I commented the other day that Andrew Sullivan has it part-right, but tends to get bogged down in homosexual politics, as regards little things like, well, logic, for example. An understandable situation, but none the less one that skews his objectivity. Odd because he’s usually so clear headed on other matters. Today he comes up with a classicly stupid line:
O’Connor sees gay people as fully-fledged people, with lives and loves and needs like everyone else.
Hey, Andy, most people who fall outside the lines set by the culture, and by the government are people, too, last I checked. That does not of itself make their chosen behavior less problematic. The question being posed by the dissent in the court, Scalia among them is, “At what point does society get to make a ruling on what is and is not moral?”
The very purpose of law and of government is to reinforce the culture of the poeple who gave that government life, and to extend the reach of that culture, if possible. Government is a tool of the culture and it’s values, not the reverse. Therefore morality tends ot get codified into laws. Which is not to say that all laws are moral. But that’s hw it’s supposed to work. Interesting though how the double standards come out on this one.
As I wrote a couple weeks back:
Take a little memory trip with me, back when the homosexual extra rights advocates were touting the idea that homosexuality was a natural phenom. Remember? There were some very high-level studies that were released about this time, that showed some very good promise of finding a cause.
Funny thing, though….
Once they started getting close… once the question of the cause being similar to something called Tourette’s syndrome, which is treatable, but not yet curable, came up….. well, suddenly, the homosexual extra rights advocates backed off of the argument as one would back off from a Palestinian bomber screaming “Allah is great!”, as if the thought of an actual cure horrified them. As well it might; no more special rights, and homosexuality moves form ‘lifestyle choice’ to ‘illness’.
Suddenly the bloom was off the rose, as far as the ‘homosexuality is a natural thing’ argument went… and suddenly their argument switched to what we on the right have been saying for decades… it’s a choice. It’s a choice they certainly have the right to make, at least based on our understanding of the issues thus far.
But for the sake of discussion, let us consider the Tourette’s victim further. The person has a choice; they can either chose to treat the illness as such, or they can say to hell with the rest of the world, label it a lifestyle, and try to get everyone else to accept it as such. Again, something they have the right to do, but I doubt that many will abide that right for long. Behavior has consequences, after all.
Consider the rather interesting parallels. Just as with the homosexual who claims to have been born into the homosexual role, such a person cannot be said to have entered the situation by choice. Yet, we as the rest of humanity, regard it like we do any other physical/mental malady… an illness to be overcome if possible. Treated with understanding, certainly… but treated. Drugs are able to limit the social consequences of the problem. Should the Tourette’s victim go off his meds, and insist that everyone else put up with the consequences of his illness as his chosen lifestyle? Tourettes is a natural occurrence, after all.
Now of course you’ll say Tourettes should be treated. And, you’re right. It should. Somehow, though, because we’re dealing with sexuality, suddenly this philosophy of treatment, goes out the window. Why? Put another way; The Tourette’s victim doesn’t stay off his meds, defying cures, and demand that we all accept his behavior as a natural lifestyle choice.
Why do we do so for homosexuals Andy? Are those with Tourette’s less ‘people’?
Tags: BitsBlog
Stephen Moore… a far smarter gent than his grossly overweight and underbrained leftist namesake, has come up with an excellent way to both solve a chuck of our fiscal problems and our legal problems as well.. Soak the hell out of the lawyers. An idea whose time has decidedly come.
Tags: BitsBlog
In last Saturday’s BITHEAD’S BIT, I suggested:
*Such an interest is by no means a constitutional argument, but rather, a political argument… and a short-term political argument at that. Even the key vote in this case, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s declares, “…we expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.”
One presumes that at such a point, the court will again be asked to rule, and will reverse its decision. For the sake of discussion, and examination, let’s assume the constitution remains fairly well static between now and then, as it has for much of it’s 200 plus years of life. If the need, much less the remedy, is a constitutional issue, how could such measures EVER NOT be needed? Unless the constitution itself changes, something doesn’t change status from constitutional to unconstitutional and back again. These race based initiatives are both illegal and unconstitutional. So to effect this ruling, we must ignore the Constitution.
So, the court figures maybe in 25 years (…. Or, maybe not… Justice Ginsburg reminds us we can’t accept a guarantee of the timing, here…) these measures won’t be needed anymore. Did we simply put the Constitution on “hold” for 25 years or more, until someone decides to start enforcing the Constitution? If so, what’s to guarantee we won’t disregard it again, at some need or other, and for less popular reasons?
