Of all the boxing this week, I saw both more and less than normal, on account of Passover and visiting Chicago. On the one hand, it meant I missed Friday Night Fights on ESPN2 (Airport) and Bell/Adamek (Seder). On the other hand, I did get to see Hopkins/Calzaghe after the Seder was over, which I wouldn't otherwise have been able to, along with (most of) the online webcast of Henry/Diaconu, and of course "Wednesday" Night Fights (in quotes because the endless Red Sox/Yankees game pushed it well into Thursday).
Wednesday
Chazz Witherspoon (23-0, 15 KOs) UD10 Domonic Jenkins (13-8-1, 6 KOs
Honestly, I don't remember enough about this fight to give good commentary. I do remember that I thought Witherspoon won cleanly, after an early spurt where Jenkins looked like he might have tried to make a go of it. I also remember Teddy Atlas telling us that if Witherspoon really wants to be considered a prospect, he had to knock out Jenkins (which several other fellow prospects had done in Jenkins' 7 previous losses). Eh. A knockout is nice, and it's not like Jenkins has a granite chin, but I thought Witherspoon looked fine this outing. 15 KOs aside, he doesn't really have that much pop in his fists. He's a boxer. Now, how far will boxing skill take him against a higher caliber than Jenkins? We'll see.
Peter "Kid Chocolate" Quillin (18-0, 14 KOs) UD10 Antwun Echols (31-8-4, 27 KOs)
Now, this was a fight where I really wanted to see a knockout. Echols is a three-time title challenger who is at the end of the rope. Since 2004, he is 0-3-3 (all, it should be said, against reasonably solid opposition) with one loss by knockout. I saw him in his fight immediately previous to this one, against untested prospect Michael Walker after Allan Green bailed last minute. A confluence of factors: Echols' veteran savvy, Walker stepping up for the first time, Walker taking the fight on very short notice -- all led to Echols escaping with a draw. But anyone who saw the fight could see his legs were not there. Had he been in with a power puncher like Green, he would have been destroyed.
And Quillin has a reputation as a power puncher. So I told my friends: "this one is going to end by KO -- possibly a career-ending KO." Wrong by me. To be clear, Quillin absolutely dominated this fight from start to finish. But he displayed no killer instinct when he had Echols hurt. Sure, the older fighter exhibited some solid survival techniques, but he was not being pressured in any meaningful sense. Though the biggest win of Quillin's career, it was somewhat of a disappointing outing, and I hope he shows more aggression next time out.
As for Echols, he looks done. Certainly he needs to stop taking fights against young punchers like Quillin and Green, as they are fights Echols cannot win. The last thing to go in a fighter is power, and Echols still has it. But he doesn't have the legs to stand and trade with a guy with dynamite fists, which takes away his only winning option. It didn't happen tonight, but if keeps up signing for these sort of fights, Echols is going to get seriously hurt.
Saturday
Adrian Diaconu (25-0, 15 KOs) UD12 Chris Henry (21-1, 17 KOs)
This fight was webcast by Donkingtv.com, after a relatively successful experiment doing the same with the Spinks/Phillips title fight in St. Louis. Unfortunately, the feed cut out in the middle of the 10th round in what was a competitive and exciting fight, leaving us assorted fans in the dark as to the outcome. While this was disappointing (as one person said, "why doesn't this happen at Cory Spinks fights?"), these sorts of things happen with new technology, and I remain glad we got to see the fight at all.
Anyway. Going into the tenth I had it 5 rounds to 4 for Diaconu, but he seemed to be fading. Since I have no idea how those last few rounds actually played out, I can't comment on the decision. What I can say is that both guys looked good, and I particularly liked Diaconu's adjustments after Henry really dominated the first round. I'd seen Diaconu once before annihilating Rico Hoye in his only other major fight, so I knew he could smoke guys, but this time he also showed he had some ring smarts.
On the bad side for Diaconu, the aforementioned fading late was worrisome. More dangerously, he eats uppercuts like they're delicious, delicious candy. That something Henry was able to exploit throughout the fight, particularly when nothing else was working, and kept the fight close even when Diaconu seemed on the cusp of pulling away.
Rumor is Diaconu might fight Glen Johnson next, which would be a stellar fight and one I think Johnson could win (but an excellent learning experience for Diaconu). As for Henry, he was pretty unknown coming into this fight, and losing rarely helps careers. But he didn't look out of his league or anything, so a few bounce-back fights and he could put himself back on the map of contenders.
Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) SD12 Bernard Hopkins (48-5-1, 32 KOs)
The more I watch boxing, the more I'm realizing I have my own perspective on fights that not every other observer shares. I care a lot more about quality of punches over quantity -- I'm likely to reward even a couple clean hard punches over a lot of pitty-pat work. And I gather that some people share this view, and others don't, which is the why Calzaghe/Hopkins decision is causing such heated debate. On the one hand, SC of BLH thinks anyone who scored the fight for Hopkins is crazy. Well, I guess Dan Rafael is crazy. And I, too, saw it for Hopkins -- albeit very close with many tight rounds. The distinguishing factor is that even though Calzaghe was landing more, Hopkins was landing effectively, and that swings me as a judge more than flashy aggression.
None of this is to take away from Calzaghe's victory. After being firmly out-fought in the first three rounds by The Executioner (including a first-round knockdown that seemed to embarrass him more than hurt him), he was able to substantially turn the fight in his favor -- picking up the tempo and pressuring Hopkins far more than the 43 year old enjoyed. Hopkins is not an easy man to even bend to your will in the ring, and that Calzaghe was able to do that at all is a tremendous accomplishment. Even insofar as we debate what actually happened during that long low blow break (I think Hopkins was simply smart enough to know that, hey, he's 43 and getting a free rest. Why wouldn't he take it? It's not like he cares about fan reaction normally), it's clear that Calzaghe did manage to get inside Hopkins' head, and that might have been his greatest weapon.
But still. A lot of Calzaghe's flurries felt like shoe-shine work to me, and shoe-shining looks a lot more damaging than it is. By contrast, when Hopkins landed his counter right (including the beautiful one that caused the knockdown), it did damage. Inside, Hopkins knows just how to work inside a clinch to actually land punches that hurt. And while it's true that Calzaghe did manage to push Hopkins out of his element, let's not forget he also wasn't exactly showing Miguel Cotto levels of focus (his father basically had to smack him when he started complaining in the corner about Hopkins' "cheating". Not that I disagree -- the generous way to describe Hopkins is a "cagey veteran", or perhaps "it ain't cheating if you don't get caught").
So, in my mind, Hopkins still has not been convincingly beaten. That's not saying this decision was highway robbery or anything like that. Only that, as is so often the case in Hopkins fights, the scorecards are arguable. Calzaghe won that argument where it mattered.
Oh, and one more thing that might betray my total amateur status in terms of boxing strategy. It seems to me that, when Calzaghe goes into one of his furious flailing combination bits, he'd be vulnerable to the uppercut, no? I mean, those punches look wide to me, and if one can overcome the sheer speed of it all, you'd think a fighter could sit down on a good uppercut and catch Joe Cool clean. No?
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Maryland Reverses Hideous Rape Ruling
Thank God: The Maryland Court of Appeals (Maryland's highest court) has unanimously reversed a lower court ruling which held that a woman could not withdraw consent once penetration had occurred. The argument was that the common law held only the "deflowering" to be the crime in rape, so once that had occurred the damage was done. As a proud Marylander, it was extremely embarrassing to be associated with that sort of logic, and I'm glad it's been officially overruled.
Via Feministe
UPDATE: As I wrote in the other post, I stake no claim as to whether this case, on its facts (the defendant claims he withdrew five seconds after consent was withdrawn -- I don't know if that account is disputed by the victim), should have yielded a conviction. But as a point of law, the principle that rape cannot happen once penetration has been achieved is atrocious and rightfully has been overruled. Appellate courts rule on matters of law, not fact, and the legal point at issue here clearly needed to be reversed.
Via Feministe
UPDATE: As I wrote in the other post, I stake no claim as to whether this case, on its facts (the defendant claims he withdrew five seconds after consent was withdrawn -- I don't know if that account is disputed by the victim), should have yielded a conviction. But as a point of law, the principle that rape cannot happen once penetration has been achieved is atrocious and rightfully has been overruled. Appellate courts rule on matters of law, not fact, and the legal point at issue here clearly needed to be reversed.
Out to Lunch
And then some. I'm leaving early tomorrow morning to visit the University of Chicago. I then fly out of Chicago that night to come home for Passover. I won't be back at Carleton until Sunday afternoon, and, since I'm not bringing my computer along, I'll be mostly out of contact.
Have a good weekend, and to my Jewish readers, a good seder.
Have a good weekend, and to my Jewish readers, a good seder.
Eight Year Old Yemeni Girl Sues Over Forced Marriage
An eight-year old girl from Yemen went to court after being forced into marriage with a 30-year old man. Under Yemeni law, she was too young to prosecute a case, but upon hearing her complain the presiding judge ordered the arrest of both her "husband" and her father.
I debated for a long time over how to write up this post. My first instinct was applaud the girl for being a total bad-ass in this situation. But that felt inappropriate. She demonstrated tremendous courage, no doubt about it. But the fact remains she never should have been put in this situation in the first place. It is far too much to ask of an eight year old, to have to go to court to win her freedom from sexual slavery. She is clearly an extraordinary girl, and she has more than earned her "respectful life" (not that such a thing needs to be earned). Hopefully, her case can serve as a spark point to aid other girls, similarly situated, who do not possess super-human courage and cannot escape on their own.
“My father beat me and told me that I must marry this man, and if I did not, I would be raped and no law and no sheikh in this country would help me. I refused but I couldn’t stop the marriage,” Nojoud Nasser told the Yemen Times. “I asked and begged my mother, father, and aunt to help me to get divorced. They answered, ‘We can do nothing. If you want you can go to court by yourself.’ So this is what I have done,” she said.
Nasser said that she was exposed to sexual abuse and domestic violence by her husband. “He used to do bad things to me, and I had no idea as to what a marriage is. I would run from one room to another in order to escape, but in the end he would catch me and beat me and then continued to do what he wanted. I cried so much but no one listened to me. One day I ran away from him and came to the court and talked to them.”
“Whenever I wanted to play in the yard he beat me and asked me to go to the bedroom with him. This lasted for two months," added Nasser. "He was too tough with me, and whenever I asked him for mercy, he beat me and slapped me and then used me. I just want to have a respectful life and divorce him.”
I debated for a long time over how to write up this post. My first instinct was applaud the girl for being a total bad-ass in this situation. But that felt inappropriate. She demonstrated tremendous courage, no doubt about it. But the fact remains she never should have been put in this situation in the first place. It is far too much to ask of an eight year old, to have to go to court to win her freedom from sexual slavery. She is clearly an extraordinary girl, and she has more than earned her "respectful life" (not that such a thing needs to be earned). Hopefully, her case can serve as a spark point to aid other girls, similarly situated, who do not possess super-human courage and cannot escape on their own.
Talkin' Sophisticated
There's a new study being reported claiming that there is a positive correlation between candidates who use "sophisticated" language and the amount of support they get from highly educated voters. This effect apparently operates independent of the substantive policy dimensions of the speaker's rhetoric.
Matt Yglesias, observing that less-educated voters weren't turned off by complex rhetoric (they just don't exhibit the positive effect as strongly), thinks that there's no downside to quoting Aeschylus in the stump speech.
Ideally, perhaps, but I think we might be forgetting the lessons of the "bitter" fiasco. The less-educated voters in the study might not intrinsically care about the type of rhetoric their candidate's use. But then, I doubt the study authors subjected them to a follow-up barrage of media coverage screeching about how out of touch the candidate is ("Greek playwrights? Ewwwww!!!!"). The media is perfectly happy crafting its own narrative about how they assume less-educated voters "will" respond to these sorts of things, and then you get weeks of coverage about how Barack Obama is an elitist who is loathed by everyone outside metropolitan San Francisco.
Matt Yglesias, observing that less-educated voters weren't turned off by complex rhetoric (they just don't exhibit the positive effect as strongly), thinks that there's no downside to quoting Aeschylus in the stump speech.
Ideally, perhaps, but I think we might be forgetting the lessons of the "bitter" fiasco. The less-educated voters in the study might not intrinsically care about the type of rhetoric their candidate's use. But then, I doubt the study authors subjected them to a follow-up barrage of media coverage screeching about how out of touch the candidate is ("Greek playwrights? Ewwwww!!!!"). The media is perfectly happy crafting its own narrative about how they assume less-educated voters "will" respond to these sorts of things, and then you get weeks of coverage about how Barack Obama is an elitist who is loathed by everyone outside metropolitan San Francisco.
Clean Government in The Congo
I have an unexplained interest in The (D.R.) Congo, of which I've blogged on before. Blessed (or cursed) with fabulous mineral wealth, there are few places in the world that deserve piece more than the Western Europe sized nation. Under Belgian rule, it endured one of the most brutal colonizations in Africa (not an easy title to win), followed by systematic plundering by the Mobutu Sese Seko, and then a horrific civil war that claimed the lives of millions.
But, under the leadership of Joseph Kabila, the country has just completed its first fair and open election. And the Washington Post reports that reforms are -- slowly and fitfully -- beginning to set in. A new rule posits that 40% of all governmental revenue shall flow outward to state legislatures (though the money has yet to arrive). Bureaucracies are slowly coming together and starting to work. And local lawmakers are beginning to put together reform packages -- and are worried about being voted out of office if they don't deliver.
It's that last part that makes me smile. Is it symbolic? Yes. But it's symbolic of change. It's symbolic of a government that feels it needs to show something to its people. And its symbolic of a society that -- after so many years of darkness -- may finally see hope for a better future.
But, under the leadership of Joseph Kabila, the country has just completed its first fair and open election. And the Washington Post reports that reforms are -- slowly and fitfully -- beginning to set in. A new rule posits that 40% of all governmental revenue shall flow outward to state legislatures (though the money has yet to arrive). Bureaucracies are slowly coming together and starting to work. And local lawmakers are beginning to put together reform packages -- and are worried about being voted out of office if they don't deliver.
The other day, 60 of the 102 salaried lawmakers showed up for a session that began about an hour late.
They were supposed to hear a report about the country's corrupt customs office, but that was postponed because the report was not yet typed. They were supposed to go over the details of a new property tax system, but that was also postponed, because the property tax expert was not around to explain.
