Further, for all the suckiness of the American system, and however you rate GW Bush on the scale of jackasses, a good case could be made that the American system is the best in the world, when you factor everything in. Yeah, I like Canada and the Scandinavian countries, too, but the case can be made.

If you want to boggle at how bad things can get, contemplate Zimbabwe or North Korea for a while.

So you can regret that (metaphorically, I am still talking about organizations), the bluebird and the butterfly become extinct while the starling, rat and cockroach thrive. But you are going up against a natural law here. Saying "somebody should do something about it" doesn't get you anywhere.

If there was a choice of schools, religious parents could send their children to religious schools where the curriculum could be as irrational as they pleased.

And, yes, a lot of parents would choose that, and their children would be educated in the equivalent of madrassas.

But if you believe that people should be free to make their own decisions, even bad ones, that extends to parents being able to decide how their childredn should be educated.

The non-religious are calmer.

But I wouldn't say it is better to be the one way than the other, unless you want want to live in a world where everyone is the same.