One of the hallmarks of the current American political discourse is ossification: you can no longer seriously grapple with issues, because to be seen even considering a possible change in thinking is a sign of weakness and betrayal. The initial responses to my last post on the radicalization of American politics in response to the Fort Hood massacre is a case in point: an anti-abortion proponent jumped right in to essentially disavow the existentance of radicalized anti-abortion groups, implying that I had said there were only radicalized anti-abortion groups. The comment cites the case of Abby Johnson as a non-violent anti-abortion activist who is being harassed by a Planned Parenthood gag order , leaving out two salient facts made clear with the link provided in the comment : (1) Johnson is not prohibited from protesting, just talking about confidential medical and staff information; and (2) it would be illegal for her to share confidential patient health information in the fir...

... because the post is too good and the idea is too appalling to let Waldo keep it to himself. I can't explain; drive over there and pick up an order of penitence with a side of gospel salad.

Classically Liberal recalls interviewing fundamentalists in the 1970s when Indiana was mooting a law to make homosexuality a felony: Prior to the Rally the Falwellians rallied their troops of religious Neanderthals and had them march through the streets of Indianapolis. I marched with them, tape recorder in hand... That year California, and I guess much of the West, was in a drought. No surprises there. California and the West have experienced droughts for as long as history has been recorded. I mention this because of one couple I interviewed. The woman was standing there in her very long dress (anything above the knees was immodest to them). She had a Bible clutched in her hand and pressed up against her breast. Any one in public, with a Bible clutched in full view, is almost always bad news. And, in a sense, so was she. But she was far more amusing that deadly, though I have no doubt she would have happily joined in a stoning of a homosexual or, in times past, happily provided some ...

I have blogged before about Daniel J. Cassidy, the publisher of Sunlit Uplands [according to Blognet News, currently the number one political blog in South Carolina], who is homophobic, thinks there should be laws prohibiting anonymous blogging,is a birther, and believes that the government is preparing to round up all conservative dissidents into FEMA re-education camps. Today he hits a new low , introducing a video clip of President Barack Obama at a Virginia fund-raiser (you know, the one where he tells a heavily partisan crowd that his political opposition should just stop talking so much) with this title and lead-in sentence: Barry Soetoro Reveals His Inner Thug Here's the great "unifier" in action. A real statesman -- perhaps by Kenyan tribal standards. Most of Mr. Cassidy's posts are retreads from World Net Daily or equally credible sources. This one he wrote himself. Let's be clear: this is protected political speech, but Mr. Cassidy has another title a...

... are not to be found in the whining of people whose identities are already pretty much known by everybody , but in places like South Carolina where my longtime friend Waldo has been taking on the conservatives, racists, and homophobes for two years, despite persistent efforts by jerks like Daniel Cassidy and Adam Fogle to out him in order to silence him. A gay man blogging in South Carolina and calling them on the issues every single day. They don't link to him, but they have now found another venue to try and shut him down: reporting him to Blogger as a spammer. This means the autobots at Blogger cut you off from your own blog for at least 48 hours and possibly longer, while they investigate . Similar methods were used by anti-free-speech assholes to terminate The Girl in Short Shorts by reporting her blog as obscene, which left it saddled with one of those objectionable content warning screens. Becky gave up GiSS, although she blogs elsewhere. Waldo will not give up. I...

Of course both Waldo and I are going to hell for this. But at least that means I'll have a drinking buddy with whom I can discuss the French Revolution throughout eternity. Too large to post here, you MUST visit the flow chart overview on the arguments regarding same-sex marriage . Warning: if you are drinking coffee it may come out through your nose. Or else you may simply cry.

Kafka, not Dana , would be the appropriate reporter for this story, as the AP chronicles the fascinating waffle of the Obama administration and the so-far successful public foot-dragging of senior military officials: President Barack Obama's top military adviser said Sunday the Pentagon has enough challenges — including two wars — without rushing to overturn a decade-old policy that bans gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military and incites political and social factions on both sides. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he is working on an assessment of what — if any — impact overturning "don't ask, don't tell" policies would mean for the military and its culture. In the meantime, the Pentagon plans to follow the existing rules, which say gays and lesbians can serve in the military if they do not disclose their sexuality or engage in homosexual behavior. "The president has made his strategic intent very clear, that it...

