The world was built by people who were the liberals of their time. In the days of cavemen it was the social conservative insisting they needed to stay in the cave and that we shouldn't mess with fire.
In a few decades the confederacy will be even more demonized than it is now, gay marriage will be a normal part of life, etc. and social conservatives will have some new issues to be inciting fear over.
Self serving nonsense.
The atheist SU did not win the Space Race, the very religious USA did.
The far more progressive and less religious EU is not the engine of technological advancement today, the USA, far more conservative and religious is.
None of that because of the formerly confederate south
You are the one that changed the topic to a general attack on religion and religious people.
Care to address the fact that your claim is not borne out by history or the present Status Quo?
Uh, it is. So instead maybe you can address why the U.S. is getting left in the dust in math and science by more secular countries?
Because our public schools, instead on encouraging excellence is more focused on helping the dumb kids keep up.
But despite this we still lead in science.
The USA and Europe still lead the global science research effort but their future is uncertain says UNESCO report United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization
"Between 2002 and 2007, the USA invested more in research and development than all the other G7 countries combined, contributing 53% (in 2006) of all R&D spending in the G7. It also leads in terms of scientific publications registered in the Science Citation Index, the number of new patents and new doctoral graduates. But there are signs that this long-established picture is changing. While the USA still has the highest scientific output of any country in terms of publications, its world share (28%) has fallen more than any other country in the past six years. Similarly, while the USA dominates the patents market, with 42% of the stock registered with the patent offices of the USA, European Union and Japan in 2006, this is down from 44% in 2002. And, although there are plenty of new scientists coming onto the job market in the USA, 36% of new doctorates in science and engineering in 2005 were awarded to foreign students studying at American universities, mostly from Asia, compared to 21% in 1985.
Indeed, says the UNESCO report, “the future of R&D in the USA is cloudy.” This is despite President Barack Obama’s Recovery and Reinvestment Initiative, which assigns a key role to R&D, and the President’s pledge in April 2009 to increase GERD from the present 2.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) to 3% by the time he leaves office. As the effects of the global recession begin to bite, says the report, “any increase in federal funding is likely to be offset by cuts in the private sector and state-funded R&D.”
A similar picture emerges for the European Union as a whole, although, with 27 Member States since 2007, the region shows extreme heterogeneity between countries. On a range of performance indicators, says the report, the European Union can now be divided into “leaders, followers and stragglers,” with “a yawning gap” between the richest and poorest members. While, for the two most recent members, Bulgaria and Romania, who joined in 2007, gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) as a proportion of GDP is 0.5%, Finland and Sweden spend over 3.4%. "