"Peak Oil": Not Even A Molehill

by hilzoy

(Still channeling Luskin...)

Conservatives are betraying their usual economic innumeracy by getting worked up about the high price of gasoline. It's clear to anyone who knows economics that they are making two sophomoric mistakes. First of all, they aren't looking at the big picture. Petroleum is just one commodity; it's the overall cost of living that counts. And a much better index of the cost of living is the basket of goods used to calculate the Consumer Price Index. Second, conservatives who whine about gas prices are making the sort of mistake that is usually drummed out of freshmen in Econ 101: they are calculating inflation using nominal dollars, not real dollars.

If you correct these two errors, and ask whether the price of the CPI's basket of goods in real dollars has gone up over the last five years, the answer is no. So much for wailing of the right-wing gloom-and-doom brigade.

***

Update: Raznor has more.

Update 2: And more. Vital context here. PZ Myers is devastating as usual.

Update 3: Indeed.

Comments

[Tim]

Now you're scaring me.

[Cosma]

"If you correct these two errors, and ask whether the price of the CPI's basket of goods in real dollars has gone up over the last five years, the answer is no."

I am in awe.

[John Thullen]

Each time I fill up my tank with gas, I spill a few quarts on the tarmac as an offering to the gods of plenty with whom I have a personal relationship. Plus I get to damage the ozone and contribute to global warming, with which I have no important relationship whatsoever.

You know, people, if we could slash all regulation, gasoline would be free. You could drink the stuff and nobody would complain.

[bob mcmanus]

Ummm. Housing and trade deficits (Asians building reserves way out of whack) have acted as inflation sinks.

I consider the CPI and basket pretty much irrelevant. Because of global competition, neither producers or workers have had any flexibility to raise prices or wages.

[bob mcmanus]

Oh. Was this some sort of joke? Sorry.

[hilzoy]

Bob M: yep. (Luskin: the stupidest man on earth, according to Brad DeLong. Me: trying, without success, to imitate him. It's 'Blog Like A Conservative Day'. See here.)

[Tad Brennan]

hilzoy--
au contraire--you have just shown some success in suckering bob mcmanus.

This makes me look forward to National Talk Like a Pirate Day.

[hilzoy]

Tad: just think what might have happened if one of my grad students hadn't been successfully defending his dissertation this afternoon, thereby precluding posts for the whole defense, post-defense dinner, and post-dinner catching up with an old colleague...

[Tad Brennan]

the loss of material is a tragedy, hilzoy. Just thinking about the pearls of wisdom that we have been denied.

But it's worse than that--if you had really been blogging like a conservative, you would have blogged through the defense, the post-defense dinner, etc. That's how Reynolds does it, anyhow.

[Paul]

I'm sorry--I know I'm terribly shallow, but I couldn't help giggling at Hindrocket's remark

"Whereupon the camera went to Ken Mehlman and his date (I think) ..."

Heh. I'm not surprised Ken and his date are such wrestling fans.

[Slartibartfast]

Each time I fill up my tank with gas, I spill a few quarts on the tarmac as an offering to the gods of plenty with whom I have a personal relationship. Plus I get to damage the ozone and contribute to global warming, with which I have no important relationship whatsoever.

Piker. I have a whole 55-gallon drum of the stuff in my back yard that I burn nightly, just to keep the bugs away. Much more effective than a bug-zapper, and of course Ra is grateful.

[am]

"Lots of conservatives are betraying their usual economic innumeracy by getting worked up about the high price of gasoline."

What. The. Hell????

It's guys like you who are running around predicting the end of the universe and drooling over how gas prices might affect your election chances.

Amazing.

[Slartibartfast]

Um...am, I hate to break this to you, but this is a joke.

Not a very tasteful joke, to be sure, but still a joke.

Say, how many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

[Tad Brennan]

"It's guys like you..."

success again, hilzoy. you probably don't want to get much better at this.

[wren]

Hilzoy, I know your dance card is full, but wymm?

Best laugh I've had all day.

[Slartibartfast]

Hey, hilzoy can't lay a glove on the master. Now, there's artful parody:

Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore.

Not so much reality-deficient as derived from a completely separate reality. I'm thinking Mescalito.

[Jackmormon]

I suspect that you might be using too many semi-colons and colons for a truly conservative blogstyle, but it's pretty damn good.

[M. Scott Eiland]

Say, how many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

That's not funny! ]:-)

The strange thing is that I remembered that joke--and the classic punchline--when I spotted the usual suspects caterwauling over the recent John Roberts document dump, with its earthshaking revelation that Roberts as a 17 yr old opposed making his prep school co-ed, and that he told a (horrors!) lawyer joke in the mid-1980's that suggested that it might not be a net plus to the public good if a substantial number of homemakers decided to become lawyers. Personally, I'd entertain similar doubts if it was a substantial number of crack dealers who were considering becoming lawyers, but that's just me. :-)

[rilkefan]

from a completely separate reality

How's it going in the Twilight Zone, Slart?

Each time I fill up my tank with gas, I spill a few quarts on the tarmac as an offering to the gods of plenty...

"The tyranny of materials [will be] replaced by the tyranny of images; [in the future society] a man is not starved by being denied bread, but starves for believing bread is out of fashion." - John M. Ford

[rilkefan]

It goes without saying that that last bit refers to Baudrillard, and maybe Slart should read Simulcra and Simulations if he hasn't.

[Katherine]

Slarti, as I recall it depends on the standard chosen for a full manual recount, and there are something like 24 permutations because there are two possible standards for overvotes and six for undervotes and it depends on whether you need two supervisors out of three or all three to agree that the voters' intent was clear.

here's their little calculator.

The single most important factor turned out to be whether you count overvotes where the voters' intent was clear (e.g. they fill in the arrow for Gore and also write Gore in the write-in space.) In 10 out of 12 permutations where "any marks indicating choice" were to be counted, Gore wins. In 10 out of 12 permutations where they were not, Bush wins.

It seems quite reasonable to conclude that those votes ought to have been counted, or to figure that those would have to be included for it to count as a "full manual recount. Now, he should have been much more precise about this. But he wasn't exactly making it up, as you imply. So you either are misinformed, or also need to be a good deal more precise.

[rilkefan]

As to the tastefulness of "blog like a conservative", I have to agree with Slart - there's something about this sort of mockery which smacks of intellectual bullying to me.

Now, if there's a conservative you respect you could channel, or a conservative argument which you agree with to present, that would be a post I'd gladly read.

[rilkefan]

Btw, that Krugman comment was a bit of a bait of conservatives - he explains more in his next column.

p.s. why's the NYT link generator still down? Did the Times decide they don't want to be blogged?

[Jesurgislac]

Not so much reality-deficient as derived from a completely separate reality.

In the reality everyone else lives in, Slarti, we've known that a majority of those who voted in Florida, voted for Al Gore, since October 2001.

