Addendum III...

ABOUT 30 years ago, Neil Postman wrote a book titled "Amusing Ourselves to Death." If the College Board is correct, that seems to be just what we are doing.

Addendum II...

HERE are some rational words from another and different Nobel economist: "Think structural."

Addendum ...

TO call this guy a "flimflam man" is too kind.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

READ the decision of the federal judge overturning California's Prop 8 ban on same-gender marriage here (pdf). The money quote:

Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples. FF 76, 79-80; Romer, 517 US at 634 (“[L]aws of the kind now before us raise the inevitable inference that the disadvantage imposed is born of animosity toward the class of persons affected.”). Because Proposition 8 disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification, Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

CONCLUSION

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex
couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

IT is gratifying to be reminded that this country is NOT a theocracy. It is a secular state, which is why everyone is free to believe whatever they want to believe. They are NOT free, however, to impose those beliefs on others who may wish to believe something else.

No religious sect or denomination is obliged to marry anyone it doesn't want to marry. But two individuals are not married until the state says they are married, and what the state and the religious call marriage is, in fact, a form of civil law contract in which the gender of the two parties entering into that contract is irrelevant. This is a rationalist secular view that is, of course, offensive to would-be theocrats. I will suggest that anyone wishing to live in a theocracy consider Saudi Arabia, Iran or Israel. In the meantime, let the rest of us enjoy simply being the human beings that we are.

It will be interesting, though, to see how near to a theocracy a right-wing Supreme Court will want us to be.

Monday, August 2, 2010

THE comment below, offered to an Opinionator essay about the Arizona immigration law, helps explain, perhaps, why Republican congresses during the George W. years did nothing about immigration reform and now wants to claim, inaccurately, that Obama isn't doing enough:

Michael Wolfe
Henderson, Texas
July 31st, 2010
9:38 am

There was an article in the Times about Obama and immigration about a month ago. It said that, from Reagan to Bush, Jr., the Presidents all ordered the INS (then the ICE) to make raids, TV crews and newspaper in tow, to show they were doing something about immigration. This only affected a few thousand (out of millions) of undocumented workers.

President Obama, according to the article, turned enforcement over to the IRS, a much larger and more tenacious organisation. Before, businesses could deduct payroll expenses from their taxes without providing legitimate SSNs; Obama ordered that all businesses must now provide, for all employees, valid SSNs or face fines large enough to close the businesses. Fake IDs that fooled the INS and ICE cannot get past the IRS computers, and millions of undocumented workers have lost their jobs. But quietly, with no raids and arrests for the TV cameras. With no way to obtain jobs, they have no way to support themselves if they remain in the US, so they are very quietly leaving.

For which the right is justifiably complaining: the old way provided ample entertainment to mollify irate citizens on the nightly news without imposing undue burdens on businesses who need sub-minimum wage labour to remain profitable. ...

Indeed, it seems "the Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers," according to the Washington Post. But isn't that what the rightwingers and the nativists say they want? Or is it really, as usual, all about money?