Lex Anteinternet: Friday, June 26, 2015: Obergefell v. Hodges

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, June 26, 2015: Obergefell v. Hodges: 

Friday, June 26, 2015: Obergefell v. Hodges

June 26, 2015: Obergefell v. Hodges

Only a decade?  

It seems like a lot longer.

I felt at the time, and I still do, that the Obergefell decision was an absolute disaster.  It was legally deficient in its reasoning, which was pathetic.  Justice Kennedy's text failed to grasp the existential nature of marriage, but perhaps that was understandable as Kennedy, currently 88 years old, was in his 20s and 30s in the 1960s.  Indeed, he turned 30 in 1966, by which time Americans were well on their way to forgetting what the biological purpose of sex is, and what the nature of marriage is.

Kennedy's opinion embraced a sort of Age of Aquarius sense of "love" being the reason for marriage, at its core root.  Love is an aspect of marriage, hopefully, and there's a lot to that, but sex is as well and the type that leads to children, at least frequently.  Indeed, the entire institution and everything about it is oriented in that direction.

That has very little to do with homosexuality in that unions between the same gender don't result in children.  I know the arguments about adoption and the like, but that's fairly far from the point as well.  Indeed, in a way, that gets into the following topic about IVF that we covered recently.

IVF and a Half-Cath | June 11, 2025

Something that the generation that came of age after World War Two really brought into the culture is sort of the opposite of the Rolling Stone's skifflesque You Can't Always Get What You Want.  That generation pretty much got almost all of what they wanted, and still are.  That sense of entitlement resulted in cultural self centeredness in which you are entitled to be what you want to be and everyone else has to darned well accept it and the consequences.

The problem was and is, however, that Obergefell, as it strayed so far from the law, and so far from where  the culture then was (it's a horrible example of the old trying to get ahead of the culture) that it was bound to spark a massive reaction.  And it did.

The populist right rage that developed soon after was already burning, but Obergefell poured gasoline on the fire.  The culture had lost much of the conservative wisdom on the nature of sex and marriage already, and had gone through Chesterton's fence with a bulldozer in this regard.  A culture that had accepted, prior to the early 1950s that sex was properly in marriage, and properly between married men and women, had gone to pretty much accepting that sex was entertainment and marriage was a celebration of love rather than a loving (hopefully) childrearing, economic, natural unit.  People basically forgot what their natures produced and men in particular figures that they were entitled to play around with Fran Geraud, and women figured they had to endure it.  And that's where we remain today.  A culture that basically thinks the Hawk Tuah Girl is amusing rather than a tramp.

But once that moral decay had reached the point where people who could excuse their own conduct could imagine themselves to somehow still be good Christians suddenly were confronted with homosexuals making the same intellectual arguments, and that being adopted by the Supreme Court, it was just too much.

It was also clear, in spite of what Kennedy thought, that Obergefell was going to open the floodgates of radical sexual behavior.  Same sex sexual conduct, no matter what a person thinks of it, had been around for time immemorial, although it frankly even now is not really very well understood.  But transgenderism had not been, or at least not in the same fashion.  The groups backing the concept of transgenderism rushed into the field and gained ground enormously, which large numbers of people were not and are not willing to accept, including some homosexuals and included many feminists.  

That this was going to cause massive civil disintegration was obvious.  Disorganized groups on the right and middle that were already upset by the loss of industrial jobs and immigration now were faced with a massive social advance on the left which did not square with their basic understanding of themselves, and for good reason.  To add to it, it was forced upon them.

None of this was necessary.  Various states were moving towards various civil unions for homosexuals as it was.  The slow march of legislation would have brought about a change, whether it was a good one or not, at a pace that would have been accepted.  That's what happened to the disaster of no fault divorce.  Instead Kennedy's opinion forced it all, and more than he had anticipated, all at once.

It destroyed respect for the Court and gave traditionalists of all types massive pause.  It started the rush towards right wing populism which was already going on.

It lead directly to Donald Trump.

Related threads:

The Supreme Court tries a bit to mop up a dog's breakfast. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

Labels: 2010s, 2015, 2018, Commentary, Court, law, Monday at the bar, Natural Law, Politics, The Law, The Old Law, trends

Why Americans, irrespective of position, ought to cringe over Obergefell

Labels: Commentary, law, Marriage, Monday at the bar, Politics, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, The Law, The Practice of Law, trends, You heard it here first

IVF and a Half-Cath | June 11, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 89th Edition. Sidewalks and Swastikas

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 89th Edition. Sidewa...: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 89th Edition. Sidewalks and flags.

