In the news.

[pyrephox]

Massachusetts Rejects Gay Marriage Amendment: The proposed Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Mass. was overwhelmingly voted down, 157-39. Those that voted against it included those who had previously supported the ban. In fact, one of the co-sponsors, Republican state Senator Brian Lees, said, "Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry. This amendment which was an appropriate measure or compromise a year ago, is no longer, I feel, a compromise today."

In less cheerful news, Karl Rove has been put in charge of Katrina reconstruction efforts (It's slipped into the ninth paragraph, so look close!). I have no doubt that his tremendous experience in things not at all related to disaster recovery will serve him well in his endeavors. Well, at least Halliburton is happy, right? And for those who believe Bush really stands for limited government, I give you a quote from him, "It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces." Yes, indeedy.

Also! Yesterday, a naked man, wearing nothing but sneakers and a football helmet ran through my university cafeteria. It's just one of those things that makes you feel kind of giggly inside.

Comments

[cpip.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is that it's not, and never HAS been, a single-axis query, but that everyone tends to insist it IS.

I'm for relatively limited government AND extensive foreign intervention, for instance. (I've heard the term 'imperialist libertarian,' but I'm not sure I buy it.)

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Granted. The 'left' and the 'right' are aggragated opinions that are only usually, not exclusively, correllated. Although many of the people who express desires for limited government are /also/ in favor of strong military spending and operations abroad, so I'm not sure the two are all that unusual to split up.

Possibly divide it into:

Social Self-determination-----------------------Social Collectivism
(Where SSD is the belief that people should be left largely alone to make the civil decisions they wish, without interference from authorities, and social collectivism is the belief that there is a 'right' set of social behaviors that people should follow, and that deviation from those should be at least discouraged or actively opposed.)
Support of domestic spending--------------------Nonsupport of domestic spending.
(How much you agree with business subsidies, welfare, domestic health spending, etc.)
Support of military spending-------------------Nonsupport of military spending
(Self-explanatory)
Federalism------------------------Localism
(Where you think the locus of power should reside, with the federal government or with the states)

Possibly a few more, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Except that, of course, those can be further broken down -- many people who endorse welfare object to business subsidies; some who believe in Social Collectivism argue about just what rules are to be applied (those who promote hate speech laws often are not the ones who support school prayer ordinances, for instance).

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

This is true.

Sometimes I wonder if the /impulses/ behind the things are the same, even if the particular motivators are different, if that makes any sense. Idle speculation.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

That article Unni linked to about fear, that's a good one.

But, well, you know my opinion on fear and humanity.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

The article on fear is very good, I agree. I think it doesn't cover the whole picture (I think that sometimes people are angry because of reasons other than fear, and that there's more to drive people's political endeavors than either fear or anger), but for zooming in on that particular emotion and its effects...yes. Very worth thinking about!

[cpip.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of things can be traced back to fear, though. Fear of pain and desire for pleasure are the two most basic urges, and I think most everything else is a development of one of those...

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

I think fear is a strong motivating factor, but I'm not sure that it's the primary, or even the primary shared with desire for pleasure.

...possibly number three, though. :D

[cpip.livejournal.com]

So what's ahead of fear?

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Optimism! :p

Or, rather, the belief that we can do something about the things that we don't like. (Whether we can do the /right/ thing is another matter entirely.)

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Isn't that just a function of the fear of the current situation and a desire for pleasure instead of the impending pain?

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

I don't necessarily think so. Consider that people are motivated to do things that are actually harmful to them personally, in order to make something better, however they define 'better'.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Valid enough point.