The cover of the most recent RTE Guide - sort of the TV Guide for Ireland - talks about "family values". What, exactly, *are* family values, and why are conservatives always talking about them? Are family values a conservative thing? What's the fuss?
I'm going to bare-bones this: family values refers to the concept that your family will provide you the best moral, spiritual, and ethical support available AND that you, as a member of that family, have a moral, spiritual, and ethical responsibility to be supportive of your family members.
Conservatives tend to include God and country and all that in the definition, but those values are unique to those families. Hippies raised in a commune can have family values just as strongly-held, but very different in terms of what is valued and even how the family is defined. Culture clashes occur when different families conduct social or financial transactions according to their own values, violating unwritten laws of conduct (Which is more important? Being fair to an outsider or being loyal to a dishonest cousin? A dishonest brother? A dishonest mother? Theft of bread to feed the hungry? Theft of a tractor to till a field to feed the family?).
Progressives? Sure. They define society-at-large as their family, and their values change with each new session of congress. When fascists are in power, they are fascists. When pacifists are in power, they're pacifists. They're the ones who stop squirrel hunting in Maine, plow over vegatable gardens in New Jersey, and shut down lemonade stands in Needham. And when your family values clash with their laws - however arbitrary those laws may be, however capricious - know in your heart that they don't hear your lamentations.
For progressives, the state *is* their family, and they hold their family values above yours every time.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Wisconsin, Budgets, and Ideology
The dust has settled, and Scott Walker is still governor of Wisconsin. Obviously, that means that Mitt Romney is going to win in November.
Like hell.
The Wisconsin vote had almost nothing to do with ideology, and everything to do with the budget. We, the People, are fully aware that budget cuts always seem to start with the fire department, the police department, our school art/music/gym programs, our street lights, and the hours we can protest our tax bill at the assessor's office.
When Park Service budgets were cut last year, the government closed the national parks. What? Did the trees go away?
The Wisconsin message is this: enough. Enough, already with the threats and the extortion. Enough with the embezzlement and budget-padding. Enough with the catered dinners and team-building exercises in Las Vegas. Enough with the two-hour "power lunches" and "commerce" junkets to Thailand. Scott Walker won the recall vote not because of his stand on abortion or affirmative action, but because he balanced the budget. With the budget balanced, the People then decide how that money should be spent.
Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.
Republicans and Democrats alike need to learn a message Americans learned back in Vietnam: Papa-san don't care what's happening in Saigon. Stay the hell off Papa-san's dike and leave Papa-san's water buffalo alone.
Like hell.
The Wisconsin vote had almost nothing to do with ideology, and everything to do with the budget. We, the People, are fully aware that budget cuts always seem to start with the fire department, the police department, our school art/music/gym programs, our street lights, and the hours we can protest our tax bill at the assessor's office.
When Park Service budgets were cut last year, the government closed the national parks. What? Did the trees go away?
The Wisconsin message is this: enough. Enough, already with the threats and the extortion. Enough with the embezzlement and budget-padding. Enough with the catered dinners and team-building exercises in Las Vegas. Enough with the two-hour "power lunches" and "commerce" junkets to Thailand. Scott Walker won the recall vote not because of his stand on abortion or affirmative action, but because he balanced the budget. With the budget balanced, the People then decide how that money should be spent.
Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.
Republicans and Democrats alike need to learn a message Americans learned back in Vietnam: Papa-san don't care what's happening in Saigon. Stay the hell off Papa-san's dike and leave Papa-san's water buffalo alone.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Banning Songs, Burning Books
This story from Fox News talks about a NYC principal who banned the song "God Bless the USA" from a kindergarten graduation.
OK, so she's a nut. One more in a long, long line of self-hating east-coast liberals. But she may - accidentally and incidentally - have a point.
Before I go any further, my bona fides: I am a Marine Corps veteran, I vote in every election (usually Republican), I am a conservative, I believe in representative democracy, I think saying the Pledge of Allegiance every morning is a fine idea, and I have abiding problems with illegal immigration and the anti-american rhetoric of the left.
