We Are Awake In A Nightmare

Over at RedState, Erik Erickson has a post arguing that John Robert's otherwise unaccountable defection is a blessing in disguise for the Tea Party.  They will arise from their slumber and whoop up on the Democrats in November, leading to the repeal of ObamaCare.  He argues, " A giant woke in 2009. It went back to sleep thinking it had saved the republic in 2010. It’s awake now and I don’t think it is going back to sleep."

I respectfully dissent.  

For starters, even if Erickson is correct about the ObamaCare ruling revving up support for libertarian beliefs and elects enough Tea Party politicians to Washington to overturn ObamaCare, it will take all of one election to undo that and bring back the mandate.  Additionally, more mandates may be coming down the line from our statist foes.  As I argued in March, we had to win that case to keep Pandora's Box from opening.  I erred in believing the Commerce Clause would be the main argument (as did every lower court judge, regardless of their vote on the legality of ObamaCare), but the now solidified "constitutionality" of mandates is a reality.  Every election is now a battle to keep mandates out of our lives, and sadly we will not win them all.  The expansion of the federal government into our lives will accelerate regardless of the outcome in November. 

But Harrison, I don't believe our boys will reach that wall (in November). 

Nearly every argument conservatives and libertarians make about the damaging impact of Obama's policies on our lives is just too complicated for the average Joe or Jolene to follow.  It's far simpler to believe the grocery store is just jacking up prices to make profit than to understand how low interest borrowing by the federal government increases the money supply, decreasing the value of money down the pipe but not for those initially receiving that spending.  It's pretty damn tempting for people suffering in this economy to take a "free" entitlement of any sort, especially when the real downside won't hit for another few years or even decades (think Social Security, Medicare, ObamaCare, etc.).  It's too damn real out there for most folks not to want some great leader to magically pull us from the morass; they will follow that hope even when their reason tells them our leaders are egotistical, corrupt, and blatantly incompetent.  You can literally point this out to people: ask them if they think Congress is competent and generally not corrupt.  They will tell you no.  Their polling is usually in the low teens.  Ask those same people if Congress should be more involved in "fixing" our problems.  You won't like their response.  It's doublethink; the cognitive dissonance should be deafening, but it isn't.  We should throw more power to the corrupt and incompetent to fix our problems. 

We see it in Europe.  Nobody at all wants to face the fact that most nations over there are bankrupt and need to cut spending immediately.  Our people will be no different. 

Us Tea Party folks may very well awake to find ourselves in a living nightmare from which we cannot escape.  Erickson says they fell asleep after 2010; maybe so, maybe no.  But their impact in 2010 was not particularly great.  We may have slowed down the expansion of government some, but we are not reversing it, and 2010 was very likely our high water mark in terms of support. 

I am becoming increasingly convinced that the only options before us are secession (highly, highly unlikely) and going into the thousand years of darkness Reagan warned us of.  If the Tea Party cannot put government growth into reverse, then that second outcome is inevitable so long as we stay within our current political system. 

If we are serious about our stance on personal liberty and limited government, we will have to start taking a hard look at that first option.  But I don't think most people, even within the Tea Party, are that serious.  When given the choice between fighting for those liberties we supposedly hold sacred, putting our lives, fortune, and sacred honor on the line, or maintaining our admittedly shrinking comfort in the land of soft despotism, you'll find the forces of revolution being mighty small. 

I'll continue struggling against this parental tyranny because it is wrong and I cannot quietly abide what I see as wrong.  But I do not continue this struggle with a belief that it will work, at least within our current political framework.  And I'm pretty certain I'm not alone in that. 

We are awake.  The nightmare isn't a dream.  The monsters are real.  And we are now very, very naked before them. 

Sorry, Mr. Freedland

Reading Jonathan Freedland at The Guardian today is both amusing and painful.  You can tell Freedland is not a conservative/libertarian type, but he keeps skirting with their conclusions before fleeing them once their impact dawns upon him.  His problem, like so many on the Left, is that he takes democracy to be the best form of government by the people, rather than a republic governed by laws and respecting certain rights regardless of what a majority may say.  As Freedland says, democracy is like a car; if the people vote right or left, the country should respond accordingly.  

