Journal pudge's Journal: Sunday Thoughts 36
Scandals
First things first: there's no evidence John Kerry ever had an affair, or that Bush was AWOL, so everyone please shut up about it.
And even if Bush did have problems with his attendance, I couldn't care less, because clearly the military had no problem with it when they honorably discharged him. I don't second-guess the military unless I have a damned good reason to, and the only reason to second-guess them here is to justify partisan attacks.
Let's talk about real issues, shall we? There's so much going on that matters. And frankly, the best way for the Democrats to lose this election is to make it about Bush's past or his personality. If they call him AWOL or a deserter, if they say he is disengaged, if they chant "Don't Forget Florida" over and over, they will only annoy people.
The only way to beat Bush is to convince people that Kerry will improve trade, jobs, health care, education, homeland security, and national defense. I doubt Kerry can win on the final couple of issues, but he can on the others, but only if that is what the voters are actually thinking about. But hey, don't let me stop you from annoying the voters you want to convince.
It's the same thing with campaign financing. Kerry lies when he says that he doesn't accept PAC money; he does, but only in individual contributions, so they are not filed as PAC dollars. Dean lies when he says Kerry takes more special interest money than anyone in the Senate; he gets more individual contributions, but not overall special interest money. And while Bush's campaign didn't lie about Kerry's record -- and it is valid to show how Kerry misrepresents himself -- it is being deceptive in making it sound like Kerry is somehow owned by special interests, when he gets a lot less special interest money than Bush does.
Again, there's real issues out there. So let's get to them!
Economy
A big spending bill is coming before the President soon, and it goes over the limit he set for it. Will he veto it? Probably. He gets to look like a fiscal conservative, and the Senate already has enough votes to override the veto. Oh well.
Ed Gillespie, chair of the RNC, said on Meet the Press, "When the President first put forward the tax cuts, we didn't know we were going to be in a world after September 11, we didn't know we were going to have to have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
John Edwards' witticisms notwithstanding (what does "outsource this administration" even mean? That we will get a President from India?), we clearly have problems with jobs going overseas. George Will on This Week was in fine form as he told us the recent focus on the problem was caused not by job loss, but by who was losing the jobs: the blue collar workers have been "replaced by the articulate." Heh.
I'll give both Edwards and Will a pass on this, and simply note that while Bush clearly is not to blame for the tide of job loss overseas that we're seeing -- he didn't have anything to do with NAFTA or the WTO; he didn't create the tech bubble, nor did he burst it -- he certainly hasn't done anything substantive to help slow the losses, that I can see. His fault is not causing the job loss, but in not doing anything about it.
You could say the tax cuts are slowing the job loss now, which is possibly true, but more direct action could have slowed the losses earlier.
Last week, someone in the Department of Labor said the outsourcing is a good thing, that we'll see 20 million jobs created because of it. Maybe it's true; I'm not smart enough to judge. I am convinced that this is something that we can't stop, and still have successful businesses, and that in the long run we'll be fine; however, I do wish that our government would have taken measures to slow down the job loss, to lessen its impact, that we could change over to this new economy more gradually.
Iraq
And while we're overseas, let's talk about how we're doing in Iraq. Al Qaeda associate Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi wrote a letter noting that the terrorists are focusing their efforts on Iraq, that they are coming together and doing everything they can to destabilize the country, because they know a stable Iraq is a huge defeat for them.
The main thing this letter does is validate the not-so-eloquently expressed stategy of President Bush when he said, "bring it on." That is, our troops are in Iraq, and more than anything we want to kill the people who want to kill us, so if you're going to attack us, it's best for us if you do it in Iraq.
The terrorists in Iraq have been talked about by some as though any terrorist in Iraq is in addition to ones already elsewhere. No, it doesn't work that way. They are concentrating their efforts in Iraq, which means we are pulling them out of hiding. We want to kill them, and they are coming to us. This is better than them not coming to us.
The letter also validates what I was talking about last week, that Hussein's regime benefitted the Islamist terrorists, even if indirectly, and that his removal is a huge benefit to us in the war on terror.
Gay Marriage
I've been saying since the SCOTUS decisions last summer that the gay rights activists need to be careful not to reach too far too fast, or they will get their hand slapped. We're about to find out if I was right.