Shall we do the "Electoral fraud!" - "No it's not!" series of comments now, or just pretend we did?

Hilzoy, this is brilliant. Now I want to see Slarti do the "blog like a liberal" post... ;-)

[Jesurgislac]

Rilkefan: Btw, that Krugman comment was a bit of a bait of conservatives - he explains more in his next column.

Thanks for the link. It appears I've been telescoping October and November 2001. I recall this report - it was, I noticed, extensively reported on in the media outside the US, and for the most part ignored inside the US - but I'd remembered it from October, not November. Odd.

Not odd at all, I suppose, but one for the history books: that one of the worst Presidents the US has ever had was appointed by such dubious means. It's satisfactory in a kind of Greek tragedy sort of way: which is to say, not at all pleasant to live through, but will make a good story once everyone in it is dead.

[Slartibartfast]

In 10 out of 12 permutations where "any marks indicating choice" were to be counted, Gore wins. In 10 out of 12 permutations where they were not, Bush wins.

You know, Katherine, that may very well be true. However, it's NOT true to say that two major media consortiums conducting recall analyses concluded that Gore would have won. Because, you know, they didn't.

And the calculator? Was there really anyone who was requesting a recall of only the uncounted ballots, statewide? IIRC correctly, that wasn't ever on the table.

But he wasn't exactly making it up, as you imply.

Then naming the two media consortiums who found as Krugman claimed should be a snap. Otherwise, he's making it all up.

Btw, that Krugman comment was a bit of a bait of conservatives

I told you he was the master, but I wasn't thinking master baiter.

Krugman: The second is what would have happened if there had been a full, statewide manual recount - as there should have been.

Which was never, ever on the table. Mescalito, I say.

In the reality everyone else lives in, Slarti, we've known that a majority of those who voted in Florida, voted for Al Gore, since October 2001.

I'm sure Gore voters have been hard at work voting for him since then, yes.

Now I want to see Slarti do the "blog like a liberal" post... ;-)

I can't improve on the entertainment value of the real thing, J.

[DDR]

Hilzoy,

You seem to have an underlying theme lately:

How Many Blastocysts Does It Take To Screw In A Lightbulb?

Is this really the path that those on the left desire to take?

1) It's not particularly mature.
2) It's going to backfire.

"Peak Oil": Not Even A Molehill

[st]

There ya go, DDR. Just jump right in. Don't read the comments or nothin'. Geronimo!

[Slartibartfast]

Shall we do the "Electoral fraud!" - "No it's not!" series of comments now, or just pretend we did?

The latter, please.

Something I was thinking about way back when, and something that to my knowledge no one has brought up, is the recount statute(s). Krugman's resurrected the argument that there ought to have been a statewide recount, which is at the same time a decent point and an admission of ignorance of Florida electoral statute.

There was in fact an automatic recount rule in place (102.141(4)), but it only compelled recount if a particular COUNTY saw a race closer than one half of one percent margin. Pasco and Madison counties saw margins like this, and recounts were accomplished in both places with essentially no change to the vote balance. There wasn't (this has since been rectified) a mechanism to automatically recount the entire state. Gore could have filed to recount the entire state (county by county, to be sure, but this was hardly out of the question), and if he'd done so he may have won. Actually the DNC could have filed for a recount, too, under this statute, and it's got to be eating them alive that they didn't do so.

[hilzoy]

rilkefan: One of the reasons I decided to blog like a particular conservative was that in so doing I could pick someone who is actually worthy of parody, rather than parodying a whole side of the political spectrum. Blogging like, say, Sebastian or von is my normal aspiration, and so "adopting" it for a day wouldn't have allowed any scope for jokes at all.

[Slartibartfast]

And here I thought I'd caught you in an inaccurate generalization, hilzoy. I guess I should have known better.

And I'm even more distracted than usual of late, having to debug a nonlinear batch least-squares estimator of someone else's device. Which pretty much means I've got to write a program to generate faux data to feed it and see if it estimates the parameters properly. It's screwing up on the real-world data, so either the real world is wrong (which, how does one test that hypothesis?), or the estimator is. And of course we could be missing some key model states, so that too could be fun.

[LizardBreath]

Second, conservatives who whine about gas prices are making the sort of mistake that is usually drummed out of freshman in Econ 101: they are calculating inflation using nominal dollars, not real dollars.

This is the most wonderful sentence I've ever read.

[LizardBreath]

Whoops.

[Dianne]

rilkefan: amazing. I never knew that Ford predicted the rise of the Atkins diet.

As far as gas prices are concerned, I remain cheerful despite rising prices by thinking about all the idiots driving hummers that get about 1.9 mpg around Manhattan where the price of gas is $3/gallon (for the cheap stuff). I smile sweetly as I pass them on my bike. Anybody for $5/gallon?

[John Thullen]

Hilzoy: "wouldn't have allowed any scope for jokes at all."

That's O.K. Joking when there is no scope allowed is even funnier.

Slart: "so either the real world is wrong ...
or the estimator is."

We could decide to call the estimator, "God".
Then the real world must conform. Of course,
our scope for joking then becomes way narrow.

I was scoped for jokes in June and believe me, there was nothing funny about it.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

I'm embarassed to admit that I don't really get the joke (but I don't know who Luskin is which might be the problem).

I've actually thought that all the doom and gloom about peak oil over at washington monthly was a little bit odd. There have been proposals about gas taxes floating around for years that would push the price of gas almost twice as high as it is now. Why freak out over 'peak oil' worries that are just doing what you wanted to the prices anyway?

[Slartibartfast]

Why freak out over 'peak oil' worries that are just doing what you wanted to the prices anyway?

Exactly. My guess is: no tax revenues.

[ral]

Sebastian, Luskin is Paul Krugman's stalker.

[John Thullen]

".... (but I don't know who Luskin is which might be the problem)."

The kitten strikes again. See, this is what I love about Obsidian Wings. I strap the boxing gloves on all ready to step outside ... or.. I put the big floppy shoes on and climb into my little car with all the other clowns and look what happens.

This reminds me of the times we had to explain to Slart who Tom Delay and Grover Norquist are? Just to get the argument off the ground!

Sometimes I think getting banned at Redstate might be worth it; they know exactly what I mean.

;) ;) all around.

[Katherine]

are there any conservatives who can blog like this? And don't tell me Scrappleface; no he can't.

I also wonder how much further these ratings will fall before they bump up against the hard BTKWB limit, the theoretical minimum for Bush approval. BTKWB (the President’s approval ratings the morning after he pre-empted Monday Night Football in order to Bind, Torture, and Kill Wilford Brimley for his own sexual gratification) has generally been taken to be somewhere in the 32-36% range, depending on the theoretical models used, and depending on if he uses up the MNF timespot completely, or just pops in during halftime. It is generally assumed that between 68-64% of the general public would disapprove of Wilford Brimley being sadistically murdered on national TV while the President of the United States leered and drooled in a blood-drenched homoerotic fugue that they would be willing to undermine the troops in the field by saying so, and would continue in their disapproval even in the face of such arguments as “the President needs a way to unwind from the pressures of his job”, “there was no other way to be sure he wasn’t a terrorist”, “many terrorists have mustaches, you know”, and even “he might have been hiding Saddam’s WMD in his Quaker Oats”. We may at last get some useful empirical measurements of this fundamental constant of political science.

