Redefining Marriage

Conservatives like to complain that allowing same-sex couples to get married is redefining marriage. The most common response to this is to argue that redefining marriage isn't necessarily bad, and to point out the many times marriage has been redefined in the past. However, I think the argument can be refuted on another level: Gay marriage is not a redefinition of marriage.

Or rather, the redefinition of marriage which logically leads to gay marriage already happened, and it happened a while ago. The change happened gradually, over a long time. There wasn't a single landmark court case I can point to like Loving v. Virginia.

A long time ago, a woman was considered to be basically the property of her husband. Even after that was the case, a woman was still supposed to be subservient to her husband. He had authority over her.

But over time that changed. Eventually, a marriage was no longer a relationship between owner and property, or between superior and inferior. It became a relationship between equal and equal. And once that happened, there was no longer a masculine role and a feminine role, and thus no need for a man and a woman. Just two people.

Equality of Opportunity

But there's a fundamental question on the meaning of "fairness." Does fairness mean everybody makes the same amount of money? Or does fairness mean everybody gets the opportunity to make the same amount of money?
-Rick Warren

This is a common thing among right-wingers, talking about how the left wants equality of outcome, but the right wants equality of opportunity. But it's not true.

I don't think anyone is especially interested in achieving either of those things (though democrat positions are a little closer to it). If you were really interested in having equality of opportunity, you know what one of the first things you should do is?

Ban private schools. Or at least make it so everyone can get in regardless of how much money their parents have, which would effectively just make them public schools. A better education means more and better opportunities. That's hardly equal, and it's not like it's poor kids' fault that they have poor parents.

But no one wants something like that. And I can't blame them. It's a bit too Harrison Bergeron, making things worse to make them more equal. Nonetheless, allows private schools allows inequality of opportunity.

Beyond that, "It takes money to make money". By accepting inequality of outcomes, you're accepting inequality of opportunity. A person who has spare money lying around can invest it, and make more with it. A person living paycheck to paycheck doesn't have that opportunity.

And that's only a couple of examples of how our system supports inequality of opportunity. There are lots more if you look, and those ones don't help the poor much either.

Fuck Indiana

Indiana is going to be the first state to defund Planned  Parenthood. For this, fuck Indiana. I've never been so ashamed of my state. Yeah, Indiana is a conservative state, but this is just bloody stupid. This not only fails to achieve any benefit, but is actively detrimental, both economically and socially.

The intent of this bill is presumably to decrease abortions. Of course, abortions by Planned Parenthood aren't funded by the government. So the whole thing seems kind pointless to start with. But worse than that is that this will actually increase abortions. One of the things that PP does is provide access to contraception and information about avoiding unwanted pregnancies. Removing those things isn't going to make people stop having sex, it's just going to have them have less safe sex, which will result in more unwanted pregnancies. And if someone doesn't want to carry a pregnancy to term, they'll be willing to go further out of their way to get an abortion, so the lack of PP won't make a big difference.

Ok, so this bill will actively do the opposite of its intention. Great. What other stupidity will result from this?

This will eliminate jobs. PP employs people. With reduced funds, it won't be able to employ as many, so people will be laid off, increasing unemployment.

This will prevent access to medical services that people need. PP provides all sorts of wonderful medical services like pap smears, testing for and treating STDs, and cancer screenings. PP is the only place poor people can really get these services since there aren't enough OB/GYNs and clinics that accept Medicaid to handle it all.

And this in turn will increase medical costs since it's cheaper to treat things earlier than later. And most of that cost will be borne by the taxpayers.

Really, this is just sickening. Fuck Indiana.

Big Government

Something conservatives like to whine about is that the government is too big and needs to be made smaller.

Personally, I don't really care about how big the government is, not as a terminal value. The government should be as big as it needs to be to do the things it needs to do. It should be big enough to defend its citizens from invading countries. It should be big enough to protect its citizens from criminals. It should be big enough to provide a minimum standard of living to all its citizens. Etc.

It doesn't matter if it's small or big as long as it does those things. It strikes me as quite odd that there are people who do treat the size of the government as a terminal value. That necessary government services should be reduced or eliminated just so the government would be smaller. Although, it seems very few proponents of smaller government support cutting funding to the military...