An interesting episode in Evansville:

‘This is awesome’: Casper organizes to cover up swastika display in Evansville

And an episode all played out against the background of the state's GOP going increasingly to the very far right.

I'll note that this is "Pride Month".  As I've noted before, I don't really get pride month for a bunch of reasons, one simple one being I don't see how a person can be "proud" of their sexual drive.  That just seems odd to me.  My views on the topic are found in the related thread links below, and a person can read them if they're interested.

I'm also kind of in the camp of the months just being the months, although I do see why Black History Month and Women's History Month got started to focus attention.

Anyhow, over time, Prime Month, which originally was limited to homosexuality, expanded out to LGBTQ, and that's another topic.  L G & Q are related topics, but T is really a seperate one entirely, a fact that has caused some Ls to be upset by being included with Ts, and understandably so.

Anyhow, that's the topic of the post.

As noted, this is Pride Month and the Mayor of Evansville, on her own volition, put out small rainbow flags at the Evansville Town Hall.  She noted that it represented a municipal spirit of acceptedness, although it was not a municipal act. It was a private one.

This shows something really interesting in general.  For native Wyomingites, the view towards LGBTQ topics long was "I don't care what you do, just leave me alone".  That's the native Wyoming view on a lot of things.

For this reason, for decades, locals in this community would find themselves in the grocery store line with a man wearing a tutu (I'm sincere on this), and think, "um. . .whatever".  Or in my case, "um. . . poor taste in dresses".

The current right wing populist view, however, is very much "I care exactly what you are doing and I'm going to force you to stop doing it".

For locals, therefore, this entire topic has been a bit odd.  There's been the movement towards "you must accept", which is generally met with "What?  I wasn't bothering you" while also being met with "you must stop them", which has been met with "Why?  They weren't bothering me".

Anyhow, the mayor put out flags.

This was, in turn, met with the actions of one Evansville resident who went out and drew swastikas on the sidewalk in protest.  In addition, he threatened to purchase German swastika flags and put them out.

Why swastikas?

Well, nobody can really figure that one out.  Asked about it in a town work session, he replied:

Yeah, there’s a difference. I’m not that stupid, but what I’m doing here is to make a point.

And what is that point?

Hard to figure.

Anyhow, Evansville residents reacted by having a sidewalk chalk fest.  Seems about the best possible reaction, really.

A lesson here is that street level Wyoming isn't nearly as far right as GOP.  At some point, that probably begins to have an effect.

Another lesson may very well be that the center needle on this has moved on, giving us an example of Yeoman's Twenty First Law of Behavior for the second time in two days.  If that's the case, social conservatives will have a pretty hard time actually moving things back to where they want, as that requires a cultural change, and that change may have already taken place in the opposite direction.

Somewhat related, Wyoming's lone Congressman is backing a bill in Congress to change Pride Month (and I don't know how it ended up being called that) to "Family Month".  A Hageman Facebook post stated:

This June, I am proud to cosponsor Rep. Mary Miller's resolution to officially declare June as Family Month.

It is time to reject radical ideologies and honor traditional family values that have shaped our country for generations.

A press release said something similar. 

Some Facebook wag  posted in reply:

Where's your Hageman family picture?

Whoever posted that was probably well aware that Ms. Hageman goes by her maiden name, under which her legal career was established prior to her marriage, and not the last name of her husband.  More significantly, she has no children.

I've always wondered if somebody would start to take notice of this.  As a far right Republican, Hageman ran on family values but, with no children of her own, made reference to her nephews and nieces, which aren't ballpark close to you own children.

Now, women don't have children for a lot of reasons.  Some can't, for various biological reasons.  Sometimes their spouse is sterile, either due to biological reasons or surgical mutilation.  Lots of times, however, children were simply avoided, a species of tragedy, frankly, for those who have had children and grasp how they complete your lives, and make you into a real adult.

In polite society, you don't ask, however.

But American polite society is nearly a t hing of the past anymore, and here maybe there's a point to raising it.  Amongst the things the far right of the GOP has embraced is pronatalism.  

Pronatalism is a philosophy that is based on the concept that (married) couples ought to have a lot of children.  Frankly the general thesis of it is that "our" culture is dying and we need to combat it by having children.  The concept has actually been around for a very long time and is sometimes associated with the phrase "the battle of the cradle" and the concept of "race suicide".  No less of President than Theodore Roosevelt advocated the idea, stating that a man or woman who was childless by choice "merits contempt."

