So, So Right

I know what people are going to say. I'm a Thomas Friedman junkie. But the column he wrote on Saturday said things that really needed to be said. The most important issue of this election is being made into window dressing. How awesome would McCain have been if in response to the hubbub over Obama's lipstick on a pig remark, he had spoken boldly about the time Obama was wasting on trivialities and laid out the specifics of a plan to turn America into a green country that will lead the world into a cleaner, more sustainable era and return America to the position of moral leadership it has lost. Instead, he retreats into the culture war arena and endorses a plan which cannot possibly work and will cost America its economic and political leverage.
The title of the column was "Making America Stupid." In describing the McCain campaign Mr. Friedman wrote, "It's a campaign now built on turning everything into a cultural wedge issue- including even energy policy, no matter how stupid it makes the voters and no matter how much it might weaken America." Mr. Friedman does not take the next logical step by saying that John McCain is not making voters stupid, many of them have been stupid all along, and are contented to remain that way. You have no idea how much it pains me to say that, but it's true. The religious right, to which McCain has sold his once maverick soul, represent the worst of anti-intellectualism in this country. Anyone who endorses "creationism" as a "science" to be taught in school willfully chooses to ignore the very facts right in front of them, and nothing they say from that point on can be taken seriously.
Anyone who has read my blog, and so far there aren't many of you, knows that I have a very strong faith in God. I firmly believe in God as "first cause." For those of you unfamiliar with that term, it means, in a nutshell, that God caused the Big Bang to happen, and, as a result, we have evolved in the proper order along the timeline God prescribed. Even St. Thomas Aquinas, back in the late 13th century, when they knew very little about the origins of the universe, referred to God in this way. I do not think that a man with as great a mind as St. Thomas Aquinas had would continue to argue a contrary opinion in the face of overwhelming evidence, as today's Creationists do. They simply don't have any firm intellectual ground to stand on.
The few evangelicals who have come out in favor of a "green energy" policy, and been vilified for it, deserve special mention. As St. Paul said in many of his epistles, those who believe shall be persecuted. Incorporating new ideas into the mainstream subjects you, unfortunately, to that same kind of intellectual persecution.
The final point of Mr. Friedman's column was the most powerful. We cannot possible remain in any pre-eminent economic position by jumping on the "drill, drill, drill" bandwagon. Mr. McCain is pandering to the very elements of our society that would advocate wasting billions to save the dying American auto industry, which continues to give people what it thinks they want instead of educating about what they should be doing. Let's have GM and Ford declare that it will produce nothing but "green vehicles" by the year 2015 and see the turn its fortunes would take. I'm sure it would produce some short term pain, as Mr. Friedman has pointed out is necessary, but in the end both companies would regain market share they have long since conceded. Just as any President who speaks too boldly is destined for one term, any CEO of GM or Ford who made this declaration would be summarily shown the door, but he would be proven correct in years to come.
This country used to think that way, but complacency and apathy have eroded our innovative spirit. When we wake up one day and find our standard of living lost for future generations, then the finger pointing will start. But will any of us have the guts to look ourselves in the mirror and admit we are all to blame? That is a question that needs immediate consideration.