Top GOP Pollster to GOP: Reverse On Gay Issues
Reply
Excerpt from the remarkable article (with embedded documentation) by Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Beast:
Below is a remarkable document. It’s a memo circulated by Jan van Lohuizen, a highly respected Republican pollster, (he polled for George W. Bush in 2004), to various leading Republican operatives, candidates and insiders. It’s on the fast-shifting poll data on marriage equality and gay rights in general, and how that should affect Republican policy and language. And the pollster’s conclusion is clear: if the GOP keeps up its current rhetoric and positions on gays and lesbians, it is in danger of marginalizing itself to irrelevance or worse.
AZ Thunderstorm!
“I went outside to look around. Light rain, then, ka-BOOM! Okay, no swim this evening.” Read my short post in My Notes.
Sonoran Sunrise 2012
New photo from Alex, who says: “Sonoran Sunrise 2012.” See post for images in PHOTOS.
Deep Cycles and Everyday Things
“Consider the cycle between the acorn and the oak tree, each the once and future source of the other, yet each preserving its own life in the ongoing instant.” — new vignette by Fred Leeds, in Writing.
No First Cup
Parable with a Zen twist – new vignette by Fred Leeds, in Writing.
Occupy Wall Street: Gone Rogue?
A surprising spectrum of American opinion expressed cautious optimism at the early “Occupy Wall Street” movement. Getting Congress to move is even harder than changing the banking system. The turn-off is this strong OWS directional shift to violence. Read our editorial in Commentary.
Two Haiku in Search of a Title
Two new haiku from Fred Leeds, in Writing.
Amateur’s Armchair
Master Joshu was asked if a dog has the Buddha nature or not. Joshu’s answer: “Mu” (no)…
Read Fred Leeds’ new vignette in Writing.
Michael D. Higgins Video
Must-see. Michael D. Higgins is the President of Ireland. His comments on the United States political climate, respect for President Obama, and criticism of Tea Party dialectic is better than anything I ever heard in the United States. Invigorating, humorous at times, and devastatingly to the point. Embedded YouTube video.
More Haiku
Haiku!
Fred Leeds sent me a haiku the other day. I liked it and started experimenting with them too. I’ve never written one before. Even with my own loose and lackadaisical style, it’s not as easy as it looks.
From what I can see, boiling down complex rules that depend whether you are writing in Japanese or English, a haiku consists, roughly, of three elements:
* imaging a theme of nature, weather or season
* a pivot word signaling a juxtaposition
* a sudden switch of context in a way that suggests an unexpected connection
Here are three haiku each from Fred, and myself, in Writing:
Sloth Comes out of the Closet At Last
I have a special drawer where I keep my arithmetic mistakes.
Pennies and division signs crouch there
in the dark,
their terrible irritability silenced.In another drawer poetry waits to leap out …”
Poem by Fred Leeds, in Writing
Nature’s Also Human Tune
“Morning, autumn by the lake. Cushions of leaves encircle the trees …” Vignette by Fred Leeds, in Writing.
Rhetoric: Fallacy of Disenfranchisement
I’ve noticed a popular fallacy that seems to be of a distinct category. I call it “Fallacy of Disenfranchisement” because it attempts to disqualify a speaker from even expressing an opinion. It circumvents arguments ad hominem by entirely eliminating the ‘hominem.’ This fallacy might also be called a “reverse appeal to authority.” Read about this and related debate errors in My Notes.
On Honoring the Opinion of Others
It is a fine thing to honor the opinion of friends with whom we disagree, and it is just and proper to recognize and defend the right of others of any walk of life to disagree with us.
But, no one has a moral right to call for the oppression or destruction of others whose greatest offense may be to try to live their own lives in peace. Expressing opinion must always be a protected right, but advocacy for the legal disenfranchisement of others is never an opinion — it is a call to force in disguise.
When we encounter such attacks on the edifice of rights, either individually or through the vote, it is always wrong to remain silent. It’s moral and spiritual treason to acquiesce to prejudice and oppression by pretending it to be mere ‘opinion.’
