Watching the Reruns

I went to the Frazier International History Museum yesterday, which premiered a few years ago as the Frazier Arms Museum but, after not attracting much of a crowd, sought to broaden it's appeal by changing its name. It's in a beautifully restored building downtown and contains the personal weapons collection of local rich guy Owsley Brown Frazier. It's a fine museum, comprehensive and earnest if not exactly fun.

Still, I'm not sure why the Frazier isn't a big hit, especially with the pro-gun crowd. My theory is that they don't want to intellectualize firearms so much as they want to take them out in the country and make them go "boom". I'm not a gun guy myself, but I have a similar feeling about airplanes, so I think I can relate. I don't really care about history and engineering; I just want a jet with it's afterburners on full passing-by low. There's nothing like that thump in the chest when the small noise of an approaching jet turns to the thunderous noise of a jet just passed.

Anyway, up on the third floor of the museum they had a special exhibit on the 1960s. They had a psychedelic Volkswagen and a couch covered with a batik sheet. They had shag rungs. I didn't see a bong, but one belonged there. They had a chronology of the '60s in notes and photos around one room, and it was a fun little bit of nostalgia to read along.

The serious side of the '60s exhibit was a collection of photographs of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy. You can question the taste of a gun museum featuring exhibits on three leaders assassinated with guns, but that's not the point. The point is, in each of the sections they had video running, and the Martin Luther King video was the "I Have a Dream" speech. My wife and I stood there a few minutes and watched. It's a marvelous piece of American oratory, but what's striking in retrospect is how obvious it is. Of course we all want a world where little "Negro" children and little white children can play together. Of course we want a world where people are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Who in the world would argue against that?

Of course, lots of people did. It took sit-ins and voter registration drives and mass protests and riots and lawsuits to bring what seems so obvious now to the fore, that all men should be treated equally under the law. The people fighting that self-evident truth, the conservatives of their time, used dogs and fire hoses and guns and rope and fire to keep the Constitution from being enforced, but they used something else as well: the ballot box. Reasonable people, not the kind of people who would throw a firebomb into a church, helped along the way by casting their vote against equality. They did it for a lot of reasons, some of them abstractly ideological, but the bottom line was that they cast their vote in favor of injustice.

So this morning, I come across this:

Nearly five years after the state's Supreme Court ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, the vitriolic battle that brought international attention and apocalyptic fears to Massachusetts is all but dead. Since the first marriages on May 17, 2004, more than 11,000 couples have tied the knot. They're busy mowing lawns and hauling kids to soccer practice, and the sky has not fallen.

Conservatives are, once again, on the wrong side of history. Conservatives -- Republicans this time, though it was Democrats fighting Civil Rights -- are fighting to keep bigotry in power. Anyone who votes for a Republican empowers bigotry, even if they're voting based on taxes or the Pentagon budget, just as anyone who voted for Democrats in the south in the 1960s empowered bigotry by voting for states rights.

You'd think they'd get tired of being on the wrong side of history, but they apparently don't.

Comments

[Frank]

You really could have saved yourself a lot of typing if you had just gone with "Conservatives are evil".

I'm so glad to see you taking this time to add to the civility of political discourse, lifting us all with your reasoned and heartfelt speech. It's such a change from anything I've heard from any Democrat in the past.

[Tom]

I didn't say conservatives were evil. I said they were wrong, and had been wrong on big issues for a long time.

Liberals are sometimes wrong repeatedly on big issues, too. I give you, for example, redistribution of wealth. I about puke every time Obama talks about a windfall profits tax. Good heavens, will these people ever learn?

I'm most intrigued by your insinuation that my post lacked civility. I believe I was very civil. I believe, for example, that I got through the posting without accusing anyone of treason or a lack of patriotism. In fact, I went out of my way to acknowledge that at least some of the people who were wrong were "reasonable people."

Finally, I just searched F/A and can't come up with a single instance in which I used the word "ass-clown" to describe someone with whom I disagree politically. Can you say the same about your blog?

[fish]

I'm pretty darned conservative and as it happens went to a gay wedding ...well gay wedding reception anyway... over the weekend. The next serious schism in conservatism is going to occur when Bob Dole V 2.0 loses and the democrats have control of all three branches.....I'm looking forward to years and years and years of finger pointing!

[Tom]

I'm not sure this election gets the Dems control of all three branches of government, but it seems to me the best argument against Obama is a Democratic Congress and President. Unchecked Democrats don't appeal to me much more than unchecked Republicans.

Over on the Republican side of the street, if McCain loses they're going to have the same argument the Dems had after Kerry, between the moderates who say salvation lies in the middle and radicals who want to purge all the ideologically impure. Of course, I'd like to see the Republicans head in a libertarian direction, abandoning the social agenda of the religious right and getting back to some kind of respect for the Constitution. I think McCain is a small manifestation of the libertarian wing of the party re-asserting itself, but the holy war that could be unleashed if Obama wins a substantial electoral victory would be something to see.

Of course, that's a big "if". The Democrats, as we've seen previously, are fully capable of screwing-up even a sure thing. In fact, if I were a betting man...