The president of the assembly, Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza, seemed frustrated, but for a reason that has never really existed in Congo: fear of not being reelected.
"The people of Katanga, they are pressuring me!" he said, rapping his gavel on the podium. "They want to see change, but they see I am only growing fat!"
Something else was notable about the session, which was broadcast on state TV: On a sunny Saturday afternoon, a couple of dozen people showed up to observe their government in action, and not all of them were the lawmakers' drivers.
They included a Congolese human rights activist, a few miners and Boniface Mbuya, a 28-year-old law student who regularly attends because, he said, "maybe someday I'll be a great man." He was getting used to the new system, he said, and was still trying to shake off a profound sense of repression and an almost cult-like reverence for the powerful.
Though the provincial governor recently installed a suggestion box outside the assembly, for instance, Mbuya said he hasn't used it yet.
"I always have this ambition to write something and drop it inside," he said. "But maybe the government would say, 'Oh, these students, look at what they've written.' I fear it." Still, he supported the new constitution, voted in the 2006 elections and said that he expected his representatives to deliver.
[...]
Attempting to satisfy the rising expectations since the 2006 elections, the governor of Katanga, Moise Katumbi -- who presides over an area the size of France -- has made several symbolic gestures.
Though he has no official power to do so, he decreed a new minimum wage of $150 a month. He bought several ambulances and hearses with his own money. He levied new property taxes, planted roses at the airport and painted downtown shops in shades of salmon.
It's that last part that makes me smile. Is it symbolic? Yes. But it's symbolic of change. It's symbolic of a government that feels it needs to show something to its people. And its symbolic of a society that -- after so many years of darkness -- may finally see hope for a better future.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Never Give Up, Never Surrender
The Corner is worried that President Bush is about to submit to an "unconditional surrender" on Global Warming (I swear I'm not making that rhetoric up). I haven't heard that appellation used since history books about the Japanese and WWII. But I guess since the consequences of planet-wide climate devastation would make Hiroshima look like a brush-fire, maybe it's about time we get over our "honor" and admit the reality that's staring us in the eye?
Via Balloon Juice
Via Balloon Juice
The Legal Implications of Loads of Litigation
The US Supreme Court just handed down Baze v. Rees, a highly fractured 7-2 opinion allowing execution by lethal injection.
My view on capital punishment lies roughly opposite of Feddie's: I don't have any intrinsic, moral objection to the death penalty, but I long since have become convinced that the death penalty system in America is so damaged as to make it virtually beyond repair -- up to and surpassing Justice Stewart's description of it being "wanton and freakish." Consequently, I think as applied it runs afoul of constitutional due process and cruel and unusual punishment protections, and I am not optimistic about the ability of policymakers to find a remedy. On the sub-question of whether lethal injection particularly is impermissible (the subject of this case), I stake no claim: that is a fact-based question about the reliability and pain quotient of the procedure upon which I do not have the relevant information.
But that's not actually what I want to talk about. Rather, it appears (from SCOTUSblog's summary, which I have no reason to doubt -- but I haven't read the opinion itself) that Justice Thomas' concurrence (joined by Scalia) rendered an attack on the plurality claiming that the standard their ruling would lay out would lead to an excess of litigation, potentially grinding the death penalty machinery to a stand-still. My question is why this is a legally relevant consideration?
Now on one level, that answer is easy for a legal pragmatist such as myself -- I don't think any consideration, particularly as to outcomes, is per se irrelevant (though some are far more relevant than others). But for the more...metaphysically minded judges, I admit to some confusion about where trying to insure that death comes quickly to our enemies (to borrow from Morbo) becomes a constitutional principle which can affect and even change our criminal justice protections? To my mind, it seems like -- even from the position that the death penalty is theoretically constitutional -- there is nothing flowing from there that proves that the due process and cruel and unusual punishment hurdles our system has to overcome might be high -- perhaps inordinately high.
Psychologically, this is related to what I termed the philosophy of the limit, the need some people have that there be concrete and solid limitations on the contours of justice, because the alternative means a potentially endless struggle for the ideal. Scalia and Thomas would not, I presume, disagree that the constitutional protections for due process, or against cruel and unusual punishment, act against our ability to implement the death penalty in some way. At the same time, they also believe that "ideally", the death penalty is consistent with these protections. What they can't accept, however, is that practically speaking the hurdles these protections put up may be extremely high -- they may require copious amounts of litigation to resolve, they may demand intense fact-sensitive adjudication and multiple layers of appeal. And that might make the death penalty so hard to implement that it becomes effectively impossible. They can't accept that, so they construct their legal schematics so their limits lie comfortably within that which will allow the machinery of death to proceed smoothly.
Given the constraints of Scalia and Thomas' putative ideology, that is not a legitimate "constitutional" leap. It is a legitimate leap for a pragmatist -- but both Thomas and Scalia loathe pragmatism. So I remain confused. Where does the justification for that sort of reasoning come from?
My view on capital punishment lies roughly opposite of Feddie's: I don't have any intrinsic, moral objection to the death penalty, but I long since have become convinced that the death penalty system in America is so damaged as to make it virtually beyond repair -- up to and surpassing Justice Stewart's description of it being "wanton and freakish." Consequently, I think as applied it runs afoul of constitutional due process and cruel and unusual punishment protections, and I am not optimistic about the ability of policymakers to find a remedy. On the sub-question of whether lethal injection particularly is impermissible (the subject of this case), I stake no claim: that is a fact-based question about the reliability and pain quotient of the procedure upon which I do not have the relevant information.
But that's not actually what I want to talk about. Rather, it appears (from SCOTUSblog's summary, which I have no reason to doubt -- but I haven't read the opinion itself) that Justice Thomas' concurrence (joined by Scalia) rendered an attack on the plurality claiming that the standard their ruling would lay out would lead to an excess of litigation, potentially grinding the death penalty machinery to a stand-still. My question is why this is a legally relevant consideration?
Now on one level, that answer is easy for a legal pragmatist such as myself -- I don't think any consideration, particularly as to outcomes, is per se irrelevant (though some are far more relevant than others). But for the more...metaphysically minded judges, I admit to some confusion about where trying to insure that death comes quickly to our enemies (to borrow from Morbo) becomes a constitutional principle which can affect and even change our criminal justice protections? To my mind, it seems like -- even from the position that the death penalty is theoretically constitutional -- there is nothing flowing from there that proves that the due process and cruel and unusual punishment hurdles our system has to overcome might be high -- perhaps inordinately high.
Psychologically, this is related to what I termed the philosophy of the limit, the need some people have that there be concrete and solid limitations on the contours of justice, because the alternative means a potentially endless struggle for the ideal. Scalia and Thomas would not, I presume, disagree that the constitutional protections for due process, or against cruel and unusual punishment, act against our ability to implement the death penalty in some way. At the same time, they also believe that "ideally", the death penalty is consistent with these protections. What they can't accept, however, is that practically speaking the hurdles these protections put up may be extremely high -- they may require copious amounts of litigation to resolve, they may demand intense fact-sensitive adjudication and multiple layers of appeal. And that might make the death penalty so hard to implement that it becomes effectively impossible. They can't accept that, so they construct their legal schematics so their limits lie comfortably within that which will allow the machinery of death to proceed smoothly.
Given the constraints of Scalia and Thomas' putative ideology, that is not a legitimate "constitutional" leap. It is a legitimate leap for a pragmatist -- but both Thomas and Scalia loathe pragmatism. So I remain confused. Where does the justification for that sort of reasoning come from?
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Breathing Life
There was just one more thing I wanted to follow up on with regards to my S-V-S post. I had asked whether or not The Apostate had used the critical language in her post ("erase", "lived experience", "silenced") sarcastically or not. I could certainly see it, though what I was hoping for was ironic. In my comments, she told me she was "half-sarcastic."
This matters to me because, as I said, I do not want the tools and rhetoric I value so much to be seen as an adversary, as an enemy, to those who need it. But of course, often they are. The question is, can they be reclaimed?
Post-modernists will tell you that every narrative, every tale, contains within it the seeds of its own destruction -- or at least subversion. In The Alchemy of Race and Rights, Patricia Williams wrote:
On the one hand, the language of law has for much of American history been the enemy of Blacks, and the rhetoric of rights mocking. Nobody, more so than African-Americans, would have more justification to be cynical about law's capacity for justice, or the ability of "rights" to protect.
But Blacks did not abandon rights. They did not abandon the language that had tormented them for so long. They clung to it harder. They squeezed rights so hard that they breathed life into what was a hitherto dead concept. Rights talk, even though it was for so long a hollow hope, also had a kernel of hope contained into that Blacks grasped onto and made into something real.
Likewise, I believe that within the critical concepts The Apostate uses -- the demand for space and recognition, the protest against privilege and presumption, the refusal to be erased to fit some master narrative -- there is a spark of truth. It is a spark that we cannot cede if we want to be truly free. The only reason the enlistment of these terms feels so mocking, I dare say, is because of that spark. Because even though they represent our truth and our needs and our very lives, they often as not are found on the other side from ourselves. And that hurts.
This matters to me because, as I said, I do not want the tools and rhetoric I value so much to be seen as an adversary, as an enemy, to those who need it. But of course, often they are. The question is, can they be reclaimed?
Post-modernists will tell you that every narrative, every tale, contains within it the seeds of its own destruction -- or at least subversion. In The Alchemy of Race and Rights, Patricia Williams wrote:
To say that blacks never believed in rights is true. Yet it is also true that backs believed in them so much and so hard that we gave them life where there was none before; we held onto them, put the hope of them into our wombs, mothered them and not the notion of them.
On the one hand, the language of law has for much of American history been the enemy of Blacks, and the rhetoric of rights mocking. Nobody, more so than African-Americans, would have more justification to be cynical about law's capacity for justice, or the ability of "rights" to protect.
But Blacks did not abandon rights. They did not abandon the language that had tormented them for so long. They clung to it harder. They squeezed rights so hard that they breathed life into what was a hitherto dead concept. Rights talk, even though it was for so long a hollow hope, also had a kernel of hope contained into that Blacks grasped onto and made into something real.
Likewise, I believe that within the critical concepts The Apostate uses -- the demand for space and recognition, the protest against privilege and presumption, the refusal to be erased to fit some master narrative -- there is a spark of truth. It is a spark that we cannot cede if we want to be truly free. The only reason the enlistment of these terms feels so mocking, I dare say, is because of that spark. Because even though they represent our truth and our needs and our very lives, they often as not are found on the other side from ourselves. And that hurts.
Pure Blood
An outlet called Israel Insider is breathlessly telling us that *gasp* Obama's preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is an ex-Muslim! Indeed, they go a step further: "like Obama", Wright is an ex-Muslim, and they speculate that they are working in tandem to secure their political ambitions as Islamic spies:
Now, I've never understood why the Islamo-phobes in our community see "ex-Muslim" as a bad thing (for my part, I couldn't care less if you're ex-anything, so long as you're progressive -- which is why I can support the writings of ex-Muslim atheists like The Apostate, and the political campaigns of ex-Christian Muslim Keith Ellison). But now, I think we have a clue. Islam, it is implied, represents corruption of blood. Obama, by virtue of his father, and Wright, by virtue of his young flirtation with Islam, do not have Limpieza de sangre, and thus are suspect.
It's a sickening trope, all the more so coming from fellow Jews. Unfortunately, to a far larger extent than I'd like the Obama campaign is really bringing out some of the worst in my community (despite the strong and vocal support Obama gets from many Jews, which should not be washed over).
For if both men were Muslims trying to realize their political ambitions, then Wright's Church provided a valuable shelter from prying questions about both men's religious and political loyalties. It would serve to whitewash their shared Muslim past, a secret both men have every reason to conceal, now more than ever.
Now, I've never understood why the Islamo-phobes in our community see "ex-Muslim" as a bad thing (for my part, I couldn't care less if you're ex-anything, so long as you're progressive -- which is why I can support the writings of ex-Muslim atheists like The Apostate, and the political campaigns of ex-Christian Muslim Keith Ellison). But now, I think we have a clue. Islam, it is implied, represents corruption of blood. Obama, by virtue of his father, and Wright, by virtue of his young flirtation with Islam, do not have Limpieza de sangre, and thus are suspect.
It's a sickening trope, all the more so coming from fellow Jews. Unfortunately, to a far larger extent than I'd like the Obama campaign is really bringing out some of the worst in my community (despite the strong and vocal support Obama gets from many Jews, which should not be washed over).
Backlash Hypothesis
Kevin Drum flags some dangers ahead for Democrats if the refuse to nominate Obama...and Hillary.
In the former case, Jerome Karabel notes that political loyalties are solidified in one's 20s. Coincidentally, that age group represents Barack Obama's base. If they feel spurned at the end of the primary process, they not only could sit out the election, their view of the Democratic Party could be jaundiced for the rest of their lives.
In the latter case, Amanda Fortini says women are beginning to get restless -- not that Clinton is losing, but that people are denying the role sexism is playing in the campaign. The Clinton campaign awoke "sexism in America, long lying dormant, like some feral, tranquilized animal," but too many (in the immortal phrase of Ann Bartow) supposedly liberal doods shout down any woman who dares bring it up (see also, Ampersand). If their frustration boils over, they could stay home election night.
Drum thinks that ultimately, neither will play a big role in the general, as the prospect of a McCain Presidency draws everyone back to the polls. Color me unconvinced. The politically engaged always over-estimate how much "the other guy is scary as hell" serves as a motivator. I will say that I'm more worried short-term about women staying home or crossing over than I am about the youth vote (not because I don't think nominating Clinton would have an effect, but because I think that Obama has pushed their engagement to such heights that at worst they'd "recede" back to normal figures). But of course, I think that if Clinton gets the nod after coming in behind in the pledged delegates, Democrats will also watch the Black vote disintegrate before their very eyes, which probably would be even worse. And the long-term harms of passing over Obama that Karabel notes are a unique danger that I hadn't thought of before.
In the former case, Jerome Karabel notes that political loyalties are solidified in one's 20s. Coincidentally, that age group represents Barack Obama's base. If they feel spurned at the end of the primary process, they not only could sit out the election, their view of the Democratic Party could be jaundiced for the rest of their lives.
In the latter case, Amanda Fortini says women are beginning to get restless -- not that Clinton is losing, but that people are denying the role sexism is playing in the campaign. The Clinton campaign awoke "sexism in America, long lying dormant, like some feral, tranquilized animal," but too many (in the immortal phrase of Ann Bartow) supposedly liberal doods shout down any woman who dares bring it up (see also, Ampersand). If their frustration boils over, they could stay home election night.
