The Case Against Gay Marriage

It comes from one basic belief as a conservative: The government has a fundamental role to play in society and, as opposed to giving free hand-outs to the poor, it's to protect Americans against behaviors which are found to be immoral by Americans. This is why gambling, prostitution, drug use, pedophilia, and the like are illegal. It has the interests of the people in mind. This is why homosexual marriage should not be made legal.

Now, one can find this to be discrimination or not. Whether one does honestly depends on whether or not homosexuality is found to be a lifestyle choice. I find it to be one, as studies have shown. In fact, looking at the LeVay, Hamer, and Bailey and Pillard studies proves my point. The studies prove that homosexuality is not innate, but rather, has more to do with other factors. People can have a genetic predisposition to being homosexual, just as people can have a genetic predisposition to being alcoholic (Note that I am not trying to say homosexuality is like alcoholism). Just because there is the genetic predisposition doesn't excuse people from having to take responsibility for their actions.

I also do believe in this thing we call "the sanctity of marriage" and believe that marriage is a term that should be reserved for one man and one woman. Marriage has its roots in millennia of cultural and religious tradition. If marriage is redefined from being between a man and woman, then where does it stop? Is it only between two people then? Isn't that discrimination against polygamists? And what about pedophiles? After all, “they're in love” and “not harming anyone,” aren't they? 

Marriage exists for a reason: for the family. Unfortunately, homosexuals have a slight problem when it comes to reproducing with each other. Sure, there are heterosexuals that cannot reproduce but they tend to be the exception and not the rule, as most heterosexuals can reproduce.

Now, I should make it clear that I am in favor of Civil Union to grant certain rights to homosexual couples, such as visitation rights. But when it comes to economic benefits like healthcare plans and tax breaks, I hardly believe that it's discrimination. In the same way, one could make the case that we're discriminating against single people.

Even if homosexual marriage were to be legalized, there is a proper way to go about it, and an irresponsible way to go about it. The Massachusetts Supreme Court is playing judicial activism; they are creating laws, as opposed to interpreting them. Gavin Newsome, mayor of San Francisco, is defying the voice of Californians to pander to a minority special interest group.

This is why I fully support President Bush’s proposed constitutional amendment. I feel that this is very misunderstood, as it is not an “anti-gay marriage amendment” that so many make it out to be. Rather, it is “The Defense of Marriage Act” in the Constitution. The problem is that when Gavin Newsome legalizes gay marriage, according to the Constitution, every single other state must recognize these illegitimate marriages. Is that very fair that one mayor is forcing his will and the will of such a small minority upon the entire country? President Bush’s amendment defines the word “marriage” as being between one man and one woman, but it most definitely does not prevent civil union. In fact, in his speech, President Bush encouraged states to create their own domestic partnership laws.

Thus, because I believe that homosexuality is immoral, and because granting marriage to homosexuals legitimizes that behavior, and because the government has a responsibility to protect society from immoral behavior, I believe homosexual marriages should not be legalized.

[Final Note: These are my beliefs, as controversial as they may be. Respect them and argue without name-calling.]

Bush’s Thanksgiving Visit to the Troops in Iraq
(And why it was a truly excellent gesture)

As most know by now, President Bush visited the US troops in Iraq on Thanksgiving. It was a surprise visit, as no one knew, not even his wife or parents, that he would be visiting the troops on Thanksgiving as opposed to spending his time at home with his family at his Crawford ranch. He was hailed by the troops as a great leader and as a great man. Though he was only there for a few hours, his visit made headlines around the world. Why is this so significant?

For starters, it is important to look at the fact that President Bush gave up Thanksgiving with his family to go visit the troops. Instead of spending his time at home relaxing, he went to one of the most dangerous hotspots in the world to visit the troops. When the president can make such sacrifices for the troops, it comes much appreciated. His entire visit was shrouded in secrecy as to be a real surprise for the troops. As opposed to Hillary’s “gesture,” filled with fanfare and hype (where she visited the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq), President Bush’s gesture was genuine and came as a heartfelt surprise.

