You might have forgotten to point out your union affiliation. Which is it, UFT, AFT or NEA?

Is it hypocritical to pay dues to a hypocritical labor union? How does your conscience rule on that question?

I'd rather be gay or black than a union member. Sounds like a choice to me.

enjoyed reading your comments....that said,

we seem to love labels in our culture and unfortunately we have two psuedo choices foisted upon us in the political sphere..."who do you ally with??" is the big question...black vs white, good vs evil. It over simplifies and creates a convenient political correctness.

my choice (to openly share) was ron Paul, although I had to pull for Obama since my horse didnt have a jockey.

thanks

Mike

Dr. Kill,

I am not a proud member, but a member nonetheless of the NEA.

I avoided joining the union as long as I could, and I wrestled with the decision for obvious reasons.

There's a lot more to it than you might think, including job politics. It's an easy thing to say that you wouldn't join a union on principle, but many districts are closed shops, in which you must pay 85% of dues even if you don't join the union. Refusing to join seriously impacts job security as well.

Also, it's difficult to argue with a negotiating body that hands you a cushy contract and great health benefits before you've even paid your dues.

I should have added that I'm also a pragmatist. I disagree with unions as much as I disagree with what the government does with my tax money. And yet am I a hypocrite if I continue to pay my taxes?

No. I'm only a hypocrite if I join the union and teach in a public school. You're not the first person to suggest this.

But principle in this instance seems to me much like the hypocrisy argument: it's a nice but deceptive debating tactic, not a genuine argument.

Staying firm to such a principle in choosing a job (as you can't really in paying taxes for example), does nothing more than ensure that those whom I object to keep more people like me out of the profession.

If more people set their supposed principles aside, we could impact if not transform the unions and the schools. I've been told by others that as a Republican I shouldn't even be a public school teacher. That's more of the same thinking I discussed in this post. In an ideal world a public school could fire me for poor service or reward me for merit. But in an ideal world the federal government wouldn't care about my bedroom or my guns.

I have in fact blogged about my union in the past and my opposition to it, and I have no doubt I will again in the future.

Homophobe? People who understand what marriage is and what it isn't are homophobes? Yeah, real wit there. Deep thinker. Not a knee-jerk douchebag spouting stupid cliches. Nope. A real smart guy.

Here's a question, though.

Does that mean that those small-minded rednecks bitterly clinging to their Christian religion are also Republicans, and shouldn't it mean that their conscience is also their own?

Greetings,

If mathmatics is the language of God - why are evolution and creationism contradictory? Something somewhere started this mess, we didn't write the rules, but part of the exploring of our universe is discovering the rules. Seems simple enough to me....

Regards,

As someone else inartfully put it, someone who opposes gay marriage is not by definition a homophobe. I oppose gay marriage, but I am not afraid of gays, or opposed to their existence, or opposed to them living their chosen lifestyle.

As far as evolution, that has been used as an atheistic club for quite a while now, and a lot of Christians are tired of having their children indoctrinated by the teaching of Darwinism as holy writ, not as a scientific theory, which it is. We would like our children to have the choice of believing in a random, meaningless world, or a world with a Creator and a purpose. Creationism may not be the best vehicle for this, but, given the damage to society from promoting meaninglessness, we'd like to go another way.

ccoffer,

Your words speak volumes. I wouldn't have voted one way or the other Prop 8 because I don't want the government defining or limiting rights. What do you care if two people call themselves a married couple or not? Why would your god care? Why should the government? The real solution is to get the government out of the marriage business altogether and remove the legal and economic perks of marriage.

Gregory,

Yes. Whose else would it be? The problem is that while I can accept them as part of the Republican coalition, and can agree with them on many things, they tend to despise me and shun me as a RINO or worse. C'est la vie.

