The next chapter on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

The Federal judge who ruled against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, has now let the other shoe drop: she has issued an injunction barring its enforcement. And I am certain that the homophobes of this country will gnash their teeth and bewail "judicial activism." But the judge knows what she is doing. This policy certainly interferes with freedom of speech, because any gay serviceman or -woman saying anything that gave away his/her sexual orientation would be expelled, while a straight person doing the same is just fine. What I'm curious about is whether the Obama administration will appeal, as they in theory have the right to do, or will immediately comply, which would be more in conformity with the pro-gay-rights rhetoric that seems to be characteristic of liberal Democrats. (It's interesting, but it took a suit by a Republican group to get this ruling!)

Anti-gay-rights bigots have said repeatedly that they are willing to grant "equal rights," but not "special rights," but this is a bit of a red herring. Suppose that a Christian homophobe was told that, in Saudi Arabia, he had the same right to worship Allah as all Muslims have; he just is barred from offering Christian prayers. Would he consider that to be "equal rights"? (I think not!) Or suppose that he found himself in the pre-1989 Soviet Union, where he had the same right to be an atheist as anyone else? Or, skipping religion, suppose some homophobe were to be told he would be given the right only to marry a same sex person, and this would be the same right that gay people would have?

No, let it be absolutely clear: What they want is the special right: to impose their views of morality on others.

It's bizarre!

Here I am, reading the headlines showing a major Republican year, and I'm sitting in a state that obstinately refuses to go along. The Real Clear Politics poll summary shows the GOP picking up enough seats to move from behind 59-41 to a 50-50 tie, with Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas possibly setting a new record for worst defeat of an incumbent Senator, and yet, Barbara Mikulski is winning polls by a nearly 20 percent margin over Eric Wargotz. It's just bizarre.

What gives in this state? As dissatisfied as the whole country is with President Obama's performance, here the Governor, Martin O'Malley, actually brought him in to campaign for him. This is really curious. O'Malley must be just about the only Democrat that isn't running away from the Obama link as fast as possible.

I feel I've gotten stuck in a bizarre caricature of a body politic.

A blight on the Republican Party?

The Republican Party's candidate for the Governorship of New York State has been sounding off about gay people recently. First, he is quoted as saying "Don't Be 'Brainwashed' Into Thinking Homosexuality Is 'Equally Valid'," apparently to an orthodox Jewish group. Then he tried to backtrack on it, but seems only to have dug in more deeply. Finally, he later tried to claim to be for gay rights, but still could not disavow all he had said. This is a problem for the Republican Party. Because of homophobic candidates like Paladino, the party comes off as homophobic. And I can certainly imagine a gay voter in New York State, who shares Republican values on economic issues and other such things, being driven to vote for the Democrat, Andrew Cuomo, next month, against his feelings on those issues, because Paladino is against the rights that mean so much to such a voter.

The District of Columbia once had a gay Republican Councilman, David Catania. Because of anti-gay remarks by people in the 2004 Bush campaign, Catania left the party and endorsed John Kerry, though he did not become a Democrat formally because he has a Council seat reserved for non-Democrats. I am certain that Catania's endorsement of Kerry was purely because of the gay rights issue, since Catania had obviously good reasons for being a Republican at first.

It is "social conservatives" who are hurting the GOP by being a part of it! By making the GOP appear anti-gay, anti-abortion, and such, they are driving away those who belong in the party because they dislike the "socialism light" that the Democrats favor. The GOP would be better off without them. They are a blight on the party.

Recent polls for 2012

There have been polls among the Republicans seeking to determine their preferences for the 2012 nominee. And though I think one really ought to see what happens in next month's election, I am certainly interested in the results. They seem to put Mitt Romney first and Sarah Palin second, with other names well behind.

