Stage Three: Commentary

The Editorial Board’s entry “Government, marriage are unhappy couple” in the Austin American Statesman highlights the growing problem of disrespect for the separation of church and state advocated by America’s founders. Religion is never explicitly mentioned, but this notion of legislated morality seems to be inevitably acquainted therewith. From reproductive rights to gay marriage rights to stem cell research, the religious Right can’t turn down the opportunity to attempt to impose its morals on the rest of America. Worse than this, however, is the inherent hypocrisy in calling oneself “conservative” while defending the use of big government to crack down on utterly trivial matters, especially in such economically tumultuous times.

The Board takes a logically sound stance on Rep. Warren Chisum’s asinine proposal to force unhappy newlyweds to remain married for two years. They fortunately keep a professional tone, praising his intentions and values, but even more importantly they don’t hesitate to call him out on his naïveté. They cite Rep. Jessica Farrar’s apt quote that it’s not “the government’s job to force people to stay unhappily married,” illustrating the contradiction between so-called “conservatives” such as Chisum and true conservatives that are against any unnecessary government intrusion.

The intended audience of (largely) Austinites is one that is much more progressive than other parts of Texas, and they clearly recognize the appeal of such a commentary to this crowd; tension is growing in the GOP that may ultimately result in nothing less than a schism, leading to a party of neo-conservatives/religious zealots separate from the traditional conservatives who may merge with the libertarians. Conservatives are becoming sick of being grouped in the same party as those who are so blatantly in favor of government intrusion--as they should be. In fact, that's exactly why I now consider myself a libertarian; I was disgusted with the perversion of the word "conservative" into its exact opposite, an ideology of expanded governmental power and injection of Christian values. I sincerely hope that such a split will take place in the Republican party so that true conservatives will finally vote for the libertarian candidates they've wanted to support but were too afraid that they would be too obscure.

Article Introduction and Colleages' Blogs

News8Austin's article on Michael Phelps' suspension from swimming in Austin highlights the "Reefer Madness" hysteria that lives even in the twenty-first century. It also demonstrates a profound level of cognitive dissonance: even though absolutely no "anti-doping rule was violated," the federation still deemed it fitting to reprimand him for not acting as a "role model." Well, what about the DUI conviction he already had? Does anyone seriously consider driving under the influence of alcohol--which has been proven study after government-funded study to be more harmful, more addicting, more intoxicating, and even more of a gateway drug than cannabis--to be perfectly acceptable behavior, while responsibly consuming cannabis and harming no one at all is worthy of reprimand? It's time to face the facts: spewing propaganda may have flown in the pre-Internet days, but now the tools are available to counter such lies with actual science instead of fear-mongering.