[fish]

Unchecked Democrats don't appeal to me much more than unchecked Republicans.

We're in agreement here but even though they will do everything in their power to botch it I think that we will see a democratic triple threat next January. I don't think they will keep it very long. But I think being out of power will help prune the many of the idiotic little flowers that the Repubs have germinated over the past 15 or so years. I consider myself "conservative" so this doesn't trouble me at all.

Any opinion on Hillary coming back from the dead?

[fish]

I think McCain is a small manifestation of the libertarian wing of the party re-asserting itself....

Crap, this was the thought to which I first wanted to respond. McCain....libertarian? We are referring to John Sidney McCain? The one running for president this election cycle?

This is the same McCain whose most recent proposal to solve inner city violence (which incidentally is well within historical norms) is to roll the troops. Like they don't have enough on their plates right now.

Nope McCain is one of the last hold overs from the national greatness school of the republicans....and certainly no libertarian! McCain doesn't know enough about economics or history to be considered a libertarian.

I say good riddance to him!

[Tom]

I don't think McCain is libertarian. He should burn in libertarian hell for campaign finance reform alone. But he's a noteworthy rejection of the religious right agenda, which I count -- perhaps simplistically -- as the libertarian wing of the party asserting itself. This is, after all, the first step away from the religious right in a couple of decades.

[fish]

His "Maverick" streak is merely a pose! He is still the old school Cold Warrior! Listen to him flap over the next two weeks about Russia! Sporting his first erection in 25 years over the prospects of a "real" hot war! McCain would be bad in a time with few international tensions is downright dangerous when tanks are rolling through the street.

Lets not kid ourselves, he appeals to the religious right every bit as much as Bush did because they will always fall for the "support the troops" mantra...Oh and he's not a black guy!

[Scott]

Oh and he's not a black guy!

I wondered when that would show up.

[fish]

Scott,

If you don't think that this is a factor in many peoples minds then you are simply naive!

The fact that Obama is black will influence a significant portion of the electorate.

[Scott]

Sure thing, Fish -- how many people do you personally know for whom such a thing is a factor? I'd like to see your math on how you extrapolate that number to, as you say, many.

It's easy to say, since it's part of the liberal lexicon, but I don't think you have anything to back it up with. You're just making shit up or parroting somebody else. I'm willing to be convinced, though. Go ahead and throw some numbers at me that convince me you know people's hearts.

You're the naive one, sir.

[Tom]

I don't believe that race is going to be a deciding factor in this, uh, race, Scott. That said, there is abundant polling showing that significant portion of the population discounts Obama from the start because of his race.

Leaving aside the obvious race gap that appears in virtually every poll -- and which could be explained by a variety of other factors -- there's this poll from Newsweek that cross-tabulated general racial attitudes with attitudes about Obama. The poll found, not surprisingly, that white Democrats who are resentful of blacks aren't going to vote for Obama. It was a swing of more than 25%. I think that qualifies as "many."

I've no doubt there are people on the left who inflate the influence of race. Some of them surely are leftovers from the Civil Rights movement who will go to the grave believing that racism is the dominant American trait. But there's also no doubt that there are people over on the right who are just as vehemently in denial coming from the other direction, who believe that racism died with Jim Crow.

I refer you to this column in the Orange County Register, one of the most conservative newspapers in the country. The Register looked at the data, listened to the stories, and concluded, "Those least likely to vote for Barack Obama are the quickest to dismiss ethnicity as a shortcoming."

And I, personally, think at least a few of them are overcompensating for what they know to be true in their hearts.

[Squidley]

Let me get this straight:

People who believe that we shouldn't go messing around with the very basis of human society, i.e., the family (male-female coupling still being the only way of propagating the species, by the way), are somehow "on the wrong side of history"?

People who reject the most radical social experiment in all of human history are "on the wrong side of history"?

The same people who support homosexual "marriage" count among their members those who believe that a human society can be constructed without a religious basis--even though there have been exactly zero examples to date (and those that might be counted as such, like the Soviet Union, never succeeded in purging religion before their collapse).

Did it ever occur to you, Tom, that by allowing homosexuals to redefine marriage, they are changing your marriage and what it means? Did you ever stop to wonder why fewer and fewer Europeans, with their plummeting rates of both birth and church attendance, even bother to get married at all--especially in those countries where homosexual "marriage" is legal? Maybe it's because the special prestige that used to attach to marriage has been damaged, if not yet completely destroyed, by attempts to remake it.

Marriage has a meaning outside of ourselves. Marriage is an institution that is larger than the sum of its participants. Libertarian folderol to the contrary aside, it is a very public expression of a relationship, with multiple public manifestations--public announcements, public ceremonies, public display of wedding bands, public name-changing, public acknowledgment in the form of legal and tax codes, the public dishonor of adultery exposed--the list goes on. As something that exists outside of ourselves, it is not within our power to redefine it--and whenever marriage is redefined, it is done so against the will of the people, like here in Mexifornia. I can't wait to vote homosexual "marriage" out of existence in November!

