Links of interest, very belated

I've neglected posting blogs but I've still written some, and I will catch up eventually. These links mostly or completely from 2024.

I managed not to write about DeSantis and the Florida culture skirmishes where DeSantis tried via legislation to force Florida public schools to be much less woke. This had many fronts. Don't say gay. Nothing about trans kids. Curriculum on slavery. Punishing Disney for stating their opposing opinion. So fun all around. This is the settlement agreement about the Don't Say Gay bill (as it was dubbed in the press). No formal instruction in lots of areas for K-3, but informal discussions can and will take place. 

Plastic Waste Deal. Not a deal yet, but a bunch of countries are coming closer to limiting plastic manufacturing. This is a good idea considering all the plastic bottle waste. A lot of that could go to aluminum, which is highly recycled, unlike plastic. And countries probably need to force industry that way since it's not happening even with people being educated. Some things do happen from the top down. 

Donny's Donors and who they want for VP. Good to check back on this. 

A summary of the evidence in Trump's payoff trial. There isn't any summary of the defense, but there wasn't much of a defense. A lawyer named Costello testified, but didn't have much material evidence to back him up. He also got skewered on cross examination. 

El Salvador has been a mess for decades. Finally a leader is having partial success in countering the gangs. But the bleeding heart progressives have to criticize anyhow. I want to watch and see if he is able to help this benighted country. I hope he can. 

The European parliament elections saw a surge of anti-immigrant votes and a major decline in greens and liberals. For what it's worth, being a lower-turnout affair. And an article about how France has changed. Not so stodgy and with a sense of chaos? 

Video showing Biden's shuffling gait walking in a cemetery in France at the D-Day commemorations. Jill holding his hand, guiding him, helping with balance. Biden reaching for headstone to steady himself. I noticed this before Biden's poor debate performance. Full video of Biden's interview by Hur, special counsel. 

Trashy racist meme from Trump's campaign spokesman. Correction, an outspoken supporter, also asian.

The new mayor of Chicago is trying to force through an agreement with the teachers' union and huge high-interest borrowing. The superintendent and the entire school board that he appointed disagree with his plan. What a mess. 

Mark Zuckerberg's whiny letter to the GOP-dominated House Judiciary Committee. They pressured us, he whines. 

Too late to matter, but a transcript of the Harris/Trump debate. 

Parking this here. A transcript of the J6 Committee with the blunt assistant White House Counsel. The one with the panda poster in the background. The one who told off Eastman after Jan. 6. There is also a treasure trove of J6 transcripts.

Image: Ian Miles Cheong 

Is it a hate group?

Conservatives like to claim that the Southern Poverty Law Center, the long-time watchdog on hate groups, is now a hate group itself. They want to make this claim because the SPLC has labeled some of their favorite organizations as hate groups, including the Family Research Council.

This time I looked into the Alliance Defending Freedom. It's been active in lawsuits, such as defending the Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. From what I know, that baker isn't filled with hate, and defending him isn't what I'd call hateful either.

However, the SPLC has quite a solid complaint against the group for supporting laws that mandated sterilization of transgender people who wanted official name and gender changes. It also has a list of other positions against transgender and gay people, with the worst behavior over a decade ago, but several incidents in the past 5 years.

The Alliance (ADF) tries to look friendly and not hateful on its website, but some of the hate comes through. It lies about Planned Parenthood--but isn't that de rigeur for any conservative group? It claims it supports rights and freedom, but doesn't mention how not all rights get their respect. Some people's rights are obviously more important than the rights of those gays.

ADF lawyer moving up.

Image: thenation.com

Surviving the same-sex marriage decision

As I wrote often, Rod Dreher, a religious/cultural blogger, regularly moaned about the growing support for same-sex marriage. His complaints reached a pinnacle (or maybe more than one) as he tried to find the culprit for the fall of marriage from a holy sacrament (joining man, woman, and God) to a piece of toilet paper freely available to perverts.

How badly has Dreher freaked out now that the US will have legal same-sex marriage all over the country?

He's not doing too badly. He's on a trip to Italy right now, enjoying the food, history, and street festivals, or preferable all three at the same time. He's got the right idea. Before the total downfall of Western civilization, I'd like to spend more time in Italy too.

Image: theamericanconservative.com

It's rather sentimental of me to wonder whether this opponent has survived the ruling. Not that I really worried that anyone was going to kill himself over this ruling. Nearly everyone saw it coming. Justice Kennedy, the usual swing vote on the Supreme Court, had voted to declare some of DOMA unconstitutional two years ago, so it wouldn't take clairvoyance to foresee this ruling.

