What The...?

Now, I'm from suburban Maryland, so I may not be the best judge of "folksy." But I reckon I'll wager this ain't it:

"My job is to herd these Republicans," [Tennessee Republican Senator Bill] Frist says. "And if I have too many frogs jumping out of the wheelbarrow as I'm moving down the field, it means I've gotta be putting people back in."

Umm...sure Bill. Whatever that meant.

Not a Prayer

I just received this email from Ken Vernon, the person who originally gave me my advance copy of "Prayers for the Assassin." Having alerted him to my review, he wrote back:

Thanks for posting your review. I am glad you enjoyed the book! Don't forget to check out the accompanying sites...

Ken

Ummm...clearly he didn't read the review. Let's pull some quotes:

[T]he book depends on several wildly implausible leaps to get us from a largely secular democracy to a near-totalitarian Muslim theocracy...intellectually insulting to anybody else with a political pulse....almost no set of reasonable assumptions one could make in which Ferrigno's scenario would play out....all the plausibility of a drug-induced hallucination....If you're going to relax with mindless fiction, try to avoid the ones which suck out your soul in the process.

So yeah--I really "enjoyed" the book. Oh well.

Amusing moment for me though.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, it appears my review has been reviewed. To the negative. There's a few things I could say in response, but I'm going to restrain myself to two quickies. Number one, I don't think it's fair to hold me responsible for the fact that "liberalism" means different things in American politics versus philosophy. Yes, I know it makes for great "we're the real liberals!" moments, but really, cut me some slack here. I didn't create our lexicon, I just use it. Of course, I disagree that the American political liberal scene stands in opposition to philosophical liberalism (gay marriage, anyone?), but that's a debate for another time.

But my real big, big beef is why "moderate" Muslims are always portrayed as only the diet version of fanatics. My reviewer isn't the only one who's done this, but I think it's fair to say that the whole point of the book is to show that even moderate Muslims are really, really, scary. To be a moderate Muslim apparently means supporting theocracy without street beatings. But why isn't the model here the actual American Muslim community, which is remarkably sanguine about all those liberal values which are supposedly an anathema even to the moderates? I haven't seen Detriot go up in flames yet over the Mohammed cartoons. Sure, the CAIR came out with that idiotic statement saying that freedom of expression doesn't extend to offending religions, but that doesn't make them any more extreme than the Vatican. At the end of the day, I think that we should take people at face value. If American Muslims are managing to integrate their faith with liberal values, we should assume it's geniune. If American liberals say that they want equal rights for homosexuals, we should likewise assume it's geniune. Islam is currently beset by a plague of radicalism, but I think it is empirically wrong to assume, as this book does, that this is the result of an ontological flaw in the religion.

Bad Argumentation Makes Me :(

If you look at the very top of this site, you'll note that it's titled "The Debate Link." Many of you also probably know this is a homage to my debate background--I come from an environment where good arguments and analysis are actually valued and respected (what a difference from modern politics). In any event, this gives me a reduced tolerance for poor argumentation. And a response from Kip Esquire to my D.C. Olympics post is emblematic of just really shoddy reasoning.

Basically, I used the prospect of a D.C. Olympic curling team to note my support for D.C. statehood and/or voting rights. In response, I get trackbacked by this oh-so-clever rejoinder [UPDATE: Kip wants me to know that he wrote his post first, and then linked to mine later. Okay, fair enough--but his post remains really, really, really wrong--and it shouldn't have taken a college Sophomore to point it out]:

Okay, humor aside - the subject of (voting) congressional representation for residents of the District of Columbia?

It's quite simple really: too bad, so sad. You don't like it? Then either move or amend the Constitution.

The question of "one person, one vote" came up during the Alito confirmation hearings. It's an important constitutional principle. But so is the concept that the District of Columbia is not a state and therefore is simply not entitled to (voting) congressional representation.
[...]
So okay, fine, disenfranchisement of D.C. residents stinks. Point conceded.

But it's what the Constitution calls for. Don't like it? Amend it. It wouldn't be the first time.

My immediate first thought was "wait a minute--where in the constitution does it mandate that D.C. residents not be allowed to vote?" The closest thing on point is Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, which reads as follows:

[Congress has the power] To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States....

