posted
While I strongly disagree with his aims, it does not seem to me that advocating civil disobedience as a means for coercing your government to do as you want is particularly scary. Civil disobedience is an almost perfectly democratic weapon: It can only work if a large percentage of the population feel strongly enough about something to accept prison or other sanctions.
I do think OSC is off in fantasy-land (possibly known as Utah) if he thinks the percentage of the US population that feels strongly about gay marriage and whatnot is large enough for this to work. But it's not an inherently unreasonable tactic, as long as your government doesn't just shoot dissidents; and it's been a while since that was a threat anywhere in the West. India got its independence basically on the strength of civil disobedience. In a way so did Norway.
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Most of OSC's essay seems to rest on the idea that CA's judiciary created new law in ruling that same sex marriage is allowed under the CA constitution, in violation of the proper checks and balances. Uh, no, they struck down a law that was unconstitutional, using the checks and balances like they were designed.
It makes me very tired to read the rest of his calls for sweeping civil protest and amending the US constitution to prevent this sort of thing from happening, since he seems to misunderstand exactly what happened, and thus has little chance of successfully fighting it. Not that I wish him success, but it's just another example of culture war where the enemy is an imaginary distortion of those who disagree with your agenda. It's bad in and of itself.
(He did mention other court rulings, but all of the steam in the essay is generated from gay marriage and Proposition 8.)
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posted
So long as civil disobedience is the worst of his calls for action, he doesn't scare me at all. While I may disagree with him, he's not advocating violence, and in fact seems, like KoM says, to be calling for one of the most democratic forms of protest. I don't wish him well (in his endeavor), and don't agree with his position or even the foundation of that position, but I don't have a problem with his methodology.
I certainly appreciate the fact that, even though I think he's wrong about the supposed violations to the separation of powers, he isn't willing to throw out the constitution to achieve his aims.
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Yeah, I don't have a problem with his methodology. I'd actually love if some sort of protest or other form of civil disobedience was staged to oppose Prop 8.
I think the turnout would be staggeringly low, and maybe clue some people in to how the country actually feels about gay marriage. Bigotry is rarely a popular public stance.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: So long as civil disobedience is the worst of his calls for action, he doesn't scare me at all. While I may disagree with him, he's not advocating violence, and in fact seems, like KoM says, to be calling for one of the most democratic forms of protest. I don't wish him well (in his endeavor), and don't agree with his position or even the foundation of that position, but I don't have a problem with his methodology.
I certainly appreciate the fact that, even though I think he's wrong about the supposed violations to the separation of powers, he isn't willing to throw out the constitution to achieve his aims.
Yep. This sums up my thoughts on the matter pretty well.
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I realize I'm only prolonging the problem by posting to this thread, but do you not read any of the other threads on this side, or did you just want it to be highlighted again?
I'm feeling a bit irritable. Sorry.
The funny thing about Card's proposal is that in many ways he's too much of a democrat to understand that conservatives just wouldn't do that. It's why we are conservatives.
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quote:The funny thing about Card's proposal is that in many ways he's too much of a democrat to understand that conservatives just wouldn't do that. It's why we are conservatives.
History doesn't bear that out. Historically the people clamoring for rights and the people trying to deny them have been pretty equal in both their vocal and physical opposition.
Being a conservative doesn't mean you just sit down and absorb whatever happens. It's an ideology of government, not a course of action.
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I personally think that conservatives who are willing to speak out have a lot more courage than the average (not to say liberals don't have courage. They just don't have any shame.)
I think El JT de Sprang is right about turnout being low, but I think that speaks more to the apathy/hopelessness of conservatives. The liberals should rest easy, most of us have given up.
But it would be prudent to prepare for the end, because the collapse of this nation (and most of what we recognize as modern civilization) appears to be imminent, and probably inevitable.
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quote:I personally think that conservatives who are willing to speak out have a lot more courage than the average (not to say liberals don't have courage. They just don't have any shame.)
