Monday, June 08, 2009

I wonder ...

... what all my friends who are always preaching to me about how we should be more like Europeans think about this: Conservatives racing ahead in EU parliament voting.

6 comments:

  1. Well, "conservative" in Europe and "conservative" here are often two very, very different things. Our conservatives would call most European counterparts godless commie abortionist fascists. Possibly gay, too.

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  2. I'm aware that European conservatism tends to be of the authoritarian variety and American conservatism tends to be classical liberalism, but in this instance it is clear that voters have rejected socialist parties in favor of what are call med center-right. At any rate, my point stands. If the Europeans are so much more sophisticated than we are, should we not be paying heed to them?

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  3. Oh, and regarding gay rights, bear in mind that it is Dick Cheney who supports gay marriage, not Barack Obama.

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  4. I don't know if modern, mainstream European conservatives are exactly "authoritarian" or American conservatives precisely "classical liberals." Angela Merkel is from a center-right party, and I somehow don't see her and Newt Gingrich being soulmates. "Center-right" still means something pretty different from "conservative" in this country.

    I did see that a few REALLY far-right parties, much more in the "authoritarian" wing got some European Parliament seats. I'll regret saying it when we're in WWIII against neo-fascist Europe, but that doesn't make me terribly worried or make me reconsider my politics. Politics is local, and the British BP's "success" (remember that the European Parliament isn't really all that important) probably has more to do with scandal and Labour weakness than some efflorescence of British hard-right conservatism.

    And, anyway, so what if Europe skewed a bit right this election? People here who consider Europe a utopia are stupid, but that doesn't mean that Europe doesn't have good ideas we should at least look at, or that they're more advanced in some things.

    Good for Dick Cheney for supporting gay marriage. How nice of him, after he's out of power, discredited, and recognized as one of the most sinister men in American history, having spent his life working for a Republican party that has run on anti-gay, anti-minority rights for decades now. It shows real growth of human feeling (from one micron of human feeling to two). Boo to Obama's continued reticence on gay marriage and other gay issues. But have I missed where the Republicans, the "conservative" party, suddenly all cottoned onto the idea? I wasn't aware they're out there with the masses of activists agitating for human rights instead of vowing to put anti-gay amendments in the constitution and such.

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  5. Actually, Cheney expressed his sentiments during the 2004 election campaign. He did not support a constitutional amendment defining marriage and insisted state legislatures should decide the issue on their own. He also never distanced himself in any way from his gay daughter, making sure she was their with her partner at the inauguration. What he told her when she told him she was gay - "You're my daughter and I love you" - ought to be in needlepoint in every gay household and if it is not as highly praised in gay circles as it ought to be, it is the gay community whose ideological blinders need removing.

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  6. Actually, Cheney doesn't really support gay rights in any way meaningful to the gay communities that I know of. On gay marriage, he wants the states to decide—which is a copout, because civil rights are never really guaranteed until they are guaranteed on the Federal level. If it's only on the state-by-state level, if you move because of your job, suddenly you're no longer married. And rights on the states levels can be taken away, depending on how the laws are made and ratified—which was just proven in Prop. 8 in California, a historic first occasion in which a granted civil right was taken away—and many states do things very differently form each other.

    So, pardon me, and no offense intended to anyone, but I don't think Cheney really support gay rights; he certainly wants to appear as if he does, but his support takes no risks and has no real teeth, and is in no way a useful form of activist support.

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