dangerous liberty

The great and merciful Allah pundit gets a free radio promo - and deservedly so - anyone this funny cannot avoid wider recognition!

Scroll down and check out his mosque signs - a hoot!

I read Mandrake’s post on this piece in Commentary: Fisking material.

I don’t understand why this piece is so ‘awful’ that it needs a fisking. Nothing in the article seemed to be misrepresentative of any facts.

This stood out as somewhat absurd:

In a gay marriage, one of two men must play the woman, or one of two women must play the man. “Play” here means travesty—burlesque. Not that their love is a travesty; but their participation in a ceremony that apes the marriage bond, with all that goes into it, is a travesty. Their taking-over of the form of this crucial and fragile connection of opposites is a travesty of marriage’s purpose of protecting, actually and symbolically, the woman who enters into marriage with a man. To burlesque that purpose weakens those protections, and is essentially and profoundly anti-female.

In many gay partnerships I’ve witnessed (mostly lesbians), there does seem to be a masculine and feminine representation in most cases. It always confused me why a guy who fancies his own sex would be attracted to a sissy. It seems to me, if one is homosexual, one would be attracted to masculine men. The same for lesbians - I would think they’d be attracted to the feminine female, not the butch.

I think it entirely possible however, for a girly girl to be with a girly girl and neither needs to ‘play’ husband. The same for manly men - why would one HAVE to play wife?

Regardless, I thought the piece was balanced, presented the pro-gay marriage side’s views fairly, honestly assessed the cultural attitude shift, then proceded to make a good case for preserving traditional marriage in law.

I cannot say I disagree, though I do think it fair to give gays certain contractual rights under the law (as my prior post explains). Just don’t call it marriage, because it really isn’t - even if the law says so, because marriage transcends and predates our laws.

Hardly deserving of fisking. I’d love to see someone try!

David Brooks in the NY Times, The Power of Marriage.

An excerpt:

Today marriage is in crisis. Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. Worse, in some circles, marriage is not even expected. Men and women shack up for a while, produce children and then float off to shack up with someone else.

Marriage is in crisis because marriage, which relies on a culture of fidelity, is now asked to survive in a culture of contingency. Today, individual choice is held up as the highest value: choice of lifestyles, choice of identities, choice of cellphone rate plans. Freedom is a wonderful thing, but the culture of contingency means that the marriage bond, which is supposed to be a sacred vow till death do us part, is now more likely to be seen as an easily canceled contract.

…

Still, even in this time of crisis, every human being in the United States has the chance to move from the path of contingency to the path of marital fidelity — except homosexuals. Gays and lesbians are banned from marriage and forbidden to enter into this powerful and ennobling institution. A gay or lesbian couple may love each other as deeply as any two people, but when you meet a member of such a couple at a party, he or she then introduces you to a “partner,” a word that reeks of contingency.

I don’t agree with everything Brooks says, but he makes a good case.

I personally think the state should get out of the marriage regulation business and simply enforce contracts, which marriages are, at minimum - to share lives, fortunes, sorrows and joys - and have legal rights to each other.

The ‘institution of marriage’ was crumbling long before Gays began clamoring for ‘marriage’. It is weakened already.

I think what is important is to make sure there are not more than two competing parties in this contract. As for homosexuality and sin - I’m content to let God be the judge of that. Any church I attend will not have gay clergy or ignore what the bible says about sin.

But I’m far more concerned about living up to my own understanding of what God requires from me than to use the apparatus of the government to penalize someone else for sinning according to my definition.

I’m content to let God sort it all out.

One caveat - there are gays with radical agendas - some to redefine marriage to a meaningless point - I think marriage should be defined as man and woman, but it is a definition our culture must choose, not our elected officials.

UPDATE: The Corner has a bevy of posts on this subject - see Nov 23-24, insightful stuff by Ponnuru, Goldberg and a cameo blog by David Horowitz.

Listen to what Tony Blair had to say at the end of his recent press conference with G. Bush (you need real player).

I find his argument compelling. I’m certain many individuals in Iraq and the Arab world would love to live in peace and prosperity, I’m just not sure their cultures are suited to it right now.

Success in Iraq, I think, would go a long way toward changing that culture - because increased trade and increased interaction with Americans will forever change Iraqi opinions, especially if a class of nouveau riche Iraqis are allowed to arise in the marketplace.

Maybe this is all Wilsonian pie in the sky good intentions bound to cause bad unintended consequences, but I don’t see we have any choice in the age we live in.

AnalPhilosopher has a good post (thanks JJ Ray) titled Why Intellectuals Tend to be Liberal.

I think he errs with his title - It should read Why Liberals Tend to Be Intellectuals!

I posted his comments at my local paper’s online forum. Curiously, a liberal history professor I’ve known online for about 5 years, proclaims this opinion yet another polemic in the right wing conspiracies assault on liberalism, started after Goldwater’s defeat in 1964!

If one would like an example of liberal arrogance in action, read the thread. A fisking was in order, so I obliged!

Why this protest is deeply shameful

I agree that context is everything, and the context of this week’s events is that many thousands of British people intend to converge on central London to protest against the overthrow of one of the most cruel and murderous dictators of the 20th century - and to wave placards calling the American president who ordered the dictator’s overthrow “the world’s number one terrorist”.

It’s a deeply shameful context, and though I would not quite endorse the verdict of the taxi driver with the poppy stuck in his dashboard who dropped me off at the demos (”Not many of them traitors out tonight, I see”), he at least saw something that they, with all their apparently abundant education could not: that the two leaders they most scorn are the latest in the long line of Anglo-American statesmen whose willingness to use force to defeat evil secured them their right to make bloody fools of themselves in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and through the streets of London to Grosvenor Square.

I am amazed at the narrowsightedness of anti-Bush protesters, especially where the overthrow of Hussein is concerned. He was as close to a modern day Hitler as they come.

Bush’s speech in Britain today was truly historic. I love that this guy is not grovelling to his critics. If only he would do this with judges and federal spending!

Watch it here on cspan.org (you need real player).

(more…)

From Random Nuclear Strikes, images of a support the troops get out in Washington state: Pro Troop Rally.

Apparently, the anti-war crowd was out numbered 200:1.

I REALLY like this guy’s quote on his blog:

If you believe what Marx wrote, you are a Socialist.
If you understand what Marx wrote, you are a Capitalist.

Beautiful.

The Skype is Calling

Quite cool. I’m willing to bet this is going to be really BIG, really soon!

Get your copy here

This should be interesting.

Rich Lowry and Al Franken are reading each other’s books and will be dueling with essays.