Month: January 2008

Categories
culture National politics

Politics and Marriage

I was invited to share my views on political issues relating to marriage and was pointed to DefendMarriage.org as a reference point. I think the issues relating to marriage and the politics surrounding marriage (gay rights and abortion rights are listed in the invitation and states rights are a part of the political discussion as well) really illustrate that there is more to this issue than simply answering the question of what defines “marriage” in our society. The following statement on traditional marriage from defendmarriage.org really outlines the socially conservative position on the surface issue of defining marriage:

Marriage between man and woman is the time-honored foundation of the institution of the family. This legally recognized and protected union is intended to be life-long, preceded by sexual abstinence and followed by absolute fidelity and loyalty. Such marriage offers security, benefits, and joys that no other relationship can, including children born and nurtured in a home of love and total commitment. Marriage is the institution universally sanctioned by civilization to ensure that children receive a full measure of parental love, resources and attention.

I fully agree with that definition of what marriage is. The question that I keep asking myself in order to define the parameters of the deeper issues is why, and in what ways should the law “recognize and protect” marriage. If we return to a proper protection of individual rights many of the reasons used to justify stretching that legal definition of marriage evaporate. If two people engage in a homosexual lifestyle and establish a loving and committed relationship then the government has no business interfering with hospital visitation rights etc. Our society gains nothing by infringing upon those individual rights.

On other questions, such as tax breaks and insurance benefits there should be no issue. Individuals can will their property to anyone regardless of family connection and the government should never have a primary right of ownership that is functionally implied through inheritance taxes. The same holds true with tax breaks for married couples – there should be no need for tax breaks because we should not have an income tax (which again implies that the government owns the money and simply allows individuals to a portion of what they contribute to the GNP). If we had no income tax there would be no tax benefit for being married.

As for health care benefits for families, family insurance policies would essentially be a type of small-group policy. Insurance companies could offer policies to match any kind of group whose business they want.

With regard to adoption, that is a social service that should not be run by the state. Instead, adoption should be a matter that is resolved between willing biological parents and individuals that are willing and to whom the natural parents chose to transfer the rights and responsibilities of parenthood. No need to worry about biological children because homosexual couples have voluntarily chosen a lifestyle that does not produce biological children. (Even those who argue that homosexuality is an inborn identity must recognize that those individuals may choose not to engage in the lifestyle.)

By removing those issues from the arsenal of those who agitate for recognition of gay marriage, the discussion would be reduced to the core issue of what constitutes marriage. That issue is not primarily a political issue, it is a cultural/theological issue. The government is only responsible to ensure that individuals on both sides of the issue do not have their rights trampled by others.

Categories
culture National politics

Unalienable Rights

On the issues of gay rights, abortion rights, or womens rights I think that Ron Paul captures the truth with his repeated assertion that there is only one kind of rights – individual rights. These are the rights that were called unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence. When individual rights are properly protected many of the issues related to gay rights, womens rights, or minority rights fall away so that the central issues can be approached from their proper perspective.

For example, if individual rights are fairly enforced we do not need hate-crimes legislation because hate crimes are, first and foremost, crimes against individuals which should be dealt with in a manner to protect and defend the rights of those individuals. No amount of legislation will make a racist like a minority against which they hold a prejudice. If individual rights are properly enforced that will serve as a deterrent against racially inspired crimes as any hate-crimes law (this is not to imply that it will stop the crimes completely, but an admission that hate-crimes laws won’t either).

On issues such as abortion we can stop asking about whether a woman has “a right to control her own body” and focus the discussion on defining where individual rights begin – in other words, if the pre-born infant is an individual then the woman cannot blithely infringe upon the rights of that individual, but appropriate decisions can be made when the well-being of the mother and the well-being of the child are at odds.

The more I think about this the more I am convinced that it is difficult to  help people understand individual rights when we have ceded responsibility to the government to ensure that nobody is hungry, sick, uneducated, or poor and we have allowed the government to own everything although it generously allows us to keep part of the money we earn through our economic contributions.