Which is I guess why the question is fair game in regard to the Congresswoman.  I'm not suggesting that she has avoided children by choice (I don't know), and even if she had, I wouldn't suggest that, therefore causes her to "merit contempt"  However, ff you raise the topic, well then. . . questions can logically follow.

The current GOP has become so focused on this that its floated the idea of a baby bonus, something that hasn't been paid in a Western nation for years and which has never been done in the U.S.  The proposal was to pay parents of newborns $1,000, which is just about the cost of one week of Huggies.  It's a stupid idea.

From the perspective of Catholics, however, this is a lot of fish on Fridays' during Lent.  You find people adopting something sort of generally associated with you, in this case children in marriage, but for oddball secular reasons, and as if the concept is brand new.  Catholics don't have children in marriage as a part of a race war.  Indeed, Catholics don't really recognize the validity of the concept of "race" at all, which is pretty plain if you go to a Mass in any metropolitan area of more than 10,000 people.  By the same token, we don't eat fish on Fridays during Lent (or in many cases, the rest of the year) as we've adopted the Mediterranean Diet or something.  

This does bring up this, however.  If you want a lot more children, you could take on the topic of pharmaceutical birth control.

Oh my.

Indeed, nothing would be more likely to rocket the population back to a more traditional set of relationships between men and women than that.

There's been some fears, I might note, that the current set of populists would do just that.  It's quite clear that some in the National Conservative/Christian Nationalist camp, would do that if they could.  

Anyhow, sidewalk chalk over the top of swastikas was a good end to an odd story.

Related threads:

On Pride Month, the nature of Pride, and compelling opinions.

Lex Anteinternet: Pride and Unintended Consequences and the really unknowable views of Donald Trump.

Pride and Unintended Consequences.

We like everything to be all natural. . . . except for us.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition. A predictive issue and other ramblings. Order coming on women in combat roles. Trump's bolt shot.

Labels: Christian Nationalism, Military, National Conservatism, Pete Hegseth, Predictions, The Madness of King Donald, The relationship between men and women, The roles of men and women, transgenderism, You heard it here first, Pete Hegseth,2026 Election, 2028 Election, Christianity, Education, Evolutionary Biology, Kent State Incident, Mormon, Populism, Protestant, religion, Synchronicity, trends, University of Wyoming, Yeoman's twenty-first law of behavior

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition. A predictive issue and other ramblings. Order coming on women in combat roles. Trump's bolt shot.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition. A pred...: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition. A predictive issue and other ramblings. Order coming on women in combat roles. Trump's bolt shot.

Pretty effective 1970s vintage recruiting poster aimed at women.

There's been some interesting signs of things to come recently, including where Hegseth is headed on women in the military, and where Trump's close acolytes are headed in regard to his increasing mental decline.

Interesting times.

We'll start with Hegseth.

As anyone who stops in here is well aware, I'm not a Trump fan.  I'm conservative, actually conservative, but I'm not lockstep in line with anyone.  Frankly, anyone who is, just isn't thinking.  Anyhow, The Trump regime is not conservative but populist, and populist in the same way that gave rise to fascism in various European nations in the 30s, or to Communism to others in the teens and twenties.  But I can see how we got here and indeed I'd been warning about this for some time before it happened.  As readers here know, once Obergefell was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court I feared a political breakdown was inevitable.¹ I also thought that claims made at the time that Obergefell wouldn't lead to a more radical development in the category of gender norms were badly misguided, and I was proved correct about that.  The country was headed toward acceptance of homosexual unions as marriages, irrespective of what social conservatives may think of that, but Justice Kennedy and his fellow travelers hijacking the trend line without any real legal weight behind it jump started the country right into the transgender movement which helped radicalize an already radicalizing populist base in the right wing of the GOP.² 

Women in combat roles in the US came the following year, 2016, and was controversial at the time and remains so in social conservative   I recently posted on it, and I remain very much opposed to it.   While I'm not a fan of Hegseth, he's on record as opposing it as well.

Some time ago Hegseth ordered that the service review its physical fitness standards on a gender neutral basis.³ This isn't really the first time that this has been done and the results can probably be predicted.

Indeed, they can be predicted in part due to the experiences of women in sports competing with men who are surgically and chemically altered to female morphologies, but more on that in a moment.

At the time, I thought that was probably step one towards removing women from combat roles.

Then Hegseth came out with a tweet (I wish government officials would stay off Twitter) endorsing a story in the Telegraph, a British newspaper. The article was this one:

Hegseth, in his comment, noted the problems of women in combat roles, although only briefly and vaguely.

Like a lot of things repeated on Twitter, the Tweet falls sort of teh full story:

IDF chief halts mobility unit pilot program for female combat troops

The IDF is just suspending the study and will get back to a new one.

