Quote from: Kaelin on June 04, 2010, 05:48:54 AM
The way you presented the issue of an "appropriate" attitude towards legal marriage was that while there are conservatives who get it wrong, it is only "mainline conservatives" who get it wrong, as if "true conservatives" get it right.
No, the implication is (or was supposed to be) "mainline" = "great majority" and the rest are not so much "true" conservatives as a minority of the whole.
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On the other hand, you offered no such treatment to differentiate liberals -- you just treated them as if they all think a particular way (and given what you just said about conservatives, you should known better than that).
if you are implying that there are liberals who in fact oppose gay marriage, I'll defer to you on that point since I don't move in those circles and have never been exposed to such liberals.
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Picking on you on this point is not about promoting "lock-step liberalism" -- it's about pointing out your double standard.
I, like everyone else here, am merely speaking from my knowledge and experience - I have a lot more interaction with various "shades" of conservitism/libertarianism than i do with liberalism. Pretty much all the liberalism I have close contact with is on-line, and on the half-dozen places i am exposed to liberal opinion (speaking of "ordinary folks" here, not outlets like HuffPost or Salon) there is an astounding uniformity of opinion on most major political and sociological subjects.
It might well be true that there's diversity out there in places I've not been - as I said, I'll defer to others on that point. But i can't describe that which I've not seen.
(and yes, I assume most of my left wing sisters here would say the exact same thing about the right wingers they've been exposed to but I hope that I myself, at least, represent at least one counter-example.
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If "liberals" in general "never" give thought as to why the law makes distinctions, so many of them probably wouldn't be saying that marriage should be between "two consenting adults" instead of just "two adults" or "two people."
I was not saying there that ONLY liberals don't give much thought to those distinctions but rather that most PEOPLE, in the general population, don't. Most people, in my experience, don't give a lot of thought to WHY they believe what they say they believe. Rather, they "believe" whatever makes them feel good about themselves (on both sides, or all sides, whatever).
For instance, to get away from the marriage issue a half step, one ofthe reasons that people want gay marriage, or at least an equal status to hetros, has to do with the tax code - which is not an invalid point. BUT the tax code makes all sorts of distinctions between people (doesn't the mortgage deduction discriminate against the renter, for instance?) because it's trying to manipulate behavior as much as it's trying to raise revenue.
that's just one example of what is in reality an inequality under the law. It's also an example of something the great majority of people would never think of in the context of "inequality."
whether said people are liberal, conservative, or whatever else.
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"Equal treatment" is not a particularly well-defined term. "Equal treatment" to some people means quotas (requiring that various groups are proportionally represented, which I'm against), and to other people it means requiring that people do not face positive/negative discrimination on a list of immutable factors that are not bona fide occupational qualifications (which I'm for). Any sort of assumptions stemming from a particularly interpretation of the term cannot be applied to all people identifying with that certain term.
Indeed. which is almost dead on the point I was hoping to make - that "equal treatment" is often more a fuzzy feel-good-about-myself state of mind than it is a well thought out and nuanced worldview.
there are, of course, similar examples of empty rhetoric behind any political philosophy. Again, most people don't think deeply about the reasons and implications associated with what they say they believe.
Take the recent odd comments from Rand Paul as an example. The observation that he makes - that civil rights legislation which requires privately held business and institutions to be non-discriminatory infringes on private property rights and private rights of association is TRUE.
One can easily and persuasively argue that the government has a vested interest in making such an infringement (which he may or may not agree with, but this isn't about him - just an example) but my point is, the great majority of the people have never thought so deeply about civil rights legislation that they ever realize that the infringement exists. They simply take it as a given that such freedoms were never there in the first place.
Again, this sort of shallowness is non-partisan and across the board (though I'd argue that if one is a libertarian, they may well be more likely to have given some deep thought just because it's such a contrarian philosophy).
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Susan's members generally don't give a damn about where they or anyone stands relative to Nancy Pelosi (in fact, this should be my first post mentioning her name).
You may or may not think of her in those terms, but in my pretty extensive experience in being "too far right" for most of the politically aware here, I'd argue that of those posters who are both active here and active politically, almost all of them have a well honed understanding of where they are politically relative to the major political players on the scene.
But Pelosi was just an example of someone who pretty much everyone would agree is well to the left of center on the American political scale.
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Some "liberals" may criticize her,
I wasn't trying to imply that they would criticize her, though I assume there must be some who do.
Look, what I'm doing here is a bit of a play on words type of thing. I used to listen to a preacher who would say he was so far to the right he was sure Rush Limbaugh was a communist. He did not, of course, think badly of Rush - he was simply using a colorful phrase to illustrate where he thought he was on the political scale.
THAT is what I meant when I said that most of the politically vocal here would say "Pelosi is too far to the right" - I'm sure almost all of them thing she gets it right 99.44% of the time. It was just an illustration.
Don't take such things so literally.
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but any use of her as a measuring stick is primarily by talking heads who are more interested in injecting emotion rather than actually articulating what a person has to say or believes in. The general contempt around here for "->-bleeped-<-r than thou" should illustrate that lots of people here are not fond of this type of attitude. If it seems that our more vocal members tend to be "liberal" on other issues, it is not because of a mandate, but because of other factors.
I can't prove this, but it's my hypothesis that the fact that the trans community seems to be 98% "very liberal" flows directly from the fact that they rightly asses the possibility of getting our rights protected to be very good on the left and almost non-existent on the right.
and that consideration forms the foundation for gravitating to the sources of information on that side of the spectrum, which in turn means that their worldview is shaped by a biased flow of information.
I do not say this accusingly, but based on my experience. When I was repressing, I got my information pretty much exclusively from the right of center sources (except for CNN) and over the last few years, I've necessarily been exposed to a lot more info from the left (by virtue of following stories related to trans issues) and several of my political positions have been notably modified by being able to consider both viewpoints.
As shocking as it might be for many of you to consider, I'd argue that a lot of people here would be much more well versed if they would find some right wing sources and make them a part of their regular reading or listening. I don't mean blowhards like Hannity or Savage, but rather some thoughtful commentary.
Even if you disagree with them, it might well provoke (as it has with me) the opportunity to reconsider your views and ponder WHY you disagree.
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It's not a good idea to make sweeping generalizations about broad or ill-defined groups of people, especially when you want to celebrate a "label-free" politician.
I don't think there was nearly as much generalization there as you think, and to the extent that there was I generalized both sides and SPECIFICALLY pointed out I was trying to be even handed and not derogatory to the left.
I think, since it gets so much mention, that the headline to that story is ill-worded. it seems the intent is to suggest the person defies the EXPECTED labels, but that doesn't make for a snappy quote or headline.