Yeah, tell that to the liberals that braved the fire hoses that conservatives turned on them.
quote:But it would be prudent to prepare for the end, because the collapse of this nation (and most of what we recognize as modern civilization) appears to be imminent, and probably inevitable.
Finally! We've been pushing our radical liberal agenda for YEARS with no results while you people kept gumming up the works by thwarting us. Good to know we've made some progress.
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I mean NOW, not back in the day. The Civil Rights Activists were obviously quite courageous. Show me a proponent of affirmative action (a mutation of Civil Rights that is an affront to the original ideal) who gets lambasted today.
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What are you calling "lambasting?" Remember that you're using something that still happens to "courageous" conservatives as your standard.
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quote:But it would be prudent to prepare for the end, because the collapse of this nation (and most of what we recognize as modern civilization) appears to be imminent, and probably inevitable.
Well, you might as well retire to your bomb shelter, then. No sense bothering to argue about it with us fools. Bless.
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quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: I mean NOW, not back in the day. The Civil Rights Activists were obviously quite courageous.
Now you have me thinking of the nuns who go to jail again and again for protesting the war and SOA. Not "back in the day". Now.
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quote:In essence, we have suffered a coup and lost our democracy. A minority is dictating new law against the will of the majority, and will spread it by force throughout the country by using the full-faith-and-credit clause.
quote:no American majority would ever have agreed to throw away democracy and turn our government over to judges who think they're wiser than the common people.
>_<
yet another line which looks eerily like it was lifted from a civil rights era debate.
Just substitute blacks with gays and hey presto, it's now just like those same arguments levied against stuff like Brown v. Board of Education.
We also saw some of that in the column about how the state job was not to redefine marriage.
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What do we mean when we say 'conservative?' What do we mean when we say 'liberal?'
I'm sure if we read about 'liberals' in the 19th century in America that we would find their views much similar to what we now call 'conservative.'
The meaning has changed. How can we label someone like Mr. Card anything, liberal or conservative, when the very definition of our words change with every new person that calls himself by the title?
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quote:Originally posted by Quara: What do we mean when we say 'conservative?' What do we mean when we say 'liberal?'
I'm sure if we read about 'liberals' in the 19th century in America that we would find their views much similar to what we now call 'conservative.'
The meaning has changed. How can we label someone like Mr. Card anything, liberal or conservative, when the very definition of our words change with every new person that calls himself by the title?
I think you're confusing ideology with party affiliation. I think that 21st century liberals would still be liberals in the 19th century, but they'd be called Republicans or maybe the Liberty party or Whigs if you go back far enough, not Democrats. Today's Conservatives in the 1860's would either be Democrats or Know Nothings (the American party).
The parties have flip flopped a few times, but the core ideas have stayed pretty much the same I think. Lincoln was a Republican but he was also a liberal.
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quote: "A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune. No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax; and as an incident to its function of revenue raising, such a tax would help to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity for the people of the generations growing to manhood. "We have not the slightest sympathy with that socialistic idea which would try to put laziness, thriftlessness and inefficiency on a par with industry, thrift and efficiency; which would strive to break up not merely private property, but what is far more important, the home, the chief prop upon which our whole civilization stands. Such a theory, if ever adopted, would mean the ruin of the entire country--a ruin which would bear heaviest upon the weakest, upon those least able to shift for themselves.
"But proposals for legislation such as this herein advocated are directly opposed to this class of socialistic theories. Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: The fact that there are some respects in which men are obviously not equal; but also to insist that there should be an equality of self-respect and of mutual respect, an equality of rights before the law, and at least an approximate equality in the conditions under which each man obtains the chance to show the stuff that is in him when compared to his fellows."
Clearly, Roosevelt was not entirely averse to "spreading the wealth" something that the McCain campaign has been using as a mantra of evil these days.
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Didn't Daily Show have a McCain video clip of him speaking in favor of the progressive income tax?
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I've been keeping out of this thread as OSC doesn't scare me at all - most of the time he seems like a perfectly nice guy I don't often agree with.
