On why I don't have many friends...

I grew up in a family that prized debate. As the son of two San Francisco lawyers, my memories of our evening meals is littered with small and large debates about aspects of cases my parents or their colleagues were working on. In retrospect, I believe they were trying to get a feel for how a jury might react to particular presentations of the law, searching for what might be most compelling. But I had no idea at the time, I just loved to argue. And I was pretty good at it. My dad gave me few gifts as I was growing up, but he gave me a framed Bullshit Artist plaque. To this day I'm not really sure if it was meant as a compliment, but I do know that it wasn't a random gift :)

Anyway, my impression of good advocacy, gleaned from my formative years in these evening discussions, was the value of understanding things from as many perspectives as possible. It makes sense - how can you undermine a position without truly understanding the values it represents? And I learned the art of being a "devil's advocate"; always working on articulating an argument for a number of different positions. I don't know if I was really very good at it, but my own natural empathy gave me confidence in voicing positions that weren't necessarily my own. As I grew up and out of that environment, this facility stayed with me and grown, and it has made me a bit of a strange bird.

I am more empathetic with the arguments of pro-lifers than pro-choicers. From the perspective of principal, pro-choicers are on very shaky moral ground. A "woman's right to choose" is a euphemism that disguises more than it reveals. From personal experience, I can tell you that the choice to abort a baby is one that is never forgotten. Despite those feelings, I would never, ever vote to outlaw abortion. The historical facts are undeniable - woman will make the choice to abort their babies whether it is legal or not and the consequences for making it illegal was to drive it underground and make it dangerous. I believe that, despite the moral and ethical implications, outlawing abortion endangers people unacceptably. On top of that, pro-lifers use abortion abuse their position, which is really about chastity and abstinence. The leaders of these groups are not interested in protecting life, or they would be more interested in make contraception more readily available. They are interested in keeping unmarried people from engaging in pre-marital sex because they believe society is better served by this observance. But in a civil society, that is not their choice. We are a nation of laws and you can't legislate morality. People have to be free to make those choices. In the end, I believe the position of pro-lifers leads to as many abortions as pro-choicers. And, in fact, the antagonism of the two camps makes impossible a reasoned effort to reduce the need for abortions. Nobody wants to give an inch and it makes me sick.

By heredity and nature, I am a liberal. In my definition, that means that I believe that things can be, by our own ingenuity, made better than they are now. I do not believe that our institutions are infallible and sacrosanct, but I think they are better than the alternatives.

Anyway, back to the reason why I don't have many friends; I'm starting to believe that it is because my positions, contorted as they are, don't place me firmly enough in any particular "camp". I don't know if it makes people inaccessible to me or me to them or some combination of both. But in looking at the comments from others to my blog, going on two years now, it's difficult to argue that my thesis is not accurate.

So, do me a favor. If you read this, throw me a comment. Even a "read it" would be exceedingly gratifying.