Why did he do this? Cynics may just call it a photo opportunity, or perhaps just a way of making himself look good. However, once again, one must look at the sacrifices he made and the danger he put himself into. The President of the United States sacrificed his Thanksgiving, removed the fanfare that would make the event even bigger, and put himself in danger (seeing as how he would be the perfect target for Baathist loyalists). Thus, it was more than just a Public Relations effort. Bush genuinely feels for the troops and went to booster the morale of the troops, which was the right move. Unlike previous presidents, Bush is the rare president that is actually the “Commander-In-Chief” of the army. As President of the United States, Bush truly sees the troops as another family, as opposed to people to serve him. Most in the military hated Clinton, but they absolutely love Bush. Why? Because he cares for the troops.

Just like Bush’s landing on the USS Lincoln, his Thanksgiving visit to Iraq will come under attack from the opposition. We have already heard the Democrats calling this a photo opportunity, a cheap gain at public relations, and the like. Rare are those like Senator Lieberman who actually believe that what Bush did was the right thing to do. And Senator Lieberman is absolutely right.

Why the current rounds of protests against the war in Iraq were so popular

And why they failed to accomplish their true goal.

To begin with, let me state that I am in total favor of freedom of speech. I am not one of those people who equates not supporting the war with not being patriotic and I think that those who do not support the war have a right to protest. However, looking at these protests that happened against the war in Iraq, something different was happening this time. The protests were huge and took place all around the world, and it ends up begging the question: why? Why were they so big?

Before starting, it’s easy to dismiss this from both ends of the spectrum. It’s easy for a conservative to say that everyone in these protests just didn’t like America and didn’t like Bush, and were all just stupid hippies doing it for attention. For the liberal, it’s easy to say, “because they’re right.” Neither of these descriptions is very accurate at explaining why exactly they were so popular.

Was it because we were going in without the United Nations? Well, that wouldn’t make sense, seeing as how we went into Kosovo without the United Nations under Bill Clinton. Is it because they hate America? Well, no, because a lot of people attending these protests genuinely love America and disagree with the president. Is it because Bush headed into this war to get some oil? No, because a lot of the people against the war believed that oil was neither the sole, nor the main motivating factor. What was it then? Here’s my take:

To begin with, we have a semi-unpopular president elected by the narrowest margin in the history of the United States. He is commonly characterized by the media as a simpleton or a moron. He had very little going for him in the public eye until September 11^th, after which Bush responded by removing the Taliban government from Afghanistan in his “war on terror.” For America, this seemed to be a new thing, as we had never done anything so serious in the Middle East before, and it seemed that Bush was headed in the direction of being a hardliner (after all, he is a Republican). Most Americans appreciated him for his swift and decisive action in response to September 11^th, but there was a growing crowd of people who were concerned about civilian deaths in Afghanistan and the idea of messing with the Middle East. Then, Bush announced the possibility of using military force against Iraq. This obviously unified this crowd into a stronger round of protests, based on what they had seen and didn’t like in Afghanistan. Additionally, many saw his evidence for the war as being incomplete and thought that he was being too hawkish. But even then, this doesn’t begin to explain why so many millions of people gathered in these protests in America alone.

There is a reason behind this. Anyone who has gone to these protests must have wondered where all the funding behind the organization came from. It definitely wasn’t just donated. Taking a look at some of the groups behind these protests, we can draw a fair number of conclusions. Many of the groups, such as A.N.S.W.E.R. have huge affiliations with communist groups, such as the WWP. Though the Soviet Union collapsed more than a decade ago, there are still groups in the United States itself dedicated to bringing about Marxist communism once again and they’ll use every chance they get to do so. When one looks at the protests themselves, they can see that the protests weren’t just about the war in Iraq. A lot of protests were against President Bush himself, but an alarming amount were about largely unrelated, leftist issues. For example, “free Palestine” movements were prevalent throughout, as were a lot of “free Mumia Abu Jamal” movements (for those out of the know, Mumia Abu Jamal was a convicted cop killer who those concerned feel never had a fair trial). Whether or not these are reasonable demands is debatable, but the fact that these were showing up at the protests suggest a lot about the background off the groups. Worse, however, was the widespread distribution of flyers and pamphlets promoting Marxism and even offering classes in Marxism. Excuse me for a moment, but weren’t these protests supposed to be about Iraq? As far as I’ve seen, these protests have been hijacked by the fringe left. In the end, it ended up hurting the protest movements, as no one could truly take them seriously once they started calling for communist revolutions and the protestors won more contempt than sympathy.

