An Iowa court ruled that same-sex couples can marry. Here’s an excerpt from the ruling:
The law describing marriage as between a man and a woman, “constitutes the most intrusive means by the state to regulate marriage. This statute is an absolute prohibition on the ability of gay and lesbian individuals to marry a person of their choosing,” Hanson wrote.
Acton’s PowerBlog has a great post on money and climate change:
It’s been at least a few months since I admitted abandoning all of my principles and ethics in favor of rolling around in great piles of filthy Exxon lucre, and I’ll be honest with you here – I haven’t even gotten so much as a thank you note from Rex Tillerson. Meanwhile, Al Gore appears to have offset his carbon emissions by planting a forest of magical money trees, and it’s HARVEST TIME, BABY!
It’s funny how this whole issue is typically framed. This post hits the nail on the head by implying that the easiest way to get rich off of this probably isn’t to support oil companies, it is to support rich people who feel guilty about hurting the environment.
Don Boudreaux is grateful for immigrants. He’s got a point:
Do you think that immigrants working today on the countless efforts to rebuild my hometown of New Orleans are “stealing” jobs from Americans? Are a scourge? Are welfare bums? Think again — as this op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal will cause you to do.
Nathan has nailed it! We keep electing these shining stars to “represent” us. As Nathan points out, we surely don’t want these people to dictate our values to us: economic or social.
1. If you didn’t vote, you can’t complain. I’ve heard this one a lot. The idea is that voting equals participation in the political process and entitles you to comment on political behavior. This view overlooks the fact that not voting is a political statement in itself. Yes, sometimes the statement is, “I’m lazy,” but other times it means something else. I’ve said before on this blog that I don’t think libertarians are required to abstain from voting, but I certainly understand why some do.
2. If the person you voted for does something, you can’t complain (or it’s your fault). This view promotes an unhealthy view of the political process. It assumes that politics is a dichotomy and if one candidate doesn’t represent my views at all, the other one must be pretty close. Therefore, I’ll vote for that candidate. Since he/she represents my views, I can’t complain. The problem: I may vote for the lesser of two very evil candidates. In fact, I did that in 2004.
3. Both parties (D and R) are exactly the same. Yes, the system offers only a sliver of the political possibilities. Furthermore, American politics operates in a fairly narrow spectrum in terms of world politics. However, within that spectrum, it is clear that members of different parties do tend to support different policies. This may be only because they are trying to win votes, but nonetheless, they are at least mildly different.
4. Both parties are completely different. It wouldn’t be a good political post if I didn’t talk out of both sides of my mouth. I addressed this a bit above, but I’ll expand. I am SO SICK of hardcore party activists. The parties are different, but not THAT different. We don’t have many communists or anarcho-capitalists running for office these days. That said, I usually know which party I’ll vote for when I go into a ballot box (yes, Bama, still pretty much straight ticket). It’s just that the margin between the party I vote for and the other one is not as wide as the DC political hacks want us to believe.
I’m sure I’ll run across more. Maybe enough for a regular post.
Michael Vick may be getting dangerously close to breaking my new rule about using religion as PR:
“I’m totally responsible and those things just didn’t have to happen.”
He said, “Through this situation I’ve found Jesus.”
I obviously don’t know what is going on in his head, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt, “finding Jesus” seems to be an all too common response to getting into a lot of trouble.
Acton’s PowerBlog has a great post about myths Christians believe about poverty:
While compassion for the poor is a universal truth for Christians, compassion alone is not enough. As Christians we need to better understand why wealth is not being created in some places.
It is right to care about the poor. It is NOT right to just do what we think is best even if it actually hurts the poor. Doing so is serving our own interest, not theirs.
It is often the case that methods which seem to be useful are actually extremely harmful. We need to help, but we need to help right.
The poll question at CNN.com today is “Should the U.S. apologize for its role in the slave trade?” The fact that this question is even asked represents a fundamental misconception about how people view, well…people.
Anyone who personally participated in the slave trade should certainly apologize. However, asking anything of people who were not involved goes to far. Asking this question places too much emphasis on what “society” is. Slaves weren’t traded by a society, they were traded by people. Yes, for a time, public opinion was in favor (or at least not against) the slave trade, but it was individual people who conducted it.
This applies to a lot of things. Society doesn’t approve or disapprove of abortion. People have individual views on the subject. I believe that word “society” is used to infer overly positive (society doesn’t tolerate murder) or negative (society corrupts our children) ideas. Instead, the real problem is individuals.
Society can’t apologize for slavery. The apology would be a meaningless gesture to appease people whose ancestors were traumatized. I think it is offensive to the descendants of those people to offer a societal apology. Instead, lets find the individuals who still hold racist views and work our way through those.
I am not too familiar with their organization or their work, but it seems like these folks might be going in the right direction. This looks to me like a simple case of social action. No lobbying, no coercion, just a bunch of like-minded people getting together to try to persuade others.
There may be more to the story. These people may be part of some vast right-wing conpiracy. But I’m guessing that, if so, CNN would have pointed it out. My hope is that people might be getting it!
I make mistakes. My letter to the editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch has been retracted. It seems that I misunderstood the position of the original op-ed’s author. I have been corresponding with him on the topic and have actually been quite pleased with what I have read.
My take: Make mistakes. Just admit and learn from them.
Done.
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