RealityBucket

I just can’t believe the furor over the mosque planned near Ground Zero. Well, I can. What I can’t belive is how obscenely misguided so many people are on the topic, and that some of the statements made by one of the worst Presidents ever are correct, yet being shredded to bits.

Look… Everything about the planned mosque is stupid, misguided, and couldn’t be more provocative if it were intended thus. It probably is. The location. The name. The size. The press. The one-sided appeal to tolerance.

It is right to feel strongly about that.

However, it is not acceptable by any stretch to attempt to get government authorities at any level to stop it from being built. Period.

Being annoyed by it, sure. Calling for it and in your wildest dreams having any expectation of it being prevented, that is about as wrong as it gets. Protesting? Sure. To try to persuade the folks behind it that it’s a PR nightmare… assuming that their goal is not to be offensive. Using government power? No. It would be wrong even if it were constitutional.

But…

It goes both ways.

Are they de facto socialists? (This is a video, well worth watching, linking gay marriage, corporate welfare, etc.)

Via Glenn Reynolds, an interesting look at what we think of adultery in politicians, and in general, given the Mark Sanford political suicide.

I’d never really thought about it, but it makes sense that we elect people based on integrity and commitment - heck, willingness to do more than pay lip service to both law and norms - to one degree or another. If you are flagrant before the fact, that’s probably it for you, when it’s a marriage.

It doesn’t even matter whether you and your spouse are differently normed and have a relationship you might consider more open than others, or if your marriage has alteady undergone zombification. Public perception is everything.

It may be old-fashioned, but there it is.

After the fact? Then it’ll look bad, as with Clinton, but performance matters and, frankly, perception of your spouse and relationship matter as well. If yours is widely perceived as a marriage of power and convenience, the sting might be less. And even so, look at the frenzy over Monica.

It may not be right, but it’s reality. Speaking of which, Republicans need to tout less morality and more reality, if they are to have a chance.

I just noticed a brief commentary by someone I respect on the libertarian right, and I know there are many others, absolutely vehement against trade with Cuba.

On some level, I can see that. However, I can also see what has and has not worked there and elsewhere to liberalize things. I’m all for a change to engagement, in the case of Cuba.

Trouble is, that potentially messes with the sugar and corn lobbies in the United States.

The price of sugar is artificially propped up here, tied into the whole Cuba thing, and who is more involved in the US sugar industry than ex-pats. In turn, this creates demand for corn syrup as a substitute, and all that it implies, including suspicion of a connection to the “obesity epidemic.” I question the timing.

There are powerful forces who hear sweet music to their ears when they hear folks who might otherwise be onto them cheer on the continued economic embargo of Cuba.

Unconstitutional.

Just like McCain-Feingold.

Just like the Kelo taking.

Not like the “conservative” Court is going to save us.

At least the draft can be reasonably argued as a sometimes necessary evil, despite it being the also unconstitutional slippery slope that’ll probably give the Supremes “justification” to roll over and play dead. Or illiterate, anyway.

If Gwen Ifill were moderating the Obama/McCain debate, then that would make her impossibly partisan.

This is merely the Palin/Biden debate. How could she be impartial if her buddy isn’t in it? Not like the appearance of impropriety matters. And how could she possibly be doing anything inappropriate? She isn’t a Republican! Or even a conservative. Sheesh.

What, exactly, do the freaking Russians think they’re up to? I mean, this? Forfuckssake. Reads like a bad joke. What a bunch of assholes.

Has reservations about Romney as VP too.

I’m watching some folks in a forum rehash bits and pieces of the abortion argument, and in response to the token extreme-right-wing-christian, the much more liberal majority keeps asking, what gives you the right to give your opinions the force of law?

It’s painful. They are so heartbreakingly close to making sense, but they cannot ask the question of themselves, and without that…

*sigh*

(To clarify: They’re exactly right on the topic of abortion. It’s nobody’s business at all. The terrible thing is that they cannot seem to generalize from that observation. If one may not give one’s opinion of abortion the force of law, then why can one give one’s opinion of motorcycle helmets the force of law? Or one’s opinion of proper income distribution, for that matter…they are so damned close to the root of the thing, they could see it from where they are, but they never will. There’s a beam in the way.)

55?

*headdesk*

That link takes you to a nice concise explanation of why it’s a bad idea, btw.