The Free Period

Disinformation

2009-08-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

There was a minor outburst of concern earlier this week about the Obama administration's use of flag@whitehouse.gov to report rumors about the health care bill. From the administration's web site:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Now, as stated, this is to be a means of debunking rumors. However, the White House keeping a list of disconcerting things sent about them--with many people presumably emailing in names as well, since they're not being told not to--got a lot of people to raise their eyebrows (if my friends can be taken as representative, across the political spectrum). For a full compendium of conservative concern, this post at Ace of Spades is really quite helpful. For example, Gabriel notes that the Obama Administration is required by law to keep the names sent to them--this doesn't mean anything will be done with them of course; it presumes something will be done with this list later once the information is kept. (And if that seems ridiculous, compare collecting phone records of tons of Americans--but probably not DOING anything with most of them.)

Now then--there are certainly tons of rumors floating around about the bill, to the point where the things I hear at town hall meetings sound more like objections to policies pursued in Gattaca than any concern I've ever raised. The White House has now created a "reality check" website (which is a tiny bit glib itself) but it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of all the lies out there.

And I'm not just talking about random forwarded emails. Case in point:

My mother called me over to the TV room the other day regarding a claim she was fairly certain she had just heard for the second time on Glenn Beck's show: that people over the age of 59 would not be able to receive stents or bypasses under the Democrats' plan. I pulled up the bill (HR 3200) as it passed out of one of the house committees and neglected to find "stent OR stint", "bypass", or "fifty-nine OR 59" as an age. After doing a little online research, I've found this seems to be a critique of England's health care, yet one I could not substantiate. Then FactCheck swung in to my rescue:

This widely forwarded e-mail, targeted to senior citizens and claiming that health care legislation could constitute "senior death warrants," is riddled with false claims.

The anonymous e-mail claims that "[i]n England anyone over 59 cannot receive heart repairs or stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive and not needed." That’s false.

We called the United Kingdom’s Department of Health and a spokesman told us: "It is not true that anyone aged over 59 years cannot receive heart repairs, stents or bypass surgery on the basis of their age."

He also said that medical procedures in the U.K. are not routinely denied for older people. The National Health Service, the U.K.’s public health care service, has a constitution which prohibits discrimination on the basis of age and other factors. "The NHS Constitution states that the NHS provides a ‘comprehensive service, available to all irrespective of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief,’ " the spokesman said.

I jokingly told Dom the other day that I bet we could send Glenn Beck a bunch of chain emails with not-quite-absurd rumors about the health care system and he'd probably report them on air. Now I'm not sure that's a joke.

The North Korea Kerfuffle

2009-08-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

There's been some talk from the Right that Bill Clinton's recent trip to rescue American reporters was a major misstep. The conflicting desires to not acknowledge a foreign relations coup for Obama and to not appear to hope for the continued imprisonment of the two reporters on network tv have produced cautious condemnations.

Former President Clinton has upended the world's efforts to isolate and punish North Korea by letting it in from the cold - Dick Morris

"This is a lifeline to a regime that is a terrorist regime that has proliferated nuclear technology" - Stephen Hayes

These arguments are premised on the idea that North Korea made a savvy trade in exchanging two American citizens for photographs of their Dear Leader with a morose looking Bill Clinton. Perhaps it's time we get a sense of perspective.

This is a nation actively pursuing nuclear weapons. A nation that has been under the most extreme trade sanctions in the world since the 1950s. A nation that, given two media-attractive hostages, traded them for a photo-op.

Assume the conservative talking heads are correct, and North Korea does rely on Bill Clinton's visible approval to sustain its own existence. The strongest political reality promoted by Clinton's trip is North Korea's weakness.

If you need convincing, think about Iran, our other aspiring nuclear state. There are currently three American hikers being held in Iran, and you can bet a country that blantantly stole an election and openly admitted to torturing protestors is none too invested in trading them for America's moral approbation.

Too bad.

Craig Ferguson Explains Everything

2009-07-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

(h/t National Review)

Of course, the problem is that deeply, proudly unhip old people can also embrace anti-intellectualism. But maybe they were young when this started, and it's a McWhorter-style meme now.

Charter Schools Can't Do the Math

2009-07-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

According to an article in The Washington Post, Obama is using $4.35 billion in grants to try to win acceptance for charter schools. His support hinges on the supposition that charter schools are vastly more successful than public schools, and there's a whole host of statistics saying he's right.

Children, the word for the day is 'Selection Bias.'

The stats on charter schools are tangled up in a lot of bad math. Here are three of the biggest statistical problems.

Admissions
Most (not all) charter schools are selective in their admissions. Many charter schools require applications for admission, guaranteeing that the students in the charter school are more motivated and likely to be higher performing. Even if schools admit students in a lottery, the students who choose to enter the lottery represent a self selected population of students who took time to gather data and work through paperwork. Finally, many charter schools require parents and students to sign contracts with concrete committments for parental involvement. These contract select for active and involved parents, a factor that is strongly associated with high academic performance.

Attrition
Public schools can't just kick out students who are failing, but charter schools can and do. One article, titled "New Study Finds San Francisco Bay Area KIPP Students Outperform Peers" compares the test scores of SF area KIPP schools with neighboring public schools and glosses over one of the most worrying statistics: 60 percent of students who entered fifth grade at four Bay Area KIPP schools in 2003-04 left before completing eighth grade.

Most public schools would have much more impressive statistics if they could boot 60% of underperforming students. And that's not a hypothetical statement. The much touted Texas Miracle boosted test scores by pressuring students to drop out right before high stakes tests. Whattaya know, average scores went up.

Aggregation
There's a whole new selection problem when the data on charter schools are aggregated. When charter schools start failing, they get closed. Failing public schools stay open and keep failing until they are (hopefully) overhauled. Failing charter schools drop out of long term data sets, leaving only high performing schools for comparison.

Certain individual charter schools do a fine job educating students, but I don't want to see major outlays for charter schools in general until I see the kind of math that I want these students to know. And keep in mind plenty of studies suggest that, on net, charter schools are not significantly better than public schools.

Gates Recap: What matters, what doesn't.

2009-07-24T07:22:00.001-07:00

As y'all know by now, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was taken down to the police station for about five hours about a week ago after he and his taxi driver forced their way into his house and a woman called the cops, thinking it was a break-in. Details are fuzzy and controversial, but the police showed up and, rather than quickly settle that Professor Gates did in fact own the house, ended up ostensibly charging Professor Gates with disorderly conduct, handcuffing him, and bringing him downtown.

First of all, I mostly agree with Conor Friedersdorf's contention that this case--a man wrongly brought downtown for a couple hours, released and not charged--isn't exactly the best case to focus on when there are so many egregious examples of abuses by the police in this country. While there is something to be said for using the case drawing attention to illustrate a larger point, I think this incident is on such a lower level than other misconduct that it's not a good illustrator at all.

Obviously, I don't know if the release of the dispatches will bolster the officer's argument. But frankly, the ways in which Professor Gates is listed as being uncooperative are pretty benign--calling racism, talking about how important he is, making "yo' mama" cracks. Yes, he sounds kind of obnoxious. But if he showed you his driver's license with his address listed and a picture of his face, I don't care if he was screaming "AND FUCK YOUR CRACKER-ASS CRACK WHORE MOTHER" while he did it.

Now, off the somewhat intriguing but not deeply important controversy. Time for the wacky faux-controversy. As you know, President Obama took a big ol' chunk of TV time the other night ostensibly to sell his health care plan and explain it in a coherent, rational way. So of course, Lynn Sweet asked about the Gates scandal.

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Recently Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you and what does it say about race relations in America?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I should say at the outset that "Skip" Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don't know all the facts....They're reporting -- the police are doing what they should. There's a call, they go investigate what happens. My understanding is at that point Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in, I'm sure there's some exchange of words, but my understanding is, is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house. And at that point, he gets arrested for disorderly conduct -- charges which are later dropped.

Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact...

He went on, most of it being inoffensive and hard to disagree with. But the Republicans kept the story alive, taking out ads against Obama, arguing that criticizing an officer's conduct was not "presidential". Even now that Obama has confirmed that he has talked with all parties, everything is hunky-dory, and he will physically be sharing a beer with Gates and the officer, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter is sponsoring legislation seeking an apology. But that's just Republicans being unserious again. What bothers me more is serious media outlets going around and questioning prominent black thinkers (Surprise! Bill Cosby disagrees with Obama!) about Obama's involvement in the issue. Not only do they fall prey to the Barbara Boxer fallacy (commonly stated as OH NOES THIS BLACK PERSON DISAGREES WITH ANOTHER BLACK PERSON HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE) but they fall prey to the Original Sin of the Media, the creation of controversy for its own sake. They cannot even fault President Obama honestly for addressing the issue--he clearly had not intended to until they interjected it into his health insurance forum (which I covered not even noting that question)--nor can they question the accuracy of his statements; they can only call his personal opinions, unconnected to policy, impolitic or foolish. And in the process, they took a couple days to distract us from the serious business of the debate on health care reform. Perhaps Obama's concern about rushing the bill is not connected to natural loss of public support, but the media's increasingly short attention span when it comes to the hard, technical, boring aspects of governance.

Obama's Health Care Press Conference: My Hopes and Concerns

2009-07-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

I posted a little earlier on my Facebook status that I was none too happy with the President after his health care press conference (which he again requested--and got--prime-time network television for), and I was deluged with a little debate you can find here (requires Facebook access).

Here's the transcript. The jist of my position is the following: I think much of the discussion was too vague, especially regarding cutting cost, for a big inflated conference that was intended to help push a bill through soon. He was too glib on the limits of the plan, directly ignoring questions about end of life care. Most importantly, I think he is not being honest about the ability of the United States to maintain an insurance marketplace in the face of a public option AND restrictions on current insurance practices.

Mind you, I don't have too much of a problem with a public option per se. I'm not sure if the "injecting more competition into the marketplace" phrasing is correct, because a plan already being subsidized by your tax dollars that is built to afford constant losses is going to be rather tough to compete with. (And contrary to my liberal friends' jabs at me, I don't care about that just because I love corporate profits, I care about that because of the number of people employed in the industry.) Still, certainly insurance companies could differentiate their product, and perhaps even cut bureaucracy beyond what the government could accomplish. As Ferny cited to me, insurance companies currently only pay out 80% per premium dollar received, compared with ~95% in the early 1990's, which explains the CRAZY profits. I'm not entirely sure how to explain this; company-wide agreements with insurance companies and lack of options could be retarding market competitiveness, but I'm unsure.

AP did a decent, though rather incomplete fact check on the press conference. They are correct in pointing out the dubiousness of the revenue-neutral claim (though we still haven't seen a bill that finalizes the requisite tax increases) or claims on current size of deficit, but these are matters of cost, not process. I'm going to quote the part I find most relevant:

OBAMA: "We already have rough agreement" on some aspects of what a health care overhaul should involve, and one is: "It will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you're happy with it."

THE FACTS: In House legislation, a commission appointed by the government would determine what is and isn't covered by insurance plans offered in a new purchasing pool, including a plan sponsored by the government. The bill also holds out the possibility that, over time, those standards could be imposed on all private insurance plans, not just the ones in the pool.

Indeed, Obama went on to lay out other principles of reform that plainly show the government making key decisions in health care. He said insurance companies would be barred from dropping coverage when someone gets too sick, limits would be set on out-of-pocket expenses, and preventive care such as checkups and mammograms would be covered.

It's true that people would not be forced to give up a private plan and go with a public one. The question is whether all of those private plans would still be in place if the government entered the marketplace in a bigger way.

Exactly: with the amount of regulation on private companies combining with competition with a non-profit public option, I can't see them staying in business. Certainly, I think those three reforms are good ones--but the idea that insurance companies can be forced to accept people despite preexisting health conditions becomes even more difficult to manage when the government is offering a program. (For example, if you differentiate yourself from the government plan by providing better care, it seems you'd end up with a case of adverse selection where the healthy people would stick with the "free" government plan while the sick people sign on to the better plan, making it unprofitable. There would have to be enough wealthy people buying to balance--and if the government plan is as good as it should be, I doubt it.)

Now, you might say "Well, that's fine, so we have one government plan. It's worth losing some jobs in this industry to expand coverage." Fair enough--but then the political process deciding the details of coverage becomes a LOT more important. (Currently, we're talking about a plan whose extension of coverage will be decided by the recommendations of an unelected board followed by the votes of the Congress) Also, if we think there's a good chance things will turn out this way, we should be honest about it in presenting the plan in the first place. (You know what's going to be a REALLY fun political football? Every single bit of health care minutiae in terms of what should be covered and what shouldn't be. Particularly because the answer will always be "Cover that too.")

As to the other fact-corrected stuff, I'm not really interested in the 'gotcha' on Obama claiming he was not criticizing Republicans when he did so in the same speech--brain fart, yes, but I expect every elected official to play politics while scrupulously denying it--and I pretty much agree with what he said about Professor Gates's arrest (which I will write on more later)

Of course, none of this goes into the wisdom of raising taxes on wealthy folks during a recession (which the cut off for is either $250,000 a year or $1,000,000 a year for a family--if the former I really hope the tax is at least progressive within that spectrum). Generally, I think our economy could get along fine with a higher tax rate (see Clinton, Bill), but that even though tax cuts don't necessarily stimulate growth in a consistent manner, that doesn't mean tax hikes don't have adverse effects on spending. Still, I think I'd be willing to make the trade-off of some unmeasureable negative consequences for business and employment in exchange for expanding health care and un-tethering it from current employment status.

Then again, maybe I'm just being selfish with all this. Full disclosure from my Student Employment email:

As a side note, the Obama administration has started preliminary discussion regarding the elimination of the student FICA exemption in order to raise funds for their plans of universal healthcare system.

NOOO! STOP TAKING MY MONEY!! UNLESS IT WILL DO GOOD THINGS FOR OTHER PEOPLE, IN WHICH CASE I'M PRETTY MUCH OKAY WITH IT!!

UPDATE: Harry Reid just kicked the football down the road until after the August recess. Good: More debate, more discussion, more sunlight on the process. As much as I understand the absolute urgency, I also want it done properly.

SECOND UPDATE: Hot Air, much as I despise that blog sometimes, correctly notes that Obama did open the door a little bit last night to reneging on the whole no-tax-on-middle-class thing. You know...if the Congress happens to pass that bill. This wink-wink wasn't funny when Clinton did it either, for the record--though I accept that it could be toward a decent end.

RANDOM ASIDE: Also, we're going to need more doctors to cover more people if we're going to at least try to avoid certain parts of the rationing problem. I hope we take steps to encourage more people entering the profession--forgiving student loans and the like. Implementing an opt-out organ donation program will help that aspect of things. My main concern is that if government not only controls insurance but medical care itself, the government actively withholding an operation may be an even bigger hurdle to get around than trying to find the money via loans or whatever to pay for continued care. That is a significant maybe though; financial coercion is rough.

Drawing the "racist" line

2009-07-19T19:33:00.000-07:00

Recent post by Ta-Nehisi Coates kicked off a good deal of argumentation in his tread:

One cool thing about the Obama presidency is, far from leading us into a postracial America, it's actually revealing that significant minority of white folks, (35-40 percent? Too optimistic?) who are not racist, but just really really don't like ~~black people~~ Al Sharpton. Take this latest installment in what is, basically, a weekly drama:

He then tells the story of Gary Frago, a city councilman who sent around a few shockingly racist and shockingly unfunny jokes (Such as: Maybe "nigger rigs" should be called "presidential solutions"! ZING~!) and then claimed My-black-friends-love-these-jokes-also-I'm-not-a-racist. Charming. Still, the conversation went off that into a lot of argumentation by white folks that by no reasonable measure could 30-40% of whites be considered racist--which of course kicked off a discussion of what really constitutes racism. I go with this commentator:

So yeah, there are different degrees of racism. There's the KKK Nazi cross-burners who are a tiny segment of society. There's the fairly significant group that responds positively to Pat Buchanan (this is maybe your 35-40% figure, nationally). And then there's about 99% of white people (self included, if you really pressed me on it) who still get unconscious racist thoughts when we're meeting people for the first time, are uncomfortable in situations where there are a whole lot of black people, etc., but don't let those thoughts dominate them or their opinions of people of different ethnicities.

First, on how someone like Frago could claim he was not a racist. The post links to another post by Ta-Nehisi before on collective reticence to tar someone with the word racist despite actions that seem to point to no other conclusion. The post is somewhat insightful, despite his insistence on including Geraldine Ferraro in there. Notable quote for me:

Implicit to the racist card is the idea that no racists actually live among us. After reality TV star Duane "Dog" Chapman was taped by one of his sons dropping n-bombs, a more loyal son insisted, "My dad is not a racist man. If he was he would have no hair. He'd have swastikas on his body and he would go around talking about Hitler. That's what a racist is to me."

Obviously, that's setting the bar so high that only Stormfront folks and movie characters could leap the bar. I agree that any qualifier for actual racism must match with the fact that, yes, there are a considerable number of racists out there. My qualifier for considering someone a racist (and not just accusing them of having done something racist) is that the person must actually judge people of a different skin color or ethnic background as being inherently inferior or flawed or somehow worthy of condescension. Gary Frago fits this. Duane Chapman fits this. I'm not certain 30-40% of whites do.

Let's take the racism of fear--rolling up the windows and locking the doors in poor black areas, avoiding poor black men on the street, etc. Minnie was complaining to me the other day about people who exhibit this kind of racism. If racially motivated actions are all that it takes to be a racist, sure. But let me flip circumstances for a second. If I was a black parent taking a cross-country drive and making a stop in a certain part of Mississippi overnight, I'd probably want to keep my children away from the less genteel white folks as much as possible. That doesn't mean I think white people are inherently more violent or that any more than one in a hundred white people would pose a threat to my child. But I am absolutely assured that 100% of the people who will pose a threat to my child in this area are white, so I act the same way I would if I thought 100% of white people posed a danger. For me, that's not racist, that's being sadly overcautious.

Now, if we're talking not just ducking backwoods hicks, but the poor white janitor at the motel, then we're getting into territory where caution can't be justified. Certainly, any white person who exhibits fear of an African American or Hispanic in a suit has some pathologies that need working out. But if I am defining a racist as one who holds racist beliefs, I am hesitant to define these fraidy-cat whites (certainly including members of my family) who lock their doors driving through the ghetto, particularly those who have been mugged, shot at, and witnessed people be murdered in these areas (again including the same family members), as racists. That doesn't mean the actions aren't racist, but unless their caution moves into broader racial assumptions, I think that term can't be so casually used. And I think that's where Ta-Nehisi set off his minefield--because his white commentators recognize feelings and actions like these in themselves, and assume they are being lumped in as racist, and take offense at the broader characterization when those feelings don't necessarily define all their interactions.

But don't take my word for it. Take Ta-Nehisi's word months ago. Man, I read the guy too much.