Categories
National politics

The Irony of Supressing Votes

I find it rather funny that we have such a fuss being raised about laws requiring voters to show ID at the polls that a case has to be heard by the Supreme Court on the issue. What strikes me is that:

  1. if we had more voters voting, whatever fraud the voter ID laws are meant to combat would have less effect in a larger pool of ballots
  2. the plantiffs have not demonstrated that this law has prevented anyone from voting
  3. voting fraud is more rare at the polling place than it is in absentee voting where no ID is required

This seems like another case of the law being used to address minutia

Categories
National politics

Uncommitted in Michigan

In case this election cycle was not convoluted enough already we now get to approach the Michigan primary. The combination of having an open primary and having the DNC strip the delegates from Michigan for moving their primary into January meant that we faced the prospect of Democrats in Michigan voting in the Republican primary which does nothing to make the Republican contest any clearer. All the major Democratic candidates promised not to campaign in Michigan and Obama and Edwards went so far as to leave their names off the ballot in Michigan so the only major choice on the Democratic ballot there is Clinton. Now comes the news that Obama and Edwards are encouraging their supporters in Michigan to vote “Uncommitted” rather than allow Clinton to sweep that state.

From the sound of things, having all their delegates stripped by the DNC does not actually indicate that they have no delegates. I’d love for someone to explain how that works for me, but NPR reported that if “Uncommitted” receives 15% or more in a district then those delegates could later support Obama or Edwards.

If Michigan Democrats take this course there would be more confidence in the Republican results there. If they don’t then it really makes you wonder how satisfying this “victory” would be for Clinton. It reminds me of the Iraqi elections under Saddam Hussein – Mr. President-for-Life just loved getting 99.9 – 100% support as the only candidate on the ballot with citizens being required to “participate.”

Categories
life

Historical Doldrums

I continuing my study of the documents listed at USHistory.org I came to the conclusion that neither the Letter from Columbus announcing his arrival in the West Indies, nor The Mayflower Compact really qualify in my mind as founding documents. The letter from Columbus has no political content at all. I was not really surprised by that, I had simply not noticed it in the list before. I had expected to find some insights in the Mayflower Compact but the only idea worth thinking about is the basic idea of the compact which was that the signers pledged to work together for the good of the colony rather than seeking their own personal comfort at the expense of others. I would think that arriving in a foreign land with no hope of contact with civilization that idea would be human instinct 101.

Though I was less than impressed with those documents, I have now arrived at documents from the 18th century so I hope to see more ideas that influenced the development of the society that brought us the constitution upon which our government is supposed to be based.

Categories
politics State

Bloggers – Turn Out Utah

Earlier today, before significant numbers of ballots had been counted, the news coming out of New Hampshire was that turnout was way up and some precincts were requesting more ballots. In response to that, JM Bell and Misty Fowler each suggested that we’d love to have that problem in Utah. The more I think about that the more I am convinced that not only would we love to have that “problem” but have four weeks to actively work to achieve that in our state.

I’ve suggested before that any election with high turnout is a good election. Let’s make this into such an election. Starting now, let’s light up the Utah Political Blogosphere with ideas and thoughts to inspire people to turn out and vote in the primary election. Misty has set a good example by posting reminders about registration deadlines and information about how to register. What else can we do to encourage people to participate?

People all around the country have wondered why Iowa and New Hampshire should have so much influence on our elections – let’s show that Utahns can be as politically involved as Iowans.

If you are interested in pushing for this let me know – share your ideas of how we can encourage people online and offline to get to the polls. If you don’t think that higher turnout is valuable, convince me that low turnout has any benefit to our state or our nation.

Categories
National politics

The Pull of Youth

I can’t really explain why the following passage stuck in my mind from Frank Richs’ column in the New York Times yesterday. Something about it just caught my attention and has been hanging on in the background ever since. Speaking of the winners of the Iowa caucuses:

The two men are the youngest candidates in the entire field, the least angry and the least inclined to seek votes by saturation-bombing us with the post-9/11 arsenal of fear. They both radiate the kind of wit and joy (and, yes, hope) that can come only with self-confidence and a comfort in their own skins. They don’t run from Americans who are not in their club. Mr. Obama had no problem winning over a conclave of white Christian conservatives at Rick Warren’s megachurch in Orange County, Calif., even though he insisted on the necessity of condoms in fighting AIDS. Unlike the top-tier candidates in the G.O.P. presidential race, or the “compassionate conservative” president who refused for years to meet with the N.A.A.C.P., Mr. Huckabee showed up last fall for the PBS debate at the historically black Morgan State University and aced it.