I'm going to ignore Egypt because it was never a democratic government to begin with.  They had a popular uprising, but no plan of action for establishing control afterwards.  Freedland's comments on Greece are illuminating, however.  

The point is, the answer is not in the Greeks' own hands. They are subject to the decisions of others, over whom they have no democratic control. Fair enough, you might say, since the Greeks are demanding the help of others – in the form of cash to bail out their ailing economy. But the effect is the same. For the Greeks, the ancient, animating promise of democracy – that it allows a people to be the master of their own fate – no longer holds.

But, Mr. Freedland, the Greeks were masters of their fate.  This is their fate.   The is the fate of the welfare state.  

Crudely, it means that governments whose prime task used to be giving things to people now have to take things away from them. 

Government cannot give without first taking away, Mr. Freedland.  Up until now, the welfare state has subsisted on taxing the rich and borrowing the remainder.  Now Europe can't borrow.   Europe has promised so many things to people and couched them in terms of "rights" but now cannot deliver.  They have run out of other people's money.  

Do not be surprised.  Conservatives and libertarians have been predicting this for decades.  So long as politicians can use the money of some people to bribe others, they will, even if it means promising more than there actually is.  A supranational solution does not exist for the same reason: mathematics will rule against you every time.  You cannot give more than there actually is, and how much there is depends on how much people are willing to produce, and how much they will produce depends on how much those people will get to keep.  

 

Politicians suddenly look small. The big forces that shape our lives – whether the euro or the bond markets – are increasingly beyond the reach of any national government.

For some of us, the abilities of government always looked small; they created a temporary boom with a gigantic bust.  Welcome to the club.  

All of the Rules Apply

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

~Rule 13, Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

"Never go outside the experience of your people."

~Rule 2, Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

Scott Walker won a decisive victory over Tom Barrett and the public service unions last night.  Given the raucous protests in 2011 from Madison to the Occupy movement and the supposed retreat of the Tea Party, folks on the Left are wondering how Walker could possibly have own.  The straw they are latching onto is that Walker's spending advantage, bolstered by the Citizens United decision, is weak.  Ask yourself, when was the last time you voted for a candidate because of how much money they spent?  Have those 30 second ads ever swung your vote?  Possessing a large war chest is more often a symptom of popularity rather than its cause. 

So what went wrong for the unions and their OWS prototype protest?  They followed Saul Alinsky's most famous rule to a T.  Scott Walker was their target, they painted him as evil incarnate (often literally), and made it clear that supporting the governor was morally unacceptable to anyone who would listen.  The negative rule 13 tactic has rarely been carried out as ruthlessly as against Walker.  It pumped up union members and liberals to nearly hysterical levels.  They remained focused on portraying collective bargaining as a basic human right to stay within Alinsky's second rule, to not go outside the experience of your people. 

But those folks misread Alinsky and America.  Middle class Wisconsinites were the people to be organized and they play by rules very different from those of the radical Left.  Trashing the Capitol and war monuments, screaming obscenities, drum circles; these are poison to average John Q. Public III.  He is revolted by them.  "The failure of many of our younger activists to understand the art of communication has been disastrous.  Even the most elementary grasp of the fundamental idea...would have ruled out attacks on the American flag."  The OWS types can scream that they are the 99% until they are blue in the face, it just isn't so.  Both the Wisconsin Democrats and OWS made the incredible mistake of assuming Middle America resembles the protesters!

What does Middle America actually see when it comes to Scott Walker?  A challenge to a privileged class.  Note not "the" privileged class, but certainly a class with privilege.  My step-dad would fit in with most middle class Americans.  He is 59 and is a supervisor of a few dozen employees, but started decades ago at the bottom.  Retirement is a fading dream for him; likely as not, he will work until he physically cannot out of financial necessity.  There is no love for Wall Street bankers, that's for damn sure, but they rarely show up in our part of the world.  What burns his ass on a daily basis are "public servants" complaining about not getting a bigger raise, chipping in for their own health care, or the travesty of retirement at 55.  