So almost all saw this coming. Almost all let the LGBTQ and allies celebrate their victory unmolested. There were rainbow sprinkles all over Facebook, and, with triumphalism, rainbow lighting on the White House. Not exactly tactful or magnanimous.

Image: forum.bandmix.com

Some GOP presidential candidates said stupid things, but that's an everyday occurrence. Let's see, Bobby Jindal called for the money-saving move of abolishing the Supreme Court. I wonder if he followed up with a paean to the Constitution. Based on headlines, Jindal won the 'GOP leader stupid contest' over the perennial winner Ted Cruz. Cruz was probably runner-up, though, with the suggestion that Supreme Court justices face elections every 8 years. This idea suffers from being too complex, especially compared to Jindal's simple and pure stupidity.

Culture warriors warn of several looming crises.

1. The polygamists are coming!
2. The pedophiles are coming!
3. It won't be safe to express anti-gay beliefs.
4. Churches will lose their tax-exempt status.
5. This is the final straw that ends marriage in the US.
6. This is the final straw that ends the American experiment in democracy.
7. Anyone who doesn't cheer on same-sex marriage will risk losing their job.

Except for the panicking dissenting justices, there aren't many who are still predicting the swift demise of the US, so the response is more moderate than expected. After all, not all these looming crises are completely ludicrous. No, pedophilia won't be legalized, but the concerns about the chilling of viewpoints are well founded. (More posts later on that.)

One fascinating thing I learned is how widespread the gay pride movement is. I looked for images of the rainbow flag, and found it in Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Turkey, Israel, Russia, Serbia, Taiwan, Cambodia, China, and a huge number of images for India. The movement for tolerance is a world-wide phenomenon, not just a parochial battle in the US culture war. I still haven't grasped how momentous this movement is.

Image: citizenside.com

Extra. Perhaps before he left for Italy (judging from the tone), Dreher wrote a hilarious post about the future. It includes: polygamy, gay gated communities, all marriages gone queer, and no religious institutions left standing. No irrationality there! Here is Chicken Little:

"I remember a time, practically the day before yesterday, when conservatives who warned that gay marriage would inevitably deconstruct marriage and family entirely were called paranoid bigots."

This prediction is based on one gay novelist's imagination of life in 2035. But that is enough to declare "gay marriage [will] inevitably deconstruct marriage and family entirely." Yeah, right.

Short: Republicans aren't stodgy

Jeff Flake, the new GOP senator from Arizona, wants to assure the country that the GOP is cool too. They are so cool and hip and wired in that someday they will have their own marriage-equality-supporting presidential nominee.

But it won't be him. Nope, he's just too vanilla, with his non-evolving belief in traditional marriage. But someday even the GOP will find someone hip enough to be cool with two dudes saying vows, but who is  still the fulfillment of conservative ideals.

Jeff Flake was one of the first Republicans to suggest how to pick up the pieces after the 2008 election. To me, he's a bit of a bellwether. If he's OK with being on the ticket with a same-sex-supporting candidate, that's great. Except for one problem: there's still only one nationally known GOP politician brave enough to take that stand--Rob Portman. Perhaps this is a signal to others in the GOP: step up if you're brave enough, and we promise not to hunt you down as a RINO.

That's all fine and good, but does the same forbearance apply to other policies too? Can you be non-stodgy on Planned Parenthood, on abortion, on Obamacare or a workable replacement, and still be part of the Grand Old Party? I have my doubts about how cool and modern a GOP politician can get without losing standing, but we'll see.

Image:  theobamadiary.com

Values and judgment: Judging Scalia, judging tradition

Antonin Scalia is in trouble again with liberals and the media over his viewpoints. This happens fairly often, but with little effect on the offender or the offending behavior. Scalia, with a lifetime appointment to the US Supreme Court, doesn't have to change. No amount of anger, demonstration, fury, or criticism will dislodge him if he doesn't want to go. Besides, he seems to love the attention and the fight.

This is the latest fracas: on Monday, Scalia spoke at Princeton. Unsurprisingly, he defended his support of laws against sodomy. He defended his comparison of laws against sodomy to laws against murder. That's expected. However, he unnecessarily twisted the knife when he added:

"I'm surprised you weren't persuaded."

Hey, Justice Scalia, a lot of people have opinions that differ from yours. That doesn't make them stupid or contemptible, so don't treat them that way.

Many people dissent

Image: amazon.com

Tradition vs. Change

Aside from Scalia's atrocious manners (and he's not alone--there are way too many nasty, screeching liberals too), there is a huge question on how we respond to our traditional moral teachings. To gain some perspective, let's look at a case of conflict between tradition and change.

