Culture Wars…

We are entering another month of the ongoing political culture wars next week, without really looking at the concerns of jobs, economics, climate change or any of the other real problems that need to be addressed.

Tuesday will be the Michigan and Arizona primaries, so the TV pundits are focusing on those states and in so doing are revealing some new cultural phenomena. For instance, in Arizona they are considering a new law that bans college teachers from cursing but allows students to carry guns. Got that? Gun violence good, language violence bad? And then… what is a naughty enough word to get a teacher fired? Will they be listed in the law?

The biggest insertion of cultural conflict into the process is, of course, religion. Between candidates who have been spoken to by God and encouraged to run, to major religious groups protesting established birth control legislation but supporting the penetration of vaginas to discourage abortions, the promotion of religion over secular politics is frightening… and disgusting.

These politicians are ready to scrap what we know of the scientific proof for climate change in order to promote more industries that pollute the air (listen to the righties cheer) or to ignore what is necessary to reduce the unbelievable growth of population. Don’t they see what is going on here?

I turn to the world of intellectual comedy to backup my views of religion, science and atheism (a belief area that I belong to… but like most atheists don’t try to inflict my beliefs on other people using the replacement of secular law.) Here’s Eddie Izzard:

Even if you don’t agree with Eddie (or me), I hope you were at least entertained… and will think about how to get away from the culture wars and back to solving our real problems.

(BTW, Eddie Izzard will soon be appearing in a new version of Treasure Island playing Long John Silver. Can’t wait.)

Related articles

• Girl Scouts: The Culture Wars’ Tiniest Soldiers [Girl Scouts] (jezebel.com)
• Forget Jobs, 2012 Is About a Culture War and War With Iran (usnews.com)
• Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science (bfreenews.com)
• Culture War 2.0 or Same Old War? (atheistrev.com)
• Will Culture Wars be Focus of Tonight’s Debate? (politicalwire.com)
• Climate Change Hoax Has Apparently Become Part Of The Culture War (usapartisan.com)
• On the rise of culture war politics (shortformblog.tumblr.com)
• Contraceptives, religious freedom: Are we in a new culture war? (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)