But in response to his latest World Watch essay, in which he states that
quote: Bill Ayers seems to have ghost-written at least part of Obama's "autobiography,"
I would respectfully suggest that he now remove his tinfoil hat. Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Considering TR was responsible more or less for the birth of government regulation for things like public safety and for that matter an end to laissez-faire government in economic matters, McCain might want to read a couple books on TR to find out exactly how many of his policies he really likes.
I'd probably for for Teddy Roosevelt today. He was aggressive militarily, but not necessarily a war mongerer. He used the Antiquities Act for the first time to put large amounts of land under federal protection, and as such you could call him the first environmentalist president. He signed consumer and occupational safety laws into effect. He was the "trust buster." I don't think McCain can really claim to support most or any of Roosevelt's domestic policies.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: Didn't Daily Show have a McCain video clip of him speaking in favor of the progressive income tax?
Yeah. A young woman asked him about it, and he actually gave the explanation that if people make more and can afford to give more, a progressive income tax makes sense. She then compares it to Socialism, which he denies. I think it was dated in 2000.
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posted
Today's US "liberal," believing in a government safety net for unemployment, illness, old age, preferring strong regulation of business, and government funding of most useful research, wouldn't even exist in the 1800's. The "liberals" of the 1800's US would now be called "libertarians," since they were about limited government (*very* limited by modern standards). "Liberal" policy in Europe means not state-oriented, socialist, or libertarian, but simply "pro-democracy."
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quote:The "liberals" of the 1800's US would now be called "libertarians," since they were about limited government (*very* limited by modern standards).
How does the "liberal" support of trust-busting in the 1800s fit into this generalization?
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quote:I'd probably for for Teddy Roosevelt today. He was aggressive militarily, but not necessarily a war mongerer.
Good. Neither is McCain.
quote:He used the Antiquities Act for the first time to put large amounts of land under federal protection, and as such you could call him the first environmentalist president. He signed consumer and occupational safety laws into effect. He was the "trust buster." I don't think McCain can really claim to support most or any of Roosevelt's domestic policies.
Can you demonstrate that McCain doesn't support TR's actual policies - as opposed to policies a century later that are for the most part far in excess of TR's policies?
Short of the estate tax, I can't think of any regulation that TR supported that goes farther than what McCain has supported. You seem to be assuming that because TR supported a mild regulatory regime, he would support the regime in place now. I haven't seen evidence of this.
quote:Clearly, Roosevelt was not entirely averse to "spreading the wealth" something that the McCain campaign has been using as a mantra of evil these days.
But it's a good thing to be able to admire those one disagrees with about some things, right?
*****
I've seen a lot of stuff lately saying that McCain disfavors a "progressive" income tax. Yet every income tax he's voted for has been progressive. Certainly, they've been less progressive than some Democrats would like. But that's a different statement altogether.
********
McCain has voted in favor of:
1) Progressive income taxes 2) Consumer/occupational safety regulations 3) National parks/forests
The fact that some people want more - and far more than TR ever advocated - isn't evidence that he opposes those concepts.
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quote:"At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth......
"No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar?s worth of service rendered?not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective, a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate."
Sen. Obama's tax plan sounds to me like it exemplifies the sentiment quoted above. The rhetoric of Sen. McCain and his campaign is has been to call that socialism.
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quote:Sen. Obama's tax plan sounds to me like it exemplifies the sentiment quoted above. The rhetoric of Sen. McCain and his campaign is has been to call that socialism.
And yet, McCain's tax plan is also progressive, both on income and estates. So it's not clear to me how you can say TR is more in line with Obama's income tax plan without presenting some numbers that TR favored.
I don't know what those are. But until someone can show them to me, the argument that, based on his general statements in support of graduated estate and income taxes, TR is more like Obama on this issue than McCain falls flat.
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posted
I'm not saying that. I am saying that the McCain campaign tactic of calling Sen. Obama a socialist - calling his statements, for example, that the wealthy can afford to pay a little more "Spread the wealth", socialism - is misleading and hypocritical.
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quote:I'm not saying that. I am saying that the McCain campaign tactic of calling Sen. Obama a socialist - calling his statements, for example, that the wealthy can afford to pay a little more "Spread the wealth", socialism - is misleading and hypocritical.
