Comments on: The Wrong Direction On Gay Rights

By: Quincy

Quincy — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:05:51 +0000

Uh… Daniel – Most of the people on this site *have and would* advocate removing all special protections based upon all of the above, except possibly veterans status.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 23:53:59 +0000

So are all of you going to contact your Congressmen to introduce bills to remove protections in employement given for race, religion, sex, age, disability, and veterans status??? Or are you suddenly finding your “libertarian” roots now that gays might get equal protection? I don’t know which is worse- conservatives pretending to be libertarians, or bigots who hide behind christianity.

By: UCrawford

UCrawford — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:53:31 +0000

It’s probably more that he’s not discussing foreign policy…that’s where he goes all neo-con on us with all that “world’s oil supply” gibberish. :)

By: Jeff Molby

Jeff Molby — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:55:11 +0000

What a relief. Doug’s starting to sound like a libertarian again. :-)

By: UCrawford

UCrawford — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:37:56 +0000

Sorry, but I don’t buy it. He’s basically shooting down Democratic proposals out of spite these days. That’s the one upside to Bush being a petty stupid fucker, he’ll veto Democratic proposals just to piss off Pelosi and Reid. That’s one nice thing about a bitter lame-duck president in a split government, he doesn’t have to get anything done and he’s more than happy to indulge grudges. He doesn’t have rifts with the Christian right like he does with the Democrats.

By: Doug Mataconis

Doug Mataconis — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:17:36 +0000

Crawford,

Don’t be so sure about a veto, the article I linked to suggests that he might actually sign it.

Yea, it would piss off the Christian Right but he’s alienated every other Republican constituency so why should they be left out ;)

By: UCrawford

UCrawford — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:11:44 +0000

Kip,

So you’re saying that we should accept bad laws because they’re inevitable? Sorry, but that’s about as un-libertarian and anti-freedom as you get. This law is horrible, as are any “minority” protection laws that give special protections to any group over another, and as Doug pointed out it sets a tone that right derive from the state (which they don’t). I’m all in favor of rights for individuals, but this kind of collective thinking works directly against that. Thankfully Bush will be very likely to veto this.

By: KipEsquire

KipEsquire — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:44:57 +0000

It’s a question of local versus global optima — or, if you prefer, a Bayesian approach. Given that we have these non-discrimination laws, and are not going to abolish them any time soon, it is not unreasonable (indeed I would submit that it is not unlibertarian) to advocate that these laws be crafted intelligently. And basic intelligence demands that sexual orientation (the last unsettled question of bigotry) be included.

It’s better to have a misguided law applied coherently than to have a misguided law applied incoherently.