So now comes Neil Boortz, who says in his notes this morning:
Justice O’Connor opined that affirmative action might have a remaining shelf life of about 25 years. Now there’s a new and novel idea for you. We now have some judicial precedent for the idea that, while a particular law might be perfectly constitutional right now, the mere passage of time will render that law unconstitutional. Wouldn’t you just live to hear that concept explained by some Harvard law professor?
Nice to know we’re on the same page, Neil, at least here.
Now, we need to have a serious chat as regards your outrageous ideas on ADHD.
Soon.
Tags: BitsBlog
RICHARD SPERTZEL who was head of the biological-weapons section of Unscom from 1994-99, writes essentially; Of course Iraq had banned weapons, lots of them, and of course the UN wasn’t going to find them.
Despite the recent discovery of plans and parts for a uranium-enrichment centrifuge, some presidential candidates have accused the Bush administration of lying about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to justify the war with Iraq.
Such assertions ignore all that has been learned and has transpired during the past 12-plus years.
A great read, and it must be giving the left fits.
As most facts do.
Tags: BitsBlog
From the opinion Journal today:
Karl Rove must be jumping for joy. Apart from the Sharptonkucinichmoseleybraun also-rans, Dean is the best opponent the Republicans could possibly hope for. Can anyone imagine such an intemperate lefty winning a single “red” state? If President Bush merely carries the same states he did last time around, he has 278 electoral votes and a second term. Against Dean he could phone it in.
It gets better than this, even. Word has reached me here that Ralph Nader is going to run again. Not that I think he’s going to pull all htat mcuh away from the leader, but the fact remains that the left is finding itself increasingly fractionalized and marginalized. Bush CAN phone this one in, and still make an impressive showing at the polls.
Tags: BitsBlog
A reader in Florida just forwarded me a note, telling me about how Ann Coulter was being asked on “the View” if she had ever seen two women having sex. Says our Annie: “Not since I saw Katie Couric interview Hillary Clinton.”
Best laugh I’ve had in days, that one. Personally, I’m looking forward to her new Blog.
Tags: BitsBlog
Andrew Sullivan has it part-right…(He usually does have it at least part right)… when he speaks of Judge Scalia. He says, in part:
JUDICIAL TEMPERAMENT: It’s odd, isn’t it, that in Supreme Court debates, we always hear an enormous amount about various judges’ “philosophy,” their paper-trail, their alleged politics, and so on. Much of this is helpful enough and sometimes relevant. But surely something else matters as well, and that is the correct temperament to be a judge. It should match the temperament of an umpire – not a pitcher or catcher or any other role. What troubles me about Antonin Scalia is not so much the substance of his views (although I share very few of them) but the angry, sarcastic, bitter tone of his judgments. David Broder had a similar take last week. Part of what it takes to be a judge, in my mind, is a certain indifference to passionate advocacy, a sense of moderation, and prudence. If someone cares as passionately as Scalia does about the moral issues in what he has called the “culture war,” and if he isn’t even interested in moderating these passions in his judicial rulings, then it strikes me that he is not acting as a justice should act: with dignity, care, distance, and respect for alternative arguments.
Sullivan’s problem of course is that he’s being driven by a homosexual agenda. As such, he does end up with the occasional hole in his logic, as in this case. What he doesn’t see, perhaps, is that Scalia’s anger is because of judges who are not judges, but rather are acting as “passionate advocates”. Ginzburg comes to mind as a prime example, as does, alas, Day-O’Connor.
Tags: "365", military families
Mona Charen’s new column is up on JWR. It’s almost a perfect follow on to my comments of the other day regarding illegal immigration. It’s well written, and cuts right to the heart of the matter.
With California reporting it’s just hours away from Financial colapse perhaps it’s time we as a nation take a serious look at the one of the bigger chunks of their fiscal problems.
Second to Gray-Out Davis, I mean.
Which says nothing of border security, of course.
Tags: BitsBlog
Neil Boortz and I have many disageements. His take here, is one of them.
GAY MARRIAGE?
I understand that a lot of Americans are now upset that the recent Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas is going to open the doors to the state sanctioning of gay marriages. I do wonder, though, why these same Americans aren’t just as upset over the cavalier way that the Hollywood crowd treats marriage. In Hollywood a two-year marriage is considered to be a lifetime commitment. Is a meaningless and uncommitted relationship between two movie stars just fine because it’s heterosexual, but a lifetime committed relationship between two people of the same sex is inherently bad?
