Special rights for heterosexual service members

Many people lament the injustice of special rights that are given to minorities by Hate Crimes bills and non-discrimination policies. Minorities need to instead toughen up, suck it up (except in the sexual sense), and be man enough to tolerate the "insults" -- harmless comments meant purely in jest, in the spirit of mutual cultural understanding -- issued to them; these little "offensive remarks" are, after all, a fact of life, and anyway insignificant. Any attempt to prevent their expression would be coddling the victims and denying Constitutional rights to the perpetrators.

Interestingly, many of these same concerned citizens also are furious about the possible ending to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, for it would subject heterosexual service members to insufferable and de-humanizing agony -- the sudden onslaught of passing glances and lewd remarks (that is standard fare for women to receive from heterosexual men) from homosexuals in the locker room would suddenly deplete our soldiers of their morale, their will to succeed on the battlefield, their moral compass, and their patriotism. We must protect these poor straight soldiers because they might die if somebody checks out their ass.

The Federal Budget: Taxes Minus Expenditures

Balancing the budget is a worthy cause. Republicans always stress the importance of fiscal conservatism, even when they often don't practice what they preach. Most troublingly and frustrating is the apparent oblivion on the part of many conservatives to the fact that the federal budget is determined by the total inflow of money (i.e., raised through taxes) minus the total outflow of money (i.e., spent on government programs like national defense, entitlements, education, and more).

Obviously, cutting expenditures will decrease the national debt. But just as obviously, cutting taxes will increase the national debt. There is nothing deep to this, nothing that should elude a fifth-grade understanding of mathematics or accounting. And yet it does: Today, Republican minority whip Eric Cantor said that Obama's budget "creates the largest deficits in history and imposes the largest tax increases in history -- at a time when our country can least afford it."

If you want to decrease the budget deficit, you might try not cutting taxes.

Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue"

I've read Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue. To be honest, I have gained a slightly greater respect for her than I had before. Here are a few things for which I give her credit:

1. She grew up in a truly middle-class American family and became governor, the highest public office a state can have.
2. At least according to the account in her book, she managed to break an oil exploration deadlock due to corporate mismanagement and corruption, and even helped send some corrupt oil execs to prison.
3. The media gave her an unnecessarily nasty time after the failed 2008 RNC bid for president.

However, there also are numerous parts of the book -- and by implication her political views and world outlook -- that are awful. Here are the most annoying ones:

1. Same-sex marriage: She explains how she grudgingly granted health benefits to same-sex partners of state employees. The legislation was against it, but since the Alaska Supreme Court ruled in favor, Palin had to comply with the Court. Palin apologizes for her compliance in her book. I can almost see how someone could grudgingly oppose giving benefits to same-sex partners, maybe because they have a conservative view of marriage but otherwise think homosexuals are ok, but to grudgingly grant these rights is just annoying. (Page 143.)
2. Parental notification of abortion: Palin explains how appalled she was that, when her son was hospitalized, he could not even receive a glass of water without parental support. This incident "renewed [her] commitment to help change Alaska's parental notification law so that our daughters would have the same support and protection we give to our children in other medical situations." This argument misses the entire point of non-disclosure to parents. The point of not notifying the parents is to protect children both from unclean, illegal abortions and parents who might physically or psychologically harm the child for becoming pregnant. Obviously, if the child wants to tell her parents, the abortion non-disclosure laws will not prohibit that. Welcome to the real world, Sarah. (Page 169.)
3. Joining the military: Palin idealizes the military and is oblivious to the economic hardships that force young people in the USA to join it. People in the military "have a special quality that gives them a sense of honor and selfless duty. What else explains their choice, amidst so many other possibilities, to serve in the U.S. military?" Umm, maybe they had no other job options, no prospects for education, no health care, and no money? The members of our military deserve sincere respect for their real sacrifice. But they also should have the real option of not joining in the first place. (Page 181.)
4. Bad treatment by McCain staffers: Palin bitches about how badly she was treated by the McCain campaign staffers -- how little freedom she had to say what she personally wanted, and how she didn't like having to obey "headquarters"' orders. Welcome to the world of presidential politics, Sarah. If you didn't want to abide by the McCain Campaign's rules, you made the wrong decision when you said "yes" to run. (All over the book.)
5. TrigGate: Palin gripes about the "Trig Truthers" -- people who disputed that she was the true mother of Trig, her youngest son. This is just mildly ironic considering how she has labeled as legitimate the ridiculous Birthers' movement -- people who dispute Obama's natural American citizenship. (Page 347.)
6. The left-wing media conspiracy: She complains about the left-wing media, and how they concentrated on bogus Alaska ethics violations she insists she did not commit. Does the "Swift Boat" scandal ring a bell, when John Kerry's military career was decimated using complete nonsense as "facts". The left-wing has no monopoly on far-fetched accusations, Sarah.
7. The role of government: Palin complains how the Democrats will suffocate the economy by dictating to small businesses what they should do. In particular, Congress is dictating "your source of energy generation, and what kind of health insurance you must offer." Umm, yes, hopefully, they are. I do care that businesses cannot just choose the cheapest form of power generation -- e.g., coal -- and pollute the environment with it with no concern for fellow citizens. Believe it or not Sarah, businesses are driven by profit (and there's nothing sinister to this), not altruism, and government serves to make sure the business' interest does not infringe on other people's interests. Moreover, since employment is the only means through which most people can affordably receive decent health insurance in our country, I damn well want the government to tell my company that they have to offer reasonable benefits to its employees. (Page 358.)

Censorship on Al Jazeera

AlJazeera.com allows readers to post comments at the bottom of their news stories, as do most other news sites these days. Today, when I attempted to enter what I thought was a perfectly valid comment, I discovered that they heavily censor any comments that users enter. In particular:

• There can be no mentioning of religion.
• There can be no mentioning of sexuality.
• There can be no racism (understandable, though I imagine this amounts to prohibition of discussion of race in general).
• There can be no misspelled words, presumably to prevent people from easily circumventing the above points, which people do anyway by assembling valid, non-forbidden words in creative ways, e.g., Islam = Is Lawn.

Below is an example of the kind of censorship they impose. Read the section about "Do NOT use special characters", etc.

Watching the "new"s

It occurred to me today that, very often, the reason I read content from news sites, pundits' blogs, and even Wikipedia is not to broaden my perspective, but rather to deepen a belief I already hold. It would be nice to think I always use information to refine, change, or even abandon my existing beliefs under the guiding principle of rationality -- and indeed I do do this sometimes -- but while reading I also often (perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not) find a particular interpretation to support the perspective I already hold. Hence, the information does not serve as a "check" on the conviction of my beliefs, but rather only strengthens it.

Inability to verify anything

The phenomenon I described above is made all the more severe due to the crippling inability on my part (and anyone else's part) to personally and completely verify anything that anyone tells me that I did not personally witness. One news site says an event was caused by X; another news site it was caused by Y. One website says X happened; another website says Y happened. One website says X was the main tragedy; another website says Y was much more important or prevalent. Each side X warns its readership not to believe the propaganda of side Y.

I read a fair number of different news sources (CNN, NPR, Fox, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Mail & Guardian (South Africa), Al Jazeera), but I'm still not satisfied I know what the hell is really happening anywhere in the world.