Southern Strategy Pt. 2

2009-07-15T16:36:00.001-07:00

I haven't really written much this week, in part because most of what I've been following connects to the Sotomayor hearings, which are so devoid of actual content that I have nothing interesting to say.

However, I do have a little response to the punditry, because Pat Buchanan has written an online article so dumb, I am actually impressed. I'm going to take apart the crazy piece-by-piece.

Pundits here gets hoots of appreciation for doing to a white Christian woman what would constitute a hate crime if done to a "wise Latina woman." But, as no Republican who followed the script of the mainstream media ever won a national election, why should the party pay them mind?

You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -Inigo Montoya.

In 2008, Hispanics, according to the latest figures, were 7.4 percent of the total vote. White folks were 74 percent, 10 times as large.
Adding just 1 percent to the white vote is thus the same as adding 10 percent to the candidate's Hispanic vote.

Awesome. Great, so we'll put more money into appealing to "white folks". that seems like a reasonable investment--but darned if there aren't lots of different kinds of white folks just like there are lots of different kinds of Hispanics. How do we appeal to these folks, Pat?

Why did McCain fail to win the white conservative Democrats Hillary Clinton swept in the primaries? He never addressed or cared about their issues.

These are the folks whose jobs have been outsourced to China and Asia, who pay the price of affirmative action when their sons and daughters are pushed aside to make room for the Sonia Sotomayors. These are the folks who want the borders secured and the illegals sent back.

Okay, given that Sonia Sotomayor is being sandwiched between foreign nationals and illegal immigrants here, I'm going to quickly note that Judge Sotomayor is from Puerto Rico, an American territory. But I'll shake off any concerns about framing and just assume Pat Buchanan honestly thinks Republicans should be fighting on these legitimate issues where blue-collar white folk have a certain opinion by a 3-to-1 margin.

Had McCain been willing to drape Jeremiah Wright around the neck of Barack Obama, as Lee Atwater draped Willie Horton around the neck of Michael Dukakis, the mainstream media might have howled.

And McCain might be president.

And here's where the train of logic goes flying off the tracks for me. Because Jeremiah Wright doesn't represent any of those issues that supposedly matter to white Americans uniquely. No, Buchanan is simply saying "Playing the race card is a viable tactic". This would be true even if he just mentioned Jeremiah Wright, but by drawing a connection to Willie Horton--unrelated except for the color of his skin--the implication is obvious.

From a logical perspective, Buchanan is wrong. Actively alienating a large ethnic group in today's politics is not a trade that automatically wins you more of the other ethnic groups at any percentage level. (Southern Strategy*3 =/= White Folks Strategy) But from a moral perspective, this is actively despicable. Buchanan is lobbying for Republicans to actively stoke racial division, as though such campaign tactics had no impact on the real world and how interracial relations take place day to day.

The brazenness is incredible. This man needs to stop being treated as a respectable public figure, and despite his ability to make Republicans look very silly, MSNBC needs to get him off television. Of course, giving people like Buchanan a voice constantly so they can create controversy is the Original Sin of the Media, controversy bias.

(As an aside, Buchanan reminds me of Nate Silver's "Operation Gringo" a while back which suggested something similar in pushing an "anti-immigrant, anti-NAFTA" platform to gain ground in the Midwest and South, since under an electoral vote system Hispanic vote fluctuation wasn't that dangerous to Republicans. However, not only is he treating this as a "What if the Republican Party did this" hypothetical as opposed to actually advocating it, but he is much more realistic about "whites" not being monolithic.)

On the other side of the coin is this quick blurb from Chris Good at The Atlantic. Actual elected Republicans who answer to Hispanic voters--in this case, John Cornyn--are taking care to moderate their tone and make sure not to alienate Hispanic voters during these confirmation hearings. Good--but the next step is that the national party needs to behave itself as well. Just as Southern Democrats are sometimes distrusted by social conservatives because of the national party they support, Cornyn's show of respect will be for naught if all of his friends who he supports don't play nice as well.

Confronting our responses to poverty

2009-07-12T13:34:00.000-07:00

Barbara Ehrenreich, of the book Nickel and Dimed about underclass life in America, is running a series of stories on poverty in the recession in the New York Times. Her latest article, A Homespun Safety Net, is up today.

While the broader point of her story as alluded to by her headline is the community among the poor, the story primarily concerns one particular family who go through an unbelievably unfortunate series of circumstances to end up destitute today.

From the beginning of the story:

Take the case of Kristen and Joe Parente, Delaware residents who had always imagined that people turned to government for help only if “they didn’t want to work.” Their troubles began well before the recession, when Joe, a fourth-generation pipe fitter, sustained a back injury that left him unfit for even light lifting. He fell into depression for several months, then rallied to ace a state-sponsored retraining course in computer repairs — only to find those skills no longer in demand. The obvious fallback was disability benefits, but — Catch-22 — when Joe applied he was told he could not qualify without presenting a recent M.R.I. scan. This would cost $800 to $900, which the Parentes do not have, nor has Joe, unlike the rest of the family, been able to qualify for Medicaid.

When Joe and Kristen married as teenagers, the plan had been for Kristen to stay home with the children. But with Joe out of action and three children to support by the middle of this decade, Kristen went to work as a waitress, ending up, in 2008, in a “pretty fancy place on the water.” Then the recession struck and in January she was laid off.

The story goes on and gets increasingly worse: wife fails to qualify for unemployment, no jobs available to her, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families isn't good enough, and on and on. She ends up finding a job with ACORN, but at the end (cliffhanger -style) they are about to be evicted as the landlord prepares to sell the complex they're in.

My primary reaction when confronted with such stories is to try to figure out what went wrong--what could be systemically changed to prevent a couple like this from falling through the cracks. Certainly, Delaware's requirement that families receiving assistance apply for forty jobs a week and take job readiness classes (as noted later in the article) is probably unrealistic. Something also seems wrong with the husband needing to put up money to establish an injury to claim disability, though I read the article as if he had not originally filed during his "several months of depression", which may add other difficulties--would they have had the money initially, did the claim look suspect coming months after, etc.--but I don't know enough about disability claims state-to-state to speculate.

What I would also like to draw your attention to is some of the concerns Ms. Ehrenreich brings up about the stigma attached to welfare:

Nationally, according to Kaaryn Gustafson, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut Law School, “applying for welfare is a lot like being booked by the police.” There may be a mug shot, fingerprinting and long interrogations as to one’s children’s paternity. The ostensible goal is to prevent welfare fraud, but the psychological impact is to turn poverty itself into a kind of crime...

People far more readily turn to food stamps, which have seen a 19 percent surge in enrollment since the recession began. But even these can carry a presumption of guilt or criminal intent. Four states — Arizona, California, New York and Texas — require that applicants undergo fingerprinting. Furthermore, under a national program called Operation Talon, food stamp offices share applicants’ personal data with law enforcement agencies, making it hazardous for anyone who might have an outstanding warrant — for failing to show up for a court hearing on an unpaid debt, for example — to apply.

Personally, I am hesitant to attach a great deal of significance to the fingerprinting or even the general attitude toward welfare recipients. Certainly, if those involved in social work are contemptuous of those they serve to the point where they want to serve them badly, that's one thing. But other than that, I am hesitant to suggest that psychologically "turn[ing] poverty itself into a kind of crime" speaks a great deal to the efficacy of the program itself. I am also hesitant to work up a great deal of concern that signing up for an assistance program might be incompatible with evading the law--I'd prefer to spend more to help people out of debt than facilitate evasion of said debt.

These are my immediate skin-deep reactions. I'll be reading more and learning more over the next couple weeks, but I have two questions right now.

1. Where is our system of assistance most broken in terms of helping people back on their feet--and is that brokenness connected to the recession exclusively or not?
2. How much is the stigma surrounding welfare relevant to its efficacy in terms of helping the needy?

Obama and Benedict

2009-07-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

E.J. Dionne and other press outlets have noted that despite the recent brouhaha over his appearance at Notre Dame, the Vatican has mostly maintained a friendly face toward the Obama administration.

Of course, this is in no small part due to the fact that the values of Barack Obama and those of the Catholic Church do line up in some important ways, including areas where President Bush did not have overlap. Dionne notes this well in a discussion of "Charity in Truth", the Pope's latest encyclical:

Benedict’s encyclical may provide the best perspective for understanding why a pope seen as a conservative views Obama more favorably than do most Catholic conservatives in the United States.

While American conservatives, including most Catholics in their ranks, see capitalism in an almost entirely positive light, Benedict—following a long tradition of church teaching—is more skeptical of a system rooted in materialist values. In that sense, he is to the left of his American flock.

Benedict’s letter had some good things to say about the market system, but only if it is tempered by both “distributive justice and social justice.” He thus spoke approvingly of “the redistribution of wealth”—not a phrase currently on many American lips—and caused free-market conservatives to blanch with his call for a “world political authority” to oversee the global economy in the name of “the common good.”

This should come as no surprise to devout Catholics. If the media finds this noteworthy, that only comes from a confusion over the term "conservative" as applied to Catholicism. The more theologically conservative a Catholic is, the less regard they have for the accumulation and pursuit of wealth. After all, the less literally I take "Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24) the more I can tolerate wealth as easily compatible with a moral life.

Dionne's article also notes that Cardinal Georges Cottier, Theologian Emeritus of the Pontifical Household, went toward Obama on the biggest rift of all, praising his "humble realism" on abortion. That seemed suspect to me, so I went to check that out at the original article at 30 Days. As it turns out, that section was referring primarily to his foreign policy (where his anti-unnecessary war and pro-Palestinian state attitude lines up pretty well with Vatican policy), but indeed, the Cardinal takes a light hand to Obama's attitude:

In addition, Obama recognizes the tragic seriousness of the problem. That the decision to abort “is a heart-wrenching decison for any woman”. The common ground that he is proposing is that we all work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortion. He adds that any legal regulation of the matter must guarantee in absolute fashion conscientious objection for health workers who do not want to engage in the practice of abortion. His words go in the direction of diminishing the evil. The government and the State must make every effort to ensure that the number of abortions is minimized. It is, of course, only a minimum, but a precious minimum. It reminds me of the attitude of the early Christian legislators who did not repeal the Roman laws tolerating practices that did not comply with or even went counter to natural law, such as concubinage and slavery. The change was arrived at by slow degrees, often marked by setbacks, as the number of Christians in the population increased and with them the impact of the sense of the dignity of the person. At first, to obtain the consent of citizens and preserve social peace, the so-called “imperfect laws” were left in force, which prevented persecution for acts and behavior contrary to natural law. Even St Thomas, who had no doubt that the law must be moral, added that the State should not make laws too severe and “lofty” because they would be despised by those incapable of applying them.
The realism of the politician recognizes evil and calls it by its name. It recognizes that we must be humble and patient, fighting without the presumption of eradicating it from human history by means of legal coercion. It is the parable of the tares, which also applies at the political level. On the other hand, this does not become justification for cynicism and indifference to it. The effort to decrease evil as much as possible remains persistent. It is a duty.

I'm not sure how I feel about this line of argument. On one hand, the Cardinal correctly identifies Obama's focus on "abortion reduction" which so many pro-choice people take issue with (sample post from RH Reality Check). On the other hand, the analogy is weak. Barack Obama is not a great fighter for fetal rights who is simply working within constraints imposed on him by the public. Otherwise, he would have never come out for partial-birth abortion, against the born-alive bill back in Illinois, and would not have sought to federally fund abortion providers--all policies for which you can find a majority opposed. I've said it before, and I'll say it again--no one should have any hesitance saying they agree with President Obama when they honestly do, but there is a danger in listening to his nice words and simply pretending he shares your views.

Note: While writing this article, an update was posted by the AP noting that the Pope and the President did discuss abortion, with Obama promising more work on abortion reduction and the Pope handing President Obama the Vatican's recent document on bioethics, which includes a discussion of stem cells, abortion and the like. (Thus continuing the trend of world leaders giving our President free literature.) Still, the overall tone seemed less than aggressive, and the article also notes the positive words the Vatican newspaper has previously had to say about the President's term so far.

An influential presence

2009-07-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

Two articles in the online New York Times I'd like to call attention to: Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice, just published, and The Waves Minority Judges Always Make, from when Sotomayor was nominated.

Both are stories of scientific studies mixed in with the personal--much more heavily personal in the latter article. Let's start with the study from that one:

In sex discrimination and sexual harassment cases, according a 2005 study by Jennifer L. Peresie in The Yale Law Journal, “female judges were significantly more likely than male judges to find for plaintiffs.”

Perhaps more surprisingly, the study found, “the presence of a female judge significantly increased the probability that a male” on a three-judge panel “supported the plaintiff in the cases.” Indeed, “panels with at least one female judge decided cases for the plaintiff more than twice as often as did all-male panels.”

A study in The Columbia Law Review last year found a similar effect in voting rights cases. “When a white judge sits on a panel with at least one African-American judge,” the study, conducted by Adam B. Cox and Thomas J. Miles, concluded, “she becomes roughly 20 percentage points more likely to find” a voting rights violation.

So why is that? The article ventures a couple possibilities, including the persuasiveness of one's life experience. Certainly, I think individual justices might recognize prejudice if it mirrors something in their own life while others might look at the facts as more innocent. But I think it's something subtler--frankly, when folks discuss issues that don't impact their lives, there is a danger of callousness--of forgetting the human aspect of the case at hand--as well as a danger of generalization. Even with Clarence Thomas in the room, as conservative a justice you will find, I'm certain none of the other justices will venture a formulation in deliberation like "You know, black people tend to..."

The more recent article on college roommates is not as perfectly positive as the headline might seem. Interracial roommates are more likely to split up the following year--and these splits correlate with white students' original negative attitudes toward other races. Still, such interracial rooming situations do apparently correlate with a drop in negative racial attitudes (though I always question self-reporting here) and also correlate with more diverse friend groups later.

One little nugget found deeper in the article I found unsurprising:

A study of students at Duke University, using lists of their close friends before college and at the end of freshman year, found that white students, the least likely to have had close friends of a different race, were the most likely to develop more diverse friendships as freshmen — while black students, who came in with more interracial friendships, had a decline in cross-race friendship freshman year. The study found little change freshman year in the diversity of Asian and Hispanic students’ friendships.

Mind you, I don't think the "cocooning" (their word) phenomenon described in the article is any real kind of race-specific phenomena. As I've said about the cultural houses at Yale, everyone should have a cultural safe space. I gravitate toward interaction with my Church and other Christians when possible, probably in part because it is the aspect of me that is least likely to be found or promoted within my environment or friend group. The difference here is in its ubiquity--you can't tell when I'm sitting with a group of friends from my church, and my atheist friends wouldn't have the hesitance to come sit down beside me that, sadly, many white kids do when encountering a black friend sitting with other black kids.

Anyway, that's a bit of a digression. What I'm curious about is this: I've always assumed that prejudice remains strongest when it stays abstract--based on personal anecdotes, I've noticed the "Oh, he's not like the OTHER ones" phenomenon where openly prejudiced people will claim their friends as "exceptions" to their evil terrible ethnic group. Still, higher breakup rates and racially tinged roommate complaints suggest to me that even close quarters in a outwardly liberal/tolerant environment is not enough to overcome certain preconceptions. Voluntary social integration--something I care about deeply but talk about very poorly--has a long way to go.

Do Not Forget

2009-07-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

Constant news about the aftermath of the Iranian Election has been lessening over the past week or so--in part initially connected to the wall-to-wall Michael Jackson coverage, then the victim of media boredom and partial communication blackouts.

So today, protesters came back to the streets, and were met with a harsh response:

It was the first protest in 11 days, and was called to commemorate the 10th anniversary of violent confrontations at Tehran University when protesting students were beaten and jailed. Iranian authorities had announced earlier that the demonstration was illegaland would be met with a “crushing response.”

...

Reuters, citing witnesses, reported that the police used tear gas to disperse a group of about 250 protesters as they headed toward Tehran University, shouting support for a defeated presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

Iranian officials said Wednesday that they had released 2,000 people who had been arrested for participating in the earlier demonstrations but that they were still holding 500 prisoners who would be put on trial, according to the state-run Press TV news service.

Check out the full article and CNN's alternate version. The Times makes it pretty clear that arbitrary arrests are still taking place alongside university shutdowns and cell phone cutoffs.

I have been concerned all along that movements like these cannot survive in the face of overwhelming government force, particularly if the government has some substantial support. This protest is probably a good example--down to a couple thousand in number, and dispersed before it really got started. That doesn't mean the regime's veneer of legitimacy hasn't been damaged or that it won't have problems down the line, but many, many decisions have to be individuals involved in the movement as to whether it is worth their and their family's sacrifice. I can't answer that for them. All I can say is that their international supporters should be able to resist boredom with the issue so long as there are Iranians are out there putting their lives on the line for justice.

How do you judge a health care system?

2009-07-08T17:18:00.000-07:00

Chris has brought the health care fight to our fair blog, and I'm looking forward to coming back swinging. But first, I'd like to know what, precisely is being attacked.

Chris's readings seemed to be premised on the idea that government-run health care is only a good thing insofar as it saves us money. There are some plausible ways that a government plan could do this: negotiating on bulk rates, no incentive to gouge the customer, elimination of treatments with questionable efficacy (i.e. almost every treatment for prostate cancer ever).

But if health care's success is measured by 'not losing us money' there's a lot of treatment we ought to be stepping back from. We might as well start by writing off most of Medicare. There's no way we're recouping our investment by treating an elderly retiree who has chronic diabetes. If the diabetic in question is out of the workforce, treating them with preventive medicine to forestall complications and amputation is doing bupkis for the strength of our workforce. And don't even think of arguing that it is in America's interest to keep the hypothetical geriatic diabetic alive and shopping. We just need them spending, and short-term, giant expenditures for surgery are just as good for GDP as protracted, moderate spending on insulin monitors.

(I acknowledge that there is a caveat here: the severely ill, unspeakably old diabetic I've imagines may impair the productivity of any children or dependants, if no preventive measures are taken to avoid complications. However, although this consideration might provide a plausible reason to treat diabetes, it offers no reason to try expensive medicines to add a year or two to the life of a 'non-productive' geriatric.)

If we want public health to be focused only on increasing productivity and breaking even, if not turning a profit, government sponsored healthcare may indeed be a disappointment. If you want it to be a safety net that guarantees citizens a certain minimal level of care, you may have to live with it being a money drain. But let's work out which we're aiming for, and how we'll know if we've managed it, before we pick sides.

The Case Against Preventive Care

2009-07-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

Government-subsidized, anyway. Per Deepa's suggestion, I have been reading a couple conservative blogs, and I settled on The Corner (despite running into a Yay Pinochet! post in the most recent section. I cannot buy that his moderately beneficial economic policies in some way balance his brutal dictatorship.)

