Author: Aaron Weber

Conservatives, Cranks, etc.

Note from a former conservative about his change of heart and the neocon kleptocracy.

Now, I don’t want to sound like a crank, but the New Yorker had a great article about the redistricting system, in which it described an “unholy alliance” between various electoral groups. But really– is it an alliance between the rich and the stupid, as some suggest? Are we really moving toward fascism? Is Krugman right that we’re undermining the foundations of democracy in our own nation?

I don’t think things are all that bad, but it’s true that our voting machines are owned by Republicans. Our registration systems are owned by Republicans. The districts are owned by Republicans. There oughta be a fair fight. Districting ought to create fair fights and reasonable electoral groupings… things like a neighborhood, a city, a region. Maybe not– maybe it needs to be all in squares, no matter what.

I’m not Pro-Freedom, I’m Anti-God

People like this give the South a bad name. I mean, where do you get off saying things like “Atheists … don’t have personal values”. Your personal values and mine are not even all that incompatible. But your ignorance is painful to me.

Look at the line “I do solemnly swear (or affirm).” Why does it say affirm? Because some people do not take oaths before God, because they do not believe in such a thing. Really. That and refusing to swear allegiance to anyone else but God. So, there. You’re just all wrong. Now, crumble before my obviously superior intellect.

Contempt for religious fundamentalism, like contempt for George W. Bush, is a caustic and potentially destructive emotion, but it’s one that most civilized human beings tend to wear as a badge of honor these days.

Are you talking about my mother?

I will never mention my gay mother in school ever ever again.

Well, little one. Welcome to the harsh, harsh world of reality. You know how Mister Rogers is a nice guy who likes you just the way you are? A lot of the world is the opposite, and they will hate you, no matter what, and they are often people who have power over you and will use it to hurt you, and there is nothing you can do about it but suck it up and wait for it to be over.

Shrill the alarm

The WSJ’s Allan Murray is turning on Dubya, reports Brad DeLong. Without a subscription to the WSJ, I haven’t read the whole article, but the excerpt has the wonderful line:

It is also possible that what really links Presidents Nixon and Bush is something else: an unbounded desire for a second term, even at the expense of taxpayers.

I saw somewhere the explanation “There are two political parties in my country: the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. When the Evil Party is in charge, the Stupid Party stands in the way and prevents them from getting much evil accomplished. When the Stupid Party is in charge, the Evil Party stands in the way and prevents them from doing anything stupid. But sometimes, they manage to cooperate, and do something that is both stupid and evil, and that’s how we get laws in this country.”

Delayed Post

Uneventful Thanksgiving, mostly: Wednesday I got to DC, stayed out til three dancing, got to Charlottesville early Thursday with a hangover, went out Friday with Nat and Peach and Joel and Savage.

I met some Charlottesville geek types who had actually heard of my book, which was cool: I was, as they say, “fanboyed” for the first time. Saturday, I saw Master and Commander, which was OK. They did show some relatively accurate moments: bad surgery, someone trying to take a dump in rough seas, and of course rum and lashing, but they skipped the sodomy.

And then, Sunday, the ride. Joel’s friend Will and Will’s father were going up to the Skins game and offered us a ride to the Metro in Vienna. They arrived at our house and we offered them coffee or snacks. Will’s father said, no, I’m havin’ the breakfast of champions, and pulls out a couple Bud Lights. So we drove off, Will (thank god) at the wheel. They had bourbon, soda, beer, wine, and no food. The father said he has his boots on and so they won’t need to buy booze inside the stadium either. He drank three or four bottles of beer and then started to pack a bowl. About five minutes before we get to Vienna he realized he’d forgotten the tickets, so they dropped us off and turn around to go get them– his wife was going to meet them halfway, in Warrenton.

Yeah, it was good to be back in Charlottesville for awhile.

Conservatives for Marriage

Some conservatives are in favor of marriage, while others seek to diminish it, put it on the defensive. If you are in favor of love, commitment, honor, and union, then you are in favor of marriage for all.

In a twist on my favorite rationale, people have begun to worry about details like who proposes to whom, and where do we hold the ceremony, and what do I wear, and will my in-laws hate me, and what kind of ring, and what kind of cake, DJ, reception, flowers?

It’s good to see, really, and I think it can make the uncomfortable heteros a little more comfortable, a little more aware that the major concerns of a lot of gay people are about the same as theirs: going on a date, falling in love, meeting the parents, planning a future. It’s the kind of feel-good view of humanity that wedding-related movies celebrate and feed on. Next up, “My Big Fat Gay Wedding.”

College

I remember the ridiculous angst in college. People agonized over the creation of a “safe space” and over whether the existence of fashion magazines made a bookstore or a home hostile towards women. I remember arguing about whether it was fair to grade class participation, because some of the students were too shy to speak up.

Toughen up. You give thinking a bad name.

Ethicist

The much-parodied Ethicist column in the NYT magazine is one of the few earnest advice columns not pitched to yesteryear’s frazzled hausfrau. That’s probably why the New Yorker keeps making fun of it– that earnest advice is just so difficult for someone with a more malignant sense of irony.

This week’s column was about a PR agency and whether it’s ethical to allow someone to draft letters for you which you then sign. The Ethicist says it isn’t, and that those letters should be presented as from the PR person or from your company, rather than from you. I wrote in:

Dear Ethicist:
I’m sure you’ll get more than a few letters disagreeing with your recent PR ethics letter. Context is all, but in a business context, hiring a PR person to put words in your mouth is simple delegation of tasks. Hiring a PR firm is hiring someone to do your speaking and letter-writing so you can run your business. Once you’re larger than a one-person shop, you can’t write all your own ads or all your own letters.
The PR person’s job is to write as you and speak as you: to represent you to the public eye. If the CEOs of companies wrote or spoke every word attributed to them, no business would ever get done. When you get a letter from the president of the cable company tellingyou about the exciting new Cable TV offerings, and signed with a signature stamp, the PR and marketing folk have written that letter. When you read a newspaper article about a business transaction, and the executives speak glowingly of other firms, those executives have never spoken those words, and probably have never even seen them before. They have been written and approved by PR and marketing staff. Hiring a PR person to put words in your mouth is merely delegation of the communications tasks that must be performed as part of a business.

Randy the Ethicist replied and said I’m an unethical person. I’m impressed with the fact that he actually responds to messages, and almost honored to receive an insult from him:

Thanks for the interesting note which was, as you suggest, one of manytaking issue with that column. I’m afraid we continue to disagree. That a practice is common does not make it right. I’m sure we can both name many things that happen a lot that we wish did not. Hiring a PR firm to help with corporate communications is legit, takingcredit for someone else’s work is not, and signing your name to a letter or article you didn’t write is simply lying. As I wrote, if your readers understand that you’re merely endorsing the views you’ve put your name to, no problem; but if the ordinary reader is deceived, then you’re out of line.

Out of line indeed. If my PR person writes a letter announcing a new product, and I sign it, that’s not lying. If my PR person writes a letter claiming that my new moisturizer will enlarge my, er, coalition, that’s a lie, and both I and the PR agency I selected are culpable for that deception.