Now, of all the names being discussed, I can accept all of them except one: Mike Huckabee. But of the ones being discussed, Romney is my favorite, so I'm pretty happy so far. (I don't like the vacillation on some issues that Romney has shown in the past, so I'm not entirely happy with him. But he is certainly the most qualified, having been a Governor of a major state and a successful businessman, and actually making an Olympics profitable, which is usually impossible! I'd like to know more about two of the also-rans, Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota; what I've seen about them looks good, but I know too little. Palin is certainly not my first choice, but I don't see in her the idiot the Democrats make her out to be. She's too right-wing for my taste, but not as far to my right as Obama is to my left, so if Palin runs against Obama, she certainly gets my vote.

But what about next month? There are people like Meg Whitman, who are not being discussed so far, but if they win, I think they should be. So I think it is really too premature.

When people's rights collide

One would think that it would be a First Amendment right for a church to picket people they consider to be sinful, involving both freedom of speech and freedom of religion. And even though their message may be bigoted, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, and anti-gay, that does not change things. But what if the people being picketed are grieving widows, orphans, and other relatives of a dead soldier, at the funeral which is supposed to give them some little comfort in their grief? Certainly society has an obligation to them to protect them from harassment, doesn't it?

This is the issue that just came before the Supreme Court, as Snyder v. Phelps.

This is a very difficult case. It is clear, from the questions asked by the Justices, that they are likely to rule against the church (which apparently consists entirely of Phelps' relatives). And it is very hard to fault either side. I strongly believe in the First Amendment, but as I have said in the principles that rule this blog: "Freedom of the individual should be as total as possible, limited only by the fact that nobody should be free to cause physical injury to another, or to deprive another person of his freedoms." Now, Phelps has not exactly been causing Snyder physical injury, though the emotional injury has certainly been grave. And it does appear that Phelps has been depriving Snyder of his freedoms in a sense, though the Constitution does not speak of a right to grieve one's dead (unless it's considered, like the right to privacy, a corollary of the Ninth Amendment). So this is very hard for me to call. Both sides have a case.

No matter how the Supreme Court rules, there will be people who will bitterly protest the decision. And no matter which way the decision is, these protestors will have a valid point.

Why three parties can't work here

Sometimes, it's actually one of the two national major parties that looks like it's third. In the 23^rd Congressional District of New York State last year, Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava saw herself as third, and essentially withdrew from the election, giving her support to the Democrat in order to defeat a Conservative candidate she abhorred. Perhaps something similar is happening in Florida currently, though in this case a centrist candidate will be the beneficiary. In fact this looks like a mirror image of the election in Connecticut in 2006. When an extreme left-wing candidate, Ned Lamont, won the Democratic primary in Connecticut, Joe Lieberman ran as an independent (well, really as a third-party candidate, but the "party" was a sham created because of Connecticut's ballot access laws) and won, mostly by getting Republicans to abandon their own candidate, Alan Schlesinger, and vote for him to prevent Lamont from winning.

Now fast-forward to 2010 in Florida. Interchange "left" and "right," and also "Democrat" and "Republican." We have the same picture. An extreme right-wing candidate, Marco Rubio, won the Republican primary in Florida. Charlie Crist chose to run as an independent. So will Democrats abandon Kendrick Meek, their candidate, as Republicans abandoned Schlesinger? There does seem to be a possibility! It hasn't happened yet, but people are talking about it. The post I am linking to speaks of Florida black Democrats; since Meek is himself black, this would be a major surprise, but if they really want to prevent Rubio's election, that's about the only way to do it.

Let us see. But this shows why three-party elections don't work well in plurality electoral systems.

A viable third party? I'd bet against it

Over on the "Big Tent Revue" blog I'm reading yet more about the prospects of a centrist third party. I can't see it happening. The rules of the game just make it imposssible.

First of all, we have "single-member plurality" elections for all offices. It is really well known that this leads to the demise of minor parties. This fact even has a name: Duverger's law. There are countries with SMP that have some viable minor parties, but they are either regional, or they have very few seats despite the number of votes they receive; look at Britain for examples of both. [Regional parties like Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationalist Party do reasonably well. But the Liberal Democrats, while getting nearly as many votes as Labour in the last election (23% vs. Labour's 29%), got just enough seats to make it into a coalition, less than 9% of the parliamentary seats.]

