On balance I agree with this post (as you might guess). But Thompson's reference to Lawrence vs. Texas as the decision that "decriminalized sodomy" will alienate a lot of people, even though it's exactly the right point of reference for his specific target audience.
For what it's worth I not only believe, but also want to believe, that the strict constructionist view of the Constitution is more accurate than the loose constructionist view -- yet that Lawrence was decided correctly.
Fortunately for me, Randy Barnett's view of the Constitution is one way to resolve those competing instincts.
I approved of this quote the first time I heard it. (Think of the contrast between Ronald Reagan's image, and the caricature of Jimmy Carter overhauling the White House tennis court schedule.)
But then Mickey Kaus had to go convince me otherwise:
there are cris[e]s requiring quick, coordinated action, and the type of leader who can act effectively in a crisis is likely to be a good "operating officer" rather than a visionary
Obama would make a fantastic peacetime president.
As far as I can tell this article never mentions a party affiliation.
I thought I finally knew which presidential candidate would get my ballot in the California primary. I considered posting it, and asking whether my choice surprised you.
Then I talked to my wife about it and she talked me out of... not out of the choice itself so much as out of being certain about it. She reminded me why I'd previously been so opposed to the same candidate. I told her everything I've picked up from reading blogs and news articles (sadly, in about that order) over the past couple weeks. I came away from that conversation thinking that although I'd kept closer track of how the races were going, she had a better perspective on the candidates precisely by taking the longer view.
Anyway, I think my choice is between four candidates. Feel free to talk me into or out of one. (If you want me to vote for someone other than those four, feel free to advocate, but understand that you probably won't sway me.)
1. Barack Obama. This isn't a vote against Hillary so much as a vote against {Hillary and John Edwards}. I told Julia that I'd learned two things from Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively -- Iowa showed me Hillary can be stopped; New Hampshire told me she must be stopped.
What's so great about Obama? His leadership skills are tremendous. Of all the candidates, he's the one I like most as a person (from what I know about them all at this point). He's certainly one of the smartest.
To the extent that this article describes his positions accurately, his economic platform includes most of what I'd want from a Republican (with the conspicuous exception that the last full paragraph implies that he'd raise taxes). Based on the first few comments to that article, those positions are feared and loathed by a lot of the same people whose own economic views I fear and loathe.
To the extent that this NY Times piece accurately describes Obama's approach, he understands a very important point about how the world works (and how unintended consequences work) that I think even some people who mouth GOP talking points too frequently forget.
The big red flag here is foreign policy. Obama's certainly more dovish than I would be (though less dovish than, say, Ron Paul), and there's a worry that the rest of the world would treat him as a pushover. If I did end up backing Obama, you could safely infer that I've become a lot more optimistic (foolishly so?) about our chances of avoiding/withstanding the next major act of terror.
2. Fred Thompson. If this election were decided by position papers I think he'd have my support, just like seemingly every conservative blogger has that "Fred '08" logo. But I'm ambivalent about whether he's a viable candidate, and with the races so close I'm not interested in throwing away my vote if he isn't.
Regrettably, I also tend to agree with this Glenn Reynolds critique: "He can give good speeches and make sound policy decisions, but his management abilities, as demonstrated in this campaign so far, have been less than stellar."
3. Rudy Giuliani. Unlike a lot of people I'm not too worried about whether he can win the nomination. Remember that as polling data goes he's still the nationwide ostensible front-runner. Would he really win in November though? Also, I worry that he'll descend to self-parody, or at least remain one-dimensional. Finally, even though he's plainly pro-business, there's a big difference between pro-business and pro-market; I'm not convinced he's pro-market.
4. John McCain. Most of the national security motivation I'd have for supporting Rudy also applies to McCain. On the other hand, like Rudy he has way too much faith in what the government can do (without screwing things up) and way too little discretion in what the government ought to be up to.
I also think there's a very strong game-theoretic chance of a McCain-Huckabee ticket, especially if no GOP candidate gets to the convention with a delegate majority.
1. Yes. Then again, isn't this actually the hardest of the early questions?
2. Yes. They're not even the same type of thing.
3. Yes, by color and texture.
4. Yes, unless the latter is a metaphor.
5. Not that I know of. (Who's "they"?)
6. Not that I know of.
7. Maybe. Actually it looks pretty foggy.
8. Definitely not.
9. I don't think so, but what do these mean? (By the way we watched Extras, the David Gervais vehicle, last night. It was good, but not as good as the person who recommended it thinks. But isn't that always true?)
