Saturday, February 21, 2004
"My Favorite Conservative"
This one is a little rambling. I'm tired.
On Friday, a co-worker told me that I was his "favorite conservative". This came after a lengthy discussion of several issues, while we should've been working. I took it as a compliment, because I was pretty sure that he did not mean this in the sense of "you're of a very passable disposition for a child molester". I returned the compliment by saying that he was one of the few people at our company who I would talk politics with, because he is always good natured and reasonably dispassionate, even if I find some of his positions insane.
I try to be good-natured and dispassionate as I can be when arguing politics with folks here for practical reasons. To begin with, I am in the distinct and small minority, both at my company and in the state where I live. Being somewhat affable also helps to keep some perspective on what I'm discussing. I have very definite beliefs and profess pretty strong allegiances to certain ideas, but I live in the world of people. Getting along is important, even if those around you often say things that annoy me-and they do.
For example, another guy who sits close to my desk will suddenly, and with no provocation-that I can see, at any rate-begin ranting about "crazy Republicans" at every turn. They are never referred to as just Republicans, and it is clear that he has little to no sense of proportion as to what political disagreement really means. I don't take offense to this, because it became clear early on that he's not very serious when it comes to thinking about politics, and because there's a difference between Republicans and conservatives, even though there's a reasonably large area of common agreement between the two. And since I never know who exactly he's mad at (I usually put my headphones on and turn the music up), I don't know whether I might agree with him or not. I suspect almost certainly not, but it is still easier to not know for sure.
So the guy I first wrote of in this post said that Bush was "radical". I thought that was very curious, especially coming from a self-professed anarcho-syndicalist, so I asked him what he meant. It was because Bush supports the FMA. Now, I haven't really figured out where I stand on that particular issue, but I thought it would be worth it to clarify whether he really thought that the notion of the FMA was radical. It turned out, after clarifying some terminology, that he thought that it was radical to support a Constitutional amendment defining marriage. I pointed out that the notion of the state extending marriage to gays was a far more radical notion, given that no government, or even society, that I knew of, had ever countenanced legal recognition of gay marriage, or even the social legitimacy of same-sex unions (except of course, ours, and that was very recent). I then pointed out that something radical, even though Bush's position wasn't, isn't always bad, and cited the 19th amendment, which was a good thing*, but far more radical at the time, precisely because it sought to do something unprecedented**. The FMA seeks the opposite outcome, because it seeks to limit an institution to what it is currently. He seemed to agree to that, for which I was gratified. He also understood that I was arguing about terminology, and not what I thought of the underlying issue, which was even more gratifying, as some people have a tendency to view any clarification of the terms of an argument, or of a position or term of that argument, as support for that argument, which can be annoying when it's not one's aim.
*JF may strongly disagree with me here. I'm not sure, but if it prods him to write on disenfranchisement as a positive political goal, that would be great.
**It might've not been unprecedented, but suffrage for women must've been extremely rare, at the least. I'm sure Mr. Flory will set me straight. ¶ 23:57
On Friday, a co-worker told me that I was his "favorite conservative". This came after a lengthy discussion of several issues, while we should've been working. I took it as a compliment, because I was pretty sure that he did not mean this in the sense of "you're of a very passable disposition for a child molester". I returned the compliment by saying that he was one of the few people at our company who I would talk politics with, because he is always good natured and reasonably dispassionate, even if I find some of his positions insane.
I try to be good-natured and dispassionate as I can be when arguing politics with folks here for practical reasons. To begin with, I am in the distinct and small minority, both at my company and in the state where I live. Being somewhat affable also helps to keep some perspective on what I'm discussing. I have very definite beliefs and profess pretty strong allegiances to certain ideas, but I live in the world of people. Getting along is important, even if those around you often say things that annoy me-and they do.
For example, another guy who sits close to my desk will suddenly, and with no provocation-that I can see, at any rate-begin ranting about "crazy Republicans" at every turn. They are never referred to as just Republicans, and it is clear that he has little to no sense of proportion as to what political disagreement really means. I don't take offense to this, because it became clear early on that he's not very serious when it comes to thinking about politics, and because there's a difference between Republicans and conservatives, even though there's a reasonably large area of common agreement between the two. And since I never know who exactly he's mad at (I usually put my headphones on and turn the music up), I don't know whether I might agree with him or not. I suspect almost certainly not, but it is still easier to not know for sure.
So the guy I first wrote of in this post said that Bush was "radical". I thought that was very curious, especially coming from a self-professed anarcho-syndicalist, so I asked him what he meant. It was because Bush supports the FMA. Now, I haven't really figured out where I stand on that particular issue, but I thought it would be worth it to clarify whether he really thought that the notion of the FMA was radical. It turned out, after clarifying some terminology, that he thought that it was radical to support a Constitutional amendment defining marriage. I pointed out that the notion of the state extending marriage to gays was a far more radical notion, given that no government, or even society, that I knew of, had ever countenanced legal recognition of gay marriage, or even the social legitimacy of same-sex unions (except of course, ours, and that was very recent). I then pointed out that something radical, even though Bush's position wasn't, isn't always bad, and cited the 19th amendment, which was a good thing*, but far more radical at the time, precisely because it sought to do something unprecedented**. The FMA seeks the opposite outcome, because it seeks to limit an institution to what it is currently. He seemed to agree to that, for which I was gratified. He also understood that I was arguing about terminology, and not what I thought of the underlying issue, which was even more gratifying, as some people have a tendency to view any clarification of the terms of an argument, or of a position or term of that argument, as support for that argument, which can be annoying when it's not one's aim.
*JF may strongly disagree with me here. I'm not sure, but if it prods him to write on disenfranchisement as a positive political goal, that would be great.
**It might've not been unprecedented, but suffrage for women must've been extremely rare, at the least. I'm sure Mr. Flory will set me straight. ¶ 23:57