But even those 9% of the seats were enough to make a difference, because Britain is a parliamentary country and it required a coalition to form a government. In a presidential system like the US, you don't ever need to form coalitions. So third parties just die. Instead we get coalitions within the parties. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic caucus in either house of Congress is monolithic, and even a Joe Lieberman, defeated in his party's primary, joins the Democratic caucus when he's elected. Similarly, James Buckley, who ran as a Conservative against the Republican in New York in 1970, joined the Republican caucus. That's the way it has to be; the rules of both houses of Congress make them operate as two-party systems as well.

So I just don't see any third party in the near future.

How to Vote in 2010

It's four weeks until Election Day, but because some states have early voting, it may be useful to mention these recommendations this early.

There are thirty-something states with elections for the United States Senate this year. With various degrees of enthusiasm, in all but two I hope that readers of this blog will vote for the Republican candidate, as a rebuff to the Harry Reid leadership if for nothing else. (Hopefully, Reid will himself be retired by this year's vote, but I hardly expect Chuck Schumer's leadership to be any different.) In some cases, such as Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, and even Eric Wargotz in my own state of Maryland, there is not much enthusiasm on my part, because the Republicans are rather badly flawed, and there could have been better candidates chosen in the primaries, but defeating the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda is first on the priorities. In other states, there are candidates about whom I am truly enthusiastic, such as Carly Fiorina in California. But in every case (except two, as I said), the Republican candidate is to be preferred.

The two exceptions are at opposite corners of the country: Florida and Alaska. In both cases there are Republicans who lost their party's nomination, but chose to run as independents, who are better than the official nominees, and who actually stand a chance to win. Unlike the usual situation, where voting for an independent would simply help elect the major-party candidate further from the preferred one, in both states the Democrat is probably going to finish third, behind both the official Republican candidate and the independent. And both Charlie Crist and Lisa Murkowski deserve support. I hope people in those states who like this blog will vote for them.

In the House of Representatives, the situation is somewhat similar. Obviously, in 434 of the 435 districts the name of Nancy Pelosi will not be on the ballot. But in a sense a vote for any Democrat is a vote for her, and helps the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda. So, in 434 districts (the one exception will be mentioned in a moment!) I hope the vote of anyone who reads and likes this blog will be cast, when possible, for the Republican. (In some of them, I'm sure, this will not be possible because the Republicans will not have a candidate, but I'm not sure which, or even how many, districts they are.)

Now that one exception: If you happen to live in the Sixth District of Virginia and read this post, I hope you will consider voting for Jeff Vanke, the Modern Whig Party's candidate. Though he is running against a Republican, the more votes Vanke gets, even if he does not win, the more there will be a sign of popular desire for some moderation in the two parties' combative attitudes. I do not expect Vanke to win (though I would not be unhappy if he did!) but I hope he gets a respectable vote total.

There are gubernatorial elections in a lot of states. I don't know much about most of the candidates, but I do heartily endorse Bob Ehrlich in Maryland, who was an excellent Governor when he was in office from 2003 to 2007, and I certainly hope that Californians will elect Meg Whitman. (The difference in terminology is simply because I only "endorse" candidates in elections where I myself can vote.)

I hope that readers of this blog will vote for the candidates I have mentioned favorably in this post.