[CharleyCarp]

Just don't try it in http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Turkmenistan-Lip-Synching-Ban.html>Turkmenistan.

[Slartibartfast]

Dunno, Katherine, but this has got my vote for most bizarre, apropos-of-nothing blog post by a conservative, ever.

Of course it could be that the author isn't, in fact, a conservative, in which case I'd still have to put it somewhere in the Hall of Fame. And of course, being a conservative, he could SO have swiped it.

[zettel]

IIRC correctly

I love the smell of pleonasm in the morning.

[hilzoy]

Sebastian: all you really need to know about Luskin, joke-wise, is that he thinks he knows a lot about economics, and writes with the self-assurance of someone who does, but he really, really doesn't. That, and how inflation statistics are calculated.

[bernard Yomtov]

Sebastian,

Luskin is a regular economics columnist at NRO, who has been characterized by DeLong as "The Stupidest Man Alive" based on some of the things he has written. Hilzoy's parody is hardly extreme.

[rilkefan]

Slart, high energy physicists like root.

[rilkefan]

It's impossible to generate real-world data. No one would believe it.

[Gromit]

That spaniel is clearly being exploited for political purposes, rilkefan.

[hilzoy]

Seb: for your amusement, a few DeLong posts on Luskin: Luskin denies the law of large numbers here, a mistake that lets DeLong say of Luskin (who had criticized Krugman for getting his history wrong) "Luskin's "taking off to new highs" is Krugman's prediction of lower dollar values coming true" here; Luskin denies that the Treeasury bond rate is an interest rate here; a totally amazing mistake about Social Security here.

I wouldn't make fun of him if he didn't pretend to know what he's talking about.

[Tad Brennan]

Gromit--

Yes--I think we still know all about that spaniel.

That spaniel would not at all approve of what the right-wingers are doing.

That spaniel is being used as a morbid mascot of convenience.

etc.

[Slartibartfast]

Groovy, rilkefan. Thanks for the link! Still, I doubt they have optical perturbation models in place for our particular optical train.

I could be wrong, though. Taking hilzoy's criticism of Luskin as a guide, I'm going to pretend I don't know what I'm talking about, and I think I'll have little trouble in getting people to buy it.

[Tad Brennan]

katherine--

yeah, the guy is a genius. His post about John Cole on metaphor, ending with the invocation of the Beach Boys, is one of the funniest things I've ever read. (I was weeping with laughter, and trying to keep my kids from noticing, as I was not going to be able to explain it).

His later full Kokomo parody lacked the freshness of instant inspiration, but that's how it goes.

At the same time, I think it may be a little unfair to point out the lack of funny conservatives right now. It may just be due to the shifting winds of political fortunes.

There was a time when liberals had more power, visibility, and voice, and then of course we provided pretty good fodder for conservative satire. The difference now is that the conservative movement is providing such *unparalleled* fodder for satire. It's leaders are manifest buffoons, its proudest boasts have been revealed to have no relation to reality, its platforms are based on lies and deceits that the majority of Americans are steadily waking up to. So liberal satirists can have a field day, while conservatives have to frown and purse their lips and get all prickly and defensive.

No wonder their bloggers appear to have no sense of humor.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"The difference now is that the conservative movement is providing such *unparalleled* fodder for satire. It's leaders are manifest buffoons, its proudest boasts have been revealed to have no relation to reality, its platforms are based on lies and deceits that the majority of Americans are steadily waking up to."

Hmm. Nothing really beats being assigned the "Offical Politically Correct Handbook" by my super-serious super-feminist TA in the basic writing course of my first year at UCSD. I realized almost immediately that the book was making fun of politically correct terms, so I thought she did it as a joke. For the next few weeks she quoted from it often and someone in the class had to point out it was a satire. The TA told us that it most certainly was not a satire and that it did an excellent job of outlining how to use non-insulting language, but she quickly stopped quoting from it. She also had this obsession about men always looking at her breasts. She once implied that I was staring at them which was silly for two reasons:

A) Once she drew attention to them I noticed they were rather small and always very well covered

B) I am so totally, completely gay that I never intentionally look at breasts.

Which reminds me of a funny law school story. I was studying for finals at the library and was completely zonked out. I went to the student store to get something sugary. I was trying to decide between the Twinkies and the Ho-Hos and this girl got offended because she was convinced I was staring vacantly at her breasts. Now I was definitely staring vacantly, but I tried to explain that I was trying to decide between the Twinkies and the Ho-Hos, but when I said "Ho-Hos" her eyes flashed and I realized I had just made things worse.

[Tad Brennan]

okay, you can parallel this bit of zany-ness with that bit of zany-ness, this piece of pompous twaddle with that piece of pompous twaddle.

But you know, the liberal laughs just didn't have as many deaths attached to them, or as gross a deficit. I mean, sure, the Politically Correct thing was pretty silly, but I don't remember it really involving tens of thousands of casualties, or hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, or the good will of the international community squandered.

And really, even at Sharpton's best, was he ever a match for Robertson? I have never forgiven him for Tawana Brawley, but it just isn't on the same *scale* of buffoonery as calling for the assassination of a foreign head of government. Not to mention the differences in scale of their financial machines, political power, ability to sway votes, etc.

No, I think taken in the aggregate, it still deserves the term "unparalleled".

I did find your "Ho-Ho" story amusing, though. I'm sure you managed to convince her of your innocence.

[John Thullen]

"It's leaders are manifest buffoons, its proudest boasts have been revealed to have no relation to reality, its platforms are based on lies and deceits that the majority of Americans are waking up to."

I don't know about the last bit. Kevin Drum bouncing off Matt Yglesias notes today that polls (me no like polls, but there you go) show that a very shocking majority of Americans believe with Frist and Bush that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution in science classes.

Methinks a soporific has been cast over Munchkinland once again. I look forward to 2006 and 2008 when I need to debate the origin of the universe with the Republican Party platform. I suspect it will take up the time allotted for discussing Iraq, etc ..... by intelligent political design, of course. The fact that Bush actually believes this stuff is the funny part.

The Munchkins will sleep the dreamless sleep of the ignorant while the flying monkees are dispatched to spread the scarecrow's straw far and wide.

The civilized arrangement of having schools on one side of the street and churches on the other worked great for awhile. Looks like we're all going to meet in the street, and I don't know about you guys and gals, but my manners deteriorate big time at street-level.

[Slartibartfast]

"Flying monkees"? I couldn't handle them when they were only on TV.

