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Evan Thomas – he of third generational Communist fame thanks to Miss Coulter and professional coward Al Franken – is quoted by Brent Bozell as saying: “I really don’t get this whole debate … anything that promotes commitment between couples, and helps the institution of the family, is a positive thing.”

Meanwhile, “A Wirthlin poll from last spring for the Alliance for Marriage found 63 percent of Hispanics and 62 percent of blacks favored a constitutional amendment defending marriage.” As I mentioned on Monday, this is why Hillary is sitting this one out. Forget the war, forget the economy. All Bush has to do is wave a little flag called Defense of Marriage Amendment – which no Democratic presidential candidate can support – and the ethnic minorities will desert in droves.

Sometimes the secular media reminds me of my dog. He sees what is going on around him, but has absolutely no idea why. You see, Evan, Christians are generally not huge fans of what the Bible calls abomination. If you’re suprised by the overwhelmingly negative reaction to gay marriage, I’m sure you’ll be shocked beyond words at their attitude towards the UN overseeing a Nobel prize-winning peace treaty signed in Jerusalem.

Oh, and there’s a better way to promote commitment and preserve families. It’s called abolishing no-fault divorce. Better yet, pass a law forcing the courts to automatically assign custody of the children to the non-filing spouse if they request it.

Cal Thomas writes: The time when the Republican Party stood for something worth standing for is over. The “G” in GOP might as well stand for government. Smaller, less intrusive government with less spending and lower taxes is the stuff of history books and fond memories for a party that once had a purpose. But Republicans, having tasted power, are now drunk with it. Like the Democrats before them who became inebriated with the wine of success, Republicans now seem interested only in preserving their elective offices.

Truly there is less than a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties…. Is it time for another revolution yet? Who’s got the tea?

The Libertarians have it, Mr. Thomas. In shiploads. You are either for the use of government to control individuals or you are against it. If you are against the use of government to control individuals, instead of simply guarding their unalienable rights, you should not support the Republican party. Yes, Republicans are better than Democrats. So what? Democrats are better than Communists, but that’s no reason to support them.

Of course the Euroelite permitted France and Germany to break the stability pact. The EU is not about economics, for all that it descended from the Common Market. A free trade zone was just the rationale for getting the ball rolling. The whole point is to restore the empire, and allow the heirs of Charlemagne to rule over Europe. This was Napoleon’s dream, Hitler’s dream, and is now being quietly, but methodically implemented by the faceless grey men of Europa Uber alles.

As in, I love him – though not in a Goodridge way.

I don’t buy this number either. Not in the least. It’s called inflation, people. Get used to it.

Fred Hickey, editor of The High Tech Strategist says, “Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve listened to scores of tech company conference calls. In nearly every case, from Cisco to Foundry to Motorola to CDW, the story was the same – their best customer was the U.S. government.”

Gee, I’m shocked. Apparently, compassionate conservatism is the kinder, gentler way to nationalize an economy.

As the US government claims to be building democracy in Iraq, they appear to be engaging in a little Constitutionally suspicious behavior at home as well. Deux Ego had an interesting experience yesterday.

Yes, I support the war on those who have declared war on us, or at least I will should we ever get around to declaring war as the Constitution demands. No, I do not support many of the questionable actions of the US government performed under the cover of war-making.

When did we change the name of the country to the Union of Sauron’s Affiliates?

To translate it into UNIX system administration terms, the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz. society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with a kind of neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with any deviations from what they saw as the norm. Whereas people who were wired into a church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand anything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack.

– Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

This signifies nothing about Mr. Stephenson, of course, as it is usually a mistake to identify a character, even the protagonist, with the author. But it is an interesting notion, and at least tangentially related to some of the points I have made with regards to belief systems, or the lack of them.

