The gay marriage decision

I'm pretty happy, actually, with the California district judge's decision setting down Proposition 8. (I've generally favored the "civil union" compromise, but only on the basis of being easier to attain in the near future.) But of course, opponents of the decision may point to the fact that it was issued by a gay judge. (It would have had more convincing effect if the judge were straight.) Nevertheless, it was a good decision in my opinion. (And it is very nice that one of the lawyers for the pro-gay-marriage side was a prominent conservative lawyer! Why political conservatism should get linked with homophobia is beyond me.)

It will, of course, be appealed, almost certainly all the way to the Supreme Court, and nobody can tell, at this point, how that is going to turn out. But that is the way our system works. We now have two recent judicial decisions, one of which I dislike (the one on Arizona's anti-illegal-immigrant law) and one of which I applaud (this one), both of which are really initial steps on a path to the Supreme Court. Both bear watching.

Apropos of nothing...

... but, since it is my blog, I can discuss it!

Back in the early 1990s, before the proliferation of the Internet, I was a member of several online services which provided various types of features, including chat rooms. On one of them, I made an online friend, a 13- or 14-year-old boy. He was truly a friend, staying on my side even when some others had become very nasty to me for reasons I will not go into here. And the friendship has continued. Six years ago, he was the one who sent me the invitation I needed then to get a gmail account, for example.

A lot has happened since then, of course. My friend is no longer a teenager, but in his late 20s. And after some time in college that took more than the usual four years because he was unsure what he wanted to major in, and no doubt a lot of changes of mind on the way (he's told me that his ideas had come close to atheism in those college years), he's recently taken a direction that very much surprised me — this June he got himself ordained as a Roman Catholic priest.

Now I knew he was Catholic — I've known it for most of the nearly 20 years that I've known him — but of all the decisions that anyone I've known (whether my knowledge of them is in real life or online) has made, this has to qualify as the most surprising.

Mind you, I strongly believe anyone has a right to their own religious beliefs. And I'd never engage in proselytization; I think that trying to convince someone to change their religion is futile. I may put forth my own beliefs, and explain why I believe them, but it's always on a "read, and judge for yourself" basis. And there are certainly people I like and respect who are Roman Catholics. But I must say that I find it hard to fathom that an intelligent person would embrace that faith. I really cannot understand, for example, the concept of Papal infallibility. If some person makes a statement of faith — anyone, whether elected to his position or whatever — I think we need to be able to use our own powers of reasoning to see whether it makes sense to us. Resigning this power of reasoning, and simply believing that "the Pope said it, so it's true" is something I could never do, and something I cannot understand why anyone who is as intelligent as my friend would ever do. But in any case, he is still my friend.

A stupid judge

Judge Susan Bolton, a Federal judge in the district court for Arizona, has granted a preliminary injunction to the Federal Government against the Arizona law on illegal immigration. She did not give the Federal Government all that it requested — there are clauses that were allowed to go into effect — but Arizona cannot enforce some of the more controversial parts of the law for the time being.

The final decision has not been made by Judge Bolton — and when it has, an appeal will certainly be made by the State of Arizona — but even this much is a stupid action on her part. The whole case rests on a question of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution — which addresses conflicts between Federal and State laws. But the Arizona law does not attempt to nullify a Federal law. How any judge can see a case of the Supremacy Clause applying is beyond me. The Arizona law clearly states that it is enacted in conformity with the applicable Federal law. The judge issued a 36-page ruling, and while I have only partially read it, I do not see anywhere where Judge Bolton has made a case that there is, in fact, a conflict between the Arizona law and Federal law. She is clearly acting as a politician, and not a judge. She was appointed by Pres. William J. Clinton, and does not want to rule against a Democratic administration on what has become a highly partisan issue.

So now we await the appeal. It probably will need to go to the Supreme Court, which I trust to be reasonable.

A message to readers

Just recently the folks at Google added an experimental draft feature to enable bloggers on here to get statistics on people visiting the blogs. I tried it, and found that this blog does get visitors -- a reasonable amount of traffic, actually.

The thing I wonder is: Why does hardly anyone comment? Up until this new stats feature, the only way I had to see whether anyone was reading my posts here was looking for comments. And with so few comments, I had to assume nobody was reading them. The only comments seemed to have been put by spammers, and of course those I deleted as soon as I saw them. (Strangely, they nearly all were posted as comments to one post, which I put up around two years ago!) And really, thst's pretty discouraging.