As could have been expected, the Obama administration has placed the question of gays in the military way down the list of things to do: WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates Sunday ruled out an imminent change in the "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy on gays in the military, saying President Barack Obama believes the Pentagon has "a lot on our plates right now." Gates comments in an interview on Fox television were in response to an assertion by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs in January that Obama would end the ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military. "We will follow the law, whatever it is," Gates said. "That dialogue, though, has really not progressed very far at this point in the administration." "I think the president and I feel like we've got a lot on our plates right now, and let's push that one down the road a little bit," he said. Probably also to be pushed down the road a little bit ...

My old friend Waldo seems to think I've gone Republican: On the other end of the spectrum lie the were-Libertarians. Unlike werewolves, who transform according to the lunar cycle, were-Libertarians transform from standard-issue Republicans every two years at election time. Take, for example, this Grassley-like pronouncement by The Delaware Libertarian: Make no mistake: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and whatever comes after are now President Barack Obama's war. Do the Republicans become more hip broadcasting the same old reactionary message by a new technological means? Should I be more likely to vote for policies counter to my interests jsut because I learn about how the Republicans want to screw me via cell phone? And why should I want to become a Libertarian if, in the off season, they just peddle GOP talking points (as if Barr-Root wasn't enough of a betrayal of that for which they claim to stand)?... As much as we admire the Libertarians, no amount of shitty Republican off-y...

... and apparently many evangelical Christianists cannot. Or simply prefer to lie. First, the anonymity thing. We've had a variety of discussions on this topic around the Delaware blogosphere, and the upshot is that a lot of our most valued bloggers (kavips, pandora, liberalgeek, etc.) chose to use internet handles , while others (Tyler Nixon, Matt Matthews, Dana Garrett, John Feroce) do not. But there is general agreement here that outing an anonymous or pseudononymous blogger is, as BrianShields pointed out: Outing someone’s pen name in a blogosphere argument is the equivalent of calling an African American the N word in a verbal argument. Unfortunately, I'm not as refined as Brian, so I will actually use the N-word. Adam Fogle of the Palmetto Scoop has found himself, apparently once too often, the subject of Waldo's wit, and is running around South Carolina's blogosphere shouting, Nigger, nigger, nigger at Waldo and other bloggers who use pen names. Here's...

I stole this from Waldo , and you can click through for the earlier sources. It is the narrative of a lesbian attempting to testify before the State legislature for same-sex marriage: You know, it gets really tiresome to be called diseased and a pedophile and a rapist and an abomination and a threat to America three dozen times in one day. It infuriates me to hear that yes, heterosexuals have special rights (at least they admitted it finally!) and that is how it should be because The Big Book of Bronze Age Fairy Tales says so. To hear little old ladies screaming that they would rather see their grandchildren commit suicide than "be part of that disgusting, filthy, evil lifestyle", isn't even remotely amusing anymore. Even better is to, due to the concussion headache beginning to blind me, forget to take off my little green and gold "equality" sticker on the way out of the building, and be followed to the bus stop by a bunch of red shirts with signs. Three 6'...

I really didn't intend to write this post. When Waldo posted The Geek Closet , about the Star Trek franchise's reluctance to take on gay characters, I wrote one truly geek note about the two direct lesbian scenes/references [one in Deep Space Nine and one in The Next Generation], which he took--at least partly--as me evading his point. So then I wrote another five paragraph response ... that the blogspot comment editor promptly ate. I hate it when that happens. So I thought I would sort of semi-replicate it here, with a few addenda. First note: I am not an incredible fan of Star Trek novels [although the ones by Peter David are generally readable], but I have polished off a few in airports or hotel lounges when there was nothing better available. From that random sampling I know that on at least a couple occasions LGBT characters have also made it into the franchise via print. But again that doesn't serve to answer Waldo's question about why no gay characters on St...

... should have known I could trust Waldo to find out for me:

. . . about my endorsement of Dr Eric Schansberg, Libertarian candidate for Congress in Indiana's 9th District. Dr Schansberg is an evangelical, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage Libertarian, leading Waldo to this conclusion about why the LGBTQ community doesn't flock to the LP : I read Schansberg's personal blog- as if, somehow, he can compartmentalize his thinking between what he believes as a citizen and what he peddles to the public on his congressional blog. He's a mainstream homophobe.... If one of the Schansberg boys sits Mom and Congressman down one day in the future and says, "I'm gay," we can imagine what the reaction will be from the member of the Core Leadership Team for the Men’s Ministry at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville- and it won't be a Libertarian response. Schansberg Libertarians are just a greedier version of everyday Libertarians. The everyday variety preach a vague sort of live and let live doctrine; the Schansbergers- l...

