Second Thoughts? Same as the First.

Why I am so pissed off at Bobby Jindal? I’ll tell you.

When you fail to teach children how to think critically… wait, scratch that. When you teach children that critical thinking doesn’t work, doesn’t apply, doesn’t mean anything… then you’ve opened the door for every and any charlatan and faker who comes a’ knocking.

And I’d rather have a bald-faced charlatan — like Barack Obama — than one like Jindal, any day of the week. And if Jindal really believes in the law he just let pass? Then that makes him the most dangerous charlatan of all: The one who really does believe his own BS.

Obama can hurt the economy and our security for four or maybe eight years. Jindal (and his ilk) can destroy generations of Americans minds.

A kid who is taught bullshit by liberal teachers in all his “soft science” classes still has a chance of saving his brain — so long as somewhere, anywhere, he learns the goddamn difficult process of critical thought. That’s what the hard science classes are good for nowadays: the last line of defense. There’s a reason almost every engineer I’ve ever known — damn near every single one — was a true-blue libertarian or conservative.

But if you poison the well, then what is that kid left with? If you mix faith and science in the same classroom, then all he’s got is some right wing god-fearing religious pablum, to go with the left wing state-worshiping pablum he gets in the rest of his classes.

Social sciences are, almost by definition, soft-skulled bullshit. So let the liberals teach it. Real science is supposed to mean something… and when it no longer does, then we’re all screwed.

So am I emotional on this issue? You bet your ass I am. And I’ll get emotional whether it’s a Kansas school board, or the legislature and governor of a state I’ve barely even visited.

In the churches, faith can and does sustain good people of every stripe — and in ways biology, physics, and math never could. But forcing our preachers to teach in the scientific method would ruin the religious experience. Just as surely, mixing faith and science would destroy those things science offers us.

And with that, I’ll step away from the pulpit for a while. I’d like to think that Governor Jindal would do likewise and get the hell out of our classrooms.