Rather than fighting for civil unions or some other means to get rights, in many areas the gay rights activists are attempting to secure marriage rights. But the country isn't ready for it, I think, and so we're seeing states like Ohio and Massachusetts rushing to make laws and amend Constitutions, and even Congress is talking about an amendment. Some activists viewed the Massachusetts court ruling as a victory, but if it ends in the state amending the Constitution, it will ultimately be a colossal failure for their goals. It's a huge risk for them to have taken.
Frankly, I think the Massachusetts decision is indefensibly wrong. I can buy the argument that gay couples should get rights afforded to married couples, but I cannot find how the logic leads them to "gay marriage". The idea that this is similar to "separate but equal" is extraordinarily specious. When a black man had to use a separate drinking fountain, that was a clear violation of his rights. But the whole idea of a civil union is that the exact same legal rights would be provided. There would not be separate water fountains, or lines at the DMV, or
And worse is the mayor of San Francisco who knowingly, willfully, violates the law. I don't know what can be done to punish the mayor, but whatever it is, it should be done to him. What if a Massachusetts mayor decided that -- once the court decision goes into effect -- it would refuse to give marriage licenses to gay couples? Would that kind of civil disobedience be acceptable? Not to me, but I strive for consistency.
And many of the people praising the mayor also slammed the Alabama judge who violated the law with his Ten Commandments in the courthouse. This is precisely why we have laws and a system for enforcing, upholding, and interpreting those laws. Civil disobedience may be justified in some situations, but for crying out loud, reserve it for those situations where our political system has failed to produce results, at the very least. To violate what you think is an unjust law while we are in the process of changing that law just makes you look like a jerk. Which, Mayor Newsom, you are.
[As to the potential court stay, I can't see how any rational court could think the harm of granting possibly illegal marriages is not greater than putting off those marriages while the issue is decided; if they can be married, they will be, but if not, then you need to revoke thousands of marriage licenses, annuling them, which will be a chaotic nightmare.]
As I've noted in this space before, I decided some time ago that I am against the government defining marriage at all. This does not mean they would allow anyone to get a civil marriage, it means civil marriage would not exist. It would be replaced by something with a different name that fills a similar function, and keeps marriage as a separate social entity.
Nothing would change, except that people would then be free to define marriage in any way they wish for themselves, and the government would open up civil union contracts to any two people who wanted them, as long as they fit some basic guidelines (perhaps defined by a combination of cohabitation, children
I personally think marriage should be between a man and a woman. I would be adamantly against homosexuals being married in my church. The problem is that most people can't or won't separate civil marriage from social marriage. When you say to someone that you're changing the definition of civil marriage, it says to them that you're changing the definition of the social institution they entered into, and it offends them.
And this feeling isn't entirely irrational, despite civil and social marriage being separate. When marriage became a legal entity, it was not government creating marriage, it was government granting legal recognition to an existing social institution. So of course, the laws about marriage followed the social institution closely, and people don't recognize a significant difference. But today, the nature of our living arrangements has changed from what it was, and a consistent legal policy would adapt to recognize those new institutions.
We need to ask ourselves not whether marriage is or is not something in particular, but in what ways people sharing each others' lives and resources benefit society, and in what ways they have a reasonable expectation of legal protections. That people share a house, food, a car, all benefits society. And that they decide to become a family means they care for each other and have a reasonable expectation to be able to visit each other in a hospital.
These are no-brainers, and we don't need to change marriage -- whatever that means -- to accomplish them. We need to recognize that the government only recognized marriage in the first place as a matter of convenience, and that it is no longer convenient to do so, and that we need to change what it is that government finds valuable in the marriage relationship, and recognize that instead of marriage itself (whatever it is).
The Powell Smackdown
One thing that anyone who's worked in Washington should know is that Colin Powell doesn't take crap. Last week -- after it was proved that Bush was not AWOL, not that it mattered much in how Powell reacted -- Congressman Sherrod Brown (D-OH), in a hearing about WMD intelligence, attacked the President on the issue. It was completely off-topic to the hearing, clearly a partisan attack, and it is something Powell would never comment on anyway. The exchange was most excellent.
BROWN: We count on you. The President may have been AWOL. The Vice President said he had other priorities during Vietnam, other high administrative officials never served. You understand war, we absolutely count on you and I think a lot of us wonder what happened between that Post interview and your statement the next day when you said the President made the right decision.
POWELL: First of all, Mr Brown, I won't dignify your comments about the President because you don't know what you're talking about. Second, let me get to the points that you were raising.
BROWN: I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean Mr Secretary.
POWELL: You made reference to the President...
