Don't worry, trust your gut. Great advice, guys. Why read all that dull stuff about global climate change, or Iraq, or nuclear power--just trust your gut! Did the Holocaust happen? I don't know, but my gut says.... The idea that because certain people develop a more-or-less effectvie heuristic (I'd like numbers, please, if this is a scientific study) that we should skip the study and examination of our surroundings and trust our gut is the worst kind of anti-intellectual claptrap. Just another in a long line of dumbing-down exercises, and the last idea we need floating around in a culture that does not want to do its homework.

Civil Unions would be just fine I'm sure for most gay and lesbian people if the Civil Union carried exactly the same percs and benefits that marriage does under the legal and tax codes. What is not on the table in most cases, however, is an exact equivalence, so that the angry, frightened and/or indignant social conservatives can keep the word marriage for themselves and leave civil unions to the queers. The fight is not over the semantics of the word choice, marriage versus civil unions, but over whether or not gay and lesbian couples should have the same rights and protections as committed couples that heterosexuals take for granted when the get married. I personally think it would be dumb of the GLBT community if they were offered the whole raft of privileges that come with married status in the form of a powerful civil unions law and rejected it because they were stuck on the term marriage. But such a law has not been put forth yet in any significant number of states or at the Federal level, so to ask, "what's the difference?" misses the point.

I respect most real libertarians, because they tend to be honest and consistent in their arguments. But as I've hit my forties, I've grown more skeptical about the doctrinaire, and many libertarians are nothing if not doctrinaire. Like the Commies of old, they tend to think that if a problem pops up, it can't be the fault of the ideology (i.e., the market, or for the Commies, the Party), so they would need, like Trosky or Mao, a "permanent revolution", an endless stripping down of government if they ever really got their hands on it. I fear that in the name of the perfect many libertarians would be more than happy to destroy the good.

I find myself falling back on common sense. If a city is destroyed by flood or earthquake, you go in their and restore the infrastructure and help people get back to normal. If people are being descrinimiated against, you enfoce the laws and create a level playing field. The worst historical example of Libertarianism Gone Bad is, for me, the Irish Famine of 1849. The free market purists of the day insisted two very pernicious things back then: 1) that the market would take care of the crisis because supply would meet demand, and 2) even if #1 didn't actually happen, it was still the right policy because if we give those drunken Irishmen a handout, they'll never do a day's work again in their lives and will become hopeless dependents of the government. So, a million people died, and another million fled for thier lives, and the British Establishment, sure in their ideology, scratched their complacent asses and did nothing. Common sense and a sprinkling of human senmtiment (another thing lacking in most libertarian discourse) would have saved alot of lives.

We are constantly being reminded and patted on the back for being the greatest, most powerful, richest, and most wonderfullest nation that has ever existed on the face of the earth, with the finest, bravest, best trained and equipped soldiers around, and yet these self-same boosters are constantly pissing their pants that we are going to be wiped off the face of the earth. How the hell is that going to happen? The United States today has about 75% of the naval power on earth, most of the rest being in the hands of the British, Japanese, and French. We have about the same amount of air power, with again most of the rest being in the hands of the British, Israelis, Germans, and French. What nation, or combination of nations, is likely to come into play that would threaten the US and its closest alliance partners? And how about Russia and China? They are not friendly to Islamic radicals in any way. Or is Islam first going to sweep away the Middle Kingdom and then come gunning across the seas for us? This is racist nonsense, the Yellow Peril updated to become the Green Peril. Total bullshit.

I use two analogies when discussing this issue, depending on whom I'm talking to. To conservatives I know, I say this: how likely is an all-out thermonuclear war? Not very, they say. So, I reply, would you junk all your strategic missiles and decommission the subs armed with Trident ICBM's--wouldn't that save billions in taxpayer money? Not worth it, they reply, because you need to guarantee your safety. The same, of course, is true of global climate change. Yes, it will cost alot, but pouring tons of carbon into the atmosphere is damn likely to make things worse. Just in case, it would be better to help insure against a disaster by doing something now (same as nuclear deterrence doesn't preclude a nuclear exchange, but it lessens the likelihood significantly).

My other argument is homeowners insurance. Most people's houses do not go up in flames, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared for that possibility and spend something now to be safe later. We may not avoid nuclear war; we may not prevent our house from catching fire. But is that any excuse for doing nothing about both concerns?