/Creationism vs Darwinism issue. It’s an issue of taxpayers deciding how their money is spent.
M. Nam
More like it’s probably the best thing to happen to Southern Christians. I support Jindal to the extent that he has made desis accepted in national politics, although, his Christianity almost surely made him a more palatable desi candidate, esp. given his constituency. In that sense, I don’t need to support Jindal just because he is a desi (and esp. when I do not agree with some parts of his politics) – I know that there are plenty of others who wholeheartedly support him. As a desi, I think it’s enough that I support and applaud his existence in politics at such a high level, without having to support him via the electoral process.
As to whether his beliefs on ID are irrelevant – that could be said of somebody outside the political process. But when he not only holds such a belief, but is trying to weave his beliefs into legislation – to the detriment of the separation of church and state – that is relevant, and it’s a problem for me. I honestly do not care what he believes personally – but like many politicians, his personal beliefs are also his political beliefs and directly impact legislation and, therefore, citizens. And when it has unconstitutional implications, I don’t think it’s something to be taken lightly.
BTW – Abhi – this is one of the most interesting posts that you have written. I really enjoyed it.
27 · MoorNam said
you should get a show on comedy central. you are definitely better than that mencia guy.
Piyush is an aspiring member of the KKK. He reminds me of that Dave Chappelle skit, where Chappelle plays a blind Grand Wizard of the KKK.
On a serious note, Gov. Jindal has done absolutely NOTHING regarding the Indian guest workers who are rebuilding up after Katrina. The ironies are that: One of the Indian guest worker’s leader is an Indian Christian named Paul Konar, and many of these protesters/hunger strikers are Christians. The other irony is that Piyush and all the strikers are ethnic Indian. NOTE: If you’d like to involve yourself in raising awareness of this, here are some people you can contact: In Boston, Edwin Argueta of New Global Justice (eargu@juno.com) Stephen Boykewich at spboykewich@gmail.com 504-655-0876 Saket Soni – 504 881 6610
Anyways, coming back to Piyush: He would have been a “Babur” if he had grown up in the UAE, and he would have been a “Boshtein” if he had grown up in Israel. I truly believe that he positioned himself to be ultra-right-wing given YESTERDAY’S political climate (i.e. from ’02-’06), where Republicans became caricatures of the ayatollahs of Iran and were being extremely divisive and into a Christian theocratic form of government. However, that was yesterday, and today, we see that Americans are a lot more progressive once again. Therefore, Jindal will also become more moderate and more centric. He’s going to start by first addressing the global warming issue, I think.
So anywhere the wind blows, Piyush will follow.
25 · Dino said
Dino, that’s Jurassic thinking, either obsolete or make believe. Bobby has done nothing for desis in US politics – not that he should or that desis in US politics is a big thing. If that really meant anything at all, desis with better records and true brilliance – like say a Subodh Chandra would be getting a call for Ohio AG. Piyush is accepted simply because he made a couple of deft moves when he was 18. As conversion stories go, his is as implausible as they come, so there is nothing new there. And Newt Gingrich thinks Piyush is a great guy? Since when did the opinion of overrated, ignorant, and ill-read pamphleteers count for anything?
Jindal’s stand (rather the lack of it) on issues involving Indian origin people has been apathetic at best. As boston_mahesh pointed out, Jindal has done nothing for the protesting Indian workers in Louisiana and he issued no statements when those 2 murders rocked the LSU campus earlier this year. He’s a shrewd politician pandering to his base. He’ll definitely embrace the desi people ones he needs funds. There are a lot of people who will gladly open their wallets because he’s supposedly ‘one of them’. Go figure.
One word: Pandering.
You can teach “intelligent design” or “creationism” or whatever you’re calling it this week at your religious institution. As for public school, there is no place to teach this kind of stuff. As a taxpayer, I would bring a lawsuit ASAP and keep appealing it if the lower courts ruled in favour of the IDers.
