NYT Op-Ed: The Terms of Our Surrender

[Zguy28]

Interesting Op Ed from the NY Times.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/opinion/sunday/the-terms-of-our-surrender.html?_r=0

 

 

IT now seems certain that before too many years elapse, the Supreme Court will be forced to acknowledge the logic of its own jurisprudence on same-sex marriage and redefine marriage to include gay couples in all 50 states.

Once this happens, the national debate essentially will be finished, but the country will remain divided, with a substantial minority of Americans, most of them religious, still committed to the older view of marriage.

 

So what then? 

 

Read the rest at the link.

[mjah]

Fortunately we have thus far avoided a "No Fuddyduddy Left Behind" law.  So we'll do the same thing we did after other pivotal equal-rights epochs.  We wait.

 

Gary Larson had a great anecdote about his early years, trying to sell "The Far Side" comic strip into newspapers.  It was unlike the largely milquetoast strips of the time.  He called a colleague and complained that he just couldn't get past the section editors and get a toehold on the comic pages.

 

His colleague basically said, "The thing about editors is, they eventually die. Be patient."

 

And sure enough, his strip was a huge hit... under a largely newer generation of editors.

[Predicto]

What will we do?

 

The same thing that we did with these guys.

 

 

 

 

Eventually they will adjust their thinking, forget or rationalize away that they ever were against it (or at least forget why it was supposed to be such a big deal), and they will move on to the next thing to be outraged about.  

[Larry]

Eventually they will adjust their thinking, forget or rationalize away that they ever were against it (or at least forget why it was supposed to be such a big deal), and they will move on to the next thing to be outraged about.

And yet, we still have people actively trying to repeal anti-discrimination laws.

I've just recently discovered that, in the year 200, 40% of Alabama voted to keep the laws prohibiting interracial marriage on the books.

Heck, we still have civil war apologists.

No, I think there's a whole bunch of people who still resent losing "the civil rights battle". They haven't quit. They've just become more cautious about how they phrase things.

And yes, they're passing it on.

[twa]

 

Eventually they will adjust their thinking, forget or rationalize away that they ever were against it (or at least forget why it was supposed to be such a big deal), and they will move on to the next thing to be outraged about.  

 

[Predicto]

And yet, we still have people actively trying to repeal anti-discrimination laws.

I've just recently discovered that, in the year 200, 40% of Alabama voted to keep the laws prohibiting interracial marriage on the books.

Heck, we still have civil war apologists.

No, I think there's a whole bunch of people who still resent losing "the civil rights battle". They haven't quit. They've just become more cautious about how they phrase things.

And yes, they're passing it on.

 

 

Sure, but there are less and less of them every year, and they have shut up about it, and interracial marriage is no longer a real concern in our society.   The racists now speak of fighting against civil war reparations (which no one anywhere is suggesting) or something else.  The battle on interracial marriage is long over.  

 

During the 1960s, interracial marriage seemed like a real issue, an open question that could go either way.  But in the long run, it really wasn't.  Now people understand that the battle is completly over and, frankly, almost everyone understands that their lives haven't changed a bit from legalizing interracial marriage unless they want to have an interracial marriage for themselves.  

 

The opponents of gay marriage will come to that realization too, in the same manner. 

[Elessar78]

Heck, we still have civil war apologists.

 

Civil War? I believe you're referring to the War of Northern Aggression.

[Predicto]

 

 

Perfect example.   Byrd grew up, matured and moved on with the times.   Just like America as a whole.  Good for him.  

 

 

(I particularly like the "Byrd voted against both African-American Supreme Court justices."   That is a hilarious distortion of why those two votes happened, 25 years apart.   Good simplistic propaganda job Joe Scarborough.)

[zoony]

Civil War? I believe you're referring to the War of Northern Aggression.

Yah the one that was all about states rights

[mjah]

Yah the one that was all about states rights

 

Totally, and therefore not at all about slavery.  Yankees, rewriting history whenever they feel like it... jeez.