So please, I'd like to see people comment -- to say they agree, or they disagree, or to raise a question, or whatever!

Elena Kagan (again)

On May 13, I posted a message about Elena Kagan, Pres. Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy created by Justice Stevens' retirement. And in the intervening 2½ months, nothing much has happened to change my thoughts.


The only Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote to confirm her nomination was Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina. It does seem strange that the others are trying to fight this nomination. After all, as I stated in my May 13 posting, it's Justice Stevens she'd be replacing. She could hardly swing the court much further leftward.


Hopefully, this November the composition of the Senate will change in a more Republican direction. Why not save your energy for the next nomination?

Marijuana and immigration

Marijuana is a dangerous, mind-altering drug. So dangerous that there are Federal laws that say that even possession of it is a crime. But the potheads of several States have managed to convince their State legislatures to enact laws making it legal to prescribe it for "medicinal" purposes. This, despite the fact that the medical profession has declared that there is no valid medicinal use for the drug, so "medical marijuana" is a serious oxymoron. So these States' laws are in conflict with Federal drug laws, as well as with common sense.

On the other hand, the State of Arizona has enacted a law that basically states that if you are illegally in this country under Federal law, it is also a violation of State law for you to be in Arizona. Obviously, no conflict with Federal law; it simply gives the state the power to declare illegals to be in violation of Arizona law, so they can be punished in accordance with State laws.

The Obama administration has declared that it will not enforce Federal law in the States which have flouted Federal drug laws to legalize "medical marijuana," but it intens to bring a lawsuit against Arizona, whose law is fully in accordance with Federal immigration law.

Isn't this absolutely crazy? But I guess that potheads vote, and are more likely to vote Democratic, while most Arizonans vote Republican anyway.

Obama and McChrystal

President Obama has fired General Stanley McChrystal and replaced him with Gen. David Petraeus. And no matter what you think of Pres. Obama, he had to do it.

The military operates under a "chain of command" system. And under our Constitution, the President is the commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy. So while Gen. McChrystal, had he been a civilian, would have been protected by the First Amendment, as a soldier, he was bound to defer to higher rank.

As commander-in-chief, Pres. Obama outranks any general, even the highest. And certainly, when such people as Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joseph Lieberman (none of whom is a great friend of Pres. Obama!) condemned McChrystal's remarks, it was clear that they were beyond the limits of his free speech rights.

I cannot say how justified McChrystal was in his comments. But whatever their accuracy, they certainly constituted insubordination. I am one of the few people still alive who remembers Pres. Harry Truman's dismissal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and as a child I was with MacArthur and against Truman. But if Truman was justified then, and after 60 years I think he probably was, so Obama is justified in getting rid of McChrystal.

Insulting Vice-President Biden was not such a great thing to do, either!

Arkansas and Nevada

Continuing the comments on Tuesday's primaries.

I usually do not comment on Democratic primaries, because I do not usually support Democrats and so I feel I should keep my nose out of their business, but I really have to remark on the result in Arkansas, where Senator Blanche Lincoln, though a Democrat, has defied the big leaders of Big Labor, and opposed the "card check" bill (which, in an irony of terminology worthy of George Orwell's "1984," they choose to call the "Employee Free Choice Act." In fact, it denies workers a free choice, opening them up to bullying by labor goons!)

But Arkansans rewarded Sen. Lincoln Tuesday with a renomination, though the Big Labor-endorsed candidate had forced her into a run-off. That is certainly good news.

In Nevada, the news was not so good. The candidate considered to have the best chance to beat Sen. Harry Reid in November, Sue Lowden, was unfortunately beaten by an extremist candidate named Sharron Angle. While Reid is so unpopular that Angle might yet beat him in November, his chances to remain in the Senate are a lot better than they would have been if Lowden had won. Here, it seems that ideological purity has unfortunately triumphed.

The California primary results

Well, I am certainly happy to see that both Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman got their nominations in yesterday's primaries. As I've said before, it is people like these who are desperately needed to fix this government. Now it's on to November for these candidates, and I'm cheering from afar. I don't have money to contribute — and neither of these candidates needs money; both have heavily supported their primary campaigns with their own money — but they have all the moral support I can offer.

I hate the telephone!

For a change, a posting about something more personal than the usual political and religious topics on this blog. But I needed to get this off my chest.

