England has always reveled in its drawing-room dramas, from Jane Austen’s social minefields to E.M. Forster’s Howards End to Upstairs, Downstairs — and yes, the blockbuster Downton Abbey. John Lanchester’s brilliant Capital, set on a once-ordinary London block whose housing prices have skyrocketed, has the distinction of being the first brick-and-mortar novel set squarely in our current times.
On the other hand, at least Republicans aren’t blaming bloggers
Posted by Lizzie on 11/08/04
I mean, look at it this way. (If you don’t mind, that is.) It’s true that people on my side of the divide want to live in a society where women are free to choose and where gay relationships have civil equality with straight ones. And you want to live in a society where the opposite is true. These are some of those conflicting values everyone is talking about. But at least my values — as deplorable as I’m sure they are — don’t involve any direct imposition on you. We don’t want to force you to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same sex, whereas you do want to close out those possibilities for us. Which is more arrogant?
We keep muttering this over and over, on the bus, on the street, to the checker at the supermarket, and NO ONE EVER LISTENS TO US. Thank God for Michael Kinsley.
Filed under: The Man |
Liberal values involve many constraints on other people. Liberals want other people to pay high taxes and to obey numerous government regulations. They want Asians and Caucasians to relinquish university slots in favor of other groups. They want language to restricted to what’s PC. And, for those who consider fetuses to be human beings, freedom of choice means that the fetus gives up its right to life.
Comment by David — 11/12/2004 @ 5:18 pm
I’m not even going to argue with you, David, after that Bush deficit! I’ll wait until Thanksgiving when the entire family can.
Comment by Old Hag — 11/12/2004 @ 6:22 pm
Incredible as it may sound, some people consider abortion & gay marriage serious moral issues, not silly little civil rights quibbles.
Obviously, since only women get pregnant, the abortion debate is about something that doesn’t happen to men, but to say men can have no moral opinion about it is a non sequitir.
As a libertarian, I consider abortion & the death penalty serious moral issues that are in some cases warranted, & agree with Paglia: to be morally consistent, you have to be pro or con both. She also notes that ‘pro-choice’ is a gutless euphemism that’s damaged the abortion rights movement: if you recuse yourself from a moral argument, you simply cede the moral high ground to your opponent.
But to argue that it’s no one’s business if a woman in her 2nd or 3rd trimester decides she’d rather not is an extreme position supported, according to Gallup, by less than 10% of the population. And as for it being ‘her own body,’ obviously in the case of pregnancy, by definition that’s wrong…
Comment by jeff — 11/14/2004 @ 12:15 am