UnFairTax

So, apparently, some people at Purdue think the school newspaper, the Exponent, is just too damned liberal. So, they have their own paper, the Purdue Review. I happened to see some lying around, so I picked one up for a lark. Here's what was on the cover to give an idea of how "fair and balanced" they are.

Amidst the hilarity is an article about the "FairTax" and how wonderful it is. The idea of the FairTax is that it replaces federal income tax with federal sales tax. Apparently, this will fill the world with sunshine and roses, because sales taxes are perfect and wonderful and income taxes are mean and evil. ... Or something. According to the article, the FairTax will make taxes more simple, more transparent, be economically stimulating, and even be more progressive.

I'll admit that the FairTax as proposed is much simpler than the current tax code. But I see no reason it would stay that way. If it were to be accepted into law, it wouldn't be long before changes were made to it. Things would be added, exemptions would be included, etc. And I would say, rightly so. There's a reason the tax code is so complicated. The world is complicated, and there are a lot of ways that money can be spent, paid and otherwise exchanged. I would hope our tax code would consider those things instead of simply ignoring them.

They don't really justify how the FairTax will be more transparent, besides implying that people know how much they spend better than the size of their paycheck before taxes are taken out. That's true, but the FairTax plan obfuscates how much of what you're paying is going to the government. They deliberately use an inclusive tax system. An exclusive tax system is transparent; when you buy a $1.00 dollar candy bar, you know how much tax there is, because you pay $1.30. But with an inclusive tax system, it's not so obvious. You pay $1.00, but 23 cents go to the government, and the store gets 77.

It'll be economically stimulating, because it will take in the same amount of tax revenue as the current system, but leave citizens with more money left. Yes, you read that right. It will manage this amazing feat by taxing foreign visitors, illegal immigrants and drug lords. Um, yeah. I'm sure those people are spending just that much money.

And this is the best part. A sales tax will be more progressive. Sales taxes are regressive, practically by definition. People with less money have to spend a greater percentage of their money on necessities. There's really no way around that. Now, it does talk about a monthly rebate, that everyone would get money equal to the tax rate times the monthly poverty rate. Which makes it less regressive, sure, but it's still a sales tax, and there's really no way around that. Oh wait, no, "for reasons too technical to explain here, sales taxes are neither progressive nor regressive". Oh, now it all makes sense.

On Liberals and Conservatives

Have you ever heard of TED? There are lots of cool, thought-provoking talks. To the point, this (follow the link for a transcript).



Jonathan Haidt talks about the different foundations of liberal and conservative morals. Everyone's morality is based on five different foundations: harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. Liberals mainly consider harm/care and fairness/reciprocity, but not the other three. Conservatives consider all five approximately equally.

He didn't say exactly how he determined these things, so maybe the studies involved were biased or something, and this is actually inaccurate. But in my experience, this seems mostly accurate. I know I care far more about the liberal foundations than the conservative foundations. Most of the people I know too. And when it comes to actual political policies, it seems that way too. Liberals support gay marriage for equality. Conservatives oppose it for authority.

But Haidt continues that building and maintaining social order requires all five foundations. The first time I listened to the speech, I didn't believe him. But as I've thought about it more, I've come to think that maybe he's right. Or at least, not totally wrong. I still disagree with purity/sanctity, I don't see the point of it. But in-group/loyalty and authority/respect, while they might not be strictly necessary, they are definitely helpful. In particular, the authority bit.

Consider a country with a strong, powerful leader, compared to one with a weak, impotent leader. The former country will be able to do things, and get things done. The latter country won't. Large groups of people need to be organized in order to acheive anything, and people just aren't good at self-organizing. A strong authority and group loyalty help them do that.

Then the question is which authority. Not all authority is good. Stalin was a strong authority and maintained a social order, but his authority isn't exactly desirable. So, you can't just point to authority to determine morality. But neither can you simply switch your desired authority at a whim, since that's the same as having no authority at all.

It's a tricky thing. You can't question all authority, nor can you question none. Like all things in life, it's a balance thing. Question authority when it is necessary, and respect it when it is necessary.