A message to my readers

I started this blog in 2006, not expecting to make a post a day, but probably one or two a week, but in those days there was no statistics report available, and after a few months I was disappointed at the lack of feedback. For about a year I posted nothing at all, because it was hard to sustain my interest in writing when I wasn't sure anyone was reading what I wrote. I eventually came back to the blog, and actually did more posting than my original one or two a week in the period leading up to the 2008 election (if you look at the log you'll see this), but I never was sure anyone read what I wrote except that one of my posts in March 2008, on, of all things, election methods (a pretty esoteric topic!) got more feedback than anything else. But you'd think that the other posts would have gotten more attention, and I continued to be frustrated at the lack of evidence that anyone was reading this blog. Still, I kept posting, sometimes going a few weeks without a post and sometimes posting more than once in a week. Finally, a couple of months ago, Google introduced stats. I could finally tell I was getting an audience, at least it looked like about 3 people a day (which — then — seemed like a lot!) So I felt more encouraged to post, and I did more. And the audience got bigger — to 8 a day and 10. It was obvious that what I'd read — that you need to post frequently — was true. Lately I've been posting nearly every day, and averaged 50 hits a day in September. Of course, part of that was that just before the primaries I had days with immense numbers of hits, which was in itself a big surprise because I was mostly talking about really local issues, of interest to Marylanders only, or even only to people in Montgomery County! But in the process I picked up some fans — I must thank Neil Cohen for featuring a link to my blog on his campaign pages, which has sent quite a lot of people here, and Dennis Sanders' "Big Tent Revue" which has also been a source for some visitors here.

Currently I'm averaging as many people as I did in September, even though September's average was inflated by those days just before the primary and if those days had been ignored my month average would have been much lower. So I want to thank all of you who have discovered this blog and, obviously, are coming back frequently. It would have been nice to get this traffic before, but I hope I'll be able to hold your interest.

The Political Compass, and other similar self-rating sites

I just took the "political compass" test (again, in fact; as stated below, I've done it before). The result was "Economic Left/Right: 5.38; Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.72" — not too surprising on the first, because I consider myself an economic conservative, but a little surprising on the second front, as I've thought of myself as rather libertarian, and my score is just barely libertarian. It is interesting that the chart they give of world political leaders shows nobody in the lower right-hand quadrant, so compared to the people they rate, I suppose I am rather libertarian.

This is actually the third time I've taken the test; the first time it was (5.62, -1.54), somewhat more libertarian and a tiny bit further to the economic right than my recent score; the second time was actually the other way from my recent score (unfortunately, I never recorded the exact numbers), so this one is pretty close to midway between the two times I took it before.

There's another political quiz I just took called "Politopia" On that one I was not given a numeric score, but I was ranked as a centrist. On their diagram, I was much closer to George W. Bush than John Kerry (I guess they haven't changed their diagram in 6 years!), which surprises me not the slightest, as I strongly preferred Bush over Kerry. And compared to Bush, I was very slightly more pro-free market, but significantly more toward "more personal freedoms," which is exactly as I would expect. So no surprise, though it would be nice to have a numerical score like the one Political Compass gives.

Of course there is the famous "World's Smallest Political Quiz," put out by a libertarian group, which obviously tends to be biased toward libertarianism, and puts me deeply into libertarian territory. I am 80% on their personal issues score and 70% on their economic issues score scale. Since the goal of this test is to show people how much they agree with the libertarian ideal, it does not surprise me that I come out where I do, as I am relatively libertarian though not up to the standards of the party of that name.

Interestingly, I found one quiz that called me a "social liberal" — but their diagram put me almost on the crossing point of "libertarian," "centrist," and "liberal." They gave me a personal freedom score of 73% and an economic freedom score of 46.9%; probably 50% on the latter is where they draw the boundary between "liberal" and "libertarian," which is why it came out where it did. I'm surprised how different my score was on this quiz than the Political Compass. This one uses a diagram very similar to the "World's Smallest Political Quiz," so it's easy to compare them, and the personal freedom scores are pretty similar, but my economic freedom score is quite a lot different on the two.

Unity '08: How *N*O*T* to build a center party!