That having been said, I would not want a wild-eyed bible-thumper teaching creationism to my nine-year-old son. Similarly, I would not want my child to become a brown-shirt "love-it-or-leave-it" zealot. I don't "love the USA" so much as I love our form of government, the freedoms protected by our Constitution, and the opportunitites for personal improvement offered here. I love the protestant work ethic. I love how rednecks never throw things away (they'll re-purpose anything). I love 4th of July parades where the neighbors make floats. I love that we can, if we want to, stand on a street corner in front of a police officer and recite our anti-government grievances. We can join a union or we can quit a union (mostly .... you anti-american union bastards out there). We can buy any book we want to. The US version of Google includes links to the "Anarchist's Cookbook" and the "Turner Diaries" as well as other books that are demonstrably hateful.
It's hard to write a catchy song about that, so "God Bless the USA" is sort of a stand-in. But when George Bush or Barack Obama stands behind the podium and says the United States has sent troops to Iraq or Uganda, I want my child to listen skeptically, firm in his knowledge that what makes America a truly Great Nation isn't our mountains or our prairies or our soldiers.
What makes America a Great Nation is our desire to make it so.
I like think that the principal banned the song because she doesn't want the kids to become indoctrinated. (deep sigh) Yeah, right.
OK, so she's a nut. One more in a long, long line of self-hating east-coast liberals. But she may - accidentally and incidentally - have a point.
Before I go any further, my bona fides: I am a Marine Corps veteran, I vote in every election (usually Republican), I am a conservative, I believe in representative democracy, I think saying the Pledge of Allegiance every morning is a fine idea, and I have abiding problems with illegal immigration and the anti-american rhetoric of the left.
That having been said, I would not want a wild-eyed bible-thumper teaching creationism to my nine-year-old son. Similarly, I would not want my child to become a brown-shirt "love-it-or-leave-it" zealot. I don't "love the USA" so much as I love our form of government, the freedoms protected by our Constitution, and the opportunitites for personal improvement offered here. I love the protestant work ethic. I love how rednecks never throw things away (they'll re-purpose anything). I love 4th of July parades where the neighbors make floats. I love that we can, if we want to, stand on a street corner in front of a police officer and recite our anti-government grievances. We can join a union or we can quit a union (mostly .... you anti-american union bastards out there). We can buy any book we want to. The US version of Google includes links to the "Anarchist's Cookbook" and the "Turner Diaries" as well as other books that are demonstrably hateful.
It's hard to write a catchy song about that, so "God Bless the USA" is sort of a stand-in. But when George Bush or Barack Obama stands behind the podium and says the United States has sent troops to Iraq or Uganda, I want my child to listen skeptically, firm in his knowledge that what makes America a truly Great Nation isn't our mountains or our prairies or our soldiers.
What makes America a Great Nation is our desire to make it so.
I like think that the principal banned the song because she doesn't want the kids to become indoctrinated. (deep sigh) Yeah, right.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Obama and Leadership
From the Wall Street Journal today: " ... President Obama's problem now isn't what Wisconsin did, it's how he looks each day—careening around, always in flight, a superfluous figure. No one even looks to him for leadership now. He doesn't go to Wisconsin, where the fight is. He goes to Sarah Jessica Parker's place, where the money is ... "
No one even looks to him for leadership now. The President of the United States. That is possibly the harshest condemnation of a President that I have ever heard, and it has the painful ring of if not truth, exactly, then applicability.
In 2007, people I knew voted for Obama and the issues he campaigned on. He was going to end the wars. He was going to close Guantanamo. He was going to have a "transparent" presidency. He was going to reduce the influence of the lobbyists. He was going to work hard to create "green" jobs. Quality health care would become a right for all Americans, not a priviledge for the wealthiest. He was going to reach across the aisle, old "no-drama Obama", to work with the opposition. Hope and Change. For all of 2008 and 2009, his democrat party had the Presidency, the House, and the Senate, and the sort of national support that William Jefferson Clinton only dreamed of.