Anyway, preventive care as a goal has been touted by politicians across the spectrum (it was a centerpiece of Huckabee's healthcare agenda) Mark Steyn starts off railing against the idea that preventative medicine will, long-term, cost us less. I understand the logical progression--when doctor's services are much cheaper, they are used much more frequently than needed. This shouldn't guide us for all medicine, but for cases like prostate cancer where symptoms are often not be indicative of a serious health emergency coming, I could see how cost/benefit could be skewed. (H/T Leah on the example.) That's not as true for every disease though, which is why a nuanced policy is needed on the issues. Beyond that, I somewhat doubt Steyn's proposition that different forms of health care in the Western world have led to negligible differences in outcome. This is true when measuring outcome exclusively by average life expectancy, as he does, but it doesn't speak to folks like me who think the United States isn't a real fantastic place to be poor and sick but the best place to be rich and sick.

I think Yuval Levin has a reasonable reaction to the data here:

...of course there are individual cases when prevention saves money (though not as many as we might imagine). But in the aggregate, and as a matter of public policy, which is what the politicians are talking about, it just ain’t so. There are now literally decades of data on this question, and the answer is very clear: prevention does not save money. It does sometimes save lives, of course, it’s not bad medicine. It’s often very good medicine. But like a lot of good modern medicine, it’s very expensive. We can decide if it’s worth the cost or not, but let’s not ignore the cost, let alone imagine it will save us money.

On a bit of a digression, the Reason post cited by Steyn brings up a point I hit often (in a less oh-noes-commies way):

We've seen an explosion of intrusive legislation around the nation—sin taxes and ingredient bans, to name two. The more we collectivize health care policy the more your comrades will make it their business to demand preventive health calisthenics.

It's easy to say many bad health choices--fast food, smoking--are connected to poverty, but that's not exclusively the case. In quite a few cases, if we institute some form of universal healthcare, we may end up having to look at regulating certain health choices much more strictly or simply accepting subsidization of bad behavior. I'm beginning to think the latter might be worth it.

P.S. Ferny just caused me to notice that Mark Steyn's first link for the Dartmouth study is not direct, but an interpretation of a study by an "alternative medicine" doctor. Link fail, Mr. Steyn. (It's almost as though instead of searching legitimate sites for facts that would form his opinion, he formed an opinion and found matching facts!)

Meritocracy: there's another anecdote!

2009-07-07T21:39:00.000-07:00

Chris hit a number of my points on this topic, and I've already gone off on Ross Douthat but I have one last illustrative anecdote about why exactly Palin's 'intellectual incuriousness' pisses me off:

The lowest point for Hillary Clinton in the primaries was when, in reference to her support for the lifting the gas tax, she said, in response to a request that she name a single economist who backed her proposal: "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists. We've got to get out of this mind-set where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans."

Clinton's offence was not the act of disagreeing with the economists. No meritocracy is perfect, and the experience of the economists doesn't mean we're all compelled to be slaves to their judgement. (A good lesson to keep in mind this week, as McNamara, one of the 'best and the brightest' is eulogized in Times under the headline: Robert S. McNamara, Architect of a Futile War, Dies at 93).

Meritocracy fails if experts, once certified, become unquestionable. All 'elite' status is supposed to do is to move the burden of proof to the challenger. If Clinton had challenged the premises or the methods of the economists, that would have been fine, but she essentially attacked them for being informed experts, denying the validity of their knowledge qua knowledge.

Clinton did this once. Palin and Bush do/did it constantly. Faced with a factual fight they couldn't win on its merits, they consistently tried to change the rules, refused to play a game they couldn't win. They weren't just undermining the 'winners' in the meritocracy, they were undermining the very idea of merit.

Continuing the Discussion

2009-07-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who responded (online and in meatspace) to my article on meritocracy. I'd like to just respond to some of the blog comments and perhaps clarify what I was getting at a bit. I'm going to basically dump the term "meritocracy" from my remarks, because I was really dealing with what I saw as Douthat's framework rather than all the broader implications of the word.

Yang's summary of my final points is basically correct, so I'm going to quote it quickly.

It's logical that no one is perfect (clearly not even the greatest meritocrats), but I agree with you that the physicist's opinion is "worth" more even if it is ultimately based on a flawed experiment. I don't think it is a stretch to say that for government and public service, the Obama archetype will at least have the raw knowledge base that the Palin archetype might not. Never mind style (and I acknowledge that many voters look for that) or wisdom (of which Ivy League wisdom is only one type). When it comes to the day-to-day grind, I'll listen, analyze, and try to refine more from the politician with the raw knowledge and expertise.

The "of which Ivy League wisdom is only one type" qualifier is important. When Coates points out that the American Dream is "work hard, and you too can be President," working hard shouldn't have to entail a top-shelf school as a goal. There is an interesting distinction, however, between people who focus on Obama's education providing him with knowledge and his education providing him with the skill of intellectual engagement with policy and ideas. I think the latter idea is more interesting when advanced, because it makes the claim that academia provides a significantly better opportunity to enhance those skills than other possible life experiences.

Here's a big important clarification to make: when we bring in the idea that all Presidents will be equally informed by their advisers and end up with the same amount of information no matter what their previous experience, that renders many of my original thoughts irrelevant. But I'm not sure the President's knowledge base is entirely irrelevant--I'm thinking of the possibly apocryphal story of President Bush not knowing the difference between Sunnis and Shiites on the eve of war.

David, I think you're broadly right about the President's job being that of leader, which is what I think apologists for Governor Palin who admit to her weak knowledge base see in her most strongly. At the same time, as Leah has pointed out to me, Palin's opponents often see in her a weakness they saw in Bush--intellectual incuriousness. As for the gradations of intelligence, I was discussing more the knowledge base on an topic-by-topic basis, but you're right that "how informed must you be" is a difficult question. I suppose that on any given topic--say, the efficacy of different health care systems--I would continue to initially value the opinion of the person with the most information above the others. I think it would be nigh impossible to do the same thing for multi-faceted decisions based on value judgments like "What health care system is preferable?"

Liv, to address your question, it's a little about both but more about the quality of Obama as President. Your point on the importance of agency is very important though. It's a trickier subject for me when applied to politicians, because it is a very centralized means of decision-making--the few thoughtful people assessing all the evidence presented to them by their great minds and making a decision. This is why I think voting based on perceived character and judgment over particular issues can be sensible sometimes, as I presume from your comments you do as well.

Obviously, there's a difference between the patient who, taking the doctors' word as fact (or one doctor's word over another is there is a disagreement), comes to a different decision on what to do than the doctor did, and the patient who says to the doctor "With all due respect, despite what your tests say, I don't think this is a very serious illness at all." One is appropriately exercising control over her life as she sees fit, the other is saying his perception of the facts is as accurate or more so than the doctor's, despite lacking the experience to make that claim.

Dom, that's really what I was getting at. I think maybe a good example for you is in the media. I think it was Al Franken who said that if Republicans said the moon was made of green cheese and Democrats said rock, the headline would say "Left, Right clash over lunar makeup" to avoid taking sides on who was right and who was wrong. Similarly, it seems inappropriate to me to present a conservative pundit's opinion on global warming opposite a scientist's as though both are valid and come from serious research in the field.

The most important point of clarification is that I think I assumed Douthat's Ivy League crack was equivalent to "knowing more about more things", which under a democratic ideal would not lend his opinions a higher worth that Palin's. That was probably wrong, but now I am even further confused as to what he was getting at.

Also, on the original topic, Leah wrote a post at HuffPo y'all should check out. We had a discussion on Huckabee v. Palin that is reflected there, which I think I'll quote (but read the whole thing):

She comes off not just anti-intellectual but anti-knowledge as well. These attitudes are not actually a prerequisite for populist appeal.

During the 2008 Republican primary, Huckabee, who also tried to frame himself as a Republican populist made gaffe after gaffe on foreign policy after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Eventually, an aide admitted that the governor had been unprepared to discuss the issue and that he would refrain from further comment until he was "briefed and up to speed."

While Huckabee owned up to being under-prepared, Palin appears to feel no corresponding sense of shame. After her disastrous performance with Katie Couric, there was never a sense that the Palin camp recognized the interview as a failure.

This is true, and I had temporarily forgotten this from the campaign--the absolute refusal to come back with a thoughtful statement on an issue following a public botch. While I may go back and forth on how important previous information is for a leader with umpteen advisers, I will say that a leader who does not regard further learning on any issue as valuable is not one I would trust.

Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and Meritocracy.

2009-07-06T11:49:00.000-07:00

Ross Douthat has a new column up in the Times on Sarah Palin that I find interesting in part because of my own obsession with meritocracy:

In a recent Pew poll, 44 percent of Americans regarded Palin unfavorably. But slightly more had a favorable impression of her. That number included 46 percent of independents, and 48 percent of Americans without a college education.

That last statistic is a crucial one. Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

Andrew Sullivan takes him to task on his column, but I'd much prefer you check out Ta-Nehisi Coates's critique and the comments following because it's far more thoughtful. While the original column is based on a bit of a misunderstanding, Coates and his commentators correctly question the notion that class war against the lower class has won the day when a man like Barack Obama has overcome his own humble roots as well as racist attitudes to become president.

Now then, I think the flaw--or really, the questionable assumption--in the commentators' reasoning is this: many of them draw a straight line between attaining top-shelf education and being prepared for high office. I agree in many ways, but I recognize that this is a bias that comes from where I am in my own life. Sullivan and Coates's idea that Sarah Palin is foolish is not only based on the way she conducts herself, but also their convictions that her beliefs are wrong. People who find Governor Palin's beliefs reasonable certainly still notice her inarticulate nature, but if they are comparing her to a candidate like President Obama who they disagree with, they could easily conclude that Ivy League education is no more likely to give you the right answers.

Admission to a top-shelf school depends on certain qualifications and not others. Put two candidates against each other: a secular though personally religious, thoughtful intellectual who is rather reserved by nature but knowledgeable on a great scope of subjects, and a devoutly Christian and inspiring leader who has no real depth of knowledge but will lean on others for help. We know a great deal of people will choose the latter candidate, for reasons that are not altogether unreasonable given different sets of values.

Actually, let me focus back on something from the Douthat piece--the idea of a democratic culture. I think the essence of this culture as Ross sees it is perfectly exemplified in the "one man/woman, one vote" philosophy--that no one's opinion is inherently worth more than anyone else's. This idea is open to critique.

Certainly, no matter how educated an individual is, no one has perfect information and everyone is susceptible to making mistakes. There are absolutely major differences between what people inherently value--I hate Prof. Peter Singer's limited advocacy of infanticide, but I recognize that his beliefs come from a different set of values. But there are occasions where experience and learning do matter. For example, I disagree with Bart Ehrman on the truth of the Gospels, but as someone who has done far more research on the subject, his opinion is probably worth more than mine. Perhaps "worth" is the wrong word--I obviously don't mean that he is correct. But my inclination is that a physicist should be trusted more regarding how the world works than my "common sense" crude understanding of physical laws-despite the fact that our knowledge is still so limited--and that expertise does matter--even if one can draw the wrong conclusions given more evidence.

Obviously, I'm still working through this myself. I would love to hear your thoughts.

On the US-Russia Summit

2009-07-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama met today with President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia (I did a little double take on the AP article when I saw Vladimir Putin was mentioned nowhere) regarding the continued commitment of both nations to disarmament, as well as outreach on the war in Afghanistan and other contentious issues. Notably, Barack Obama is not backing down on the issue of a missile defense system. From the AP:

Yet, the two sides remain stalemated over the U.S. pursuit of a missile-defense system in Europe, pushed hard by Bush and under review by Obama. Both sides hardened their positions ahead of the summit.

The U.S. contends the program is designed to protect U.S. allies in Europe from a potential nuclear attack by Iran. But the Russians see it as a first step toward a system that could weaken their offensive nuclear strike potential.

It's a funny little song and dance--Russia is concerned about the United States posing a threat to their Mutually Assured Destruction understanding (which is really the most important "treaty"), while the United States is looking completely past Russia as any sort of immediate threat--this despite the fact, as BBC coverage notes, that Russia indeed maintains a larger stockpile of nuclear weapons than even the United States. BBC also takes care to note that Obama will be speaking with Prime Minister Putin on Tuesday, which may be when actual negotiations happen. Regardless of when they happen though, it's good to see the President continue to take action to match his words on disarmament. But I have little hope of headway being made in the near future so long as both the Russian government and its people (intertwined through media interaction) are deeply skeptical of the United States' sincerity--it will be extremely difficult for our President to say "Let's move on from that missile shield to other issues." To quote the BBC in closing:

The message seems clear. The US wants a fresh start, but if one is not forthcoming, then so be it. Russia is by no means at the top of the Obama administration's foreign policy agenda, although the Americans know that on a variety of their pressing concerns - such as Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea and global warming - Russian assistance could be vital.

This, then, should be a summit of limited expectations.

How Confidence Boosters Hurt

2009-07-05T01:11:00.001-07:00

In a follow-up to my previous post on self-esteem, this recent study came out suggesting that positive reinforcement may backfire on those with negative self-image. While positive reinforcement made people with an already-positive self image feel even better, for those with a negative self-image it simply drew attention to the contradiction between how they felt about themselves and what they were saying.

The psychologists then asked the study participants to list negative and positive thoughts about themselves.

They found that, paradoxically, those with low self-esteem were in a better mood when they were allowed to have negative thoughts than when they were asked to focus exclusively on affirmative thoughts.

Writing in the journal, the researchers suggest that, like overly positive praise, unreasonably positive self-statements, such as "I accept myself completely," can provoke contradictory thoughts in individuals with low self-esteem.

Such negative thoughts can overwhelm the positive thoughts.

If people are instructed to focus exclusively on positive thoughts, negative thoughts might be especially discouraging.

When my friend Carol sent me the initial article from the Sydney Morning-Herald, I found it to imply some sort of bias toward negativity to me. After all, I wouldn't expect those with a positive self-image to respond psychologically to negative statements with a reinforcement of their original worldview, allowing them to feel better. So is a negative self-image impossible to overcome once formed?

As I stated before, I think the answer here is a more realistic attitude toward self-awareness. The article I previously cited questioned the inflation of self-esteem as a goal, seeing it as unrealistic in many ways. Obviously, I went a little further--to quote Dom analyzing me well in the comments:

Never mind, we just worked out that we differ in that I don't think that thinking of oneself as less than a wonderful person requires internal suffering, and you do. Hooray!

For the record, I do happen to think that internal suffering is a natural result of truly struggling and engaging with the negative parts of oneself (and presumably, constantly seeking to change them and falling short in some fashion). What this recent study suggests to me, however, is that avoidance of the negative aspects of oneself not only harms others when it bolsters one's self-image too much, but harms those depressed individuals who would seemingly have the most to gain from such avoidance. To quote from the initial article on self-esteem (again, hat-tip Carol for pointing this out to me):

One such program, called Emerge, is run by a psychologist named David Adams in a low-budget building in Cambridge, Mass. Emerge's clients are mostly abusive men, 75 percent of them mandated by the courts. ''I once did an intake on a batterer who had been in psychotherapy for three years, and his violence wasn't getting any better,'' Adams told me. ''I said to him, 'Why do you think you hit your wife?' He said to me, 'My therapist told me it's because I don't feel good about myself inside.''' Adams sighs, then laughs. ''We believe it has nothing to do with how good a man feels about himself. At Emerge, we teach men to evaluate their behaviors honestly and to interact with others using empathy and respect.'' In order to accomplish these goals, men write their entire abuse histories on 12-by-12 sheets of paper, hang the papers on the wall and read them. ''Some of the histories are so long, they go all around the room,'' Adams says. ''But it's a powerful exercise. It gets a guy to really concretely see.''

I am a big fan of catharsis, and I think that doing such activities in a larger group like this is also helpful. I am still a little personally unsure of how to strike the balance between recognizing that everyone is flawed in many ways and not allowing that fact to excuse or provide comfort to me in my own flaws.

However, what is clear to me is that an attitude of honesty matters when it comes to self-esteem, rather than simply encouraging whatever thoughts seem to provide the most comfort. Now, will honest negative statements allow someone truly uncomfortable with themselves to accept honest positive statements as well, rather than continue to reject those that do not correspond to their initial feelings? I cannot answer that yet, but I sincerely hope it is true.

Throwing in the towel, or throwing her hat in the ring?

2009-07-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

I would have to agree with Leah on the inopportune time of the announcement. Her reasoning appears to be that too much time and money would continue to be spent investigating her on ethics claims(perhaps even more so as a clear Presidential candidate). This is reasonable--though honestly, if these investigations were clearly illegitimate, we would expect the Democrats up there to pay a political price. To me, this seems like a gamble on her part that the rationale for investigation is serious enough to continue while she is a sitting governor but not serious enough to dog her on the campaign trail.

As Yang noted in comments, Andrea Mitchell is suggesting she's out of politics for good now. I am hesitant to see this as likely--as Politico notes from the conference:

But Palin also hinted at her own national ambitions, invoking a quote that she credited to Gen. Douglas MacArthur: “We are not retreating; we are advancing in another direction.”

After the news conference, Palin asked supporters to “stay tuned” via Twitter. “We’ll soon attach info on this decision to not seek reelection.”

Not a very convincing away of conveying the message that she is out of national politics for good.

If this is out of frustration with attacks on her family and the general unsavory nature of politics, I wish her the best. But if this is an attempt at strategy, this isn't a strong move for her seriousness as a future contender. After all, part of the argument against Palin as Vice President was her lack of experience--not just in terms of a knowledge base, but time in office, with her resignation, Sarah Palin will only have spent less than three whole years of her life in any kind of major office. In the last election, Republicans confessed deep concern over Barack Obama's lack of experience, but called for Palin to receive less scrutiny as a vice presidential candidate. That's somewhat internally consistent--a full-throated endorsement for Palin in 2012 by these same voices would definitively not be, however.

The Unfathomable Sarah Palin

2009-07-03T14:43:00.000-07:00

Just a brief note on the breaking story of Sarah Palin's resignation:

I am baffled by the timing of that decision. The preliminary analysis is that Palin is resigning in order to spend more time traveling the country to begin preparing for a run for President in 2012. If this is the case, she could have resigned this month, or next.

Resigning this week just keeps the Vanity Fair article in the news cycle. Plus, it ensures that news of Palin's resignation will be paired with the tell-all article, and only increases speculation that the resignation is related to an impending scandal. Even if Palin was planning to announce this before the Vanity Fair article came out, without some external pressure, it's hard to imagine why she wouldn't postpone the announcement.

Overall, the timing of this announcement seems like a mistake, and it's just putting me and every other scandal-watcher on the edge of our seats.

Prohibiting Discrimination Against Former Felons

2009-07-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

So says Marion Barry, who is trying to amend the Human Rights Bill of 1977 to include ex-offenders as a protected category.

Personally, I admire Barry for working to make sure felons not named Marion Barry can find work again. (Being officially white and suburban, I remember the Good Charlotte lyric teasing Barry for his privilege of status: "and did you know if you were caught and you were smokin' crack/ McDonald's wouldn't even wanna take you back/ you could always just run for mayor of D.C.")