In the posting on "Big Tent Revue" which I was talking about in my previous post, there was a reference by Rev. Sanders to the movement entitled "Unity '08." I remember that movement: they were going to try to build a ticket for the 2008 election which would take a Presidential candidate from one of the two major parties, and a Vice-Presidential candidate from the other of the two. This would in fact have been a blueprint for disaster. And in fact, we are seeing this happen this year in Massachusetts, where an independent ticket with a Democrat running for Governor and a Republican for Lieutenant Governor just broke up, with the Lieutenant Governorship candidate withdrawing and endorsing the Republican ticket.

The fact is that there is too big a separation between the Democrats and the Republicans who are currently in politics. Just about any Republican, no matter how moderate, is still closer to his fellow Republicans than to the most moderate Democrat. And just about any Democrat, no matter how moderate, is still closer to his fellow Democrats than to the most moderate Republican. (For the Republicans, perhaps I should have said "her" rather than "his": the most moderate Republicans in, say, the United States Senate would be the two Senators from Maine, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, now that Arlen Specter has crossed over to the Democrats.) In fact, this was demonstrated by the fact that Arlen Specter, who had been the most moderate Republican in the Senate, was not accepted by Pennsylvania Democrats as one of their own and went down to defeat in their primary. On the other side, do you think that Ben Nelson, who is probably the most moderate of the Democrats, will ever join the Republicans? I'm very sure not.

Perhaps the only pair of a Republican and a Democrat who might have been able to work together would have been John McCain and Joseph Lieberman, who are such close friends that their differences would have been able to be overcome. (In fact, there are stories that McCain wanted to put Lieberman on his ticket, but the idea was shot down by other Republicans.) But since the Republicans co-opted McCain in 2008, Unity '08 could not put up a McCain-Lieberman ticket.

No, the only way a group like Unity '08 could have put together the type of ticket they wanted to would be to nominate obscure people that nobody would have heard of, and this would not have drawn any votes. The only way that a centrist party could be created in a top-down manner would be for someone akin to Ross Perot, without close ties to either party but with enough money to advertise himself to the people, to be the nominee. And Perot was not interested in party building in his first campaign, while by the second, the bloom was off the rose; people didn't see Perot as presidential material any more. The other alternative, building from the bottom up, is one that the Libertarian Party has had some success with, electing a few state legislators and other local officers. If a centrist party were to go that route, they might have a chance, but I think our electoral system still makes it very difficult for any new party to succeed.

NOTE: Back in 2008, I'd thought that the post I made just after the election would be the last ever with a "2008 election" label. I guess I was wrong!

Why no viable center party?

A few hours ago I was looking at a post on one of the other blogs I like, Dennis Sanders' "Big Tent Revue." This post had to do with the fact that no viable centrist party has been created in the years he's been blogging, though people keep saying it ought to be done. And Rev. Sanders quotes with approval an essay by Malcolm Gladwell in "The New Yorker," making the comparison with the civil rights movement of the 1060s and 1970s, when people were willing to risk their lives for a cause. In that case, the people joining together were often personal friends — Rev. Sanders (and Gladwell) points to the contacts the four students responsible for the sit-in in Greensboro, N. C. had among themselves prior to the sit-in (including the fact that one of them dared the others to do it) as an example. By contrast, contacts people make on Twitter or Facebook are weaker ties. They may be "friends" in quotes, but they really aren't friends.

But while this is part of it — it is not the same kind of commitment to pledge a few cents on Facebook to help people in Darfur as to get together in East Berlin for a rally to bring down the Wall in 1989 — I think one must realize that there is a good reason, having nothing to do with being closer to people you have met face-to-face than "friends" on Facebook. It is this: African-American students in North Carolina in the days of segregation, and East Germans in the 1980s, were really oppressed. Their lives were bad enough that it was worth the risks. Centrists here may be unhappy with the direction of this country; but it isn't really hurting them the way segregation in North Carolina or Communist dictatorship in East Germany was oppressing the people described earlier.

In short, it's a cost-benefit thing. There are still major tasks required to create a viable third party in this country; it's not easy. It may not entail as much risk as sitting in at a lunch counter in Greensboro in the 1970s. But it's still a big project. And what you get is not as valuable — it's not as if centrists are currently as downtrodden as African-Americans in the segregated South.

