Mhendo:
Sorry to answer you out of turn, but i needed to ponder your post there for a moment.
I don’t think I agree with you, but your argument seems perfectly reasonable, and I see nothing to strongly object to.
You. Reeder.
Yeah, I can see that.
Seeing as Clinton created DADT and Obama is prolonging it, while Goldwater argued for open gays in the military and the log cabin republicans are fighting for it, I agree.
Comparing liberals to conservatives on this issue is laughable.
That’s true, but it also makes this paragraph…
…completely disingenuous.
Because, while Bush never used his Justice Department to try and overturn a judicial ban on DADT, Bush also never took all the steps i described in my previous post to get DADT repealed in the first place. So, equally, you can’t know what liberals would have said about Bush if he had appealed the court decision, but had also shown himself to be clearly opposed to DADT, and had taken concrete steps to have it overturned by Congress.
Oh don’t be such a bitch
Oh… Fuck me. I walked into that one, didn’t I?
I may have thought you argued poorly at times in the past, but you clearly ate your wheaties tonight, didn’t you? Touche.
Ummm, yeah except that… LOOK! A PRETTY RAINBOW!!!
Can i just ask why it is that Barry Goldwater gets to be THE representative of American conservatism on this issue?
He made his argument for gays in the military after he had retired from politics, when he was not in a position to actually do anything about the issue. I’m not arguing that this makes his stance less admirable. I’m simply interested as to why he, in particular, gets to be your standard-bearer on the issue, and all the thousands of conservatives who have actively ridiculed and opposed gays in the military are somehow irrelevant to this debate?
When has a federal court declared a law unconstitutional without a subsequent appeal by the Justice Department?
While I do wish that DADT would just die and go away, I don’t think it’s sound legal policy not to appeal it. For one thing, I don’t like the idea of the President choosing which laws of Congress he should enforce. Can you imagine the kind of power that gives the President?
I’m not even sure it would be constitutional for the President to chose which laws he wants to appeal. Wouldn’t it violate separation of powers somehow if Congress could not make appeals whenever its laws were overturned?
Well, he fought for blacks while he was in politics, and he is the father of modern conservatism, and he is why I’m a conservative, and, I believe, the inspiration behind the existence of Log Cabin Republicans (next to Lincoln, of course,) so, why wouldn’t i be able to use him as an example for what is right with conservatism?
Do you think I should have gone with Dick Cheney, instead?
Don’t forget that he was, in fact, a Major General in the Air Force as well. I’d say that that, more than anything else, would have made him qualified to speak intelligently on the matter.
Still, you have a point as well.
Dishonest argument.
I never said you couldn’t use him as an example. He’s a great example of a conservative who held an admirable position on this issue. But you’re arguing here as if his position was representative of American conservatism.
I don’t know. I’ll leave it to you to see if you can honestly say that Goldwater’s position on gays in the military is representative of American conservatives in the period since DADT was instituted.
If you want an exemplar of modern conservativism, then yes, you should go with Dick Cheney – or better yet, Carl Paladino. Barry Goldwater has had absolutely no relationship or kinship to conservatism as it has been represented by the Republican Party for the last 30 years.
You were doing so well, and then you had to accuse me of dishonest? Where was I dishonest?
No. I don’t think it is. I don’t think you can generalize effectively about such broad labels as liberalism or conservatism in such a specific manner. There are elements of conservatism such as Goldwater and the Log Cabin Republicans whom I’ve pointed out who are admirable on this issue, and their are elements of liberalism which seem to be all show and no go on this issue.
My issues are:
- Against the DADT policy itself
- Against the administration’s response
- Against hypocritical knee-jerk wing nut scumbag hypocrites on the left who like to paint broadly and incorrectly and say the Republicans/conservatives are generally bigoted but who pull a fade when their side doesn’t follow through.
- Social conservatives deserve a belated “fuck you” as does anybody else who thinks it’s ok to withhold civil rights from homosexuals or any other group of people who just want to live their lives and exercise their constitutional freedoms.
I honestly think it’s stupid to draw that broadly. Certainly, with the exception of the Log Cabin Republicans we haven’t lived it to Goldwater’s standard.
It hasn’t exactly been a great day, week, month, year, or decade for liberals on the issue either.
You got a point there. Dick Cheney didn’t try to fight the repeal of DADT, and, he has an openly gay daughter who he seems to sincerely love deeply and support. Yes, he’s against gay marriage, but so is Obama, and so was Clinton. So, his support for his daughter, coupled with the fact that he didn’t create nor seek to perpetuate DADT through the court system certainly makes his track record for gay rights, based on his actions, a lot better then either the last two liberal Presidents.
He would be a good example, wouldn’t he?
Seems to me the President and any Federal judge could nullify any law they wanted.
Judge: This law’s unconstitutional.
President: Okay.
Done. Two-thirds of the goverment cancelling out the remaining third. I’m pretty sure the system wasn’t set up for that.
If it makes you feel better, i’ve handed you your ass before. The fact that you didn’t seem to get it is your problem, not mine.
Turns out main stream Republicans, such as former president George Bush, deserve a “fuck you” on this too:
Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) initially filed the suit, a facial challenge to the statute, in 2004. A bench trial began on July 13, 2010, before Judge Virginia A. Phillips of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Six years to trial.
That’s some pretty good stonewalling he did right there.
Alas, your brief foray into cogent and reasonable territory seems to be coming to an end.
I didn’t really see how George was involved one way or another on that issue from the link you provided. Assuming some evidence of direct impairment of the issue on his part I’ll join you in the Fuck you, but not until then.
Obama has come out against DADT, but he wants congress to get rid of it. It will float through the court system for a long time. If it gets to this Supreme Court, it will likely stay in place.