This is a contract between the opinions of two people I respect. I have known Waldo for over thirty years, and I have learned to respect his opinion the most when I initially disagree with it. I have never met Becky, but have come to know her through her blog posts, which are consistently thought out to a depth to which other blogs should aspire. Not surprisingly, Becky being a committed Libertarian and Waldo being a lifetime iconoclast, they often disagree. This time, in their disagreement over Senator Barack Obama's appearance in Germany. Waldo sees cultural sensitivity and homage to the Bauhaus style . Becky shivers and summons up the image of Nuremburg rallies and the cult of personality . Both are worth reading, and between them you get a sense of the divide in this country, not between ideologues and pundits, but between somber intellectuals with a wealth of historical, cultural, and literary information as the foundation for their interpretations. In stark terms, Waldo and B...

Tyler and Shirley are both Ron Paul advocates. Waldo isn't. And frankly, I couldn't resist this one, because Waldo in full rant is the reason you should read him every day: Dr. Ron's Paulines are now planning a three-day extravaganza outside the gates of the Republican Convention. Good Republican that he is, Dr. "I hire all my kids but don't give my fundraiser health insurance" Ron will show up for a book signing, at which he will divest the suckers of their money in between their sessions on kum-bah-yaing, organizing for taking over the party by 2040, Star Trek, building solar-powered girl sex robots, and debating the merits of the 100% Ron Paul community in East Bumfuck Gulch, TX now or the Ebay founder's cities on spikes in the ocean later with each resident getting 350 square feet of independence apiece. It's sad, really. All those people who don't realize that the airy way Paul say he has no idea what people are doing in his behalf can be int...

What's really intriguing is how different posts get spun at different blogs, even though people usually have the ability to click through and check for themselves. I've come to believe that probably fewer than 5-10% of readers --especially those who believe in the slant taken by the blog in question-- ever click through to determine whether stories are being reported accurately, or if quotations are taken out of context . Here's my case study for today, based on the interview that occasionally-in-the-public-eye-for-a-few-seconds LP Veep Candidate Wayne Allyn Root gave to Queerty in San Francisco. Eric Dondero's Libertarian GOPer sandwiches in one Root quotation into this characterization of the interview : Libertarian VP Candidate Wayne Root blasts Affirmative Action in Interview with Gay Magazine: Calls for Free Market-based diversity Wayne Root has been accused in the past as having a heluva lot of Chuztpa. He tells it like it is, even if it may not jive with what ce...

Once, back in my extreme long hair days in the mid-1970s in North Carolina (which, being NC, still sort of qualified as the late 1960s), I told a Black friend (there were no African-Americans then) that my outcast status as a squalid hippie ingesting substances of questionable legality allow me to empathize with him. "I can see what's it's like being Black," I said. "I mean, I can understand the kind of things you go through." (You cringe at the things you once said and believed. And at the earnestness with which you patted yourself on the back for your good liberal conscience.) My friend looked at me with a wry smile. He only said, " You can cut your damn hair any day you want." Years later, another friend, a Black US Army NCO (who disbelieved in African-Americans), posed me this riddle: "When does a Black man become a Nigger?" The answer (which I didn't guess): "When he leaves the room." All of which brings me back ...

Waldo continually (and legitimately) raises the paradoxical issue of the ostensibly freedom-loving Libertarian Party nominating the author of the Defense of Marriage Act for President, and expecting the gay community to sign on . People are free to vote for whom they choose. But in the interests of fairness and accuracy, they shouldn't go on about liberty and justice for all. Your position is, more accurately, liberty and justice for me . Now, while I should point out (before Brian Miller beats me to the point) that many LGBT Libertarians see the Democrats in general and Senator Barack Obama in particular are much less gay-friendly than Waldo does , But surely, Barack Obama, the "hope and change" candidate, is leading the way to transform the Democrats' "old politics" into the "new politics of hope and empowerment," right? Doesn't appear to be so: In a recent interview with The Advocate, a gay newsmagazine, Democrat Barack Obama stopped short o...

Traveling again, this time flying into Seattle where I rented a car rather than get back on another plane, so that I could drive to Wenatchee and have time to glimpse the Cascades. I love Virginia and the Carolinas, having grown up there, but Waldo is right . . . God was/is up to something special in the Pacific Northwest.