Yet another point is unity of purpose. The people fighting for civil rights in the South were all looking to accomplish the same thing. "Centrist" here in 2010 America is not a united concept. Mike Huckabee and I might both qualify among Republicans as "less extreme." But Huckabee is frequently "left" where I am "right," and "right" where I am "left." I'm actually in less agreement with Huckabee than I would be with a totally far-right Republican. Centrists are really like the proverbial Jews (I can say this because I am Jewish!): You get two Jews in a room, you'll hear three opinions!

So Rev. Sanders may have, from Gladwell, one reason there is no viable center party; there are other reasons, however, which are important as well.

Am I a Neoconservative?

There used to be only a few labels for different kinds of politics: ones like "conservative," "liberal," and "socialist." But in recent years,they've gotten split up into various subdivisions, like "paleoconservative" and "neoconservative." And I must admit I do not really understand all these subdivisions. The term "neoconservative" has often been used to describe such people as Charles Krauthammer, with whom I frequently agree, so I've often wondered whether I am one. And a day or two ago I was reading a posting on FrumForum, one of the blogs I generally like, called "Barbara Kay to Frum: Come Back to Canada," in which one of the commenters on the post used the same "neoconservative" label to refer to David Frum. In his comment, the person posting it defines what he means by a "neoconservative." Let me quote the commenter precisely:

He’s a neo-conservative, which means, in brief:


1.) foreign adventurism and an essentially unlimited defense budget in the name of “ending evil” or some such grand design;

2.) dramatic increases in government welfare spending, far beyond what even the Clinton and Carter Democratic administrations spent;

3.) an acceptance of European views on climate and energy policy, which is to say, a belief in making energy use far more expensive;

4.) outright liberal social positions on gay marriage, abortion, or any other matter of concern to social conservatives;

5.) a disdain for anything remotely resembling constitutionally limited federal government, a profound ignorance and disdain about the meaning and importance of federalism, and, for that matter, a disdain for even referencing the Constitution in public debate;

6.) a belief that allegedly intelligent “planners” in Washington DC (presumably, especially Mr. Frum) have the mental wherewithal to comprehend how 1/3 of a billion Americans should organize their economic and social arrangements.

Well, if this is what a neoconservative is, I certainly accept part of neoconservative doctrine. Points 1 and 4, especially.

What the poster calls "foreign adventurism" I would rather call protecting us before the enemy hits us at home. We need to recognize that the world does not love us, and although Moscow no longer is a major threat, there remain others who will be. We stayed out of World War II till we were attacked directly on Hawaiian soil at Pearl Harbor; would it not have been better for us to enter before we had that attack?

As to "matter[s] of concern to social conservatives," I must say that "social conservatives," in my belief, are just moralistic bigots who have no business trying to impose their standards on the rest of us. As I state in the header to this blog, I believe that "No person has a right to have his own beliefs on religious, moral, political, or other controversial issues imposed on others who do not share those beliefs." And it is exactly this sort of imposition which "social conservatives" advocate.

The other four points are a different story. But I'm not sure that Frum (or Krauthammer) really holds the views that the commenter charges them with; I certainly do not. So what really is a "neoconservative"? And am I one? That's the problem with labels.

The California elections for Governor and Senator

I just got finished reading this post. I was really heartened seeing the last sentence: "This is a very good sign for Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina." As regular readers of this blog know, I'm something of a fan of both those candidates. Particularly in these hard economic times, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are exactly the kind of people we need running our state and Federal governments. So I hope that what the writer of that post saw really foretells what will happen this November.

