To make that simple argument, however, it is *absolutely unnecessary* to invent a lie that "Nader would ban foreign porn to protect the domestic porn industry" or that "Nader is a homophobe," especially given the truth that it is Nader who supports gay marriage, which Kerry opposes, and it is Kerry who treats GLBT individuals as second-class citizens deserving only second-class marriage called civil union.
>[lbo-talk] Re: naderphobia (psychopathology of?)
>Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com, Fri Jul 2 06:13:52 PDT 2004
>
>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>Don't believe every farfetched thing that US leftists who are
>>stricken with Naderphobia have to say about Nader. I have heard
>>Nader complain of "corporate pornography and violence beamed to
>>children at a very impressionable age" (e.g.,
>><http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/23/elec04.prez.nader/>),
>>but I haven't heard him say anything about preferring domestic porn
>>to foreign porn (!), and Christian can't produce any evidence for
>>this libel of Nader.
>
>I heard him endorse the restriction of porn imports at the Town Hall
>debate in Seattle during WTO week. And it weirdly came out of
>nowhere, in response to a good question by David Aaron,
>then-Undersec of Commerce
Out of nowhere? Pornography, prostitution, drugs, slavery, child labor, babies, corpses, body parts, weapons, explosives, live animals, plants, etc. are relatively common examples used in arguments (pros or cons or anything in-between) about regulation and deregulation of commodities in intrastate and interstate trades. Cf. Michael Perelman, "more posner fun," December 2, 1999, <http://squawk.ca/lbo-talk/9912/0087.html>.
Isn't production and distribution of porn already restricted in various respects? For instance, it is illegal to produce, distribute, and consume child pornography almost anywhere in the world (with one possible exception of occupied Iraq). If you have evidence that Kerry is softer on "corporate pornography and violence beamed to children at a very impressionable age" than Nader and that Kerry is campaigning on a promise to liberalize the existing laws that regulate pornography, however, I'm all ears. :-)
> - how could a consumer advocate endorse import restrictions, since
>they'd reduce choice and raise prices? Nader's answer was
>uncharacteristically rambling, and then out burst the porn remark.
Consumer advocates are not necessarily ideological champions of the idea that free trade in the global free market, working through its laws of demand and supply, alone should determine what we produce, distribute, and consume, nor do they necessarily advocate the idea that the cheaper is always the better.
>PS: This "Naderphobia" thing is kind of weird. I'm not afraid of
>him, or afflicted with a psychopathological hatred; I just want him
>to stop running for president and do something constructive instead.
>That's a rational, hateless position.
You *fear* that some Americans, who either have not paid much attention to the Anybody But Bush ravings or do not give a damn about them, will vote for Nader, therefore you support the efforts of Democrats to keep Nader off the ballots, for you *fear* that American voters *cannot be trusted to vote for Kerry* if they are given the choice to Nader or not to Nader, even though Nader's defeat in ballot access will have undemocratic legal ramifications *beyond* the Nader campaign. That's phobia -- a *fear of demos* beyond the bounds of democratic reason.
>[lbo-talk] "Stupid Gay Men on the Left"
>Christian Gregory christian11 at mindspring.com, Fri Jul 2 05:30:23 PDT 2004
>
> >It doesn't make any political sense for left-wing gay men to support
> >a pro-war straight white male candidate who *opposes* the equal right
> >to marriage for queers . . .
>
>Stupid? Wow.
A parody of a Michael Moore propaganda book title is the *kindest* comparison that I can think of. It's not necessary to emulate Bush or Moore in order for you to campaign for Kerry and criticize Nader.
>[lbo-talk] "Stupid Gay Men on the Left"
>DeborahSRogers debburz at yahoo.com, Fri Jul 2 07:12:03 PDT 2004
<snip>
>First, the majority of queers are more interested in getting Bush
>out, first and foremost, because his stated objective is to push
>forward, almost gleefully, on this anti-gay marriage constitutional
>amendment.
It's self-defeating for leftists, queer or straight, to think that electing a Democratic President will help us defend the existing gains and conquer new ones on the queer or any other front. After all, it was Bill Clinton who signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law after Congress passed it, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman and barring federal recognition of same-sex unions performed in any state, in order to negate the ruling in Hawaii that struck down a ban on same-sex marriage in 1996. -- Yoshie
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