Again, my step-dad is 59, retirement is a fading dream, his property taxes are skyrocketing to pay for others to retire at 55...and they are ungrateful. 

The wonder isn't so much that Walker won as it is that Middle America has not smashed this machine until now.  "Fairness" should never leave the mouth of anyone retiring before 60 on a public pension, if not for moral reasons than just out of basic tactical considerations.  But the unions and the Democrats pushed this issue.  They were resoundingly defeated and every governor in the nation facing budget troubles (nearly all of them) knows now that public sector unions are not invincible machines.  They can be beaten, and more importantly, there is a huge groundswell that wants to see them beaten that extends far beyond the Koch Brothers. 

If Republicans are smart, they will tie the President to these unpopular public unions and force him to declare where his loyalties really lie.  If the Democrat Party renounces their top financial and organizational support structure, both could find themselves estranged from each other and significantly weakened for years to come.  Their strength lies in reinforcing each other; the unions provide votes and cash for the Democrats, who in turn provide privileges to the unions.  But apart from each other, they both lose.  The unions are unquestionably unpopular and it is easy to point out their privileges to those paying the bill.  Let's make Obama lose his union support or that of those disgusted with union privileges.  I think this is something we absolutely must focus on.  Unemployment and the bad economy hurt Obama for sure, but they are complicated enough for the average American or Harvard economist not to fully understand, which makes assigning responsibility difficult.  Supporting union privileges, on the other hand, is straightforward. 

Perhaps the most important takeaway is that the Left is in a bubble, a point noted by many conservative bloggers.  The Tea Party is extreme, public pensions are popular, Walker was weak, ObamaCare is popular and unquestionably constitutional, Occupy would play a large role within our political system, etc.  It's frustrating to deal with somebody who just cannot see a damn wall in front of their own face, who is adamant that the wall doesn't exist.  But I'm long past done trying to convince those people of their own weaknesses (though I still love creating cognitive dissonance wherever possible).  Keep telling yourself that people who face a lifetime of working for no retirement will support paying higher taxes to hear the recipients of tax money, retiring with color still in their hair, bitch about how hard the public servant's life is.  Don't work within the experience of the very people you need to convince.  When you skip right to Rule 13, it is your own cause you freeze, personalize, and polarize.  We'll make every election a Pickett's Charge in which you assault our fortified positions with actual Middle America. 

Ready to Go

I'm #ReadytoGo stand in the unemployment line in Obama's economy. 

I'm #ReadytoGo cry after not being able to find a job after 27 weeks in Obama's economy.

I'm #ReadytoGo blow up a bridge to support the 99%! (OWS version)

The Justice Department is not #ReadytoGo prosecute those domestic terrorists.

#ReadytoGo beat he hell out of random white people over Trayvon Martin.

The Justice Department is not #ReadytoGo deal with that, either.  

#ReadytoGo meet my maker since I've been handed back to the Chinese Government. (Chen version)

These guns are #ReadytoGo to some Mexican drug cartels!

I'm horny and #ReadytoGo. (various politicians version)

We're #ReadytoGo on yet another taxpayer funded vacation! (Obama family version)

Obama's #ReadytoGo on yet another taxpayer funded campaign trip.

We're #ReadytoGo get some more Stimulus money! (various Obama cronies version)

I'm #ReadytoGo mock Obama for his Twitter incompetence. 

And since I'm #ReadytoGo look for more work, I guess I'm #ReadytoGo bang my head against a wall. 

I do hope Obama is #ReadytoGo come January. 

Free Speech

Eugene Volokh has a post up about a proposed Constitutional amendment the effectively denies corporations the rights of the Constitution.  I'm trying to put my objection to this idea nicely, but it is hard to do because those proposing this amendment are themselves not being particularly nice.  Let's not set a precedent for banning the speech of those we dislike.  Because someday it may be your speech being banned "for the good of democracy" or some such crap. 

Also, it's not like if corporations couldn't spend money in elections, government would all of a sudden be focused on what is "the common good."  For starters, Citizens United was in 2010; whining about the unequal spending of political money dates further back than that.  Also, it's idiotically simplistic to believe there is a "common good" that is only hidden by corporate political money.  We'd argue and bitch about what is, just like the ancient Greeks and Romans did.  Just like the "ancient" Americans did. 

