Acceptable targets

Gay marriage has been prominent in the news this week, which got me thinking about recent events. Some of you may recall the recent case of Carrie Prejean, a contestant in the Miss USA Pageant. In the course of the pageant, the contestants were asked their opinions on various social and political questions. When asked what she thought of gay marriage, Prejean answered:

Well I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. You know what, in my country, in my family, I do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman.

Something of a media shitstorm followed in the wake of this, with Prejean vehemently condemned in many quarters. I disagree with her comments, though I think the torrent of loathing and ridicule directed towards her in the media has been excessive and cruel. In any case, Miss Prejean enjoyed a period of infamy for the remark and was roundly condemned as a bigot in the media and many places online. It was, I thought, an oddly disproportionate response to a near-nobody expressing what is still, unfortunately, the opinion of most Americans. In 2007, a political figure of some note who had been asked his opinion on gay marriage said:

I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.

This statement does not seem substantively different from Prejean, though it is certainly better-expressed. As well it should be, since these words were spoken by none other than Barack Obama, then a Senator from Illinois. Obama’s supports civil unions, but his opposition to gay marriage remains unchanged since making this statement.

So, where’s the anger? Large swathes of Prejean’s critics- and many supporters of gay marriage in general- have argued that any opposition to gay marriage is necessarily rooted in bigotry, and regard support for it as not merely right but a requirement to be considered morally decent. You’d think Obama’s stated opposition would draw more fire. Likewise that of Hillary Clinton and Joseph Biden, who believe the same thing.

Some figures on the Left have, to their credit, taken Obama to task for his views on this issue. For the most part, though, not a whole lot is said, or at least not loudly, and certainly not with the same fury, and it seems odd to me that Prejean gets the hammer dropped on her while the President of the United States- who probably has a bit more potential influence on the matter- largely gets a pass.

Of course, when people have invested their hopes in a leader or savior, or in an organization or movement, they can often start screening out or rationalizing things that would otherwise anger or disgust them. (See Cheryl Cline’s posts here and here. Hell, see most “limited government” Republicans during the Bush Administration. Or the previous Bush’s administration. Or the Reagan Administration. Or the Nixon administration. Or the Eisenhower administration.) I’ve also seen how many liberals- a few admirable dissenters aside- are reconciling themselves to Obama’s lack of enthusiasm for civil liberties, and quietly accepting things that people were screaming bloody murder about under Bush.

On several occasions while growing up, I hit a wall hard enough to leave my knuckles bleeding. The wall had nothing to do with why I was angry on these occasions, but I was so agitated that it was either the wall or somebody’s skull. I couldn’t confront the person who had actually caused my distress. That was partly because I feared facing him, but it was also partly because it was too upsetting to fully, consciously acknowledge the truth about this person. I wanted to believe that he was good, that he valued me. To stand up and say, “The way you treat me is wrong” would have clashed with that. This is a common defense mechanism.

I suspect a lot of Obama supporters who support gay marriage don’t know his actual position on the subject; they just assume, because they admire him, that he shares their beliefs. However, I’m sure plenty do know. If you believe that opponents of gay marriage are despicable bigots, AND you’re one of the many people who greatly admire Obama and consider him a great man, you’ve got a problem on your hands. The Obama phenomenon fired many people’s hopes and won their hearts in a remarkable way. I don’t think Bush ever had that kind of effect; he had plenty of admirers and even a messianic aura for some, but he didn’t create the sort of ecstatic “in love” sensation that Obama brings out in a lot of people.

As I’ve written on before, having hopes raised and then smashed is painful. So, too, is accepting that someone you’ve put on a pedestal isn’t what you thought they were. Even if you don’t have an especially strong attachment to Obama, seriously criticizing him can be uncomfortable if your friends or colleagues do. This is especially true on an issue where, if liberals were to take their own rhetoric seriously, many of them would have to declare Obama not merely mistaken but morally reprehensible.

Enter Carrie Prejean- a person who prominently displays the same flaw as Obama for the whole country to see, but in whom liberals have no emotional investment. She’s an ideal human punching bag. And just like a punching bag, you get a satisfying thump when you hit her without having to worry about hurting your hands or ticking off someone who knows how to punch back. Her pageant remark was a perfect opportunity to make a stand for gay rights without the costs, either emotional or social, of going after someone more relevant. Her very unimportance makes her ideal. I think this idea has implications for a lot of issues, and not just for Democrats, but this is long enough for now.

Motorhome Diaries crew arrested in Mississippi

Learned via Facebook: The Motorhome Diaries crew- Jason Talley, Pete Eyre, and Adam Mueller- were arrested in Jones County, Mississippi for filming a police officer who had stopped them. Talley was apparently choked and pepper sprayed. Eyre was charged with possession of beer in a dry county, Mueller with disorderly conduct and disobeying an officer, and Talley with disorderly conduct, disobeying an officer, and resisting arrest. They are currently out on bail.

Hopefully the attention this has been getting online will do some good. For more info, check out Free Keene and Fr33 Agents. In addition, Talley, Eyre, and Mueller will be on Free Talk Live tonight at 7 PM Eastern time to talk about what happened.

“Disorderly conduct,” disobeying an officer,” and “resisting arrest” are all-purpose charges for anyone the police are pissed off at, and generally mean whatever the hell the police want them to mean. Please help spread the word on this if you can. You can not only help prevent an injustice from being done, but help drag the way law American enforcement all-too-frequently acts into the light of day.

My new friend

Regular readers may recall that a few months ago I made a post in memory of my cat Kira, who died last summer. I adopted a new cat in March, but haven’t gotten around to writing about it until now. Luckily, there’s a shelter quite close to my house, so I didn’t have far to go.

