GOP politician: "Freedom is dangerous"

(I tried to post this and other material yesterday, but Blogger had other ideas. Sorry!)

We've already noted this shocking story from Jeb Bush's Florida, about right-wing efforts to allow students to sue professors who express an opinion -- or tell a truth -- that the student does not like. I would like to offer further discussion of a few outrageous observations from the bill's sponsor, one Dennis Baxley.

To buttress his censorship efforts, he offers this astonishing quote:

"Freedom is a dangerous thing, and you might be exposed to things you don't want to hear."

It gets worse:

"...if students are being persecuted and ridiculed for their beliefs, I think they should be given standing to sue."

Persecuted? Ridiculed? What paranoia!

In over 40 years, I have never witnessed or heard of a single instance in which any student in any legitimate public institution was "persecuted" or "ridiculed" by the staff for any privately-held belief. However, I know for a fact that behavior control methods in parochial schools often include tactics which many would categorize as "persecution."

What, then, constitutes "persecution" in Baxley's world?

"Some professors say, 'Evolution is a fact. I don't want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don't like it, there's the door,'" Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue.

There you have it. A student is "persecuted" if he is asked to excuse himself quietly rather than waste class time with discussions of anti-scientific bullshit.

Too many people believe that the Puritans came to this country to escape persecution. In fact, the Old World rejected the Puritan insistence on persecuting others.

Today's Fundamentalists also pretend to be the underdog, revelling in sick hallucinations of martyrdom. In fact, Fundamentalism -- in all of its forms, in every country and culture in which the disease appears -- is always abusive, to both the believer and non-believer, to both the individual and the culture. We normal people simply hope to go about our lives without having this mad-dog insanity foisted upon us.

Let the theocrats stay confined to the bedlam of the American rural south. If they cannot behave themselves in a university setting, let them leave the room quietly while rational people discuss science, philosophy, art and truth in academic peace. Let the fanatics stay mired in the Dark Ages while the rest of us seek the goals of the Renaissance.

In that light, you'll also want to read this important column by Pual Krugman. An excerpt:

The religious right is already having a big impact on education: 31 percent of teachers surveyed by the National Science Teachers Association feel pressured to present creationism-related material in the classroom.

More:

The closest parallel I can think of to current American politics is Israel. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Israelis downplayed the rise of religious extremists. But no more: extremists have already killed one prime minister, and everyone realizes that Ariel Sharon is at risk.

America isn't yet a place where liberal politicians, and even conservatives who aren't sufficiently hard-line, fear assassination. But unless moderates take a stand against the growing power of domestic extremists, it can happen here.

I second that warning -- in fact, I’ll issue it as a prediction.