Extremism in Repsonse to Gay Marriage

I don't mind that some Americans are opposed to gay marriage. What I mind is the dangerous extremism being displayed by some of its opponents and the flimsy excuses they give for extremism.

I'm annoyed with the resistance to the Obergefell v. Hodges decision first because that resistance comes mainly from the Republican/Tea Party, and it continues that party's recently established tradition of getting emotional about small problems like gay marriage or drug use among the unemployed while ignoring big problems like anthropogenic global warming or the way we allow elected representatives to represent donors instead of constituents. The GOP/TP seems to be trying to identify itself as the party that sweats the small stuff and scoffs at the big stuff.

But the inability to rationally assess problems is just part of the problem. It's the extremist attacks on the federal government and national unity that the party uses to promote its agenda that makes the GOP/TP dangerous for America. I get especially annoyed when such extremist tactics are employed by self-styled conservatives. Conservatism is not a revolutionary philosophy. Conservatism seeks stability, and a conservative respects America's legal and political processes even if he doesn't always like the outcome.

Conservatism is also supposed to be an honest philosophy, not because honesty has some inherent nobility, but because honesty is a necessary component of a rational approach to national governance. Like so many other tenets of genuine conservatism, the GOP/TP has abandoned honesty these days.

The Republican Trust Deficit

Her: "Tell them you're an expert with FrameMaker."
Me: "But I'm not an expert with FrameMaker."
Her: "I know, but just tell them you're an expert."

That's the gist of an argument I had with a recruiter a few years ago on the eve of a job interview. I was trying for a technical writing contract at a company near Dallas, a job I was fairly well qualified to perform. The tricky part about a contract like that is that you're generally jumping into the middle of a project, and the customer needs you to get up to speed immediately. That means the customer needs someone who knows the software that company is using.

I'm always honest about my software skills during such an interview. That might lose me a few contracts, but it also means that I don't get a reputation for lying to customers. That's not an example of high morality on my part, it's just a recognition that in the contracting world, honest contractors are more valuable than liars. Honesty is necessary if you want to solve problems in a civilized, professional environment.

The recruiter didn't understand that. From her point of view, if lying would get you something you wanted, lying was the way to go.

And her attitude seems to be the same attitude governing Republican politics these days.

To the Anti-Gay-Marriage Lobby...

Picture yourself walking into a VA hospital. There are a lot of veterans there with serious problems. Some of those problems, like PTSD, aren't visibly obvious. Some of those problems, like missing limbs, are impossible to miss. Picture the doctors, nurses, and other health workers moving among these veterans, trying to help ease their suffering.

When you get a good mental image of that scene, picture some non-veteran walking around loudly and aggressively demanding attention for his sore toe. Despite the very real problems around him and the real people trying to fix those problems, this jerk won't shut up. He says that he's the one really suffering here, and he demands special attention and consideration immediately. If he doesn't get his way, he suggests that he might become dangerous.

Even worse, while he's interfering with the veterans, doctors, and nurses, he insists that he deserves credit for respecting them. He claims that his disrespectful behavior makes him moral.

Today we have someone just like that running around America. He's the self-described 'persecuted' Christian, and there are lots of him, especially in the anti-gay marriage lobby. The latest complaint by this group came in the form of an open letter to the Supreme Court Justices of the United States. Here's an open response.

The Global Warming Choice: Now or Later?

There's been a lot of talk about the long-term effects of anthropogenic global warming. What will the global mean temperature be in 50 years? How high will sea level rise by 2100? Thinking about the long-term effects is necessary, but it's also a problem because we humans, we speculating apes, have a standard response to long-term threats.

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

When it comes to global warming, the stakes are too high for us to stick with that old approach. Even the moderate predictions presented in the latest IPCC reports, which generally ignore the worst potential outcomes of global warming in an attempt to avoid seeming alarmist, suggest that we'll face massive and expensive disruptions within the lifetimes of many people walking the planet today. The worst-case scenarios, which you probably haven't heard about, could be devastating. Like game-over devastating.

The good news is that the solutions don't have to be drastic if we don't put them off too long. If you're even a little bit financially savvy, you know how this works.

Get a Grip, America

I hate extremist boneheads. They never get their facts straight and their thinking is primitive, so it's impossible to have a rational, mature discussion with them.

I really hate these people when it comes to discussing America. On one extreme you find the American exceptionalists who think that blind adoration is an expression of patriotism. On the other extreme you find the American failurists who think that blind cynicism is an expression of intelligence.

I'd like to politely suggest that these two groups refrain from extremist rhetoric, but I'm not that nice, so I'll just say: these two groups should shut the fuck up. America is a better country today than it was yesterday, and it will be a better country tomorrow.

Two Christianities

I'm a secular American conservative. I don't need or want any religious thinking in my life, although my obedience to the Constitution requires me to respect the right of others to hold religious beliefs.

Despite being secular, I've been exposed to a lot of Christians while I was growing up in America, and I see two basic types.

The first type included family and friends back in Arkansas, particularly at a small Southern Baptist church I was exposed to before the Southern Baptists were take over by an evil element back in the 1980s. I come from a line of people who held strong religious views, people who helped build churches, who donated land to churches, and who participated regularly in churches.

I kinda liked those people. Although I only attended that church on rare occasions when we were back home visiting, it seemed a pretty friendly place. I hated going, because there were too many other things to do that were fun, but I never came away from church feeling bad about myself. I never came away scared. I never came away from that church hating other people.

Anti-Republican Does Not Equal Democrat

I relate to the world mostly through internet message boards. Some people might say that this gives me a distorted view of the world, and they're probably right.

Still, you see trends in online conversations, and one of these trends I've noticed is that people who call themselves conservative or Republican often dismiss anyone who criticizes the GOP as either a liberal or a Democrat. There's no room in their pointy heads for any other options. If you don't like what the GOP has become, you must be a Democrat.

What these people don't realize is that since about 2007, the Republican Party has changed dramatically, and some of us who were involved with the party before that don't like the changes. We don't like the dumbing down of the party. We don't like corporation worship being portrayed as a conservative value. We don't like the anti-science agenda, which threatens America's security and prosperity. We don't like the paranoid conspiracy fantasies that are the main product of talk radio.

That doesn't mean we support the Democrats. It means that we oppose the corruption of the Republican Party, which is also a corruption of American conservatism.

Gay Marriage: a Conservative Dilemma

I'm pretty harsh on my conservative compadres these days. Since the rise of the Tea Party, the concept of conservatism has been corrupted beyond recognition, and this has led to some bad thinking in the American conservative movement.

But I have some sympathy for those who oppose gay marriage. While supporting corporate personhood, promoting widespread drug testing, and denying anthropogenic global warming are examples of today's conservatives abandoning genuine conservative principles, in this one case they got it almost right.

Legalizing gay marriage is exactly the kind of thing conservatives should question. It's a big change to society, and big changes make us nervous. But there's more to it than that.