One major caveat is attached with the bill:

The amending bill still maintains that employers have the right to deny employment because of a felony conviction if there is a "rational relationship" between the arrest or conviction record and the job. This makes absolute sense. The thing is that if employers and universities have to think about the existence of a rational relationship, they will be less inclined to discriminate just on the basis of a checked box.

In general, I am uncomfortable with forcing employers to not ask about information relevant to a job. Except in the cases of the wrongly convicted (which I admit is a very large set of cases) past felon status is mostly a chosen category (unlike gender, disability, sexual orientation, et al) that also has some relation to one's qualifications for a job vis-a-vis other applicants (unlike religion for the most part).

However, this strikes me as a bit toothless with the caveat. There are very few jobs I can conceive of where I couldn't somewhat legitimately count, say, any past drug use as a strike against the applicant.

Still, reintegration of folks who have committed crimes back into society is something we do very badly, and I am encouraged to see some movement on the issue. I have been reading John McWhorter's Winning The Race: Beyond The Crisis in Black America recently, and among reading his different theories regarding the causes of black poverty, I was struck by how little he discussed the legacy of police discrimination in terms of criminal records that then handicap all attempts to re-enter into society.

There was a Yale Political Union debate on the subject earlier this year, with CT State Representative Gary Holder-Winfield keynoting. You can check it out at that link--the discussion ended up revolving around the value of reducing recidivism and whether or not there is a place for "retribution" as a purpose of our justice system. (I lean heavily "no" on the last question, which I can get into more another time.) There's one speech I found particularly useful, however, from David Broockman over at Flaming Libs (see sidebar):

Mr. David Broockman, the Former Floor Leader of the Left, warns us that this will probably not be the last time that he betrays the Left. It was interesting to hear the Left say “people do this” or “people do this because of this.” There is a need to look at individual circumstances. Mr. McGuire asserted that mercy is not something that happens to all people at once. Much of the negative is using that as an excuse to say that there is no such thing as institutional cruelty, and that is a mistake. There is room for mercy in the law. The Left is trying to separate the crime and the person. When we punish for a crime, we are also punishing the person for what he or she has done. To say that you have a clean slate is to say that when you come before a body, all that should be considered is what you present them. But to have mercy, one must consider a criminal's entire history. One of those things, along with the community in which the individual grew up, is what the individual has done in the past. There is this fundamentally liberal notion that irks Mr. Broockman a great deal: the notion that we are able to separate people's actions from their character. We should be careful to remember that we can only be merciful if we look at whole people. If we want to act on instincts of mercy, we cannot just wipe the slate clean.

There are many situations in which one's character is highly relevant to the job that he or she is seeking; unfortunately, it is difficult under any circumstances for an employer to truly ascertain character through a resume or interview. Speaking realistically, I do not expect employers to "take a chance" on former criminals, even if their life story would seem to suggest little probably harm in doing so. Personally, I tentatively support prohibiting the requirement of reporting certain crimes (drug possession in most cases) but am not sure if I would extend it to all former criminals (and Representative Holder-Winfield was pretty explicit he wanted this to include all ex-offenders, up to and including former murderers).

(Alternatively, we can give the police force a blanket warrant to go on all college campuses for a day and seek out drugs, and THEN see if there's a greater push to "ban the box" for prior criminal convictions.)

How Necessary Are Online Communities?

2009-06-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

A short one-two punch on Andrew Sullivan has got me thinking again about online communities and their significance, a couple months after the Yale Political Union debate "Resolved: Internet Communities are Real Communities." This may be a bit of a rant-y post, but I feel like working through some things in text.

So here comes a new study reported by New Scientist on the differences between Wikipedians and the general population. Essentially, based on this psychologist's personality tests, Wikipedians were more likely to show lower levels of "agreeableness and openness."

Amichai-Hamburger speculates that rather than contributing altruistically, Wikipedians take part because they struggle to express themselves in real-world social situations. "They are compensating," he suggests. "It is their way to have a voice in this world."

This is consistent with previous research on online communication, says Scott Caplan of the University of Delaware in Newark, who suspects that heavy users of sites such as Digg and Twitter may have similar characteristics. "People who prefer online social behaviour tend to have higher levels of social anxiety and lower social skills," he says.

First of all, I'm really hesitant about taking Wikipedia as the test case, as it seems to self-select people who are stubborn enough to deal with edit wars and arguments over the content of different articles. Of course, this is the difficulty with finding a "typical" online community--most are self-segregated to some extent.

Anyway, Sullivan posted this on his blog, and a reader responded:

I doubt this is something I need to point out to you, but I think it's worth reiterating as much as possible that the choice, for antisocial people, isn't between social networking online and social networking in-person. Rather, it's between social networking online and not social networking at all. There are many people who are coming to feel a sense of community and acceptance for the first time in their lives thanks to Facebook or WoW or whatever. This is a tremendously good thing. I mean, it's no news that some in this world have very poor social skills, but it's a sea change for these people to suddenly have a venue for expression and friendship. I've seen friends really blossom after joining online communities, and it's miraculous. Let's celebrate it!

I can attest to seeing many people come out of their shells online, in a way that is indeed jarring and miraculous when compared to their in-person interactions. What I'm not certain about, and the reader seems to be implying it, is that this necessitates blossoming outside of the internet. To put it in the harshest conservative terms, does social experience online fill the personal need for social experience enough to reduce the desire to attempt to interact in the real world if those interactions are more difficult? And if so, how could we ever hope to distinguish between those for whom it truly is the Internet or nothing and those for whom the Internet has become more of a crutch?

Regarding the internet's ability to facilitate "meatspace" interaction, allow me to quote the Yale Political Union's minutes from our own Leah Libresco's speech at the aforementioned debate:

Internet communities are primarily opportunities to get people from small niches, but they are not where you go to find friends. Those people in the fanfiction communities were only interacting with one aspect of Miss Libresco's personality. They are not forced to interact with all parts of her. The people she seeks out for one mutual interest and hangs out with on the Internet do not know her well enough to tell her when she is going wrong. She loves using the Internet. It is really handy for all of the things that let us reach out to other people, organizing big events, getting the data we need quickly, and spreading information. But it is not a place to find people who care about you, who will stop you when you are doing wrong things.

This is basically my concern. While I think online communities can provide some level of fulfillment for those interacting within them, I don't think they are good at integrating people into offline communities, in part because they operate under different rules. It is easy for me to sympathize with a friend on my online forum complaining about the wife who left him a few weeks back--but it really SHOULDN'T be. I don't know every aspect of this man, I don't know how he interacts with his family, I am in no position to take his word on any aspect of his life without physical experience with him.

One place where I would disagree with Leah's speech, and what does give me some hope for these communities, is that I don't think people seek masks as often as we might expect. The Internet can be a safe space that allows a constructed identity with more ease, but it can also be a safe space to reveal more personal details that are difficult to discuss in public. I am continually surprised with how often I learn the most intimate things about my friends' lives when talking to them online. Simply said, it's easier to say the difficult things in text, and on some level, I think most of us would prefer to be able to say those things than not. Of course, there I'm talking about a friend interacting with a friend through a different medium which is distinct from relationships that exist entirely online. (This is why I think of Facebook as a tool, not an online community.)

Here's a study from 2006 that I think is useful. After a short discussion on the use of adults acting as virtual playmates to help educate children, it discusses how ready many young people are to make themselves and not just their words public (yes) and also that online involvement can foster civic involvement in a meaningful way. The second claim is what I'm looking for evidence of--however, the study is based on a rather constructed online environment, which I think speaks to how difficult it is to create an experiment that replicates a "typical" internet community. (This, of course, leaves aside the question of their measures of "civicness" altogether.)

I hope, based on my own biased worldview, that time will show that online interactions are making real-world interactions easier. But if they're not, I do not discount the value they provide unto themselves--particularly because I can think of no alternative for these people, young and old, for whom it truly is internet interaction or nothing.

Ricci at the Supreme Court: Racism, Law, and FIRE!(fighters)

2009-06-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

So the Supreme Court ruled today on Ricci v. DeStefano along the traditional 5-4 conservative/liberal split on affirmative action. As Sotomayor's most controversial case (though not solely her own) the ruling has some ramifications for the politics surrounding her confirmation, if not threatening to that eventuality. As I wrote on Ricci v. DeStefano when she was first nominated, it is worth remembering that she merely allowed the city to throw out the test--she did not throw it out herself.

Anyhow, the Supreme Court's opinion written by Anthony Kennedy rejected the idea that the test could be thrown out simply out of a fear of a lawsuit, rather than legitimate discrimination concern. The full text is here, and I find this to be a money quote:

The racial adverse impact in this litigation was significant, and petitioners do not dispute that the City was faced with a prima facie case of disparate-impact liability. The problem for respondents is that such a prima facie case—essentially, a threshold showing of a significant statistical disparity, Connecticut v. Teal, 457 U. S. 440, 446, and nothing more—is far from a strong basis in evidence that the City would have been liable under Title VII had it certified the test results. That is because the City could be liable for disparate-impact discrimination only if the exams at issue were not job related and consistent with business necessity, or if there existed an equally valid, less discriminatory alternative that served the City’s needs but that the City refused to adopt. §§2000e–2(k)(1)(A), (C). Based on the record the parties developed through discovery, there is no substantial basis in evidence that the test was deficient in either respect.

This is a break with past precedent; see Lanny Davis on HuffPo regarding the original District Court ruling:

The District Court was applying the law of the established precedents of the 2nd Circuit, as it was required to do. In two cases -- in 1983 and 1984 -- 2nd Circuit panels held that it was permissible under the then-existing Title VII to "race norm" the test results -- for example, lower passing grades for minorities to achieve a more proportionate result. Said the 1984 panel: "a showing of a prima facie case of employment discrimination through a statistical demonstration of disproportional racial impact constitutes a sufficiently serious claim of discrimination to serve as a predicate for employer-initiated, voluntary race-conscious remedies," such as "race norming."

In the New Haven case, as the court pointed out, there was no "race norming" -- the city civil service board simply decided to start over in search of more reasonable alternatives.

Thus, the New Haven District Court Judge, the three-judge panel on which Judge Sotomayor served, and seven circuit court judges who voted to deny a re-argument were all following precedent and strictly construing the underlying statute -- just like good conservative strict constructionists are supposed to do.

So essentially, the Court has said here that so long as the test is related to work and there seems to be no obvious less discriminatory alternative that would perform just as well, New Haven should have not scrapped the test. I think there exists some level of misunderstanding here--New Haven did scrap the test in the process of looking for a less discriminatory (in practice anyway) process of promotion. I would be more sympathetic to the Court ruling that they did not have to scrap the test.

Justice Ginsberg read her dissent from the bench, usually reserved for highly contentious cases like these. Having read much of it, I find it a bit odd--often arguing the majority opinion is wrong because the city had good reason to fear a disparate impact suit, while the majority opinion is putting forward a world where such a suit would fail. (She does have an excellent takedown of Alito's lousy attempt to understand New Haven politics though.) However, she does make the case for a couple other alternatives (oral exams, perhaps to correct for literacy barriers--which would certainly have helped the dyslexic white person pass the test without the extra work) that conceivably could fit the bill for New Haven--though I'm not convinced that the skills left untested (like literacy) were all unrelated to the job.

All in all, an unsurprising ruling. I assume the news is not sexy enough for much coverage outside of FOX, and Sotomayor will be left unscathed, which is probably as it should be. But the open window for impact-based discrimination cases did just get closed somewhat.

Re: Where is Their Vote? Take 2

2009-06-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

Yang, I think this is an unfair comparison (at least given the evidence we have now).

As it turns out, the country's Supreme Court is claiming responsibility for sending the army to remove the President. The Congress and the Court, along with the army, both opposed a potential referendum to allow the President an unprecedented third term. (Conflicting word on whether such a referendum would actually have been illegal.) While protesting is certainly taking place in response, preliminary reports make it look far more limited.

Yes, this is a coup, but it's a coup by one elected branch of government over another, with shaky but real legal reasoning.

Fun fact: Hugo Chavez is preliminarily blaming the US, despite the fact that the Obama administration has also condemned the coup. To quote my good friend Ferny Reyes, "Chavez blames the US for his constipation".

Where is Their Vote? Take 2

2009-06-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to write a full post on this, but the coup against Honduras President Manuel Zelaya by that country's military and the subsequent protests against the coup remind me of a miniature version of what happened in Iran not too long ago. I am not very familiar with Zelaya and I don't necessarily agree with his Chavez-level leftism, but this arbitrary annulment of elections continues to be a disturbing trend (or one could say, a trend that has never ended).

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/28/honduras.president.arrested/index.html

http://news.aol.com/article/secretary-soldiers-arrest-honduran/546931

Climate Politics, They Are A-Changin'

2009-06-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

I've been struggling with this post for a couple days--I've read a lot and need to read much more, but I can't *not* acknowledge it. The House of Representatives passed sweeping cap and trade legislation on climate change by a vote of 219-212. (Defections both ways, but far more Democrats defected to opposition.) The bill will add additional costs to many goods--fertilizer, electricity, plastics, etc. By how much is rather uncertain at this moment, and dependent on what the Senate version of the bill says (assuming it is picked up).

It is important to note that this is a gradualist bill. Liberal bloggers have cited the Congressional Budget Office study pegging cost for an average household quite low (the blogger there says around $65 a year by 2020, though the actual CBO study says $175). However, the Wall Street Journal is right to point out that this is before many of the regulations kick in, Congressional Democrats having kicked the can of tough stuff far enough down the road that they won't be blamed.

That said, the Wall Street Journal itself engages in some rather shaky math. See the following claim:

When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill's restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.

There are plenty of entirely reasonable ways to estimate the cost to the "average" family of four due to GDP loss. However, this number is concocted by simply taking the cost incurred due to these caps, assuming nothing takes the place of the affected areas, and then simply dividing the number by the population and multiplying by four. Even when the next paragraph decries simply "taking an average" when people will be affected in different ways!

Also, Sullivan draws attention to two contentions: a) future costs, simply by inflation, will mean less than the same amount of money today (yes, by at least some) and b) that such legislation will do very little to reduce climate change itself under current models. I am not experienced to judge the last claim (and I welcome feedback from those who are) but I am hesitant to accept the idea bandied about by such luminaries as Matt Yglesias that if we take the first dramatic steps, other nations will naturally follow.

There is also a leftist critique of the bill floating out there as well. This critique revolves around the idea that the "offsets" businesses can use to skirt the cap will allow them to avoid reducing pollution altogether, and is thus inferior to a cap-rebate system. I will note that some of the authors' evidence-based claims in that particular article revolve around past government incompetence--something I always expect to continue, but which you are not required to.

Unsurprisingly, public support is quite high for the general concept of "doing something" and quite low once it involves them paying any extra money. While I think the case could be made for the extra spending, it seems to me as though most arguments will revolve around the extra tax being quite affordable.

Thoughts? More information on the subject is welcome, and I look forward to posting more as it comes in.

The Limits of Self-Esteem

2009-06-25T09:32:00.000-07:00

There is an excellent piece in the New York Times today by Lauren Slater called The Trouble With Self-Esteem. It's quite long and thoughtful, but part of the piece is dedicated to pointing out that not all antisocial behaviors and feelings are caused by a sense of low self-esteem, but can often be connected to too much personal pride, causing one to lash out at perceived slights. (Some of this is self-evident; the bully didn't always beat you up because he hated himself, he beat you up because he thought he had the right to do so.) Where it gets more interesting is the connection between an obsession with inflating the positives of high self-esteem and market forces:

There is a profound tension here between psychotherapy as a business that needs to retain its customers and psychotherapy as a practice that has the health of its patients at heart. Mental health is not necessarily a comfortable thing. Because we want to protect our patients and our pocketbooks, we don't always say this. The drug companies that underwrite us never say this. Pills take you up or level you out, but I have yet to see an advertisement for a drug of deflation.

Hear hear. We understand naturally that a life lived in constant euphoria is dull, and that suffering is part of the human experience, but we very infrequently embrace that suffering. Aside from that, I believe some of this is an over-inflation of individualist approaches to one's life. Mental health is partially dependent on your interactions with others, interactions that are better served when you have a healthy perspective on your place vis-a-vis others. This is not a "stay in your place" conceit--I simply contend that regarding oneself as exceptional would always be positive if it didn't by necessity mean viewing other folks as inferior in some way, even if not consciously.

The incomparable Helen Rittelmeyer wrote on this (and many, many other things) in her last CSB post a while back, and I want to just highlight a portion:

That’s why the problems with Yale’s social character are more troubling. The older generations’ feeling of inherited entitlement is gone, but a sense of earned entitlement has taken its place. Yale students are persuaded from the moment of their acceptance that their hard work and natural gifts mean that they deserve their success, or, at least, are worthy of it.

An elite convinced of its own merit is unlikely to be skeptical about its decisions and prejudices. If Ivy League graduates share certain cosmopolitan assumptions, they are taken less as class markers and more as evidence that great minds think alike.

Noblesse oblige depends upon a suspicion that one's own success is not entirely deserved. Without this suspicion, an overconfident feeling of superiority will flourish. And has.

Acting humble tends to benefit oneself in social situations, because it is regarded as a mark of high character. This is easy to encourage. It's compelling an internal belief in that humility that is difficult. I think the healthiest form of self-esteem comes from an understanding that one's gifts are just that--gifts. Whether you believe they were bestowed by God or genetics, they are gifts and nothing that you earned. I worked reasonably hard to get into Yale, but without a predisposition toward certain skills or capabilities, it would have been for naught. Ergo, I didn't deserve to attend Yale; I succeeded in part due to circumstances certainly much more connected to my self than being born with wealthy parents, but no more within my control.

By no means am I saying that we should promote a sense of self-worth in all people. But looking at the self-esteem quiz at the beginning of the Times article, I would say that if one cannot agree with the hypothetical, "I certainly feel useless at times", that self-worth may have taken too many steps toward pride.

John Huntsman is the next best hope for the GOP...but not until 2016 at the earliest.

2009-06-24T15:27:00.001-07:00

There's no whitewashing the fact that the Republican Party has been in a bad spot for the past several months and will probably stay prostrate for at least until the end of President Obama's first term, if not beyond. What makes matters worse, and is a bonafide catastrophe for the GOP is the very recent neutralization of several GOP hopefuls. Just today, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (and speculated 2012 presidential candidate) admitted to an affair in Argentina, thus explaining his recent week-long disappearance. This follows on the heels of the Nevada Senator John Ensign's (another 2012 presidential hopeful) mea culpa that he had an affair with a campaign staffer. Yes, both major parties suffer from this epidemic of men in power losing control of their libidios--Governor Spitzer comes to mind for the Democrats--but the difference is that the crucial, rising Republicans in an already weak party are being decapitated.

CBS's Steve Chaggaris lists some of the trobuled would-be GOP scions in his short article "GOP Stars Falling to Earth."

Sanford and Ensign are out, suddenly leaving the prospective GOP primary slate much lighter.

Lousiana Governor Bobby Jindal has not been involved in a scandal, but he lost a lot of political capital in his tepid response President Obama's address to Congress.

