Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Hypocrisy Of The Left

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Yeah, I know,that’s an evergreen post title. This time it applies to their strange silence about Mike Bloomberg spending millions to deprive us of our civil rights:

Apparently the New York Times‘ editorial board’s description of politically-active billionaires as “the perfect illustration of the squalid state of political money” only applies to those of the conservative variety. And how about President Obama, who just months ago was slamming the activities of conservative billionaires on the campaign trail and proposing a Constitutional Amendment to muzzle them? According to his former campaign manager Jim Messina, who appeared Sunday on ABC’s This Week, not only does he fully support the mayor’s activities, but they are leaving the door open to using their new Super PAC, Organizing for Action, to run their own ads complementing the mayor’s campaign.

For the record, I fully support Nurse Bloomberg’s First Amendment right to waste his money on the odious cause of taking away my Second Amendment rights.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Low-Info Hipster Morons Who Voted For Obama

10 Comments

…learn that elections have consequences:

That mean old company won’t throw extra cash at them so that they can live the New York City lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed! Dear Dudes: Companies are in business to stay in business and employ people. Obamacare regulations are making that increasingly more difficult; the costs are staggering and burdensome. That whole “you can keep your plan” deal? Obama lied.

And anyone with half a brain would have known that. But they’re products of the public educational system, and universities.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Jeffrey Toobin

31 Comments

If you find yourself in bed with him, get out.

And along those lines, I could watch this all day.

So what do I think about all of this same-sex marriage business? Despite the fact that for as long as I’ve given the matter any thought, it has been quite clear to me that homosexuals are born, not made, it’s a bad idea to redefine a multi-millenia-old institution. As Frank J. noted the other day, the problem is that government and marriage need a divorce. Let them have civil unions so they can get the same legal benefits that heterosexual couples have, and leave marriage to the church. If they find a church that will marry them, more power to them.

And please, spare me the idiotic straw-man arguments about how it won’t really cause heterosexual couples to divorce and go find a new squeeze with the same genital configuration as themselves, and the ban on gay marriage was the only thing preventing this. No one believes that, no one argues that. The people who will be affected by this aren’t currently married couples, but confused kids on the fence. If you really do have a choice, at least in this society, choosing het generally makes for a better life, and we shouldn’t be encouraging the opposite. I don’t believe that not allowing same-sex marriages is discrimination against homosexuals. They continue to have the same rights as everyone else — to marry someone of the opposite sex, regardless of how unsatisfactory they might find such a union. It is, however, admittedly, gender discrimination. That is, Sue is allowed to marry Phil, but Bob isn’t. That to me is a much stronger argument. And that is one that can only be resolved by divorcing marriage from government.

On the legal issues, I’ve always thought that DOMA was unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment — I’m no fair-weather federalist. But the full faith and credit problem isn’t going to go away. It may very well be that “married” gay couples won’t be able to move to some states and have their marriage recognized. I’m surprised that it wasn’t more of an issue in argument.

On Prop 8, I think that it stinks that the government of California won’t defend its own duly-passed-by-the-people law before the Supreme Court, leaving the people of the state in dubious standing. Regardless of what one thinks of the issue, this is a terrible precedent, giving the government an effective veto over any law it doesn’t like and disenfranchising the voters. That in itself should be challenged in court, though obviously, even if they were forced to defend it, there would be nothing to prevent them from doing a crummy job of it. That, I think, is actually a bigger issue than whether or not gay marriage should be legal in California.

[Update a while later]

As always, a lot of interesting legal discussion over at Volokh’s place.

[Update late morning]

“My gay-marriage dilemma“:

In actuality, I support neither side in this debate. The radical identitarian Left is all of a sudden pretending to be Constitutionalists, citing the 14th Amendment as if they actually gave a sh*t about equal protection under the law — this canard after decades of shilling for affirmative action, PC campus speech codes, reparations, anti-male divorce courts, the subsidization of contraception by religious objectors, “abortion on demand,” etc. I have no time for this gang of phonies and tyrants; I don’t believe a word they say.

An analogous, if exaggerated, situation would be if I lived under a fascist military junta and were scheduled for execution the following week, the only way to stop this being to support the planned communist coup of the underground demagogue. I would know what was coming: I would trade one set of executioners for another. There’s no room for pure principle in a case like this.

Yes, that’s my problem, too. Many of the proponents of this do not do it in good faith.

[Early afternoon update]

“Same-sex marriage is not the same as opposite-sex marriage.”

[Update a while later]

Thoughts on being dissed by Rush Limbaugh.

[Bumped]