Her name, given by her previous owners, is Midnight. She’s a small black domestic short hair about 6 1/2 years old. I actually first noticed Midnight in precisely the way I first noticed Kira- I walked past her and she brushed her face against my hand through the bars. That piqued my interest, so I stopped and we watched each other for a while. The woman in charge of the cats brought us both into a little side room to see how we got along. She took to me immediately, and I decided to adopt her.

She’s adjusted to her new home quite well. She and my other cat, Toshi, quickly got used to reach other and get along wonderfully. She has several spots by windows that she likes, and she loves sitting in my lap (or occasionally climbing onto my shoulder) when I’m reading, playing games, or using the computer. When she sees me, she makes a sort of squeaking/chirping sound and runs over to rub her head against me. She likes to sleep in my bed at night, either on top of me or on a little pillow I keep in the bed next to my own.

A staggering number of animals are destroyed or left to run feral every year for lack of decent homes. Despite being incredibly friendly, Midnight had fairly poor prospects for adoption: Black cats are pretty consistently the kind least desired by the public, and at 6 1/2 years of age Midnight is also much older than what most prospective pet owners want. If you’re interested in a pet, please consider getting one from a shelter, and please don’t rule out the possibility of getting an adult. There are a lot of animals like Midnight that would love to have a home.

Fall guys

The public uproar over the bonuses for the executives of AIG must be one of the most ridiculous cases of misdirected anger in my lifetime. I'm not going to get all weepy over the hurt feelings of millionaire recipients of government boodle, but it’s a very sad example of how sound and potentially antistatist public sentiments, like “government giveaways to big business are bad,” get redirected so that they are harmless to the rulers. The government loots the nation of billions upon billions of dollars to give to wealthy cronies in an orgy of handouts and corporate welfare, and the lion’s share of public indignation on the subject is directed towards the beneficiaries of one tiny fraction of it, who received it due to a preexisting contract with a firm that was given government money. It’s as if everyone who thinks the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea ignored the existence of George W. Bush, selected a Marine gunnery sergeant at random, and declared him single-handedly responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths wrought by the war.

Seeds of libertarianism on the Left

In my post criticizing the idea of liberal-libertarian fusionism, I said that it is not mainstream liberals but people further leftward on the spectrum who offer potentially fruitful interaction, and who may be receptive to libertarian ideas. I’d like to elaborate more on that. This was originally intended to be a single post, but I ended up having more to say than I expected, so it will be split up.

I should say at the outset that my view of anti-market/private property far Left is not so positive as the assessment of left-libertarians such as Roderick Long or Kevin Carson. (Though I certainly reccomend that you read both of them on the subject.) I concluded long ago that a great many left-"anarchists" are simply state socialists or “good government” liberals in antiauthoritarian drag, the left-wing equivalent of the modern conservative who still claims to believe in "small government" while cheering for George W. Bush. Even those I would not place in that category sometimes display many of the objectionable attitudes of the statist Left, such as the reactionary aristocratic/clerical disdain for trade that pervades mainstream liberalism.

Nevertheless, I think that in an important way there is not one anti-market Left but two. There is what could be called the reactionary Left, who believe in coercion, paternalism, political hierarchy, and keeping the ignorant masses under the yoke of their betters. It is the continuation of the oppressive union of throne and altar that has ruled since the dawn of recorded history, with the idols on the altar reinvented to fit the sensibilities of a post-Enlightenment age where the old justifications of superior bloodlines and divine right no longer convince. It used to strike me as odd that the ancestors of modern American liberalism were so enamored with reactionary, aristocratic, militaristic Prussia; it no longer does.

On the other hand, there is another Left that offers more promise. They have a genuine desire for liberty for the people and an end to oppression and exploitation, but suffer from economic or philosophical confusions about the nature of property and the free market that lead them astray and into support of systems that are destructive to their own values and ideals.

These are ideal types, of course; individuals can be a mix, though my personal experience is that most people on the Left with strong political opinions sit fairly close to one of these two poles. This is not strictly a left-anarchist vs. left-statist split. There are left-wing statists who are confused but basically antiauthoritarian in spirit (some members of the Green Party strike me this way, for instance), and there are avowed left-anarchists who enthusiastically support expanding existing states, or who display a fondness for totalitarian left-wing governments and a desire to deny or soft-pedal their crimes.

This second, antiauthoritarian (or potentially so) Left has certain positive features generally lacking in ideologies like modern American liberalism which provide common ground with libertarianism. They point the way towards a liberty-friendly Left better-suited to supporting the best in its own ideals.

Perhaps the most important is an appreciation for voluntary actions, activities, and groups that arise from society rather than state action. This includes things like mutual aid societies, worker-owned firms, and labor unions. (Modern American unionism as we now know it is largely a creature of state privilege, but there is an older tradition of worker organizations that were outgrowths of voluntary society rather than government intervention. Poke around Rad Geek’s People’s Daily a bit and you’ll find some good stuff.) Now, the anti-market Left’s hostility to the single largest example of this phenomenon- for-profit private business and investment- is a serious gap in understanding. Nevertheless, their grasp of the fundamental idea that socially beneficial activities don’t need to be instigated, funded, or coordinated by the state represents is hugely important.

The more mainstream Left rejects this, and this rejection is a fundamental principle of their philosophy. The “Progressive” belief that society requires coercive technocratic management by the state is bred in their bones. Thus, they seldom seem able to imagine the possibility of anything good being accomplished without the state’s helping and guiding hand. When they talk about things “community organizing” and “social action,” that usually boils down to“begging the government for help.”

The idea that society can work and prosper without a wise sovereign directing things is one of the most important foundations of libertarianism and classical liberalism, and this principle provides a possible bridge between libertarianism and some leftists. I’ll have some more thoughts on some of the contrasts between mainstream liberalism and the antiauthoritarian Left in a future post.