WHERE IMBECILITY ABOUNDS

Some dude named Bradley Byrne has been the frontrunner for the Republicult's nomination for governor of Alabama. Now? Hard to say. Poor Brad just got hit with a vicious attack ad that accuses him of holding that parts of the Bible are not factual and that evolution exists. (This is from foxnews.com, 5/13/'10.)

Ol' Brad knows better than to let those charges stand! He at once replied that he does too believe that every word of the Bible is literally true and that evolution is wrong. He wants to make sure everyone in Alabama knows he's as big on fact-denying and reality-defying as any of 'em.

He says the ad was a joint plot by his primary opponents and the Dems. Seems they're ganging up on him to try to make him seem intelligent, which would render him unelectable.

This is what politics is like in Alabama. Sometimes I find myself wishing that the Souf had gotten safely out of the Union and stayed out. But I don't really feel that way, because I think in the longest term things will change. Still, the aggravation is there, along with that mind-bending legacy of slavery, segregation, and opposition to every notion that's honest or humane.

And don't think I'm criticizing religion, by the way. I am satisfied from much evidence that a spiritual realm exists, that we survive our deaths, and that miracles occur in this world. But literal-mindedness, exclusivism, and triumphalism are not legitimate features of any religion; they are hateful attempts to marginalize and one-up other people.

And when religious beliefs are taken to be factual claims and are used to contradict the sciences, we got trouble. Where they are used as a test of eligibility for public office, we are no longer in America, even if we are very much in red Alabama.

Sometimes only mockery is broad enough and sharp enough to answer folly:

"Ah believe the yoo-nee-verse is six thousand years old and dinosaur remains are a test of our faith, and nothin' will ever convince me otherwise.

"And ah say we should make the laws of Moses replace these-here sek-yoo-lar laws we got now.

"Besides, mah opponent married outside his family."

We are just going to have to wait out Alabama and the other deep red states, the same way we waited out the Soviet Union. Immigration from Northern states and other countries will eventually dilute the propensity for stupidity-worship and make it possible to unify the country.