Thursday, May 27, 2010

Republicans to filibuster troop funding over DADT repeal?

A lot of liberals have talked about how homophobia damages our national security, mostly because talented soldiers are turned away because they are attracted to people of their own gender. Evidently the GOP wants to double down and make the damage to national security far worse. They're really committed to that Archie Bunker vote, aren't they?

Admittedly, this is one of those issues where the ~20% of people who support DADT probably feel much stronger about it than the ~80% who oppose it. But you can't build a majority with 20%, and I'm frankly baffled that Republicans think this is a political winner for them. I suspect that the combination of this and the anti-immigration nuts that will come out of the woodwork when we start seeing real debate on that issue will reinforce the impression of the GOP as the nasty party, which worked so well for the Tories during the Blair era, didn't it?

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.