Ah, but the real problem is that mean ol' conservatives are committing the ultimate liberal sin: discrimination. Nothing could be more evil!

Except that all of us not only discriminate in our everyday lives, we also demand it of our government. We discriminate every time we go shopping--by choosing one store over another. We discriminate in our choice of friends and spouses--against the people we don't choose. Universities and employers discriminate against those with inadequate or inappropriate qualifications. And the government? We demand discrimination against lawbreakers, demand that they be treated differently than law-abiding folk.

Discrimination--pure evil!

[fish]

Tom already responded so I won't rehash everything. That said, a few things.

Sure thing, Fish -- how many people do you personally know for whom such a thing is a factor? I'd like to see your math on how you extrapolate that number to, as you say, many.

Actually, I know no one who will admit to it. I do know what absolute mulletheads we are when it comes to race so I stand by the statement without any presented evidence. It is opinion.

It's easy to say, since it's part of the liberal lexicon, but I don't think you have anything to back it up with. You're just making shit up or parroting somebody else.

Technically you are correct since I won't provide any evidence I am just making shit up. I can't remember being considered liberal in word or deed by anyone. Ever.

I'm willing to be convinced, though. Go ahead and throw some numbers at me that convince me you know people's hearts.

See above.

You're the naive one, sir.

Maybe.

[Tom]

As it relates to the family, Squid, I think the most radical social experiment we've tried in the U.S. is easy, no-fault, no-stigma divorce. Certainly, the destruction of more than 50% of the nuclear families over 20 years has a much more direct effect on the family than legal paperwork for a gay couple down the block.

Yet somehow, you family preservationists don't seem all that concerned about it. Certainly not concerned enough to amend the Constitution to prevent divorce. Why is that? Why is it that 11,000 gay marriages get you all in a lather but 30 million divorces don't seem such a big deal.

I suspect two things: First, a lot of the anti-gay crusaders are, themselves, divorced. And second, a lot of them are bigots who don't think homosexuals should be granted any legitimacy in society, and marriage is just a convenient place to express their personal disgust.

You divorced, Squid?

[Scott]

Polls, schmolls. Look, I don't think racism is dead or even dying, I just don't see that it's a major factor in the overwhelming majority or even a large number of voters when they go pull the lever.

Rational people, on the other hand, don't like Barry because he's a hack Chicago politician with overtly Marxist tendencies and a legacy of nauseating associations from the South Side. Jeez, what am I saying? Chicago pol tells you everything you need to know. Tells me, anyway.

[fish]

Rational people, on the other hand, don't like John because he's a hack Arizona politician with overtly statist tendencies and a legacy of nauseating associations from southwest Arizona. Jeez, what am I saying? Mediocre twenty year senator tells you everything you need to know. Tells me, anyway.

[Squidley]

Scott and Fish are on the mark: neither presumed nominee is actually qualified for the job.

Tom,

You're right: no-fault divorce has harmed marriage more than homosexual "marriage" has harmed real marriage--yet, anyway. Still, two wrongs don't make a right, and it makes no sense to further harm an already damaged institution.

As for banning divorce--that's nuts. Even Jesus recognized divorce, obliquely anyway, with his condemnation of divorce in the absence of adultery (Commandment #7 and all that). Incidentally, if homosexuality were OK with Jesus, doncha think He would have mentioned it? I mean, He did tell us that the kosher dietary laws were no longer necessary, so why would He have failed to mention a sin so grievous it got Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed?

Back to your comment. I am disappointed in your attempt to make my personal history--whatever it may be--somehow relevant to the issue. You're hoping to ensnare me in the second greatest liberal sin, the one right after Thou Shalt Not Discriminate, namely, Thou Shalt Not Be A Hypocrite. Sorry, not gonna play that game. Besides, I thought you were above ad hominem tactics.

[Tom]

Sounds to me, Squid, like you're divorced more than once.

It's interesting how people forgive their own sins while demanding government intervention to stop the sins of others. All those years Rush Limbaugh called out for getting tough on crime, but when he got addicted to drugs and committed criminal acts to service his addiction, he was all about medical treatment. You seem to imply that hypocrisy is a conservative trait; I couldn't agree more.

And why is banning divorce nuts? If protection of the family is your motivation, why not go after the biggest threat? I don't recall the part of the Bible where Christ said we should go after the weakest among us while letting the strong off the hook. Perhaps you can enlighten me.

Finally, Christ didn't say or do anything that "recognized" divorce in any sense as acceptable. You refer to the Seventh Commandment, but that says nothing about divorce. Christ spoke directly about divorce and remarriage in Matthew 19:9: "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

If your motivation is the protection of the family by application of Biblical morality, and if you follow in the footsteps of Christ who didn't back away when he faced overwhelming power, why would you be more outraged about gay marriage than about divorce? Why wouldn't you advocate amending the Constitution to outlaw divorce?

I go back to my original thesis: you've got issues with homosexuality that go beyond protection of the family.

[Scott]

Mediocre twenty year senator > one-term Chicago hack

But not by much.

[fish]

Mediocre twenty year senator > one-term Chicago hack

But not by much.

I disagree.

But not by much.