His reasoning is not just specious — it’s infuriating. Specifically, he says that if Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown don’t want to appeal, then the proponents of the initiative have no standing to appeal. In other words, their standing was good enough for the trial, allowing the judge to load up the record with sweeping statements about the significance of marriage, couched as “factual findings.” But the second that those same parties want to question the factual findings in an appeal, all of a sudden they lack standing.
It would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical.
[A loyal reader asked me to raise this topic. It’s an entertaining idea when you listen to him articulate it. But in the real world, I’m personally not wild about it — mainly because I don’t see the parties as monolithic, and I think each party has a mixture of good and bad ideas. Still, as a thought experiment, it’s worthwhile. And I’m interested to see the responses. — P]
Red states and blue states have been battling it out for quite some time, and the philosophical differences seem unlikely to be resolved through debate and discussion. They will never convince us to allow abortion on demand. We will never convince them that spending taxpayers’ money like it’s going out of style is a bad thing.
Maybe we should just agree to stop fighting, carve up the country in two, and be done with it.
If we did that:
1) Which parts should they get, and which parts should we get?
2) In 20 years, what would their country look like — in terms of GDP, taxes, environment, crime, and other factors that define a country? What would ours look like?
Your feedback is welcome.