Before all of this, Hegseth ordered that "transgendered" troops leave the service.  That was probably the least controversial thing he could do, and it makes perfect sense.  Gender Dysphoria may exist, but transgenderism does not.  Moreover, if you have to take medication just to keep your morphology, you really aren't ready for the rigors of military life.

Transgenderism in general, which will also get to below, is really a manifestation of, in my view, a mental illness.  It's a trendy one, however, and is part of the culture wars which gave rise to a radicalized far right, and then to Trump.

Ordering that "transgendered" troops get out of the service is one thing, but then there's this:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist 85th Edition: Hegseth directs Navy to rename USNS Harvey Milk days into Pride Month.

This isn't related to women in combat, but it's certainly a shot in the culture wars and a surprising one.  With the constant storm surrounding the Trump Regime, it didn't generate nearly as much controversy as I thought it would, and that may have been why it was done.  Running that up the flagpole may have been a test by Hegseth to see how much flak he'll get if he orders women out of combat roles.

I suspect it was.

And I suspect that its coming very soon.

Indeed, it has to be soon.

And hence our next prediction.

People have predicted that Trump is running out of steam since day one, but now it appears he really is.  In the old phrase, Trump has "jumped the shark".  Indeed, there's an odd maxim that once something has maximum attention in the public eye, it's probably passed its peak.

There's a lot of evidence of this around, and it makes a big difference to what Hegseth, and others in the Trump Administration, depending upon how savvy they are to trends, are behaving.

Trump is increasingly erratic and weird.  He's also becoming increasingly ineffective.  Having done a lot early on in a flurry of Executive Orders, the Courts, save for the Supreme Court, so far, are effectively saying "hold on Buckwheat" and stopping much of what he's done.  The entire goofball DOGE effort is the same.  Indeed, at least one minor agency is being reconstructed, amazingly, after Musk and his wrecking crew attacked it.⁴  Indeed, DOGE achieved a mess, but that's about it.  Bill Clinton's effort to cut the size of the government, which lead to a surplus in its day, was much more effective.  

Now the wheels are coming off.  Musk is feuding with Trump.  The Senate may not pass the Big Ugly Bill, at least not in the form the sycophantic House did.  Questions are being razed.

Trump is being publicly mocked as "Taco".

The bloom is off the rose, Trump's authority is declining, and the looming 25th Amendment is getting warmed up.

Have you noticed that  James Donald Bowman, aka J. D. Vance, whom we heard from constantly early on, is now pretty much silent.  That's not an accident.  Vance will take over when Trump is booted, and my guess that he doesn't want to be tainted with Trump any more than he has to be.  He's gone from insulting Ukrainian Presidents for not wearing suits, to just not being there.

Which brings this back around to women in the military, and other social issues.  National Conservatives and Christian Nationalist rode into power on Trump's back as they knew that they could.  They also know, however, that they need time to completely overhaul the nation to look like they want it to, and 18 months, all the more time I've given Trump before he is hauled off to an assisted living wing of Mar A Lago, isn't enough.  Four years isn't either, and frankly the Democrats are going to retake the House of Representatives nexts year.  If Vance doesn't secure reelection after this administration is done with, much of what the National Conservatives/Christian Nationalist did during their four years will just be dust in the wind.

In order for anything to stick, it has to be done quickly, so that the electorate is acclimated to it by 2028, or there has to be a plan to stay in power in 2028.  My guess that Vance's disappearing act is part of that.

I fear what else may be.⁵

Back to some rambling.

As is often the case, a certain element of synchronicity tends to work on these posts, with various things coming up with that cause the thread to be posted.  Just as I started contemplating the women in combat topic, again, a couple of such things did which are related.

I subscribe to Mandatory Fun Day on Instagram.  A buddy of mine who had been in the service sent me some of his clips and they're hilarious, if you've been in the Army.  If you haven't, they're probably completely baffling.

Anyhow, as I subscribe on Instagram, they started coming up on Facebook as "reels".  No problem.  The fact that they did, however, meant that I'd get suggested reels by other service members following in the creator's wake.  They were uniformly pretty bad.

All of a sudden, having not taken interest in those, Facebook started suggesting reels by female service members, a large number of which are service women in their t-shirts being cute in a college coed fashion, or worse.  Dancing female soldiers show up, and even twerking ones.  Women showing how they dress in their uniforms, starting with pretty much only skivvies on, is another.  Perhaps the one most illustrative of why I regard this all a problem was one in which a female soldier photographed herself in GI trousers, and regulation brown t-shirt, showing "how I feel when I see my man in uniform", which involved clutching her breasts and and having her free hand south of her fly.

