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.