This in no way precludes D.C. voting rights. For one, it's a grant of power, not a mandate. Congress can choose to exercise it in anyway it wishes. It doesn't have to exercise it in a manner which deprives U.S. citizens of representation. Hell, it doesn't even have to exercise it at all if it doesn't want to. Moreover, there is no plausible way to interpret said clause to prevent many of the forwarded plans to restore D.C. voting rights--retro-ceding of most or all of the territory to Maryland, or simply declaring it another state (as Congress is empowered to do under Article IV Section 3). Kip tries to argue in comments that this would violate "the constitutional provision for the 'seat of government,'" but as I pointed out above, there is no such provision in terms of it being an inviolable mandate (only an option that Congress can decide to or not to exercise). But even if there needs to be some minimum territory given to the federal government for their use alone, I don't think most D.C. residents would object if the bare "core" of the federal government (White House, Capitol Building, maybe the Mall) were considered federal territory as long as Georgetown and Mt. Pleasant and Anacostia were granted full representation. The constitutional argument is wildly off the mark.

My next thought was that it's a bit cruel to tell DCers that they should just "amend the constitution." Amending the constitution is a democratic process that (almost always) begins with a congressional vote. The problem we're trying to rectify here is that...Washingtonians don't have congressional votes. So in effect, you're telling D.C. residents that they should resort to a process that they don't have access to. Ouch. Sure, it's not an insurmountable hurdle (see Amendment 23), but even still: doesn't it sound more like something Catbert would do than a real, breathing, ensouled human being? Even in normal cases, the "just amend the constitution" argument doesn't do much for me, as (like in this case) it's usually a shield for absurdly narrow readings of the constitutional text, but in this case, it's especially ridiculous. It's like telling a black slave in 1820 that if doesn't like slavery, he should just amend the constitution. To amend the constitution, you got to stop being a slave, to stop being a slave, you got to amend the constitution--oh the pain!

But the final thing, and the part that really got to me, was this: why not amend the constitution? This is what really makes his argument non-sensical, because distilled down it makes his post into this:

(1) A group of Washingtonians are trying to form an Olympic squad to draw attention to their lack of representation

(2) Giving them representation would require a constitutional amendment, therefore

(3) The Washingtonians are stupid

Nothing in my post, or the D.C. statehood movement, or using an Olympic team to draw attention to said movement, would preclude the constitutional option. It is completely and utterly irrelevant to our advocacy at this level. So why all the snark? Given that Kip concedes that Washington disenfranchisement "stinks," it would seem plausible that he would support such an amendment. And in building up political capital to get said amendment passed, the D.C. team could be invaluable--or at least, as likely to be valuable as any other stunt pulled by citizens deprived of their right to vote (maybe they could initiate a bus boycott? Worked for Dr. King). Now, Kip and I disagree about whether an amendment is constitutionally necessary to achieve this (and by "disagree" I mean he's inarguably wrong about it). But at the end of the day, all that should result in is a post from Kip that supports D.C. enfranchisement, but caveating that he thinks a constitutional amendment is required to do it. And perhaps he could argue that the Olympic stunt is likely to backfire, or won't work, or otherwise would harm the movement (I don't know). But ultimately, his post as stands is the most naked straw-man argument I've seen in ages.

Too bad, too sad.

Across the Border

Living approximately five minutes from the D.C. border, I am a firm advocate for D.C. statehood, or barring that, at least full voting rights. As such, I will be cheering full-throat for the D.C. Olympic team!

Sure, they only have a Curling squad. And sure, it probably isn't very good. And sure, they're not formally recognized yet. But you can change that (or at least, the last part of it), by going to their official site and writing to the IOC to allow the DC team to join. After all, if Guam gets a team, and Puerto Rico gets a team, and American Samoa gets a team--why not D.C.? At the very least, it would be a great way to raise awareness about this travesty of American democracy.

Makes me almost sad that I don't live 5 minutes further Southeast...

Blah Blah Blah...I Mean Do You Really Think Blah?

I'm so using some of these in my Constitutional Law class. I share Heidi Bond's favorite:

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Haven't Read

Answer the prof's question with another question. If he fires back with yet another question, it's on. If not, he loses, and you should tell him so.

Bring it.

Pet Peeve of the Day: Professors who write that they are not "persuaded" by the key argument in your paper, but give absolutely no indictment of the analysis there-in. Especially when they spell it "pursuaded."

Happy Moment of the Day: Duke holding on to beat BC. Though they gave me a heart attack in the process. Or specifically, one continuous heart attack throughout the second half, coupled with several minor ones whenever Greg Paulus tried to drive the basket.

Bang My Head Against The Wall Moment of the Day: Jimmy Carter telling me to "give Hamas a chance." "Just give peace a chance" was at least idealistically sensical. This is just idiotic.