And all of this is observable just on the suggested feed, not on what shows up if you click on it.

One I did click on, as it was so oddly titled, involved a cute young woman making babyish "moo" sounds, in an item entitled "she found her moo".  The voice of the filmer was also female.  Apparently the moo thing is some sort internet trend.

Anyhow, relationships, and you can use your imagination as to what I mean by that, are a problem in college dorms where nobody is expected to kill anyone. They've been a huge problem in the service, and the Marine Corps had to take steps some time ago to order female Marines to knock off seductive filming, some of which featured female Marines nude.  Young women acting like young women away from home and in college dorms isn't surprising, but it sure isn't conductive to unit cohesiveness in organizations in which death and destruction is a routine norm.  

Put another way, the "man" whom the young woman touching body parts which used to be referenced in the Jody Call "The Prettiest Girl I Ever Saw" is going to be a problem in any unit, let alone one in which a soldier may be expected to leave her behind to be killed.^6 7

Moo.

Anyhow, while noting all of this, I also saw a series of stories recently about women being upset by having to compete against men, who are "transgendered".  Also, UW is now being investigated due to Artemis Langford being in a sorority, at the same time that sorority sisters are trying to keep him out.

That caused me to realize how often its women who lead the charge in this are. Women know they are women and they justifiably feel that in sports they shouldn't have to compete against men.  And they aren't the only ones. An international body that regulates boxing has imposed genetic tests on female boxers to make sure they're female.

The reason for all of this is that even second rate male athletes turn out to be almost unstoppable competition in female sports, when they compete as transgendered.  Women resent it, and rightfully.

But oddly enough society hasn't seemingly noted something that Hemingway noted many years ago.

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

Ernest Hemingway.

I'm not saying that war is nice. Quite the contrary.  But in some ways its the ultimate athletic endeavor, even now in the era of high tech weapons. And let us be honest  Killing is part of it, but there's never been a conflict anywhere in the world where brutalization and rape haven't been part of it, nor has there ever been one in which some women took advantage of their assets in a wartime pinch.

Women don't belong in combat.

Let's go back to the plight of the UW sorority for a second.

The entire saga here shows how difficult it can be for public institutions in this bizarre era in which we live.  It's obvious that a male should not be in a sorority, and Langford may dress as a female and wish to be regarded as one, but at least the last time I checked on the story, he hadn't "transitioned", which means he's full equipped.  There's no reason that a young woman should be forced to live in close residential confines with a man if she doesn't wish to.

The other sad aspect of this is that this entire saga, in which they've sued, and I don't blame them, and now the Trump Administration is investigating UW, means that his entire delusion has become his identity, when had this been treated as what it was, a mental illness, it might all be past tense by now.  Indeed, just looking it would suggest that it might very well have been.⁸

Anyhow, stuff like this puts universities in the can't win for losing situation.  Charlie Kirk, a right wing populist babbler, has made comments on Langford, and a right wing populist law student just sponsored him talking on campus.

Pity poor UW.

Back to Hegseth t he White House is looking for a new chief of staff and several senior advisers to support him, but there's been no takers.

Again, this Administration has shot its bolt, and its showing.

On other things military, we have this:

June 8, 2025

US Civil Unrest

Donald Trump has federalized some units of the California National Guard and ordered them to Los Angeles in response to violent immigration protests there.

A President federalizing a Guard unit ab initio like this is very unusual.

Some are declaring that this is a first step towards nationwide martial law.  I doubt it.  It's a bad move however.  Troops, including National Guardsmen, make poor police.  They really aren't trained for it, but are trained to use force.

Usually troops, including National Guardsmen, who are deployed in this role aren't given ammunition.  The opposite can happen, of course, as Kent State famously and tragically indicated.  This is a bad look, anyway you view it.

To circle back, how much of what we're seeing now, will stick?  Trump's really on his way out, and it's doubtful the culture has been much impacted, so far.

Footnotes: 

1.  This thread has been getting a lot of views for some reason recently, and is often one of the most popular ones of the week.

2.  Kennedy provides us with another example of the disaster of the very aged being in a position of authority.

3.  The order states:

High standards are what made the United States military the greatest fighting force on the planet. The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose. We are made stronger and more disciplined with high, uncompromising, and clear standards.