The really funny thing about all this is that when these people talk about “opening the kids to other alternatives” and “letting them decide”, first of all kids at that age are not yet knowledgeable enough to make critical decisions on these issues. Imagine in High School if you were allowed to debate the Maths teacher on formulae… how well would that have gone over? I’m not saying it’s always a good thing to listen to the figure of authority, but in the education world on some issues you just need to accept what someone who knows a LOT more than you is saying. Also, I fully expect that if this law passes teachers will educate their students on not just evolution and biblical creationism, but I also want them to bring the students the stories about Aztec creation myths, Greek, Roman, Celtic, Norse, Egyptian, Parsi, Buddhist, Shinto, Hindu, various African, and Incan along with a dose of Native American. You know, just so the students can make an educated decision about which one is right.
Sorry… this is a sore point for me because I value education.
34 · kyrial said
In a democracy the voters have rights, as Moornam’s excellent analogy in #27 demonstrates. You can’t throw this principle, one embedded in our constitution (10th amendment, among other places) under the bus just b/c you don’t like the results.
Now, I realize our democracy is limited by the bill of rights; in this case, the establishment clause. Teaching evolution as science in a public schools would certainly violate the 1st amendment but vouchers would not, b/c of the element of choice. think GI bill: soldiers where able to attend religious universities at taxpayer expense or even train for a religious profession. since the state did not mandate that they do so there was no element of force: ie, establishing an official religion. ditto for vouchers.
in this case, the real fundamentalists are secular progressives who want to impose their belif system on everyone else. their belif system may infct be true, but in our regime that still doesn’t give them the right to impose it on others. kudos to jindal for standing up to them. on this issue, he’s the real liberal.
comment number 5 had it right after all…
On a serious note, Gov. Jindal has done absolutely NOTHING regarding the Indian guest workers who are rebuilding up after Katrina. The ironies are that: One of the Indian guest worker’s leader is an Indian Christian named Paul Konar, and many of these protesters/hunger strikers are Christians. The other irony is that Piyush and all the strikers are ethnic Indian. NOTE: If you’d like to involve yourself in raising awareness of this, here are some people you can contact:In Boston, Edwin Argueta of New Global Justice (eargu@juno.com)Stephen Boykewich at spboykewich@gmail.com 504-655-0876Saket Soni – 504 881 6610
Anyways, coming back to Piyush: He would have been a “Babur” if he had grown up in the UAE, and he would have been a “Boshtein” if he had grown up in Israel. I truly believe that he positioned himself to be ultra-right-wing given YESTERDAY’S political climate (i.e. from ’02-’06), where Republicans became caricatures of the ayatollahs of Iran and were being extremely divisive and into a Christian theocratic form of government. However, that was yesterday, and today, we see that Americans are a lot more progressive once again. Therefore, Jindal will also become more moderate and more centric. He’s going to start by first addressing the global warming issue, I think.
So anywhere the wind blows, Piyush will follow.
Immigration is a federal issue. Governor Jindal has Louisiana’s problems to worry about. He was not elected to solve the problems of Indians or Indian Christians. It is also racist to state that because he is an Indian-American Christian he has obligations to Indians or Indian Christians.
their belif system may infct be true, but in our regime that still doesn’t give them the right to impose it on others.
yes it does. i don’t believe that tards should be forced to believe in evolution; most people are too stupid or too ignorant to understand evolution, they just believe in it, or don’t. but there are things like anti-vaccination beliefs which are a matter of life & death. unless you posit that children are the inalienable property of their parents than truth in these sorts of matters does entail intervention (christian scientists have specifically used their political pull to inoculate them from prosecution, while the anti-vacc people are slowly pushing for laws to make their own lives “easier”).
the key with the whole evolution thing is simple. the supreme court will overturn it, or the legislature will flip when high tech companies start complaining that they’re embarrassing the state with sanctioned yokelism and it’s making them hard to lure well educated workers (this is the problem that specifically cropped up in kansas).
also, i don’t think it’s “racist” to presume that bobby jindal will take special note of indians or indian christians, but his life story would i think mitigate against such an expectation….