Blame who you want; even if Obama wins in November of 2012 - and right now, in June, that looks doubtful - there can be little doubt that this President squandered an opportunity to make a real difference.
No one even looks to him for leadership now. The President of the United States. That is possibly the harshest condemnation of a President that I have ever heard, and it has the painful ring of if not truth, exactly, then applicability.
In 2007, people I knew voted for Obama and the issues he campaigned on. He was going to end the wars. He was going to close Guantanamo. He was going to have a "transparent" presidency. He was going to reduce the influence of the lobbyists. He was going to work hard to create "green" jobs. Quality health care would become a right for all Americans, not a priviledge for the wealthiest. He was going to reach across the aisle, old "no-drama Obama", to work with the opposition. Hope and Change. For all of 2008 and 2009, his democrat party had the Presidency, the House, and the Senate, and the sort of national support that William Jefferson Clinton only dreamed of.
Blame who you want; even if Obama wins in November of 2012 - and right now, in June, that looks doubtful - there can be little doubt that this President squandered an opportunity to make a real difference.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Plus ça Change Plus c'est la même Chose
From the newspaper the "Irish Independent": It was the most warmly welcomed initiative of the millennium celebrations -- a tree planted in the name of every family in the State.
But citizens who believe they own one of the famous "millennium trees", planted under the orders of the late minister Seamus Brennan in 2000, should make sure they have kept the paperwork detailing their ownership.
As concern grows that the Government is planning to sell off the "people's millennium trees'' as part of its privatisation strategy, Fianna Fail's marine and fisheries spokesperson John Browne has warned the Government, the ECB, the EU and the IMF troika to "keep their hands off'' the trees.
Outside of the free millennium candles, the most popular aspect of the celebrations was the assignation of 1.2 million trees, consisting of native oak, ash, birch, alder and Scots pine, to each Irish household as part of the People's Millennium Forests Project Household Tree scheme.
Households received an ownership certificate, with a covering letter from the minister for the environment detailing individual plot numbers where their tree had been planted. The letter noted: "It gives us great pleasure to enclose the certificate of authentication of your household's special tree for the millennium."
Mr Browne, however, believes that if Coillte assets are sold off then the "people's trees will be sold off to pay off the gambling debts of the Irish banks''.
More rhetoric. "When we said it was *yours* what we really meant was that it was *ours* to do with as we pleased, and most especially to sell for profit whenever we wanted and to hell with your children."
It's a grey day here, again, and I'm too easily depressed by news like this.
There are times when it seems to me that there is nothing politicians hold sacred. Not religion, not history, not heritage, not the people, not the language - nothing. They sit on their arses for years and pontificate at election times about the sacred oaths they swear and the responsibilities they take so seriously.
And then, when the elections are over, starts the back-room dealing all over again.
They lie and they lie and the press repeats the lies based on who they like the best or who has the biggest tits or the nicests suits, and in the end there's another two or four or six years gone by and another little bit of who we are gone forever.
I'm not a luddite. Not really. But why is it that this inevitable "change" we hear so much about always results in slightly higer taxes, slightly fewer jobs, slightly uglier cities and towns, and slightly fewer people who care?
But citizens who believe they own one of the famous "millennium trees", planted under the orders of the late minister Seamus Brennan in 2000, should make sure they have kept the paperwork detailing their ownership.
As concern grows that the Government is planning to sell off the "people's millennium trees'' as part of its privatisation strategy, Fianna Fail's marine and fisheries spokesperson John Browne has warned the Government, the ECB, the EU and the IMF troika to "keep their hands off'' the trees.
Outside of the free millennium candles, the most popular aspect of the celebrations was the assignation of 1.2 million trees, consisting of native oak, ash, birch, alder and Scots pine, to each Irish household as part of the People's Millennium Forests Project Household Tree scheme.