I do not believe political speech should ever be banned, regardless of who is saying it or what they have to say outside of inciting violence.  Corporations have their own interest, sure, but if they are going to be regulated with hundreds of thousands of pages of laws, corporations should have a say in what those laws will be.  I'm disgusted that people are actually arguing that other Americans should be under the threat of law but should not be allowed to voice their opinions on those laws.  

It isn't like all of a sudden political speech will be equal for everyone on a national scale.  There are over 300,000,000 of us; do the math, and you'll find there isn't even enough time for us all to have an equal input into the national debate during a four year presidential term. 

Finally, I'm tired of hearing that the Founding Fathers didn't mean to include people speaking as a group.  The same 1st Amendment that protects speech protects assembly.  It's asinine to believe we get to pick one 1st Amendment right, but only one.  We get them all, in combination with one another.  So if a bunch of us want to get together and put up an ad saying Obama's policies suck for our business, it is our right.  It is our moral right as citizens that under the threat of law.  People that are impacted as a group have every right to speak as a group. 

Those who love the freedom of speech will never tolerate it being limited, because those doing the limiting always have ulterior motives.  If you disagree with someone else, say so, but don't ban what they say. 

Et Tu, Nelson?

“Scalia said [Wednesday] that it was totally unrealistic to read the whole law. Sen. Nelson didn’t think it was too much for the justices to know what they’re talking about when questioning the law’s content,” said Nelson spokesman Jake Thompson. 

I'm just disappointed nobody bothered to ask senator Nelson if HE read the bill.  You know, since he imposed it upon us and all. 

Funny that nobody on the Left is complaining about the four liberal justices who were and remain considered dead locks in favor of ObamaCare.  No, we'll question the independence of the conservative justices who up until this week were considered in play.  And we certainly won't question Kagan's role as Solicitor General when ObamaCare was passed. 

And finally, the four liberals effective took over Donald Verrilli's role once the Solicitor General made it perfectly clear he hadn't done his homework.  But we won't question their independence.  No sir! 

How dare Scalia ask hard questions!  Seriously? 

Dear Leader Dahlia...

But we seem to want to be free from that obligation as well. This morning in America’s highest court, freedom seems to be less about the absence of constraint than about the absence of shared responsibility, community, or real concern for those who don’t want anything so much as healthy children, or to be cared for when they are old. Until today, I couldn’t really understand why this case was framed as a discussion of “liberty.” This case isn’t so much about freedom from government-mandated broccoli or gyms. It’s about freedom from our obligations to one another, freedom from the modern world in which we live. It’s about the freedom to ignore the injured, walk away from those in peril, to never pick up the phone or eat food that’s been inspected. It’s about the freedom to be left alone. And now we know the court is worried about freedom: the freedom to live like it’s 1804.

That would be Dahlia Lithwick's despondent response to libertarians.  Apparently, freedom actually consists of being lead by the nose without complaint by Lithwick and her ilk whenever they decide what is good for us. 

The fact of the matter is, Dahlia, there are many different goods in the world.  There is no one Good in Plato's sense.  I get it, you think universal health care is the bee's knees.  Well, I don't, mostly because I'm young and not doing so well in the Age of Hope and Stimulus.  I need to put that money where it will do me some good (paying loans, food, rent, gas, etc.) rather than health care insurance, seeing as I haven't had a medical expense I couldn't pay out of pocket since...wow, yeah, I'm guessing since I was a toddler.  By the way, Scalia was exactly right: people my age are smart enough to make decisions individually about their own health care.  Most of us will not need it now and should be allowed to fund our more pressing needs rather than your health care.  As for those my age that do purchase insurance, they may have the resources or the need to do so; Scalia's entire point is that they would know better about their individual needs than Lithwick or Obama. 

