perfidy

I've been having an interesting argument with Spoons over his quixotic effort to get conservatives to oppose Bush. (This has nothing to do with Gay Marriage day here at Perfidy, but I'm going to run with it anyway. Spoons is getting married, but to a girl. So he isn't qualified to speak on that issue.) He is of the position that it will not advance the conservative agenda to have Bush reelected and confirm in the collective mind of the GOP elite that pandering to the left (little opposition to gun control, prescription drug benefits, huge spending on liberal programs with no reform, etc.) is a successful election strategy. He says:

As conservatives, we can't do much about what kind of Democrats we'll get, because we're not going to vote for one. We can, however, do something about what kind of Republicans we get, by voting for good ones, and refusing to vote for bad ones. If we take the tack advocated by Kim (and, in fairness, the overwhelming majority of conservatives), and insist upon voting for any Republican, no regardless of whether he's conservative or not, then we give up any control over what kind of Republicans we get. Republican positions on domestic issues will then be decided by swing voters and soccer moms.

This is a valid point. And if I thought that there was any chance that voting against (or at least not for) Bush would result in the second coming of Reagan, I might sign up for his program. But as I said in the comments to his post,

I can see where you're coming from. And in all honesty, I would support your ideas more strongly except for the fact that no matter what kind of drubbing the GOP gets, it will always attempt to pander to the middle. Pandering only goes left in this country. Our only hope of getting the candidate you are dreaming of is for him to arrive as Reagan did - by fighting for a strong conservative policy based on a moral conception of politics. That candidate could rally support from the true-blue conservatives, the moderates and even people in the other party. But the GOP will never try, and never could, impose a strong conservative agenda on a mediocre candidate, president or congress. And they won't go looking either.

Politics is compromise, and the perfect is the enemy of the good. If we shoot every candidate who is half good, we will not be in a position to elect one that is good. The Republican party spent decades in the political wilderness until Reagan saved them. We can't count on having another Reagan everytime we need one. The Goldwater style political idealism that holds absolute positions on conservative issues is a ticket to irrelevancy and being locked out of high office. We need to win where we can, and as often as we can - even if the victories are partial, or not what we wanted.

The grassroots movement in the Republican party that resulted in the congressional victories back in 94 is an example of how the rank and file party members can pull the party to a more conservative viewpoint. This is the kind of thing that conservatives can do to influence the direction of the party. While we do not know yet whether Bush is serious, the outcry among conservatives over excessive spending seems to have had an effect on his policy. We can be sure that conservative outcry would have no effect whatsoever on a Kerry administration.

So while I share with Spoons the concerns with Bush's policies in many areas, I cannot abandon my support for the best deal we're going to get, conservativeness-wise. The proper course is to get the man who is closest to you in viewpoint into office, and then try to move him in the right direction.

In response to Buckethead's unforgiveable ignorance of the inner workings of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I submit here the key point on which the Massachusetts SJC's decision depends:

Article CVI. Article I of Part the First of the Constitution is hereby annulled and the following is adopted:

All people are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin.

In truth, the MA Constitution is fascinating, not least because it's the oldest written Constitution in existence (1780), but also because of the wording. Check this out:

Article XVII. The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.

Although different than the US Constitution's 2nd Amendment, I think this one is worded better: it's far more clear.

There's lots more in there if you have the time. Check this out!

Article XVIII. A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of the constitution, and a constant adherence to those of piety, justice, moderation, temperance, 12 industry, and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the advantages of liberty, and to maintain a free government. The people ought, consequently, to have a particular attention to all those principles, in the choice of their officers and representatives: and they have a right to require of their lawgivers and magistrates, an exact and constant observance of them, in the formation and execution of the laws necessary for the good administration of the commonwealth.

I can't remember where I saw it, but not too long ago I read that the center of most people's objections to gay marriage can be summed up by the "ick factor." Most people in the reasonable middle of American life have come to the conclusion that gay people should not be hassled, and we'll make use of their talents in interior decorating and fashion, but that otherwise we'd really rather not be confronted by the icky reality of guys... kissing. And other things. While most people would never go out of their way to oppress the lavender minority, they still feel in their hearts what Sam Kinnison said:

How can a man look at another man's hairy ass, and feel love?

And this is where gay marriage comes in. This is the gay populace intruding the ickiness into respectable, normative straight institutions. And most people just don't like the idea. They're not likely to crusade on the issue unless it's crammed down their throats. (Which is what the amendment campaign would do. It would force people to choose sides. And by and large, we'd really be better off avoiding that.)

Left alone, consensus would probably drift towards greater acceptance of gays, and their inclusion in institutions like marriage. Americans don't, as a matter of course, like excluding anyone from anything - at least theoretically. And that bedrock presumption is what MLK played on in the sixties, shaming respectable white americans into believing, and acting on what was right.

I am personally affected by the ick factor when it comes to gay marriage. I don't feel that it's a good thing, and that the institution of marriage as currently defined supports many good things in our soceity. I fear that changing the definition will have some deleterious effects. Of course, this does not mean that I think that gays should be discriminated against in hiring, housing, or through outdated laws like Texas' sodomy statute. (Which also, IIRC, applied to heteros as well in some regards.) Those who argue that the sad state of hetero marriage is an argument in favor of gay marriage are getting it wrong. If it's in bad shape, it needs to be strengthened, not diluted.

My considered opinion is that I would like this issue to go away. We're not to the point (on either side) where we're ready to be discussing it reasonably, and now we are perilously close to permanently polarizing the debate, as happened to the much more serious issue of abortion when Roe v. Wade was handed down.

