Another kid, a good friend of mine, stood up and spoke impromptu after me; it wasn’t often that these presentations prompted rebuttal. He made some powerful counter-arguments to my speech, presenting the case for what he called Intelligent Design.

My friend’s speech shocked me at the time. I didn’t know how anything that I had said could prove so controversial. I hadn’t felt that there were religious implications or counterbalancing scientific ideas. I had simply accepted what I had read in National Geographic as undisputedly true. 

I carried forward the need to accept that just because something is written up in a national journal doesn’t necessarily make it valid or fact! 

  I draw your attention to the recently ejected State Senate Bill 83.  

 This highly commendable initiative, put forward by Senator Jeff Monroe, R-Pierre, set out to encourage freedom of debate in the classroom. Specifically, it would have allowed teachers in Science to present balanced arguments about the full range of scientific questions from those concerning the potential for human involvement in environmental change to human cloning. The fact that it has been effectively shot down by opposition from school boards and the educational establishment is a damaging attack on free speech. This action impoverishes the education of our children, and reeks of the sort of micromanagement that seriously demoralizes educators. 

 Teachers are supposed to challenge students’ minds, not demand intellectual conformity; to do otherwise would not only do our young people themselves a great disservice, but spell the end of innovation. Part of this educative process should involve exposing students to the genuine debates that exist about a range of scientific issues. Every generation (in general, and especially the scientific establishment it seems) may feel that they have it “all figured out”. But it is arrogant to assume always that there are clearly defined right answers to broad questions of societal debate, even concerning questions relating to evolution and the origins of the Universe. We abandoned Einstein’s widely supported concept of the “Static Universe,” to give just one example. 

 Science is NOT about certainty, however the opponents of this Senate Bill clearly believe that it is, on a whole range of fundamental questions, questions that go to the heart of our core beliefs and indeed to the sound running of the economy. They believe them so strongly that the First Amendment has effectively been cut to ribbons in our classrooms; many great teachers go silent for fear of administrative reprisal if they seek to promote discussion and debate. Others are demoralized and seek alternative career paths.  

 What is demoralizing to many in South Dakota is the way in which the ideas of social conservatives, in particular, seem to be targeted for elimination in our schools. It is particularly dangerous when one school of thought is singled out in this way as somehow being too extreme or even “corrupting” to young people. Well respected (and by no means conservative) Professor of Political Theory at Queen’s University, Colin Farrelly, has commented on the deeply ingrained negative views that many of his students have developed about conservative ideology, ideas that stem from a lack of real engagement. “As citizens our students will be expected to engage with conservatives,” he writes, “and so, at the least, they should develop an understanding of (if not an appreciation for the potential value of) conservatism.” 

 I declare that public education should not be simply about delivery of a body of (tightly censored) information and so-called “right answers,” but should be more concerned with providing our children with the ability to think and argue for themselves, thereby preparing them to play an adult part in American society and to fulfill their civic duty. That societal and civic duty is closely entwined with the most American of virtues, which is the right to dissent, and to debate in forum. Please for a moment picture in your mind Norman Rockwell’s painting entitled “Freedom of Speech”. For me, the image of the common man, eyes slightly lifted above the horizon, boldly speaking his mind among his peers, superbly sums up my feeling about the importance of fostering an intellectually courageous youth, as opposed to tomorrows breed of trained victims of deceitful establishment propaganda. In American society we know and are ready to accept that a winning intellectual argument can be delivered, with no lesser value, by a humble beggar, who speaks the truth, as opposed to by an Ivy League elitist who may propagate falsehood.  