I think people should be reminded of the phrase: He who pays the piper calls the tune.
The schools are primarily supported by local township taxes. State and Federal funding is only secondary. As such, the local people, ie, the public, have the complete right to decide what is taught in their public schools, not the politicians in the State Capital or Washington.
Then you should really be campaigning that public schools be shut down and let only private schools prevail. This way, the market will ensure that only the schools which teach the truth win. ID/Creationism will eventually be relegated to the fringe minority (but will never go away).
M. Nam
razib writes: >>unless you posit that children are the inalienable property of their parents than truth in these sorts of matters
Yes. I do.
A fine job the public school system is doing.
M. Nam
As such, the local people, ie, the public, have the complete right to decide what is taught in their public schools, not the politicians in the State Capital or Washington.
perhaps they should have the right, but they don’t. additionally, you noted that they are primarily supported, not completely, so why not say they should have the primary as opposed to complete right? e.g., higher ups intervene only in the case of marginal cases.
Then you should really be campaigning that public schools be shut down and let only private schools prevail. This way, the market will ensure that only the schools which teach the truth win. ID/Creationism will eventually be relegated to the fringe minority (but will never go away).
well, private christian academies are very common in the south anyway (originally founded to evade integration). so it’s kind of a moot point.
and how. my kids aint gonna be learned with none of those negro kids is what i say.
but they are still subject to federal constitutional concepts – e.g. separation of church and state and the freedom of religion clauses. if you left it completely to each locality, without no overriding constricts, the minorities in such areas would have no voice and be left unprotected, and this is exactly the problem that the establishment and free exercise clauses were meant to address.
For the record, tax payers have no standing because of their tax payer status in general. In over two hundred years of Supreme Court jurisdiction, I believe the Court has found tax payer standing in only narrow issue of government spending money on items which the federal government is specifically prohibited in the Constitution from engaging (Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83 (1968)
Moornam’s libertarian screed in comment #27 and the Tenth Amendment have nothing to do with each other. The Tenth Amendment has nothing to do with ‘individual rights’ even though it does explicity state ‘or to the people’. The ‘people’ part has never been uphelp by the Supreme Court.
The Constitution does not address the ‘rights’ of the individual tax payer anywhere.
Also Barrack Hussain Obama will appoint the liberal tiger Laurence Tribe as the next Supreme Court Justice. You heard it here first, kids. Dark Horse: Desi Akhil Amar though with a comfortable liberal senate majority, Akhil Amar’s ‘documentarian’ view of the constitution might look too much like ‘originalism’ to the left.
ak writes: >>if you left it completely to each locality, without no overriding constricts, the minorities in such areas would have no voice and be left unprotected
Ahem…the ID/Creationism folks are a minority, and they have no voice and are left unprotected. I’m just saying…
The only overriding principle is: Nobody should be denied an education that they want. Parents of kids who lean towards evolution are not being denied that route in public schools. Nobody is restricting them. So what’s the problem here.
M. Nam
The schools are primarily supported by local township taxes. State and Federal funding is only secondary
Not in poor neighborhoods. Most states in the Unions have a minimum amount that has to be spent per child in the state. In a lot of poor neighborhoods, the local taxes are less than 25% of that minimum.
39 · razib said
well i was talking w/i the context of the first amendment: beliefs, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. anti-vacc beliefs are fine, but the state has the right to control behaviour, especially behavior that is a matter of life and death of another individual (in this case, children). thought/action distinction is very important in liberal thought.
Ahem…the ID/Creationism folks are a minority, and they have no voice and are left unprotected. I’m just saying…
no, they’re not. there’s been parity in proportions for a generation. they are a small minority among the non-slack-jawed set, which is why there’s that perception.