Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Newsweek's Abu Ghraib?: Interesting debate between Andrew Sullivan and Austin Bay over the partially retracted/apologized for Newsweek story. I guess I'm with Andrew on this one. Some conservatives' quick comparison of Newsweek's blunder to Abu Ghraib just begs the question: Do conservatives now think Abu Ghraib, which they've studiously downplayed, is important or unimportant? ... I think I understand Austin's point. But his response to Andrew looks like sophisticated backpeddling to me. ... As for Newsweek, I liked Dan Kennedy's Empire State Building metaphor.
Update -- Now Andrew and Instapundit are going at it. I still agree with Andrew on the torture issue and really can't figure out these days where conservatives stand on the issue (the outrage used to be about inaccurate reporting -- but now it seems they've fallen back to arguing nothing should have been reported at all). But Glenn still manages to win the round. You decide.
'A mind is a difficult thing to change': Speaking of Austin Bay, he has a great link to a blogger who writes about her post-9/11 political transformation. OK, so a lot of people went through similar intellectual jolts. But what's interesting is she's a therapist and puts the transformation into psychological perspective (with heavy jargon). Quite fascinating. ... FYI: I've been giving the whole issue of 'intellectual transformation,' for lack of other words, probably too much thought lately. I'm intrigued how personal it is for people to make even the slightest change to a long-held opinion and the concern it causes about friends and colleagues' reactions. Humans are very sensitive creatures, even as they breathe ideological fire. ...
'It was the right thing to do': Matt disagrees with my post below:
"I've got a bit of different take on judicial intervention in the cases of abortion and gay marriage.
"In the case of abortion, I agree that judicial intervention was both wrong and counterproductive. The abortion debate concerns the conflict of the rights of the unborn against the rights of the fetus-bearing woman. Central to this debate are the important questions, 'When does life begin?' and, 'When is a person/fetus vested with their right to life?' Clearly, these sorts of contentious questions need to resolved in a vigorous debate in the public square among ourselves and our public representatives to arrive at some sort of legislative or consitutional concensus, however sub-optimal it might be.
"However, in the case of homosexual marriage, I believe that, while judicial intervention may have been temporarily counterproductive (all that "backlash" business), it was the right thing to do. There is no conflict of rights in this situation: a homosexual couple wishing to receive official recognition of their partnership is not interfering with any other person's rights. Unless you consider state-approval of anti-gay bigotry a 'right', I fail to see why homosexuals must be forced to wait until the political climate changes to cease being discriminated against.
"When the public sees that, no, everyone in MA isn't having sex with their pets and children since gay marriage was legalized, people of good faith will understand that there's nothing to debate on this issue: the anti-gay-marriage side are motivated by nothing but anti-gay animus."
Update -- Joan has a good take on the Dems' convention vote this past weekend on gay marriage. But my question is: Would this allegedly brave vote have happened if the MSJC had NOT ruled on gay marriage a year ago? Please. It's so safe for convention activists to vote on this matter behind a judicial firewall. It's an entirely different matter when it comes to a legislative vote without the judicial firewall. So brave, Phil.
Update -- Now Andrew and Instapundit are going at it. I still agree with Andrew on the torture issue and really can't figure out these days where conservatives stand on the issue (the outrage used to be about inaccurate reporting -- but now it seems they've fallen back to arguing nothing should have been reported at all). But Glenn still manages to win the round. You decide.
'A mind is a difficult thing to change': Speaking of Austin Bay, he has a great link to a blogger who writes about her post-9/11 political transformation. OK, so a lot of people went through similar intellectual jolts. But what's interesting is she's a therapist and puts the transformation into psychological perspective (with heavy jargon). Quite fascinating. ... FYI: I've been giving the whole issue of 'intellectual transformation,' for lack of other words, probably too much thought lately. I'm intrigued how personal it is for people to make even the slightest change to a long-held opinion and the concern it causes about friends and colleagues' reactions. Humans are very sensitive creatures, even as they breathe ideological fire. ...
'It was the right thing to do': Matt disagrees with my post below:
"I've got a bit of different take on judicial intervention in the cases of abortion and gay marriage.
"In the case of abortion, I agree that judicial intervention was both wrong and counterproductive. The abortion debate concerns the conflict of the rights of the unborn against the rights of the fetus-bearing woman. Central to this debate are the important questions, 'When does life begin?' and, 'When is a person/fetus vested with their right to life?' Clearly, these sorts of contentious questions need to resolved in a vigorous debate in the public square among ourselves and our public representatives to arrive at some sort of legislative or consitutional concensus, however sub-optimal it might be.
"However, in the case of homosexual marriage, I believe that, while judicial intervention may have been temporarily counterproductive (all that "backlash" business), it was the right thing to do. There is no conflict of rights in this situation: a homosexual couple wishing to receive official recognition of their partnership is not interfering with any other person's rights. Unless you consider state-approval of anti-gay bigotry a 'right', I fail to see why homosexuals must be forced to wait until the political climate changes to cease being discriminated against.
"When the public sees that, no, everyone in MA isn't having sex with their pets and children since gay marriage was legalized, people of good faith will understand that there's nothing to debate on this issue: the anti-gay-marriage side are motivated by nothing but anti-gay animus."
Update -- Joan has a good take on the Dems' convention vote this past weekend on gay marriage. But my question is: Would this allegedly brave vote have happened if the MSJC had NOT ruled on gay marriage a year ago? Please. It's so safe for convention activists to vote on this matter behind a judicial firewall. It's an entirely different matter when it comes to a legislative vote without the judicial firewall. So brave, Phil.
