Andrew's idea that the Left is somehow more adept at attacking people than ideas is just laughable on face value, as is the idea that prominent, trans-exclusive measures, such as NY's SONDA, weren't pushed by white, gay, male money, even money from the Left.
I'm coming up on a year with this blog now, which is stunning to me as this was meant to be a daily diversion mostly, and AS, who has never been an acquaintance, is getting ... predictable. (That's a good sign that I will be quitting soon).When I saw the reply in Salon, I almost wrote, "I'll bet anything that this will get Andrew off the backbenches, where he has been wisely resting."
(My reasons might have been wrong, however. Perhaps AS couldn't bear to see some others getting traffic off the issue and making ad revenue, as I noticed one person just redesigned their site adding a "One Community, One ENDA" banner ad to what looks like the Great White Way, while editorializing against such a thing. Maybe there is a logic whereby that works, but it seems eyepopping).
Andrew's idea that the Left is somehow more adept than the Right at attacking people than ideas is just laughable on face value, as is the idea that prominent, trans-exclusive measures, such as NY's SONDA, weren't pushed by white, gay, male money, even money from the Left.
In fact the whole "p.c. Left" meme, dating from the Reagan Devolution, is choking on it's own spit up, just about now, as the GOP drowns in a cauldron of it's own "p.c. Right", that has practiced division in the name of God among other things. It's tragic that despite his own book on the matter, AS is still stuck in those tire tracks.
As for the knee-jerk, unreasoned support of Barney's prescribed, rush-job, preemptory "solution", I have this:
Two guys push their way past everyone up to the bar, and, out of breath, gush, "I'll have a vodka tonic, but half of whatever you are serving is fine by me."
Apparently, those pushing Frank to his unilateral strategy considerations didn't also warn him of the risks, which is worrisome because I respect him and do not want to see him get hurt:
Life After SONDA
by Richard Goldstein, Village Voice
December 25 - 31, 2002
There was no photo op when George Pataki signed the state gay rights bill in the privacy of his office last week.
by Richard Goldstein, Village Voice
December 25 - 31, 2002
There was no photo op when George Pataki signed the state gay rights bill in the privacy of his office last week.
Why?
Because the moral argument, taken as it is from a misguided 'abstract' point of view, that 'the needs of the many just have to - just must, must, Must! - outweigh the needs of the few' falls off some lips so callously - so callously -, what else can people be expected to hear?
update: And Andrew himself has now fallen into the fly trap that he should have figured out by now. I can see tomorrow's headlines: "Sullivan defines who the little people are for everyone, those not 'so important'."
For me, what's comic in that is that AS whines openly about the gay-left "establishment" being "in control" of the movement (most recently about hate speech issues in Britain). Can you see now, why that is funny? With positions about who the little people are, there is simply no way to put 'conservatism' atop a progressive movement. It'd just be poppycock, textbook Burke notwithstanding.
Because that ordering is so obvious, from experience if not a priori, then I have to believe that those intelligent enough to realize the same but still in earnest about their 'complaint', rather than just scoring cheap, partisan political points, exist at some level of self-mockery.