The Christian Example

Christianity had a major problem back in the first century. Did adherents have to follow all the laws of Judaism? On one hand, the laws had made the Jewish people keenly aware of right and wrong, and they endeavored to live in ways that were deeply virtuous. On the other hand, the laws were crazy in their extent. Not only was there circumcision with prayers, etc., but there was a huge number of dietary laws, marriage laws, maybe just about any law you could imagine. This was offputting to people who were interested in living virtuously as God intended, because it strained belief that God intended so many strictures for everyone, not just for the high priests.

St. Paul probably saved Christianity by giving adherents a pass on the old laws, which he deemed to be superseded by the new laws, which were a new covenant with God.

So there's a precedent for looking at your laws (moral rules), and chucking them when they don't make sense anymore. It certainly didn't turn Christianity into a shameless, vile religion that led people into evil ways. Christianity has generally been a force for benevolence to mankind, just as Judaism was and is.

 Image: todayinheritagehistory.wordpress.com

America questions

Now we in the US are in a similar process of questioning some of our traditional morals. Specifically, are homosexual relationships immoral? Can we, like the early Christian founders, examine the laws and judge their merits?

I think we can and should. There are a lot of sources for our moral laws, and many of them are specific customs. The permission of a father or brother used to be required to get married. Was it really a moral necessity, or just a custom? How do you answer such a question? Furthermore, what are the implications of asking such a question?

There are typically two ways to answer the question. One way is to appeal to an established authority, such as custom, religion, or an authority figure. Another is to test the action in a moral system such as the Golden Rule or Kant's categorical imperative.

The Advantages and Problems with a Moral Authority

It's interesting that there is a method other than appealing to authority. For many people, the authority is the final word, and the only safeguard from a moral free-for-all. However, the problem there is that people strenuously disagree on who or what is an accepted authority. Having an acceptable alternative, such as a test by way of a moral system, solves this problem to a certain extent, but many find it an affront to the authority they deeply respect.

Based on what I know of the American founders (admittedly just high school history), they were probably more comfortable with testing within a moral system. Political philosophers such as Locke were developing ideas of government based not on authoritarian justifications, but on consent of the governed. John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant are the two philosophers who have tried to develop systems for testing moral precepts that didn't depend on a moral authority. They haven't been completely successful, but that's true for all the other moral philosophies too.

I don't think we'll ever have a perfect moral system. I prefer a non-religiously-based moral system, but that is a preference that reflects my values, not a demonstrably superior position. As I've written before, there aren't absolutes when it comes to values, judgment, and morals.

 Image: irregulartimes.com

Extra. An earlier gotcha moment for Scalia.

Short: Putting it to Scalia

I'm working on a longer post about why Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is wrong in his judicial attacks on homosexuality. In the meantime, I want to skewer him on his argumentation. Let me paraphrase:

If we cannot have moral feelings against basketball, can we have it against murder?

I hope I've just reduced Scalia's argument to absurdity. That was easy.

Of course, basketball isn't as bad as this...

Image: justpiper.com

Short: Gays/Mormons

Not just on Broadway anymore. Here's coverage of the Gay Pride parade in Salt Lake City. Here's what the local paper says. Evidently hating on people took a vacation. Hooray!

 Image: blogs.westword.com

Two flavors of flip-flop

So conservatives hate flip-floppers, do they? Well, they'll get to choose between two different flavors of the type.

Romney has famously flipped on abortion, his political leanings, cap and trade, immigration, and (highest of treasons) health insurance mandates. In each case, he's flipped to being harder.

Santorum's flips have been less notorious. He's been walking back his opposition to homosexuality. In the past, he thought it was fine for states to criminalize homosexuality acts. Now, he'd love his son if he was gay (and suppress those lectures on unnatural sex acts, I guess). He's also flipped on raising the retirement age, auditing the Fed, teaching intelligent design as science, right-to-work laws, and No Child Left Behind. Santorum has usually flipped to being softer, except for his previous support for unions and national education initiatives.

This is an important distinction with you're a red-blooded conservative. Do you support the johnny-come-lately conservative, or the becoming-less-paleolithic conservative? Most red conservatives are going for the barely-escaped-the-paleolithic conservative.

For me, it's an easy choice. I hope that, under all his recent pandering, Romney is still a moderate. I also think he's the Republican most likely to address our deficit problems. With Santorum, I suspect it's lower on the priority list, somewhere below "Pursue expensive war on Iran."

I wonder who the whole of the Republican party, not just the hard-core conservatives, will choose. Is there room for a semi-moderate who pretends he isn't? We shall see.

Getting to be a GOP tradition...