Senator Obama’s victor seems to show that the America in 2008 is not the America of 1968. We have come a long way. Racism is all but dead. That means we should be free to judge people by the content of their character, or their talents, and not the color of their skin. In other words, it means the government no longer has to force us to count by race in our businesses and in our schools. To bring the country together, and to help us to move forward, President Obama should end affirmative action. (Update: Related thoughts here from John McWhorter.)
The likely victory of Prop 8 in California and of similar proposals elsewhere seems to prove that the underlying American consensus is in favor of traditional marriage. No one seriously maintains that the right of men to marry men is an ancient right. Its discovery by the Courts can only be justified by claiming that we have progressed to a point where it is necessary. The numbers seem to indicate that the American consensus is not there. The supporters of a living constitution can’t honestly claim that gay marriage reflects the new American consensus. Hence there is no legitimate reason even for Progressives to claim that gay marriage is a right.
Most Americans want a tax cut. (Update two: Mickey Kaus parses Obama.)
Most Americans are worried that they could be overwhelmed by their health care bills, but don’t particuarly want to change their own health care program.
We can no more announce that racism is over with the Obama election than we could announce that wife-beating is over, since we have elected someone who does not beat their wife, and so we could repeal the laws preventing it.
Ren. I guess you're right. Nowadays there roughly as few racists in America as there are wife beaters in America. But that just proves my larger point about policy.
As voters continue to discriminate against homosexuals, they've also made medicinal marijuana legal in Michigan (and decriminalized it quite a bit in Massachusetts), defended abortion in Colorado and South Dakota, and decriminalized mercy-killing in Washington.
So I suppose you should keep playing up the "gay people aren't as deserving of marriage and children as straight people" card . . . cause that's pretty much all you guys have got.
I think you've got to qualify, maybe seriously, the notion that race or color was irrelevant in the 2008 election, and thus affirmative action should or could wane. A massive part of Obama's constituency were black Americans, who, let's face it, voted simply on color. Does that racialist view of political justice (who should rule) imply a view of distributive justice (who should get what) other than affirmative action? Likewise, would his white liberal supporters -- who at least have ideology in addition to color on the mind -- go for eliminating affirmative action? Did Obama campaign -- seriously, specifically -- against racial preferences in government policy? Was this really the change any of his supporters could believe in? Then why expect it?
Matt. Fair enough. Most Americans don't want to ban abortion outright. At the same time, there is a majority for allowing it only in the cases of rape, incest, or where the mother's life is threatened. Unfortunately, the Court requires it to be legal on demand for nine months, with no significant restrictions. (The result of this judicial excess has been culture war).
As for drugs, good to see that Americans are starting to agree with William F. Buckley.
If you think racism is over just wait till you criticize Obama's policies. lol. I don't see how keeping pot illegal is a conservative thing. I thought this was the side of freedom. If we did not have people in jail for pot then we save so much money. Prohibition did not work, neither does the war on drugs.
"Racism is all but dead."
Approximately 98% of Black people voted for Obama. Who knows what percentage of Whites voted for him out of some sense of guilt or obligation? Racial consciousness is alive and well in America. It is accepted as commonplace for Blacks, but is anathema in Whites. This is an absurd situation. The result of years of brow beating by PC Cultural Marxists. Either we are all going to be “color blind” or we are not. You can’t have one race being color blind and one not.
On affirmative action and Prop 8--note that Ward Connerly's anti-preferences crusade succeeded in Nebraska and is close in Colorado.