[Dantheman]

""Flying monkees"? I couldn't handle them when they were only on TV."

They gave concerts back then, too. Since they were stars, I am sure they didn't travel by bus, even one as grooooovy as the Partridge Family's.

[John Thullen]

The Ho-Ho's story is great.

There's a Paul Newman movie in which Paul's character is caught by a woman in the back seat of a car looking up her skirt in the rear-view mirror. He turns around and says, "Everyone has to look somewhere".

What edition was the politically correct handbook? If it was pre-, oh say, 1968, I doubt it requested that folks use the term "gay". I ask, half jokingly, Sebastian, when precisely did the concept of political correctness begin striking you as silly?

My wife hates it when she's explaining some arcane point of botany to a male scientist and she looks up and the guy is staring at her breasts. She tells me these stories (I am, of course, staring at her breasts, too) and asks how would professional men like it if she stared at their crotch.

We'd like it just fine, being professional men.

[John Thullen]

If you look real close, Mickey Dolenz is the third ancestor to man to the right in the scarecrow scene.

[Dantheman]

John T,

"We'd like it just fine, being professional men."

You mean you get paid to be a man? (I haven't given up my amateur status).

[Jackmormon]

Sebastian, was that at the Mothership (Geisel) library? Or did you go elsewhere for law?

[Katherine]

I would guess the difference is in the number of targets at least as much as anything else. A lot of the best satire makes fun of the powerful, I think, and there simply aren't that many liberals who qualify today.

Of course there is also the fact that liberals are more likely to enjoy jokes at conservatives' expense and vice versa, but I think it's a bit more than that; when the Daily Show or the Onion or whoever makes fun of liberals I don't have a problem with it.

Maybe it's more that people who share a certain view of the world also tend to share a certain sense of humor.

But as with art, movies, food, or books, or archiecture, or any area of aesthetics, the fact that there's clearly differences in taste that have nothing to do with quality does nothing to convince me that there aren't also big differences in quality. This guy is just plain not as funny as Jon Stewart. And it's entirely possible that comedy has a link to liberalism. Lots of fields and endeavors correlate with political preference. In comedy I'd argue that the source of correlation is that humor is negatively correlated with obedience to authority.

[John Thullen]

Dantheman:

I'm a practicing professional, but I work part-time, or something. Maybe I'm a practitioner. It's all relative.

[Dantheman]

John T,

I think there are laws against practicing being a man on your relatives (dragging this thread further into the gutter).

[John Thullen]

Well, "practicing" in the same sense that Pat Robertson is a practicing Christian.

We both need more practice.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"I did find your "Ho-Ho" story amusing, though. I'm sure you managed to convince her of your innocence."

I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that if she tells the story it goes like this: "I was getting organic carrot juice at the student co-op and this jerk was just drooling over my breasts. I was feeling particularly empowered that day so I told him to quit it. Then he had the nerve to say that he wasn't staring at them, he was thinking about eating Ho-Ho's. Can you believe he would make a joke like that?!? What an !@###%@!"

Just part of the long string of unfortunate instances where people think I'm joking when I'm serious and think I'm serious when I'm joking.

"Sebastian, was that at the Mothership (Geisel) library? Or did you go elsewhere for law?"

UCSD doesn't have a law school. I went to UCSD for undergrad. (Third College to be precise). After living in San Diego I couldn't bear to leave so I went to USD Law School. Locally excellent reputation, non-locally I'm sure no one has ever heard of it. If I had really cared about my law future I probably should have gone to Hastings, but I think even then, deep down, I knew I didn't like law that much. Too bad I had to spend so much money before that came to my conscious mind.

But I love the mothership library. Easy to use, easy to find, and hasn't taken off since it landed. (To those who don't know, the library really does look like a spaceship, and was actually used as such in "Attack of the Killer Tomatos".) See here or here or here or here . A note about that library. I think in the first picture you can see that it stands on a large concrete bed (more than half the library is underground). After the library closes, some friends and I used to play roller-tag on our rollerblades underneath the mothership. It is large and flat, and had those stilts as cool obstacles. That is one of my fondest college memories.

Floors 1 and 2 are the sub-floors. Floor 3 is the empty area in between with, of course, no elevator stop. Floors 4 through 8 are the tower. This made for fun when people would try to tell freshmen to look for some crucial book on the third floor. (I know it sounds like an urban legend, but there you are).

[Jackmormon]

The library is probably the first post-1960s building that I learned to appreciate.

A friend of mine loved the library so much that he got a tatoo of it on his shoulder. Even I thought that was a little much.

I assume, living the area, that you've seen the recent-ish runway they've built for it? I know they're calling it a promenade, but we all know the truth.

(John Muir alum here--I guess I should've known that UCSD didn't have a law school.)

[Jackmormon]

One of my less-fond memories of the library is of the exact spot Sebastian roller-bladed. One of the choreographers in the dance department really wanted to do site-specific dance there. It involved some simply godawful jumping on and off little columns and gibbering around those stilts. Everyone involved knew it was stupid, but there was no turning back. One of my few bad experiences in the Dance dept there.

[Tad Brennan]

Katherine--

"In comedy I'd argue that the source of correlation is that humor is negatively correlated with obedience to authority."

Well, I was trying for the more kindly theory that the humorlessness is not innate in the conservative outlook, just a fluke of political shifts.

What's sad, though, is that there was a time when there was no correlation between conservativism and authoritarianism. Intelligent, responsible conservatives--such as the posters and readers at this site, of course--are a far different breed from the authority-worshipping proto-fascists who have taken over the "conservative" movement. There used to be maverick conservatives, contrarian conservatives, off-beat ones, even unorthodox ones. And accordingly, there used to be funny ones. But not now; not under the yoke of Rove.

Case in point: was there anything more "politically correct" than when that poor kid who sang with the country band, Dixie Chicks, had the audacity to criticize Bush, and was then pilloried by stern-lipped censors all around the country? "That's not funny" came much more harshly from those lips then it ever did from feminists.

No--I'm still not willing to say that *real* conservatives are innately humorless. Just the Bushist regime dead-enders, the personality-cult followers. And they certainly *do* worship authority.

[Urinated State of America]

"She once implied that I was staring at them which was silly for two reasons:

B) I am so totally, completely gay that I never intentionally look at breasts."

1) Well, she maybe thought she was so attractive she'd changed your orientation.

2) Isn't being gay and conservative rather, umm, difficult? [Not to mention a bit ungrateful. I mean, without the liberals and the left (and especially the second-wave feminists), your sex life would probably be limited to reading 1950s type pulp novels with titles like "Sinful Urges" or suchlike, while going on pointless blind dates arranged by your friends & family, who'd think the reason you're still a bachelor is that you haven't met the right girl. So show some gratitude, you damn ingrate.]

[M. Scott Eiland]

Call me quirky, but I'd say that Ur. S of A's comment constitutes a posting violation, aside from being generally offensive.

