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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Tuesday, March 16, 2004 :::
I wrote the following about two and a half weeks ago, then saved it as a draft. My brother noted it and suggested that even if I didn't feel like finishing and editing, I should post it as-is, which is what I'll do, with this introduction tacked on. I do want to add that I think the "blood-for-oil morons" drowned out not only the good arguments against the Iraq campaign, but also the silent majority of the people who were opposed to the war. In other words, I hope I didn't convey the impression that most of the opponents of the Iraqi venture were blood-for-oil morons.
I shouldn't really be writing this -- I have a lot to do this week, and I'm behind. Let me put it this way: it's 3:40 in the morning, and I really shouldn't be getting to bed. There are more important things than sleep, but I've been moved.
I spent a few minutes away from my precious spreadsheets to read Buckley, and I encountered this, regarding abortion:The 1-day-old child is protected with the full force of the law. The proposition that he is without rights when he is minus 1 day old is nothing more than a social convention conflating various concerns. One is for the mental health of the mother, one for the perceived satisfaction of the mother, another for the national birthrate, and still another for the unspoken hope that we'll have fewer black and Hispanic births. [emphasis added] Well.
I've seen this before, but I don't see it often. And I have to give the pro-life side -- as a whole -- credit, since I rarely hear them assume the worst of their opposition. I rarely catch implications that people who are pro-choice take their position, by and large, because they like the idea of killing babies. I catch a little more in the opposite direction -- implications that pro-lifers are searching for ways to control the women-folk. Or so it seems to me; I consider myself pro-choice with exceptions, rather than pro-life with exceptions, so maybe I take more notice of NARAL overdoing it. Or maybe the pro-choice side around here is more presumptuous, because they're dominant -- maybe if I were in Nebraska, I would see the reverse.
It isn't just Buckley that's setting me off. I've engaged in several discussions of gay marriage in the last week, mostly jumping in when I've felt proponents of either side to be making a weak argument. I don't think I've heard worse arguments about an issue since the lead-in to the Iraq war (which had some good reasons against it, most of which were drowned out by the "blood for oil" morons).
The worse arguments about gay marriage seem to be the slippery-slope arguments. As my entry of 11 hours ago indicated, I don't see a strong mechanism leading from one change in policy toward something else. The argument that gay marriage will lead to polygamy is, I think, insufficiently made; I don't know that it's impossible, but I think there are arguments against polygamy which don't apply to gay marriage. On the other hand, regarding the Federal Marriage Amendment, I was asked the other day, roughly, "if we write an exclusion of gays from marriage into the constitution, then who's next?" My only reaction was: I give up -- who is next? Is there a movement to ban Jews from eating cotton candy which is going to be somehow emboldened?
::: posted by Steven at 12:37 PM
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