 

I'm of the opinion that the most vocal opponents of equal rights tend not to change their minds very much with the passage of time.  Yes, some do sincerely, but not nearly as many as simply clam up about it or only show their true colors in the voting booth.  Or simply remain outspoken about their enthusiasm for overt discrimination.

 

To varying extents, that mindset does get passed down to the next generation.  But after a couple of generations, hopefully the little ones take grandpa's anti-equality rants less as the advice of a role model, and more as the senile ranting of an unapologetic bigot.

[grhqofb5]

And yet, we still have people actively trying to repeal anti-discrimination laws.

I've just recently discovered that, in the year 200, 40% of Alabama voted to keep the laws prohibiting interracial marriage on the books.

Heck, we still have civil war apologists.

No, I think there's a whole bunch of people who still resent losing "the civil rights battle". They haven't quit. They've just become more cautious about how they phrase things.

And yes, they're passing it on.

 

Funny that Natives Americans in Alabama would have such high support in the year 200 for similar laws prohibiting interracial marriage that our Nation had through the 20th century.  Perhaps they distinguished each other based upon who had the best tan.

 

Seriously though, on the civil war issue, I had seminar class in undergrad (went to a school in VA) that dealt with constitutional law.  We read a book on civil war/civil liberties during that time period, Lincoln's actions, etc.  One guy in the class, when asked his opinion (this is a round table discussion of 15 people), said that he "just had a really low opinion of Lincoln." before reading the book (which was somewhat critical of Lincoln's invocation of martial law in MD, suspending the writ of habeas corpus, etc.). The professor asked why he held a poor view going in, and the guy said "well, it really just that whole emancipation proclamation thing, I just don't think that was a good idea."  You could have heard a pin drop after he said that.

 

After class a few of us were chatting outside, and we came to the conclusion that he must have misspoken, or not understood what the emancipation proclamation was (guy wasn't the brightest star in the sky). So I asked him the next week, sort of joking around, "hey, still against freeing the slaves."  And he said something along the lines of "well, I was always taught in my family that it was the wrong thing at the time."  Turns out he was serious.

[Larry]

Hey, as far as I'm concerned, Lincoln did more damage to our constitution than any president in history.

For example, Lincoln doesn't have the authority to suspend habaes. Congress does.

Lincoln didn't have the authority to free the slaves. It's debatable whether congress could, or does it take an amendment.

And don't get me started on the concept of "congress refuses to seat any representatives from your state, unless your state ratifies this constitutional amendment that we passed while you weren't here."

I'm willing to FORGIVE Lincoln for what he did, because I think they were necessary, and because they worked.

But I mean, we actually have Napolitano, on Fox News, stating that Lincoln STARTED the Civil War?

[GhostofSparta]

But I mean, we actually have Napolitano, on Fox News, stating that Lincoln STARTED the Civil War?

He's right, though. I mean, if Lincoln hadn't had the audacity to run unopposed by other Republicans while the Democrats split their vote 3 ways, then South Carolina wouldn't have had to secede while Buchanan was still in office, ~3 months before Lincoln was even sworn in. And if Lincoln hadn't forced SC to secede by his very existence, then the rest of the deep south wouldn't have had to do the same. And if ol' Abe hadn't personally fired that first shot at Ft. Sumter, why the states that left would have been just happy to come back to the Union (on their own terms, of course)after a couple of years to cool down.

 

So you see Larry, by being so condescending, you can't see how wrong you are. Without Lincoln existing and winning, there would have been no Civil War of Northern Aggression Between the States' Rights. So by forcing an end to the divisive issue of slavery and preventing half the country from leaving because the idea of emancipation gave them the vapors, Lincoln is the worst President in history. That's just science.

 

Of course if Lincoln didn't exist, the Confederacy would have invented him anyway, but that's not really the point.