Drum thinks that ultimately, neither will play a big role in the general, as the prospect of a McCain Presidency draws everyone back to the polls. Color me unconvinced. The politically engaged always over-estimate how much "the other guy is scary as hell" serves as a motivator. I will say that I'm more worried short-term about women staying home or crossing over than I am about the youth vote (not because I don't think nominating Clinton would have an effect, but because I think that Obama has pushed their engagement to such heights that at worst they'd "recede" back to normal figures). But of course, I think that if Clinton gets the nod after coming in behind in the pledged delegates, Democrats will also watch the Black vote disintegrate before their very eyes, which probably would be even worse. And the long-term harms of passing over Obama that Karabel notes are a unique danger that I hadn't thought of before.
S-V-S
A few years back, I read an article by an anti-colonialist law professor, Makau Mutua, who indicted the prevailing Western conception of human rights as operating on an "S-V-S" model: Savage-Victim-Savior. Simply put, the Western imagination imputes upon the third world as a totality the status as savages and victims (and people can reside in both categories), who need to be "saved" by the (Christian?) West. It's old-school imperialism in (barely) new guise, and needs to be resisted.
A few years prior to that, I had read Elie Wiesel's Night. And I recall his prayers for bombs to fall on his concentration camp -- for even though it might mean his death, it also could lead to his salvation. The great (and all-too-rare) heroes of the Holocaust were, after all, the rescuers.
The interplay of these somewhat conflicting ideas is what makes so interesting this post by "The Apostate", an American of Pakistani birth, and a Muslim-turned-Atheist. She fled theocracy and her entire family, fearing that her own family would try to kill her. She looked to feminism as a source of strength, one that told her that her degradation was not justified, that there was another path.
But now, from many in the "third wave", she feels hostility and attack. Her critiques of Islam have gotten her labeled "racist" by people who have adopted the religion, even as it was her birth religion. Third wavers sneer that abortion is a white woman's concern. But for her, getting pregnant would have meant the end of her life: "when I got raped and my first fear was not AIDS (and this in a third world country) — it was pregnancy." They demand she look past her own life, her "lived experience" in a theocracy (her term, not mine) to see that Islam doesn't need reforming because "there’s nothing wrong with it to begin with."
And thus we have a problem. We in the west do have trouble humanizing those outside of Europe and America. And the failure of imagination can be brutal. Persons of progressive sway -- no matter what their other proclivities -- feel the pull of colonialist and racist past, and we are terrified of it. We do not want to re-incarnate the image of the savage, or the agency-less victim. So we back away.
But while we are busy with our fretful mutterings about whether any particular act of engagement is colonization, people are dying. Women are dying, men are dying, children are dying. Jews are dying, Muslims are dying, Christians are dying, Hindus are dying, Atheists are dying. The dead and the dying are all-too-uninterested in whether their savior has earned their bona fides as an anti-colonialist. Wiesel, I'm sure, would have been equally happy to have been rescued by Soviet bombs as allied ones. He, and they, just wonder why nobody will rescue them. Fear of the S(avage) and V(ictim) means no S(avior). There is a cost to waiting for moral purity, and it's not the impure who have to pay it.
Turning back to the abstract for a moment. As someone who identifies as a feminist (and more third-wave than second), and an anti-racist, and all the other affiliations of the post-modern progressive nexus, there is nothing more depressing to me than when oppressed people look upon these models, and see an adversary. Are met with hostility. As a Jew, I feel this daily. The language of feminism and anti-racism work has been an crucial tool in a too often hostile world. It provided the language to understand and vocalize the alienation I've always felt, and was an essential support as I moved from the relatively warm confines of suburban Maryland (where everyone is at least familiar with Judaism) to rural Minnesota (where I was an oddity and I couldn't count on people reflexively knowing the basic contours of what it means to be Jewish). And so, I am thankful to those theorists every day.
But at the same time, the language of the left is often deployed against my people. Anti-Semitism is not rampant, but it has a very noticeable presence and is too often tolerated. Durban 1 was an obvious example, but hardly an isolated one. When I see a thread on Israel or Jews on a feminist blog, I shouldn't feel dread in my gut. But I do. There is little pain like the betrayal of those who you've come to rely upon in your darkest hour. Though I doubt The Apostate would approve, I think of Job's raw cry to God: "Why do you hide your face from me; and treat me as an enemy?" (13:21)
In my own personal journey, I've fought this bitterly. I refuse to cede the ground of progressivism to those who would see me and mine destroyed, who roll the dice with my life and seem apathetic as to what the outcome will be. So, I aggressively deploy the language I've learned, that's sustained me, against those who would reify my oppression. The Apostate did likewise, appropriating and wielding the concepts of "erasing", "silencing" and "lived experience" to put together an extraordinarily powerful post. From the context, it's hard to tell if she is using them sarcastically. It'd be hard to blame her if she did, but I hope not. I hope that she sees value in those tools, and -- even if utilizing them against their normal merchants is ironic -- has found away for them to sustain her as well.
Via
A few years prior to that, I had read Elie Wiesel's Night. And I recall his prayers for bombs to fall on his concentration camp -- for even though it might mean his death, it also could lead to his salvation. The great (and all-too-rare) heroes of the Holocaust were, after all, the rescuers.
The interplay of these somewhat conflicting ideas is what makes so interesting this post by "The Apostate", an American of Pakistani birth, and a Muslim-turned-Atheist. She fled theocracy and her entire family, fearing that her own family would try to kill her. She looked to feminism as a source of strength, one that told her that her degradation was not justified, that there was another path.
But now, from many in the "third wave", she feels hostility and attack. Her critiques of Islam have gotten her labeled "racist" by people who have adopted the religion, even as it was her birth religion. Third wavers sneer that abortion is a white woman's concern. But for her, getting pregnant would have meant the end of her life: "when I got raped and my first fear was not AIDS (and this in a third world country) — it was pregnancy." They demand she look past her own life, her "lived experience" in a theocracy (her term, not mine) to see that Islam doesn't need reforming because "there’s nothing wrong with it to begin with."
And thus we have a problem. We in the west do have trouble humanizing those outside of Europe and America. And the failure of imagination can be brutal. Persons of progressive sway -- no matter what their other proclivities -- feel the pull of colonialist and racist past, and we are terrified of it. We do not want to re-incarnate the image of the savage, or the agency-less victim. So we back away.
But while we are busy with our fretful mutterings about whether any particular act of engagement is colonization, people are dying. Women are dying, men are dying, children are dying. Jews are dying, Muslims are dying, Christians are dying, Hindus are dying, Atheists are dying. The dead and the dying are all-too-uninterested in whether their savior has earned their bona fides as an anti-colonialist. Wiesel, I'm sure, would have been equally happy to have been rescued by Soviet bombs as allied ones. He, and they, just wonder why nobody will rescue them. Fear of the S(avage) and V(ictim) means no S(avior). There is a cost to waiting for moral purity, and it's not the impure who have to pay it.
Turning back to the abstract for a moment. As someone who identifies as a feminist (and more third-wave than second), and an anti-racist, and all the other affiliations of the post-modern progressive nexus, there is nothing more depressing to me than when oppressed people look upon these models, and see an adversary. Are met with hostility. As a Jew, I feel this daily. The language of feminism and anti-racism work has been an crucial tool in a too often hostile world. It provided the language to understand and vocalize the alienation I've always felt, and was an essential support as I moved from the relatively warm confines of suburban Maryland (where everyone is at least familiar with Judaism) to rural Minnesota (where I was an oddity and I couldn't count on people reflexively knowing the basic contours of what it means to be Jewish). And so, I am thankful to those theorists every day.
But at the same time, the language of the left is often deployed against my people. Anti-Semitism is not rampant, but it has a very noticeable presence and is too often tolerated. Durban 1 was an obvious example, but hardly an isolated one. When I see a thread on Israel or Jews on a feminist blog, I shouldn't feel dread in my gut. But I do. There is little pain like the betrayal of those who you've come to rely upon in your darkest hour. Though I doubt The Apostate would approve, I think of Job's raw cry to God: "Why do you hide your face from me; and treat me as an enemy?" (13:21)
In my own personal journey, I've fought this bitterly. I refuse to cede the ground of progressivism to those who would see me and mine destroyed, who roll the dice with my life and seem apathetic as to what the outcome will be. So, I aggressively deploy the language I've learned, that's sustained me, against those who would reify my oppression. The Apostate did likewise, appropriating and wielding the concepts of "erasing", "silencing" and "lived experience" to put together an extraordinarily powerful post. From the context, it's hard to tell if she is using them sarcastically. It'd be hard to blame her if she did, but I hope not. I hope that she sees value in those tools, and -- even if utilizing them against their normal merchants is ironic -- has found away for them to sustain her as well.
Via
Monday, April 14, 2008
The Decision Draws Nigh
Well, I've been being coy about the play out of the law school admissions tournament, but I feel like I can share a little now. Sharing point one: I'm going to law school, not grad school. Sharing point two: I've narrowed my decision down to two schools: Columbia, and Chicago. The decision is due at the start of May, so I figure if any of y'all have insight to share, now is the time.
I'll lay out the advantages of each place as best as I can figure. Ideally, I'd do this after I visit the schools, but I won't make it to Columbia until just a few days before the deadline, so by then this post would be too late. Anyway, here we go.
Columbia
* Faculty match! This is the big one for Columbia. I want to do CRT, and Columbia has both Patricia Williams and Kimberle Crenshaw (part-time, in the latter case). Chicago has -- well, I'm not sure they have anyone doing CRT specifically. The closest person I'd guess is Martha Nussbaum. She's awesome, don't get me wrong, but that's still a good hop, skip, and jump away from CRT. As I get more interested in pragmatism, Richard Posner intrigues me more and more, but I can't imagine he actually has time to meet with students (I don't know how he has time to eat).
* It's closer to home. I don't mind being in the mid-west, really, but I'm starting to weary of the long trips back and forth. I can take the train from NYC back to Washington. I love trains.
* Higher US News ranking. I don't really put much stock in that (particularly when we're talking about consensus top-10 schools), but there it is.
Chicago
* I want to be a law professor, and Chicago is known as a law professor training ground (to more of a degree than Columbia).
* It's a smaller school. I didn't really think about this until recently, but that could be an issue. After all, I attended a small liberal arts college. I've still never had a class with more than 30 people in it. I have no idea how I'll respond to a big, anonymous lecture course. Even if the difference is a 30 person intro class at Chicago versus 50 at Columbia, that could be significant for me.
* Relatedly, I've been told that Chicago's small size mixed with its lack of many CRTers could redound to my advantage, as I'll stand out and be more able to attract faculty attention. Even if I don't quite buy that the small CRT population is actually a good thing, I do think it may be true that I'll be more likely to be able to actually catch a glimpse of my professors beyond the podium at UC than at CU, and that'd be nice.
* It's not in New York. I don't have any strong feeling either way about Chicago. I do possess an irrational dislike of New York. I say irrational not because it's totally groundless -- I've been to NYC before -- but because it's not grounded in any particular bad experiences I've had there. I just find New York to be a bit grimy, a bit shadowed, and a bit gruff -- particularly for someone who's spent the last four years in the land of open friendliness that is Minnesota.
* Money: Chicago gave me an award, Columbia didn't. Again, not really a huge consideration, given that the size of the award is rather insignificant, and that for a variety of reasons I'm not all that worried about paying student loans, but for completeness sake, there it is.
***
So basically, Columbia's got faculty match, and Chicago has the size and the institutional identity as an academic training ground. I have an inclination, but that inclination has switched before (in fact, it's shifted from one to the other and back again several times now). We'll see how the visits go. Any advice would be appreciated.
I'll lay out the advantages of each place as best as I can figure. Ideally, I'd do this after I visit the schools, but I won't make it to Columbia until just a few days before the deadline, so by then this post would be too late. Anyway, here we go.
Columbia
* Faculty match! This is the big one for Columbia. I want to do CRT, and Columbia has both Patricia Williams and Kimberle Crenshaw (part-time, in the latter case). Chicago has -- well, I'm not sure they have anyone doing CRT specifically. The closest person I'd guess is Martha Nussbaum. She's awesome, don't get me wrong, but that's still a good hop, skip, and jump away from CRT. As I get more interested in pragmatism, Richard Posner intrigues me more and more, but I can't imagine he actually has time to meet with students (I don't know how he has time to eat).
* It's closer to home. I don't mind being in the mid-west, really, but I'm starting to weary of the long trips back and forth. I can take the train from NYC back to Washington. I love trains.
* Higher US News ranking. I don't really put much stock in that (particularly when we're talking about consensus top-10 schools), but there it is.
Chicago
* I want to be a law professor, and Chicago is known as a law professor training ground (to more of a degree than Columbia).
* It's a smaller school. I didn't really think about this until recently, but that could be an issue. After all, I attended a small liberal arts college. I've still never had a class with more than 30 people in it. I have no idea how I'll respond to a big, anonymous lecture course. Even if the difference is a 30 person intro class at Chicago versus 50 at Columbia, that could be significant for me.
* Relatedly, I've been told that Chicago's small size mixed with its lack of many CRTers could redound to my advantage, as I'll stand out and be more able to attract faculty attention. Even if I don't quite buy that the small CRT population is actually a good thing, I do think it may be true that I'll be more likely to be able to actually catch a glimpse of my professors beyond the podium at UC than at CU, and that'd be nice.
* It's not in New York. I don't have any strong feeling either way about Chicago. I do possess an irrational dislike of New York. I say irrational not because it's totally groundless -- I've been to NYC before -- but because it's not grounded in any particular bad experiences I've had there. I just find New York to be a bit grimy, a bit shadowed, and a bit gruff -- particularly for someone who's spent the last four years in the land of open friendliness that is Minnesota.
* Money: Chicago gave me an award, Columbia didn't. Again, not really a huge consideration, given that the size of the award is rather insignificant, and that for a variety of reasons I'm not all that worried about paying student loans, but for completeness sake, there it is.
***
So basically, Columbia's got faculty match, and Chicago has the size and the institutional identity as an academic training ground. I have an inclination, but that inclination has switched before (in fact, it's shifted from one to the other and back again several times now). We'll see how the visits go. Any advice would be appreciated.
Montana Purple?