Only if those comments are aimed solely at Obama's tax policies alone, and not other Obama policies. The one's I've seen are not so limited, but I allow that there could be more specific ones I haven't seen.
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posted
The "Obama is a socialist" meme sprung up at McCain/Palin rallies after Sen. Obama's discussion with "Joe the Plumber" came up in the debate - a conversation that was specifically about tax policy.
This article includes a transcript of that conversation.
What policies other than tax policies are being called socialist? I assumed that the way we "redistribute" wealth is through taxes.
edit to add: I suppose the health care plan could be a target for attacks, but that isn't what is being hammered by the McCain/Palin campaign. Gov. Palin seems to be talking mostly about how Sen. Obama is going to take all your stuff and Sen. McCain is saying that he want to be the "redistributer in chief".
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quote:Originally posted by Qaz: Today's US "liberal," believing in a government safety net for unemployment, illness, old age, preferring strong regulation of business, and government funding of most useful research, wouldn't even exist in the 1800's. The "liberals" of the 1800's US would now be called "libertarians," since they were about limited government (*very* limited by modern standards). "Liberal" policy in Europe means not state-oriented, socialist, or libertarian, but simply "pro-democracy."
I think you're hitching "liberal" automatically to "Democrat." Also politics wildly changed in the 1800's. I don't think you can draw a line across the entire century, just like you can't in the 20th century, and claim that any ideology stayed in one zone, or that any party did.
Liberals in the 1800's would have been abolitionists, or I guess if you want to really widen it, free soilers, but even that issue was largely dead after 1862-63. And everyone in that camp would have been a Republican by 1858, and before that would have been a member of various other parties that rose and fell. Conservatives in the 1800's were by and large Democrats until the party imploded in 1860, and then picked up the pieces afterwards. But even then you get mixed results. Southern Democrats said it was outside the government's power to legislate slavery in the territories, to restrict their right to property by making anti-slavery laws, and some reserved the right to nullify laws they didn't really like, but at the same time demanded that Congress pass laws that protected slavery, that denied freedom of speech, and the right to petition the government, and in the case of the Fugitive Slave Law, was a massive intrustion into the private lives of Northern citizens.
There was a lot of give and take back then, so really it's hard to argue that any one side had a specific ideology on the use of government power except: Whenever I agree with it it's okay and whenever I don't it's a massive overreach of power. Not much has changed on that front has it?
Still, the liberals were the guys pushing for racial equality and an end to slavery. The Conservatives were the guys trying to hold onto the 18th century with their teeth.
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quote:Can you demonstrate that McCain doesn't support TR's actual policies - as opposed to policies a century later that are for the most part far in excess of TR's policies?
Short of the estate tax, I can't think of any regulation that TR supported that goes farther than what McCain has supported. You seem to be assuming that because TR supported a mild regulatory regime, he would support the regime in place now. I haven't seen evidence of this.
The whole thing is silly in a way, since we're talking about policies a 100 years old. What you call a mild regulatory regime by 21st century standards was outrageous back when it was first passed. It was an equivilant intrusion into business as what McCain claims Obama is trying to do with the socialism boogeyman. The government had never before taken such a firm hand in how a business runs itself, and McCain has been against regulation for decades. TR more or less invented modern regulation, or at least was the pioneer in its legislative application. Of course you can't think of anything that he supported a hundred years ago that would be more regulatory today. If he'd have tried it back then, it wouldn't have worked. What he did do was already dramatically over the line to a lot of people. This is a semantic debate really, since we'll never be able to come to any sort of realistic comparison of two different politicians at the turn of different centuries, but that's my opinion. What sort of regulation might TR have supported in the 21st century? We'll never know. What sort of regulation at the dawn of the 20th century might McCain have supported? We'll also never know.
