I Think My Parents Think I’m A Pot-Smoking Gun Nut

It’s really hard being a libertarian sometimes. My parents were down here a couple of weekends ago and we had a long sort-of talk about how I’m wrong to be so, well, libertarian. It makes me feel bad because I like to please my parents and yet I like also to be intellectually and spiritually consistent. Libertarianism is the only way I can do that.

There are times I fantasise about going back to Republicanism, but then I think of how the Republicans in office are in many ways indistinguishable from the Democrats in office. As far as spending goes, that is. I’d also like to say there are times when I flirt with Liberalism and then I realise that, well, it just cannot happen. I can’t condone Forcing Your Way To Doing Good.

I suppose “libertarianism” is the best way I can think of to say “look, we’re all adults here.”

I’m not a pot smoker. Whether or not I’m a gun nut remains to be seen. But there are some other things about me on my mind tonight.

• I have to have two procedures where they snake cameras down your throat and up your bum. I don’t mind the idea of that so much, as I’ll be asleep for the whole thing. Or so they’ve promised. What I AM dreading is that apparently I have to buy this nasty beverage stuff and drink it by the gallon. I’m quite terrified of that. I plan to spend the next 10 days dreading the thought of drinking that ooze. The doctor has promised I may take my phenergan, so there’s that anyway.
• I’m supposed to be writing a 50K word novel for this National Novel Writing Month challenge. I’ve hardly written anything because I am just petrified and I don’t know why. In case you haven’t noticed I haven’t even been blogging. I’m like one of those guys who tells everyone he’s a poet but has never written a poem. It’s shameful.
• I’m almost irrationally angry at the striking writers in Hwood. Intellectually I see their point, but functionally I’m just seething. I don’t ask much from these people. Just give me a couple hours two or three nights a week of something I can look forward to. Something which takes my mind of my world and transports me someplace else. We have an agreement. I’ll put my books down and step away from Age Of Mythology on the Mac [blast them for not releasing the Titans expansion pack for this platform]. You’ll churn out something at least PASSABLE. How hard is that? I know everyone’s fighting over what they think is right and that’s okay, but here’s the deal. I can just as easily go back to my books and my games and my knitting to Books on CD or whatever. Those few hours I gave you each week can become filled with something else pretty easily. It’s like how when I went to Florida my boyfriend took another girl to the Beach Boys concert with the tickets I bought him. I wasn’t there so he found something else to amuse him. If you all aren’t careful I’ll go to the Beach Boys with Civilization IV. That’s all I’m saying.

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Rage and Independence

Two VENTS in two days. Not good. So I’m More tagging this one.  It’ll maybe make my blog look less insane.  Maybe. 

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A Thought On Ron Paul

Am I the only person who feels like we Ron Paul supporters are tolerated as a novelty that will be disregarded as soon as Fred Thompson gets in the race?

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A Tiny Reminder To America

::pssst::

Abortion is not the only political issue.

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Pro-Life & Pro-Death

This is going to be a long one. And I’ve discovered the “More” tool, so I’m overusing it.

On this eve of the possible execution of Phillip Workman, I need to go on record with a FAQ about how and why I am for the death penalty, even though I believe in the sanctity of life. It’s a seemingly odd position, and I don’t want to give the impression of not having arrived at it logically. So for all of you who’ve scratched your heads over this seemingly bizarre dichotomy among the conservatives you share air with, here’s my attempt at an answer.

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And You Thought Pro-Choice Was In…

I haven’t written much about Leslie Bennetts’ The Feminine Mistake because I don’t generally care to promote the various books in the You
Are A Failed Human Being genre. I assume many people are like me in that they are plagued with frequent moments of self-doubt and fits of wistfullness. I personally have enough night feedings of my worry-baby without some academic or journalist adding fuel to the fire.

The more I’ve read about the book over the last few days, however, the more I realise Bennetts has not written yet another diatribe against Stay At Home Moms, nor has she written yet another paean to female careerism. Bennetts has written the ultimate anti-feminist romance novel.

Now, I’m not a regular reader of romance novels, but I have picked up the odd bodice-ripper for a slice of mental junk food. I’ve also read the back jacket blurbs on countless others–especially since various publishers have been putting thriller-type covers on romances. (Author’s Note: How irritating is it to grab up what looks like a good blood and gore thriller only to have it be the tale of Chase and Mandy’s tryst in Majorica. RRRGH.) The comment element in a number of romances is the Road Not Taken. For awhile there we had a glut of stories where women in early middle age move back to their childhood home and fall madly in love all over again with their high school sweethearts. Then there are the women in late middle age who pursue their dreams of opening a chocolatierie or an Italian restaurant. Heck, I’ve even read books where BOTH things happen.

Women may have the right to choose, but it seems we are often unsatisfied with our choices. I think that’s part of the parcel of woman-worry, the vestigial remains of what made us good at guarding the camp while our men hunted. No matter how good things are, we will always think of what we should have done to make them better. We should have had another baby or we should have used better birth control to keep from having the expenses of the children we’ve got. We should have finished grad school. We should have married when we were younger. We shouldn’t have bought this house or sold that car. We should have blogged less and finished our novel.