[Dantheman]

How are you doing, Quirky?

More seriously, I tend to agree -- unless intended as humor, part 2 was over the line.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Isn't being gay and conservative rather, umm, difficult?"

Despite your data point to the contrary, it is no more difficult than being liberal and intelligent.

[Slartibartfast]

I'm going to score that one as both well-delivered and completely earned.

[John Thullen]

Urinated State of America:

Sebastian's gayness and his more or less libertarian opinions about the proper role of government, etc. are not mutually exclusive, if you think about it for a second or two. He could very well disagree with the Republican Party's demagoging of the gay issue and yet remain in the Party because he wants his taxes lowered.

Just as I, of course, can be an utterly heterosexual member of the Democratic Party and probably the most politically incorrect male liberal you'd ever want to meet, who nevertheless is happy to rub shoulders with the butchest lesbians in town because they want to restore the estate tax.

I was hoping to stimulate conversation above about the nature of political correctness and why conservatives find it so appalling with my question regarding the use of the term "gay" that Sebastian uses, which at one point in time was as "politically correct" and ridiculous-sounding as "organic carrot juice".

Being a bleeding-heart liberal, I'm so pro-carrot that I'm offended when any of them are put through a juicer for human consumption. That seems mean.

Sorry Sebastian. I had to have a go.

[hilzoy]

USA: If Sebastian hadn't gotten here first, and if John T. hadn't said what I would have said better (except for the being a guy part), I would have warned you on posting rules.

I should also point out that no one ever asks straight people like me how we can possibly be a member of this or that party. Personally, I think that asking me those questions would be out of line. To ask them of gays is not just out of line, but tossing one little extra annoyance that straight people don't ever have to put up with at them. Sort of like expecting blacks to 'speak for their race', or women to prove that they can think logically. It's just wrong.

[John Thullen]

"liberal and intelligent"

I wanna be "quirky", too.

[hilzoy]

John: As the grand mistress of quirkiness, I think I can assure you, with full confidence, that you already qualify.

(And guess what? The Poor Man is setting up an institute, and we can all have chairs! I have applied for the Distinguished Ottoman of the Study of Moral Decadence In All Its Repulsive Variety, Together With Its Many Pernicious Effects.)

[felixrayman]

I should also point out that no one ever asks straight people like me how we can possibly be a member of this or that party. Personally, I think that asking me those questions would be out of line. To ask them of gays is not just out of line, but tossing one little extra annoyance that straight people don't ever have to put up with at them. Sort of like expecting blacks to 'speak for their race', or women to prove that they can think logically. It's just wrong.

This makes no sense, hilzoy. If there was a political party that was asserting that straight people should be denied basic civil liberties because they were straight, and if that party pandered to extremist anti-straight religious groups whose rhetoric advocated violence, you can be sure that some one here would (rightly) be asking why a straight person would support that political party.

[hilzoy]

Felix: on practically every other subject on earth, people assume that a person can agree with his or her party on one point and disagree on others, and that when this happens, they will go with the party that they think is best overall. So it's perfectly normal to align with a party you disagree with on some things, even things you think are very important. I, for instance, would join (iirc) Katherine in supporting FDR despite his internment of the Japanese, which I think was abhorrent.

But for some reason lots of people seem to feel entitled to ask Sebastian why he hasn't enlisted, how he can be a Republican, and so on, and so forth, questions about the alignment of his political views, as expressed here, and his personal life. What I meant to say was: think about where that sense of entitlement comes from. I think it's what, back in the day, we used to call heterosexual privilege, myself.

[felixrayman]

I, for instance, would join (iirc) Katherine in supporting FDR despite his internment of the Japanese, which I think was abhorrent.

If, given the choice between FDR and another party that would not have interned the Japanese, a Japanese person subject to that internment had supported FDR, and given the reason as "fiscal policy", questions about the alignment of that person's political views and personal life might well have followed.

It is not a matter of slight disagreement on policy matters. The Republican party panders to extremists who see homosexuals as less than human. It is not insulting nor out of line to ask a homosexual who supports that party the reasons for doing so. If I supported a party that pandered to people opposed to my very existence (come to think of it, as a liberal, the modern Republican party is beginning to fit that description as well), I would expect to be asked some questions about it.

[John Thullen]

Felixrayman:

I agree with your sentiments, I guess, but when we liberals are escaping from internment camps, I'm going to dig a tunnel under the homosexual wing of the camp and drag Sebastian and the rest out with me.

Interestingly, your arguments, like Sebastian's, are logical and difficult to refute, except that the political world is not logical ... strange bedfellows and all that and those quirky compromises we make in a democracy.

After liberation, he will thank me profusely and say, "how did I miss that part of the platform?" and then immediately start a political party advocating big tax cuts.

Then we come back to Obsidian Wings and either yell at each other or ignore each other, whichever seems right.

See, I'm so politically incorrect that I FAVOR the military discriminating against women in combat and gays anywhere so they don't get killed. I hope they start discriminating against heterosexual men, too. Or that my son looks good in pumps on his Iraq callup.

For the record, I'd have voted for FDR, too, and given historical hindsight, wheeled him into a minimum security prison for a awhile had he lived. He'd have understood.

[Jesurgislac]

Hilzoy: What I meant to say was: think about where that sense of entitlement comes from. I think it's what, back in the day, we used to call heterosexual privilege, myself.

I don't know. I sit here and wonder how on earth any gay person can support a party that makes a policy out of hating gays, but I know they do: I've encountered too many right-wing gay people who do support a party that makes a policy out of hating gays.

I see this as a form of self-hatred - a gay person who honestly believes their sexual orientation to be inferior and wrong, will naturally see nothing wrong with supporting a party that treats them like second-class citizens. Generally speaking, these are upper class white men whose natural party would be right-wing: who don't feel a sense of solidarity towards other gay people. I am, of course, speaking about gay Tories - some of whom supported their party all the way through the fifteen years of Section 28.

And, no, Hilzoy, I'm not speaking out of a sense of heterosexual privilege when I judge these self-hating gays for what they are. I just see no particular reason to go on about it: I've learned in over twenty years of LGBT activism the futility of trying to give someone self-respect. It's something that's built from within, not installed from without.

[hilzoy]

Jes: I think I probably wasn't particularly clear. What bothered me was less that it might occur to someone to wonder, how does X square being gay and Republican? than the assumption that everyone gets to ask Sebastian these questions. (I think there have been a bunch in the last few days.) It's not thinking of the question, which is easy to understand, but feeling that one has the right to require an explanation of e.g. Sebastian when, as far as I know, people have not been asking any similar questions of other people recently. That's what I meant to attribute to privilege.

[Slartibartfast]

Being a bleeding-heart liberal, I'm so pro-carrot that I'm offended when any of them are put through a juicer for human consumption. That seems mean.

And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber. And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself. And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own midwest. And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil. One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possesed me then. And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?" And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust." And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared, "Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!" Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you Jesus.