She keeps speaking of obligations to each other.  I don't recall assuming any such obligation.  None of this means that I won't help people voluntarily; I have, I do, and I will again.  I grow so tired of this dishonest argument that conservatives and libertarians don't want the government to help people, ergo they don't want those people to be helped.  That's wrong (Bastiat destroyed it in 1850); there are sentient actors outside of the government who can and do help others on a voluntary basis.  They are called individual human beings. 

Freedom does indeed mean not having to comply with the demands of Dahlia Lithwick.  It should be a surprise to nobody that Lithwick thinks that is wrong, but then, what tyrant doesn't define freedom as "what I want you to do is best"?

UPDATE:  Just got mentioned by the Instapundit himself!  Many thanks, Professor Reynolds!

Initial Thoughts on the ObamaCare Oral Arguments

Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments over the constitutionality of the individual mandate in what is commonly called ObamaCare.  The transcript for the argument can be found here (audio can be located here).  My thoughts:

1. It was repeatedly argued by the Government that the mandate is necessarily because this market is "unique."  There are multiple problems with this argument.  For starters, the Government was never clear as to what "market" they were referring to, health care or health insurance.  They routinely switched between them, when in fact they are not interchangeable.  I can go to an emergency room without insurance.  And there is nothing unique about the health insurance market.  The government stated that "virtually everyone" and "everyone" is involved in the market (again, unclear as to which).  That's simply not true.  There are people who never use health insurance and can pay for health care on their own; so far, I've been one of them.  Maybe in the future that will change, but I'm smart enough to act accordingly. 
   
   There are markets in which literally everyone is involved, markets like food and clothing.  Medical care is not one of them.
   
2.  The government tried to argue that the health care market (whichever they were talking about) is unique because costs are shifted from the uninsured to the insured.  Again, this is not necessarily so: a great deal of medical costs could be and are paid out of pocket.  Most people do not experience major medical costs in any particular year.  The uninsured are, by and large, young people at less risk.  This mandate exists to force people who will not use medical care into the system at their cost, not for their benefit, in order to make the ban on using pre-existing conditions to determine insurance costs possible.  Without it, those health insurance companies go under and the whole system collapses. 
   
   Please note that this mandate isn't about helping the uninsured.  It's about using them as cash cows.  We place limits on Congress precisely to stop this sort of abuse.
   
3. The Government's understanding of economics is a muddled mess.  People not buying insurance and not using medical care are shifting costs to the insured and taxpayers?  Um, if the uninsured acted otherwise it is true that prices could be different, but that can be said of any other market in existence.  If more people bought guns, the prices of guns would be different; we do not thereby say people not owning guns are shifting the costs to those who do own guns.  We don't say those not buying Chevy Volts are shifting the costs to those who do. 
   
4. But what about those few uninsured who do end up costing the taxpayer by having the government pick up the tab?  Ok, riddle me this: how is giving some of them subsidized health care fixing that free rider problem?  These people can free ride because of government laws requiring healthcare providers to take care of them.  This is the result of unintended consequences of government interference, which of course requires more government interference, which will likely have unintended consequences requiring more government interference...
   
5. "Before you move on, could you express your limiting principle as succinctly as you possibly can?" ~Justice Alito.  That is on page 43; see if you can find the limiting principle to the Commerce Clause.  There isn't one.  The closest thing the Government comes to an answer is if Congress creates a regulatory scheme so freaking huge that everyone must be in it in order to work, well, so be it.  That's insane.  The larger the undertakings of Congress, the smaller become our individual rights according to the Constitution?  The whole reason we have the Constitution is to set boundaries to what Congress may do; the very fact that Congress wishes to go beyond those limits is not a constitutional argument that it may do so. 
   
6. This may very well come down to Justice Kennedy.  To Justice Kennedy: I know you don't want to make a big splash, that this is Obama's big political achievement and all.  It doesn't matter.  The Constitution, not the President's signature piece of legislation, is the Supreme Law of the Land.  We cannot set a precedent that each President may bypass the Constitution on one "Big Thing."  There is nothing about health care insurance that makes it unique.  The nation did not get entangled in this mess because it is something Congress needed to tackle, but because our President made it a campaign theme to get elected.  Again, there is absolutely nothing unique about this particular market in which you will find a limiting principle allowing an individual mandate in this case but only this case. 
   