I am directing the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R)) to gather the existing standards set by the Military Departments pertaining to physical fitness, body composition, and grooming, which includes but is not limited to beards. The USD(P&R) will conduct a review of these standards and how they have changed since January 1, 2015 . The review will also provide insight on why those standards changed and the impact of those changes. The USD(P&R) has the authority to task the Secretaries of the Military Departments and other DoD Component heads as necessary to provide any required information in support of this review and will provide detailed guidance to the Military Departments.

We must remain vigilant in maintaining the standards that enable the men and women of our military to protect the American people and our homeland as the world' s most lethal and effective fighting force. Our adversaries are not growing weaker, and our tasks are not growing less challenging. This review will illuminate how the Department has maintained the level of standards required over the recent past and the trajectory of any change in those standards.

4.  None of which has kept the perpetually behind the curve Wyoming legislature from heading off with its own DOGE effort, just as the  Federal effort is sinking. 

5.  Having said that, by any standard Vance will be more normal than Trump, which doesn't mean he will get reelected in 2028.  

6. They must be banned now, but the Army used to have a lot of Jody Calls that were outright foul, but probably serve to illustrate the atmosphere that units of young men tend to have, for good or ill.  In this call, a solder recalls drinking in a bar and touching a woman next to him in various place until she says "GI, you know the rest", resulting in his now having a bunch of children.

7.  As a totally random item:

As more women head to war, IDF uniforms designed for men expose female troops to risks

The army’s one-uniform-fits-all approach means a fifth of combat soldiers are operating in clothes, vests and other gear unsuited to their physiques, harming safety and effectiveness

8.  I don't know all the details, but from what little you can pick up on the net, Langford's parents seem to have gone through a bad divorce and his father obtained custody.  Langford relates that he solidified his view of himself as a woman following a desperate nighttime prayer.  He was a Mormon, and while many faiths recognize praying for guidance, the Mormon faith has a "burning bosom" line of thought on some things.  The LDS are not, however, supportive of transgenderism, which is interesting, and Langford now identifies as an Episcopalian. Some branches of the Episcopal church have been notoriously willing to accept gender trends, which is part of the reason that the Episcopal Church is rapidly declining in membership.

Related threads:

Women and combat

Killing people and breaking things. . . and women in the service.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist 87th Edition. No, "Liberals" are not flocking to Musk.

Labels: 119th Congress, 2020s, 2025, Conservatism, Donald Trump, Economics, Elon Musk, flap de jour, Liberalism, Populism, Zeitgeist

Progressives Are Driving Themselves Into Extinction | Interesting Times ...

Lex Anteinternet: Occupational Identity and authenticity, a rambling...

Lex Anteinternet: Occupational Identity and authenticity, a rambling...: 

Occupational Identity and authenticity, a rambling thread.

Occupational identity refers to the conscious awareness of oneself as a worker. The process of occupational identity formation in modern societies can be difficult and stressful. However, establishing a strong, self-chosen, positive, and flexible occupational identity appears to be an important contributor to occupational success, social adaptation, and psychological well-being. Whereas previous research has demonstrated that the strength and clarity of occupational identity are major determinants of career decision-making and psychosocial adjustment, more attention needs to be paid to its structure and contents. We describe the structure of occupational identity using an extended identity status model, which includes the traditional constructs of moratorium and foreclosure, but also differentiates between identity diffusion and identity confusion as well as between static and dynamic identity achievement. Dynamic identity achievement appears to be the most adaptive occupational identity status, whereas confusion may be particularly problematic. We represent the contents of occupational identity via a theoretical taxonomy of general orientations toward work (Job, Social Ladder, Calling, and Career) determined by the prevailing work motivation (extrinsic vs. intrinsic) and preferred career dynamics (stability vs. growth). There is evidence that perception of work as a calling is associated with positive mental health, whereas perception of work as a career can be highly beneficial in terms of occupational success and satisfaction. We conclude that further research is needed on the structure and contents of occupational identity and we note that there is also an urgent need to address the issues of cross-cultural differences and intervention that have not received sufficient attention in previous research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Skorikov, V. B., & Vondracek, F. W. (2011). Occupational identity. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research.

How some lawyers apparently want the public to imagine them.

A number of relatively recent experiences has lead me to post this thread.

Posted around town are some billboards by a lawyer who is apparently specializing in plaintiffs' cases and criminal defense.  I don't know him well, but I do know  him.

When I first met him, he came across, quite frankly, as a metrosexual.  I was quite surprised later on when I learned that he'd grown up on a ranch, and that he had a brother who now ran it.  Now, however, he appears on billboards with a huge mustache in Western attire and saddle and portrays himself as a cowboy.

And I guess, by cowboy, I mean both real cowboys and the movie image of a cowboy.