As the title says, I hate the telephone! And people always act weird when I tell them I don't have one, but, really, why should I pay tens of dollars a month for a service I hardly use? If I really need to make a phone call, I can go to a pay phone and make one for 50¢. Can you figure out how many of those 50¢ calls I could make for the cost of one month's service if I had a phone in my residence (much worse, if I had a {shudder!} cell phone? As you might imagine, I'll never own a cell phone. I used to say I'd never own one unless I had a job that required me to, but now I'm retired, so that exception isn't going to happen.)

Surprisingly, in the 1990s I actually had two phone lines in my apartment, but one was so I could access a dial-up account (and I didn't even have a phone on that line! Some few friends attempted to dial it, and it never got answered, because even if I weren't online, I would not hear a phone ring on that number!) The other line was at my wife's insistence; I so rarely used it that if it had just been up to me, I would not have had it.

Right now I'm no longer living with her, and my current landlord has a high-speed Internet connection installed, so I do not need a phone for either of these purposes.

The telephone is really the worst mode of communication that anyone has devised; it requires both participants' real-time presence. If I call someone and they're out, the best possibility is that it rings a few times and I hang up and call again sometime. Much worse is if they have an answering machine (or even a secretary) — If I'm at a place where there is a phone (say I was calling from my residence, and I still had one as in the 1990s), I could leave that number for a callback, but then I couldn't go out until the person calls back; I'd have to sit by the phone waiting for it to ring! Otherwise, as in my present situation, all I could do is say I would call again, but I'm still out the cost of a call, and with nothing to show for it!

The telephone is a 19^th century invention, and I wish it would go away. People who insist on getting a phone number are my bane — even on the Internet there are sites where a phone number is obligatory, and I have to enter a bunch of digits like 000-000-0000 or 999-999-9999 (Heaven forbid I'd use someone's real number, so that's why I'd have to use one of those!) But then they sometimes check for a real area code, so I have to make it 301-999-9999, which usually goes by.

I have an e-mail address, so people can communicate with me that way. And anyone could send me a letter at my Post Office box. So it's not as if I'm unreachable.

Just this morning, I tried to contact my doctor. She had left a message on my wife's voice-mail to call her, which my wife relayed to me on the weekend, so I had to wait till today. When I called, the receptionist said she was with a patient and asked for a number to call me back, which of course I could not give her. She suggested I call back in an hour, but of course the doctor could well be with a patient again, so this could go on for days. Finally it was agreed that the receptionist would find out what it was all about and write it down, so if I called again and could not reach the doctor then, the receptionist could give me the information. But why couldn't they just use e-mail? The whole thing would have been completed by now!

Down with the telephone!

California and Kentucky

I've made some comments in this blog about Senate races in Pennsylvania and Florida, where I do not live, and now I'm adding some comments on two more states where I do not live, California and Kentucky. I hope that residents of those states who read this blog do not feel I should just mind my own business, but I think I need to make these comments.



In California, I've been very much attracted to the candidacies of two female entrepreneurs, Carly Fiorina for Senator and Meg Whitman for Governor. If either one wins the post she is seeking, she will instantly be my first choice for the Presidency in 2012.


Whitman seems to have a good chance of winning, and from 3000 miles away I am cheering her cause. In the primary, she is leading her closest opponent in recent polls by about 2 to 1. Fiorina may not even get the nomination, though she too is leading, more closely than Whitman, in recent polls, so lately I've been looking at her primary opponents, and I see one I like and one I do not.


What I've seen of Tom Campbell looks good. He's the sort of moderate Republican I think we need more of. It's too bad that Californians have to choose between Campbell and Fiorina; it would be nice to have both in Washington.

Unfortunately there is a third candidate, Chuck DeVore, exactly the sort of ideological purist I have been criticizing for weakening the party. I hope he is resoundingly rejected by California Republicans this coming week. (Latest polls show that he will be -- they show him getting around 15% of the vote.)


Kentucky already has had its primary, with Ron Paul's son, Rand Paul, getting a surprisingly strong win. While Rand Paul is not exactly an ideological clone of his father, they are not too different. And while Ron Paul is such an extreme libertarian that I'd be hard pressed to support him for the Presidency, I think his being in the House of Representatives as one of 435 is a good thing, as it gives libertarian ideas some exposure. And I think his son will serve the same purpose in the Senate. If the senate can have an openly avowed Socialist (Bernie Sanders), why not a far-out libertarian? It would be a good thing, I think, if Kentucky puts him in the Senate in the November election.

Israel under attack -- by words as well as weapons

The Israelis recently attacked a ship bringing stuff to Gaza, and were condemned for it. Oh come now... what do you expect?