It's very clear I'd be hard to collaborate with on a blog

After I finished writing my previous post, it occurred to me that there are a number of positions I hold that would make it very hard to find a collaborative blogger. For example, take the very controversial issue of abortion. It seems that most people hold opinions that I would characterize as extreme on one side or the other. But while I would find myself closer to the group that call themselves "pro-choice," I would hardly embrace the NARAL platform. For one thing, I certainly do not hold that the decision should be the woman's, and the woman's only, as some would have it. When the pregnancy is the result of a voluntary act (i. e. not a rape), I feel that both of the people involved have a stake in this decision. If a man engages in a sexual act with his wife intending to have a child, and she later changes her mind, he should have a say in the matter too. And the various "parental notification" bills have some merit, too. If a teenage girl cannot be medicated without parental authorization, she cannot realistically be subject to an even more invasive medical procedure, namely, an abortion.

On the other hand, on gun control, I have probably a more extreme position than anyone I know. Certainly more extreme than anyone who might agree with me on other "liberty" issues. On this issue, I'm certainly not in the center between two opposed views.

It's very clear that my views are very idiosyncratic, and I'd be hard to collaborate with on a blog.

An unusual blogger

There is a blogger named Dennis Sanders who has made a number of posts that I strongly agreed with, and clearly considers himself (as I do myself) an example of this rare species called a "moderate Republican." I wanted to find out more about him, and so, as everyone does these days, I did a Google search on him. It turns out he posts to a number of blogs, many of which seem to be run by teams, and what I found out was extremely interesting. Since this is all public information, I know I'm not revealing any secrets, though I think that many of these descriptive categories, if they applied to me, I would keep secret!

Sanders is black, openly gay, and a minister in a liberal enough church that they accept a black gay pastor with a life-partner in their clergy, the United Church of Christ (the same church to which President Barack Obama belongs!). With all these traits, it is rather surprising that he is a Republican! (Now I'm a Jew who was born in New York City, lives in the suburbs of Washington, D. C. and holds a doctoral degree, so I too could be described as an unlikely Republican!)

It is interesting that he has joined with other people to have his posts on multi-person blogs; I've never done anything like that, and I wonder how I could handle that. A blog usually has its own personality, and its own beliefs. Now although Rev. Sanders and I have a lot of common beliefs, especially that the GOP needs its centrists, there are certainly differences. If he, for example, were to talk about religion, I'm sure there would be little in common. (Though, surprisingly, he serves as a minister for a church of one denomination and has another job working for an organ of a different denomination!) I don't know that any group of people would agree with me closely enough that we could share the same blog. I've directed people to his blog called "Big Tent Revue" and he has to this blog of mine. But that does not mean I endorse everything he says, and I'm sure he does not endorse everything I say. But on a joint blog, though each one has his name on each post he does, I think most people would assume that all the members of the team agree on anything posted there (whether this is true or not!) So I wonder how he does it!

Gun people - How can they be that way?

In a previous post I referred to the blog entitled "The Voice of Reason." When I referenced it, I called attention to the fact that I generally approved of most of the positions I saw expressed there, except that they very conspicuously supported a pro-gun blog called the "Buckeye Firearms Association." Unfortunately, many people with whom I generally agree on many issues take pro-gun positions, and I just cannot understand it. I really cannot understand any reason that anyone who is not a police officer or in the military would have a valid use for a gun; I certainly could not understand a normal person even wanting one. The only use for a gun is to kill, and I doubt that if I had one I could even bear to pull a trigger. Anyone who would have no difficulty pulling a trigger on a gun must, I would think, have no scruples against killing someone — and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near such a person.

It is absolutely clear to me. Any civilized person could not possibly bring himself to use a gun under any circumstance that I conceive of occurring. I would not be able to do it even in a self-defense situation. So what is up with these "Buckeye Firearms Association" types?

Now the anti-gun-control people point to the Second Amendment, which says "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Now, the militia currently means the National Guard, so a proper reading of the Second Amendment would mean that people who join the Guard should exercise "the right … to keep and bear arms." But to that I have seen a response that, in eighteenth-century America (the proper context for reading the Constitution and Bill of Rights), the "militia" constituted the whole adult male population. So even without joining the Guard, they claim to be exercising their part as militiamen. In that case, however, this would mean they must also include their duties as militiamen, not just their rights. The Constitution also includes Article I, Section 8. This states:

1. The Congress shall have power ...

15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.

