Taking Further Steps Backward.*
In July 1925 (yes, more than 100 years ago) a trial was held in Dayton, Tennessee that challenged the right of a teacher — any teacher — to teach the theory of evolution in their classrooms.
This trial (a trial that became a full-blown public spectacle) often referred to as the “Monkey Trial” pitted two hard-baked advocates, both more interested in disproving each other than in enlightening anyone — Bryan waving scripture as his answer to evolution, and Darrow dragging that scripture into the light and stripping it of its certainty. While the verdict still favoured the censorship of such teachings, the trial became memorable for exposing how easily a nation’s beliefs and conservative positioning could be challenged under the glare of the public spotlight. (The Scopes Trial "Monkey Trial")
One hundred years later — post-segregation, post-suffrage, and post what should have been good-sense decision making — it would seem that this very backward nation is intent on dragging its people back into an ideological ice-age.
Recent headlines from this week include:
Supreme Court Denies Request to Revisit Same-Sex Marriage Decision
Gay Americans and their allies had been on alert since the Court’s conservative majority eliminated the nationwide right to abortion after 50 years, showing a willingness to undo longstanding legal precedent.
Texas A&M Tightens Rules on Talking About Race and Gender in Classes
The university system will ban advocacy of “race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” without approval.
NYT
Indiana Professor Removed From Class Over White Supremacy Lesson
A university professor will no longer be able to teach a class on diversity after she showed students a diagram that included the “Make America Great Again” slogan as an example of white supremacy.
And what, you might ask, is the significance of such headlines? The answer lies in the fact that these questions still exist.
When people challenge the rights of others to think or believe in concepts that do not match their own, then any talk of freedom becomes meaningless — completely contradictory to a system that has spent so long boasting about the “freedom” its united people supposedly enjoy.
Yet what is freedom? Is it the freedom to accept a single-minded national need to rule, to dominate, to enrich itself at the expense of humanity itself?
It is no accident that so many of the world’s wealthiest companies and individuals happen to be American. That other oil-rich nations have fostered similar wealth principles only proves how readily they have adopted the same ambitions and policies.
This planet has become the hunting ground of the very wealthy, prepared to sacrifice anything to further their own ambitions.
A decade-long, trillion-dollar pay packet guaranteed on results obtained is one hell of a way to make an indecently rich man even richer.
(Tesla shareholders approve $1 trillion pay package for Elon Musk.)
I am a strong believer in equality for all. That is, everyone should have the same rights as anyone else — independent of what they believe, what they look like, or how rich or poor they are.
If humans were actually intelligent beings, then debates over the rights of so many minorities would become moot.
We are what we want to be — not what society tells us they want us to be.
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