Once again the main themes emerging in the blogosphere and in the major media outlets are pretty slim pickings. Yes, President Obama is turning his attention to the situation in the Middle East. Practically every president in my lifetime has done so. The president won’t have any more success than his predecessors did because the problems there are just not that sort of problem.
The Supreme Court is hearing its two cases on the subject of marriage between homosexuals. I strongly suspect that the Court will strike down the Defense of Marriage Act and uphold the Ninth Circuit’s findings on California’s Proposition 8, in both cases by votes of 5-4. That would be, unfortunately, both incoherent and highly divisive. It would be incoherent because the two decisions taken together would require the states to define marriage (rather than the federal government) and prohibit them from doing so. By comparison Roe v. Wade was decided 7-2. Nothing I write will inform anybody or convince anybody or change anything. Why bother?
Nothing will change in domestic policy—whether we’re talking about the economy, healthcare, the environment, or anything else—until we change our assumptions. Any change in our assumptions will require the Powers-That-Be to surrender something so I strongly suspect they’ll fight like hell to prevent the change we need.
That would be, unfortunately, both incoherent and highly divisive.
It’s only incoherent if you believe the point of the Court is to create relatively consistent laws. (And let’s just dispose of the fiction that they’re doing anything other than that.) The purpose is to provide the elites with the useless distractions for the masses so that the ruling class can continuing looting the country without too many people actually paying attention. Thus forty years not just of arguing about abortion, but in doing so in the most divisive manner possible. We’re going to get more of that with SSM. (Plus the inevitable side-shows of watching Mormons, Mohammedans and sub-Saharan Africans arguing for polygamy, with a few variations thrown in by the Heinleinesque libertarian nut-jobs.) Which is why we’re going to get exactly the set of ruling you propose. But don’t be surprised if Roberts makes it 6-3 in both cases so he can write the majority opinions.