Kos has gotten a hold of a poll which seems to indicate Montana is in play -- at least if Obama is running:
Now, normally I'd consider a poll like this akin to those ones which say Obama might lose Massachusetts in November -- just one of those quirky but utterly unfeasible things that pop up when you poll six months out of election day. But here, I actually see a there there. Democrats are experience a bit of a resurgence in the Big Sky state. Tester's upset Senate victory followed Brian Schweitzer's rise to the governor's mansion, where he has enjoyed a wildly popular reign in office. And Obama has shown real drawing power in the sparsely populated plains and rocky mountain region.
Ultimately, I don't think he'll win Montana, because to do so would require an investment of time and resources not worth its three electoral votes. But just the fact that it is even on the map shows how Democrats are expanding the playing field -- and exploiting a very favorable national climate.
General Election, 4/6. Likely voters. MoE 4.5%
John McCain 48%
Barack Obama 43%
John McCain 56%
Hillary Clinton 36%
Now, normally I'd consider a poll like this akin to those ones which say Obama might lose Massachusetts in November -- just one of those quirky but utterly unfeasible things that pop up when you poll six months out of election day. But here, I actually see a there there. Democrats are experience a bit of a resurgence in the Big Sky state. Tester's upset Senate victory followed Brian Schweitzer's rise to the governor's mansion, where he has enjoyed a wildly popular reign in office. And Obama has shown real drawing power in the sparsely populated plains and rocky mountain region.
Ultimately, I don't think he'll win Montana, because to do so would require an investment of time and resources not worth its three electoral votes. But just the fact that it is even on the map shows how Democrats are expanding the playing field -- and exploiting a very favorable national climate.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Cause for Anger
Andrew Sullivan:
He then follows up with a moving account of how his own experience as a gay man makes it easier for him to understand Black anger and alienation -- along with the admission that, had he not been gay, he might have blindly adopted the same position as his Republican peers.
Sometimes I wonder if some white Republicans actually believe that black people in this country have no reason to feel any anger or alienation at times. I'm not talking about letting it consume you - just feeling it, dealing with it, managing it.
He then follows up with a moving account of how his own experience as a gay man makes it easier for him to understand Black anger and alienation -- along with the admission that, had he not been gay, he might have blindly adopted the same position as his Republican peers.
Lisa S. or L. Simpson?
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an odd view of anonymity:
I presume the foreman's identity was public knowledge -- certainly at least to the judge who gave the gag order in the first place.
The case he's taking about, incidentally, is interesting too -- sadly, it might be yet another case of a politicized prosecution by the Bush Justice Department.
"In my opinion, the plan, the scheme was the problem for me personally," said the jury foreman, who requested anonymity in light of the judge's request that jurors not yet speak publicly.
I presume the foreman's identity was public knowledge -- certainly at least to the judge who gave the gag order in the first place.
The case he's taking about, incidentally, is interesting too -- sadly, it might be yet another case of a politicized prosecution by the Bush Justice Department.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Social Condemnation as a Legal Substitute
Out in New Mexico, there is a burgeoning controversy about a photography company who refused, on religious grounds, to photograph a gay commitment ceremony. The couple complained to the state's human rights commission, which found the company in violation of the state's anti-discrimination policy and ordered her to pay attorney's fees in the amount of over $6,000. Eugene Volokh, by contrast, argues that photography is a speech act, and the Commission's ruling violates the first amendment by compelling someone to engage in expression they find distasteful (akin to, say, forced salute of the flag in West Virginia v. Barnette).
The legal merits aren't what I want to focus on. Rather, it flows out of a sub-issue that sprang out of a commenter alleging that very few people "would (dare to) take the photographer's side here if she refused to photograph a mixed-race couple." Volokh responds:
When someone is discriminated against, the harms of that act are twofold. First, they are denied whatever benefit or opportunity that was being putatively offered -- in this case, having this photographer take pictures of a wedding. Second, they are faced with the stark and bald assertion that they are -- from the perspective of the discriminator -- a second-class citizen, one whom is particularly unworthy of her association or services.
Both of these harms can be remedied by law or by society. Law remedies the first by mandating the performance of the service. It remedies the second by sending the message the political community does not acquiesce to the assertion of inferiority. Both of these roles are important functions of anti-discrimination law.
Of course, sometimes it is not appropriate for law to intervene. Perhaps (as might be the case in the New Mexico controversy), the discrimination is intimately connected to another important right or principle, which the state must also be respectful of. In that case, society can also provide a remedy for both of the harms of discrimination. For the first, the couple can simply find another photographer. And for the second, society's expression of outrage and dismay can also send the message that the discriminated-against party really is to be included on full and equal terms, and it is the discriminator who is the outlier.
Often times, this expression of outrage occurs in tandem with the assertion of a lack of legal jurisdiction. "I condemn what you say, but defend your right to say it," as the saying goes. Volokh also makes note of this, condemning the hypothetical racist photographer while still asserting he would defend it. The availability of this sort of social sanction is, I feel, one of the ways we rationalize the withholding of legal remedy to many victims of discrimination.
But, this assumes that social sanction is, in fact, available. And for many gay and lesbian Americans, it is not. They are in a position of extreme vulnerability compared to, say, mixed-race couples, who can count on public outrage if they are discriminated against. Hence, they are even more reliant on legal remedy than many other groups. But of course, the fact that they are relatively more marginalized (that the question of their public equality is more controversial) makes it far less likely that law actually will protect them.
I've already noted the existence of this double-bind -- that law only protects minority groups who have displayed some measure of political power -- in the context of gay Americans before. In a sense, it merely states the obvious: it sucks to be marginalized, and the more marginal you are, the suckier it is. But it is important to note the extra layer of vulnerability that certain groups face when they can't count on extra-legal statements of support and affirmation in the face of discrimination. When the response to discrimination is not "I condemn but I defend", but "I defend and they're damn right to do it, too," the harms of exclusion are amplified dramatically.
The legal merits aren't what I want to focus on. Rather, it flows out of a sub-issue that sprang out of a commenter alleging that very few people "would (dare to) take the photographer's side here if she refused to photograph a mixed-race couple." Volokh responds:
I should hope that virtually all of those who support Elaine Huguenin's Free Speech Clause rights would support that hypothetical photographer's constitutional rights, too. I certainly would, just as I support the constitutional rights of many people whose views I condemn.
When someone is discriminated against, the harms of that act are twofold. First, they are denied whatever benefit or opportunity that was being putatively offered -- in this case, having this photographer take pictures of a wedding. Second, they are faced with the stark and bald assertion that they are -- from the perspective of the discriminator -- a second-class citizen, one whom is particularly unworthy of her association or services.
Both of these harms can be remedied by law or by society. Law remedies the first by mandating the performance of the service. It remedies the second by sending the message the political community does not acquiesce to the assertion of inferiority. Both of these roles are important functions of anti-discrimination law.
Of course, sometimes it is not appropriate for law to intervene. Perhaps (as might be the case in the New Mexico controversy), the discrimination is intimately connected to another important right or principle, which the state must also be respectful of. In that case, society can also provide a remedy for both of the harms of discrimination. For the first, the couple can simply find another photographer. And for the second, society's expression of outrage and dismay can also send the message that the discriminated-against party really is to be included on full and equal terms, and it is the discriminator who is the outlier.
Often times, this expression of outrage occurs in tandem with the assertion of a lack of legal jurisdiction. "I condemn what you say, but defend your right to say it," as the saying goes. Volokh also makes note of this, condemning the hypothetical racist photographer while still asserting he would defend it. The availability of this sort of social sanction is, I feel, one of the ways we rationalize the withholding of legal remedy to many victims of discrimination.
But, this assumes that social sanction is, in fact, available. And for many gay and lesbian Americans, it is not. They are in a position of extreme vulnerability compared to, say, mixed-race couples, who can count on public outrage if they are discriminated against. Hence, they are even more reliant on legal remedy than many other groups. But of course, the fact that they are relatively more marginalized (that the question of their public equality is more controversial) makes it far less likely that law actually will protect them.
I've already noted the existence of this double-bind -- that law only protects minority groups who have displayed some measure of political power -- in the context of gay Americans before. In a sense, it merely states the obvious: it sucks to be marginalized, and the more marginal you are, the suckier it is. But it is important to note the extra layer of vulnerability that certain groups face when they can't count on extra-legal statements of support and affirmation in the face of discrimination. When the response to discrimination is not "I condemn but I defend", but "I defend and they're damn right to do it, too," the harms of exclusion are amplified dramatically.
Powell for Obama
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell had some awfully nice things to say about Barack Obama, and labeled himself an "undecided voter." Steve Benen wonders if an endorsement might eventually come out of it.
I almost hope it doesn't. Not because I really hold a grudge against Powell for his role in the Iraq fiasco -- of all the characters in that particular farce, he does not rank among the more risible, and I believe he still has a valuable role to contribute in our public discourse.
No, it's because I can't imagine anything that will destroy Powell as a public figure more than this endorsement.
Sure, Democrats will probably trumpet it for awhile. But Republicans (never much to countenance this sort of "betrayal") will flay him alive, in two ways. First, they'll scapegoat him for the Iraq war. I doubt that one will stick. But second, they'll undoubtedly portray him as a "race man", someone who let's his skin color dictate his political opinions -- basically no better than a Klansman. And I wouldn't be surprised if the media let that narrative run a little, if in slightly less stark terms. It's already been surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) difficult for folks to get their heads around the fact that Black people might want to vote for a Black candidate because they genuinely think he's the best person for the job, not out of mere race loyalty. When the subject is a high-profile defection like Powell, it'll be even harder to impress that point on the mainstream media. And this one, I fear, might hold together.
I almost hope it doesn't. Not because I really hold a grudge against Powell for his role in the Iraq fiasco -- of all the characters in that particular farce, he does not rank among the more risible, and I believe he still has a valuable role to contribute in our public discourse.
No, it's because I can't imagine anything that will destroy Powell as a public figure more than this endorsement.
Sure, Democrats will probably trumpet it for awhile. But Republicans (never much to countenance this sort of "betrayal") will flay him alive, in two ways. First, they'll scapegoat him for the Iraq war. I doubt that one will stick. But second, they'll undoubtedly portray him as a "race man", someone who let's his skin color dictate his political opinions -- basically no better than a Klansman. And I wouldn't be surprised if the media let that narrative run a little, if in slightly less stark terms. It's already been surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) difficult for folks to get their heads around the fact that Black people might want to vote for a Black candidate because they genuinely think he's the best person for the job, not out of mere race loyalty. When the subject is a high-profile defection like Powell, it'll be even harder to impress that point on the mainstream media. And this one, I fear, might hold together.
Daily Dose of Young
Well, I don't give Iris Marion Young to you daily. But if I did, you'd be smarter for it.
According to Young, "perspective" is derived from the fact that differentiated people, by virtue of their varied social position, have "have different experience, history, and social knowledge derived from that positioning." She conceptualizes perspective as a "starting point" for how we think about political affairs, but not an end -- it sets up our vantage point, but does not determine what we decide to look at or how we interpret what we see.
Here, Young explains why -- notwithstanding the fact that everyone, by virtue of their unique background and experiences, has a different perspective -- it makes sense to think about perspective in terms of group positioning. She also stresses that saying that people might share a perspective (or at least a similarly positioned one) is not the same thing as saying they will reach the same normative conclusions about what principles flow from that, or what their political interests are.
Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000), 138-39.
So, for example, all gay people in America (save Massachusetts) share a "position" in that none can marry the partner of their choice. That does not mean that they all share the same ideas of what moral principles should be brought to bear on that issue (what Young calls "opinions"), or what they imagine the effect or importance that reality has on their life prospects (what Young calls "interests"). Two gay people could start from their relatively similar perspective, and radically differ on what moral principles they apply to it, and/or what interests they imagine they have regarding gay marriage. But nonetheless, they operate from a different standpoint than straight people, who necessarily don't "see" the problem of marriage inequality in the same way (even if they adopt the same interests or opinions on the matter as individual gay people).
Perspective matters because it can bring agenda items to the democratic table that might otherwise go un- or under-noticed, or offer new ways of conceptualizing a problem that the dominant perspective may be less likely to see. To talk about needing to include the gay perspective, or the Black perspective, is not to say that we are committed to a particular conception of their interests or ideologies. Elsewhere in the book, Young cites the example of the Pittsburgh Courier, an African-American newspaper. Though its news stories deal with a wide array of topics, and its editorial pages host political opinions ranging from right-wing libertarianism to left-wing socialism, it still identifiably comes from an "African-American perspective." It adopts an outlook that operates from the vantage point of where African-Americans reside in our social hierarchy, but still recognizes that people from that position can have widely variable interests and opinions.
Because people experience many social problems and controversies in different ways, it is important to insure that relevant groups are represented in discussion of those issues, even if we (rightly) assume that not every member of that group will have the same idea of how to respond to these issues.
UPDATE: An excellent example I just thought of illustrating this is my good friend, Clarence Thomas. Like many Blacks, Thomas interacted with the institution of affirmative action. He shares the position of his fellow African-Americans who also have reaped whatever benefits and hindrances that are the upshot of that institution -- particularly, the feeling by some Whites that he is less qualified as a result of being a "beneficiary" of it. Now, as is clear, that can lead to a variety of opinions on the subject -- Thomas considers AA actively harmful and wishes to abolish it, many other Blacks believe the problem is the White prejudice against AA graduates (flowing out anti-Black prejudice generally), not the program itself. The perspective, in other words, clearly doesn't determine one's ultimate opinion. But even granting that, it would still be absurd to the extreme to say that we should debate the question of affirmative action without consulting/representing those whose social position has given them this specific perspective on the matter.
According to Young, "perspective" is derived from the fact that differentiated people, by virtue of their varied social position, have "have different experience, history, and social knowledge derived from that positioning." She conceptualizes perspective as a "starting point" for how we think about political affairs, but not an end -- it sets up our vantage point, but does not determine what we decide to look at or how we interpret what we see.
Here, Young explains why -- notwithstanding the fact that everyone, by virtue of their unique background and experiences, has a different perspective -- it makes sense to think about perspective in terms of group positioning. She also stresses that saying that people might share a perspective (or at least a similarly positioned one) is not the same thing as saying they will reach the same normative conclusions about what principles flow from that, or what their political interests are.