Mike,

Unless you are prepared to accept a god such as the deists posited, I see no way to reconcile science with religious thinking. Your god is a weak, irresponsible, ineffective god if he's always needing people to fight against 'evil' for him, if he has managed to create so convoluted a universe filled with disease, rape, and all the myriad cruelties man visits upon man daily, and then has blamed his own creation. None of your theology can explain this, but rather can only rationalize it. And there is a vast chasm between reason and rationalization.

Chris, this brings me to your point.

Are you saying that man benefits from the audacity of hope? I take it you voted for Obama. Yes, the world is meaningless. I find that much more comforting than trying to justify why any god would make a world where children are raped and murdered. The most offensive statement I've ever heard was "there but for the grace of god go I." Does your god really play favorites with his senseless, convoluted creation?

You're tired of having your children indoctrinated into scientific thinking? I'm tired of being prevailed upon to pretend to willful delusion is sacrosanct. How's that?

The hypocrite label jumps out if someone has joined a political party (or any group) by labeling themselves as such and doesn't agree 100% with all the tenets of that group. Politically, I would venture to guess that most of us truly are more libertarian ideologically than either of the two major parties. We only have two major parties and we do battle mostly by joining one or the other because of the size and scope of the two.

That aside, I guess that since I have professed to be of no party (including Libertarian (big "L"), which continues to grow, but slowly, I can escape the hypocrite label?

Not really. The hypocrite label is tossed around way too freely and without regard to the meaning of the word.

I get called a hypocrite all the time if I agree with one aspect of one party's platform and then criticize them for something else entirely. Some have a predefined set of notions that identifies a group (as Dennis said) and any deviation from that whole set is called hypocrisy (mostly because they have labeled me without my consent).

Speaking about Dennis's membership in a union and his disagreements with that union, calling it hypocritical is ridiculous. Unions still do some good things. Unions do some bad and destructive things too. How else is one to take a role in swaying or influencing policies or actions except from within?

Same with political parties.

Or one can stand outside that structure and try to convince others to abandon that group thereby reducing their power. This method rarely works because people generally want to be part of a group - something to identify with - and by reducing their power, you also have kept them from doing the "good" work. Throwing the baby out with the bath water, if you will.

Calling Palin a hypocrite in regards to her daughter's pregnancy is equally ridiculous. These are people who simply cannot grasp (or ignore) the simple Christian concept of loving the sinner and hating the sin.

Oyster,

You mentioned something in the last line that I meant to say. Critics of Palin ignored one of the basic tenets of the faith.

And incidentally, even though I am an atheist, and will argue in sometimes harsh terms about the absurdity of religious belief, my friends and family are all Christians (both Catholic and Protestant).

In my real life I don't talk about religion or politics, at least not in the terms I do here. They know that I'm not a believer, I know that they are, but it doesn't change things. I imagine they pray for me. It makes them feel better, I guess.

Dennis,
Marriage isn't a "right". Its an institution. Its one that predates government. as for what two people call themselves, they can say they are citizens of the moon for all I care, but to coerce other people to go along with the farce isn't justice in any sense of the word.

Your contempt for virtue is obvious. It has rendered you unable to see.

I did not vote for Obama. I am not opposed to teaching my children science. I am a scientist. The world is not meaningless, and if it is for you, then maybe you should try a different worldview.

Dennis, I would make a terrible Christian. I have more and more difficulty separating the sin from the sinner depending on the egregiousness of the sin. There comes a point for me when I deem the person, himself/herself, is just plain evil.

Some conclusions flow from first principles. If a 5 year tells me he saw a dragon, I wonder if he's lying or confused. I don't wonder if he's telling the truth.

When I see somebody buying lottery tickets, I know they don't understand statistics. If they claim to be a math wiz, I know they're lying.

When a liberal claims to understand economics and to truly believe in liberalism, I know he is lying. I wonder if he is stupid or a con artist.

Conversely, stupid people frequently think they can apply this logic in their own lives. They see a republican, and conclude something is horribly wrong. They think republicans are asleep, and only need to be awakened to start the great revolution. The irrefutable assumption is that you're a self-hating hypocrite. Any interface with reality is just to filter for supporting data.