Newt Gingrich is aging and carries way too much political baggage. He has followers but I'm not sure how many more he can win over.

Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee haven't done anything disastorous, but like Gingrich I'm not sure if they can appeal to a wide enough base, especially considering Obama's strength among moderates (assuming that continues into 2012). Furthermore, I'm not sure how many moderates can take Palin seriously. Huckabee carries the least baggage, and personally I like his charm, style, values, and willingness to have a frank debate with Jon Stewart, but I'm not sure how far his appeal can spread beyond evangelical Christians.

Then there's John Huntsman. Chaggaris notes that he's probably out of the picture in 2012 because of his recent nomination by Obama to be Ambassador to China. Yes, he's out for 2012, but what about 2016? Charles J. Brown of the foreign affairs blog Undiplomatic writes:

This is a smart move by Obama, and not merely because it helps clear the field in 2012. Huntsman is a capable, smart, and effective politician who also happens to know a hell of a lot about Asia. He comes from a family with a strong track record of success in the world of business. He’s a moderate free-trader who understands China’s central role in the global economy. And his prominence means that the Chinese are likely to regard Obama’s choice as a sign of respect.

It’s also a smart move for Huntsman. The job will give him significant foreign policy chops ahead of a future run for the presidency. It will keep him in the public eye (he was term limited as governor of Utah). And it gives him the luxury of not running in 2012 (which is increasingly likely to be a battle to see who can stake out the most extreme positions on social policy and the most inflammatory rhetoric on Obama). Huntsman is now in a position to offer a new vision for his party in 2016.

As far as I know, Huntsman has been an effective center-right governor. He emphasizes economic development, promotes private health-care through incentives, takes a mostly conservative stance on abortion and gay marriage, and is open to environmental protection and reduction of fuel consumption. The Pew Research Center named Utah the best run state during Huntsman's term. He's still 49 and looks like he won't be a dinosaur until his late-60s. Being probably the most important U.S. ambassador for a good portion of Obama's presidency will give him the foreign policy experience missing in Huckabee, Palin, and others. Even Obama campaign manager David Plouffe has some kind words for Huntsman: "I think he's really out there speaking a lot of truth about the direction of the party."

As long as Huntsman is moderately ambitious (but keeps it to himself), does a fine good as ambassador, and avoid scandals and even poorly-received speeches (I'm looking at you Jindal), he's the Republican Party's next best hope for the presidency, but in 2016, not 2012. And if Obama pulls off a shining eight years, even 2016 may be too early. But Huntsman can wait.

The Battle Lines on Healthcare

2009-06-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

DemFromCT at Daily Kos has a front page diary up today detailing the results of an ABC/Washington Post poll on government-sponsored healthcare. The gist is that 62% support a public option, but when they ask about a public option putting other private insurers out of business, that support drops to 38% with 58% opposed. Mind you, the fact that there's still 38% support is telling, but it seems the dispute between the Democrats and Republicans on this one will boil down to whether most American people end up believing that the private insurers will remain options for them or not. Then again, President Obama is apparently not wedded to the public option even if he supports it. I think that's the right stance for him to take at the moment, but I can't see a serious alternative that accomplishes his ends perfectly (Kent Conrad's "co-op" feels unwieldy as a concept, but perhaps more information will emerge).

There is some more interesting data to comb through if you go to the main results themselves.

First of all, 81% of those polled with health care coverage are "very" or "somewhat" satisfied with the quality of their coverage. Among those polled, 84% professed to be covered so that comes to about 68% total satisfaction. When it comes to cost, 55% of all polled (not just those covered) expressed some level of satisfaction with cost. I think the takeaway point here is that health care is a crisis for many individuals, but is still not a crisis for any kind of broad majority yet. If anything will impede this bill's progress, that's probably it.

Also, while 'concern' can be vague, those polled expressed 'concern' hovering around 80% on a range of possible negative externalities of health care reform in general, including reducing the quality of health care, increasing cost, and running up the federal deficit. Obviously, whatever plan is put forward here matters, but danger lights are flashing.

(Also, as an aside, a bare majority prefers in principle "smaller government, fewer services" to "larger government, more services". Attitudinal conservatism springs eternal.)

In Defense of (the Legality of) The Burqa

2009-06-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

Sarkozy says burqas are "not welcome" in France

PARIS (AP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy lashed out Monday at the practice of wearing the Muslim burqa, insisting the full-body religious gown is a sign of the "debasement" of women and that it won't be welcome in France.

The French leader expressed support for a recent call by dozens of legislators to create a parliamentary commission to study a small but growing trend of wearing the full-body garment in France.

As noted, the burqa or niqab in this case is the full-body garment, not merely a veil. As such, I understand the security problems it can pose in terms of identification when someone refuses to reveal their face.

But I will take Sarkozy at his word and believe that this is about the oppression of women, not concern about security. As such. we should recognize a balance between the government taking away liberty from women seeking to practice their faith in the ultra-orthodox manner and providing liberty to those being compelled to participate in an oppressive tradition. To the former concern, the French government has proved itself at best insensitive, particularly given the banning of headscarves in public schools. (And for Sarkozy to say that the burqa "is not a religious sign" is just annoying and untrue.) As to the latter concern, it holds great weight with me, but I'm not certain that if a woman is being oppressed by her husband, she would then be allowed to leave the home without the burqa under a ban.

As Feministe says:

Outlawing the burqa won’t make women who cover themselves decide to walk outside in a sundress; it’ll just mean that women and girls won’t leave the home as much. The women who are supposedly victimized and imprisoned by some pieces of cloth will instead be prisoners in their own homes and communities...

Empowering women doesn’t come from limiting what women can and cannot wear in public. It comes in part from giving women — all women — wide access to the public sphere. You don’t have to like the burqa to realize that outlawing it will have a hugely negative impact on women.

Amen.

Also, Team Western Civilization? Didn't we make a deal to NOT be antagonistic to Islam for like, this next two weeks? There's something rather important going on here.

Bittersweet birthdays

2009-06-20T12:58:00.000-07:00

So today is my birthday so posting this weekend will be light.

Last night, Casey and Sydney were singing Barbarian Birthday to me: "Doom and gloom and dark despair. People dying everywhere! On your Birthday! (thud!) Happy Birthday!"

Unfortunately, while it's a funny song, it's been rather true today. This is what the Iranian regime is doing to its people today:

Video of a young woman as she dies after being shot point-blank in the heart--VERY GRAPHIC.

It is hard not to hate.

Khamenei's speech

2009-06-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

Extremely hardline. The location choice of Tehran University was not chosen to symbolize seeking reconciliation with the students--it symbolized a false reality in which massive student turnout contributed to a supermajority for Ahmadinejad.

He did not attack the other candidates, merely papering over their differences with the regime while blaming dissension on "dirty Zionists" creating conflict where there is none. Of course, if Rasafajani is a fellow borther of the revolution, why then have the paramilitary Basij put him under siege?

Also at the last link, dissenters have been denied a permit for the rally on Saturday; they're going anyway. Nick Kristof fears a Tehran Tiananmen; I pray that's not the case.

"There is no cheating inside the election system - it is well controlled. There may been mistakes but 11 million [votes] is not possible." --Khamenei

Right. It wasn't a mistake.

P.S. Also, the UN is wagging its finger. Keep wagging, guys.

North Korea Prepares Further Missile Tests

2009-06-18T18:20:00.000-07:00

Note: For continued coverage of the Iranian situation, Marissa referred me to the Huffington Post liveblog. The Supreme Leader will be leading prayers from Tehran University tomorrow, which should be a major indication of what direction this conflict will head in.

So remember those interceptors I mentioned in a blog post a few days back? There's a chance they may get some practice: Gates Orders Measure Against North Korean Missile.

June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he has ordered the U.S. military to take defensive measures should North Korea attempt to fire a ballistic missile toward Hawaii, even as officials express skepticism of the possibility.

“I think we are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect American territory,” Gates told reporters at the Pentagon today. Gates said he has directed the deployment of a missile interceptor system known as Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, to Hawaii and the positioning of a sea- based radar system near the U.S. state.

So at first I thought this was way too much overpreparation--the headline on Drudge was "NKorea plans to fire missile at Hawaii on Independence Day", but that turned out to just be a British tabloid story (If the Daily Mail is more reputable than I think it is, please inform me).

However, the AP is corroborating the story now. Apparently, North Korea is planning to test its Taepodong-2 missile in the direction of Hawaii--it should fall short of the main islands, but go over Japan, unlike the missile attempt last July 4th which went right into the sea. It's not an attack, but it is a serious provocation to our government, and I can only assume the North Korean feels damn certain the Obama administration would not retaliate over this.

Quoth Dom, commenting on my last interceptor post:

North Korea's not going to launch a missile at the U.S. because the American retaliation would be absolutely crippling. There's no need whatsoever to be spending more money on exciting whizz-bang military stuff in the middle of an economic crisis. Not only do I not agree with Romney that these programs are important, I think it's offensive that anyone would decide that now is the time to pour more money into them.

I sure hope so. At a minimum, I will continue to be disgusted with the totalitarian regime that sacrifices any chance at improving its citizens' lives for the sake of further weaponization. (Set-up for DoD spending critique, I know, but beyond the democratic distinction there is a great difference in degree of poverty.)

Nonintervention

2009-06-16T22:26:00.000-07:00

Two disclaimers:
1) If you haven't read Dom below, do so.
2) If you haven't checked out Andrew Sullivan or The Lede, they've been doing a fantastic job.

Broadly, I am still amazed at how abysmally the American media is handling this. O'Reilly cited seven dead so far in his broadcast last night--I'm almost certain I had seen more people dying or dead in images and videos by now. CNN mentioned that the US government had suggested Twitter and Facebook as means of information, sandwiched between two Palin/Letterman stories, without noting the irony.

I'm glad to see that so far, the President has stayed out of the proceedings for the most part. Of course, the government will blame us anyway--but it;s our job to make sure that criticism seems invalid and allow the domestic origins of the current protests to be clear.

Obama has intervened in one important way: delaying a Twitter update that would have kept important information from coming through on the site. How very appropriate that as the young people of the United States engage in technological assistance to this movement as broadly as setting up false Tehran twitters to be investigated to creating workable proxies to even DDOS attacks, that our President engages in the same kind of technocratic diplomacy.

Still, I'm going to agree with Ace of Spades (retch if you like, team; broken clock is right twice a day and all that) that this was probably the wrong statement:

"The difference in actual policies between Ahmadinejad and Moussavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as advertised," he said. "I think it's important to understand that either way we are going to be dealing with a regime in Iran that is hostile to the US. We have long-term interests in not having them with nuclear power and funding terrorism."

It is true that Moussavi is insistent on a right to nuclear energy--but the President has recognized this before. And it's unclear what skeletons he may have in his own closet. But still, there's a difference between not speaking on the issue and papering over substantial differences. Then again, maybe it's a head fake. It's still hard to tell.

More Iran

2009-06-16T02:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I know Chris has already posted about this, but I'm going to do it again - not because Chris' post was bad, but because this might be the single most important thing going on in the world right now, and it certainly deserves more coverage on this blog than some idiotic mediafight between Sarah Palin and David Letterman.

The BBC has provided reliably good coverage over here; from what I've heard, American media coverage has been lacking at best. (This BBC report, partially shot on a cameraphone, is particularly enthralling.) What the Iranian protesters - whether they're original Moussavi supporters or formerly neutral Iranians outraged at the stolen election - have been doing is phenomenally brave, and makes all the stupid commentary that's been thrown around over the past several years about Iran (you know, that they're all a bunch of crazed Islamic radicals who'll line up in lockstep behind anyone who wants to impose Sharia law with an iron fist, etc.) look embarrassing and, honestly, slightly nauseating. The Iranian people are not the Iranian state. The former, unlike the latter, demands our moral support.

That said, it's going to be very, very hard for Westerners to do anything without making the situation worse. Obama's been going about it fairly well in my opinion: he's shown cautious doubt about the legitimacy of Ahmedinejad's victory, but has guided all his criticism of the horrible treatment of protesters along human rights lines rather than in terms of categorical opposition to the government. Unfortunately, angry denunciations of Ahmadinejad's conduct by Americans or Western Europeans are unlikely to do anything other than give the government rhetorical fodder, and Moussavi and his supporters certainly don't need to be painted as traitorous America-lovers on top of everything else. It looks like about the best way to help is through the medium of the Internet, where the harsh lines of differing nationalities blur together (and I'm usually a skeptic about the web's much-vaunted power to break down international divides, bring different worlds together, etc., but there actually seems to be a grain of truth to those claims this time around). Twitter is, of course, abuzz, and people like Austin Heap have been hard at work setting up proxies for Iranian dissidents to use in the face of mass government shutting-down of internet access. That said, even internet attempts to help can backfire: for example, the mass DDoS attacks on the Iranian government's servers that someone apparently set up a site to facilitate seem to only have had the effect of slowing down the internet for everyone in Iran, regardless of political affiliation. If you try to help through the internet, then, be very very careful. Probably the best thing that Westerners like, well, all of the people who write on this blog (and presumably most of the people who read it) can do, besides setting up proxies like Heap recommends, is spread awareness.

Iranians have risen up on a mass scale to demand proper representation in government in the face of election fraud on a mass scale. Floridians - or, well, Americans - didn't bother to do nearly as much after Bush v. Gore, and we didn't even have to worry about being shot or beaten savagely with nightsticks like the Iranians do. Keep that in mind, conservative pundits, next time you extoll America's virtue over Iran's (or, by extension, the Islamic world as a whole, because God knows they're all exactly the same), because it's looking to me like Iran's people are more prepared to fight for and defend the principles of democracy than many Americans are. (Not to single out America: it makes the lazy outrage Britons have been directing at their government in the wake of the expenses scandal look pathetic, too.) As for people who've been using this as an excuse to express nostalgia for the days of the Shah, or who (like Daniel Pipes) are actually supporting Ahmadinejad (because he's easier to go to war against than Moussavi): they are scum, and they're part of the reason why it's so hard for decent Americans to express outrage at the Iranian government without unintentionally hurting the Iranian opposition. Because after they've spent so much time and energy trying to group Iranians together as one undifferentiated, evil, Islamic clump - Pipes' post makes it clear that he thinks Moussavi will be just as bad as Ahmadinejad (because, I dunno, they're both Iranian), even if he'll look better to the outside world - is it any wonder that certain elements in the Iranian power structure, with a similar fetish for the use of force as Pipes', do the same to us?

-Dom

PalinLettermanity

2009-06-15T22:10:00.001-07:00

"Not if he gave me gifts as many as the sand or dust is, not even so would Agamemnon soothe my spirit until he had made good to me all this heartrending insolence" Iliad IX.385-87

The Palins tend to attack random people more than most political figures. It’s not that politicians as a whole fit any definition of civility, but in general, their attacks tend to fulfill some sort of political purpose, as when the Republicans stalled Bill Clinton’s agenda through years of personal investigations. Governor Sarah Palin, on the other hand, has taken time out of her days of keeping an eye on the Russians twice now, first to quash the menace of her daughter’s former fiancée Levi Johnston (“Levi and his family…are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion,” she says), and now to spar with talk-show host David Letterman over a pair of jokes made on his show. Obviously, in the case of tabloid tales like this one, the best strategy is to examine the arguments carefully and closely, including both Palin’s and Letterman’s responses.

In the main joke under contention, commenting on the Palins’ visit to New York, Letterman said, “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game: during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez." Palin, appearing on the Today Show, attacked the joke as “the comment that was made about statutory rape of my fourteen year old daughter Willow.” Letterman responded that the joke was not about Willow at all, but about “her [other] daughter, the 18-year-old girl, who is — her name is Bristol…These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter.” In response, Palin pointed out that she had not been travelling with Bristol, but only with Willow. Further, she said that the acceptance of such jokes “contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.”

Palin is correct on the first count in a literal sense; even if Letterman did not know which daughter Palin was travelling with, he would still have unintentionally referred to statutory rape. That said, the joke wouldn’t make sense outside the context of Bristol Palin’s unplanned pregnancy. Bristol, who is 18 years old, is the only one of Palin’s offspring really in the public consciousness, given the drama of the pregnancy, shotgun engagement, and breakup. It’s doubtful that anyone not following every detail of Palin’s activities would have associated the joke with Willow, and therefore it would have had no real impact on the public perception of statutory rape until, ironically, Palin pointed out the real association in her response. Palin correctly labels the joke as crude and inappropriate, but her description of “sexually perverted” is only accidentally true.

Moreover, she should consider whether the duty to which she was elected as governor of Alaska is served by her attacks on these irrelevant people, Letterman and Johnston. These would not be the only times when she let personal vendettas get in the way of her role as a politician; in the well-publicized “Troopergate,” she may have inappropriately forced the resignation of an official because of a feud within her family, according to a committee of the Alaska Legislature. If she wants to run for president, she needs to stop mixing her public and private spheres. There’s a lot of venom spewed about anyone in politics, and this joke is not an instance worth fighting over.

--George Haines

Even More Discussion on Right-Wing Violence

2009-06-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

We really haven't touched on the shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum on this blog yet. Quite frankly, in my opinion there isn't much to say beyond expressing sorrow at the tragedy and condemning the terrorist who committed the crime.

But now folks are asking, as they did with Tiller, if right-wing rhetoric had an influence on this man. I think the case is a lot weaker than with Tiller, who was regularly accused of murder on television. Holocaust denial is not exactly a prominent view on the American right--in fact, conservatives usually cite it in defense of Israel.

I'm glad to see many liberal journalists have rejected Keith Olbermann's comment that "Von Brunn’s rhetoric sounds a lot like Rush Limbaugh’s." Even if one believes Limbaugh engages in "dog whistle" politics regarding affirmative action and welfare (and I believe he actually considers these policies detrimental for everyone) , opposing policies that dispropotionately serve African Americans is not one step away from this sort of violent white supremacy.

One thing I will agree about is that apocalyptic rhetoric does us no favors. Although I agree with his conclusions regarding this case, Mr. Destructo makes some points that cannot be dismissed. It is a sad commentary that FreeRepublic, the largest conservative presence online, has become a hate site. And cop-killer Richard Popwalski's fears about FEMA concentration camps were, by admission, partially incited by Prophet of Doom Glenn Beck''s coverage of it with useful idiot Ron Paul. However, his radicalism (beyond his own personal hatred) was clearly formed by the Stormfront and Infowars propaganda machines, and it seems to me unlikely that in retrospect that this would not have happened without Beck and Paul, or that the two take on primary blame when in fact they were, like Popwalski, in some way fools duped by this online coverage.

I have no easy answers here. I'm not certain whether trying to remove groups like Stormfront on the grounds of advocation of violence (which almost certainly doesn't hold to every member) would radicalize people further in perceived persecution or remove an incubator of hatred in those who may have been on the borderline. I'd like Glenn Beck off the air, but I don't think it would be right to have him removed or for him to receive the blame for this act of violence. Perhaps the best we can hope for is what John Kerry was ridiculed for saying--make sure terrorism in the United States, if it cannot be eliminated, is reduced to the point where it is only an occasional nuisance--or, to say it in a less flip manner than our former presidential candidate, that such tragedies are limited to the greatest extent possible.