To be sure, each person has his or her own irreducible group history which gives him or her unique social knowledge and perspective. We must avoid, however, the sort of individualism that would conclude from this fact that any talk of structured social positions and group-defined social location is wrong, incoherent, or useless. It makes sense to say that non-professional working-class people have predictable vulnerabilities and opportunities because of their position in the occupational structure. The idea of perspective is meant to capture that sensibility of group-positioned experience without specifying unified content to what the perspective sees. The social positioning produced by relation to other structural positions and by the social processes that issue in unintended consequences only provide a background and perspective in terms of which particular social events and issues are interpreted; they do not make the interpretation. So we can well find different persons with a similar social perspective giving different interpretations of an issue. Perspective is an approach to looking at social events, which conditions but does not determine what one sees.
Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000), 138-39.
So, for example, all gay people in America (save Massachusetts) share a "position" in that none can marry the partner of their choice. That does not mean that they all share the same ideas of what moral principles should be brought to bear on that issue (what Young calls "opinions"), or what they imagine the effect or importance that reality has on their life prospects (what Young calls "interests"). Two gay people could start from their relatively similar perspective, and radically differ on what moral principles they apply to it, and/or what interests they imagine they have regarding gay marriage. But nonetheless, they operate from a different standpoint than straight people, who necessarily don't "see" the problem of marriage inequality in the same way (even if they adopt the same interests or opinions on the matter as individual gay people).
Perspective matters because it can bring agenda items to the democratic table that might otherwise go un- or under-noticed, or offer new ways of conceptualizing a problem that the dominant perspective may be less likely to see. To talk about needing to include the gay perspective, or the Black perspective, is not to say that we are committed to a particular conception of their interests or ideologies. Elsewhere in the book, Young cites the example of the Pittsburgh Courier, an African-American newspaper. Though its news stories deal with a wide array of topics, and its editorial pages host political opinions ranging from right-wing libertarianism to left-wing socialism, it still identifiably comes from an "African-American perspective." It adopts an outlook that operates from the vantage point of where African-Americans reside in our social hierarchy, but still recognizes that people from that position can have widely variable interests and opinions.
Because people experience many social problems and controversies in different ways, it is important to insure that relevant groups are represented in discussion of those issues, even if we (rightly) assume that not every member of that group will have the same idea of how to respond to these issues.
UPDATE: An excellent example I just thought of illustrating this is my good friend, Clarence Thomas. Like many Blacks, Thomas interacted with the institution of affirmative action. He shares the position of his fellow African-Americans who also have reaped whatever benefits and hindrances that are the upshot of that institution -- particularly, the feeling by some Whites that he is less qualified as a result of being a "beneficiary" of it. Now, as is clear, that can lead to a variety of opinions on the subject -- Thomas considers AA actively harmful and wishes to abolish it, many other Blacks believe the problem is the White prejudice against AA graduates (flowing out anti-Black prejudice generally), not the program itself. The perspective, in other words, clearly doesn't determine one's ultimate opinion. But even granting that, it would still be absurd to the extreme to say that we should debate the question of affirmative action without consulting/representing those whose social position has given them this specific perspective on the matter.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
The Joys of Youth
One of the great things about being young is that every once in awhile, an older person who you respect will write an incredibly adorable post about how they just discovered some new-fangled technology, and find it amazing. There's little that tops the smug sense of superiority I feel in those moments. It's a feeling born of love, and only lasts until I realize that said older person still is wiser and more successful than me in all the substantive areas I care about. But it's still nice to feel like I'm winning a round in life.
Pushing and Shoving
What Clinton adviser Lanny Davis says:
What he means:
What's really pathetic about this particular effort is what Davis says "triggered" this latest column. Davis claims that he was forced to write after he "read for the first time" these three excerpts from Wright's sermons:
Does anybody in their right mind believe that Davis had never seen these excerpts? These are the claims that were at the center of the controversy. You cannot have heard of the connection between Rev. Wright and Obama without having heard about the "God damn America" speech. It strains credulity to the breaking point to believe that this is all really new data for Davis. And he adds nothing new to the conversation. The only motivation for this sort of article is to pretend that this story is still a story. Unfortunately for Clinton supporters, Obama has by all objective accounts done an excellent job defusing it. Trying to shove it back into the spotlight is a waste of everyone's time.
I have tried to get over my unease surrounding Barack Obama's response to the sermons and writings of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. But the unanswered questions remain.
.... Now is the time to address these questions, not later.
Clearly Mr. Obama does not share the extremist views of Rev. Wright. He is a tolerant and honorable person. But that is not the issue. The questions remain: Why did he stay a member of the congregation? Why didn't he speak up earlier? And why did he reward Rev. Wright with a campaign position even after knowing of his comments?
What he means:
Our best chance for derailing Obama's nomination has started to fall out of the political spotlight. Quick, let's pretend there are still "questions" that remain "unanswered"!
What's really pathetic about this particular effort is what Davis says "triggered" this latest column. Davis claims that he was forced to write after he "read for the first time" these three excerpts from Wright's sermons:
- "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
-- Sept. 16, 2001 (the first Sunday after 9/11)
- "The government . . . wants us to sing God Bless America. No, no, no. God damn America; that's in the bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human."
-- 2003
- "The United States of White America."
-- July 22, 2007
Does anybody in their right mind believe that Davis had never seen these excerpts? These are the claims that were at the center of the controversy. You cannot have heard of the connection between Rev. Wright and Obama without having heard about the "God damn America" speech. It strains credulity to the breaking point to believe that this is all really new data for Davis. And he adds nothing new to the conversation. The only motivation for this sort of article is to pretend that this story is still a story. Unfortunately for Clinton supporters, Obama has by all objective accounts done an excellent job defusing it. Trying to shove it back into the spotlight is a waste of everyone's time.
Sistani Sanctions Sadr
This ain't good news, ladies and gentleman. Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, far and away the most influential religious figure among Iraqi Shi'ites, is telling Sadr not to disband his militia prior to the upcoming elections. Even if, as Publius says, this isn't Sistani "siding" with Sadr, it's still hardly a data point in favor of current American strategy.
I've said for quite some time that Sistani may well be the key to the game for America in Iraq. If that's so, we're beginning to lose, badly.
I've said for quite some time that Sistani may well be the key to the game for America in Iraq. If that's so, we're beginning to lose, badly.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
The Politics of The Olympics
Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber has an interesting post up about the growing political saliency of the Olympic Games, as demonstrated by the increased murmurings that Western leaders ought to boycott -- at the least -- the opening ceremonies of the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
Of course, it's not as if the Olympics were previously insulated from political machinations, as the dueling boycotts of the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Games demonstrated. But, Farrell argues, the dynamic of where the pressure is coming from has changed significantly:
In other words, the Olympics offer a new avenue for grass-roots public anger to manifest itself in actual pressure on global leaders. This is because the Olympics are a high profile example of international recognition and engagement, and one that (between the presence of hordes of news media, athletes with personal agendas that don't map on to diplomatic niceties, and even the easily protested torch-run) offers a nearly unparalleled opportunity for media-friendly protests.
On the actual merits of boycotting the opening ceremonies itself, see Steve Clemons versus Daniel Drezner.
Of course, it's not as if the Olympics were previously insulated from political machinations, as the dueling boycotts of the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Games demonstrated. But, Farrell argues, the dynamic of where the pressure is coming from has changed significantly:
The dynamic driving the Beijing Olympics seems to me to be rather different; what we are seeing is that the politics of boycott is being driven by mass-publics, and most recently by protestors, rather than by political leaders. In the absence of the public unrest that has culminated in the recent protests in Paris, I doubt very much that Western political leaders would be muttering about not showing at the opening ceremonies – the geopolitical stakes of market access etc are likely more important to them than the fate of Tibetans. But given the widespread public reaction in the West, even leaders like Gordon Brown, who obviously want very much to attend, are having to insulate themselves from public pressures by taking other actions liable to annoy China (such as meeting with the Dalai Lama). In short, I think we are seeing how public opinion and organized cross-national opposition can create significant constraints on the ability of leaders to respond to what they see as the geostrategic necessity of keeping China happy. This is, as best as I am aware, a new phase in the development of the Olympics.
In other words, the Olympics offer a new avenue for grass-roots public anger to manifest itself in actual pressure on global leaders. This is because the Olympics are a high profile example of international recognition and engagement, and one that (between the presence of hordes of news media, athletes with personal agendas that don't map on to diplomatic niceties, and even the easily protested torch-run) offers a nearly unparalleled opportunity for media-friendly protests.
On the actual merits of boycotting the opening ceremonies itself, see Steve Clemons versus Daniel Drezner.
Creativity in Advertising
Here's an ad for Steve Novick, running for the Democratic Senate nomination in Oregon.
Fantastic ad, no? I do like how it plays off his disability in a positive way. (Novick was born without a left hand, among other problems, and stands only 4'9").
He's a dark-horse candidate running against State House Speaker Jeff Merkley, but he's actually flashed an early lead in the polls.
Now, 40% are undecided in the primary battle, and Merkley hasn't hit the airwaves yet. Merkley is also the far more experienced politician compared to Novick. But the persistent murmurs I've heard about Merkley are that his resume is better than his will to win. We'll see if he can close the gap, but I have to say, Novick's ad is one of the best I've seen all season, and exhibits the sort of innovation and risk-taking that I think will serve him well if he makes it to the general.
Fantastic ad, no? I do like how it plays off his disability in a positive way. (Novick was born without a left hand, among other problems, and stands only 4'9").
He's a dark-horse candidate running against State House Speaker Jeff Merkley, but he's actually flashed an early lead in the polls.
Now, 40% are undecided in the primary battle, and Merkley hasn't hit the airwaves yet. Merkley is also the far more experienced politician compared to Novick. But the persistent murmurs I've heard about Merkley are that his resume is better than his will to win. We'll see if he can close the gap, but I have to say, Novick's ad is one of the best I've seen all season, and exhibits the sort of innovation and risk-taking that I think will serve him well if he makes it to the general.
The Much Maligned Warren G. Harding
President Warren G. Harding is not exactly the most beloved of American historical figures. I wouldn't say he's reviled either -- more thought of as pathetic. Former Treasury Secretary William McAdoo stated:
I believe (though I cannot find it) that another contemporary once described him as "a good, decent man who should be lieutenant governor of Rhode Island." That might have referred to someone else -- but sentiment seems accurate enough.
Harding's stated sins are generally that a) he was surrounded by utterly corrupt advisers (though nobody claimed Harding himself was), b) he was politically mediocre, and c) he was an intellectual lightweight. But, while not exactly calling him a world-beater, Ilya Somin makes the case that Harding might be one of our most under-rated Presidents.
All fair points, and worth considering. I particularly was unaware about his efforts on behalf of racial equality.
So let's have a cheer for President Harding: he really wasn't as awful as everyone makes him out to be!
"His speeches left the impression of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea. Sometimes these meandering words would actually capture a straggling thought and bear it triumphantly, a prisoner in their midst, until it died of servitude and overwork."
I believe (though I cannot find it) that another contemporary once described him as "a good, decent man who should be lieutenant governor of Rhode Island." That might have referred to someone else -- but sentiment seems accurate enough.
Harding's stated sins are generally that a) he was surrounded by utterly corrupt advisers (though nobody claimed Harding himself was), b) he was politically mediocre, and c) he was an intellectual lightweight. But, while not exactly calling him a world-beater, Ilya Somin makes the case that Harding might be one of our most under-rated Presidents.
Harding made a well-known speech advocating full legal equality for southern blacks in 1921, in Birmingham, Alabama. As W.E.B. DuBois pointed out at the time, Harding went farther in advocating equal rights for blacks than any other post-Reconstruction Republican president (the Democrats, at that time the party of southern whites, were even worse). Indeed, no president went as far as Harding in advocating equal rights for southern blacks for several decades thereafter. Harding also lobbied hard for a federal anti-lynching bill to curb the rampant lynching of blacks by whites in the South - again, the first post-Reconstruction president to do so (the bill passed the House, but died in the Senate due to the threat of Democratic filibusters). As DuBois pointed out in the linked article, Harding was not wholly free of the racism common among whites at the time. But he was a lot better than the vast majority of his contemporaries.
Nor were these Harding's only positive aspects. As Gene Healy discusses in his interesting recent book, The Cult of the Presidency, Harding is also notable for reversing the severe violations of civil and economic liberties that had proliferated under his predecessor Woodrow Wilson. It's easy to belittle Harding's campaign slogan - "Return to Normalcy." But Harding's notion of "normalcy" included an end to the imprisonment of political dissenters (such as Wilson's notorious "Palmer Raids"), abolition of wage and price controls, and the reversal of Wilson's numerous illegal seizures of private property. As David Bernstein and I briefly discuss in this article, Wilson's administration was also highly racist and segregationist even by the standards of the day; here too, Harding was a sharp contrast.
All fair points, and worth considering. I particularly was unaware about his efforts on behalf of racial equality.
So let's have a cheer for President Harding: he really wasn't as awful as everyone makes him out to be!
Where's Wallace?
Dave Kopel writes on activities of another one of Barack Obama's spiritual mentors, the (White) Catholic priest Michael Pfleger. Though noting that Pfleger has done some good works (on racial profiling, Darfur, and opposing abusive rap lyrics), Kopel focuses primarily on Pfleger's aggressive anti-gun pose. It culminates in his protest of "Chuck's Gun Store", the closest gun store to Chicago (there are no gun outlets in the city itself). Kopel writes:
Okay, hold it. I'm not an anti-gun zealot, and from Kopel's description it sounds like Chuck's is behaving like a good citizen in terms of training its employees so that it's guns do not get into the wrong hands (there could be more information, of course, that Kopel is not telling us). That being said -- worse than George Wallace? I realize that the sin qua non of Kopel's existence is protecting gun rights. But come on, let's keep our heads on our shoulders, yes?
Also, Kopel cites Pfleger as promising to "snuff out" the owner of the store. Pfleger denies that he was advocating violence, and instead meant only to reveal where the owner lived. Now, I'm not a fan of that sort of intimidation either, and as Kopel notes, "snuff out" actually is primarily slang for "to kill." But I'm guessing that Pfleger was mixing it up with "sniff out", which would mean exactly what he said he meant. Again, only a small consolation, because I think trying to reveal a political opponent's home address is pretty threatening behavior, but relevant data nonetheless.