[CaseyL]

I think the question is rude because it's personal, in that Sebastian is One of Our Own, and we try not to get personal with Our Own here.

But I think it's a valid question, because it's about cost-benefit analysis. I can understand thinking "Well, the Party's other policy positions are of more importance to me than the one about my private life" on subjects like, say, economic policy and national defense. Not everyone believes the personal is the political, or should be.

What I can't understand is how Party affiliation survives when the Party turns its back on those more important issues as well. The GOP is no longer the Party of fiscal responsibility, it's no longer the Party of Small Government, and it's certainly no longer the Party of a strong national defense.

The Democratic Party lost a lot of its core supporters when it turned its back on the working class. Blue collar families supported, or at least tolerated, the Party's more liberal agenda - civil rights, feminism, environmentalism - when they knew Democrats also looked out for their interests. Once the Democratic Party became beholden to corporations, though, that changed. If you're a blue collar worker who doesn't much like minorities, who thinks women should put family over career, and believes that environmentalists want your job to disappear - then a Party that caters to them AND ignores your concerns isn't one you're going to vote for.

So, what I wonder is, how long old-fashioned conservatives (like Sebastian) will put up with a Party that is doing to them what the Democrats did to the working class. At this point, I think they're hoping the fiscally-insane, militarily-irresponsible, Biblically Big Brotherish GOP is a passing phase. The question is, at what point do they realize it isn't? and what do they do then?

[Katherine]

What bugged me most was:
1) the complete irrelevance to the topic at hand
2) the statement that someone is "ungrateful" for being gay and conservative. Really now. The Democratic party has not exactly covered itself in glory on gay rights issues. It is preferable to the GOP but that is not saying much. The gains the gay community have made have not, for the most part, been granted by straight liberals acting on high. Most of the effort and most of the cost has come from gay people themselves. And even if that weren't true, if you do something because it is the right thing, you aren't entitled to undying political loyalty.

None of this is to say I understand Sebastian's political affiliation. The comparison to FDR only gets you far--there were compelling reasons to support FDR despite his wrongs that I don't see with Bush and I don't thing Sebastian has ever remotely convincingly argued. I don't quite "agree to disagree" either; I only "agree to shut up about it at least some of the time so we don't annoy each other to death". But he doesn't owe us benevolent liberal straights some special explanation because he's gay. I'm not the one who bears the cost of the GOP's position on gay rights.

[Urinated State of America]

OK, I owe Sebastian an apology. It's a feeble excuse, but I thought my comments re. pulp novels etc. were sufficiently over the top to not be taken seriously. However, I'm not a sufficiently frequent commenter here to claim such privilege. Fair enough - I'd also stick up for my friends in the circumstance.

But I was genuinely shocked. I've been reading Sebastian for a couple of years now (I think first as a commenter on Brad DeLong's blog.) His writing has improved greatly over the years (I'd have bet three years ago I'd have beaten him in an debate, wheras now I'd bet 5-to-1 against me).

But from his postings, a large part of his purported antipathy to liberals and liberalism is having been (so to speak) "oppressed" by insensitive TAs, professors and suchlike at his school shoving the latest pinko po-mo ideology down his throat. And frankly, I'm mystified why the thought of "gee, TA XYZ is an ass, but I'd rather have to put up with a half-hour Spartist rant than be unable to walk round the campus holding the hand of the one I love.* So one-and-a-half cheers to the pinkos". Perhaps it's a reflection of how rapidly the GLBT rights movement has come that Sebastian (and ~37% of US gay males) felt comfortable voting for the GOP pick for president.

(Personally, I'd sing hymns to the glorious "mission accomplished" flight-deck landing of the commander-in-chief than be deprived of the right to openly love my honey openly [although she'd probably propose a suicide pact rather than have to listen to me sing].)

" The Democratic party has not exactly covered itself in glory on gay rights issues. It is preferable to the GOP but that is not saying much."

Don't be so sure. Newsom of SF got hammered for his stand on gay marriage, and got personally blamed for Kerry's defeat. Also see the uproar over gays in the military at the start of the Clinton presidency. And something tells me Pelosi returns phone calls from the Alice B. Toklas LBGT Democratic Club faster than DeLay returns phone calls from the Log Cabin Club.

Further, in the American system, where so much is shunted into the court rather than the , you also have to consider the . Supremes nominated by Democratic presidents all voted one way in Lawrence v. Texas; Republican nominees split (and we all know where Bush's favorite justices came down on that case).

"The gains the gay community have made have not, for the most part, been granted by straight liberals acting on high. Most of the effort and most of the cost has come from gay people themselves."

No, I don't believe that. A movement that represents 3% of the population couldn't have made the rapid progress that the gay rights movement has made without other sympathetic groups and politicians willing to form coalitions with it, or without the civil rights and feminist movements that blazed the trial beforehand, or the spirit of '60s and '70s hedonism. (A big element, of course, was the organizing around the AIDS crisis and the reaction to Reagan's non-response.)

"And even if that weren't true, if you do something because it is the right thing, you aren't entitled to undying political loyalty."

Sure. But it'd be nice to get the gratitude for more than a decade or two. I mean, blue-collar workers had the decency to stick with the New Deal coalition for four decades. But it looks like the GBLT community and the Hispanic community's gratitude is going to have a shorter redemption time than a 10-year T-bill. As soon as they can afford the SUVs, the GOP bumper sticker gets slapped on.

[Urinated State of America]

OK, I owe Sebastian an apology. It's a feeble excuse, but I thought my comments re. pulp novels etc. were sufficiently over the top to not be taken as jocular. However, I'm not a sufficiently frequent commenter here to claim the privilege of jabbing one of the posters albeit in a misfired jocularity. Fair enough - I'd also stick up for my friends in the circumstance.

But I was genuinely shocked. I've been reading Sebastian for a couple of years now (I think first as a commenter on Brad DeLong's blog.) His writing has improved greatly over the years (I'd have bet three years ago I'd have beaten him in an debate, wheras now I'd bet 10-to-1 against me). (Frankly, it makes him a bit more interesting than Generic Conservative Blogger #3345; there's a more nuanced journey behind what he believes than first meets the eye, and I'd like to hear more. And I don't for one second believe Jes's self-hating rationale above.)

But from his postings, a large part of his purported antipathy to liberals and liberalism is having been (so to speak) "oppressed" by insensitive TAs, professors and suchlike at his school shoving the latest pinko po-mo ideology down his throat. And frankly, I'm mystified why the thought of "gee, TA XYZ is an ass, but I'd rather have to put up with a half-hour Spartist rant than be unable to walk round the campus holding the hand of the one I love.* So one-and-a-half cheers to the pinkos" doesn't creep in sometimes.

Perhaps it's a reflection of how rapidly the GLBT rights movement has come that Sebastian (and ~37% of US gay males) felt comfortable voting for the GOP pick for president.