 Without any desire to shock those neighbors that abhor mention of religious belief or any utility derived from it, I feel the need to quote from John, Chapter 9, and the verse that ends “…whereas I was blind, but now I see.” It is a story that underlines the reality of human fallibility, and the ability to change your mind. I would contend that this powerful statement of humility is equally applicable to people of no faith, or of other faiths, as well as Christians. And it applies even to our most brilliant scientists, who also potentially suffer from blindness, just like the rest of us. Indeed, a humble nature implies that we are comfortable with our inevitable lack of certainty about so many things. As Socrates said, “The only true wisdom is to know you know nothing”. We all “endeavor” to know, but can never achieve true knowledge. Or, as Isaac Newton is reputed to have put it, when looking back on his scientific career: “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Wisdom only comes by way of a willingness to doubt. We want to instill this kind of wisdom in the students of South Dakota.  

 The question I have for the opponents of the SB-83 is, “Why do you fear debate?”  

 Our various School Districts already control the body of knowledge that you must be able to command in order to be able to graduate, so what is the harm of allowing proper evidence based argument of some areas of scientific understanding. To allow our teachers to stimulate such debate, where it is appropriate, and also advances educational objectives, cannot be understood as forcing any personal acceptance of any particular viewpoint on the part of our students. That would actually be the standpoint of those who compel students to complete assignments under mandatory headings such as that, currently in existence, which requires them to uncritically set out the scientific underpinnings of the Big Bang Theory. 

 Quite to the contrary, it encourages students to think hard about core issues and empowers them to come to their own conclusions, as free Americans. To take any other course is to follow the part taken by the rulers in ancient Athens, who condemned Socrates as “an evil-doer and corrupter of the youth,” when in reality, Socrates just encouraged his students to think skeptically, by the process of challenging debate. 

 The Bill, which the South Dakota State Senate has now conclusively sidelined, sought to preserve the idea of the value of the teacher as the initiator of discussion that Socrates embodied. And we should not be afraid of this. If we prevent genuine intellectual discourse, argument, and classroom debate, as opponents of the Bill so passionately sought to do, we risk ending up with a classroom that will one day be taught by a computer that is “APPROVED by the School District”. And in this I smell the repugnant stench of the world that George Orwell described in “1984”. The opponents of the bill are fostering and supporting an institutionalized distrust for teachers.  

 Of course, the opponents of SB-83 argued that the proposed legislation was merely a subversive way to facilitate the presentation of Intelligent Design arguments in our high school classes. They want to lead us to believe that Senator Monroe, and the many who supported him, are guilty of some kind of conspiracy theory to undermine received scientific wisdom.  

 But these arguments are very far from convincing. Just for starters, it should surely be acknowledged that there is absolutely no mention of any idea whatsoever connected with religion in the text of the Bill. Indeed, the only people who have brought up the issue of Intelligent Design are those who oppose Senator Monroe’s proposal. 

 And why should issues connected with science not be subject to discussion and argument, as are questions about our history. There are those who suggest, for instance, that the Spanish American War was about sugar, and hence about America’s economic interest, as opposed to a reaction to justified outrage in the face of Spanish Government atrocities. Or that a policy of accommodation, rather than strength, lay behind the downfall of Communism. My belief is that those historians are wrong, but I encourage debate and analysis of the area. I support the right of those historians to make their case. 

 And I believe strongly that debate is strongly needed in the Science classroom, just as it is in the History classroom. Only ignorance will reign supreme without it. I do not believe that, just because a possible ‘rogue’ teacher may pop up and corrupt our children’s minds, as Socrates was accused of, we should condemn our students to a factory style, debateless, and ultimately intellectually bankrupt education. 

In this way our legislators are thereon cajoled, hounded, publicly ridiculed, and threatened politically so as to persuade them to perform in our hallowed halls in the way these lobbyists demand. Now remember that these legislators represent the interests of the people of South Dakota and are directly accountable to their voters. But they’re often out in the cold for public support, when the crisis is greatest, and potentially vulnerable to attacks launched by self-interested lobbying organizations.

