Confronting empathy head-on

'Protest against a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage' by Fibonacci Blue [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsA fascinating thing happened the other day. A Republican insider (at least, I think that’s a fair way to describe him), Jan Van Lohuizen, penned a memo urging the party to get with the times, so to speak, on the issue of same-sex marriage. On the heels of North Carolina’s farce and various other national embarrassments, it is a remarkable document.

He starts out citing statistics about increasing support for same-sex marriage (or at least civil unions) across the political spectrum. This may be a good political argument for changing positions on the issue, but that’s as far as I would be willing to go. The question of how many Americans favor extending these rights to same-sex couples implies that these rights are somehow ours to give, which they are not.

The policy statements he recommends, however, are very interesting. In essence, he makes arguments in favor of same-sex marriage based on what might be termed traditional conservative principles of “equality under the law.” He goes on to eviscerate the tired argument about “special rights:”

This is not about giving anyone extra protections or privileges, this is about making sure that everyone – regardless of sexual orientation – is provided the same protections against discrimination that you and I enjoy.

He goes on to point out the real reason why changing public opinions are important:

As more people have become aware of friends and family members who are gay, attitudes have begun to shift at an accelerated pace. This is not about a generational shift in attitudes, this is about people changing their thinking as they recognize their friends and family members who are gay or lesbian.

The problem with many of the positions taken by today’s Republicans is that they rarely survive a head-on collision with empathy.

He concludes with a shoutout to “the freedom to decide how you live and to enter into relationships of your choosing” and “the freedom to live without excessive interference of the regulatory force of government.”

The problem, of course, is that Republicans probably have some biological imperative to oppose same-sex marriage now that Obama has voiced support for it. Their all-but-chosen presidential candidate isn’t exactly winning empathy points, either.

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Today in the Whiniverse

'SMirC-cry' by chris 論 (own design) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia CommonsPeople are mean on Twitter. That’s pretty much a fact of life at this point. It goes all ways (I’m not so daft as to think there are really only two sides to any given issue, however much we are meant to think that.) It is usually quite amusing to watch the parade of tu quoque responses whenever someone tries to call someone else out on hateful or violent rhetoric on Twitter. Sometimes, though, it gets downright hilarious. Like when a Breitbartian gets dinged on Twitter regulations and whines about it.

From Rick Moran at the inaptly-named American Thinker:

There’s a budding war in the Twitterverse as liberals are evidently carrying out organized attacks on conservative Twitter users by reporting their tweets as “spam,” thus triggering an automated block on their accounts.

Apparently, a threshold has to be crossed as far as the number of tweets for the system to kick in, as well as the number of spam reports in order to ban the user so not all conservative Twitter activists are vulnerable. But several high profile conservatives have had their accounts blocked and trying to get them reinstated is proving to be a difficult matter.

***

A tidal wave of Tweets from conservative activists are trying to keep pace with the organized attack on free speech from the left

[Emphasis added]. I bolded “evidently” because he didn’t cite any evidence. I bolded the bit about “free speech” because once again that term is being abused. Is the government trying to shut down these Tweeters? If not, shut up about free speech until you learn what that actually means. (Here’s a hint: my telling you to “shut up” does not infringe your free speech rights at all. If you don’t understand why, then I am amazed you don’t injure yourself with your spoon every morning at breakfast.)

Golly, an organized campaign of liberals to prevent people from Tweeting? I’m surprised he didn’t link it directly to the White House, since our incompetent, do-nothing Executive Branch is full of evil genius masterminds. Speculate much? Continue reading

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