But maybe that helps to highlight why calling himself a TR Republican is goofy considering Republicans back then were liberal, and TR later ran on the progressive ticket by himself.
quote:I've seen a lot of stuff lately saying that McCain disfavors a "progressive" income tax. Yet every income tax he's voted for has been progressive. Certainly, they've been less progressive than some Democrats would like. But that's a different statement altogether.
McCain has recently opposed a lot of stuff that he used to support. And if he still supports a progress income tax, then he and Palin need to stop saying that Obama is a Marxist socialist. He can't have it both ways. That particular attack only came after Obama's comments to Joe Wurzelbacher (forgive the possible spelling mistake, I'm not looking the guy's name up), and that conversation is referenced almost every time he attacks.
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quote:And if he still supports a progress income tax,
It's not an "if." The tax portion of his health plan - a refundable tax credit - is FAR more progressive than the current tax deduction scheme.
quote:then he and Palin need to stop saying that Obama is a Marxist socialist.
Again, this is based on the premise that when they complain about Obama's policies in this manor they are only talking about taxes.
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quote: I think you're hitching "liberal" automatically to "Democrat." Also politics wildly changed in the 1800's. I don't think you can draw a line across the entire century, just like you can't in the 20th century, and claim that any ideology stayed in one zone, or that any party did.
Lets just put it this way. I call myself a republican, because I believe in a conservative viewpoint. But does the republican party itself stand for, or represent a conservative ideology? no. It may have at one point, and there may be many conservative persons within the party, but the original reason for forming the party has eroded over time as ambitions and power-hungry men gained positions of leadership in the parties.
You have but to analyze the vote on the first economic bailout bill to understand this. There were as many democrats voting 'conservative' as there were republicans voting 'liberal'. This, and many other facts lead me to believe that the parties, democrat and republican alike, don't represent anything but power. I'm not even sure I'm republican anymore, because the very meaning is gone. I may still vote for republicans most of the time, but I will never say that I 'believe' everything republicans do. I believe in the support of the Constitution of the United States of America, and in supporting those who seek to support that document. I'm a constitutionalist.
The old is broken, and the order is askew. If any person is to participate in politics, as is our constitutional duty, than we should better understand the parties we ally ourselves to, perhaps even question the party itself.
quote:Again, this is based on the premise that when they complain about Obama's policies in this manor they are only talking about taxes.
It's a pretty solidly supported premise to anyone who watches their stump speeches. If you can point out something else that they're referencing, I'd welcome hearing it. They bring up his taxes, and they bring up his comments about spreading the wealth around, and then they say "this is no time to experiment with socialism."
I'm all about fairness, whether you believe that or not, so if you can point out something else he is referring to other than taxes since he started calling Obama a socialist, I'll be glad to cede the point to you.
Quara -
quote:I'm a constitutionalist.
You're a Ron Paul supporter?
No I know what you mean. I'm only 24 and I'm already a former Democrat. I vote Democrat most of the time, but I don't really support the party, just some of the ideas they happen to vote for most of the time. I'm a liberal, but not always a Democrat.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Again, this is based on the premise that when they complain about Obama's policies in this manor they are only talking about taxes.
In whose manor? McCain's? Obama's? Bruce Wayne's? Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
The examples that Orson Scott Card puts out, gay marriage and abortion, can be argued to related to the rights of the people, and when people disagree on such natural rights, the court has the ability, based on the ninth amendment and other parts of the constitution, to mediate between the two sides and make a judgment - at least in my opinion.
They exist to interpret the law.
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posted
I think that, unfortunately, OSC gets the Constitution wrong. Amendment 14 already provides that no State may make any law which would deny equal protection of its laws to any citizen.
The anti-gay marriage act does just that. One class of citizens, gay couples, do not get the same rights as another, straight couples. Rights such as inheritance, hospital visitation, confidentiality privileges, etc. do not apply equally.
