An argument that bases itself on “the good of the few or even the one” is logically pointless. Every policy option in the real world has trade offs. There really is nothing that will benefit some people and not hurt others.

The only rational approach for public policy makers is to ensure that when they change the rules the people who benefit (the ‘winners’) will win more than the people who are hurt (the ‘losers’) lose.

At least in principle, we could compensate the losers for their loss and still have a net economic improvement, which would benefit everyone. In practice, actually doing the compensation is very hard, so it isn’t usually done, but that is beside the point; the point is that there is a net efficiency improvement, which will be felt by everyone, even the people who get the short end of the stick.

“Do you honestly think and believe that there is only one bill that is being debated and moved through congress at a time?”

Not in a literal sense, no. In a political strategy sense, though, no party wants too many controversial things being in the media at the same time as it erodes the public’s good faith.

And as I’ve said before. I find your general pessimism saddening.

mdw737:
“How hard would it be to repeal DADT?”

Not hard in terms of legalese. It’s a pretty simple issue in terms of the law and the proposed bill to repeal it is only three pages. But just because the actual action on the part of Congress is simple does not mean making the change should be treated lightly.

Changing the policy has limited support among the military’s brass and even common soldiers. The military believes unit cohesion will be harmed if they integrate gays; while that’s proobably an exageration, it is undeniable that there are many people in the military who (for reasons unrelated to the military itself) simply do not want to serve with gay soldiers. There’s also the issue that said people, if forced to accept integration, will likely make a lot of false claims of harassment, which will be believed by many of not-gay-friendly tribunals in the military courts.

Broad support for changing the policy has to be built within the military’s upper echelons first, lest many groups within the military may engage in action that would be, post-DADT-repeal, illegal. The integration of the military does need to happen and will happen eventually, but the President has to get the important people on board with it first, and remove the people who are against the change from positions of authority.

This was Bill Clinton’s problem when he originally tried to overturn the ban on gays in the military in 1993-1994 (which ultimately ended with DADT being passed); he had no credibility with the military because he was trying to impose a change on them before consensus had been built within their structure. Obama is (wisely) trying to avoid a repeat of that failure.

A fundamental requirement of effecting any real change in an organization is making the other important people in it feel that the change is necessary. If they don’t, they will at best begrudgingly follow orders, likely completely disregard the fact that the change was even made and at worst institute de facto procedures that are the opposite of what the goal of the change was.

At the same time, when I look at my life now and what is causing me the most difficulties, it’s the state of health care in this country. That is limiting me more than anything else. That is decreasing the quality of my life, causing me the most stress, because I am not able to get access to the care that I need. So do I want that to be fixed first? Absolutely.

On the other hand, there will always be a “crisis.” There will always be something “more pressing.” The issue to me isn’t in deciding what is more important. The issue is that our government isn’t willing/able to address multiple issues at the same time.

I may be a minority, but if I am not treated as equal, then it hurts the whole. If my rights are so easily ignored, then anyone’s can be. If my state can easily amend the constitution to discriminate against me, it can do it to anyone. That scares me about this country.

In the meantime, I take the little victories I can get. Yes on R-71 in WA, no on 1 in Maine. Like those.

The Good of the Many Does Not Always Outweigh the Good of The Few or Even The One.

Your premise that only one legislative move can be made at a time is naive’. Do you honestly think and believe that there is only one bill that is being debated and moved through congress at a time?

Face the facts … gay people are only important to politicians at election time. They sooooo love the GayTM but look at it for only withdraws.

Screw you Kari.

Trace: The value of of denying equal rights to a segment of the population is not difficult to economically quantify. Of course, ensuring equal rights is economically beneficial, so any government that is interested in a prosperous economy should work to ensure equal rights.

However, if only one legislative move can be made at a time, and there are two policy options the legislature can choose from, it stands to reason that the government should perform the option that will have a greater positive economic effect than the one that will have a lesser positive economic effect.

If giving gays equal rights improves the economy by 5 and health care reform improves the economy by 50, there is no rational human being that will suggest doing the former first.

Obviously some of the people here are going to be annoyed if they’re challenged to see the big picture here and think of other people instead of just themselves. But our professional advocates and lobbyists in Washington, along with anyone who is a mature adults, should see that gays are not the only group that wants to see changes in public policy, and a rational government using objective criteria for setting the agenda would not prioritize us at the top of it.

Again, this is utter nonsense. Congress (and the President) routinely deals with a myriad of issues at the same time. You know, like apologists like you are always saying, “he has a lot on his plate”. The only thing keeping congress from taking up the issue of gay rights is the lack of political will. Once again politicians like Obama promise the moon only to hide behind this sort of weak minded argument after they don’t need us anymore.

As far as your incredibly moronic argument about economic considerations, what you forget to mention is that in order to get those “hundreds of billions of dollars” in economic benefits from health care reform– which even if you DID provide a source for this info, would be savings seen over decades– we have to spend about a trillion dollars in the short term. Ending DADT and DOMA would cost NOTHING and have immediate beneficial economic consequences. In fact, MSNBC reports that the discharge of language specialists becuase they are gay has cost the pentagon more than 350 million dollars. So actually, in these hard times, focusing on gay issues really makes more fiscal sense as far as savings and economic stimulation are concerned. But people who are not either astroturfing operatives or kool aid addled cultists get that. You really CAN do both of them at the same time. And I DO support both.

I just am flabbergasted that someone (Liberal or Conservative) is able to say that equality and equal rights is not the absolute paramount topic of ANY time period.