Yet the Reverends Michael Pfleger and Jesse Jackson have been organized large crowds to repeatedly picket Chuck's Gun Shop. On June 23, 2007, Revs. Jackson and Pfleger were arrested for criminally obstructing the entrance to the store. The charges were eventually dropped, just as Governor George Wallace never was criminally punished for standing in a doorway to obstruct the exercise of constitutional rights. (The comparison is a little unfair, since Wallace eventually stood aside, whereas Jackson and Pfleger had to be physically removed by the police.)
Okay, hold it. I'm not an anti-gun zealot, and from Kopel's description it sounds like Chuck's is behaving like a good citizen in terms of training its employees so that it's guns do not get into the wrong hands (there could be more information, of course, that Kopel is not telling us). That being said -- worse than George Wallace? I realize that the sin qua non of Kopel's existence is protecting gun rights. But come on, let's keep our heads on our shoulders, yes?
Also, Kopel cites Pfleger as promising to "snuff out" the owner of the store. Pfleger denies that he was advocating violence, and instead meant only to reveal where the owner lived. Now, I'm not a fan of that sort of intimidation either, and as Kopel notes, "snuff out" actually is primarily slang for "to kill." But I'm guessing that Pfleger was mixing it up with "sniff out", which would mean exactly what he said he meant. Again, only a small consolation, because I think trying to reveal a political opponent's home address is pretty threatening behavior, but relevant data nonetheless.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Something Corporate
Jonathan Adler complains that Starbucks allows you to personalize their gift cards so they say "People not Profits" or "Si Se Puede," but not "Laissez Faire." This is, of course, ironic, since it is (relatively) laissez faire economics that allow Starbucks its prosperity in the first place.
But doesn't Adler realize that the irony is precisely the reason for the prohibition? Starbucks realizes that part of its continued health as a coffee chain business is maintaining its image as hip and humane, and conversely, not some soulless MNC. "Starbucks -- Laissez Faire" cuts against the image they're trying to project, so they restrict it. All perfectly within their rights and totally rational in the pursuit of profit.
But doesn't Adler realize that the irony is precisely the reason for the prohibition? Starbucks realizes that part of its continued health as a coffee chain business is maintaining its image as hip and humane, and conversely, not some soulless MNC. "Starbucks -- Laissez Faire" cuts against the image they're trying to project, so they restrict it. All perfectly within their rights and totally rational in the pursuit of profit.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Mr. Washington
Attention, law/grad schools! If you really want me to attend, this is an excellent idea. The amount of money is almost immaterial -- it's the performance that counts:
Only grad students, of course, could be wowed by a brief case full of singles.
a friend in the office suggested we lay in a supply of thin black briefcases for grad and faculty recruitment purposes. we could cash out financial offers or start-up funds in one dollar bills, secure them in 50-note currency straps, and pack them into a stylish attaché case. if a recruit starts to waver, we'd pop it open dramatically, saying, perhaps mr. washington and his friends might change your mind. we don't have huge funds to throw around, but we can usually chip in fifty for gas.
Only grad students, of course, could be wowed by a brief case full of singles.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Tag-a-Long
I've been tagged by Liberal War Journal. It's one of those "random facts" memes. I have three friends in the room to remind me of random things about myself, so lets take a whack.
The Rules:
I. Link to the person who tagged you. (See above)
II. Post the Rules Here.
III. Share Seven Random or Weird Facts About Yourself:
1) Though I touch type, I only use my index finger on my right hand (my left hand has normal form). In spite of this, my typing speed is around 90 wpm.
2) I'm ranked among the top 300 in Prolific (the Facebook boggle application). There are over 52,000 players.
3) I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was a kid, until I discovered I had no artistic talent. A similar revelation quashed my next dream, to be a computer programmer.
4) I won the Princeton debate tournament (Student Congress) my senior year of high school.
5) I played varsity ice hockey for three years in high school, playing starting left bench.
6) I still conceptualize people taller than me as "big kids" who are older than me. This is a problem considering that I'm only 5'8".
7) I wear a particular green windbreaker nearly every day, indoors and out, no matter the temperature (unless its really hot or really cold).
IV. Tag 7 random people, linking to them:
My girlfriend, Jill
The other person I know who has an LJ, Julia Iowa
Sarah Toews
Matt Cole
Tragdor!!!!
Esq.
And finally, the resurgent PG
V. Leave a comment letting them know you've tagged them. [no]
The Rules:
I. Link to the person who tagged you. (See above)
II. Post the Rules Here.
III. Share Seven Random or Weird Facts About Yourself:
1) Though I touch type, I only use my index finger on my right hand (my left hand has normal form). In spite of this, my typing speed is around 90 wpm.
2) I'm ranked among the top 300 in Prolific (the Facebook boggle application). There are over 52,000 players.
3) I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was a kid, until I discovered I had no artistic talent. A similar revelation quashed my next dream, to be a computer programmer.
4) I won the Princeton debate tournament (Student Congress) my senior year of high school.
5) I played varsity ice hockey for three years in high school, playing starting left bench.
6) I still conceptualize people taller than me as "big kids" who are older than me. This is a problem considering that I'm only 5'8".
7) I wear a particular green windbreaker nearly every day, indoors and out, no matter the temperature (unless its really hot or really cold).
IV. Tag 7 random people, linking to them:
My girlfriend, Jill
The other person I know who has an LJ, Julia Iowa
Sarah Toews
Matt Cole
Tragdor!!!!
Esq.
And finally, the resurgent PG
V. Leave a comment letting them know you've tagged them. [no]
Yoo-Hoo
From The Archives helps Berkeley Law School out with some potential public statements on why torture-architect John Yoo remains on faculty. Examples
And:
Ezra Klein addresses the "tenure defense", arguing that "tenure doesn't protect those with unpopular ideas, it just makes them harder to fire, and thus raises how unpopular an idea has to be before it merits termination." So, he hypothesizes, making dumb arguments about tax cuts for the rich being the awesomest stimulus plan ever, not worth our time. Advocating killing the Jews? See you later!
I dunno. I feel like realistically, that's how tenure works (c.f., Churchill, Ward). But only to some degree (I mean Tony Martin managed to make it into normal retirement last year). And ideally, tenure gets superseded not by really bad ideas, but by actual acts of scholarly or personal misconduct. Has Yoo met that threshold? I don't know.
Dude. We love torture and wish we could crush the testicles of small children personally, but our dirty hippie neighbors won't watch our houses for us when we go on vacation if we do. Prof. Yoo is our man!
And:
It is too bad that we can't follow the train of causality between Yoo's memo and establishing a novel torture regime in the United States. These things are so complicated and all he did was write a memo. If only there were some discipline, some field that deals with responsibility for crimes, how to weigh those and what the penalties should be. But since there isn't, we don't know what to do. I guess we'll just do nothing!
Ezra Klein addresses the "tenure defense", arguing that "tenure doesn't protect those with unpopular ideas, it just makes them harder to fire, and thus raises how unpopular an idea has to be before it merits termination." So, he hypothesizes, making dumb arguments about tax cuts for the rich being the awesomest stimulus plan ever, not worth our time. Advocating killing the Jews? See you later!
I dunno. I feel like realistically, that's how tenure works (c.f., Churchill, Ward). But only to some degree (I mean Tony Martin managed to make it into normal retirement last year). And ideally, tenure gets superseded not by really bad ideas, but by actual acts of scholarly or personal misconduct. Has Yoo met that threshold? I don't know.
Following Up Engagement
Remarking on the burgeoning electoral crisis in Zimbabwe, Matt Yglesias writes:
But isn't this the problem? I lean towards engagement policies over isolationism, if for no other reason than the latter doesn't seem to have an end-game to me. But it does always seem that the countries who "engage" with dictatorships, with the purported justification that it gives them more leverage, are never actually willing to step up and put the hammer down. And so we get stalemates like this one.
I guess it's better that someone probably could step up and force an end to the Zimbabwe crisis than for there to be literally nobody the international community could turn to. But that's pretty weak sauce when that someone refuses to step up to the plate.
One would hope that, at this point, some good might come of the controversial "engagement" approach taken by South Africa and others where African heads of state might indicate to Mugabe that a further crackdown at this point would be unacceptable.
But isn't this the problem? I lean towards engagement policies over isolationism, if for no other reason than the latter doesn't seem to have an end-game to me. But it does always seem that the countries who "engage" with dictatorships, with the purported justification that it gives them more leverage, are never actually willing to step up and put the hammer down. And so we get stalemates like this one.
I guess it's better that someone probably could step up and force an end to the Zimbabwe crisis than for there to be literally nobody the international community could turn to. But that's pretty weak sauce when that someone refuses to step up to the plate.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Knowledge and Punishment
Orin Kerr links to a story of a New York federal judge who, bucking long-standing precedent, is now holding that jurors need to be informed of mandatory sentencing guidelines prior to their determination of guilt and innocence. Kerr predicts the ruling will quickly be reversed, as it flies in the face of well-established precedent that's existed for a good 100 years. But that doesn't make the question any less interesting.
This is one of things where how we idealize jury deliberation runs headlong into how I imagine jury deliberation actually works. Ideally, the punishment bears no relevance to the question of guilt or innocence. They're separate questions. In reality, I'd imagine that jurors would be more willing to fall on the "guilty" side of that fuzzy reasonable doubt line where they think the punishment is not too harsh, and rule "not guilty" when the punishment feels strongly out of line with what they think is deserved. When that information is not present, the jurors don't just have a blank slate; they instead fill in their mental gaps with an assumption of what the punishment is that correlates to how severe they imagine the crime to be.
Where this ruling does implicate "idealized" jury functionality is in the realm of jury nullification. If one does believe that juries should be allowed to nullify because they view the underlying law as unjust, the sentencing range of the law is clearly relevant information. Many people who don't have a problem with drug criminalization per se still find gross injustice in the wildly overinflated sentences drug convictions bring. Knowledge of those guidelines could lead to more nullifications and potentially reform of the law.
This is one of things where how we idealize jury deliberation runs headlong into how I imagine jury deliberation actually works. Ideally, the punishment bears no relevance to the question of guilt or innocence. They're separate questions. In reality, I'd imagine that jurors would be more willing to fall on the "guilty" side of that fuzzy reasonable doubt line where they think the punishment is not too harsh, and rule "not guilty" when the punishment feels strongly out of line with what they think is deserved. When that information is not present, the jurors don't just have a blank slate; they instead fill in their mental gaps with an assumption of what the punishment is that correlates to how severe they imagine the crime to be.
Where this ruling does implicate "idealized" jury functionality is in the realm of jury nullification. If one does believe that juries should be allowed to nullify because they view the underlying law as unjust, the sentencing range of the law is clearly relevant information. Many people who don't have a problem with drug criminalization per se still find gross injustice in the wildly overinflated sentences drug convictions bring. Knowledge of those guidelines could lead to more nullifications and potentially reform of the law.
It's a Hobo's Life For Me
Well, I got turned down from that job I interviewed for (to be fair, I walked out of the interview thinking "Gosh, did I ever bomb that!"). I still have a few other applications outstanding, but thus far it looks like a hobo's life for me this summer.
My girlfriend, by contrast, has numerous well-paying prospects on the line. Maybe I'll just learn how to cook for her while she goes out and wins the bread. I'll put it on my resume as a summer spent subverting gender norms.
My girlfriend, by contrast, has numerous well-paying prospects on the line. Maybe I'll just learn how to cook for her while she goes out and wins the bread. I'll put it on my resume as a summer spent subverting gender norms.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Carson's Choice
Newly elected Rep. Brad Carson (D-IN) has now become the second Muslim in Congress, after Keith Ellison. Ed Stattmann approvingly comments on his decision to swear his oath on the constitution, rather than a religious document:
Good thought, but why only for adherents of "minority religions"? After all, by and large it's the majority creed that is trying to entangle religion and government. Presumably, they're the one's who need reminding of what they're swearing to uphold.
Consider all the lies and half-truths we hear from politicians. Swearing upon the Constitution to uphold what it says keeps the ceremony one in which government stays free of religious entanglement and religion stays free of potential political hypocrisy. Rep. Carson provided a precedent for future office winners of minority religions, be they Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans or Jewish Humanists.
Good thought, but why only for adherents of "minority religions"? After all, by and large it's the majority creed that is trying to entangle religion and government. Presumably, they're the one's who need reminding of what they're swearing to uphold.
And Now For Something Completely Different
I like this Matthew Yglesias post, because it implies that the only reason he's even bothering to engage with a lightweight like Mark Krikorian is because he's branching out into topics beyond immigration (needless to say, his point remains inane).
Reading the post, I am struck by a wave of confusion as to whether conservative foreign policy means isolationism again. I mean, for a long time it did, but then we've spent most of the past seven years listening to the right tell us that no country is too small of a threat to be ignored as a potential invasion target. Maybe the pendulum is racing back to the old form of extremism? It's kind of like democratization -- neo-conservatism crashed headlong into decades of happily supporting thuggish dictators, and every once in awhile the right gets confused about which cliff they're demanding we jump off.
Reading the post, I am struck by a wave of confusion as to whether conservative foreign policy means isolationism again. I mean, for a long time it did, but then we've spent most of the past seven years listening to the right tell us that no country is too small of a threat to be ignored as a potential invasion target. Maybe the pendulum is racing back to the old form of extremism? It's kind of like democratization -- neo-conservatism crashed headlong into decades of happily supporting thuggish dictators, and every once in awhile the right gets confused about which cliff they're demanding we jump off.
Don't Vacation In The Hague
Jack Balkin links to a Vanity Fair article pointing out that, even though the Military Commissions Act insulates our interrogators from domestic prosecution, this actually makes them more vulnerable to being indicted by international war crimes tribunal.
Recognizing Ilya Somin's concern about allowing international law to override domestic law when the legal norms are primarily promulgated by non-democratic regimes, it is worth reminding ourselves that the rules which apply here are primarily of American origin, used to prosecute Nuremberg after WWII.
Those responsible for the interrogation of Detainee 063 face a real risk of investigation if they set foot outside the United States. Article 4 of the torture convention criminalizes “complicity” or “participation” in torture, and the same principle governs violations of Common Article 3.