10. Since this is a pretty long bridge, a question right back: How appalled are you by the Fred Durst / John Reznik cover?
11. Why thank you.
12. Nope, I don't really feel that way.
13. On the contrary, I keep finding myself up to different things.
14. I'd have to say no.
I agree with (identify with?) nearly everything in this column.
Except the end: "I hope Mr. Romney does well enough in Michigan today that he gets the opportunity to introduce the public to the real Mitt Romney."
Never, ever trust a politician who comports himself (or herself!) so ineptly that supporters have to keep insisting that you don't know "the real" Mr[s]. X. The correlation between skilled campaigning and skilled governance is flawed at best, but this is surely part of the common ground between the two.
Matt Loves the '80s begins with the most underrated song of that decade. Think of it as a time capsule. (The pre-song part of the video is every bit as good as I'd remembered.)
Plus side: Is it really accurate to call him left-libertarian? Does the linked-to article accurately describe Obama's positions? If so, sign me up!
(It seems strange to me that there would be ambiguity, or argument, about what a candidate's positions are. You can argue about whether those positions are correct, whether supported programs are consistent with supported positions, unintended consequences, etc., but in this information age you'd think candidates' own views would be more widely circulated.)
Minus side: I guess this should be worrisome, though honestly I don't see any particular problem. If I were ambivalent about Obama this might have had some small effect; if I disliked him as a candidate maybe this would have lowered my opinion. It doesn't seem to tell us much about him, though, or so I claim.
(N.B. I've also utterly failed to object when various Republican candidates have visited Bob Jones University during their South Carolina campaigns. Either they're not doing this in 2008, or it's not making the news, or I'm just not noticing.)
We read the paper version yesterday; you can read the on-line version here.
At one point the article mentions three hypothetical situations that most people supposedly find immoral. My immediate reaction was a complete lack of objection to any of the three. (Admittedly, my eyes glazed over a critical detail in one of the three. I fervently defended my original position even after catching the important detail: That might be an example of some psychological effect whose name I can't think of (oversimplify a bit and call it stubbornness).)
Julia agreed with me about the lack-of-immorality in the flag case and the dog case. The flag case might have been a moral transgression depending on what standard of conduct the protagonist would have otherwise claimed to uphold.
(Reminds me of something our rabbi told us in Judaism classes over a year ago, that I'll do my best to recount adequately: It's wrong to violate certain Jewish laws/traditions, if and only if you believed in their validity to begin with. So if you assert from the outset, for example, "kosher dietary restrictions are silly"... that's your choice and life goes on. But if you believe that kosher is theoretically correct, yet fail to live up to it in practice, then you've transgressed. Does this make sense? But you could argue that this distinction doesn't apply to any moral rules about treatment of other people.)
I argued with her at length about the brother-sister incest case. It's unclear how much of this was devil's advocacy, how much was rationalizing a stake I'd taken, and how much is what I really believe. I think the two best arguments against brother-sister incest are the risk of pregnancy (you can't just hand-wave this risk down to zero in a hypothetical, no matter how much contraception is involved), and the premise that lots of childhood/adolescent sibling interaction would be really squicky if "these two people can never have sex ever" weren't a ground rule.
The article also mentions two competing flavors of the train problem, that most people will throw a switch to kill one person instead of five, but won't kill that one person with their bare hands (i.e. shove that person in front of the train) to spare five people.
I sort understand why people reflexively draw that distinction, but the way people pigeonhole things is ridiculous in light of simple physics. If you won't use your bare hands but will throw a switch, then what about the case where you save the five people by firing a pistol at the one person? (Railroad switches don't kill people, people kill people.)
[As you know from past moral philosophy posts, I'm in the distinct minority in claiming that you shouldn't even throw the switch. My defense of this is almost exactly the same as what I infer that people say in objection to killing someone with their bare hands. Despite what I claim in theory, in practice I'd probably throw the switch, pull the pistol shove the fat guy, or whatever it took. Unless I just froze.]
Now only partly related to fantasy football.
It's hard to think of a better-looking Internet insta-celebrity.