Excuses Excuses

Sorry for the weak blogging recently (I feel like I'm always apologizing for that. Maybe I should start writing posts congratulating myself for good blogging). This has been a heavy work week. Or so it is from my perspective. But I always wonder how this sounds to the many professionals who blog far more frequently than I do even on a good day, and yet have far more work than I do on my worst days. I mean, are my (innumerably huge amount of) law professor readers chuckling when I claim to be swamped by an annotated bibliography and a 5 page Hebrew essay, when they're busy polishing off another 50 page law review article like they were born with it? I have to say, it's kind of a scary thought.

In my defense, these people are doing a job they love (or at least in a field they love). I could probably tolerate an indefinite amount of Constitutional Law homework without it affecting my blogging. I like Law assignments. It's Science & Society work that seems to be difficult all out of proportion to it's quantity (Science & Society is a 3:15 class which, after two hours of lecture and discussion, one looks at the clock to see that it is still only 3:30). It's not like law professors have to spend hours each day working on Biology labs. So of course it's easier for them.

Or perhaps I'm just rationalizing.

In any event, 5 minutes of my time was just spent watching Keith Olbermann viciously smack down Bill O'Reilly on-air. Oh it's a beautiful sight to behold.

Alas, A Debate

So Ampersand has issued a lengthy and interesting response to my series of posts regarding the link between anti-Semitism and assaults on Israel. I want to briefly respond to a few points here.

The first thing I want to observe is just a generic difficulty in argumentation. Most people (myself included) argue by analogy--X is like Y, so X should be treated like Y is treated. The problem is that X and Y are never exactly alike, so many debates become an indefinite spiral of distinction-drawing between the various Xs and Ys put out on the argumentative table. And I think we're seeing a bunch of that here.

Consider, for example, Amp's claim that by indicting Chomsky solely on "mixed signals", I'm being unfair and unjust to him.

To answer David, yes, we should require more than "mix signals" before we slander someone with this most serious of accusations. Ticking-bomb scenarios aside, there is no reasonable standard that says "the more serious the accusation, the less important it is to find clear evidence." We do not, for instance, require less evidence to find someone guilty of murder than of jaywalking, on the grounds that murder is so important an issue that even mixed evidence should be enough.

This confuses the standards we apply for legal versus social sanction. If Chomsky were on trial for "anti-semitism" or whatever, then clearly "mixed signals" shouldn't be enough to convict. The standard is "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt", and that's true regardless of the crime. Fair enough--but I don't make my social decisions of who to interact with and who to avoid using the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, and I don't think anyone else does either. If I reasonably suspect that someone I know is either ambivalent toward the Holocaust's existence, or denies that it has meaning, or is perfectly comfortable associating herself with those who deny the Holocaust's existence/meaning, then I feel perfectly justified no longer associating with that person. Just because he wasn't convicted at trial doesn't mean I have to be friends with O.J. Simpson. Furthermore, I do think that in social matters it's okay if we have sliding scale for "crimes" of differing magnitudes. Reasonable suspicion that someone is a drug user probably won't make me abandon my friendship, reasonable suspicion that they are a murderer probably will. The standards we use in public law versus private conduct are and should be very distinct.

Similarly, Amp analogizes my description of Chomsky and Pappe as being the Jewish versions of Clarence Thomas and Ward Connerly with my previous denunciation of Black critics who try and strip conservative Blacks of their "Black status." I say specifically in my post that this isn't my goal with Chomsky or Pappe--but Amp just says that there is no logical distinction between the two cases. I think the fact that I specifically disclaim the intention to strip Chomsky of his "Jewishness" is a major distinction that has great relevance, especially given the point I was trying to make:

That doesn't mean that they don't have the right to express their opinions, or that they should be expelled from the Jewish/Black community, I advocate neither. But it does mean that if we, as progressives, are going to address anti-semitism in the same manner as we do racism, as a structural matter deeply ingrained in the fabric of global society, then we can't be side-tracked simply because a few reactionaries have decided to join forces with those who'd deny or minimize the presence/importance of these ills in the modern world.

That strikes me as a fair compromise between abandoning identity politics entirely (because it's impossible to ever group everyone into one position), and exiling any speaker who doesn't conform to the prefigured determination of what their identity ought be.

I also want to point out that I don't oppose all criticisms of Israel (I've done it too), as Amp implies, but I am indicting people who think Israel shouldn't exist as a Jewish state, and think that given the global history of anti-Semitism it is important to subject general critiques to critical analysis to see how, if at all, they are undergirded by anti-Semitic myths, mentalities, or practices.

I think at this point it would be useful to clarify just how one can be anti-Semitic with regards to Israel. This tends to defy easy delineation, but I'll try anyway.