Cowboys, and that is of course a real occupation, have been a popular cultural image since the late 19th Century.  It's really interesting to me, as somebody who is a stockman and who has, accordingly, done a fair amount of cowboying, how cowboys continue to have a sort of wild image that they acquired in that time period.  I love working stock, but most of it isn't anything like what movies portray.  Maybe none of is, which is why  the popular Yellowstone television show tends to anger me.

Of course, being a lawyer isn't anything like portrayed on television either.

Anyhow, I never tell people that "I'm a cowboy", but I find that I"m referred to that way, in the working sense of the word, from time to time.  Or, people will refer to me as a rancher the same way from time to time.  I'm always a bit flattered when they do, as if I'd had my ruthers in the world, which I haven't, that's what I would have done full time.  I can't say its my occupational identity, however, as I'm well aware that I don't do it full time.

Affecting the image, however, miffs me.  It's fake.  If you simply come across that way, as you are naturally that way, that's one thing.  Using it to promote your legal career, however, is bullshit.

Indeed, on real cowboys, not all of which are men, today:

Come As You Are

I guess this gets back in a way to this thread:

A Nation of Slobs. But then. . .

If you are going to be a lawyer, look like one, it's what you actually are.

And, by the way, there's at least one politician in the state that does the same thing, and I'd have the same criticism about.  He's not a lawyer, but a commercial landlord.  

Anyhow, it also gets to the weird association that the law picked up at some point with cowboys around here.  I don't know when this occurred, but it might have been about the time that Gerry Spence's book Gunning for Justice came out.  Spence didn't try to portray himself as a cowboy, but he did take on a Western influenced style, wearing a fringed jacket and a cowboy hat as a matter of course.  Spence being sui generis has been able to consistently pull that off whereas those copying him tend to look absurd.

Anyhow, "Gunning for Justice" is actually a phrase that's been around for awhile and he didn't introduce it, as t his movie poster from 1948 demonstrates:

Spence's use of it, however, seem to have pushed into another sort of use, at least locally.

On this, it's interesting that the cowboy image can be coopted this way, whereas other "manly" professions genuinely cannot.  Fighters (boxers) have been a little bit, and I suppose that was an obviously one, but nobody, for example, talks about "whaling for justice".

Anyhow, dressing up like a cowboy for affect if you are not punching makes you a Rexall Ranger, not a cowboy.

While I'm at it, a Wyoming lawyer has affected the cowboy appearance for her columns on one of the local electronic journals.  In this case, she's gone for the a way too big hat big pushed way up on the forehead so you can see the face look, which to a working stockman looks absolutely absurd.  The same journal actually as a working rancher who wears his hat correctly as a columnist, and up until recently had another who did the same.

As a total side, if you notice in old cowboy portraits they often have their hats pushed to the back of their head, something moderns have wondered about, and for which they've even assumed that must be how they wore them.

No, the cameras were bad.

Isom Dart at Brown’s Hole Wyoming.

If they hadn't pushed them up some, their faces would have been in shadow

On identifies, I had a couple of odd encounters recently, one of which involves mental decline, and the other which involves gender attraction.

I'll start with the latter one first.  There's an older profession that I don't know well, but who've I've been familiar with for a very long time.  Somebody much more familiar with him than me dropped that he's a homosexual.  I was shocked.  Not because homosexuality in general shocks me, but because it was very well closeted for decades.  Indeed, he's married with children.

I suppose that might be the rule for people north of 70, the closteting, that is.

In retrospect, it pretty quickly made sense for some reason.  It just explained some personality quirks that I'd long noticed.  The point of posting it here, however, is that if it's true, he's lived a lifetime with sort of an interesting strained identity.

He's not the only one I know of who is alleged to be in this category.  Frankly a fairly well known person in the region is claimed by some insiders to fit this as well.  In that case, it's more notable for his public opinions on things, which would be generally contrary to this inclination, assuming its true.

Now, I'll note that I have the typically misunderstood Catholic views on homosexuality.  I'll also note that one of these individuals is a co-religious, and the other was.  My only real point in noting all of this is to note that it must be a strain to live an entire life with a sort of false identity, assuming that its true in either case, which I can't really say for sure.

I'll also note that homosexuals of that vintage who did not present themselves as "gay", which is different, may have had a better understanding of marriage than many.  Catholic Answers Hugh Barbour defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman to produce children for the worship of God, which while it may be more than that, that captures a lot of it.  People like to say that before Obergefell homosexuals couldn't marry, but that's simply false, if we consider that marriage is a unique institution between two people capable of reproducing and bound to care for those they create.