7. It's hard to even comment on the Government's case, largely because it is incoherent.  They literally argued yesterday that the mandate is not a tax and today that it is (a point explicitly pointed out by some justices).  Their argument seems to be that the uninsured cost the insured, but the fact is most people don't experience large medical bills in any particular year.  Most that do are elderly, with insurance, in particular Medicare.  None of this points to a reason why Congress can compel people into commerce via the Commerce Clause in a way that doesn't open the door to future mandates. 
   
8. The opponents case is much clearer: the individual mandate is a novel idea that deserves strict scrutiny.  If it stands, there is no aspect of our lives that cannot be regulated, as not participating is just as much "commerce" as participating.  We have a government of limited, enumerated powers, and such an all encompassing power is inconsistent with a limited government.
   
   The opponents of ObamaCare were clear and concise.  The Government's case is a muddled mess, depending on shifting meanings of which market they are talking about, what shifting costs are, who they are shifted from and to, how they are shifted, and without a limiting principle on Congress should Congress decide to be really ambitious.  I've largely defended the opposition to ObamaCare, largely because it is the only position that can be defended.  Today's oral argument drove that point home, as commentators across the spectrum noted the Government's lack of preparation, in particular in comparison to the opposition.  That there are four justices that have never been in doubt is proof those four justices are intent on giving Congress unlimited powers come hell or high water; nearly every conservative justice has been considered a possible "Yes" vote, showing their intellectual honesty.  They want to see if this can work within the Constitution of limited governments, while their left leaning colleagues see no need to have such limits.  
   
   
   It's going to be a long wait until June. 

An Extremely Important Case

"The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing; if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"

~Justice Marshall, Marbury v Madison

"But there is another way to look at these precedents—that the Court either should stop saying that a meaningful limit on Congress’s commerce powers exists or prove that it is so."

~Judge Sutton, in his concurring opinion upholding ObamaCare

Last March, I compared the arguments over the constitutionality of ObamaCare as put forward by a liberal and a conservative circuit court decision.  The Supreme Court will take up the issue over the next three days. 

I cannot stress enough how important this case is.  I fully believe the bill should be struck down, not because it is too expensive (it is), not because the American People didn't want it (they didn't), nor because there was no transparency in the process (there wasn't); it should not be struck down because it undermines American civic virtue (it does), not because we were lied about how expensive it will be (we were), nor because it increases medical costs while reducing coverage and causing people to lose their current insurance. 

This individual mandate must go because if it stands, the Constitution will cease to be the bastion of our individual liberties.  If Congress can force us into commerce, it may regulate any aspect of our lives it so chooses.  The entire idea of a limited federal government of enumerated powers will dissolve if absolutely anything Congress would like to do can be justified by the Commerce Clause; as the Founding Fathers didn't just pen "Congress has carte blanche", I think it is safe to say this was not their intention. 

Those who like this bill will accuse me of wanting the bill struck down for purely policy reasons.  To them I ask, where is the limit of the Commerce Clause?  I will not accept the response that there is none.  If that argument is upheld, all Congress will ever need to do again is invoke the words "Commerce Clause" and declare the issue settled. 

Limits on what government may or may not do are extremely important.  I get it that the supporters of this bill think it is all sorts of awesome, but that does not change the fact that they lack a constitutional argument outside of Congress has absolute power to do as it likes.  If you annihilate the limits of government, you cannot then cite those same obliterated limits when another political party obtains power in Washington and starts using this new found mandate power in ways you don't like.  Why?  Because they'll simply quote your defense of ObamaCare. 

This is Pandora's Box.  Don't open it. 

A Rally for Reason?

Yesterday, noted atheist and evolution proponent Richard Dawkins published a piece in the Washington Post supporting an apparent Rally for Reason being held in D.C. on the 24th.  It seems like a pretty hard thing to argue against; perhaps that is why I'm inclined to do so.  