16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States, respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

So if they are part of the militia, they are at the beck and call of the Congress! I wonder if these Second Amendment freaks would also recognize their duties under Article I, Sect. 8, paragraphs 15-16.

Delaware's awful choice

Lately, I have been hunting for other blogs with positions that I (at least mostly) agree with. As I find them, you’ll see them added to the list on the bottom.

One that I generally like is called "The Voice of Reason." (However, on one issue, we will forever be at odds. That blog features links to the "Buckeye Firearms Association," a pro-gun blog that stands for positions which I unequivocally condemn. But this will be covered in another post.) On that blog I was reading an interesting post about Chris Coons, the Democratic candidate for the Senate in the State of Delaware, next door to where I live. It seems that back in 1985, Coons wrote a piece for his college newspaper explaining how he had become a "bearded Marxist." This post was added to by a follow-up, which noted that "People who embrace communism but then truly renounce it generally become passionate rightists. Those who remain leftists usually haven't renounced anything but honesty about their intentions." I know the first of these sentences is true, because I’m familiar with well-known examples such as Whittaker Chambers. And I believe the second sentence is equally true, which implies that the voters of Delaware have a pretty bad choice to make. On the one hand: Christine O’Donnell, something of a weirdo who has weighed in against masturbation and admits to having dabbled in witchcraft; on the other, Chris Coons, who is probably still much more of a left-wing extremist than he lets on.

Certainly, if I lived in Delaware, I’d be pretty unhappy. But as the blog owner of "The Voice of Reason" (who calls himself "Conservatarian") added at the end of the second of those two posts wrote, "Christine O'Donnell may have flaws, but in a race between her and a left-winger, who was an avowed Marxist, I'll take Christine's flaws any time."

Another analogy to laws on Kosher slaughter

Some time ago, I wrote a post on the analogy between people advocating anti-abortion laws and hypothetical laws mandating Kosher slaughter. I just saw a post on another blog making a similar analogy, only with reference to gay marriage. (Actually this is in turn a copy of another blog post.) It's a great post, and I heartily concur.

Actually, I even did make a posting relating to gay marriage and Kosher food. But it's a slightly different point.

A case of déjà vu

This primary reminds me of another one, way back in 1994, so to me it was déjà vu. In that year, just as in this one, I really identified with a particular candidate (in both cases, for the United States Senate). Both lost in a primary. But there are differences.

Ruthann Aron was almost exactly my age, originally from New York City, and in so many ways like me (even if she was female) that I truly identified with her in her candidacy to replace Paul Sarbanes in the Senate. I agreed with her politically as well, and volunteered in her campaign, and it was a heart-breaker to see her lose to Bill Brock, who had been a Senator from Tennessee in the past. But in that case, Brock was a good enough candidate that once the primary was over, I went to work in his campaign. Unfortunately, Sarbanes beat him.

Because I had identified with Ruthann Aron so closely, it really hurt when I heard, a few years later, that she'd been found guilty of trying to kill her husband. Hopefully, that aspect of the 1994 election doesn't have a repeat.

This year, I didn't actually volunteer for the campaign of Neil Cohen, but I strongly identified with him anyway. And I certainly meant it when I formally endorsed him in this blog, and on multiple occasions wrote on his behalf. But, just like Ruthann Aron, my candidate lost in the primary. Unlike Bill Brock, Eric Wargotz, who won the primary, is someone I can only support lukewarmly; there are good things about him, so I certainly will vote for him against Barbara Mikulski, but any candidate who, on the first page of his campaign literature, boasts of being a lifetime member of the NRA is someone I can't be too happy with. As I said, I will vote for him in November, but this may be the last post I will make about Eric Wargotz.

So it's not identical to 1994, but it certainly reminds me of that year.