[Industrialblog,
March 15, 2004]
The Nancy Quotient
This is an interesting post about liberals' need to get tough. Here's the intro:
Let's set aside the 900-odd erroneous suppositions embedded in that paragraph and just address the key issue: Some liberals have decided to get tough.
Good. It would be a good thing not to deal with a bunch of nancies for once, and deal once again with the party of Scoop Jackson and Harry Truman.
Suggestions for reducing your nancy-quotient:
Find some honor. Figure out that your rights are inalienable, and thus come from your creator, not your mother. Stop whining about Florida. Don't use the term "civil rights" or "equal protection" when talking about gender-free marriage. Limit yourself to one evil euphemism per argument. Don't be too quick to attribute evil motivations to your opponents and good motivations to yourself. Decide the merits of an argument based on the merits of the argument, not on speaker's race, sex, class, sexual orientation, Vietnam-era status or previous history of depression. And remember that irony, not class struggle, is the underlying theme of human history.
That should get you started.
Let the word go forth: The age of the wimpy liberal is over.
by Paul Waldman, Editor-in-Chief
3.15.04
All across America, progressives are riled up. They saw George W. Bush lose the 2000 election yet manage, through the intercession of a friendly Supreme Court, to take control of the executive branch. They watched as he rolled over seemingly impotent Democrats again and again. Their patriotism was questioned when they raised objections to a war of dubious justification. On nearly every national issue, from abortion to economic policy to health care to environmental protection, their agenda enjoys majority support among the public, yet all three branches of government, not to mention a majority of governorships and state legislatures, are controlled by conservatives.
Let's set aside the 900-odd erroneous suppositions embedded in that paragraph and just address the key issue: Some liberals have decided to get tough.
Good. It would be a good thing not to deal with a bunch of nancies for once, and deal once again with the party of Scoop Jackson and Harry Truman.
Suggestions for reducing your nancy-quotient:
Find some honor. Figure out that your rights are inalienable, and thus come from your creator, not your mother. Stop whining about Florida. Don't use the term "civil rights" or "equal protection" when talking about gender-free marriage. Limit yourself to one evil euphemism per argument. Don't be too quick to attribute evil motivations to your opponents and good motivations to yourself. Decide the merits of an argument based on the merits of the argument, not on speaker's race, sex, class, sexual orientation, Vietnam-era status or previous history of depression. And remember that irony, not class struggle, is the underlying theme of human history.
That should get you started.
See Bill Safire's yesterday NY Times editorial about Kerry needing to apologize. It's related.
I would agree that truly powerful legal positions should stand-up with regard to religious, race, gender, or gender preference considerations. Say, if something is a "right" for one group of people, it should be a "right" for every person.
I do agree liberals have serious problems with this. While I'm very liberal on most fronts, I believe special preferences have been pretty disasterous and the Dems support of them has been a boon for the GOP.
On the flip side, you should try not to discriminate because of religious, race, gender, or gender preference. A marriage sanction by the government is clearly a civil based legal contract between two individuals that deals with sharing of property and decision making. Denying this to certain pairs of individuals because of gender preference generally doesn't meet the test for me.
With regard to honor, honor is on the rise on the left and pretty much at an all time low on the right. Of course, then may be it has to do with the definition of honor.
Honor on the rise on the left? Well, I guess it would have really nowhere to go but up, wouldn't it? :)
Admittedly a strength of the right is that they never ever accept responsibility.
Have a good evening.
But have a good evening, too.