Multiple Enthusiasms

Infinite jest. Excellent fancy. Flashes of merriment.

Tag: civil rights

Apparently, the selfsame self-righteous people who worked themselves all atwitter that Bill Clinton got a blowjob once (and investigated said act for, what, two years, and then impeached him for it) and basically ran poor John Edwards out of town are summoning every ounce of their moral outrage and righteous indignation now, because how dare anyone talk about Sarah Palin’s family. Most seem to miss the point that the speculation about who Trig Palin’s mother is was never about Bristol Palin but rather about Sarah; it was never so much speculation that the kid belonged to Bristol as it was that he might not belong to Sarah.

Oh, cesspool, they say! Outrageous rumormongering!

These, of course, are the same people that frothed at the mouth that Bill Clinton might have done pot, but never batted an eye that Bush had DUIs out the wazoo.

We should be looking at policy, they say.

So fine.

Let’s. Straight from the horse’s mouth.

Palin on healthcare: “Take personal responsibility for personal health and all areas.”

Palin on the environment: opposed protection for salmon, wants to sue US government to stop listing the polar bear as endangered, encourages timber, mining, and drilling.

Palin on energy: global warming not manmade. Supports off-shore drilling.

Palin on education: teach creationism alongside evolution in schools. Let parents opt out of school books they find offensive. Teach abstinence, not sexuality/reproduction. Inspired a librarian to resign after the librarian refused to help Palin ban books, including works by Heller, Huxley, King, Rowling, and Shakespeare. That’s right: Sarah Palin wanted to ban Shakespeare.

Palin on civil rights: supports preservation of definition of “marriage” as between man and women. Okay to deny benefits to homosexual couples. Oh, and let’s not forget: anti-women’s rights. “Pro-life,” except, of course, when it comes to the death penalty.

Palin on Budget: entered Wasilla with balanced budget, left the town with more than $20 million in longterm debt.

Palin on Foreign Policy and Immigration: oh, wait. No real policies recorded for that yet. Her son’s in Iraq, though, and everyone knows McCain wants bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran.

(source: On The Issues)

Forget the kids: does Sarah Palin really sound to you like the type of candidate America needs? I swear it’s like McCain chose a female mini-Me who couldn’t possibly be any more ignorant concerning any other issue around. There is not a single policy for which either Palin or McCain stand that could possibly justify anyone calling either a “maverick.”

And you know, just once, I’d like Barack Obama to show up to a speech in a kilt, because it seems all the damned PUMA people want is a candidate in a skirt.

Via Nick Mamatas, whom I’ve mentioned a few times this week in discussing Amazon and POD, I found this pamphlet on the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (warning: opens a .pdf in a new tab), featuring multiple soldiers talking about their experiences being gay in the military.

I think it’s well worth reading. It’s affiliated with the Servicemember’s Legal Defense Network (SLDN), which apparently exists, at least partially, to “Lift the Ban.”

When I was in college, I took a sociology class for which I had to maintain a journal reflecting on the class’ readings, many of which had to do with equality; my thesis, for my journal, ultimately became that I didn’t care about equality–I simply wanted the best qualified, most able person performing every job. The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy had just become a hot topic back then, and my position during the class was simply that I didn’t care about anything besides function. Male, female, gay, straight, black, white, whatever–my ideal is that the people best able to perform any particular job do so.

I still feel that way. I think it’s why I’m against the Orange prize, and also, more important, why I support Barack Obama for the presidency–not because he’s black, or because it would break the status quo, but rather because, quite simply, I think he is far and away the most able candidate to do the job. It has little to do with who he is or whom he loves and everything to do with what I believe he can do.