BROWN: I said he may have been AWOL...
COLIN POWELL: Mr Brown, let's not, let's not go there. You know, let's just not go there, let's not go there in this hearing. Do you want to have a political fight on this matter that is very controversial and I think is being dealt with by the White House fine, but let's not go there.
Basically, Powell said, "I'm not stupid, I know what you're doing, and maybe you think you're in control of this hearing because you're on the committee, but I won't let you get away with it." It was a beautiful moment.
Gay Marriage (Score:1)
However, they are moving way too fast here. There are still many things that need to be discussed and debated with
Re:Gay Marriage (Score:1)
Why can't it be both?
Allowing gay couples to marry enforces the importance of marriage, in fact.
No, that's not a fact, it's an opinion.
Re:Gay Marriage (Score:1)
questions (Score:1)
Re:questions (Score:2)
Well, that assumes his goal was to get tons of PAC money. I don't know what his goals were. However, he did rack up several hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last few cycles that way.
My other question about PACs is a chicken vs. egg sort of thing? Does a politician vote the way he does because of PAC money, or does the PAC money come because of the way a politician votes?
It's both, and s
Good thoughts on Gay Marriage (Score:2)
We definately need to seperate the 'civil marriage' from 'social marriage'. If you are gay and want the rights afforded a civil marriage, by all means go to the courthouse and get your license. Good luck geting a 'social marriage' recognized or performed by a mainstream Church though. The Bible spells out God's definition of marriage pretty clearly.
In your church (Score:1)
And yet not, I think, so adamantly against your church marrying a gay man to a lesbian.
Moo (Score:2)
I agree [slashdot.org].
It would be replaced by something with a different name that fills a similar function, and keeps marriage as a separate social entity.
I disagree. There is no reason to fill a similar function as that function is inherently religous. Instead, the government needs to know
Re:Moo (Score:2)
I disagree. There is no reason to fill a similar function as that function is inherently religous. Instead, the government needs to know why it supports marriage. It shouldn't "because it nice" or some other value that is weighted differently by each individual. Instead, it must be functional. Similar to corporations.
I think you misunderstood what I meant by "similar fun
Re:Moo (Score:2)
There must be a common set of rights and a common vocabulary to describe them.
Possibly. Or better, big checkboxes.
_____ can make medical choices for ______ [] Yes [] No
and so on. Though, possibly it could be all inclusive and have nothing to do with marriage.
I, _______ make _______ and _____ and _____ (in that order in case of conflict) my guardians should i become incapacitated.
jobs and marriage (Score:1)
What sort of action at, what point, do you think the federal government should have taken?
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
Well, there are plenty of options, and I can't say which are good. But my point is I didn't see *anything* tried, unless you count the steel tariffs, which probably lost more jobs than it saved anyway.
Tariffs are one way. Another is penalizing companies for moving work offshore, or giving them a benefit to keeping jobs in the States. Another is insisting on environmental and labor standards (things which drive up
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:1)
The decision to do nothing also has merit. My biggest problem with the federal government is that it always feels the need and the pressure to do something, and as a result, every year it's always does a little bit more, for better or worse, but usually for worse.
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
Yes, if what is happening is a good thing. But I don't think 3m jobs lost in a few years is a good thing.
My biggest problem with the federal government is that it always feels the need and the pressure to do something, and as a result, every year it's always does a little bit more, for better or worse, but usually for worse.
This is one of the federal government's actual responsibilties, to manage international trade. If they don't do it, no one will. There
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
It's not a bad argument. Leave "marriages" to the various churches. Have a standard "civil union" law. A religious marriage would be a species of a "civil union". Allow "civil unions" for anyone wishing to enter them -- man-man, woman-woman, sister-brother (a civil union doesn't
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
Exactly. It gets government out of religion (or
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:1)
Do we toss out polygamy laws since basically the only thing keeping polygamy illegal is the idea that family is a single unit consisting of a man and a woman? Would civil unions allow more than 2 individuals join together (think of all the databases requiring updates!?!)?
The libertarian side of me says that is a good idea. If folks want to be joined financially as a household, so be it. Let the government recognize it as a single unit giving advantages or disadvantages to
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
See, that's one of the reasons I'm not sure I fully agree with the arguement.
But then again, I suppose a "civil union", as it doesn't necessarily denote a SEXUAL relationship could infact be between multiple members. By extension, it CO
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:1)
Yeah, I can see civil unions being non-sexual, for instance two brothers living together for mutual financial benefit, in keeping next of kin/property dispersion upon death/incapacitation clauses. However, this seems much like a will or living-will setup.
