Category: Thoughts

The Minor Fall, The Major Lift is great, and it points me to two funny little bits:
Parody Porn Titles for 2003 (not real, sadly)
The Modern Drunk’s Guide to Dating (for women dating men, but generally good advice. As The Minor Fall points out, it’s telling that most of the rules begin with “Never…”

“‘What we heard today‘” about over-the-counter emergency contraception “‘was frequently about individuals who did not want to take responsibility for their actions and wanted a medication to relieve those consequences,’ Dr. Hager said. He said he was worried in particular that it would encourage sexual activity among adolescents, who could just buy the drug on their own.”

So, in other words, Doctor Hager, you’re worried your daughter is a slut, and that eventually she’ll end up being arrested for encouraging masturbation.

This miserable failure of a president is just unelectable.

Kiss my shiny metal ass, shitbird. I’m off to the Bazaar Bizarre, a.k.a. Punk-Rock Flea Market. Rock on.

I must confess that I am addicted to laughing at the troubles of others. I make fun of other people’s religions and want to debunk their political views. It can get very petty– to the point of just writing snarky reviews so I can be judgemental of everything. Maybe I need a propagandist to spread my message, or maybe I just need to shut up.

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.

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.”

Every time I get bored with Volokh, they come up with something really provocative, like this entry: if marriage is for heterosexual procreation, why aren’t the sterile forbidden to marry?

Plus, logorrheic debate on the same subject at TNR, which I haven’t even bothered to read more than half of.

It’s so obvious that I’m right, I can’t comprehend the people who disagree with me. At all.

Unfogged compares the gay marriage issue to one of my favorite objects of analogy: indie-rock snobbery. When your favorite band becomes popular, and all the teenyboppers like it, you feel that they’ve sold out. When marriage becomes popular, and all the queers start liking it, you feel that marriage is sullied, even though your relationship isn’t any different.

Now, reasonable people like my friend Mark say to me “I don’t get it. My marriage doesn’t need to be defended against anything. I’m married to a woman, she’s married to me, and how does anyone else’s marriage threaten that?” But we’re not dealing with reasonable people, now are we?

Slate suggests that the serious political strategy is not just to say “fair’s fair” or harp on the church/state issue, as I have been saying, but to promote marriage, and make it open to everyone. Say “we like marriage, marriage is the foundation of a stable society, let people get married. What, you’re opposed to stable relationships? You’re opposed to families?” But that slides perilously close to the stand-up comic’s line: “since people’s sex lives dry up after marriage (so goes the conventional wisdom), the right should support gay marriage, because you’ll end up with lots of sexless gay couples watching TV at night.” Har har har.

I still like my libertarian/economic rationale (‘deregulate the bridal industry’). Not because it’s serious– that might be a side-effect but it’s not a really good reason for supporting marriage. No, I repeat myself about this because I hope that it drives a point home: there’s a significant split between the ‘small-government’ right and the ‘religious-government’ right, which are unified only by dislike of the Democrats.

If the Dems can position themselves as the party of sensible commerce (Free trade, fairly!) and sensible morals (tricky– but remember Jesus was a liberal), they’ll be able to grab some moderate votes. More importantly, they’ll increase infighting in the GOP, which will give it less of a “coherent policy” image and more of a “disaster waiting to happen” image.

Our Leaders have brought us a couple of shockingly ineffective policies over the past few decades. The drug war economics bear out the fact that supply is much more elastic than demand for drugs, and that the drug war is basically unwinnable.

And of course FreewayBlogger has been pointing out the error of our military and automotive policies with the wonderful Hummer slogan “10 miles/gallon, 2 soldiers/day.” Not to mention the the delightfully chilling “You can have my gun when you pry it from the fingers of my cold, dead child.”

There’s a new, and highly-reviewed Boondocks anthology. I’ve got a copy and it is indeed very, very good. I like angry humor. I feel like we do indeed have a right to be hostile. Given that we’ve got misogynistic lying bastards in the White House.

On the other hand, I feel genuinely hostile to things that are a little too sincere and treacly. They make me uncomfortable, and then my discomfort makes me uncomfortable. After all, lots of people like that stuff, and my disdain for it probably indicates snobbery. And what if I end up bitter and alone and writing a book about how democracy really isn’t any good and people should be led by their betters, namely me. Where would I be then?