Another reason that we are leaving the United States is the country’s descent into irrational and primitive mythology.
Example: The State of Kansas has once again tried to attack the teaching of Evolution in their public schools. They are supporting the teaching instead of ‘Intelligent Design’, which is just a fancy way of saying ‘God Did It’. This is to be taught in Science Class. If this doesn’t bother you, stop reading right now. A terrific article I saw in Scientific American’s web site: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense lays out just how fallacious the Intelligent Design arguments are.
In an exquisite twist of irony, this move could cause large swaths of the US to be less competitive in the global economy (and in a sense, the world’s ecosystem) where more educated and enlightened countries tend to succeed. According to the laws of Natural Selection — that they themselves refuse to believe in — those Kansas know-nothings will be less competitive in the marketplace, and will (economically) not thrive. Unfortunately, this does not keep them from breeding, but they’ll eventually be somewhat cut off (and irrelevant, just as some third world countries are today, again — economically). Since they dispute the validity and value of Science, I wonder if they wouldn’t also give up their telephones, televisions, computers, internet connections and other trappings of the last century? What happens when these luxuries break down and can’t be repaired as their educated citizens leave for employment elsewhere, and their students are unprepared for colleges where science and technology is taught. That last bit won’t happen, but I don’t think I’d be looking toward Kansas for much economic growth over the next few decades.
A similar dynamic is showing up in Stem Cell Research. With South Korea announcing some absolutely spectacular successes in that area of science this past week, and Bush subsequently peremptorily announcing his opposition to a bill that would free up government funding on such research, a commentator noted that all this does is make the US Government less and less relevant to the whole activity. As this science progresses and the money starts to pour in when investors bet on companies that will deliver the miracle cures based on stem cells, the Bush Administration’s medieval view only insures that (as the commentator put it): “the red-state scientists will move to the blue states, and then in turn, all the scientists will move out of the US to the countries where this research is flourishing.” Once again, the US digs it’s own economic grave and gleefully leaps into it, all in the name of fundamentalist religion.
Just as the best and brightest scientists (as well as artists, writers, musicians and dancers) left the Soviet Union, over time I believe it will also happen to the once great United States of America. I am sad about this, but as we often say these days, we feel like we can’t get out of here quickly enough.