Dawkins' piece is largely a glorification of mankind's intellectual triumphs.  What we have learned to do is indeed impressive, especially when compared to whatever may be the closest competitors we have on the planet.  Reason, as a scientific method that promotes inquiry and demands natural rather than supernatural explanations, is indeed a blessing to our society.  However, we do not "base our lives in reason" alone.  Reason tells us how to do things, how things can physically be accomplished, but it fails to explain why we would want to do or not do something.  The goals in our lives are the product of passion, not reason.  The desire to have more happiness, as subjectively defined by us as individuals, is a ubiquitous feature of human nature, perhaps even more so than reason. 

In many ways, those proclaiming their own infallible wisdom are the greatest threats to reason.  Look at Dawkins' list.  In particular, he claims to know where we came from (evolution).  Now, I see no small amount of evidence to support the theory.  Walking in the field behind my house, I routinely stumble upon fossils of small aquatic beings with nifty little shells, and I live in upstate New York, far from any ocean.  And yet, the theory of evolution, that life has spawned without a guiding hand, is not beyond challenge.  No scientific theory is beyond challenge!   That spirit of skepticism is what makes science...well, science! 

Let me explore that example to show why allowing skepticism without ridicule is important.  Evolution, in particular that version that sees all of life as a byproduct of chance, has some pretty big holes.  For starters, how life came into being is still a mystery.  Literally everything else in the theory of evolution hinges on there being life in the first place, but science lacks an answer as to how this came about.  I'm not claiming science will not do so, but only pointing out that it hasn't.  This is a huge problem, because if we cannot recreate life with all of our vaunted reason, how in the world did chance do it?  Go get a quick refresher on what proteins are and how exact they have to be, both in their order of amino acids and in their folding patterns.  It is insanely complex, and a single living cell requires thousands of these things to work in unison.  

Think of it this way: you are looking at a blog post on a web page.  You understand what I'm saying, even if you disagree.  What are the odds that this was all typed by a cat?  Well, the odds of a living cell organizing itself is even more remote.  This post is fairly simple in its complexity, especially in comparison to what life is.  

Which, by the way, is another thing reason has not answered.  What is perception?  What is sentience?  Yes, I know that electrons and nerves are involved, but how do their reactions to stimuli become perceived?  

The actual argument over evolution isn't one that interests me much anymore.  When I was a teenager, I found it important, largely because the origin of life to be important in establishing an "objective" morality.  The idea that morality can exist outside of a great lawgiver did not seem convincing at the time, though it does now.  I've moved on, though I still have questions to pester the average atheist.  But in general, I don't raise them unless an atheist gets all righteous on me.  

And that is what Dawkins has done.  I don't trust educated intellectuals, either, when they forget Socrates' definition of wisdom.  That definition, by the way, is knowing that you don't know something.  Even the most educated intellectuals in the world put together know so little about the entirety of things to be known, in particular when it comes to people and their subjective lives.  The revolt against intellectuals is caused by the overreach of intellectuals.  

These intellectuals have begun worshiping their own tools, forgetting that they are means to an end rather than an end in itself.   Dawkins' second criticism is of those that would rather have their kids know the Bible rather than "modern science."  Quantum physics and an oil tanker are both tools and both would be equal wastes of time and effort for me to obtain.  The theory pointed out by Dawkins, evolution, is particularly worthless from my point of view.  I cannot think of a single aspect of my life that is improved by a thorough understanding of that theory.  Yet rules that allow us to work together in peace and harmony are essential.  Like it or not, the Bible has been a huge source of those rules.  Again, I'm agnostic, not a Christian, and there are parts of the Bible I dislike, but a great many of its precepts are both accepted and practiced by people in America today with peaceful results.  If given the choice, I too would say it would be more important for children to learn some morals rather than where birds came from.  

Perhaps the most amusing thing is that the guy who spent the entire article cranking on other people for happily living their lives with a Savior ends it by pretending to be their savior.  A hundred years from now, people will still be the same, driven by their passions and seeking to satisfy them by reason.  But the nature of those passions will still be beyond reason.  The joy, beauty, and mystery of being human will never be reduced to a mathematical equation. 

I will rally for reason by being skeptical of those claiming to know, by pointing out holes in their theories any time they get cocky about them, and generally ignoring the theory of evolution as the fairly useless piece of information that it is.