Households received an ownership certificate, with a covering letter from the minister for the environment detailing individual plot numbers where their tree had been planted. The letter noted: "It gives us great pleasure to enclose the certificate of authentication of your household's special tree for the millennium."
Mr Browne, however, believes that if Coillte assets are sold off then the "people's trees will be sold off to pay off the gambling debts of the Irish banks''.
More rhetoric. "When we said it was *yours* what we really meant was that it was *ours* to do with as we pleased, and most especially to sell for profit whenever we wanted and to hell with your children."
It's a grey day here, again, and I'm too easily depressed by news like this.
There are times when it seems to me that there is nothing politicians hold sacred. Not religion, not history, not heritage, not the people, not the language - nothing. They sit on their arses for years and pontificate at election times about the sacred oaths they swear and the responsibilities they take so seriously.
And then, when the elections are over, starts the back-room dealing all over again.
They lie and they lie and the press repeats the lies based on who they like the best or who has the biggest tits or the nicests suits, and in the end there's another two or four or six years gone by and another little bit of who we are gone forever.
I'm not a luddite. Not really. But why is it that this inevitable "change" we hear so much about always results in slightly higer taxes, slightly fewer jobs, slightly uglier cities and towns, and slightly fewer people who care?
Friday, June 1, 2012
Gay Marriage, Again
I had a heated discussion last night about gay marriage. I was rude from time to time, but I was frustrated by my own inability to form coherent sentences. This keyboard has a "backspace" key. I often wish my mouth did, too. Anyway, if I could have done so, I would have made the following cogent statements:
1. This may, in fact, be a Civil Rights issue or a Human Rights issue. If it is - and I'm not conceding that it is - then Congress has no authority to issue any laws restricting gay marriage. That argument hasn't yet been made before the United States Supreme Court - probably because the progressive left is afraid of being ruled against.
2. I am not homophobic. Well, maybe I am. It really all depends on how one defines the term. If I'm talking to a Cambridge liberal, I'm not just a homophobe I'm an especially intolerant and hateful NAZI homophobe. If I'm talking to a Virginia conservative, I'm a damned communist and a queer lover (quick, Clem, grab the hangin' rope).
So take your pick, but I don't think the label's very helpful.
I'm conservative. That means that I quite literally resist change. The bigger the proposed change, the more I resist it. As I said to someone not that long ago, if you told me 25 years ago that our president would be a black, coke-snorting, dope-smoking, socialist Harvard professor, and that he would be arguing in favor of letting two men get married, I'd have called you nuts.
So, yeah, gay marriage is a big proposed change and I am leery of it on principal. So are a lot of other folks. That doesn't make us evil. A bit slow, maybe, but not evil.
3. Western civilization's concept of marriage has at all times and in all places been understood to be a relationship between a man and a woman. There has been homosexuality, infidelity, bisexuality, polygamy, and divorce at various times in history, but gay marriage? Nope. Never happened. That was a crime in most societies, punishable by death. For progressives to argue - as they have been - that defining marriage as a heterosexual relationship is a novel and modern interpretation is stupid and disingenuous.
4. This whole situation has arisen because some gay couples want to be treated exactly the same as heterosexual couples. Exactly that same. No differences. Nothing less is acceptable. Nothing. Less. Ever. Anywhere.
Really? Really?? It's not enough to be married in Provincetown, Massachusetts, but you've just got to be able to be married in Columbus, Ohio as well? If that's how you feel, then that's how you feel, and I understand the point of view. I do. But REALLY??? You can't just leave it alone? I mean, it upsets me that I can't carry a pistol in New York City - second amendment and all - but I kind of live with that because I don't want to visit there let alone live there and I really think that maybe if you just kind of resigned yourself to not living in Madison, Wisconsin, we could focus a little more clearly on the economy.
Because if you had a really good job and could take a vacation in the Bahamas every February and if you could afford to live with your state-recognized spouse in a really nice New York brownstone, probably you'd worry about it less.