Israel, the only free country in the Middle East, has enemies all over the world. At least when George W. Bush was president, the US was its friend. But not with Barack Obama. The Obama administration, through Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called the Israeli blockade of Gaza "unsustainable and unacceptable." In other words, the US government wants Israel to just lean back and let Hamas do its best to destroy Israel.


Christian countries can do whatever they want. Moslem countries can do whatever they want -- no matter what people say about Ahmedinejad, nobody really does anything to stop him. But let Israel engage in self-defense, in the face of a Hamas regime in Gaza that has its mind set on destroying Israel, and it is "unsustainable and unacceptable." My loyalty is to the US; I'm a citizen of this nation. But I cannot defend the position of the US government here, nor of such "friendly" governments as most of the ones in Europe. If they were under the same kind of attack as Israel is from Hamas, I'm sure they'd do at least as much as the Israelis did.

End of the line for Arlen Specter, but for moderation as well?

It looks as though Joseph Sestak has beaten Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. And this follows Specter's becoming a Democrat to avoid being defeated by Pat Toomey in a Republican primary. I'm not happy, though obviously if I lived in Pennsylvania it would bring some relief, as I'd have a tough choice in November if I'd lived there and Specter had won. For on many issues I agreed with Specter, but I could not be very comfortable with supporting a Democrat who would vote for Harry Reid's leadership in the Senate.

What really hurts is that Specter, when he was a moderate Republican, was almost my ideal Senator. And seeing that he left the party because he could not win the Republican nomination, and yet, with all his support from both sides in Pensylvania, he could not win the Democratic nomination either, makes me wonder: Is there any place in American politics for someone who is not an extremist? I hope so, but it certainly seems grim. Charlie Crist, in Florida, had to run as an independent; he may be popular enough to win that way; independents rarely do, but Jesse Ventura in Minnesota and Lowell Weicker and Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut have done so. (Though it was years ago for some of these; have things changed?)

I hope that this trend toward extremism can be reversed; I'm not sure my hope will be fulfilled, however.

Elena Kagan

The battle lines seem to be drawn for President Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan for the Stevens seat on the Supreme Court. She is, clearly, a different sort of nominee from what we have had recently; the first nominee who was not a sitting judge for many years. Whether this is good or bad is unclear to me; I've generally believed that relevant experience is important, and if I were President I certainly would not appoint anyone to the Supreme Court who was not an experienced appellate court judge. But some people have made the point that a greater diversity of backgrounds might be a good idea. I'm certainly willing to see this tried.

Of course, conservatives are up in arms about Kagan, because her actions as a law school dean were very liberal (people especially point to her barring military recruiters from the Harvard Law School campus over their "don't ask — don't tell" policy). I probably would be too, if it weren't for the fact that it is Justice Stevens whose seat is being filled.

As I posted a while ago, Justice Stevens has been one of the most liberal ones on the Court. So the court's composition is not going to change that much by her being put on it. The only point some people have made that warrants looking at is that Kagan has had a great ability to convince others of the reasonability of her arguments, and they fear she will do the same. But can they really think that Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito are so weak in their convictions that a Justice Kagan could convince them to change? I do not believe so!

Then there are the allegations that she is a Lesbian. To that I say "if so, so what?" If there is anything that should be irrelevant to this question, this is it! However, of course, there are the so-called "social conservatives," who are so afraid of a "gay agenda" to undermine what they consider our moral fiber that this troubles them. Actually, if she is in fact gay, this might be a point in her favor. The idea that homosexuality is a terrible thing perhaps still needs to be dispelled. But it seems that she really isn't. The real problem is that those "social conservatives," by raising this issue, are creating a diversion from real issues — but then, their whole focus is on trying to force-feed their own (anti-gay) agenda on the American people. So let's forget about that issue.

So, opposed as I am to Obama's hyper-liberalism, I would probably vote (if I were a Senator) to confirm Elena Kagan's nomination. Save the fight for the next Supreme Court vacancy.

The new British Government

Britain now has a Prime Minister: David Cameron. It took a while, though less time, of course, than it took in 2000 for us to verify the election of a President. But I still think we do things better.

At least Nicholas Clegg, the leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats, did the honorable thing. He had said that if one party got both a majority of seats and a majority of votes, it had the right to try to form a Government. And the party that did, of course, was Cameron’s Conservative Party, So Clegg was right to accept Cameron’s offer of a coalition. But Cameron was forced to accept the idea of a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, though his membership mostly opposes coalition-building with that party. Yet, a coalition is the only way the Conservatives could have a stable government, with majority support in the House of Commons.