It would be wrong to consider the prospect of legal jeopardy unlikely. I remember sitting in the House of Lords during the landmark Pinochet case, back in 1999—in which a prosecutor was seeking the extradition to Spain of the former Chilean head of state for torture and other international crimes—and being told by one of his key advisers that they had never expected the torture convention to lead to the former president of Chile’s loss of legal immunity. In my efforts to get to the heart of this story, and its possible consequences, I visited a judge and a prosecutor in a major European city, and guided them through all the materials pertaining to the Guantánamo case. The judge and prosecutor were particularly struck by the immunity from prosecution provided by the Military Commissions Act. “That is very stupid,” said the prosecutor, explaining that it would make it much easier for investigators outside the United States to argue that possible war crimes would never be addressed by the justice system in the home country—one of the trip wires enabling foreign courts to intervene. For some of those involved in the Guantánamo decisions, prudence may well dictate a more cautious approach to international travel. And for some the future may hold a tap on the shoulder.
Recognizing Ilya Somin's concern about allowing international law to override domestic law when the legal norms are primarily promulgated by non-democratic regimes, it is worth reminding ourselves that the rules which apply here are primarily of American origin, used to prosecute Nuremberg after WWII.
The Old Standby
I don't know why this always works, but it does:
And so on and so forth. You'd think someone in the pro-life movement would have figured out this paradox by now.
Actually, I suspect there are some pro-lifers willing to take their position to the logical conclusion and support long prison sentences (or capital punishment) for women who have abortions. But there are definitely others who are not willing to hold that. What's missing is a terribly compelling reason why.
Also, "Bare Foot and Progressive" is a fantastic name for a blog.
Via
I decided to go up to the young female students who were passing out their "genocide leaflets" to the students walking by and chat.
I asked each one if they wanted to overturn Roe vs. Wade and make abortion illegal. They all said yes, of course. I asked them if abortion was murder. They all said yes, of course.
I then asked each of them, once this is made illegal, what the preferred prison sentence should be for a woman that has an abortion.
The first girl I talked to seemed bewildered by the question. She literally had never thought about that before. She was willing to stand in front of these horrible pictures and accuse people of murder and genocide, yet she had never even thought what type of penalties women would get if this was made illegal. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights, so I let her go to ponder just what in the hell she's doing out here.
And so on and so forth. You'd think someone in the pro-life movement would have figured out this paradox by now.
Actually, I suspect there are some pro-lifers willing to take their position to the logical conclusion and support long prison sentences (or capital punishment) for women who have abortions. But there are definitely others who are not willing to hold that. What's missing is a terribly compelling reason why.
Also, "Bare Foot and Progressive" is a fantastic name for a blog.
Via
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Victory?
The Comics Curmudgeon reflects on grad school:
I haven't made a decision on my future. In fact, I can't, seeing as there are certain schools that still have yet to make a decision as to whether I'll get to make a decision on them. I would say that if they don't hurry up, I'll have to forget them, but that's a lie: one I would attend in a heartbeat even if they accepted me a day before classes began, and the other I'd at least consider dropping my deposit for.
"When I was in graduate school, my roommate and I decided to celebrate some minor life victory (and when you're in graduate school, every victory is minor)...."
I haven't made a decision on my future. In fact, I can't, seeing as there are certain schools that still have yet to make a decision as to whether I'll get to make a decision on them. I would say that if they don't hurry up, I'll have to forget them, but that's a lie: one I would attend in a heartbeat even if they accepted me a day before classes began, and the other I'd at least consider dropping my deposit for.
What Is Our Dysfunction?
What is it with the Maryland judiciary? Normally, I love my home state. But for some reason, our courts seem utterly incapable of acknowledging that women have bodily autonomy and a right not to be abused. First, they held that a woman couldn't withdraw consent for sexual intercourse after the initial act of penetration, because the only actual harm of rape is the "deflowering". Then a judge dismissed a case where a cop had observed a man assaulting his girlfriend because some people enjoy sadomasochism. And today, we hear of a delightful case where a woman was denied a restraining order against her mentally instable husband who had threatened to kill their kids because she was "still having sex with him." The problem? The woman had testified that
This is in the news because the kids now are, in fact, dead -- drowned by this woman's husband before he attempted to commit suicide.
One can call this case a tragedy, and it is, but it's also emblematic of Maryland's failure to adequately protect woman who are in dangerous and abusive relationships. Often times, abuse is difficult to combat because the victims don't seek help. This woman did, and was stymied at every turn.
Via Feministing
she had sex with her husband because she was frightened of him and was worried that if she didn't, he would "assume something was wrong" and suspect that she was trying to get a restraining order against him.
This is in the news because the kids now are, in fact, dead -- drowned by this woman's husband before he attempted to commit suicide.
One can call this case a tragedy, and it is, but it's also emblematic of Maryland's failure to adequately protect woman who are in dangerous and abusive relationships. Often times, abuse is difficult to combat because the victims don't seek help. This woman did, and was stymied at every turn.
Via Feministing
Should We Allow Prisoners To Vote?
A few days ago, I wrote a post on what I termed "quiet injustices" -- things that pretty clearly implicate questions of ethics and morality in our society, but yet rarely seem to bother us. My main example was D.C. disenfranchisement. Another is felon disenfranchisement (after their sentences have been served). Neither, I think, is in any remote way justifiable, and neither are particularly salient political issues.
But the more I think about it, the more I question whether even disenfranchising felons while they're in prison is justifiable. So, I've decided to spend some time exploring that issue.
In the field of legal philosophy, there are two primary justificatory models for why we can punish criminals. The first is "utilitarian"; we punish people because it leads to better social outcomes when we do. Deterrence, for example, is a utilitarian consideration, as is preventing the criminal from committing more crimes. The second model is "retributive"; essentially, giving criminals their just deserts. Those who commit crimes deserve to be punished (to varying degrees, depending on the crime). But the flip side of the retributive model is that you can't punish people more (or less) than they deserve, even if society would benefit (from the deterrent aspect, say). Hence, the two models are somewhat in tension with each other. Sometimes, society as a whole would be better off if a criminal was punished more (or less) severely than they "deserve". In such situations, we are forced to pick which model we prefer. Hence, I'll analyze prisoner disenfranchisement under both models, then examine several additional pragmatic considerations outside punishment theory that might advise against allowing prisoners to vote.
I. The Utilitarian Model
The utilitarian position forces us to weigh the benefits of prisoner disenfranchisements against its costs. We'll start with the costs, which should be obvious: denying someone the franchise is an extraordinarily serious breach of normal civic procedures. The harms are aggregated when it is a particular class of individuals (in this case, prisoners) who are so disenfranchised, because whatever interests they have as a class will be erased from our collective deliberations. And prisoners do have several exceedingly important interests that deserve hearing: combating prison rape and prison reform more generally, the availability of reintegration programs for non-lifers, even the simple mechanisms to prevent family dissolution during imprisonment. Moreover, prison disenfranchisement leads to the 0/5 compromise wherein mostly minority prisoners are transferred to White locales, who then gain increased voting power without additional voters. This creates a perverse incentive to deliberately jack up the incarcerated population, particularly via laws which target minority populations, and has the effect of creating unjustifiable asymmetries in political power, privileging White communities over communities of color.
The benefits of punishment in general, in the utilitarian model, are those of deterrence, and pre-empting potential future criminal activity by the imprisoned person. But outside cases where the crime itself is election-related (and in those few cases, I think disenfranchisement is justifiable), neither seems to apply. Allowing prisoners to vote would not give them any more opportunity make it any more likely that they will commit more crimes. Indeed, if anything it may make it less likely: insofar as criminal activity is positively correlated with marginalization from general social practices, integrating people into socially mainstream acts (such as civic participation) should be a bulwark against recidivism. Deterrence, too, to be inapplicable -- I have trouble imagining the prospective criminal for whom prison is not a deterrent, but loss of voting privileges is. Whatever marginal gain (if one exists at all) in deterrent force disenfranchisement offers is more than outweighed by the aforementioned costs.
II. Retributive Model
The retributive model allows for punishment as "just deserts" for criminal activity. This, obviously, is a bit fuzzy: what is "just deserts"? Obviously, we can recognize the poles: death for jaywalking is not just deserts, nor is a fine for murder. But there still remains the "how many grains of sand make a pile" problem. The line at which a punishment becomes too severe or not severe enough is blurry and contested.
However, one thing that can aid us in the present discussion is that we have, by and large, at least a metric for measuring the relative severity of punishments: prison. We can debate which crimes are the worst, and we can debate where each crime should specifically be placed on the spectrum. But we do agree that, abstractly, the worse the crime, the longer you (deserve to) spend in prison. And in the public imagination, that sentence is exhaustive of just deserts. Simply put, I think that the decision on imprisonment length alone is the reflection of what we imagine just deserts to be.
Consider a crime that we all agree should, in our status quo system, be punished by 20 years in jail. Imagine now that we agree that the prisoner should be enfranchised while he's serving his sentence. Do we now think the sentence should be 30 years instead of 20? If we do not believe that (and I don't think most people do), then we're implicitly saying that enfranchisement/disenfranchisement is not part of our internal weighing mechanism for determining just deserts. And if it doesn't meet that threshold, then under the retributive framework it is not a punishment we can legitimately impose on offenders.
Of course, one might take the opposite stance on my hypothetical, and say that both factors (enfranchisement and sentence length) are relevant considerations for measuring just deserts. At that point, the question shifts to whether disenfranchisement is an inherently unjust punishment. For example, if in the previous hypothetical we replaced the variable of "enfranchisement" with the variable "tortured daily", I might agree that we should adjust the sentence length downward to make up for the increased severity of the punishment. But prior to that I'd hold that torture is not a just punishment -- inherently it can never be considered part of just deserts, because it represents a extreme violation of human dignity. The question is whether voter disenfranchisement occupies a like category. I think that there is a solid argument that it does. Voting is an absolutely bedrock, fundamental part of being a person in a democratic citizenry. To be barred from voting is to be rendered a non-person in our political community. Whatever else prisoners are, I think they remain persons and citizens. They are not "men without countries", and they should not be treated as such.
This, I recognize, is more of a judgment call. But particularly since I believe we can affect just deserts via imprisonment alone, without disenfranchisement, I do not believe we have good grounds to add disenfranchisement as a punishment options outside of very special circumstances (where the felon's crime was election related).
III. Pragmatic Considerations
Having dealt with the question at a level of theory, the final issue is whether there are any pragmatic bars that would advise against allowing prisoners to vote. I think a few present themselves, but they do not strike me as sufficient to outweigh the arguments laid out above.
The first potential problem is both the most intuitively obvious (to me, anyway) as well as the most easily dispatched. That is that prisoners, already having demonstrated themselves to have anti-social tendencies, will vote for policies that sanction their sociopathic activities (i.e., all the robbery inmates will get together and vote to legalize robbery). This strikes me as an unfounded fear, in part because I don't actually think most robbery convicts actually believe that robbery should be legal, but primarily because there aren't enough prisoners to accomplish such an end. Prison enfranchisement is important because it allows prisoners to form political alliances with like-minded interest groups who also are concerned with their problems. But while there are voices on the outside who care about the problem of prison rape, there are very few, I'd imagine, which believe we should legalize robbery. The only way this could be circumvented is if prisoners actually became a democratic majority, in which case I'd argue we have bigger problems on our hands. Particularly since I think prisoners should still be considered "residents", for voting purposes, of their hometowns, and not where the prison is located, it strikes me as unlikely that prisoners will ever gain a working democratic majority.
The second potential problem is that of independent agency in a prison environment. Prison is a institution of power and control, both among prisoners, and between the guards and the prisoners. But voting demands the free exercise of one's own autonomous faculties. This creates tension. But I think the tension can be overcome. The biggest risk for intimidation comes where the prisoners are all voting in the same jurisdiction. But where the prisoners are spread out of many jurisdictions (because they hail from different hometowns), the potential for adverse influence dissipates. It doesn't go away entirely (statewide and national elections will see significant overlap in interests), but then again, the potential for voter intimidation always exists anyway. So long as ballots are secret, the risk strikes me as minimal.
The third potential problem is how to organize an election in prison. Prisoners should be given access to news, so they can make informed decisions (I do not think utter isolation from current events is justified by either utilitarian or retributive considerations). And since I envision the prisoners as being registered in their home jurisdictions, rather than residents of whether the prison is located, the election itself would be standard absentee ballot fare.
IV. Choice of Punishment: A Middle Ground
A middle ground option, alluded to early, that exists within the retributive framework would be to give prisoners an option of taking a reduced sentence that includes disenfranchisement, or a lengthened sentence that allows one to vote. But that would entail figuring out an exchange rate between enfranchisement and time-served (how many years of a sentence is the right to vote worth?). Pragmatically, it is simpler to use prison length on its own as a metric of just deserts. Moreover, insofar as a just democratic polity incorporates (to the greatest degree possible) the voices of the entirety of the citizenry, we should promulgate policies that encourage people to vote, and be particularly wary of discouraging voting amongst particular classes or groups of the citizenry. But since I suspect few prisoners would choose voting rights over a reduced sentence, adding voting rights as a punishment consideration would cut against the benefits of inclusion that I've articulated.
V. Conclusion
So in conclusion, I believe that it is difficult to justify disenfranchising prisoners, under normal circumstances, under either a utilitarian or a retributive model of punishment. Furthermore, the pragmatic arguments against prison voting are similarly lacking in merit. Meanwhile, allowing prisoners to vote would benefit society by making it more democratically legitimate, by including pertinent voices on deliberations of great social import, and even by potentially reducing recidivism rates.
But the more I think about it, the more I question whether even disenfranchising felons while they're in prison is justifiable. So, I've decided to spend some time exploring that issue.
In the field of legal philosophy, there are two primary justificatory models for why we can punish criminals. The first is "utilitarian"; we punish people because it leads to better social outcomes when we do. Deterrence, for example, is a utilitarian consideration, as is preventing the criminal from committing more crimes. The second model is "retributive"; essentially, giving criminals their just deserts. Those who commit crimes deserve to be punished (to varying degrees, depending on the crime). But the flip side of the retributive model is that you can't punish people more (or less) than they deserve, even if society would benefit (from the deterrent aspect, say). Hence, the two models are somewhat in tension with each other. Sometimes, society as a whole would be better off if a criminal was punished more (or less) severely than they "deserve". In such situations, we are forced to pick which model we prefer. Hence, I'll analyze prisoner disenfranchisement under both models, then examine several additional pragmatic considerations outside punishment theory that might advise against allowing prisoners to vote.