In The Feminine Mistake Bennetts provides a pile of dry data and weepy anecdotes about why women should never leave the workplace. Husbands die or divorce you, the career ladders get slippery and crowded in your absence and financial catastrophe looms around every corner. Bennetts’ philosophy is that women open themselves up to vulnerability by opting out of the career market when they choose to raise children. Ah, for the road not taken! Just like a good romance novel, Bennetts spends a lot of time telling you how much better life would be if you made the ‘right’ choice.

She further claims that women’s lives are worth less because they sacrifice their earning power to stay home. Heh. What is life worth? How do we measure that? Is a person worth less because they make less? That seems to be one of Bennetts’ driving points. If only you had stayed in the workplace, your lifetime earnings would be so much higher! Nowhere is there an accounting for the value of a cup of tea drunk at your kitchen table between loads of laundry, or a tangible measure of the value of playing on the floor with your kid.

Over the years feminism has gotten very good at talking about rights and the value of choice. What’s the point? If we aren’t willing to let free adults make the choices which best suit them and their families, we’re just substituting one hierarchy for another. Now instead of being barefoot and pregnant, are all women supposed to be briefcase-toting pie-chart readers? I somehow don’t think that’s the best idea.

Husbands die and divorce no matter what women do. Life happens. Some choices turn out well, others turn out badly. It’ll be nice when we get away from the practice of pointing at other people’s lives and calling those lives ‘mistakes’.

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“SO INCREDIBLY FAT!!!”

I’m not a fan of the new Leslie Bennetts book, The Feminine Mistake. As a libertarian I think life works best when people make their own choices informed by their faith, family and friends. Live on a commune; work on Wall St.–whatever you and your support network think is best is your decision and the best way to live your life. So when books come out with premises like “all mothers should stay home” or “all women should have a career” I think that “some authors should mind their own business.”

I’m not the only one criticising Bennetts’ book. But, man, does this take the cake.

Several people are piling on to Leslie Bennetts, dismissing her work because she’s fat. In their minds, fat people are not qualified to give life advice because they can’t somehow manage to be not fat. Which is now, I suppose, a baseline for operating in society.

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Man, There Sure Are A Lot More Black People Nowadays

UPDATE:  Feel free to just skip this post.   I should have followed my normal rule and sat on it for at least an hour.   I overreacted.   Since I don’t delete whole posts I can’t delete it.   But I do want to run it with a giant flashing “I was in a really bad unrelated mood” sign.

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Wasn’t There Someting In There About Judging?

I’ve been open about criticising Stacey Campfield. Apparently there are quite a few people who view him as a sort of Robin Hood Man of The People type guy. A folk hero. There’s a bit of an ode to Stacey over at David Oatney’s, where Campfield is likened to Jesus, of all people. A crucifixion analogy is employed.

Imagine my surprise to read this comment left by David Oatney this morning:

As I recall, you aren’t a conservative-you are a libertarian trending toward the large L. That being the case, you are hardly in a position to call my fellow conservative Catholic “laughable at conservative politics.” He is by far more conservative than you are, so if you want to get technical, he has a much greater right to lay claim to the title.

He doesn’t represent you because you aren’t an East Tennessean. The reason we like Stacey is because he stirs the pot and makes the forces the so-called “moderates” to listen.

Most importantly, Stacey does the right thing. He has something called a Christian conscience. That does tend to significantly alter the way that you do things.

It’s that last bit I want to talk about. The bit where Oatney implies that by criticising Campfield (and probably by being a stinky Libertarian) I am without a “Christian conscience.” I am so angry about this that I’m not quite sure what word to type next. I cannot believe that anyone feels they have the right–in direct contradiction to Jesus’ teachings in the Bible–to question my faith based on my politics. To suggest that I am NOT a Christian because I don’t travel in their circles is heinous.

I honestly don’t know what to say. I really don’t. I will say that this scares me deeply. Is this the direction we’re headed as a country?

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Sad Day

I may be living too far south to post this. I know more than one of my fellow libertarians will be standing by with the bucket of hot pitch once I post this.

I love–seriously LOVE–Abraham Lincoln.

And today is the anniversary of the day he was shot to death, point blank in the head, by a power-mad actor.

Yes, Lincoln had many faults. Yes, he suspended the right to Habeaus Corpus. We libertarians are not prone to forgive him for this.

But I can and I do. Because the course of freedom for all people changed as a direct result of Lincoln’s prosecution of the Civil War. I’m well aware that the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t actually free any slaves. I’m also well-aware that the struggle for Civil Rights continues to this very minute. But were it not for Lincoln and his Scot stubbornness this country would be a very different place, with true equality even harder to come by.

Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

Think on that, and remember fondly the man who said it.

In a strange twist of fate, this is also the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. You can spend hours reading all of those details here.

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