BILE-GOGGLE HANGOVER. The Classical Values guy has responded to this post, and he has a few good (not to say airtight) points. One involves my conflation of MSNBC with Fox (one of these days I have to get cable) and the other involves me saying "most of" his Lawrence post was a states-rights encomium.

I have reread his post with the bile-goggles off, and admit the piece in toto is much more nuanced than that. I didn't see that at first because the thing started with, "A lot has been said about Lawrence v. Texas, too. Tactically, I still think it would have been better to get rid of sodomy laws state by state, because that would have been a more democratic, more final, victory," and I must admit my eyes just glazed right over. A major victory won, and we start by wishing it had been won according to Marquis of Queensbury (or Scalia) rules.

But there's a lot more in it I still don't like. For example: "Government force can masquerade as an altruistic concern over the very rights many of my friends demand -- so dressed up in human rights or domestic rights drag as to be unrecognizable." Even as I am inclined to agree with the principle (I'm not big on Federal hate-crime laws, for example, that essentially legalize double-jeopardy prosecutions) I'm troubled, because it's a demurrer in an argument about sodomy laws. Really, what "altruistic" legislation is anywhere near as onerous as sexual prohibition? CV's cited example is amusing and well-observed, but the prospect of "gay alimony" just doesn't chill my blood as much as Bowers v. Hardwick did.

Perspective's the issue. Yeah, it's bad that litigiousness has so hampered human affairs, but when you bring it up as an "on-the-other-hand" sidebar in a discussion of Lawrence, a reasonable person might respond, "Jeez, are you sure you're happy about this?" It's just too much like a lot of other discussions where, for example, someone denouncing Ann Coulter feels obliged to connect her to Maureen Dowd. I don't like Dowd either, but in terms of noxious emissions, Coulter and Dowd aren't even in the same solar system.

When I hear that kind of stuff, I assume that the plaintiff is trying to defuse the historical impact of these phenomena by yoking them to mildly related liberal examples. This may not apply to CV. Well, I'll keep an eye on him. I vastly prefer making snotty comments to actually having to pay attention, but hey, the blogosphere's been good to me -- maybe it's time to give a little back.

As for the Fox thing, I suppose I could have asked instead how NewsMax got in on the scheme. Same diff.

P.S. The Michael Savage conspiracy thing is still bughouse.