But the British Liberal Democrats, it appears, are rather further to the left than the German Free Democratic Party (FDP), so there is more political distance between them and the Conservatives than between Germany’s FDP and Christian Democratic Union (CDU). So while CDU-FDP coalitions have been common in Germany, this will be a difficult coalition to maintain. I suspect there will be another election soon.

And this is one more thing I do not like about the British system. Unlike ours, it depends on a monolithic uniformity of each party’s votes in the House of Commons. While Susan Collins and Richard Shelby both call themselves Republicans (and Bart Stupak and Nancy Pelosi both call themselves Democrats), they are free to vote their conscience and if they differ, no new elections are necessary, in the British system if the Conservative leadership decides the party’s members of Commons should vote a certain way, they all do, whatever the members may think. (I would hate to be an MP in Britain.) And if the Conservative and Liberal Democratic leadership have a falling-out, there will need to be a new British election.

Nobody knows how long this coalition will last. Coalitions, outside of the two World Wars, have never existed in Britain. And this is another problem with the British system. You have to expect that an election could be called at any time. So there is a permanent campaign in Britain. Each of the parties will be trying to position itself for the next election.

Perils of an unwritten constitution

In the US, we have a Constitution that is a written document. While there are a lot of unwritten constitutional rules, the formal written text of the US Constitution sets the ground rules, by which everything is run. And in 2000, when there was some question about the result of the Presidential Election, this fact meant that everything was settled (even if it took some time) in a way that could not be contested.

Contrast Britain, which has a "constitution" that includes some Parliamentary laws (which can be changed, however, by simply passing another law, unlike our difficult amendment process!) but is mostly an accumulation of traditions. Right now they are trying to sort through the results of an election in which their House of Commons (which combines the role of a house of Congress here with that of the Electoral College) is without a majority.

According to one of those traditions, the sitting Prime Minister is given the first chance to try to "form a Government" (he has to put together a Cabinet and first have it approved by the House of Commons, unlike our system, where the Cabinet, though requiring Senate approval for each individual position, need not be in place for the President to take office).

On the other hand, there is the strongly-held belief that the leader of a party which has won the largest number of seats in the Commons, particularly if that party received the largest vote in a general election, should be given the first chance. And in this case, the incumbent Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, leads a Labour Party (that's how they spell it there), which has finished a rather distant second in seats (306 to 258), and was also far behind the Conservatives in votes. Furthermore, the third place (Liberal Democratic) party leader, Nicholas Clegg, is on record as agreeing with ths second proposition, that the leader of a party which has won the largest number of seats in the Commons, as well as the largest vote in a general election, should be given the first chance. And Clegg's position is important, because the Conservatives can get a majority if they join with the Liberal Democrats. So both Gordon Brown and the Conservative leader, David Cameron, believe they deserve the first chance.

Well, the way it works now is that Cameron has sent emissaries to talk with Clegg's people, but Brown's resignation has not taken place. And in fact Brown is fulminating that he deserves a chance first. But in fact, the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties together do not have enough seats (Labour's 258 plus the Liberal Democrats' 57 make 315, and 326 are necessary) to make a majority. So even if Brown could convince Clegg to join him, he would still need support from some small minor party.

And further complications ensue because a lot of British Conservatives feel they should not make any concessions to the Liberal Democrats to make a majority, but should try to govern without a majority. British practice permits such a minority government, but only if enough small parties agree not to oppose the Prime Minister's party to prevent its defeat on a no-confidence vote. And the Liberal Democrats' size is such that this is the only party that could provide this non-opposition in sufficient numbers, and Clegg is not likely to agree to do it without concessions. So that solution is a non-starter.

Isn't it great to have a written Constitution?

Arizona's new anti-illegal-immigrant law

It is interesting to see left-wingers railing against Arizona's new anti-illegal-immigrant law (or as they like to call it "Arizona's new anti-immigrant law," ignoring its direct targeting of illegal immigrants).

Of course, many of the left are simply pandering to Hispanic voters, who sympathize with the illegal immigrants because many of them (even if they themselves have become U. S. citizens) have illegal immigrant relatives).

And in turn those Hispanics seem to feel that this country ought not to enforce its own laws. Though, I wonder what they would think if the country refused to enforce its other laws, and countenanced, say, the discrimination of people against Hispanics in violation of its anti-discrimination laws!

