Wordcruncher

The FMA Weapon Weasel

In response to my post on building a message machine to rival or best the GOP’s, a commenter writes:

The Dems were architects of their own destruction. If the Mass Supreme court had not legalized gay marriage by judicial fiat and/or if the mayor of San Fran. had abided by the law and not married gay couples, the issue would never have been as potent a weapon.

While this wasn’t the point of my post, it’s worth a discussion. The GOP successfully lumped the Massachusetts Supreme court and the mayor of San Francisco with “the Democrats.” Conflating two issues like this is an old political tactic, albeit a shrewd move on the GOP’s part. After the GOP’s original stand was that it should be a state – not a federal – decision, the hollow threat of amending the constitution forced it onto the national agenda.

It was an even more successful tactic because of the unfortunate coincidence that Sen. Kerry represented Massachusetts; regardless of his stand on the issue, he suffered from a “guilt by association” curse – when everyone knows the U.S. Senate has nothing to do with state Supreme Court decisions.

And if, for the sake of argument, we assume that the Democrats were the “architects of their own destruction,” this is akin to blaming gun manufacturers, not murderers, for shooting deaths. Hey, you made the gun into a potent weapon. I just shot it. It’s your fault, not mine.

But at least it alleviates a conscious which may otherwise feel some libertarian twinge of regret for introducing a divisive issue that will lead to opening a Pandora’s box of government involvement in people’s private lives.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that my headline appears to be calling the commenter a weasel, which was unintentional. I am using weasel as a form of equivocation.