-Chris

Iranian Election News

2009-06-14T19:18:00.000-07:00

Ferny over at Context Matters has a good roundup of some of the news, as does Andrew Sullivan.

al-Jazeera makes a decent point that the Western media might be oversampling pro-Mousavi urban areas, though that certainly doesn't undermine the case that the official election results are likely flawed (nor does Nate Silver's correct debunking of one "proof" of fraud). From the fact that support for all candidates besides the top two was improbably low, to the speed at which vote totals were declared, to the confusing nature of the voting system, many signs point to fraud on some level. This does not mean Ahmadinejad might not have won a free and fair election, it simply means this election was not that. However, Mousavi's support was clearly broad enough to allow for the kind of protest and violence that is occuring now.

All I can say is that I hope our President takes the advice of many intelligent commentators and stays out of the fray. The more the Iranian opposition can avoid any connection to the United States, the better.

Also: Sorry about how sporadic posting has been this week. Serious thanks to Leah, Dom, and Minnie for covering my heavy slack. Part of it was general work, and part of it was the fact that much of the major news from this week has been comprised of international affairs where much of the media has been unreliable in coverage.

More Fake News About Sonia Sotomayor, with a grain of fact.

2009-06-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

Sotomayor Admitted to Being a "Product of Affirmative Action" screamed Drudge yesterday.

I don't see the "product of affirmative action" statement as problematic. After all, Sonia Sotomayor seems to be the affirmative action ideal--she was given an opportunity, she took it, and became a distinguished judge whose accomplishments would qualify her for the Supreme Court no matter what her race. I admit to being a skeptic on some of the claims of cultural biases in testing today, but I certainly agree that different life situations--higher availability of tutors, practice with similar testing in the classroom, etc.--lead to different amounts of preparation. Besides, so what if her positive experience with affirmative action influences her role on the court? Obviously, Clarence Thomas's experience with those programs gave him a negative feeling toward it as a policy.

And now, your grain of fact:

"Even though Article IV of the Constitution says that treaties are the 'supreme law of the land,' in most instances they're not even law," she said.

That principle, she said, explained the outcome of a high-profile 2008 Supreme Court ruling, Medellin vs. Texas, which involved a ruling by the International Court of Justice that some Mexican inmates on death row in Texas should get new sentencing hearings because authorities failed to help them get assistance from the Mexican consulate, contrary to a treaty the United States had ratified.

But the Supreme Court ruled that the international court's decision had no legal force and that the treaty was not binding, because Congress never passed a statute explicitly making it domestic law.

The ruling, Sotomayor said, "surprised many human rights groups and civil liberties groups" but was "premised on very traditional American law principles." Her remarks aligned her with the Supreme Court's majority; among the three dissenting votes in that case was Souter.

So if I understand this correctly, Barack Obama has put forward a justice that is tough on crime, finds little fault with public religious displays, and opposes the application of international law unless a domestic law follows it. I'd advise the Republicans to let this one go, because they won't be getting any better.

The EU Elections (to be continued)

2009-06-09T10:45:00.000-07:00

While I don't doubt that this blog has masses - legions, even - of adoring fans, I assume that the vast majority of you are Americans, and probably haven't been following the European Elections very much. Nor do I assume that many of you are particularly familiar with the peculiarly volatile political climate in the UK right now.

As you probably do know, the EU has a parliament, composed of MEPs (Members of the European Parliament - although I believe that's only the British name for them) elected from the various member states. The MEPs for each nation are elected from that nation's own political parties, and then MEPs from different parties in different countries form parliamentary coalitions once they're elected. (If you want a better explanation go here.) The UK had its election this past Thursday.

The results were not good. The Conservatives (bad, but at least somewhat respectable) now have the most seats, at 25; tied in second place, with 13 seats each, are the Labour Party and the UK Independence Party, or UKIP, whom I'll talk about in a moment, but whose entire reason for existing is to oppose the E.U., and who were formerly considered a right-wing fringe party. These numbers are slightly misleading, though: UKIP actually did much better than Labour, since Labour started the election cycle with eighteen seats - a loss of five - and UKIP started with twelve, so they actually managed to pick one up.

UKIP don't look too bad on the surface, but they're actually completely crazy. First of all, they're libertarian cranks with more than a passing similarity to Ron Paul (and okay, Ron Paul was a highish-profile candidate for president in the U.S.A., but first of all, the U.K. is usually - and damn well should be, so far as I'm concerned - more resistant to that type of crazy than the U.S.A. is, and second of all, imagine if Ron Paul were the leader of one of the largest coalitions in Congress). They want significantly lower corporate taxes, a flat tax, and support only the most destructive forms of non-oil energy (nuclear power! Coal! No wind power, though, because it's 'uneconomic'!), but more troublingly, they have really strong links to some very unsavoury groups. According to Johann Hari, a journalist from the Independent and a contributor to the NYT:

"The party is running on a manifesto co-authored by a man called Aidan Rankin. He writes articles and letters for Third Way, a breakaway faction of the National Front, and believes that races should not mix. To this end, members of Third Way have made contact with black separatists and Orthodox Jews who believe the world should be divided into segregated racial groups...

...Private Eye recently provided a summary of the public racism of UKIP's new star recruit, Robert Kilroy-Silk. "Pakistanis want to generate hate ... but then what else can we expect from Pakistan?" he asks. Iraqis are "not worth the life of one British soldier, not one. All they seem to do is moan, incessantly, about their lack of amenities". He raves against "pushy blacks" and "talentless Asians", and suggests that asylum- seekers should be "herded together" by the paras and "dumped on a secure slow boat to ... wherever".

Kilroy-Silk was very publicly sacked by the BBC for these views. UKIP seems not to have noticed. Other forms of bigotry are equally welcomed: boxing promoter Frank Maloney, their candidate for London mayor, has said he will not be campaigning in Camden because there are "too many gays" there."

I'm pro-EU, though not particularly strongly, but there are intelligent arguments to be made against it or against Britain's participation in it (the lefty No2EU alliance makes some important points about the EU's effect on trade, workers' rights, and European militarization, for example). But UKIP's guiding principles aren't sensible objections to the EU; they're neither principled nor practical, but driven by paranoia, racism, xenophobia, and far-right extremism.

So Britain is now as equally represented in the EU Parliament by UKIP as it is by Labour, the party that's held the Prime Minstership for the last twelve years. This does not bode well. Still, UKIP might espouse horrifying racist and homophobic bigotry, and it might be a hotbed of uberrightist paranoia, but at least it's not actually fascist! Ha! Britain electing actual fascists to the EU? People who make nutters like France's Jean-Marie Le Pen look tame by comparison? Nonsense, we're far too sensible and practical to do that kind of thi...

...wait a minute. No. No, we're not.

Two seats in the election went to the British National Party.

If you've heard of the BNP, you'll understand my horror about this. If you haven't, then, well, they don't just accept members who talk about 'pushy blacks' and 'talentless Asians' like UKIP does; they're much, much worse. The party leader, Nick Griffin - an odious man who looks like a toad with a hairpiece, and one of the party's two new MEPs - has said all kinds of abominable things, but here are some of my favourites:

"We haven't given up on our principle that mono racial countries... mono ethnic countries are more stable, it's far easier to preserve human rights and freedom within those whereas multi-racial societies always end up going right down the road of tyranny."

"I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that 6 million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also also once held that the Earth was flat... I have reached the conclusion that the "extermination" tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter witch-hysteria."

"Mass alien immigration and suicidally low birthrate mean that the White Race is poised on the brink of a precipice of rapid and irreversible decline. If we do not step back now, we face political and then physical extinction. A stark choice. UNITE OR DIE!"

"The electors of Millwall did not back a post modernist rightist party but what they perceived to be a strong, disciplined organisation with the ability to back up its slogan 'Defend Rights for Whites' with well-directed boots and fists. When the crunch comes power is the product of force and will, not of rational debate."

So, just to sum up: Nick Griffin believes that white people are inherently threatened by large populations of other races, and must unite to remain strong; that mono-racial countries are, by default, the freest and best; that the Holocaust was a hoax; and that power is best backed up not by elections, not by democratic debate, but by 'boots and fists', force, and the will to power of dedicated white Übermenschen.

"Racism" is almost too obvious an epithet to throw at Griffin. This man is a fascist, and so is the party he leads. There is no other word for it.

And the UK just elected him, and one of his cronies, to a seat in the European Parliament. He's not some marginalized crank; he's now a significant political player, not just on the British stage, but with a certain degree of power over the entirety of the European Union.

We're headed down a very, very dangerous road. As for how this ended up happening, I've got my own ideas, but this post is long enough already, so I'll leave you to your weeping and pick up where I left off later.

-Dom

Court Rejects "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" challenge

2009-06-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

Interesting.

Washington (AP) - The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration...

...
In court papers, the administration said the appeals court ruled correctly in this case when it found that "don't ask, don't tell" is "rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion."
During last year's campaign, President Barack Obama indicated he supported the eventual repeal of the policy, but he has made no specific move to do so since taking office in January. Meanwhile, the White House has said it won't stop gays and lesbians from being dismissed from the military.

As a matter of procedure, four justices have to agree to hear a case, so this wasn't a decision made by either the conservative or liberal wing of the court alone. It was probably the right one--I find it difficult to make a constitutional case against discrimination in this situation. The reason we couldn't re-segregate the army is not because we couldn't make a compelling cohesion case, but because it would fail strict scrutiny, which has not been Any work-around using gender discrimination as has been devised elsewhere is probably too tenuous ("What, a man who likes women can join the army, but a woman who does can't?") especially if the Supreme Court would be loath to apply it to the more straightforward case of marriage law now.

Still, I'm curious as to what the contents of the "request" were; the article seems to imply it was merely a case that this is a rational measure, seemingly going against presidential policy. As the article notes, the President has promised a repeal of this policy but has taken no action on it. I find this deeply confusing--unless he's actively waiting for peacetime, I see no reason to not at least order a halt to firings of personnel. Unlike most of the President's flip-flops, I don't see any benefit here. Most people support gays serving in the military--78%, including 62% of evangelicals--and it's not like the President is winning over the remaining holdouts by professing opposition to the policy even if he does seem to be tacitly supporting it.

-Chris

Dirty Hands and Extreme Pacifism

2009-06-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

I wanted to take the opportunity to respond in more detail to a comment Alan made on my post on George Tiller's murder. Alan's main criticism was that labeling abortion as murder did not imply any kind of moral imperative for Christians to intervene. Alan said:

It is not the God given responsibility of Christians to pass judgments on or to punish anyone. That's still God's job... Christians aren't really "allowed to use violence for the defense of another". Jesus never did it, the disciples never did it, and I'm sure you can't imagine the Pope punching someone in the face.

What this sounds like to me is a morality that holds 'sinlessness' as the highest good. In this formulation, a good Christian, given a time machine and a pistol, should hold his fire when meeting Hitler, or, less science-fictionally, should refrain from shooting or otherwise harming a rapist attempting rape.

This passive kind of morality seems untenable to me, both for practical reasons and for the terrible consequences it would seem to produce. Picture a good, pacifist Christian living in Kitty Genovese's appartment building. The good Christian shouldn't shoot at her knife-weilding rapist, but I assume he is allowed to call the police. If he calls the police, is he duty-bound to prevent them from using lethal force he regards as sinful, or any force at all, or is he only forbidden to endanger the sould of a fellow Christian?

The alternative is-- what exactly? Most Christians (and most Quakers) however they feel about war, don't demonstate against police departments. We know that someone must use force, even lethal force sometimes, and we're awfully lucky it's not us. While keeping our own hands clean, we accept the necessity of dirtying others.

I'm willing to believe that Christianity can make a virtue of forgoing self defence, but to make a virtue out of allowing others to take on the necessary sins to defend others seems like bad ethics for everyone.

The Equity Project, NYT

2009-06-06T12:34:00.000-07:00

The NYT had an interesting article on The Equity Project charter school in New York.

I've been following the development of the TEP school for a year now (since March of last year). It is a new kind of charter school founded by a Yale graduate, Zeke Vanderhoek, with a major part of its mission being to redirect funds that are often wasted by schools to the salaries of its teachers. Entry-level teachers are being paid a base salary of $125,000 plus bonuses dependent on individual and school performances.

It's an ambitious project and I am thoroughly impressed. However, the fact that this is a "unique, innovative idea" is a bit alarming. I can imagine being a teacher in certain areas, especially New York, is another way of saying that you live in poverty. Teachers don't make nearly enough to live comfortably in some of the urban areas that they teach. Chicago is another example; many of these teachers are not living close to their schools at all, but in cheaper neighborhoods and commuting (sometimes upwards of an hour) to work.

But I wonder if star teachers is all that it takes to change around sometimes-apathetic students. I question the current culture of our time (as indicated by movies like Stand and Deliver, Freedom Writers, Dead Poet's Society, etc.) that glorifies the teacher and, as a result, places a large part of the responsibility in the performance of the students in their hands. I am not sure whether this is necessarily a good thing -- this puts an enormous amount of pressure on these teachers to make sure that some of the most apathetic and undisciplined students perform and of course, perform according to standards indicated by the boards of education. While Jaime Escalante may be able to turn around a group of unruly students (exaggerated in the film, because students who did not know even basic math were able to do Calculus not even a year later), I am not sure whether this is within the capability of many teachers.

When I was in grade school, I was in a better position than most of the other students in the class. I was red-shirted for kindergarten (stayed home a year, because I wasn't old enough; it made me almost always the oldest kid in class when I finally did enroll) and was home-schooled by my father for a year. This year at home was more educational than my first three or four years in my elementary school. My father is not a teacher by profession. He simply believed in daily, rigorous work in three, albeit simple, areas: reading, writing, arithmetic (he is a bit of an old-schooler.) Even the gifted class, which I entered in third grade, was plagued with discipline issues.

Out of the darkness of public school, my teachers were the gems. They were phenomenal. I can safely say that 90% of the teachers I have had, from grade school through high school, were dedicated to their jobs and treated the students as more than children that needed to be taught obedience. This is not the kind of story you will hear from most students in the Chicago Public School system.

Better incentives for progress, like bonuses based on classroom performance and school performance can help. Sadly, I don't think that TEP should be unique or innovative at all. I would rather see this type of school become the norm.

I commend TEP for not being a selective enrollment school, because average and below-average students from low to middle-incomes stand to gain the most from this type of school.

My own high school was built in 1999 with a $52.5 million-dollar budget. It was part of Richard Daley's plan to reinvent the city public school system. Instead, he shrouded the founding of the new high school with intense criticism for its vast budget and the lack of funding provided for other non-selective high schools nearby.

I am wondering whether the money would have been better spent making a more competitive process for the employment of teachers and raising the salaries of these stars across the board, not limited to the selective enrollment schools.

-- Minnie

Thoughts on the Tiananmen Anniversary

2009-06-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

Reading Western media articles reflecting on the 20th anniversary of the event, watching state-run television during my recent trip back, and observing my extended family overseas, it's easy to see how the young adults and children of my generation who still live in the PRC barely mention the 1989 protest and subsequent crackdown. Unlike the 10th anniversary in 1999--when the area was closed to the public--Tiananmen Square was open today, complete with the daily flag-raising ceremony. In contrast to the candlelight vigil held in Hong Kong (presumably permitted due to the "One Country, Two Systems" policy), the day went by quietly in Beijing. Perhaps most resonating about the silence in China is the lack of vocal comemoration by the current student population, the very group in 1989 that took to the streets.

I do not think that Chinese students of my age are ignorant. No matter how little coverage the state-run media gives to the anniversary and no matter how much censorship the government places on the internet, the PRC's barriers are porous. If anything, the massive economic exchange and build-up in China creates innumerable loop-holes for information to pass into the country. If you don't mind the nonexistence of voting (except for village council elections, but we'll get to those another time) and the terribly bland news coverage every evening, there is no bureaucrat breathing down your neck and you don't get the feeling that you're living in the world of 1984. Day-to-day life in the cities and now even the rural areas can be little different from life in the West, provided one has money.

Therein lies one of the major answers to the question "Why the silence?" I'm generalizing here, but one observation about contemporary Chinese students is that they are willing to keep their mouths shut and fingers away from non-Party politics for a chance at economic success. Only very very few are willing to jepoardize their careers for a political cause other than the CCP. In fact, the level of political apathy is so bad that even the state-run newspaper "The People's Daily" bemoaned the lack of idealism on campuses today, if only because enthusiasm for Communist Youth Leagues is low. A good deal of those who do join the Party (and there are still plenty who do) do so to win advantages for future career advancement. Sound like networking at Ivy League schools? In a somewhat twisted way, yes. It's not all about one's own pocketbook. Nationalist pride in China (if not in the Party itself) is much higher than in 1989, especially among students who take pride in their country's advancement over the past decades. There are some who honestly have an axe to grind with foreigners, particularly Westerners.

Capitalism and patriotism are perhaps the Chinese government's two best forms of thought control, and the Party does not even have to pay for it. Sure, students and the middle-aged (who in fact have true memories of 1989) may know about the repression, but for the vast majority of the population, the authorities do not have to do much to keep the pot from boiling over on 20th anniversary--hence why Tiananmen Square was open today.

Our President in Cairo

2009-06-04T07:57:00.000-07:00

Standing ovation, of course.

Transcript here.

My instinct is that his show of respect to Islam as a religion was more thoughtful and thorough than those of previous presidents. His admission of previous American fault with regard to Iraq, torture (indirectly), and even the overthrow of Iran's democratic government struck me as hitting the right note rather than being unnecessary apologies. I'd like everyone's thought specifically on his discussion of democracy:

The fourth issue that I will address is democracy.

I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.

There is no straight line to realize this promise. But this much is clear: governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people.

This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

Now, I understand the President saying no particular type of government can be imposed by another nation (Does he believe the process of Iraqi governance is taking in enough input to no longer be "imposed"?) but I wonder about the distinction between representative democracy and "government that reflects the will of the people". Can the people cede power and authority to a theocratic or autocratic system under this framework if it can be perceived as reflecting popular will, or do we maintain a committment to a system that gives active power to voters? (I also have a "no true Scotsman" quibble with defining the kind of democracy we like as true democracy. A perfectly democratic system obviously could oppress minorities without contradiction.)

Peter Daou at HuffPo has an interesting take (disclaimer: former Hillaryite). Aside from his accusations on naivete, he thinks Barack Obama was painfully weak on the rights of women, talking about education and the right to wear the hijab in the Western world while not addressing pervasive violence and oppression enough. I'm not certain it was the role of the President in the speech intended to mend some fences to go further than he did, but this section left me a bit uneasy:

"Now let me be clear: issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we have seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world."