The motivation that underpins all this expense and professional effort in lobbying is, of course, very considerable. The people of South Dakota carry the checkbook and many lobbyists are sent in with the direct purpose of placing immense pressure on them to expand government in a myriad of ways which serve their political or financial purposes. Examples of recent undesirable initiatives that have been energetically promoted by lobbyists include, for instance, the dominant role which liberal education groups have played in shaping the content of Common Core education at K-12, with very little sensitivity shown to regional cultural differences. That is troubling when required subjects on the curriculum mandate require students to: “Give evidence to support climate change,” or, “Explain the Big Bang Theory”. Today lobbyists connected with the gambling cartels are pressing hard for an expansion of video lottery rights in establishments across the state, and others continue to seek the abolition of all, but a couple, of the existing exemptions (mostly benefiting agriculture) to the sales and use tax. And unlike our elected legislators, who have a direct connection to the people they represent, these interest groups typically do not care how much taxes a South Dakotan pays. They do not care about how you wish to raise your children, and they don’t care about how you feel about your guns, religion, or your fishing hole.

The particular danger, in these circumstances, of course, is cronyism, the much feared corruption of the government of our Republic, where the legislators themselves come to no longer represent the people but these public interest groups, unions, or business entities. One way in which this most notably happens is through the much fabled existence of a “revolving door” syndrome, whereby our representatives are persuaded to vote in a certain way, or support a certain set of initiatives, in implicit exchange for a cozy lobbying job when they leave office.

This is not to say that many people, throughout the United States, are not increasingly alert to the danger. Across the last five years alone, a number of U.S. Senators have won elections with platforms and campaigns based specifically on fighting cronyism. Senator Mike Lee, of Utah, is a great example of this new breed of representative. “Free enterprise works—morally and materially—because it aligns the interests of the individual and society,” he said in 2014. “It’s a system governed by an ‘invisible hand’ that rewards the creation of value, and by an ‘invisible foot’ that punishes complacency, especially at the top.” He is fiercely critical of cronyism and the considerable danger to our democracy that the problem represents. Cronyism is, indeed, a key element of the stuff that we Americans supposedly left behind when we gained our independence from Britain over two centuries ago.

But, notwithstanding these instances of electoral progress, there is no room for complacency in the fight against lobbyists and special interest groups; there is an ever present need for vigilance. The people must not hide in the shadows if they wish to protect their interests. Instead we must speak up and say that we support our legislator, when he or she pursues conservative policies, because otherwise that representative of the people might become quite convinced that the silver tongued lobbyist is right, and that they are all alone in their wish to represent the people in the way that they would wish to be represented.

All this is not to say that many of these lobbyists, who come to Pierre, are not well-meaning individuals, who are genuinely determined to make life in our state better. Many of them, however, were raised and schooled in a much different cultural environment to that of the average South Dakotan citizen, and are used to traditions that are alien to our way of life. So they genuinely feel justified, based on conscience, in pressuring for changes in our own state government so that we may be as lucky, in our system, as people in Illinois, or some other state that they call home, are in theirs, where these laws or expansions of government already exist.

In truth, South Dakota is an island of conservative government, with a relatively healthy balance sheet to prove it. Our state government rules for the common interest, most the time, based on loyalty among neighbors in a community where everyone knows everyone else. But when our legislators go to 500 East Capitol Avenue they are suddenly bombarded with petitions from lobbyists. For every call or email they receive from actual constituents, they receive a hundred from paid campaigners. Representatives’ voicemails are filled with the incessant demands of those who are paid to influence them. If we are to redress this balance, South Dakotans must make it a sport or a hobby to engage in politics. This is indeed essential if they wish to see their children grow up in a state they recognize and are proud of.

Right now, urgent calls from lobbyists include those for the initiation of both a new state corporate tax, and a new state income tax (some actually advocate both). They seek to change the way we distribute government spending and the total amount of tax we levy, and to change the way our children learn in schools. In fact, there must be literally hundreds of life changing bills that have been thrown on the desks of our legislators. It is difficult sometimes for those who we send to Pierre as our representatives to resist these calls and this pressure.

What a legislator needs in these circumstances from constituents are basic things to indicate support for conservative policy positions. These may include simply writing a letter to a newspaper editor, making a blog posting, organizing a rally, contributing to an online discussion, or making any public statement that can serve the purpose of proving that the embattled legislator is not alone.

