But does his father shower with him? From today’s Seattle Times.
-posted by Dan.
FROM THE INBOX:Readers weigh in…
The idea that Republicans in power have ever favored personal freedoms is a myth. (I say “in power” because libertarians favor personal freedoms, and some of them are Republicans, but none holds, or to my knowledge ever has held, power.) Republicans have always opposed gay rights, pornography, and civil liberties in general; they favor freedom only for big business. There’s an old joke that liberals want to regulate big business but not our sex lives, while conservatives want to regulate our sex lives but not big business. In other words, each wants to regulate the other.
RE: “I predict that soon we’re going to have-and need-a straight rights movement in this country.”
Funny, I think what we need is just a plain rights movement. I thought gay rights were straight rights and vice versa–how can they be separated? Must we be stuck between those on the insufferable left who think there are inalienable rights to an equality of result and to never ever ever be offended and those on the insufferable right who have no concept of the Ninth Amendment which last I checked says just because a right isn’t in the constitution doesn’t mean it isn’t a basic human right? I think the presumption of Liberty is in trouble, though it probably always has been and has always required active defenders. (And having said that, why are the organized Libertarians so insane?)
Remember when Reagan appointed Everett Koop as surgeon general? How it was going to be the end of science in medicine as we knew it? Well, Koop got in a lot of trouble with the Wingnuts by (among other things) refusing to endorse a “study” that “proved” that women who had abortions had a higher instance of breast cancer, and in fact he very publicly endorsed another, real study that showed no correlation could be observed.
RE: “The GOP’s commitment to personal freedom, fiscal sanity, well-managed wars, and family values,” When has the modern Republican Party ever actually tried to live up to those commitments? They have been very good at using them as talking points in an attack on liberalism, but whenever they actually gain power, these concepts are tossed out the window. Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and a series of Republican-controlled Congresses…I don’t recall any of them being true champions of any of the “commitments” you list.
When I saw your post on beer, I thought it read “bears.” As in you had three bears last night. I got very confused when I read that your brother pours three over his breakfast cereal, but Woof!
-posted by Dan.
The Dish 