(Personally, I'd sing hymns to the glorious "mission accomplished" flight-deck landing of the commander-in-chief than be deprived of the right to openly love my honey openly [although she'd probably propose a suicide pact rather than have to listen to me sing].)

Katherine:

" The Democratic party has not exactly covered itself in glory on gay rights issues. It is preferable to the GOP but that is not saying much."

Don't be so sure. Newsom of SF got hammered for his stand on gay marriage, and got personally blamed for Kerry's defeat. Also see the uproar over gays in the military at the start of the Clinton presidency. And something tells me Pelosi returns phone calls from the Alice B. Toklas LBGT Democratic Club faster than DeLay returns phone calls from the Log Cabin Club.

Further, in the American system, where so much is shunted into the court rather than the , you also have to consider the . Supremes nominated by Democratic presidents all voted one way in Lawrence v. Texas; Republican nominees split (and we all know where Bush's favorite justices came down on that case).

"The gains the gay community have made have not, for the most part, been granted by straight liberals acting on high. Most of the effort and most of the cost has come from gay people themselves."

No, I don't believe that. A movement that represents 3% of the population couldn't have made the rapid progress that the gay rights movement has made without other sympathetic groups and politicians willing to form coalitions with it, or without the civil rights and feminist movements that blazed the trial beforehand, or for that matter the remnants of the permissive spirit of '60s hedonism. (A big element, of course, was the organizing around the AIDS crisis and the reaction to Reagan's non-response.)

"And even if that weren't true, if you do something because it is the right thing, you aren't entitled to undying political loyalty."

Sure. But it'd be nice to get the gratitude for more than a decade or two. I mean, blue-collar workers had the decency to stick with the New Deal coalition for four decades. But it looks like the GBLT community and the Hispanic community's gratitude is going to have a shorter redemption time than a 10-year T-bill. As soon as they can afford the SUVs, the GOP bumper sticker gets slapped on.

"But he doesn't owe us benevolent liberal straights some special explanation because he's gay. I'm not the one who bears the cost of the GOP's position on gay rights."

Yup, and neither do I; one's ability to be with the gender of one's choice seems a lot more basic to me than the marginal rate of tax or the Kelo decision. That's the reason why I (clumsily) tried to draw Sebastian out (although I'm now in the mental equivalent of a killfile).

Hilzoy:
"It's not thinking of the question, which is easy to understand, but feeling that one has the right to require an explanation of e.g. Sebastian when, as far as I know, people have not been asking any similar questions of other people recently."

Maybe if the POTUS' two favorite justices also happened to be ones who believed states could rule heterosexuality is illegal, the question might be raised of other people.

(But kudos for sticking up for a friend.)

[UrSoA]

Argh. Double post and typo.

When I said:
"I thought my comments re. pulp novels etc. were sufficiently over the top to not be taken as jocular." I meant "to be taken as jocular." Argh.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Don't be so sure. Newsom of SF got hammered for his stand on gay marriage, and got personally blamed for Kerry's defeat. Also see the uproar over gays in the military at the start of the Clinton presidency."

I take Clinton's presidency as an excellent sign of how non-committed to gay rights Democrats are. Clinton absolutely had the power to allow gays in the military if he wanted to. He didn't need to consult Congress. He didn't need to ask permission. Instead he did the awful "Don't Ask Don't Tell" thing that has ended up kicking more gays out of the military than the previous policy. He could have even changed the military policy as a lame duck in 1999 if he had cared to. The political power was his, just like the pardon power which he no problem using. Furthermore he signed the Defense of Marriage Act which still gets gay activists hopping mad, but that never seems to be noticed by anyone.

Most gay acceptance has had very little to do with overt legal action of any branch, and far more to do with straight-forward interpersonal contacts of gay people with non-gay people. There are still a large number of states where it would be legal to be fired if the boss didn't like the fact that you were gay, but where it would be socially impossible to get away with it.

Jesurgislac:

I see this as a form of self-hatred - a gay person who honestly believes their sexual orientation to be inferior and wrong, will naturally see nothing wrong with supporting a party that treats them like second-class citizens. Generally speaking, these are upper class white men whose natural party would be right-wing: who don't feel a sense of solidarity towards other gay people.

Maybe it is just because I live in California, but coming out of the closet to my fundamentalist Christian parents and friends at 18 cost me far less grief and far less in terms of my interpersonal relationships than coming out as conservative does in my gay circles. It has been almost ten years since I have worried that anyone in the world might find out I'm gay, but I'm ashamed to admit that every time it comes up I worry (and often rightly) about people in casual gay social circles finding out that I'm conservative. The gay closet doesn't appeal to me at all with respect to the straight world, but I definitely see the appeal of the conservative closet with respect to my gay social circle. And that is on completely non-gay items like tax policy.

[Jesurgislac]

Sebastian: Maybe it is just because I live in California, but coming out of the closet to my fundamentalist Christian parents and friends at 18 cost me far less grief and far less in terms of my interpersonal relationships than coming out as conservative does in my gay circles.

Well, yes. If you feel no sense of oppression due to being gay, because it doesn't matter to you how other GLBT people are treated so long as you're personally safe, then you need feel no sense that it is wrong to support a political party that despises and mistreats people who are GLBT.

I can't, of course, speak to your personal circumstances. But I somehow doubt that you were treated as badly by the gay circles you came out to as a conservative as you must be aware GLBT have been treated in the US, simply because I've never known it happen here: nor have I heard of an epidemic of raping, beating, bullying, sexual harassment, systematic denial of civil rights, and murder, directed at conservative gays in California from non-conservative gays in California. I just haven't.

I take Clinton's presidency as an excellent sign of how non-committed to gay rights Democrats are. Clinton absolutely had the power to allow gays in the military if he wanted to. He didn't need to consult Congress. He didn't need to ask permission. Instead he did the awful "Don't Ask Don't Tell" thing that has ended up kicking more gays out of the military than the previous policy. He could have even changed the military policy as a lame duck in 1999 if he had cared to. The political power was his, just like the pardon power which he no problem using. Furthermore he signed the Defense of Marriage Act which still gets gay activists hopping mad, but that never seems to be noticed by anyone.

You might remember that at the time when Bill Clinton went back on his stance on gays in the military and instigated "Don't Ask Don't Tell", and at the time when he signed the homophobic DOMA, he was under attack by Republicans who were virulently opposed to the concept of a popularly-elected, popular Democratic President. It's just possible that if the party you support hadn't been so anti-Democratic, so stupidly anti-Clinton, Clinton might have accomplished more.

Instead, you support a President who likes to make homophobic speeches about gay marriage, who has supported an anti-gay marriage amendment to the Constitution, and who derives his support from a political group that loathes GLBT people. You may believe that this hatred fomented towards GLBT people by the party you support will never touch you. And for your sake, I hope you're right.