That may explain America alone, and perhaps the Western world, but why were there protests all over the world, as far as in countries like Egypt? This may seem like a stereotypical statement, but there’s a reason behind this: Muslims are communalistic. After Bush had invaded Afghanistan and taken out the Taliban, he was going after Iraq. That’s two Muslim majority countries right there. No matter what the country, most Muslims tend to view an attack on any Muslim country or population as an attack on the religion itself, especially seeing as how a religious theocracy (the Taliban) was taken out. Thus, Muslims around the world attacked President Bush, viewing him as an anti-Islamic fanatic (the fact that he is a devout Christian only hurt him more in the Muslim world). Even in countries like India, with a large Muslim minority, protests were all over the place, and people of all religions joined in, in the name of “brotherhood” with the Muslims. After all, in today’s times, no one wants to be seen as anti-Islamic.

Who didn’t attend these protests? How about the Iraqi people themselves? The Iraqi exiles and those immigrants from Iraq mostly supported the war because they understood how brutal a dictator Saddam Hussein was.

Is Communism really just harmless idealism?

This seems to be the popular perception throughout: Communists are just harmless idealists and communism is just harmless idealism. We are taught in school that we were ultimately too paranoid about communism, that the Domino Theory wasn’t really and that we were simply being reactionary about it. At the same time, we are taught to hate Joseph McCarthy more than Josef Stalin, because Joseph McCarthy took out innocent people. Even more so, people are taught to hate Hitler, but not so much Stalin. Excuse me for a moment here…

Communism is one thing we can agree has not worked in the past. No neo-communist can find an example of when it has worked. And I think it’s safe to guess that communism probably won’t work in the future given human nature. This isn’t saying anything about socialism (i.e. a police state), but still, communism just won’t work. Yet, communism in practice has been an utter disaster to the tune of 100 million deaths. Yes, that’s right. Communism has been responsible for the deaths of 100 million people. Think of Hitler and 11 million people. Now how is that compared to Stalin and his 20-30 million killed in the Great Purges or Mao and his 30 million? I’ll double-check my numbers, but the Soviet Union killed something close to 60 million people during its existence. Is that what communism is all about?

Heck, the basic idea of communism is a violent overthrow of the government. Basically, if communists act, they’re treasonous. And let’s look at communists in America during the cold war… the American communists party basically worked for the Soviet Government and the KGB to deliver military and nuclear secrets. Is that not treason in itself? Yet there are still communist parties all over the place. Will people change?

Now one might ask where this ties into everything… and my response is: wait a few days and you shall see.

How Bush’s Proposed Tax Cuts will Benefit America

As our economy continues in its current paces, America is continuing to face the growing problems of reviving the economy, which is in its current state due to a number of factors, including the burst of the dot.com tech bubble, the “do-nothing” approach of President Clinton, and the decrease in American confidence after September 11^th.

President Bush is proposing a set of tax cuts designed to stimulate the economy, provide more jobs, and solve the problems of this troubling economy.

How tax cuts work:

President Bush plans to cut tax rates for everyone as a way to stimulate the economy. This style of economic thinking is known by many names, the most of common of which are “Chicago School” or “Supply-Side” economics. Some prefer to dub it “Reaganomics” after a similar set of tax cuts proposed in the past by President Reagan. The basic idea behind this is that less taxes results in more moneys in the hands of consumers. With this extra money, the average consumer will spend, boosting the economy, while, more importantly, the rich, who run the businesses, will use the extra money to invest into their business. This, combined with the increased demand from consumers, will create more production in business, as well as a greater demand for jobs, which, in turn, cuts unemployment. All of this together will stimulate the economy and lead to increased economic growth.

When has it worked in the past?

As mentioned before, tax cuts gained their claim to fame as an economic theory with President Reagan. A series of tax cuts proposed by President Reagan resulted in a significant drop in inflation rates (from above 20% to below 5%) and resulted in the longest peacetime economic growth ever. Tax cuts are not just of the Republican Party either; in the 1960’s, John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, proposed similar tax cuts, which worked well in boosting economic growth.

A tax cut for the rich?

Many opponents cite this as a tax cut “for the rich,” which is quite misleading for one main reason: it is the rich who pay most of the taxes. Let’s take a look at some statistics directly from the IRS: Of the federal income taxes, 56.47% are paid by the top 5%, 67.3% are paid by the top 10% and 96.09% are paid by the top 50%. What exactly is the top 50% of wage earners? A couple earning a combined total of $26,000. The top 10% have a combined income of $87,000. Since we have a graduated income tax (the richer pay a higher percentage of taxes), why should there be a flat tax cut?