The real problem is that the States have made marriage, a religious sacrament, into a secular civil right. The solution is for States to get out of the "marriage" business. Government should offer nothing more than a "civil union" and its concomitant package of rights to those consenting couples, over legal age, who desire it. Those in a civil union would have all of the privileges of married couples, together with the obligations - including divorce issues. If folks want to get "married", they can do so in their church, synagogue, mosque, Mormon temple, or humanist church under the authority of such religious personnel willing to grant marriages. What's wrong with that? It's the way most people get married anyway. What practicing Catholic would rely on a "marriage" performed by a City Hall clerk? They wouldn't. They simply aren't "married" unless the Church rites have been followed. The same goes for most other religions. The civil marriage document is just a civil piece of paper.
So, if a Mormon gay couple wants to get married, they can't, unless they go to another church which performs gay marriage. But the State won't be discriminating against them - they can get the civil union rights that heterosexuals can get.
Do people want the States to start performing baptisms next?
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quote:Originally posted by Harry: I think that, unfortunately, OSC gets the Constitution wrong. Amendment 14 already provides that no State may make any law which would deny equal protection of its laws to any citizen.
The anti-gay marriage act does just that. One class of citizens, gay couples, do not get the same rights as another, straight couples. Rights such as inheritance, hospital visitation, confidentiality privileges, etc. do not apply equally.
Does Amendment 14 still apply if civil unions have the same rights as marriage? I am asking specifically about the definition of protection- not debating whether or not it is discriminatory to not allow gay couples the right of "marriage" (although I do regard it as discriminatory).
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The 14th amendment, under current jurisprudence, almost certainly does not require states to recognize same-sex marriage.
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NatMyst - Dagonee's statement "under current jurisprudence" says it all. How judges interpret the Constitution - which provides no right to marriage for anyone - is critical. OSC refers in his article to Article IV's "full faith and credit" clause - meaning that one state has to recognize decisions of another state. For example, if State A permits 15 year olds to marry, then, if they marry in State A legally and move to State B, State B cannot challenge their marriage and, in fact, must allow them to deal with their marriage (e.g., divorce, etc.) in accordance with the laws of State B as if they were validly married. The same argument is being made for gay marriages in one state being effective in another.
I was responding to OSC's argument (which strangely avoids 2 centuries of jurisprudence that does say that the Supreme Court is the arbiter of what the Constitution means) by pointing to a clearer Constitutional statement that rejects unequal application of the laws. California's high court "permitted" gay marriage in May of 2008 by interpreting California laws, which require gender neutral treatment of certain issues.
But, I can't answer your question regarding whether the 14th Amendment applies, because the Supreme Court of the United States hasn't got there yet. They only recently came to the conclusion that gays were not subject to prosecution for having intimate relations. But, the general principal is there for equal treatment and the Court has already ruled in a separate context that "separate but equal" treatment is not valid.
I don't think that civil unions are the same as marriage exactly, as a legal concept. For one thing, civil union couples do not have the privacy privilege that married couples have (i.e., one cannot be forced to testify against the other). That is highly significant.
Part of my argument, however, is that marriage is a religious concept and the government should not be in the business of conferring religious rites on the public. Make civil unions applicable to all couples who seek the rights of marriage (including the privacy privilege) and let the religious institutions deal with "marriage".
I'm married and consider my religious marriage ceremony and document to be the true definition of my marriage, not the piece of paper I have from the government certifying that I am married.
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quote:For example, if State A permits 15 year olds to marry, then, if they marry in State A legally and move to State B, State B cannot challenge their marriage and, in fact, must allow them to deal with their marriage (e.g., divorce, etc.) in accordance with the laws of State B as if they were validly married.
There is an ill-defined "public policy" exemption to full faith and credit as it applies to marriage and other official acts of states. Consanguinity, for example, can constitutionally permit one state to treat a couple as unmarried event though the state in which they were married did not bar their marriage.
quote:For one thing, civil union couples do not have the privacy privilege that married couples have (i.e., one cannot be forced to testify against the other).
I don't think that's the case. In Vermont, for example, my understanding is that all state-given privileges attached to marriage also attach to civil unions. Presumably this includes the spousal privileges (communication and testimonial).
Of course, Vt civil union couples don't have access to the federal privileges. But neither do Mass. same sex married couples. So the difference isn't based in civil union v. marriage, but in the federal policies.
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