What Bush Must Do

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

A lot of things are out of Bush's control: jobs,

So Bush has no control over monetary policy and economic stimulus?

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So Bush has no control over the CIA?

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Quit listening to Michael Savage.  No conservative is going to vote to thow out an incumbent Republican unless he's REALLY screwed things up.  Yeah, I can see that a less enthused conservative base may stay home on Nov. 2, but that's not going to make a bit of difference in Flyover Country.  It MAY cost him Florida, I'll grant you, but going on a social crusade WILL cost him Ohio and Missouri.

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The last thing Bush needs is to start looking like a hardline radical rightist.  Yes, most Americans are against gay marriage, but such a push by Bush will make him look like a reactionary with a out-of-control social agenda.  Americans don't want to hear about social agendas (left or right) when jobs, national security, and education are all much more pressing issues.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Why do you idiots proclaim to know what I listen to?  

Well, the whole "Bush must energize his ultra-conservative base with lots of ultra-conservative things or the nation will be destroyed by President Kerry" idea is something that Savage has been crying about for weeks now.

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Yeesh.  That's enough to drive anyone to the Far Right.  *I* do listen to Savage.  I think he's a raving looney, but he's an entertaining raving looney.  I have to mix in some Savage, Reagan, and O'Reilly with my NPR or I'll lose my grip on reality.

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I didn't say it *would* be radical.  I said it would make him *look* radical.  Because the propaganda war over this issue has been won.

Just as a side note, to let you know my personal feelings here... doesn't it strike anyone as supreme arrogance that we, in the 21st Century, can redefine marriage to mean something that it never was in the thousands of years that it's existed?  Are we smarter than the many generations before us, to whom it never occurred to define as marriage the union between two men or two women?

Just some food for thought...

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Beef--

Did you (or if you are too young to have been politically cognizant then, would you have) made the same argument in the 1960's about civil rights? It's always been done that way, people in the past had no problem with it, so let's not rock the boat?

I can understand people trying to link civil rights with the public acceptance of homosexuality - the gay rights movement has been very successful in framing the public discourse in terms of "homosexuals are a type of people who are born a certain way, and it's wrong to punish people for what they are."  I don't believe "homosexuals" are a type of person.  Homosexuality isn't some new thing, and people who prefer homosexual sex are not a class of people deserving protection.  People have had homosexual urges for all of recorded history, but the idea that having those leanings makes you something different is a cover up for a deeper agenda.  

This agenda is the abolishment of all restrictions on sexual expression, and the encouragement of a hedonistic imparative.  Traditional family, social institutions such as marriage, religion... all these things must either be done away with, or changed to suit the needs of this agenda.  If it feels good, do it!  Everyone's a pervert!  Find your own kink and explore it to your heart's content.  Think I'm imagining things?  Try reading Dan Savage of Savage Love (not to be confused with Michael Savage).  That is what the gay rights movement and homosexual marriage are really about.  Leftist squeamishness about civil rights (which is justifiable - racism and bigotry sucks!) was just something the homosexual agenda found was easily exploitable.

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Racial inequality and segragation was an evil thing, but it was not rooted in thousands of years of human history.  I don't recall anywhere outside of the Jim Crow South any stipulation that a marriage had to be between two people of the same skin pigment.  If you know of any instances of this, please point them out to me.  

Bans on "interracial marriage" were a peculiarity.  But marriage between a man and a woman has always always always always been the norm.

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No, not at all.  But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that just because we have a few new gadgets, that makes us superior to those who came before us.  Society progresses in some ways, but do we really progress in wisdom?

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Yes, but there are some things that should never change.  Children knowing they belong to a family with a mother and a father who will keep them safe and love them.  This should not change.  Knowing that there is more to this world than the next paycheck, or the next good feeling, and that no matter what wonders we may create, that it will all pass away, and we must ground ourselves in something that is real, this should not change.  Otherwise, what hope is there for us - just a lot of mortal men and women scrambling after a lot of nothing, living for no one but ourselves.

Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble on like this.  Suddenly I had this thought in my head of Brave New World, where "mother" is a dirty word and children are taught to play sex games... and I thought about how we're really not far off.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Beef--

Did you (or if you are too young to have been politically cognizant then, would you have) made the same argument in the 1960's about civil rights? It's always been done that way, people in the past had no problem with it, so let's not rock the boat? What about interracial marriage, which was also illegal in many places until the 1960s? One could argue that this was changing the traditional definition of marriage that had existed for a long time, too.

Huh?  Christianity has spoken for racial equality and even interracial marriage for 2000 years.  Where have you been?

Where in Nym90's post does he talk about Christianity?