I. The Utilitarian Model
The utilitarian position forces us to weigh the benefits of prisoner disenfranchisements against its costs. We'll start with the costs, which should be obvious: denying someone the franchise is an extraordinarily serious breach of normal civic procedures. The harms are aggregated when it is a particular class of individuals (in this case, prisoners) who are so disenfranchised, because whatever interests they have as a class will be erased from our collective deliberations. And prisoners do have several exceedingly important interests that deserve hearing: combating prison rape and prison reform more generally, the availability of reintegration programs for non-lifers, even the simple mechanisms to prevent family dissolution during imprisonment. Moreover, prison disenfranchisement leads to the 0/5 compromise wherein mostly minority prisoners are transferred to White locales, who then gain increased voting power without additional voters. This creates a perverse incentive to deliberately jack up the incarcerated population, particularly via laws which target minority populations, and has the effect of creating unjustifiable asymmetries in political power, privileging White communities over communities of color.
The benefits of punishment in general, in the utilitarian model, are those of deterrence, and pre-empting potential future criminal activity by the imprisoned person. But outside cases where the crime itself is election-related (and in those few cases, I think disenfranchisement is justifiable), neither seems to apply. Allowing prisoners to vote would not give them any more opportunity make it any more likely that they will commit more crimes. Indeed, if anything it may make it less likely: insofar as criminal activity is positively correlated with marginalization from general social practices, integrating people into socially mainstream acts (such as civic participation) should be a bulwark against recidivism. Deterrence, too, to be inapplicable -- I have trouble imagining the prospective criminal for whom prison is not a deterrent, but loss of voting privileges is. Whatever marginal gain (if one exists at all) in deterrent force disenfranchisement offers is more than outweighed by the aforementioned costs.
II. Retributive Model
The retributive model allows for punishment as "just deserts" for criminal activity. This, obviously, is a bit fuzzy: what is "just deserts"? Obviously, we can recognize the poles: death for jaywalking is not just deserts, nor is a fine for murder. But there still remains the "how many grains of sand make a pile" problem. The line at which a punishment becomes too severe or not severe enough is blurry and contested.
However, one thing that can aid us in the present discussion is that we have, by and large, at least a metric for measuring the relative severity of punishments: prison. We can debate which crimes are the worst, and we can debate where each crime should specifically be placed on the spectrum. But we do agree that, abstractly, the worse the crime, the longer you (deserve to) spend in prison. And in the public imagination, that sentence is exhaustive of just deserts. Simply put, I think that the decision on imprisonment length alone is the reflection of what we imagine just deserts to be.
Consider a crime that we all agree should, in our status quo system, be punished by 20 years in jail. Imagine now that we agree that the prisoner should be enfranchised while he's serving his sentence. Do we now think the sentence should be 30 years instead of 20? If we do not believe that (and I don't think most people do), then we're implicitly saying that enfranchisement/disenfranchisement is not part of our internal weighing mechanism for determining just deserts. And if it doesn't meet that threshold, then under the retributive framework it is not a punishment we can legitimately impose on offenders.
Of course, one might take the opposite stance on my hypothetical, and say that both factors (enfranchisement and sentence length) are relevant considerations for measuring just deserts. At that point, the question shifts to whether disenfranchisement is an inherently unjust punishment. For example, if in the previous hypothetical we replaced the variable of "enfranchisement" with the variable "tortured daily", I might agree that we should adjust the sentence length downward to make up for the increased severity of the punishment. But prior to that I'd hold that torture is not a just punishment -- inherently it can never be considered part of just deserts, because it represents a extreme violation of human dignity. The question is whether voter disenfranchisement occupies a like category. I think that there is a solid argument that it does. Voting is an absolutely bedrock, fundamental part of being a person in a democratic citizenry. To be barred from voting is to be rendered a non-person in our political community. Whatever else prisoners are, I think they remain persons and citizens. They are not "men without countries", and they should not be treated as such.
This, I recognize, is more of a judgment call. But particularly since I believe we can affect just deserts via imprisonment alone, without disenfranchisement, I do not believe we have good grounds to add disenfranchisement as a punishment options outside of very special circumstances (where the felon's crime was election related).
III. Pragmatic Considerations
Having dealt with the question at a level of theory, the final issue is whether there are any pragmatic bars that would advise against allowing prisoners to vote. I think a few present themselves, but they do not strike me as sufficient to outweigh the arguments laid out above.
The first potential problem is both the most intuitively obvious (to me, anyway) as well as the most easily dispatched. That is that prisoners, already having demonstrated themselves to have anti-social tendencies, will vote for policies that sanction their sociopathic activities (i.e., all the robbery inmates will get together and vote to legalize robbery). This strikes me as an unfounded fear, in part because I don't actually think most robbery convicts actually believe that robbery should be legal, but primarily because there aren't enough prisoners to accomplish such an end. Prison enfranchisement is important because it allows prisoners to form political alliances with like-minded interest groups who also are concerned with their problems. But while there are voices on the outside who care about the problem of prison rape, there are very few, I'd imagine, which believe we should legalize robbery. The only way this could be circumvented is if prisoners actually became a democratic majority, in which case I'd argue we have bigger problems on our hands. Particularly since I think prisoners should still be considered "residents", for voting purposes, of their hometowns, and not where the prison is located, it strikes me as unlikely that prisoners will ever gain a working democratic majority.
The second potential problem is that of independent agency in a prison environment. Prison is a institution of power and control, both among prisoners, and between the guards and the prisoners. But voting demands the free exercise of one's own autonomous faculties. This creates tension. But I think the tension can be overcome. The biggest risk for intimidation comes where the prisoners are all voting in the same jurisdiction. But where the prisoners are spread out of many jurisdictions (because they hail from different hometowns), the potential for adverse influence dissipates. It doesn't go away entirely (statewide and national elections will see significant overlap in interests), but then again, the potential for voter intimidation always exists anyway. So long as ballots are secret, the risk strikes me as minimal.
The third potential problem is how to organize an election in prison. Prisoners should be given access to news, so they can make informed decisions (I do not think utter isolation from current events is justified by either utilitarian or retributive considerations). And since I envision the prisoners as being registered in their home jurisdictions, rather than residents of whether the prison is located, the election itself would be standard absentee ballot fare.
IV. Choice of Punishment: A Middle Ground
A middle ground option, alluded to early, that exists within the retributive framework would be to give prisoners an option of taking a reduced sentence that includes disenfranchisement, or a lengthened sentence that allows one to vote. But that would entail figuring out an exchange rate between enfranchisement and time-served (how many years of a sentence is the right to vote worth?). Pragmatically, it is simpler to use prison length on its own as a metric of just deserts. Moreover, insofar as a just democratic polity incorporates (to the greatest degree possible) the voices of the entirety of the citizenry, we should promulgate policies that encourage people to vote, and be particularly wary of discouraging voting amongst particular classes or groups of the citizenry. But since I suspect few prisoners would choose voting rights over a reduced sentence, adding voting rights as a punishment consideration would cut against the benefits of inclusion that I've articulated.
V. Conclusion
So in conclusion, I believe that it is difficult to justify disenfranchising prisoners, under normal circumstances, under either a utilitarian or a retributive model of punishment. Furthermore, the pragmatic arguments against prison voting are similarly lacking in merit. Meanwhile, allowing prisoners to vote would benefit society by making it more democratically legitimate, by including pertinent voices on deliberations of great social import, and even by potentially reducing recidivism rates.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
How Can We Function Like This?
Continuing to demonstrate that she's smarter than most other human beings, Samantha Power had this to say about the UN in a recent interview:
I don't bow to anyone in detesting the UN. But it's problems are essentially a result of the international priorities of member states; specifically, that they're not interested in human rights or democratization in the international sphere. That's as true of the US as anyone else. Certainly, I'm mighty pissed off that countries like China or Zimbabwe or Iran don't pursue a liberal agenda in the United Nations, but that's hardly the UN's fault. And frankly, the US doesn't particularly pursue an agenda of democratization or liberalization in our foreign policy, making our feigned shock that other countries, too, act based on narrow and usually illiberal conceptions of their "national interests" all the more pathetic.
Via Matthew Yglesias
HK: Do you think the UN is a functional organization?
SP: This is a distracting point. Not fully functional, no. But the UN’s dysfunctions are less the problem of the organization as such. They are the problem of governments and what they choose to pursue and neglect. Citizens have the power to make governments act differently; the UN as an organization does not. Sergio’s success would have been more robust, or more frequent, if governments had lined up behind him. Secretary-General Kofi Annan lining up behind him was not the same thing. There are plenty of changes that the UN as an organization can make to decrease its many inefficiencies, but the UN will continue to look dysfunctional until member states decide to prioritize global problems, which will require political pressure from below.
I don't bow to anyone in detesting the UN. But it's problems are essentially a result of the international priorities of member states; specifically, that they're not interested in human rights or democratization in the international sphere. That's as true of the US as anyone else. Certainly, I'm mighty pissed off that countries like China or Zimbabwe or Iran don't pursue a liberal agenda in the United Nations, but that's hardly the UN's fault. And frankly, the US doesn't particularly pursue an agenda of democratization or liberalization in our foreign policy, making our feigned shock that other countries, too, act based on narrow and usually illiberal conceptions of their "national interests" all the more pathetic.
Via Matthew Yglesias
Black Conservatism, Redux
Continuing once again on the theme of Black Conservatism, I thought this CNN story (it links to a video report) might be of interest. The subject is a Black Georgia judge who ordered all the Whites out of his courtroom, and proceeded to lecture the remaining Blacks, one-on-one on "how to behave and changing their lives."
On the one hand, this is the typical conservative proposal for Blacks -- they have to take responsibility for themselves, not blame the White Man, fix their own communities. On the other hand, it seems to badly clash with the "color-blind" principle. The point being, again, to demonstrate the cleavages between Black and White Conservatism (and their racial outlook in general). Insofar as the conservatism manifests itself in self-ownership and personal responsibility, communal Black efforts to actualize the principle will always strike White Conservative ears as being color-conscious.
This might explain the somewhat odd (to my ears) lede CNN chose to begin their story -- asking if the judge's actions were "reverse racism" against Whites. I mean, I guess I can see that, but it's a bit of a leap -- that Whites are discriminated against because they can't be there for an intramural conversation within the Black community (about how they need to take personal responsibility and not complain about what White folks are doing, no less!). Indeed, the conservative White anxiety over this sort of proceeding could be highly indicative -- they say they want Blacks to take ownership of their own lives, but they get mighty antsy when that self-ownership means Whites aren't always going to get to be in the room, listening in. These Whites, it seems, aren't quite ready to give up their roles as monitors and overseers. And that creates tension.
Meanwhile, as one of the men interviewed at the end of the segment noted, it's at least as reasonable to criticize the judge for being biased against Black people -- while certainly Black people have to take personal responsibility when they engage in destructive behavior, White people do all of those things too, but it's never considered to be indicative of a racially based pathology. But the Black Conservative would argue that what Whites do, Whites do, and that's no excuse for Blacks to not get their houses in order.
"You have to turn it around. It's not the White Man. You are the one committing these crimes...."
On the one hand, this is the typical conservative proposal for Blacks -- they have to take responsibility for themselves, not blame the White Man, fix their own communities. On the other hand, it seems to badly clash with the "color-blind" principle. The point being, again, to demonstrate the cleavages between Black and White Conservatism (and their racial outlook in general). Insofar as the conservatism manifests itself in self-ownership and personal responsibility, communal Black efforts to actualize the principle will always strike White Conservative ears as being color-conscious.
This might explain the somewhat odd (to my ears) lede CNN chose to begin their story -- asking if the judge's actions were "reverse racism" against Whites. I mean, I guess I can see that, but it's a bit of a leap -- that Whites are discriminated against because they can't be there for an intramural conversation within the Black community (about how they need to take personal responsibility and not complain about what White folks are doing, no less!). Indeed, the conservative White anxiety over this sort of proceeding could be highly indicative -- they say they want Blacks to take ownership of their own lives, but they get mighty antsy when that self-ownership means Whites aren't always going to get to be in the room, listening in. These Whites, it seems, aren't quite ready to give up their roles as monitors and overseers. And that creates tension.
Meanwhile, as one of the men interviewed at the end of the segment noted, it's at least as reasonable to criticize the judge for being biased against Black people -- while certainly Black people have to take personal responsibility when they engage in destructive behavior, White people do all of those things too, but it's never considered to be indicative of a racially based pathology. But the Black Conservative would argue that what Whites do, Whites do, and that's no excuse for Blacks to not get their houses in order.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Quiet Injustices
There are many arguably unjust aspects about American society. Some of them are quite hotly debated in the public arena, but others seem to maintain themselves more quietly. For example, I consider the denial of marriage equality to gay and lesbian citizens to be a grave injustice, but it certainly is not absent from our public deliberations about what it means to live in a just America. However, other topics which seem to equally implicate our fundamental values, such as felon disenfranchisement or the status of American colonial possessions (e.g., Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Marianas Islands, and yes, the District of Columbia), manage to exist without being the subject of intense public debate.
I say this because, despite being of obvious moral and ethical import, I've yet to read a convincing justification for the current status of the District of Columbia. The last time the topic came up in Congress, the main argument deployed against it was constitutional, not moral. It's not that I don't think constitutionality matters, but it does raise the question -- why not amend the constitution? The point is, there's really no argument that the status quo is radically undemocratic vis-a-vis D.C. (and Guam and American Samoa and the Marianas and all our other colonial possessions). But this is not considered to be a "problem". At least with gay marriage, which I also think is a rather clear case of definitive injustice, the topic is recognized as being within the realm of politics and debate. But nobody is grilling our presidential candidates about whether they support Puerto Rican representation. By and large, even civic-minded voters don't have this issue at the front of their minds. There is no groundswell of outrage that we're depriving millions of American citizens of their voting rights for no discernible reason.
Why not?
I say this because, despite being of obvious moral and ethical import, I've yet to read a convincing justification for the current status of the District of Columbia. The last time the topic came up in Congress, the main argument deployed against it was constitutional, not moral. It's not that I don't think constitutionality matters, but it does raise the question -- why not amend the constitution? The point is, there's really no argument that the status quo is radically undemocratic vis-a-vis D.C. (and Guam and American Samoa and the Marianas and all our other colonial possessions). But this is not considered to be a "problem". At least with gay marriage, which I also think is a rather clear case of definitive injustice, the topic is recognized as being within the realm of politics and debate. But nobody is grilling our presidential candidates about whether they support Puerto Rican representation. By and large, even civic-minded voters don't have this issue at the front of their minds. There is no groundswell of outrage that we're depriving millions of American citizens of their voting rights for no discernible reason.
Why not?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
