The Amateur Philosopher

I was very happy with the the results of the national election last week, even as I was quite upset about some of the results of the California balloting (in particular, the passage of Proposition 8). Unsurprisingly, the right wing has lost little time about being nasty about our new President. More surprisingly, and more disturbingly to me (as someone who considers himself pretty significantly left-of-center, particularly for the USA), parts of the left wing have lost little time in doing the same. Maybe this is just more visible to me, living as I do in the Bay Area, but it’s gotten upsetting enough that I feel a need to write about it.

One of the upsetting events is actually related to Proprosition 8, a proposition which, by the way, Obama officially registered opposition to. As I was driving this morning, I happened to catch a bit of “Forum,” a KQED (Northern CA NPR) call-in show which is hosted by Michael Krasny, whom I quite like, but which has all the standard problems of a call-in show. Several of these problems called in today to condemn Obama for not going beyond his opposition to Prop 8 to take time from his presidential campaign to come to California and actively campaign against it.

Now, I want to reiterate…I really, really hate Prop 8. Because of my parents, there’s a personal aspect to this hatred. I hope it’s challenged successfully in court, and failing that, I hope it’s repealed ASAP. But the idea that Obama should have become intimately involved with the No on 8 campaign, that he should have made opposition to 8 an important part of his own appeal, strikes me as possibly the stupidest political suggestion made in quite some time.

Part of what upsets me about Proposition 8’s passage (a fairly narrow passage, by the way, 52-48) is that I expected better of California. But state consitutional amendments forbidding recognition of same-sex marriage passed in Florida this year 62-38, and in Ohio in 2004, also 62-38. Both of these, by the way, were substanitally higher than Obama’s margin of vicotry in the relevant states. Other states with similar constitutional amendments include Colorado, Hawaii, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin. States with DOMAs (though not actually ones enshrined in their constitutions) include Deleware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington.

What do these states have in common (other than explicitly prohibiting gay marriage, a feature they share with all but 6 of the other states)? Together, they contributed 290 electoral votes to Obama in this election. Obama’s margin of victory over McCain? 182.

Now, I’m not saying Obama would have lost every single one of these electoral votes if he had spent more time opposing 8. But might he have lost half of them? Easily. And that would have made the election very, very close indeed, rather too close for my comfort.

But instead of having Sarah Palin an iffy heartbeat away from the presidency, we now have a President of the United States who supports civil unions. I know–civil unions are no substitute for real marriage, at least while the government is in the marriage business at all. But I want to say that again, more slowly. We now have a President. Of the United States. Who supports civil unions. The possibility of this happening would have seemed wildly remote as recetly as 2 years ago. This is the president, not just of Massachusets and California, but of Florida and Mississippi and Arkansas (which enacted a law this year far worse than a mere DOMA). And while he hasn’t been willing to stand up for the actual label “marriage,” he has stood up for an exact legal (though not cultural, and yes, we need to work towards changing that) equivalent. That’s amazing. And it was worth it. Even losing on Proposition 8 was worth it.

The other person that I want to call onto the carpet is Ralph Nader. I didn’t vote for Nader, and not primarily because I didn’t want to risk throwing the election to McCain. I mean, I didn’t, but come on–Obama was polling 20 points ahead in California. If you live in a state where the Democrat (or, for that matter, the Republican) is polling 20 points ahead, and you want to vote for a third-party candidate, you have my blessing to go ahead and do so. It’s *not*, even if lots of people follow your lead, going to make a difference to the election’s outcome. No, here and now, I would have felt fine “voting my conscience.”

And I also didn’t not vote for him (apologies for the double negative) because I *disagree* with him on very many issues. I don’t. I agree with him, in fact, substantially more closely than I agree with Obama on a wide range of issues. No, I didn’t vote for Nader because, in spite of that, I thought he’d make a lousy President.

Why? Because I thought the guy was an idealogical purist and a bit of a prig. This is a guy who really can get up on camera and tell the world–for three elections straight now–that there’s no *real* difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates for President. This is a guy (like Dennis Kucinich, who I generally like and was disappointed in when he did this) who could oppose a bill that created a timetable to bring our troops home from Iraq–a bill being pushed under a right-wing President, mind you–because the timetable didn’t say “tomorrow.” Yeah, I’d like our troops brought home tomorrow (and would have back then, too). But it isn’t going to happen.

And Nader’s agenda wouldn’t happen, if by some miracle he became President, even with the new, large Democratic majorities in both houses. And Nader, I’m convinced, wouldn’t compromise. This is a guy who doesn’t understand the difference between “compromise” and “capitulation,” who believes that a step in the right direction, no matter how huge, is useless if it doesn’t get you straight to your destination. He’d rather let the government grind to a halt than give a single inch. And that angered me no end.

And now, after the election, I feel like I’ve been vindicated. If you’re one of the five people on the net who hasn’t seen it yet, take a look at this:

Now, strictly speaking, Nader’s defenders are right. He didn’t call Obama an “Uncle Tom,” at least in the sense that he at no point uttered the clause “Obama is an Uncle Tom.” But man, he came awfully close: On pressing, he made statements that logically imply that Obama has acted like an “Uncle Tom” in the past, that he is at least likely to show himself as an “Uncle Tom,” and so on.

Dude. Yeah, you, the white dude in the over-conservative suit (and I say this as a fellow white dude who has been known to wear over-conservative suits). Obama is a guy who has spent the better part of his life organizing his fellow African-Americans to stand up for their rights. And you dare…? I’m just speechless. I thought you were a prig, but I was wrong about you; you’re much worse.

(BTW, I am alive to the irony of the fact that the interviewer who I find myself applauding in that interview is from Fox News. They’re wrong about almost everything. But they’re right about Ralph Nader.)