All Arizona has done is to say that, if you're in violation of U. S. law by your presence in this country, and if you're in the State of Arizona, you are also in violation of Arizona State law, as well. And no sensible person should have any objection to this.

But some people say that jurisdiction over immigration law is preempted by the Federal Government under the Constitution. It is true that Article VI Clause 2 of the Constitution establishes the supremacy of Federal law over State law in matters under Federal jurisdiction (and the Federal government, by virtue of the Constitution's grant of power over foreign affairs, has power over immigration, even though immigration is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution), but certainly Article VI would only invalidate Arizona's law if it were in conflict with Federal law. It is not; it in fact, directly incorporates Federal law into Arizona law!

In fact, if anything, those States that have attempted to legalize "medical marijuana" like California, are the ones who should be called on the carpet for trying to nullify Federal law. (I put the phrase "medical marijuana" in quotes, because it is clear that marijuana has no valid medical purpose.) But the leftists who are taking Arizona to task would not do this to those States, because these people approve of such actions.

The facts are these: The Federal Government has refused to enforce its own laws on immigration, and Arizona has seen fit to take the law into its own hands because the Federal Government has abdicated its responsibility. People clain the new law will lead to racial profiling, as though this is worse than the current situation where illegal immigrants are burdens on law-enforcement, public health, and such.

And it is supposed to be so much of a burden to carry identification to prove one's legal presence here. Well, I'm legally in this country (I was born here!) and the number of times I've had to show identification in recent years is pretty large. If I have to carry identification, it is no great extra burden for them to do so.

Actually, there is one clue that should be emphasized more. These people often say that "nobody is illegal." Thus they talk of "immigrants," lumping legal and illegal immigration together, and totally misconstrue the purpose of the Arizona law. As far as they are concerned, the immigration laws of this country do not have any force, but this selective nullification is unjustified, and once more, I reiterate: violation of our anti-discrimination laws would not be so pleasantly received by these people!

I'm glad I don't live in Florida

There is a pretty good Republican Governor of Florida named Charlie Crist. He had expressed an interest in running for the Senate this year, and at first he seemed to be a shoo-in. Then another candidate, Marco Rubio, joined the fray. Conservatives backing Rubio have made it unlikely that Crist will be able to get the nomination of the Republican Party. So it now appears that Crist will run as an independent. (The mirror image, of course, of what happened to Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut a couple of years ago.)


Fortunately, this time, just like Lieberman, Crist seems popular enough in his state that he will probably win anyway — though a lot can happen between now and November. It would be a shame for a Republican split to give the seat to a Democrat, as happened recently in a special Congressional election in New York State.


I don't know a lot about Crist or Rubio — I suspect that if I were a Floridian I'd be closer politically to Crist, but Rubio would be acceptable — but I'm glad I don't have to choose between them. If the Democrat, Kendrick Meek (what a name!), ever got close enough that the split elected him because the Republicans could not unite, it would be a tragedy.


Once more, ideological purity is making Republicans weak.

Why I am NOT a "conservative"

On most important matters I tend to hold "conservative" positions, but sometimes I find the "conservative" position to be infuriatingly foreign to my thoughts.

Case in point: Pres. Barack Obama's recent order requiring hospitals to grant family visitation rights to partners of gay patients. We find conservative groups assailing this order as if it were destructive of the marriages of straight couples.

I for one applaud this order. If someone is hospitalized with a serious illness, he should be able to have the company of whomever he considers the most important person in his life. Without exception.

Apparently, a few conservatives are so eager to impose their own religion's concept of morality on people that they have not the slightest shred of compassion for these people.

I really would love to see any demonstration that allowing gay people to have any of the privileges of straight couples in any way reduces the rights of those straight couples.

And so, although Pres. Obama's order constitutes what is considered a liberal act, I see nothing wrong with it. And this is why I cannot consider myself a "conservative," even though I believe that conservatives are basically right on most important issues.

The successor to John Paul Stevens

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has stated that he is about to retire. And of course President Barack Obama will appoint a successor. While many conservatives are gearing up to fight if Obama appoints a very liberal successor to Justice Stevens, I'm not really going to get all agitated.

Why? Because Justice Stevens is just about the most liberal judge on the current court. And so, short of appointing a Communist, Pres. Obama cannot really affect the Court's direction, at least in a leftward turn, by his appointment. And he's not likely to try to move the Court in a rightward direction. So there is no hope that he would do that.

And thus, there is really no reason to worry too much.