Another thing that we would benefit from, in our struggle against special interests, is a better system of checks and balances within government to head off nefarious influences. We live in a state where ethics commissions, Inspector Generals, and other public mechanisms, which might otherwise protect our citizens from abuse at the hands of rogue government officials, are largely nonexistent. The reasons given to the people for governmental disinterest, when it comes to providing these protections, come down to the fact that we haven’t caught enough trouble makers in the past, which necessarily means that they must not exist today. It is almost as if the human frailties, that such political machines as Tammany Hall thrived upon could never manifest themselves here on the Great Plains! Recent examples of possibly questionable conduct, including the EB-5 affair, and the GEAR UP/Mid Central scandal, both of which involved Department of Legislative Audit findings of wrongdoing, and temporarily raised the profile of government ethics, seem to have been overlooked by those who claim that the initiation of more robust checks and balances, to protect our liberties, are not needed.

Admittedly, Governor Daugaard, among some others, has taken modest steps to promote a more transparent government, including recent (limited) freedom of information initiatives. But I suggest strongly that if we do not create more sophisticated and independent safeguards to fight against cronyism in government, that are genuinely free from political blow back, then South Dakota citizens will continue to be victims of silent crimes, and even what amounts to political corruption. There are current initiatives, apparently, on the cards, to examine whether the Department of Legislative Affairs’ authority to examine government records should be further enhanced, or whether the Attorney General should be mandated in any way to confer more routinely with those tasked with the business of Legislative Audit. But these initiatives arguably still do not go far enough. South Dakota needs an Inspector General with wide ranging powers to stamp out abuse.

The majority of South Dakotans are intelligent and freedom loving individuals. They do not choose to live in our great state because they seek a way of life such as that which exists in Los Angeles, New York or Philadelphia; instead, they choose to carve out a unique and robust lifestyle in a part of the country where independence reigns.

And likewise, the South Dakota state government, our state government, is not intended to be the preserve and dominion of those who do not understand our rare people, or even wish to understand who we are in many cases. We do not wish to fear a state government that no longer represents our ideals nor protects our guaranteed inherited rights to property, family, and self-protection. We do not wish to read in our newspapers about how our state treasury is facing overwhelming debt through established entitlement programs, bureaucracy, corruption, and out of control spending.

Certainly the federal government today is in no way friendly to diversity of thought, among the many stars in the United States flag, as is evident from its own increasing power grabs over state resources, rights, and income, not to mention the further federal mandates that impose intolerable burdens on state expenditure across a range of areas from health to education. This makes it even more important for all of us to make sure that, when our own representatives go to our state capitol, they can count on us to stand, alongside them, in protecting our deeply held beliefs ourselves.

For ours is a Republic that was never intended to operate based upon the wishes of the elected, but on those of the people that elected them. We the people ought to rule in South Dakota, under God, and it’s up to us citizens to ensure that we continue to do so.

No longer should a government employee – appointed, elected, or hired – be allowed to directly or indirectly review the performance, effect the employment contract of, or award government contracts to any family of the 3^rddegree of the said government employee. This is good government because it protects those that it serves through internal checks and balances. We should never see school districts dominated by single families; nor government road, lawn, or maintenance contracts awarded to family members whose performance is reviewed by other family members; or politicians awarding government grants and loan subsidies to petitioning family members. We desire that blind impartiality follow justice in South Dakota’s government workings and that the blindfold remain on when dispensing the benefit of the government treasury. Passing law that promotes public accountability and ethics in government will be the honor of this generation. A nepotism law will have to come by popular support or begin through election mandate, because this law would curtail some of the power and authority that the law makers now enjoy. The act of hiring family members and abusing the public trust through favoritism and betraying proper hiring practices is not ever likely to cease without intervention by the governed, so it’s up to the citizens of South Dakota to demand the ethical behavior they expect from their public servants.