While I am willing to admit we have quite a ways to go with regard to women's equality even here, I think that putting workplace prejudice next to Daou's example of murder being the punishment not for raping, but being raped does not make a strong enough distinction between the urgency of the struggle with violent Islam. Sadeghi of al-Jazeera elucidates on this further, alongside more general criticism. Again, perhaps his job here was to simply be as concilitory as possible. That strategy seems to have paid mixed dividends. Ferny, who liveblogged it at Context Matters, is reading a strong positive reaction overall online.

Thoughts?

The Friend Factor

2009-06-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

From Gallup, by way of Andrew Sullivan:

Among adults who do not personally know someone who is gay, 27% think gay marriages should be legally valid and 72% do not.

Among adults who do personally know someone who is gay, 49% think gay marriages should be legally valid and 47% do not.

Now, I'm not absolutely convinced that this correlation implies causation in every way--while I certainly agree from personal experience that having gay friends makes you more likely to support gay marriage, I think it may also be easier to come out in an environment that is less hostile to homosexuality in general. Therefore, folks living in a socially liberal environment may be more aware that their friends are gay.

Still, putting a sympathetic face to a cause really does matter. It's a little disappointing that there's only a statistically insignificant lead for gay marriage support among those who know someone personally, but then again, it's a big swing from the 57% disapproval of all adults. And while I disagree with Andrew that people lose their right to complain about gay issues if they are uncomfortable coming out in their personal lives, we should recognize what a powerful tool this is.

Power in the Real World

2009-06-02T20:47:00.000-07:00

Men in Power is a group that recently formed at the University of Chicago, which “seeks to equip an enterprising group of young men with the tools, knowledge, and connections they will need to become future leaders in their respective fields of business, law, healthcare, and politics.” It was formed in response to a satirical piece the group’s founder, Steve Saltarelli, wrote for the university’s paper, arguing that “True equality means groups that advocate for men as well as women.” He continued:

“Basically, Men in Power at the University of Chicago will serve as the flagship organization for a national group of the same name, working to spread awareness and promote understanding of issues and challenges facing men today. Many don’t realize that men are in power all around us—in fact, the last 44 presidents have been men, including our own Barack Obama.”

Clever, I know. But then Saltarelli got a bunch of emails asking if founding such a group would be possible, and decided to give it a try.

Responses, as one might expect, have been varied.

I know it seems at first absurd and offensive, or pedantic and effetely liberal at best, to suggest that there needs to be a group to advance men’s career opportunities merely for “equality’s” sake.
But to argue that to be a man in society and to be a woman in society are equal, or that only women need a guide to learn how to function due to their gender specifications, is sexist.
Regardless of the setup of the current system, today’s young men do not have an inherent base of knowledge that allows them to get ahead. There may be sexist traditions, but just because men have been playing the game for longer does not mean that a random individual man has more insight or more experience than a random individual woman. This is, after all, the argument often made by those who would advance female power in the workplace—a given woman may start out with just as much potential as a given man, and what makes the difference is the resources and opportunities given to them.

Perhaps most important, in my opinion, is not the group’s proposed pre-professional focus, but their intention to bring in speakers to “discuss issues of masculinity,” and their motivation stemming from the idea that “mainly people are just excited about the idea that men can have a group as well,” as Saltarelli explained.
They want to give men, and women as well, a space to talk about what it means to be male in today’s world. And after all, isn’t that an important part of the gender discussion?

So: No. “Men” as an indiscrete unit do not need more help getting ahead in the system. If the group’s purpose were to support male supremacy, that would be egregious. But it is important to discuss what it means to be male in today’s society, and in today’s professional world. It is important to have resources for men.

As for the group’s name, though—they’re just asking for trouble.

A Response to Leah on Tiller

2009-06-02T08:05:00.000-07:00

Leah, you make some very good points, and although I've responded a good deal off-blog, I'll try to respond a little here. Obviously, given the gun to the head, there is no other option. However, I insist that if a professed Christian is going to try to prevent the murder of innocents, even if they see no distinction between fetuses and babies, they must exhaust the other options besides murder. Perhaps you can make the case that they did--attacks on his clinic and even Dr. Tiller being shot in both arms failed to stop his practice. Still, I'm dubious that a Christian ethos absolves you from the guilt of murder simply because it was the most effective way to save lives.

Saletan's discussion of gradations is an interesting one that I think indeed does broadly define where Americans stand on the abortion debate. Dr. Tiller's example is a little more distinct in that anyone calling themselves pro-life would certainly agree that a late-term fetus is indistinguishable from a child, and so gradation of life doesn't play a factor. However, Tiller stated that he was only performing these late-term abortions in case of expected severe medical harm to the mother (though I have yet to understand how a practice like D&E, which mimics the birth process to a great extent, actually prevents any of those conditions from resulting). For pro-lifers to call Tiller's actions something short of murder based on circumstances would not be inconsistent with considering a fetus to be a whole human life equivalent to an eight-year-old child or believing it is still an atrocity that should be illegal. As you say, however, this is inconsistent with the rhetoric of "holocaust". I would agree, and I believe pro-lifers make a mistake when calling abortion in this country a genocide under their framework, because it denies the existence of millions of different, difficult situations and treats government sanctioning as equivalent to systematic government killing.

(This is also a much, MUCH longer digression than I intend to go into here, but theologically speaking for many Christianities, this poses the Reverse Claudius Problem. Hamlet doesn't want to kill Claudius when he is saying his prayers, for fear Claudius is repenting and would be sent to heaven if killed in such a state of grace. The problem is, if an evil person has the gun to the head of a total innocent, do you shoot the evil person? From a purely secular framework, of course; from a Christian framework, you are recognizing that the evil person will go to hell if killed and the innocent person will go to heaven if killed, which complicates the choice to some extent. The hypothetical of the total innocent almost never exists with any certainty--except probably with unborn children and infants.*)

I actually think your Operation Rescue quote is revealing: "Without due process, there can be no justice." There is a (professed, at least) reverence for the law there--a sense that a lawless society where vigilantism is not controlled is not something they are comfortable encouraging, even when they think the end result is just. (I presume Operation Rescue would be very happy if he had been tried, convicted, and received the death penalty.) Similarly, while it may be hard to argue from a functionalist standpoint to anti-abortion extremists that this single murder--the first of its kind in over ten years--will do more harm than good, they would likely concede that any kind of pattern of attacks would probably bring a political backlash on the pro-life movement that it would not weather well.

UPDATE here: Hilzoy puts this "commitment to law" better than I did.

If anyone who believes the government had adopted a policy that would lead to the killing of innocent people is justified in killing people to stop this, then we might as well just decide not to have a government at all. During the Bush administration, half the country would have been justified in trying to assassinate the President and members of his administration.

My use of the term evil may have been glib and punchy for an ending, and I apologize for that. This is a much longer discussion, and I will be happy to continue off blog.

-Chris

*One huge caveat is that your mileage may vary with regards to original sin, which then brings in other theological hypotheses like limbo that I could get into another time when I'm talking about religion much more deeply.

Really, why should 'Pro-Lifers' regret George Tiller's murder?

2009-06-01T19:31:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, Chris wrote in reference to the murder of George Tiller:

I'm not sure what can be done to persuade these people away from violence from a functionalist standpoint. I have great hope, however, that most devout Christians see the evil in gunning someone down in their church in the name of God and the sanctity of life.

This reaction puts him firmly in line with the mainstream Christian right, a line I find incomprehensible. Even Operation Rescue, a 'pro-life' organization that has for years maintained a 'Tiller Watch,' to better organize harassment of George Tiller, came out with a statement reading:

We deplore the criminal actions with which Mr. Roeder is accused.

The pro-life ethic is to value all human life from the moment of conception until natural death. Operation Rescue has diligently and successfully worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see to it that abortionists around the nation are brought to justice. Without due process, there can be no justice.

In spite of these horrific events, we remain dedicated to working through all peaceful and legal means available to bring an end to the killing of innocent children through abortion.

Despite these protestations, I'm not really clear how much of a problem, morally, there murder of George Tiller presents for 'pro-life' activists. If I saw a man with a knife to the throat of a child, ready to kill, and I had a clear shot through the sight of my hypothetical sniper rifle, I would fire, and so, I expect, would many Americans, 'pro-life' or not.

When 'pro-life' activists, who claim to value every zygote as equal to a fully developed human, denounce Tiller's work as mass murder, how is the logical outcome of that line of thinking not assassination (in defense of the defenseless, no less)? Ferny compared the possible moral stakes to assassinating Hitler, and, for hard-line 'pro-lifers,' that's exactly how high the stakes are. The American Life League (who also condemned the assassination) states on their website that "An average of 1,300,000 babies are killed annually through surgical abortion. "

When 'pro-life' activists routinely appropriate the language of mass-murder and genocide, the fact that most 'pro-life' activists balk at a preemptive attack in the form of assassination is puzzling. A simple claim of 'Christian values' is unpersuasive. Christians are not Quakers, and are allowed to use violence for the defense of another (or in Crusades).

This use of genocidal rhetoric without the action it seems to require seems to be a pattern for most 'pro-lifers.' When anti-abortion activists at a protest were asked, if abortion were recriminalized, what sentence they would pass upon the mother, none of the demonstrators could come up with an answer, but all shied away from imposing jail time or the death penalty for the alleged murderess.

I agree with William Saletan at Slate who thinks these behaviors show that the zygote-human equivalence isn't that clear, even in the minds of the evanlgelists. Most Americans do think of abortion as a grey line issue. But when the same pundits who shriek "Abortion is murder" don't cheer for someone who actually acts on that Manichean view, I call shenanigans.

If we want to make progress on this issue, both sides should express their doubts about the lines that need to be drawn, so an open discussion can begin. Until that happens, 'pro-lifers' who decry abortion as genocide and a holocaust shouldn't think an online disclaimer is enough to wash their hands clean of this murder.

-Leah

The G2: A New World Order? Not yet, but closer than some think

2009-06-01T18:28:00.001-07:00

On the heels of Treasury Secretary Geithner's visit to China, there has been talk among foreign-policy analysts about the possibility of a G2 relationship between the United States and the People's Republic--i.e., the idea of a world shared between the US and the PRC. Speculation about the rise of a Chinese superpower is a popular topic among pundits, particularly because of China's relative stability during the current economic crisis, its ownership of a massive portion of our debt, and perennial talk about the PRC's growing military capability. Opinion pieces refuting such superpower speculation are also prevelant, whether they argue that the US is still many factors ahead of its "rival" or stress that so long as China lacks democracy and relative economic equality among its citizens, there is a ceiling to its growth in geopolitical status.

In terms of the idea of the G2, I do believe that the Sino-American relationship will be the most important geopolitical relationship for at least the next several decades, barring any unforeseen catastrophes. Not only is this because of the immense economic ties between the two nations, but also because international crises such as North Korea's aggressive arms development and even larger issues such as environmental goals can only be resolved if the US and the PRC work in tandem. However, a standalone G2 cannot exist, at least not for the near-to-medium future, because established powers such as the EU and Japan and rising powers such as India are not going anywhere anytime soon. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao emphasized at the China-Europe Summit that China is not interested in forming a G2 with the United States. The current improbability of a G2 is more complex than a few sentences can explain, and I will discuss some of the particularities in future posts.

David Drezner's Newsweek opinion piece "Fearing China" makes a policy recommendation: from now on, US administrations must be mentally adjusted to the idea of dealing with an "independent source of national power" (i.e. get used to a second, stubborn voice). The United States and China have much more to gain than to lose through mutual trust, but one necessary aspect of this trust is to make what Drezner calls a "cognitive leap" in geopolitical thinking. China is a lot closer than we imagined, even a few years ago prior to the economic crisis, but it still has a distance to go. The US stands to gain from most of China's actions even while its pushes back at threats to American "core interests."

In this and following posts, I stand from a middle position. In other words, I believe that the PRC has the potential to the be the next big thing, but that is far from a given, and any "superpower" status, if that can be wielded by any nation other than the US, will take time to develop. Some of my views will be based on personal observations of China and my relatives on my trips. I am motivated to write on this topic because of my experience as a 1.5 generation immigrant: an individual who was born in China (moved here when I was 2) but has received his entire cultural experience in the United States. I will consider some policy recommendations, either for the US or the PRC, but as someone lacking formal experience in these affairs, I will be on the abstract side.

-Yang

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back...Defensively

2009-06-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

This is cool: U.S. ‘Likely’ Could Intercept North Korean Missile

May 29 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. ground-based interceptor rockets would “likely” knock out a long-range North Korean missile before it could reach the American mainland, the Pentagon’s independent testing official said today.

“I believe we have a reasonable chance” of an intercept, Charles McQueary, director of operational test and evaluation, said in an interview as North Korea defied international condemnation of a nuclear test with another short-range missile launch.
...The ground-based system, counting a December test, has had eight successful intercepts in 13 attempts since 1999.

As much as SDI gets called Reagan's Folly, the attractiveness of the idea is undeniable. A country that can hit you is scary, but one that you also can't hit is WAY scarier. Of course, then we all escalate the amount of blow-your-weapons-out-of-the-sky weapons we have, but I'd rather spend time building than those than building more nuclear warheads. As Ferny has noted to me, this is much more small-ball than Reagan's plan, but the basic idea holds.

2012 Presidental Candidate...I mean, concerned citizen Mitt Romney, went after President Obama today regarding a billion dollar cut in funding for missle defense. I agree with the former Governor that such programs are important, but don't know quite where the funding is being cut. The article notes that Secretary Gates has downgraded the number of interceptors built. I certainly would defer to the Secretary of Defense's knowledge regarding how many of these are necessary for the near-future. If the funding for more trials and modernization for the thirty interceptors we are leaving open is intact, the cuts very well may be reasonable.

The Original Sin of the Media

2009-06-01T08:18:00.000-07:00

This post from the CNN Political Ticker is exceedingly revealing about what's wrong with the media today.

Sotomayor was called a racist by Fox News' Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson, as well as by conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, while being hailed by President Obama and the liberal media as "inspiring."

...Margaret Carlson contended that the cable pundits were the center of attention because they helped to create the controversy regarding Sotomayor.

"It's hard to cover silence. In the first couple of days, the elected leaders didn't know what to do. They couldn't find anything. Their comments were very restrained. And so, where do you go? You go to the noise. You don't cover the dog that doesn't get run over."

Think about that statement for a bit. The Senate Republicans--who actually have an impact on the process--had been muted in criticism, and occasionally supportive. So rather than cover that fact and move on to either serious coverage of the nominees' beliefs or other stories, they looked around to find those opposed to Sotomayor and presented them as the story, whether or not they held real influence on the process.

The media doesn't have to "go to the noise". If I'm covering a memorial for a gay celebrity, I don't have to "go to the noise" and call up Fred Phelps. If I'm covering a Congressional initiative on Holocaust remembrance ceremonies, I don't have to "go to the noise" and call up David Duke. The media gets to make choices about whether the opposition is relevant enough to be given equal time in coverage.

What is particularly egregious here, however, is that to some extent the noise is manufactured. For example, Tom Tancredo's appearance on CNN to oppose the Sotomayor nomination. Mr. Tancredo is a former member of the House of Representatives--so his input was irrelevant even when he had power. Why was he invited on CNN to speak against Sotomayor? Frankly, because he is known for being inflammatory and often racist. Did CNN make him pretend to be angry about the nomination? Of course not. But they chose him as a voice because of what he was saying, not because of who he was. So not only are they ensuring that there is a debate, but they are framing the terms of that debate. (Yes, Noam Chomsky and I occasionally agree.)

This would be excusable in a time where this was the primary story in the world. But given that we're still fighting two wars, dealing with North Korea's nuclear ambitions, staring down a massive deficit and debt....perhaps we could find other things to fill the time we would otherwise spend asking cranks what they think about our presumptive next Supreme Court Justice.

George Tiller Assassinated

2009-05-31T11:46:00.000-07:00

Make no mistake, the killing today of late-term abortion provider George Tiller was an assassination--a targeted killing of a public figure for ideological reasons. It also follows a sporadic history of such attacks--Tiller himself has been shot before. When I wrote my paper for Terrorism in America on domestic anti-abortion terrorism this term, I thought we were past this era. Then again, you can never completely stop lone wolves, and perhaps extremely infrequent murder--James Kopp was 1998--is the best one could hope for.

I don't know how I feel about Andrew Sullivan's charge that this may have been incited by the actions and words of Bill O'Reilly. (It's hard to know if he is claiming that, because he's doing so obliquely--Ta-Nehisi Coates certainly goes there though.) Certainly, the language of "death mill" may be considered inciting language--but for the sort of man who would commit this murder, I think O'Reilly simply reporting the facts of what this man does would be enough. And self-censorship with regards to putting faces and names to actions in the media seems a bridge too far.

I've been unable in my searching to identify a meaningful pattern between public support for abortion rights and these attacks. My instinct is that it does push moderates toward the pro-choice position, but I have little evidence for this. If the effect is minimal, and such violence does push doctors out of the abortion business as has been documented, then I'm not sure what can be done to persuade these people away from violence from a functionalist standpoint. I have great hope, however, that most devout Christians see the evil in gunning someone down in their church in the name of God and the sanctity of life.

The Limits of Leadership

2009-05-30T20:12:00.000-07:00

So I, as much as anyone else, have jumped on the bandwagon of "Look how crazy the Republican Party is getting!" when in fact I should be saying "Look how crazy some of these leaders and representatives are acting." Nearly every blog I read--the latest is Jacob Weisberg--says the Republican Party needs a Sister Souljah moment i.e. a leader standing up to an important interest group's extremists.

But does the GOP need its self-appointed leaders to be the first to push back against the extremists, or can it be done grassroots-style? The only reason for a RNC Chairman to feel like he has to apologize to Rush Limbaugh is perceived grassroots support of Limbaugh--something that is only measured in shaky listener numbers and occasional polling, not meaningful ballot box support.

This year, the Republican Party has a good chance of taking back the governor's mansion (at least measured in aforementioned arbitrary polling.) As covered in the NYT, the more moderate Chris Christie has a wider lead in general polling (though the Times pretends his opponent, Steve Lonegan, would have no chance)--and is also leading in the primary. If New Jersey Republicans go for Christie and he wins, that sends a strong message for the moderate wing. If it's followed by a win in the Florida Senate Republican primary next year for moderate governor Charlie Crist over Mario Rubio, Huckabee endorsement be damned, that sends an even stronger message.

If the leaders of the Republican Party refuse to act like leaders, perhaps they need the sheep to push the shepherds around a bit. Of course, this requires that the shrinking number of people--mostly quite conservative--identifying as Republican votes pragmatically to replace the departed moderates that had been voting for the centrists on principle. That's a big gamble. I'm not sure I'm willing to place any bets.

In which I excoriate those excoriating Sotomayor, and then excoriate her myself.