Going on to occupations, I've also run across recently a situation in which I've been dealing with somebody whom, once again, I don't know that well but who is still working fulltime and whose clearly suffering from some compression loss in the psychological cylinders.  I'm not their pal or anything but it's sad to watch.  It's also sad to watch, however, somebody whose psychological identify is so closely identified with the practice of law, they can't leave it.

I've known more than one lawyer who practiced into advanced old age with no mental detriment.  But it's also the case quite frankly that a person's physical clockworks, and often their mental ones, start to slip a bit after the hands hit 60 or so.  I'm frankly not convinced at all that allowing people to practice a profession after some point in their 60s is a good thing, and I don't think people should carry on into their 70s.  For one thing, it's just sad.  Surely there was something else that interested them once.

Back to occupational identities.

One of the really minor features of this blog is the M65 Field Jackets in the wild. page.  Minor.

I like M65 field jackets.  When I was in the Guard I had at least six of them due to having bought two and having been issued four more.  The reason I was issued four is that at Ft. Sill the switch from OG-107 to BDU was going on and we were issued OD field jackets. As soon as I got back, we were issued BDU field jackets, and told to keep the old ones.

I gave one of the OD ones to a girlfriend who had need of a jacket while I was in university, and then eventually I just got to big, i.e,. gained weight, or filled out, whatever, and couldn't wear the size I'd been issued.  But I still had the next larger size, Large Regular.

Well, time, etc.

A surplus store here had a whole bunch of uniform items here before they went out of business and I bought several BDU ones.  I just really like them.  I picked up a OD one for my son, as they're a nice coat, but naively didn't for myself.  The OD ones you can wear for daily wear really.

Well, here recently I found a Greek Lizard pattern one for sale and I bought it for hunting.  Which meant that I had three woodland pattern ones, one desert pattern one (a gift of an old soldier) and a Lizard pattern one.  Then I saw the current multicam pattern one for sale on Ebay, which I ordered.  Finally, I decided I needed an OD one and bought one of those off of ebay.

Some of these have the US Army tape on them.  One, the multicam one, came with paratrooper wings from the former and his name tape.  I took the name tape off and the paratrooper wings.  I'm not a paratrooper.  The OD one came with a name tape, the U.S. Army tape, and two unit patches.  I took everything off but the US Army tape.

For reasons that are silly, and I can't explain, I ended up ordering name tapes.  I can now sew those on.

Why?  I'm not sure.  I don't need name tapes on old uniform items for any rational reason.  Rather, I was required to do it back in the day, and I still feel like am now.  Indeed, it would make a lot more sense to take the US Army patch off the OD one so I can use it for its intended purpose of regular daily wear.

Odd

Well, I found a M1943 replica on sale and ordered it.  It won't have any patches.

I need to stop buying them.

As a further aside, a Carhartt coat is much warmer.  My old one is pretty much blown out now.  It was a gift from my wife and I've been resisting getting a new one, even though I need to.  Guess I'm hoping for another one as a gift so that I don't have to buy it.

Back to occupational identities for a moment.  It occured to me how, when I was young, men had much less of one. They genuinely seemed more well rounded than men do today

People always like to claim things were different, if not outright perfect, when they were young.  But it does seem to me that genuinely men were quite family oriented. That meant that their professions and occupations were focused on providing for their families, but it also meant that their professions tended not to be all that they were, including to themselves.  I can vaguely recall some men who were very career oriented being criticized for it.

Every man that I knew when I was young tended to almost be identified by a collection of interests.  Medical professionals were often hunters and fishermen.  Indeed, I don't know one who wasn't.  Some were dramatically so.  Men who had come into professions from farms and ranches tended to still be identified with their origin and retain some contacts with that life.  I knew a fireman who was a pretty good amature geologist, another who was a car restorer, and another who was the first long distance runner I ever knew.  More recently professionals, or at least lawyers, have almost become cartoons of themselves in some instances, only engaging in the law or perhaps one activity that's sort of socially approved for lawyers.

It isn't good.

Last Sunday I ran this item:

Pack Animals - the 🇩🇪 German Mountain Infantry Brigade

I knew that the Bundesheer has a mountain infantry brigade.

I've sometimes thought that if I had been born in Germany, which I'm very much glad I was not, I'd have opted for a career with this unit.  Outdoors. . . animals, etc.  By the same token, if I had been born French, there's the Chasseurs Alpins.

Hmmm. . . 

Well, I didn't opt for a career with the Wyoming Game & Fish, so I'm probably just fooling myself.

Have a nice day at work.  

Mehr Mensch sein,