Since it's Gay Marriage Day here at the Ministry (parade at 3:00: bring your Speedo), I have decided to link to this editorial from the Boston Globe by Derrick Z. Jackson, who does the old fun trick of finding the craziest Bible passages out there ("Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ. . . . Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord." from Ephesians, stuff like that) and puts it next to the passages about man-on-man action. The point, of course, is to demonstrate that the Bible contains a lot of material that has been superseded by the rule of human law in most of Western society, certain tiny areas of Utah and Wyoming excepted.

Nice try. I'm not even a Christian, but I can crush it like one, and I know that the New Testament supesedes the Old. Ephesians, Ecclesiastes, and all those weirdo names are Old Testament, and no longer supposed to be relevant to Christian teachings (but just try telling that to the Nazarenes...ooo boy.) It's the New Testament where you find the most clear language on gay sex (though it's Paul, not Jesus), and this means for Christians that the Bible does really suggest that gay sex is a no-no. Trouble the New Testament also says a lot of nutty stuff about how good it feels to be nice to people, loving your neighbor, the value of tolerance and humility, etc., and I don't see that getting much play these days, so what the heck do I know? Maybe the Bible really is like a Chinese menu. "I'll take Matthew with a side of Mark, please."

Oops. That sounded pretty gay.

[wik] Buckethead, a more pious man than I, points out that Ephesians is in the New Testament, which means Jackson has made his point far more wisely than I assumed. My mistake. I shoulda paid attention in Perfidious Sunday School.

With that information in mind, it becomes a hard question: as a Christian, how do you accept a passage condemning man-on-man intercourse, and reject a passage legitimizing the total subordination of women, for example? I was never very good at this, and it's one reason why I can't call myself a Christian today.

This guy surely impressed his parents:

Chemistry Mid Term

Thanks to Mapgirl for the link. I'm sure she could do much better.

[wik] Rangitoto College? Sounds like a school for mangy dogs from Oz to me. I bet they have Gay Marriage there.

Pandagon's Jesse Taylor fisks the daylights out of Dennis Prager's fumbling attempts at cutting satire.

And since this is Gay Marriage Day at the Ministry of Minor Perfidy (there'll be a parade later, on the Ministry's dime), it's about gay marriage.

The President's Commission on the Moon, Mars and Beyond is soliciting comments. Go here and you can submit your thoughts on space exploration, or just complain about the boring design of the website.

And speaking of governments seeking comments, this bit from Wired talks about how the government has been talking to game developers - specifically the designers of large multiplayer online games. At a conference arranged by Beth Noveck of the New York Law School, game developers and government officials sat down to talk about democracy, feedback and public participation in the legislative process. Interesting stuff, which puts me in mind (as do many things) of this essay by David Brin.

I have thought for quite a while now that pure democracy is overrated. Rule of law and a republican system are more important. But, that does not mean that I place more importance on the government that I do on the individual. As Brin talks about in his essay, the largely untapped capacity of individual citizens to operate in self organizing and directed groups is consistently ignored by the "experts." While we have (with the exception of central planning Marxists and Senators from New York) based our entire economic and social lives on this principle, we are reluctant to embrace it for security or government purposes.

I think that we lost something when we gave up on the idea of the general militia. But, the growth of the internet, and yes even the blogosphere has perhaps led to the rebirth of this ideal. Websites like the Northeast Intelligence Network, and others like it; Winds of Change and the Command Post; and hundreds of fevered bloggers collecting, analyzing and annotating countless bits of information are like a general militia devoted to military and strategic intelligence.

Obviously, much of the heavy lifting militarily will still be done by the Army, Navy and Marines. But that does not mean that we don't have a role, and one that the government should begin to take seriously, and not hinder us from performing.

Yesterday Buckethead wrote:

One of the signal failures of the Bush administration has not been its judgment in the conduct of the war on terror; but rather its perverse inability to make a case for its actions. While I have been doing so on a ( very ) small scale along with numerous other bloggers and journalists, the unconvinced need to hear it from the man at the top. Bush should be screaming this news from the rooftops.

He is dead on target. In fact, it could do a lot of harm to Bush's reelection chances, and I can't say it's undeserved.

Matthew Yglesias notes that even Bill O'Reilly has even publicly expressed regret for supporting the President's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" thesis: "I was wrong. I am not pleased about it at all and I think all Americans should be concerned about this." Seriously, George. When Bill Fricking O'Reilly is off the bandwagon, you've got a problem.

The FDA is enforcing a decades-old ban on the import of Chinese Peppercorns, causing the supply to dry up. A crucial ingredient in Sichuan cooking (yum!), the peppercorns come from a bush which belongs to a family of shrubbery who carry a disease that kill citrus plants (got that?).

Although the ban was put in place in 1968, the FDA did not start enforcing the ban until 2002, which is why the supply is drying up, and why there's now a fricking black market for fricking Sichuan pepper.

A note: nobody actually knows whether the peppercorns carry the citrus-killing disease, because nobody at the gubmint has bothered to test for it. As a fat, pampered decadent Western aesthete, I declare this an outrage!

Bush will support a constitutional amendment, designed to permanently enshrine discrimination against gay people into the constitution. Why? It's classic "look over there, not over here" politics. It's disgusting.

If there's ever been a time where state's rights are important, this is it.

Polling consistently shows that younger people have much more tolerance for gay people. In fact, even among young and relatively religious people, there's a who-cares attitude towards gay marriage. Why is this? It's simple.

News for you old people who are screwing up our country: There aren't that many gay people. We'd prefer to just live them alone.

Who gets to live with your stupid constitutional amendment? We do. And our children. You don't have relevance for much longer. Why the hell are you pushing your prejudices on the next generation?

The list of bullshit the greediest generation is forcing on everyone else just gets longer and longer.