Over at Pseudomain, there is some discussion of these issues. Check them out if you don't want just my side of the argument.
I know enough of the personalities involved, but not necessarily enough to comment on their insults of people that it seems I should care to listen to more than recently mentioned radio personalities. Anyway, now that I have admitted my ignorance of the vocal folks involved in the debate...
Gay marriage. I'm against it, just as I am against all federal recognition of religious practices.
I have two central points on which I like to base my opinion of gay marriage. The first is clearly the separation of church and state, the second is that of family values.
The first ten words of the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." In every instance where Little George insists on his marriage amendment, he refers to God; he refers to "man and woman", words from most of the religious texts.
My argument is very simple - Congress may not make a law that enforces one/any religion on the people. One of the fundamental reasons that this country exists is that people were fleeing religious persecution in Europe. The fact that these words were the first ones mentioned in the bill of rights illustrates how important they are to the structure on which this country is built. Our president's lack of understanding of this fundamental origin of his power is quite disturbing.
I agree with previously made arguments that it is very strange that conservatives preach family values ad nauseum, yet when loving people want the government to recognize this unity of family, they turn away because those people defy the politicians' own religious beliefs. It's silly.
Rather than marriage, I propose that the government grants everyone a civil union rather than "marriage". In fact, I would extend this recognition so that extended families could receive the benefit of legislation that current married couples enjoy.
In terms of tax breaks for married couples, I have to disagree with the previously presented arguments stating that the tax should be identical between married and unmarried citizens. I think that there should be tax breaks for families because it seems reasonable that by forming families our children will be be better cared for, and families will be better able to care for each other overall. (The economic reasoning for levying taxes is not just for collecting money to keep government running, but to provide incentives for desired behavior. I think this is why I don't like the idea of a straight-up flat tax, because it's a powerful tool for the government to provide tax breaks to citizens that do work to benefit the community.)
The immediately obvious downside to this is that single folks who can't, don't, or won't form families will be left to pay higher taxes. I imagine that this can be offset with some kind of community initiative tax break, wherein individuals without families can contribute to the overall welfare of the community. These are sketches of ideas that I think will work, admittedly not well-planned, but more what I would think of as fair.
I think it's difficult for people with such mesh-back shrouded brains to conceptualize what nationalism is for them. How each person chooses to be partriotic is endemic to their concept of nationalism. Do we believe that Kidd Rock was trying to fedame the flag by wearing it as a poncho? Probably not, but his choice may have been in poor taste considering the national climate for this issue.
I believe that it's possible to be proud to be an American. You can certainly be proud of something that you're born into and have no choice over, just as you can not be proud of these things. You can have pride in (derive satisfaction from) things over which you have no control. You can be proud to be a member of a distinguished community. Nonetheless, America has given me little to be proud over in my lifetime.
But concerning the instance of displaying flags in American pride, what's the harm? As a symbol of national unity after the 9/11 attack, it seemed like something good that came out of all of the madness. If people purport to present this symbol as a sign of unity with or support of the country, more power to them.
Of course, the reality is that people foget the flags are there. Or we see them so often that they lose meaning. Or they appear too often as faded, unreadable bumper-stickers. Or they are accompanied by messages of hate directed toward the middle-east. Or they get worn as ponchos at football games by peple who see it more as a gimmick to get attention than as the symbol it has recently been elevated by the people to recognize, which causes our politicians to take reactionary measures to restore their own jingoistic sentiment to the symbol. The meanings and impact of symbols change over time, and the politicos will always be the scavengers on the corpse of the national unity embodied by the US flag.
There are certainly advantages to many systems of governement. And I'm sure that some of the democratic systems in northern Europe are just dandy, but I'm also not intersted in running a socialist welfare state. If I'm patriotic, I'm personally not saying that this country is better than any other, just that I enjoy my freedoms, I enjoy my ability to complain about the government's effects on my freedoms, and when I can, I will praise the works of law and government that make me proud to be American.
When that happens, I'll let you know.
Postscript - I've been meaning to write about this for a while; There is a site called Nation States wherein you can run your own country. You basically create a country with a set starting point, then decide how your government will react to cetain issues ranging from healthcare to euthanasia to car import taxes. At each decision (one issue new daily), the description and world-wide rating of your country changes. My country is Abertica, and is an inoffensive centrist democracy. I recently excised my auto industry by refusing to levy taxes on imports to save the local failing unionized factories. The site is basically a large ad for a book by Max Berry called Jennifer Government, which I have had on my reading list for a while. Those who are interested in the topic of this article may wish to set up their own nation state and see how things turn out. Tell me if you join; we could join the same region.