1) Explicitly or implicitly linking anti-Semitic stereotypes or sentiments to the critique (regardless of what the substance of the critique is). I think everyone agrees that the statement "The Kikes need to take down the Security Wall" is anti-Semitic (even if one thinks the wall should be taken down). That's explicit. Implicit means absorbing the anti-Semitic aura of society and applying to Israel subconsciously (I talked in my last post about the "mark of Cain" myth and how I think it's applicable). Subconscious racism/anti-Semitism, basically.

2) Criticizing Israel disproportionately or hypocritically with respect to other states. For example, since 2003 the UN has taken 351 Human Rights Actions with regards to Israel--more than any other state. Second place, with 141 (I.E., less than half as many) is Sudan, which, you may recall, is currently in the middle of a genocide. When Israel is critiqued by a global body 2.5x more frequently than is another country in the midst of a mass slaughter, I think it's fair to accuse said body of anti-Semitism. Obviously, there are other factors that go into play beyond a simple "criticize equal offenders equally" equation. Amp argues that disproportionate American criticism of Israel is justified on several grounds: That we provide loads of funding to them, and that Israel was founded by White Westerners in a non-White Western region. I'd first note that there are other factors Amp isn't recognizing that I think play in rather strongly here--most importantly gravity of the offense. Yes, all else being equal I care more about what happens in places where my money is being spent than where it isn't--but the world isn't 'ceteris paribus.' I think it is fair for me to be more concerned about Sudanese Janjaweed systematically raping and butchering black Africans than Israel bulldozers knocking down a house owned by terrorists, even if more of my money went to the latter than the former. But let's take them at face value. If the "money" justification was all that was at work here, we'd see the second highest level of protest against Egypt, which is our second largest aid recipient. But I don't think anti-Egypt protests are all that prevalent. Furthermore, it doesn't explain the asymmetry at the UN--they focus on Israel even though they give them almost no money. As to the second, I reject the framing. Israel was hardly "founded" by White Europeans--the UK almost immediately withdraw its support under heavy Arab pressure, and was pretty much an outright opponent of a Jewish State in Israel by the 1930s. Jews themselves I don't think can be called "White Westerners," even the ones who are from Europe, and certainly not the Sephardic Jews who come from Africa and the Middle East (and who, contrary to Amp's assertion, occupy top positions in the Israeli government at a far higher rate than any other 1st world country).

This second one goes beyond that though, and in my opinion for the most part encompasses critiques of Israel "as a Jewish state." Like Amp, I don't think that Israel should be a religious state (and I should note that there are political parties in Israel, most prominently Shinui, that espouse this precise position). But I still believe it should be a Jewish state, in that it should act as a homeland for the Jewish people. There are certain people who critique nation-states in all forms--that's fine, but also very rare--as I said in my last post, these folks better also be criticizing France, China, Palestine, and basically every other state in the world today. Using Israel (IE, the Jewish State) as the poster child for critiquing the nation-state writ large is discriminatory and wholly unwarranted.

I also think it's very plausible that the anti-Western Westerners might not be focusing on Israel for wholly innocent reasons. Here's something I wrote in an (off-blog) paper I was working on:

Opposing Israel also offers powerful psychological guilt release for leftist liberationists who nominally oppose the hegemonic aspirations of the imperialist West, but are all too painfully aware that true opposition would mean giving up their own, privileged state. The conflation of Israel/Jews with the West/Westerners (and the corresponding opposition that goes along with being labeled "Western") neatly solves this dilemma: All of the fun of opposing hegemony, without the unpleasantness of sacrificing ones own, privileged position. Anti-Semitism is a "convenient way of attacking the existing order without demanding its total overthrow and without having to offer a comprehensive alternative." Since few of the anti-Israel leftists are Jewish themselves (with some notable exceptions), the opposition to Israel is a cost-free endeavor, posing as a legitimate self-critique. As for the Jewish critics, such as Noam Chomsky, opposition to Israel is often a litmus test to prove their leftwing bona fides. [Alan] Dershowitz notes that:

There are also some Jews for whom Israel's growing unpopularity among the radical left is something of an embarrassment. These Jews want to be liked by those whose politics they support on other issues. Accordingly, they tend to distance themselves from Israel and often support the Palestinian side without much thought about the merits of the case. Opposing Israel and supporting the Palestinians is, for some Jews, a way of establishing their left-wing credentials and proving that their political correctness trumps any ethnic solidarity.

But furthermore, I think that a Jewish state can be justified even within a general paradigm that frowns upon ethnic or national-based states, and it's Amp who explains why. When trying to reconcile his support for Affirmative Action with his opposition to "giv[ing] special legal rights to any group based solely on race, ethnicity, religion, or cultural background," he says that:

Affirmative action is not motivated by racism per se, but by the desire to remove the effects of historic and ongoing racism; just as a surgeon cutting open a stabbing victim is distinct from the criminal who stabbed the victim, affirmative action is distinct from racism.

