Who is going to buy the securities the Fed plans to sell? Right now the Fed is the biggest buyer of Treasuries because nobody else wants to buy them at the currently low interest rates. The only way for the Fed to find customers will be to allow interest rates to rise dramatically, which will explode our debt and crash the economy. So it's got to keep printing money and buying treasuries until it can't anymore.

Any scene involving Inspector Clouseau being ambushed by his manservant Cato.

That's going to be the end game here... the legal nightmare of all the various combinations and permuations (two women, a man, plus his sister?), divorces, and child custody will make the whole thing unworkable and the only solution will be to throw the whole mess out by eliminating marriage as a legally recognized institution. Which is why some have said from the beginning that the consequence of SSM will be the destruction of marriage.

Well of course. As I've argued in other threads, polygamy is not further down the slippery slope from SSM. SSM is already at the bottom of the slope.

Essential to the case for SSM is the removal of any foundation of marriage in nature and its replacement with a purely positivistic legal foundation, which ultimately means an arbitrary foundation. As others have already pointed out, SSM is just one of many "marriage" structures allowed in principle by this logic - and in fact a more radical one than polygamy, since polygamy at least retains the natural foundation of marriage in sexual complementarity. 

Nathan, you aren't thinking like a liberal if you still think children need fathers (or mothers, for that matter). When you realize even thinking such thoughts is an insult to same-sex marriage equality, then you'll finally start to think like a liberal.

There are those of us who think we are already at the bottom of the slope with SSM and not polygamy. Although I don't favor legalizing polygamy, it does have a long history across cultures (and even in Western culture), whereas SSM is a radically new experiment at odds with every culture and tradition. The key difference is that polygamy, like monogamy, recognizes sexual differentiation in the family whereas SSM obliterates it. SSM - or the favored contemporary locution "marriage equality" - must insist that two daddies are as good as two mommies are as good as a mommy and a daddy; in other words, sexual differentiation is insignificant with respect to the family, or in yet other words, it doesn't  matter if a kid grows up without a mother or a father, he just needs "parents." This is the radical implication of SSM that puts it beyond polygamy.

If the shoe were on the other foot, Obama would see this as a golden opportunity to inflict maximum political damage on Republicans by highlighting their elitism, hypocrisy and self-interestedness. He'd beat that drum from now until November 2014. But as usual, Gentleman John Boehner and Company will find a way to turn what should be a major embarrassment for their opponents into a major embarrassment for themselves by playing along with Democrats.  The appropriate movie qutoe here is not bringing a knife to a gunfight but Carroll O'Connor from Kelly's Heroes: "You're the ones supposed to be fighting this battle, and you don't even know where the hell it is!"

I don't know why people are complaining about Peter. He started the interview with a good pushback on Bush that Bush answered in such a crazy way that I had to listen to the interview several times to make sure I got it right. 

Bush's answer: We shouldn't worry about granting legal status to illegal immigrants because a lot of them don't come here out of any love for America or its institutions but just want to make a few bucks. In a weird way, the fact that they don't respect our laws or institutions is a good thing because they hate it here so much they'll leave as soon as they get what they want. Oh, and we should respect them for this as well as their hearty work ethic.

So much for the shining city on a hill. 

I might start a thread asking those conservatives who support SSM if they are also worried about fatherless families, and if so, how they square the one with the other.

 My point isn't that there is no conservative grassroots concern about fatherless families, but that the Republican leadership, as it contemplates surrender on SSM, has also become muted on more general concerns about the family, as highlighting those concerns would raise awkward implications about SSM they would as soon ignore.

Cain, Bachmann and Newt all lost and the primaries ended almost a  year ago. And at that time, even Obama opposed SSM. Since the election, Democrats have gone full-court press for SSM and now  some conservatives are advocating we wave the white flag on it as well. Coincidentally, I don't hear these conservatives banging on about fatherless families anymore either. Maybe just chance. Or maybe waving the white flag on SSM also waves it on fatherless families.

The heart of the issue, at least for me, has nothing to do with an attack on religion but a redefinition of the fundamental institution of civilization, the family.  "Marriage equality" insists that two mommies or two daddies are just as good as a mommy and a daddy (e.g. the show "Modern Family.") , which carries the implication that both mothers and fathers are dispensable in favor of generic "parents."

Conservatives used to be very worried about the breakdown of the family - especially the lack of fathers in minority communities - but you don't hear much about it anymore. It's hard to make the case that absent fathers are a problem when you are busily engaged in promoting fatherless families as a legal institution on a par with the traditional family.

Blodgett drops this in as almost an afterthought near the end of his piece:

"Yes, at some point, the American government needs to come together and figure out a smart long-term plan for containing healthcare and military costs, which are the real budget-busters in our government spending. That long-term plan does not need to be adopted immediately, however."

So he acknowledges that we are digging ourselves ever deeper into a hole we must eventually climb out of. But Blodgett demurs from telling us exactly what that "some point" is, how we recognize we are near it, or what will happen if we ignore it. 

Here's betting that we won't need Blodgett or Krugman to tell us we've reached the crisis point. And that the opportunity for "long-term plans" will have long since come and gone.

Fasten your seatbelts.

No problem, and I'm not interested in getting into theology either. I was merely interested in understanding what truly separates us, which isn't really SSM so much as that I accept the teaching authority of the Church and you don't. Which is fine... you might be right that we should pick and choose among doctrines and we'll only really find out when we meet God. But, then, the recurring theme here is that SSM is supposed to be about a minor issue that affects nothing else, but a little logic soon reveals that it is about a lot more than it advertises itself to be.

So you are dogmatic about the Church's teaching Magisterium (i.e. the Church's authority to define what is and is not to be held dogmatically by the faithful)?

No blowback, just wondering about that last sentence. Are you saying you are dogmatic about many things except this one belief about SSM, or that you aren't dogmatic about anything?

Right... and that small grey area gets ever smaller as you try to fit into it.

Maybe this discussion could move forward if Jamie Lockett would tell us what a reasonable, principled opposition to SSM looks like, one that would fit into GFL's gray area of legitimate opposition to SSM.