1. This may, in fact, be a Civil Rights issue or a Human Rights issue. If it is - and I'm not conceding that it is - then Congress has no authority to issue any laws restricting gay marriage. That argument hasn't yet been made before the United States Supreme Court - probably because the progressive left is afraid of being ruled against.
2. I am not homophobic. Well, maybe I am. It really all depends on how one defines the term. If I'm talking to a Cambridge liberal, I'm not just a homophobe I'm an especially intolerant and hateful NAZI homophobe. If I'm talking to a Virginia conservative, I'm a damned communist and a queer lover (quick, Clem, grab the hangin' rope).
So take your pick, but I don't think the label's very helpful.
I'm conservative. That means that I quite literally resist change. The bigger the proposed change, the more I resist it. As I said to someone not that long ago, if you told me 25 years ago that our president would be a black, coke-snorting, dope-smoking, socialist Harvard professor, and that he would be arguing in favor of letting two men get married, I'd have called you nuts.
So, yeah, gay marriage is a big proposed change and I am leery of it on principal. So are a lot of other folks. That doesn't make us evil. A bit slow, maybe, but not evil.
3. Western civilization's concept of marriage has at all times and in all places been understood to be a relationship between a man and a woman. There has been homosexuality, infidelity, bisexuality, polygamy, and divorce at various times in history, but gay marriage? Nope. Never happened. That was a crime in most societies, punishable by death. For progressives to argue - as they have been - that defining marriage as a heterosexual relationship is a novel and modern interpretation is stupid and disingenuous.
4. This whole situation has arisen because some gay couples want to be treated exactly the same as heterosexual couples. Exactly that same. No differences. Nothing less is acceptable. Nothing. Less. Ever. Anywhere.
Really? Really?? It's not enough to be married in Provincetown, Massachusetts, but you've just got to be able to be married in Columbus, Ohio as well? If that's how you feel, then that's how you feel, and I understand the point of view. I do. But REALLY??? You can't just leave it alone? I mean, it upsets me that I can't carry a pistol in New York City - second amendment and all - but I kind of live with that because I don't want to visit there let alone live there and I really think that maybe if you just kind of resigned yourself to not living in Madison, Wisconsin, we could focus a little more clearly on the economy.
Because if you had a really good job and could take a vacation in the Bahamas every February and if you could afford to live with your state-recognized spouse in a really nice New York brownstone, probably you'd worry about it less.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Not the Heroic Fallen
Today is Memorial Day in the United States. It is dedicated to those who died while serving in the armed forces.
Today, for an hour, or only a minute, we need to think about the dead. The ones who would be here today except for prideful politicians and a few genuinely evil dictators. Fathers and sons. They didn't "willingly sacrifice themselves on the altar of freedom" as we will hear so often today. We put them there. We decided that our nation, our way of doing things, was important enough to put those fathers and sons between our nation and those who would harm it. We asked, and for their own reasons, they answered.
We must dedicate ourselves to being worthy of what we asked. Study the issues. Vote. Despise and rebuke the corrupt. Get off the sidelines. Carry the ball one step for those who can't.
Have that barbecue today - the dead would, if they could. But tomorrow, in your heart, try to make it the day after Memorial Day, and not just Tuesday.
Today, for an hour, or only a minute, we need to think about the dead. The ones who would be here today except for prideful politicians and a few genuinely evil dictators. Fathers and sons. They didn't "willingly sacrifice themselves on the altar of freedom" as we will hear so often today. We put them there. We decided that our nation, our way of doing things, was important enough to put those fathers and sons between our nation and those who would harm it. We asked, and for their own reasons, they answered.
We must dedicate ourselves to being worthy of what we asked. Study the issues. Vote. Despise and rebuke the corrupt. Get off the sidelines. Carry the ball one step for those who can't.
Have that barbecue today - the dead would, if they could. But tomorrow, in your heart, try to make it the day after Memorial Day, and not just Tuesday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)