JH writes through the tears: Even though I proudly identify myself as a liberal, I absorb as much right wing media as I can and reading your column is always good for a laugh. I notice that your bio refers to you as a “Christian libertarian”. Can you please tell me where in any Christian doctrine it says that its acceptable to call names like “Lizard Queen”, “snob”, “cold-blooded”, or (and this is my favorite) referring to someone as being “in the direct matrilineal line of Lilith, daughter of Asmodael, Hell Baron of the Seventh Circle”. I attended years of Catholic school and every time I called names like that I was told to go to confession. I know that for those of you on the right its all right to think this way about Hillary Clinton because she’s the epitome of evil, but I forgot liberals think the right is evil and the right just thinks that liberals are mistaken. Congratulations on raising the state of debate in America.

Since JH is confused, let me explain that my column on WorldNetDaily is an op/ed column, wherein one is expected to engage in op/ed rhetoric. Everyone knows what rhetoric is, I hope? Although I generally prefer logos, using pathos occasionally is fun and a nice change of pace. The state-of-debate point cracked me up, since editors at some of America’s largest newspapers have complained that they can’t follow my references or the complex sentence structure that I favor and asked if I would please – ahem- make it more accessible. I suppose JH is only reading my column since he’s bored with Maureen Dowd’s constant delving into Plato, Goethe,Calvino, Nietszche, Open Text, Open Source, and, of course, the Conscript Fathers.

Perhaps I should imitate Paul Krugman and just make things up on the fly:

PK: President Bush’s budget will cause ten million jobs to be lost next year!

Krugman Truth Squad: Um, Paul, the budget covers the next decade. So, even if you’re right, which you aren’t, that’s one million. As in, ten divided by ten?

PK: (freezes for a long, uncomfortable moment like a deer caught in the headlights before trying to bluff it out) How dare you question my math, fool! Don’t you know I am a professor of economics? At Princeton!

KTS: So, is this Quantum Economics or something?

PK: You hateful bigots, you are stalking me! (bursts into tears)

When did I ever write that liberals are mistaken? Sure, they’re mistaken about what they call themselves, as they are anti-liberal. BTW, I never even write liberal, I only use left-liberal as a partial concession to the perverted parlance of American politics. I do think left-liberals are mistaken with regards to their fundamental assumptions, which I think tends to reveal their functional – and quite frequently, actual in the IQ sense – stupidity. I also believe that their ultimate goals of egalitarianism and one-world government are deeply and profoundly evil. I do not, however, believe that JH is very familiar with my column. He’s clearly conflating me with other writers of the Right, although he does appear to know enough to avoid referring to me as a conservative.

It amuses me how America’s left-liberals believe they can run around calling everyone stupid,hate-filled bigots, then yowl like wounded kittens every time someone writes something insufficiently adoring about the object of their idol worship. Don’t bring it if you can’t take it, Penelope. And stop blubbering, Paul!

One of my secular political sisters-in-arms, DN, (she’s an atheist Libertarian) wrote:

Your article regarding atheists is being discussed at the Secular Web. Thought you might want to brave the flame.

VD: Thanks, checked it out. Very little interesting there, as I’ve responded at length to two far more lengthy and significant critiques on the blog. By the way, please feel free to tell Anti-Creedance Front that I’m a full-contact martial artist. He’s welcome to try giving me a wedgie any time he likes.

Yes, I must confess, I didn’t read the thread until after sending you the link. I was then embarrassed. Lesson learned. I’ll pass along the wedgie challenge. 🙂

I suspect DN is at least an occasional reader of the column. She knows perfectly well that I don’t hate her, or atheists in general. I will say, however, that the Secular Web forum dwellers definitely appear to fall squarely into the highly irrational category. I will survive the flame.

Somehow, in writing my most recent article on Hillary, I managed to forget that she defeated Rick Lazio, not Giuliani. Thanks to reader ST for pointing this out. I’ve corrected the error, but the general point remains. She’s TCU two weeks ago. Who has she beaten?

Of course, now that I’ve realized that my editor’s mind is clearly occupied elsewhere, we can have some serious fun!