As pudge mentioned with, "we need to define what the purpose of these unions are," defining why and what civil unions are is the first issue at hand.
First we would have to determine the benefits that marria
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
That's another part of the issue I forgot to mention
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
Personally, I agree with Pudge that this current "movement" is asking for too much too soon and may get slapped down with a federal constitutional amendment which would most likely take decades to undo. As a whole, voters are mostly apathetic. If you get something voters feel strongly about,
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:1)
My main concern is that I would rather gay marriages be done on my terms (conservative Christian) and not theirs (as un-PC as that sounds). So, in some ways I would rather head then off at the pass, instead of slowly letting them corrupt marriage into their own perverted sense.
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
1. Preserve the religious institution of marriage
2. Preserve the civil rights conferred by civil marriage
3. Provide a permanent solution that offers the same rights to everyone whom society feels should have them
I want marriage -- in my church -- to be what I believe the Bible says it should be. But I don't want a government that follows suit, and I want a real solution to the problem, one that will last.
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:1)
One is only possible by not watering down what marriage stands for, which has already been under assault by society with increasing divorce rates. Now to change the meaning of marriage to allow men with men or women with women is diluting the meaning of marriage.
Two and three I can appreciate, and what folks would consider rights and liberties here is different. I would be willing to cede civil unions for all with the removal of marriage from secular life. Mainly fo
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
What it does it enforce the notion that marriage is defined by individual beliefs. Right now, many gay couples ARE married, in their churches etc., just not legally. The proposal would not do anything to change the definition of marriage, it wou
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
I have a question for you -- and anyone else. I heard an interesting argument this morning and wanted some feedback:
Is a state sanctioned marriage a right or a priviledge? If it's a "right", why the need of a state license?
If it *IS* a priviledge, shouldn't the 10th Amendment apply?
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
Rights are not defined by whether or not a license is granted. I have the right to free speech in public, but may require a license to demonstrate on the courthouse steps.
In this case, you only need a license if you want civil marriage, and that's just so the state can verify your identities, make sure you aren't violating the law (such as with same-sex marriage), and register you so that you can b
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
Your "free speech/demontrate in public" requiring a licence isn't completely accurate. It requires a permit. While you might make a "stretch" that a permit is a "temporary" licence, I don'
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
It isn't equivalent. It's a separate thing.
Your "free speech/demontrate in public" requiring a licence isn't completely accurate. It requires a permit.
There's no significant distinction. There really isn't.
I was suggesting something along the lines of "Privleges are implied by licensure".
But they aren't, as the demonstration example sho
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
So you say. Perhaps there's no difference in your state, but there is a difference between them in California -- and legal distictions behind their use.
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
Not in relation to whether or not something is a right.
I disagree, While "many legal experts" may believe it (the DOMA) will pass judicial review, there are many who strongly believe it wont.
So you do NOT disagree. I was responding to your statement that nobody would expect it to pass judicial review, and noted that many expect it will. I neither stated or impl
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
The second question is really the important one. Polygamy is not illegal, in the sense of religious marriage, it is illegal only in civil marriage. And the answer is no: I stated specifically that a civil union would be between two peop
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:1)
There is a problem, and they are not solving the problem, they are allowing it to get worse.
Cyclical businessness cycles are to be expected and not neccessarily a problem. Even if it is a problem, that doesn't mean the federal government can solve it. Even if it is a problem, and the federal government can solve it, doesn't mean they should. There are always trade-offs, and a cure from the federal government is likely to be worse than the disease.
And no, private contracts cannot work, they must be
Re:jobs and marriage (Score:2)
The general consensus is that this is not cyclical, but a paradigm shift for our labor force, that those 3 million jobs lost will never come back (perhaps different jobs will be created in their place, but so far most of those that have been are lower-paying). But even if were cyclical, that doesn't mean the federal government should stand by while 3 million jobs are lost overseas, figuring they'll be back someday. That's som
Scandals, and other Miscellany (Score:1)
Re:Scandals, and other Miscellany (Score:2)
Whose watch was Pearl Harbor on?
We've had at least 3 major intelligence failures and are just now investigating them
We've been investigating 9/11 since it began; we've been investigating Iraq since the fall; we've been investigating Wilson/Plame/Novak since late fall/early winter.
(and his administration has impeded the investigation of sever