Bootz is quite correct when he notes that the Hollywood 15 minute marriages are a major concern from a cultural perspective. What he doesn’t factor in is, that we’ve been saying things about that right along. It’s just that when we do, a lot of libertairans, and social liberals (A redundancy) have ben saying we’re extremst reactionaries, and using that BS line to discount us.
Tags: BitsBlog
Someone on the Free Republic website notes that the Associated Press–weeks after misquoting Rick Santorum on the issue of sodomy–has also misquoted Antonin Scalia on the same issue.
From the AP story: “The court has taken sides in the culture war,” Scalia said, adding that he has “nothing against homosexuals.”
Here is the real quote from Scalia: “Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means.”
Tags: BitsBlog
From Usenet this morning.
I don’t know as I could say this better.
>>>
I haven’t written much about the ongoing brouhaha over whether President
Bush “lied” America into the war with Iraq.
The main reason for my silence is that it’s a monstrously stupid
argument -and usually deliberately so. But I have better reasons for my
wait-and-see approach.
First, let’s deal with the stupidity. The really dumb argument is that
Bush simply made up the whole thing. This line is rarely offered
explicitly by serious people because it is so illogical. But you will
hear it alluded to by Democratic presidential candidates like Howard
Dean or John Kerry who don’t mind leaving the impression that Bush is a
deceitful warmonger. And you will certainly find this “idea” buzzing
around the fever swamps of the left, mostly on the Internet. The basic
problem with this analysis is it requires that Bush knew the truth but
said the opposite. After all, a lie is only a lie if you know the truth
and then say something very different. So in this case, Bush needed to
know something nobody had an inkling of. As Kenneth Pollack, formerly on
Bill Clinton’s national security staff, recently noted in The New York
Times, “At no point before the war did the French, the Russians, the
Chinese or any other country with an intelligence operation capable of
collecting information in Iraq say it doubted that Baghdad was
maintaining a clandestine weapons capability.” The United Nations
weapons inspectors reported time and again throughout the 1990s that
Saddam had not disarmed. The only time he could have disarmed was during
the four-year period when no inspections took place. No serious person
thinks Saddam did that. Even French foreign minister Dominique de
Villepin admitted last November, “The security of the Americans is under
threat from people like Saddam Hussein who are capable of using chemical
and biological weapons.” In fact, Bush must have known Bill Clinton was
wrong, too. Either that, or Bill Clinton was a liar as well. Because in
1998, Bill Clinton spoke forcefully to the American people about the
grave threat posed by Iraq’s mounting chemical, biological and nuclear
weapons programs. On Dec. 19, 1998, right after Bill Clinton was
flouting the will of our allies and the U.N. by launching a military
strike against the Iraqis, President Clinton told the American people in
a televised address: “Earlier today, I ordered America’s armed forces to
strike military and security targets in Iraq. … Their mission is to
attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its
military capacity to threaten its neighbors. … Saddam Hussein must not
be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms,
poison gas or biological weapons.”
The strike was wildly popular with most prominent Democrats at the time,
most of whom -including presidential candidates Dick Gephardt, Joe
Lieberman, and John Kerry -were strong Iraq hawks until a few months
ago.
But according to the purist “Bush lied” school, not only was everyone
wrong about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, but Bush secretly knew
it and didn’t say so. Moreover, he was so convincing in his lies he was
able to mislead Democratic leaders, veterans of the Clinton
administration and the global intelligence community. And you thought
Reagan was an actor.
Tags: BitsBlog
I’m afraid this kind of thing is getting to be more and more common.
The professor involved should be publicly shot, in my view.
As it is, the university issued a statement from Prof Wilkie apologising to Mr Duvshani and making clear that he was not speaking on behalf of Oxford.
The release reported that the idiot is ‘under investigation’ and went on to say “Freedom of expression is a fundamental tenet of university life but under no circumstances are we prepared to accept or condone conduct that appears to, or does, discriminate against anyone on grounds of ethnicity or nationality, either directly or indirectly.”
He’s supposedly under threat of dismissal. I’ll be watching this one.
Tags: BitsBlog
The papers picking up Dowd’s column are starting to speak up.
Here’s another.
Tags: BitsBlog
I think it pretty clear that he was, as I’ve stated repeatedly in my coumns.
This editorial gives indication others may have caught on to that idea, as well.
Tags: BitsBlog
