evolution

i think one passes a milestone in one’s life when that one thinks to oneself: “you know, c-span is pretty cool.”

this post will be my first, and hopefully my last, on the topic of gay marriage/unions. i don’t feel threatened by gay marriage in the least. nor does it infringe upon my desire to marry a woman, raise some kids, and have a good, strong family. if a adult male wants to marry an adult male, if an adult female wants to marry an adult female - they won’t get any reaction out of me.

that’s not what bothers me about this issue. i notice that nearly 2 out of 3 people oppose gay marriage either wholly or in part. what bothers me is that america’s system of “majority rules” is being eroded. a minority of americans, of which i am a part, either support this or don’t care (with me being one of the latter). but a minority of americans may yet have their way by intimidating the majority using our activist judiciary, who have taken it upon themselves to make up laws and rights i never knew existed, and could not possibly read in the constitution. that is what bothers me most of all.

so here’s my position in summary - i don’t care if gays want to marry each other, unless one of them wants to marry me. i find this idea revolting, which is why i don’t plan to do it, and i don’t plan to encourage my kids to do it. i oppose the president’s amendment (even though i still plan to vote for him). i don’t think this issue rises to that level. i think that the best solution to this issue is to let the individual states decide for themselves what marriage means, with the results not being binding in any other state. this way, states like california and massachusetts, where the opposition is just north of even money against can knock themselves out, and states like my own (kansas), where the ratio is probably more like 3:1 against, can likewise knock themselves out.

i predict this constitutional amendment will be a lot like prohibition was in the 1920s: popular with a certain set, unpopular with another, and twenty-five years later or so, a large group of people will decide it was a mistake and ask to have it repealed.

i turned on meet the press yesterday morning just in time to see ralph nader tell tim russert that he’s going to run for president.

i disagree with ralph nader on most major issues, but i say “good for you, ralph”. and shame on those people who tried to keep him out. he should be included in the “debates” (which are really more like joint press conferences), as well.

why? even though i disagree with nader and would never vote for him for president, i don’t think he should be excluded from the process because if he were, what would stop the two corporate parties from excluding an independent candidate with whom i sympathized? where does that end?

mr. president and sen. kerry (presuming he’s the dems’ guy), have some class. you know nader isn’t going to beat either one of you. let him participate.

israel is criticized when it defends itself against palestinian gunmen, terrorists, and murderers by using force, and it is criticized when it wants to use a barrier to try to stop the violence.

sometimes i think international organizations like the u.n. and these international “courts” are just tools for western europe and the middle east to find a new way to finish the job they started - to wipe out jews everywhere.

i had a solution (an admittedly non-feasible one) to this problem - or so i thought. what if all the jews in israel were given, say, one or all of the aleutian islands, or some other equally remote territory? would this save them from the western europe/middle east war of extermination against them?

the answer i came to is: probabaly not. overnight alaska would become the world leader in bus bombings on its soil. i think we all know what the common denominator in this problem is. only thing is, no one has the guts to admit it.

i found the following flyer posted on the bulletin board here in the purdue math department:

[5" picture of the man named below]

The purpose of this flyer is to inform you that Mr. [name withheld] owes his wife $3,000 in alimony and has refused to pay a cent.

here’s another story about my favorite lefty fringe group.

apparently, we should apologize to everyone for removing saddam hussein from power.

fine. a number of apologies are in order. i apologize, on behalf of the united states of america, to the following persons:

• old europe: my bad. you really got hosed. saddam owed you billions for all the things he wanted to use to kill our soldiers. i’m sorry your proxy war didn’t go so well. this includes most of the citizens of britain, the majority of whom are cut from the same radical-left, welfare-state-dependent, moral-equivalence cloth as most of the other denizens of old europe, and the majority of whom have turned on the only man on the whole continent with a moral bone in his body, tony blair.
• the american left: i’m sorry you got revealed for the america-hating, craven cowards that you really are. i don’t like it when americans fight against other americans, but i’m not going to back down from you.
• “islamic militants”: sorry for trying to help people figure out what you really are. but most people still haven’t yet.

i hoppe you will accept these apologies. these, together with a dollar, will get you a root beer at the Coke machine.

i sat with my mouth agape as i listened to this from fox news’s brit hume the other night:

“Conservative students at Duke University are complaining that the school has a nearly all-liberal and all-Democratic faculty. But the chairman of Duke’s philosophy department, for one, suggests the reason his department has so few conservatives is that most conservatives aren’t smart enough to get the jobs.

Robert Brandon says — ‘If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire. Mill’s analysis may [also] go some way towards explaining the power of the Republican Party in our society and the relative scarcity of Republicans in academia.’ “

see below for my thoughts on this kind of thing.

from many of my previous posts, you will get the impression that i have overwhelming problems with democrats and the left in this country, and you’d be partially correct in having that impression.

my main problem is with radicals of all stripes. i was thinking about this as i watched c-span’s coverage of the massachusetts statehouse debate over whether and how to allow gay marriage/civil unions in their state. the politicians in the statehouse - of all stripes - were having an honest debate [break: this break doesn't change the above assessment, but i did notice that democrats were the last 5 or so speakers before midnight - when the legislative session was due to run out and restart in march. perhaps that was intentional, perhaps not - it doesn't matter all that much right now.] on a very controversial topic. the people of america are 2:1 against any form of gay unions, while in massachusetts it’s probably closer to 52:48 against. it’s a divisive issue. but here’s what i noticed that struck me: the politicians were having an honest and respectful debate with each other - with positions ranging over the full spectrum - and the radical citizenry on both sides were outside and inside the building; shouting, disrupting traffic, disrupting the session, and generally making a spectacle of themselves.

at some point in this country, we have to hold a mirror up to our face and ask what we’ve become. i’m not sure i like this aspect of what we’ve become. whether or not president bush showed up for part of his national guard duty, whether or not sen. kerry slandered vietnam veterans or appeared with jane fonda or had an affair with an intern (matt drudge reported it, but i have seen no news outlet as yet report it, so there probably isn’t any credible evidence of this) - these are all things that we should be above as americans.

but apparently we aren’t. radical leftist websites like democratic underground and indymedia are quoted as “news sources” by people in the party and in the media, and the radical right has their outlet, i’m sure. people have been swept up in the tide of knee-jerk, visceral political reaction and swept away from honest debate about issues.

it took something radical to start this process (namely, the act of war on september 11), and unfortunately, something even more radical is going to be necessary to stop it.

so sen. john kerry (D-MA) is the big winner this week, and howard dean (D-VT) is the big loser. that’s okay with me. i don’t plan to vote for the democratic party now or in the near future because of their alliance with the america-hating, military-hating left, but of all the people in the race that could become president (besides the president himself), sen. john kerry is the least likely to nauseate me personally. (actually joe lieberman was, but for some reason people didn’t go for him. you want to see howling from the left and from the killers, elect a jewish president who calls himself a democrat.) of all the rest of the serious candidates, dean is the most likely to nauseate me. i don’t want someone who is going to raise taxes AND not get militarily tough on fundamentalist islamic terrorists. i could live with someone, namely john kerry, if he raises taxes and DOES get tough on terrorists (but he won’t).

polls have shown recently that kerry would actually win an election between him and bush if it were held right this moment. i think this is a function of the media plastering his face on the tv every 10 minutes for a month or more. amazingly, some in the media think this too (some on-air reporters have so much contempt and hatred for bush in particular that they can’t hide it).

in short, if sen. kerry wins, i’m not going to dig a bomb shelter and buy canned goods, but i am going to beef up my savings account and i might think twice before i buy plane tickets anywhere.