2009-05-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

Republicans are currently engaging in spaghetti politics against Judge Sotomayor--that is to say, they're throwing attacks against the wall and seeing what sticks. Annoyingly, some of their attacks seem to have prepared in advance--not in advance for Sotomayor, like a good opposition research department would do, but in advance for "generic liberal nominee". Witness the Republican National Committee talking points:

• Justice Souter's retirement could move the Court to the left and provide a critical fifth vote for:

• Further eroding the rights of the unborn and property owners;

• Imposing a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage;

• Stripping "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and completely secularizing the public square;

There's more, but let's just take those three. They are right on "property owners" (though why it's conflated with abortion is beyond me). The others seem entirely random or wrong. Sotomayor has no record on gay marriage besides surmising. Her record on abortion is empty, with all tangential cases ruling on the side of pro-lifers. And the RNC is directly wrong on the last point I listed, since Sotomayor has a record of allowing religious symbols in public places and generally promoting religious freedom of expression.

However, that doesn't mean there is nothing troubling in Sotomayor's record, particularly on property rights. The case in question was Didden v. Port Chester, in which developers had their land seized (with some compensation, though probably not enough.) in favor of a Walgreens when they refused to pay a kickback on their plans to build a private pharmacy to the fellow in charge of development in the area. The New York Times is claiming she merely followed the precedent in Kelo v. New London allowing eminent domain for private industry that would grow the tax base. As the Wall Street Journal's LawBlog notes, Justice John Paul Stevens noted in his majority opinion that "the mere pretext of a public purpose" was not enough to justify land seizure--as this clearly was. (Besides, while the "following precedent" excuse could exonerate Sotomayor if justified, it's worth remembering that it was the so-called liberal wing that sided with the government in the Kelo case, while the conservative wing was consistent in its preservation of property rights.) While Kelo may have been the "original sin", Sotomayor's willingness to support a more expansive definition of the decision concerns me, unless there were some real doubts as to whether this extortion happened coupled with a serious case made by Port Chester that a Walgreens would provide substantially more revenue than a family pharmacy. I have no evidence for the former, and a simple guess for the latter.

Side note on Ricci v. DeStefano, about which some have made a big deal: she did little more in that case than say that the state as employer is allowed to disregard a test due to apparent racial disparities without it being active illegal discrimination against those who did well on the test. While I am unsure if I agree with her assessment, it's a reasonable ruling and very different than ruling the test biased from the bench.

It ain't over 'til the Fat Preacher sings, then founds a university to force people to clap

2009-05-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

In the second post about the business with Falwell's University cracking down on the bland, unthreatening sons of Satan that comprise the membership of today's Democratic Party - and the second, and hopefully last, post with a dreadful "Liberty" pun in its title - I'd like to butt heads a bit with Chris. Or rather, to make a similar point, but colour it rather differently. Liberty's decision to crush its tiny Democratic faction is cheerily fascist, sure, and it's so in a typically Falwellian style; but this is exactly the reason why no one should be surprised or outraged. How is it not utterly predictable that a university founded by Pat Robertson's partner in televised evangeli-crime would take steps to silence anyone self-identifying with the Party Of Death? Anyone with a faintest familiarity with the man, or with the ethos and general action plan of the movement he led before he shuffled off, shouldn't be at all surprised.

No, the only way anyone could be outraged about this is if they started off from the assumption that Liberty U is, or aspires to be, a Respectable Educational Institution in the same way that other universities do. It might be accurate, as Chris claimed that the goal of the modern university is the search for truth (though that phrase makes me wary; I'll go into that some other time), but at least as much of that is about the search as it is the truth. (This sounds trivial and platitudinous at the level of motivational posters - "It's the Journey that counts!" - but stay with me here.) Universities, at least in theory, tend to oppose dogma. Liberty, by contrast, thinks it's already found its Truth with a capital T, thank you very much, and is working like Hell to instill it in the minds of all of its students (and from there, the rest of the country - after that, presumably, THE WORLD.) Critical thinking's got nothing to do with it. If we fall into the trap of becoming outraged about this one, minor act of ideological censorship - rather than about the larger theocratic project upon which the whole Falwellian ideology is centered - then we grant them a legitimacy that they don't deserve.

I don't just want to bash Falwell and his followers, however. There's a little bit of this tendency in *all* universities. Liberty doesn't produce thinkers so much as it does ideological warriors, which is precisely what it aims for: but there's a political and ideological tinge to all educational institutions, which we tend to forget when we laud places like Yale as havens for the heroic pursuit of disinterested truth. A glance at Yale's economics department is enough to confirm that. If you'd rather a more humanities-oriented example, then I'd advise you to read John Guillory - who sums this all up better than I ever could - or just to look at Donald Kagan's assertion in the early 90s, at the height of the canon wars, that Yale's professors wouldn't be able to teach a Great Books program properly because they were too liberal. (Yeah, sorry to those Conservative Party members who also post on this blog, but the Western Canon isn't free of petty political bias either.)

More on this general subject later, I hope, when discussing the Sotomayor nomination. (Also, hi! I'm Dominick. I like long walks on the beach.)

On Liberty (University)

2009-05-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

Liberty University, Jerry Falwell's prominent Christian university, recently cut school support for the Liberty Democrats. It is worth noting that Liberty University receives no federal funding, and as a private institution, is probably well within its rights to do this. It is also allowing the students to continue their organization and meet, just without funding or use of the college name--so the "attack on free speech" language is a little over the top.

What really annoys me is Newsweek's Gaggle post on this subject. Money quote:

It is of course hard to imagine Liberty's Democrat club being overrun with members, but still, to illegitimize their activities seems like the sort of intellectual and political repression that institutes of higher learning in democratic nations are supposed to guard against.

Feel free to read the whole thing. The thing is, Liberty University is not an average university as these bloggers understand it. Intellectually, the university's first and foremost obligation is to the search for truth. Unlike most universities, however, Liberty University does not simply help its students search for truth, but has set beliefs guided by evangelical Christianity that it institutionally "knows" to be true and wants to propagate those truths. Obviously, other universities can have an ideological bent--I raised an eyebrow when President Levin spoke at Yale Commencement about how the proper Yalie would have a committment to social justice, even if I would fall into the category myself--but Liberty is unique in endorsing an entire belief system with authoritative interpretation.

This is not purely a distinction between religious and secular schools--the conservative reaction to Notre Dame was out of step with students in part because many Catholic schools promote a value system as an institution rather than explicit instructions for letting students put those values into practice. (If one honestly believed many more lives would be protected under a President Obama than a President McCain for whatever reason, be it due to the Iraq war or policies on loose nukes--they would not be in sinful error under the Catholic doctrine.) Liberty University gives you the value system and the conclusions to which they believe those values should lead. So long as individuals are choosing to go there for that reason, that seems perfectly acceptable, if not the kind of education I would choose for myself.

As a pro-lifer who leans Democratic on most other issues, I am sympathetic to the idea that it is noxious for Liberty University to dismiss this organization despite the fact that it professes to side with the university on the issues of abortion, gay marriage, et al. However, if they profess agreement but continue to work for Democratic candidates that oppose those positions, I understand the university's position as requiring words to fit actions. Of course, the words of the Liberty Democrats probably do fit their actions--their priorities are simply distinct from their university. If they'd like a place that allows them to decide that for themselves, there's always room in my Yale dorm for more Christian liberals.

The Meaning of Torture

2009-05-23T10:44:00.001-07:00

In the past week, I have watched both "A Mighty Heart" and Taxi to the Dark Side, a documentary by Alex Gibney about the use of torture on detainees in prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. The following are some of my conclusions after reading articles by journalists that have been covering these stories since the outbreak of the war in Iraq.

The Bush administration, including many top-level leaders such as then-Vice President Dick Cheney, Office of Legal Counsel John Yoo, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and of course, former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfield, spearheaded a campaign to permit military leaders and soldiers to use these interrogation techniques on detainees.

Who are these people and what were their roles in extending the use of torture on "suspected terrorists," undermining the U.S. justice system and the foundations of our democracy which the writers of our constitution and forefathers held so dear?

Vice President Dick Cheney was reported to have said that the business of terrorists was mean, dirty and nasty; for the security of the United States to be protected and upheld, the U.S. military, too, must get "mean, dirty and nasty." What Dick Cheney was really saying was that it was OK for the military to ignore the Geneva Conventions because the rules had changed since 9/11.

Did the rules really change after 9/11, or was it that the administration had finally found its "excuse" to violate the inalienable rights of alleged suspects? The administration had finally found its reason and used the public's fear (37% of Americans in a reported poll in 2007 claimed that the use of torture in some cases was justifiable) to spearhead this movement.

In the documentary by Alex Gibney, many top-level officials, including Donald Rumsfield, visited prisons such as Bagram and had no problem with the detainees that were shackled by their wrists to the ceilings of their cages. However, when the Red Cross visited, the army quickly unshackled all of its detainees. The army was not afraid of its "own" criticizing the use of torture, but it was afraid that a NGO such as the Red Cross would report and publish these atrocities to the public.

The U.S. has been blatantly ignoring the Geneva Conventions which were created for these outrages against human dignity. The treatment of the detainees at Bagram, Abu Gharyb and Guantanamo are a disrespect to the principles of justice that this country holds so dear.

Cheney has made this statement in 2009 with regard to the people who have criticized him for enabling the military to use "enhanced interrogation techniques:"

When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry.... These are evil people. And we're not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.

If it hadn't been for what we did—with respect to the...enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees...—then we would have been attacked again. Those policies we put in place, in my opinion, were absolutely crucial to getting us through the last seven-plus years without a major-casualty attack on the US....

None of the individuals criticizing him hold the rights of "suspected terrorists" as a higher priority than the security of the United States. Cheney isn't making any new claims about his critics; he is deflecting the light that is being shone on him for what he has done and placing it on his very detractors.

Here is a description of the treatment of some of the detainees and the attitudes of the guards in these prisons by Matthew Diaz, an officer who was convicted and imprisoned for releasing the names of Guantanamo detainees to lawyers that could possibly defend them:

Diaz had seen his share of prisons, both military and civilian. But he had never seen anything like the wire-mesh cages at Guantánamo. The prisoners looked more sad than fearsome, Diaz said. In Camp 4, where more-compliant detainees lived in barrackslike quarters, Diaz came upon an older prisoner shuffling along with a walker. “This is what I’d been told were the worst of the worst?” he recalled thinking. One detainee stuck out his hand as Diaz walked up. He took it without thinking, and the guards shot each other looks. “I thought, O.K., I shouldn’t do that.”

Donald Rumsfeld had once joked on a memorandum that he stood for longer hours in a day than the detainees were forced to stand (Note: They were shackled to the ceiling of their cages for sleep deprivation.)

Sleep deprivation charts were kept in the prisons, with 'up' arrows symbolizing when a prisoner would be shackled and 'down' symbolizing when the detainees could sit. Psychological interrogation tactics such as sleep deprivation had been researched by top universities like McGill for the CIA.

When the Red Cross visited the detainee centers, the sleep deprivation charts were erased.

The primary draftsman of the torture memoranda that rendered the Geneva Conventions obsolete to the Guantanamo detainees was none other than the former Office of Legal Counsel, John Yoo. Yoo not only wrote that torture was 'okay' on these detainees, he also has made several historical and legal inaccuracies in his writings. First of all, the authors of the Constitution did not make the executive branch the 'strongest' branch. Having read the Federalist Papers (the ideals behind the Constitution), it is clear that the legislative branch was to be the center of government, with the executive branch carrying out the laws that it created. Furthermore, the judicial branch did not 'interpret' the actions of the executive, but RATHER, interpreted the Constitution in its application to cases that it reviewed. Yoo's memoranda prohibited just about one thing -- homicide itself. After this memoranda, the military had a free-for-all on not only its highest-value detainees, but all of its "suspected terrorists."

In 1949, the United States signed the Geneva Conventions.

In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the procedures used against Hamdan violated the Geneva Conventions and that any arguments detailing that he was not "entitled to these protections" were faulty.

Since 9/11, former President Bush claimed that "suspected terrorists" were not covered in these protections because they were not defined as enemy combatants.

In early 2002, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez signed a memoranda claiming that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to Al-Quaeda and Taliban prisoners. Congress called for his resignation in 2007, with numbers of congressmen of both parties claiming that he had lost the trust of the American people and tarnished his own reputation.

In September of 2007, Gonzalez resigned.

Leaders such as Gonzalez, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration attempted to justify torture through legal means, and when that failed, by re-defining what torture meant. Sleep deprivation, loud music, stress induced by prisoners' fears, sensory deprivation and beatings authorized by the U.S. government were nothing BUT torture, nothing BUT outrages against human dignity. In some cases, soldiers who were following orders were convicted, but their commanding officers and higher-ups were not.

These same soldiers failed to receive adequate guidance on interrogation procedures and what was and was not torture. Instead, the culture of torture in these prisons such as Bagram, Abu-Ghraib and Guantanamo became the norm. Soldiers no longer tortured prisoners to acquire information, but for their own amusement. Smiling soldiers took pictures holding some of these detainees on dog leashes.

The "reason for death" on the death certificates of some detainees was identified as homicide.

The U.S. military, following its marching orders form the Sec. of Defense and of course, the Chief Commanding Officer, invented their own justice.

This is not the justice that the United States, as a free and democratic country, holds dear. As a member of the West, the United States is not "morally superior" to other countries or immune from the war crimes that it committed in these offshore prison centers. For too long, the government has not been held accountable for the damage that has been done to these prisoners, the disrespect of human dignity and the loss of the trust of the American people.

It is time to charge these individuals, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, commanding officers, military soldiers and the many others involved in the justification and execution of torture on detainees, for their war crimes and their violation of the Geneva Conventions.

As Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism, "human dignity needs a new guarantee which can be found only in a new political principle, in a new law on earth, whose validity this time must comprehend the whole of humanity..."

It is the responsibility of our leaders and ourselves, as citizens, to finally address these crimes and redeem ourselves in the eyes of the greater international community. The outrages against human dignity, the U.S. Constitution, justice and the pillars of democracy itself cannot go unnoticed, unchanged or unresolved.

-Minnie

Sources:

Taxi to the Dark Side, a documentary by Alex Gibney
"Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantanamo" by Neil Lewis
"Naming Names at Gitmo" by Tim Golden
Full Text of Supreme Court Ruling, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt

Name-calling

2009-05-20T19:06:00.000-07:00

Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose blog I really enjoy, nails Christopher Hitchens but good for his slurring of Wanda Sykes as a "black dyke" in person and a 'sable sapphist" in print:

To call his statements racist, or homophobic, demeans racist and homophobes. Indeed Hitchens displays something more than that--weakness. Weakness is the root of these sorts of slurs--an unwillingness to do the hard work of taking your opponents at their merits. So you name call and strawman. You mock what you don't understand, what you fear.

I think that's about right. (Link to original here.) It may go too far to say he "fears" Sykes or what she represents in any meaningful way. But using the phrasing of "sable sapphist" (which I presumed I was misreading when I first read his post, because it seemed too ridiculous) is not that far off from "black dyke". Sure, it's not an actual slur, and is just clever enough to be written in a respectable forum like Slate. But to define someone in that way--to call her that not once, but twice, and even Capitalize the Title of Sable Sapphist--is clearly demeaning someone by reducing them to a simplified identity.

And if demeaning someone by reducing them to a simplified identity framed pejoratively (particularly one based on unchosen characteristics such as race or sexual orientation) is not racism or homophobia or something of the like, it's darn close.

Torture in America

2009-05-19T08:01:00.000-07:00

No, not the government-approved kind. This is a man who was a coyote in Arizona (human smuggler) who was then kidnapped for his money.

Just sick:

Meanwhile, Valencia had defied the kidnappers and called police, who listened to Andrade "scream and howl in pain" over the phone as the kidnappers tried to cut off his ear and a finger. The torture would continue until Valencia came up with the ransom, the kidnappers told her...

Andrade was pistol-whipped and beaten with a baseball bat and the butt of a rifle. The kidnappers tried to gouge out his eye and slashed open his left eyebrow. They burned his back as well -- presumably, police said, with a blowtorch found at the scene....

..."Jaime felt his legs being forced apart and heard Aldo say he was going to get his money," the report said. The kidnappers then sodomized him with a broomstick, a pair of scissors and a wooden dowel used to hang clothes in a closet.

When we talk about enhanced interrogation techniques, disproportionate response, or similar policies, it may do us some good to remember that the human capacity to commit evil acts is immense and that we must always rein in individual discretion. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, even if it's only absolute power over one person, in one place, at one time.

And honestly, forget the guy who said there are rarely true victims in these crimes. If you shoot my wife and I shoot you, no, you're not really a victim. If you're a drug runner and I kill you for your money--unrelated to any damage your activities did to me--you're still a victim. If no sinner can be a victim, we wouldn't have many left.

-Chris Pagliarella

Thoughts After Notre Dame

2009-05-18T20:08:00.001-07:00

Despite my general conservatism when it comes to matters of Catholicism, I couldn't convince myself to get that worked up over the honorary degree presented to President Obama. Maybe it was because I presumed that Notre Dame wasn't as Catholic a university anymore as a top tier school. (I was wrong--it's still eighty percent among the student body.) Or maybe it's because I thought Gerald Ford was the first pro-choice President to receive an honorary degree from Notre Dame (though this statement from when he was President looks much more pro-life then his later remarks.)

Overall, I didn't particularly like the President's speech. He certainly made use of a tactic I admit to once suggesting liberals use more--advocating policies by appealing to religious values that overlap with secular goals--to the point where it made some people uncomfortable. (Note: I think Roff is wrong in that article insofar as he is interpreting Obama's appeal to a particular strain of liberal Catholicism equivalent to asking the Church to change to fit a secular ideal.) He also stated a position on a conscience clause for health care providers somewhat contrary to the one stated earlier, depending on who you believe. (My guess--the President was only talking about abortion, leaving stem cell research and Plan B as sticking points.) Most notably, I felt it was generally a bit out of line to "bring the debate" on these issues to the commencement speech, outside of addressing the general brouhaha. Boycotting a commencement speaker who disagrees with you on something seems a bit childish; boycotting one who will be advocating those views to some extent makes a little more sense.

At the end of the day, if this general discussion helps push forward the Ryan-DeLauro bill for general abortion reduction (text here), fantastic. If Democrats can actually find a way to reduce abortion by going after those sought due to economic disadvantage (which is a sizable chunk, particularly if you throw in assistance for mothers who want to continue on in college as this bill does), President Obama will have his "Common Ground" approach and the Democratic Party will be an even more serious player in the religious community. Given how many abortions are sought for other reasons, however, it's quite possible that "95-10" will turn out to be a pipe dream--and if it looks like reducing access to abortion is the only way to reduce abortion, common ground gets a lot smaller.

-Chris Pagliarella

Welcome!

2009-05-18T19:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks for coming by and checking us out. This is the Free Period, a new blog project of mine and Minnie's. Over the next few weeks, we will be discussing politics, culture, and other things that rile up partly-employed Ivy Leaguers, while hopefully adding more contributors to our ranks. In the meantime, feel free to poke around our new home!

-Chris Pagliarella