That is because most people are either stupid or apathetic. I am in the trenches, every day promoting science and science education, something religious fundamentalists have been attacking for years. Then there are gay rights, something else they hate, which I have a personal stake in. If you cannot imagine why I would be angry, you need to pull your head out of your own ass.
I wasn’t talking directly to you. Your personal stake in gay rights as the premier issue of any political contest is obvious, unquestioned, and fully understandable.
That only happens when he courts are not packed with religious conservatives who care less about the law of the land and more about the Law in the Old Testament.
Again, after twenty years of Republican government out of twenty-eight, and the movement of Gay Rights into mainstream politics, I fear less the capacity, and even, to some extent, the intent, than you do. I’m more than willing to admit that, for you, this is a fundamental issue. The stakes are simply much higher.
Genocide here, segregation there, blue laws and "Lewdness and Vagrancy" laws there, Manifest Destiny over there, oh! and lets put the red scare and Moral Majority over in that corner over there! Oh yes, so very open to difference... my as
Nice attempt to hit all of Chomsky’s high points.
I understand your interest in these silly gymnastics, but really, you gain no credibility in misrepresenting American history as an unbroken march from bad to worse for minorities and the underprivileged. Heartbreak to heartbreak, yes. But bad to worse, most certainly
not. The social fabric of this country needs a lot of fresh stitching, but the quilt looks a lot better today than it did even forty years ago.
WHat, and you think McCain will be better on foreign policy? Despite the miserable fail-fest that are the policies he has supported over the years?
Obama’s got roughly equivalent experience to Palin. And Biden had a habit of turning his back on folks who wanted to be our friend during the Cold War.
Going straight down the list, I don’t think McCain or Obama would manifest much difference on Iraq. I do think Obama could temporarily cripple anti-ballistic missile defense, which, although nascent and still in the white elephant stage, needs work to be put in now for returns in the future. I don’t like his rhetoric about our nuclear arsenal in an era when proliferation appears to be the name of the reckless game. McCain is actually the more liberal of the two politicians on Cuba. And Obama’s decision to speak to certain South American leaders when there is really little or nothing to negotiate only puts him in a situation that will lend itself to no good outcome. Anti-Americanism is political theater in Venezuela. Chavez doesn’t stoke legitimate grievances that Obama will be able to fix. McCain is an advocate of free trade, whereas Obama is not, and harbors a notion that he will somehow be able to renegotiate a treaty with our two neighbors – something that I can’t see doing anything but leading to some bad feeling all around.
I dont see how States Rights are much better than being a secessionist
Except some folks, you know, insist that that Constitution you’ve been making a lot of rightful noise about doesn’t actually permit the Federal Government to make as many of the decisions as it does. They’re not advocating succession; they’re advocating allowing a slightly more perfect form of direct democracy. Am I a fan? No. Can it fairly be called near-treason? No, too.
In point of fact, Obama is on record stating that the decision on gay marriage should be left up to the states. He also supports civil unions – which strike me as separate and inherently unequal.
McCain also voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, advocating that the issue be devolved to state level. Given that he did support a 2006 effort to ban gay marriage in Arizona, he is, ultimately, only marginally more a threat than Obama, outside the SCOTUS appointment possibility.
Determine? No. Influence? Yes. And the same would be true of the reverse situation. I would have the same concerns if a man's wife was a flaming nutbar.
At this point, it’s purely speculation on your part.
You have nothing but an imperfect heuristic: the man’s party affiliation. And you want to extrapolate this into the political preferences of his wife.
Did you think Hillary Clinton would make a good president? Do you think Bill Clinton did a good job during his time in office?
Um, wrong. YOU tried turning this discussion around into an issue of hyporcricy on the part of Barbie's detractors by their supposedly giving Obama a free pass on Wright.
No. I pointed out that, if guilt-by-association is wrong in the case of Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright, it must be even more wrong in the case of the Palin household.
When people began defending Obama for having done "all the right things" vis-a-vis Wright by comparison with Palin, whose
spouse is her apparent tie to the AIP (aside from a video that looks remarkably like a cheap call for those people to vote Republican), I pointed out that it takes a special kind of individual to keep his mouth shut for twenty years and recant only when the media circus begins. Obama didn't play his cards right -- he just did what he had to do to extinguish the fire. And if I'm not going to get my panties in a twist over that, why in fuck's name ought I lose sleep over Palin's husband's weird politics -- which nobody can even prove comes out in the form of secessionist policies on her part. Nevermind that Nitram seems to think it's okay to insist that she is one by implication.
As for reflections on McCain, etc., I agree that it doesn’t bode very well for him. On the other hand, I think people do make natural mistakes – not every contingency can be accounted for, and I have trouble regarding Palin’s very tenuous “AIP connection” as something that anybody familiar with Alaskan politics would have given a second look.
The name of a presidential election is “comparison.” If McCain’s team didn’t vet, why did nobody encourage Barack Obama to resign from his Church despite the Wright linkage? There is no doubting it: the unaired Hillary attack ad featuring Wright’s statements would have been absolutely damning.
In other words, you made shit up. Awesome.
Sitting in a Church with a man like Wright for twenty years doesn’t make a man a crusader. It makes him a weak-kneed weathervane for getting out only at the last minute, or just a blowhard.
Because she gives her tacit approval to an organization that opposes gay rights and abortion rights. She also has made statements in favor of teaching creationism in schools (bad) and has acted to limit sex education (bad).
I think this board has it all wrong. All wrong.
You point to religion over and over again as the source of opposition to gays. Personally, I think it’s that most people are just bigoted. They imagine a gay couple, think, “I’d never do that!” and then worry that, so long as it is socially acceptable for a gay couple to show affection in public, yes, to exist as gays, there’s a good possibility their children or grandchildren might be moved to “discover themselves” in a similar fashion.
It isn’t religion, necessarily, that teaches people to shun gays, it’s the social experience of realizing the vitriol directed toward them by other people. The constant phrase I hear with reference to them is the very selfish, “But don’t you understand how hard it is for me, to have to be seen with you? Everybody makes fun of you. Why would I want that? Can’t you please tone it down – for us?”
It’s all reprehensible selfishness. But that doesn’t mean it all stems from religion, either.
He considers the idea that someone with power might do something about racial inequality, just as, if not more, damning than things like the overthrow of the US government or become a Christian Theocracy.
And here you go again, off into a land of your own creation.
Who is advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government? Sarah Palin? You will please provide a source for this “fact.”
And, as for a Christian Theocracy, I’m already on record expressing doubt about their ability to do so many of the horrible things you seem so sure will come to pass.