The “they” who did not see the cultural power of these men, of course, includes not just the insular establishments of both their parties but the equally cloistered echo chamber of our political journalism’s status quo. It would take a whole column to list all the much-repeated Beltway story lines that collapsed on Thursday night.

One thing that struck me was the admission that the established leaders of the parties and the professionals of political journalism can’t grasp what is happening in this year’s primaries. The second thing was the comment that these are the two youngest candidates. I had known that Obama was the youngest candidate, but I had never really considered the age of Huckabee. Back before Huckabee was a top candidate I noticed in my study of the candidates that Mitt Romney was the youngest of the major Republican candidates and he was a couple of months older than Hillary who was the oldest of the major Democratic candidates. That was an interesting split between the two parties in my mind.

Looking into the ages now I find that Huckabee is two years younger than the next youngest candidate (John Edwards) and only 6 years older than Obama. I wonder if part of this is more than just the rhetoric of change, but the evidence that the electorate is ready to pass the reins of leadership over to a younger generation. If Huckabee goes on to get the Republican nomination there is only one viable Democrat left who could represent the Baby Boom generation in the general election – that would be Hillary Clinton (unless by some miracle Rill Richardson can leap from 4th place to 1st among the Democrats).

Categories
life

Hide and Seek

I was telling Laura about this and she said I should share the story.

We love playing hide and seek as a family. The kids get into it and Isaac and Mariah level the playing field by staying with Laura and I so we can’t just hide alone where the kids will never find us. We were having a game (I can’t remember if it was Monday or Tuesday last week) and on the last round Alyssa was the seeker. I had Isaac with me and Savannah was staying pretty close as well. When Alyssa came looking I was in our bedroom with nothing but Isaac to hide behind – I thought I would be seen for sure. Luckily Alyssa never looked towards us because she was focused on trying to get the bathroom door opened with Savannah holding it closed.

After she left the room Isaac got distracted with something else (probably chasing Alyssa – I can’t remember) and I hopped over the bed and laid down on the floor behind the bed. A few minutes later after Alyssa had found Mariah and Savannah had admitted to being found Savannah was looking for me and Laura (those who are found generally try to help the seeker – or at least they try to locate the rest of us). I heard Savannah come into our room thinking I was under the bed (it’s hollow under the bed and the bed skirt goes to the floor). When I was not under the bed she crawled right on through and out the far side where I was. She saw me and giggled.

Less than ten seconds later Isaac popped out from under the bed where he had followed Savannah. He then proceeded to follow Savannah as she left the room – proud to have found me. About 30 seconds after that I heard Alyssa come into the room and crawl the exact same path as the other two. Having finally been found by the seeker I just had to laugh at the sight of three of the kids crawling out like ghosts from under the bed right next to my head.

Categories
culture life

Breaking Up

When I saw a disturbing story about a woman shot to death by her estranged husband in my own city it obviously caught my attention. Worse yet, this is coming on the heels of me reading about the breakup of the Nephite society (3 Nephi 7) in the last couple of days. When I was reading that I had started to ask myself “could our society dissolve like that?” I also wondered about what that would actually mean in our time. my initial answer to that question was that yes, having our society dissolve into insular groups with independent standards of behavior is a more or less remote possibility for all societies.

After reading stories like I read today I have to admit that that power of society to create norms of behavior is weaker than we might think. It’s a stark reminder of how thin the line is between civilization and anarchy.

Categories
National politics

Pre-Fix Winners and Losers

Over at the Washington Post political blog – The Fix – Chris Cillizza always does a Winners and Losers post after every debate. While he’s tied up with the Democratic debate I thought I’d beat him to the punch on the Republican side for tonight’s debate.

WINNERS

Mitt Romney: The fact that every other candidate was attacking Romney indicates the consensus that if he wins in New Hampshire on Tuesday he is the clear front runner for the Republican nomination. Every candidate but Mitt can benefit by having this race stay undecided for a few more weeks.

LOSERS

Mitt Romney: With everyone attacking him, Romney was unable to score any clear victory in the debate which can’t help his chances on Tuesday.

How did I do Chris?