This article discusses how Texas is set to approve a school textbook that makes abstinence-only the sole sexual health instruction for Texas teenagers. No condoms, no birth control, no family planning. Just say no. After all, “just say no” ended drug addiction in our time, right? The sad thing is that if Texas approves this, it’s likely to be a textbook that is used nationwide. Texas is the 2nd-largest (after California) purchaser of textbooks, so most publishers aren’t going to print up separate textbooks for more-enlightened states.

This article, along with the recent Missouri anti-gay amendment, and our blue-vs.-red state situation in general, leads me to believe that some of these problems are just going to be unsolvable. There’s those of us who derive our stand on issues based on reason, science, and fairness, and then there’s those who base their opinions on anachronistic mistranslated political and mythological texts. We’re just never going to agree.

What makes this a problem is that there are no more American Frontiers. The Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, and others escaped their persecution and fled to the colonies. Those who didn’t like the colonial cities could move westward. Those who formed brand new religions could move to Utah. Those who don’t like the rural close-mindedness could move to the cities.

But now we’re in a situation where Repugnican powers can redistrict Texas to assure their dominance of state politics and the federal House and Senate. Because of the Electoral College setup, people in sparse flyover states with more cows than people get a disproportionate say in our choice of a president. Gore won 2000 by half a million votes, and in poll after poll a majority of Americans come down on the liberal side of most issues (except the death penalty), but the majority of enlightened people must suffer the policies designed to pander to the bible-thumpers.

There are three things we can do to rectify this situation:

1) Abolish the Electoral College. There’s no chance in hell this would happen, because it would take a Constitutional Amendment, ratified by 3/4ths of the states, and why would Kansas want to give up its disproportionate power?

2) Redraw the boundaries of the states. There’s no way this could happen, either. But there are so many states where geographic and cosmopolitan concerns are poles apart. For example, Western Oregon over the Cascades is a completely different state than Eastern Oregon, politically and geographically. Eastern Idaho should just be rolled into Utah. Texas should’ve been left as its own Republic.

3) Return to a more Federalist respect for States’ Rights. Maybe this one has a slim chance of happening. We’ll let the red states criminalize abortion, require school prayer, deny civil rights, teach abstinence and creationism, hand guns out like candy, and lock up potheads, if they’ll let us live like rational, civilized human beings. Then we become the New Frontier, and those who are persecuted in the red states can move to our states. Also, after a couple of generations we can find out which side really does have the best plan for the well-being of society.

“Radical” Russ — can you tell that I’m a little fed-up with these bible-belt hypochristian wackos controlling the destiny of my country?…