Whatever one’s position on same-sex marriage, it is difficult to understand why the issue is suddenly so much more urgent than tax relief or job creation. In the wake of President Bush’s call for an amendment to the federal constitution, even reliable culture warrior Tom DeLay responded by saying "there is no particular reason for haste." For that matter, in the (highly unlikely) event that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of recognizing same-sex marriages, a state constitutional amendment would provide no more protection than the defense of marriage statute currently on our books. Aside from its symbolism, the proposal has no substance.
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Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance
Game Theory
Some people go into politics because they care about policy. Others view politics as another species of sport: who wins? how? what tactical maneuvers are effective? What’s the score? For those of us who have been unable to understand how or why a man with no obvious engagement with any policy issue, domestic or foreign, became President, game theory may supply the answer.
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Fight Fair, Dammit
In Florence, Italy, there is a famous marble statue of two Greek wrestlers,nude, and magnificently muscular. The statues are, as we say, ‘anatomically correct,’ and one wrestler has hold of the other by an organ that my male friends tell me is quite vulnerable. I have forgotten the statue’s real name, but my husband always calls it "fight fair, dammit."
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Connecting the Dots
As the Bush Administration continues its relentless push to starve the agencies of government, its tax cuts are choking off federal payments to states and cities for federally-mandated programs like Medicaid, special education, the President’s "No Child Left Behind" law, and hundreds of others. While there is plenty of pain to go around, the haphazard mess that is the current American health care system may suffer most.
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Words, Words, Words
If any of these answers comes as a surprise, it is because Americans have increasingly substituted labels for analysis. Turn on talk radio, or one of the numerous television shows where political pundits scream at each other and you will hear terms like liberal or right-wing used to dismiss a point of view with which the commentator disagrees. What you won’t often hear is a reasoned discussion of the merits or flaws of that point of view.
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