[DDR]

Jesurgislac: Well, yes. If you feel no sense of oppression due to being gay, because it doesn't matter to you how other GLBT people are treated so long as you're personally safe, then you need feel no sense that it is wrong to support a political party that despises and mistreats people who are GLBT.

Geez, I didn't get the memo that we needed to despise them. I thought being judgmental and rude like you was enough.

You're just being angry and mean to Sebastion. I think you are actually validating Sebastion's point.

...far less grief and far less in terms of my interpersonal relationships than coming out as conservative does in my gay circles

Jesurgislac: Instead, you support a President who likes to make homophobic speeches about gay marriage, who has supported an anti-gay marriage amendment to the Constitution, and who derives his support from a political group that loathes GLBT people.

I confess my loathing of some GLBT people just went up a notch. But for others my undertanding and compassion just increased.

[Jesurgislac]

DDR: Geez, I didn't get the memo that we needed to despise them.

Oh, you missed that speech from President Bush, February 2004? The short form: gays are not equal citizens in the US, and do not deserve to be treated like equal citizens, and I'm here to make sure it never happens.

DDR: . But for others my undertanding and compassion just increased.

I'm sure Sebastian will be overjoyed to hear you have understanding and compassion for him.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"You might remember that at the time when Bill Clinton went back on his stance on gays in the military and instigated "Don't Ask Don't Tell", and at the time when he signed the homophobic DOMA, he was under attack by Republicans who were virulently opposed to the concept of a popularly-elected, popular Democratic President. It's just possible that if the party you support hadn't been so anti-Democratic, so stupidly anti-Clinton, Clinton might have accomplished more."

I don't think you would let me get away with that kind of breezy "the opposition made his life too difficult for success" argument if the topic were say the war in Afghanistan or Iraq. Furthermore the two cases should be hugely distinguishable if you are going to allow Clinton to make an excuse based on 'opposition'. 1993 was a time right after he had been elected president when Democrats had a majority in the Senate. Even if Republicans had controlled both houses Clinton still could have unilaterally changed the military policy, but he wasn't even facing a Republican Senate. In the DOMA year he was facing increasing Republican power, so if you are disposed to excuse him for not doing something (veto) which does not depend upon Congressional power and which would have almost certainly reversed the outcome, I guess I can't argue with you. (And if argue that it wouldn't reverse the outcome--i.e. enough Democrats in both houses would have voted for DOMA after a veto to create a 2/3 majority, that rather makes my point about the commitment of the Democratic Party to what it sees as gay rights issues as well.)

For both parties, gay rights is a signalling issue which doesn't actually carry with it particularly substantive set of policies. A Democratic majority with a Democratic president isn't likely to bring great change, and it is a demonstrable fact that a Republican majority with a Republican president doesn't lead to law-makers outlawing homosexuality. The strides in "gay rights" just aren't in the arena of legal rights in the United States--and they haven't been for quite some time. They have been mainly in the area of public perceptions of gay people--independent from the legal system.

For someone who is so capable of seeing empty promises when they come from a Republican president, I'm surprised you so quickly overlook how very little Democrats actually do--as opposed to what they say.

[DDR]

Jesurgislac: The short form: gays are not equal citizens in the US, and do not deserve to be treated like equal citizens, and I'm here to make sure it never happens.

It's the union that many believe is not equal, not the people themselves. While I do agree that the union is fundamentally not equal, nor capable of being equal to marriage between a man and a woman, my personal opinion is that the government doesn't really have any business involved in marriage one way or the other.

From a governmental perspective I think civil unions should suffice for all.

I also think that marriages between men and women are not all equal either. I would completely agree that relationships exist between same sex partners that are far better for our society than many traditional marriages out there.

So you also think Clinton despised gay people because he signed the Defense of Marriage Act?

Or is it just an evil republican thing?

Finally, you could have said everything you said to Sebastian without validating his point about the difficulties of dealing with other GLBT. But you did not.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

I also note the fact that a post which started out as poking fun at bad economic analysis, and which drifted all over the place in the comments, solidified into comments about the appropriateness of being a gay conservative based on an amusing anecedote where a woman mistakenly believed I was staring at her breasts.

Since that led directly into the idea that I am either stupid, ungrateful, and/or self-loathing, this rather illustrates my point.

[Jesurgislac]

DDR: While I do agree that the union is fundamentally not equal, nor capable of being equal to marriage between a man and a woman

It's interesting to translate bigoted hate speech against gays into bigoted hate speech against Jews or blacks. More people seem able to realise how disgusting such comments are when they see them targeted like that.

So you also think Clinton despised gay people because he signed the Defense of Marriage Act?

I think that Clinton, under attack from Republicans who hated him for being a popular President, ended up surrendering support for LGBT people because it was the easiest thing for him to do.

That's very different from being actively anti-LGBT, as George W. Bush is.

Since that led directly into the idea that I am either stupid, ungrateful, and/or self-loathing, this rather illustrates my point.

The only person here who has argued that you ought to consider any relationship you may have inferior to any heterosexual relationship is DDR. But that's okay, because he says he has "understanding and compassion" for you. If you prefer to have understanding and compassion from others rather than gain equal civil rights, that is, of course, your decision. But I know which I prefer.

[Anarch]

Since that led directly into the idea that I am either stupid, ungrateful, and/or self-loathing, this rather illustrates my point.

As a peace-offering, I hereby offer this quote as an example of a stupid, ungrateful conservative we can all bash:

As Republicans were saying repeatedly – captured on Lexis-Nexis for a year before it showed up in a Frank Luntz talking-points memo in 2004 – the savages have declared war, and it's far preferable to fight them in the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of New York (where the residents would immediately surrender).

Yeah, damn those limp-wristed, weak-willed Noo Yawkahs and their total inability to get riled up about people attacking them. How well I remember 9/12 when all those pansies sat around eating eclairs and singing Kumbaya while gutsy Ann Coulter and her band of Real Men single-handedly saved thousands from the wreckage of the Twin Towers.

In greater seriousness: wtf does it take to get fired nowadays?

[DDR]

DDR: While I do agree that the union is fundamentally not equal, nor capable of being equal to marriage between a man and a woman

Jesurgislac: It's interesting to translate bigoted hate speech against gays into bigoted hate speech against Jews or blacks. More people seem able to realise how disgusting such comments are when they see them targeted like that.

Please feel free to take my statement and translate it. Do try and use the whole sentence and maybe even the whole post for context.

Don't blame me for the fundamentals, take it up with Mother Nature. Nor am I the one who is against the government recognizing civil unions. Nor am I the one who doesn't see people in same sex unions as useful and productive in our society as anyone else.

So you can say I am discriminating or whatever you want, but the fact of the matter is I value everyone in our society.

All people are created equal... all people are not equal... nor should they always be treated equal.

You proved that today with your treatment of Sebastion. He doesn't think the way you do. So you don't treat him as an equal, but like crap. Our beliefs seem similar, except I don't think we should treat anyone like crap.