First of all, I'd note that one can concede that AA isn't "motivated by racism per se" and still believe as a factual matter that it does "give special legal rights to [a] group based...on race." So the footnote really doesn't distinguish the principle. But second, and more importantly, I think that same justification in the footnote applies equally to justify a Jewish state, IE:

[A Jewish state in Israel] is not motivated by [Jewish nationalism] per se, but by the desire to remove the effects of historic and ongoing [anti-Semitism]; just as a surgeon cutting open a stabbing victim is distinct from the criminal who stabbed the victim, [a Jewish state in Israel] is distinct from [other ethnically-based states].

In other words, given the past and ongoing truth that Jews living in gentile states have a disturbing tendency to get robbed, raped, killed, or exiled, we can rationally conclude that the only way to remedy that state of affairs is for them to have a state where they know they'll be protected. As a result, I think that Amp is being unfair to Jews here, because he's randomly carving them out from his general principle that targeted remedial actions that may mirror the historical wrong they address don't have similar levels of culpability.

Nor can Amp save himself by arguing that anti-Semitism has fallen. For one, he only makes the case in America--in Europe, anti-Semitism has been on the rise for some time now--why can't Israel be justified for their sakes then? And of course, recall what sparked this whole conversation: Iran's call for a conference on the Holocaust (which anybody with a pulse can predict will become a forum to bash Jews and Israel). Second, all Amp does is show that (in America) anti-Semitic violence and overt anti-Semitic stereotypes are falling. Well, yes, I'm delighted that I can walk the streets of Northfield without getting beaten, and I won't minimize the importance of it. But I think its a bit triumphantalist to limit "anti-Semitism" simply to cases of "rabid hate...and/or violence" (to paraphrase from a well-known anti-racism scholar). I'm sure American blacks are delighted that lynch mobs have fallen out of fashion, but we'd be deluding ourselves if we said that racism was no longer a problem. I think that the "diminishment" of racism and anti-Semitism has occurred in exactly the same way, and needs to be addressed via exactly the same paradigm. Racism in America today also is not predominantly expressed via overt hate or violence--the structures of racism are kept intact via the insistence that Black Americans are situated in the exact same position as White Americans and thus need no distinct accommodations to succeed in the modern world. Jews suffer from the same thing (what Amp calls "gentile-centrism")--Jews are Christians wearing a Star of David, and thus need no accommodations or privileges in order to be equal in the world today. I just don't think that's true, and I think that even in America this isn't hard case to make, much less the rest of the world (I'm a law guy, so I'll just throw out a few cases that I think buttress this: Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Supermarket, Goldman v. Weinburger, Kiryas Joel v. Grumet, Estate of Caldor v. Thorton, and Commack Self-Service Kosher Meats Inc. v. Rubin). I concur with Richard's comment: I don't think Amp would use this same type of evidence to draw these same impacts were the topic racism as opposed to anti-Semitism. This isn't a "gotcha" thing--nobody treats them the same. But that split is irrational and is precisely what I'm attacking.

This is all a lot of ink (pixels?) spilled over what really is a very simple critique: I don't think the left is behaving honestly when it addresses Israel or Jews. I very simply want them to use the same analytical tools ("looking to the bottom", critical analysis, deconstruction, challenging stories) that they use in looking at every other oppressive hierarchy to look at global anti-Semitism. This rather clearly includes the Israel issue. Right now, such analysis is lacking, and I think it is grossly unfair to exclude Jewishness from the same critical examination that racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc., receives.

Bad Prediction

He's not going to make this mistake again. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said that Hamas was acting "responsibly" in the aftermath of their victory in the Palestinian elections. Almost immediately thereafter, Hamas issued the following statement:

Shortly after making his comments about the Hamas, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said from Gaza that Israel must change its flag. "Israel must remove the two blue stripes from its national flag", said Zahar. "The stripes on the flag are symbols of occupation....

"Oh no," I groaned. Now Zahar is going to argue that the "blue stripes" represent the Mediterranean Sea, and the Jordan River, implying that both the West Bank and Gaza Strip are part of Israel.

....They signify Israel's borders stretching from the River Euphrates to the River Nile."

Umm...What? Is he freaking stoned? I mean, at least Mediterranean to Jordan has some backing in the current status of the historical conflict. Nile to the Euphrates can only be explained by a sudden and severe bout of paranoid schizophrenia. And just goes to show how crazy Hamas really is.

Oh, and in case you were wondering:

Israel's national flag, a blue Star of David set between two blue stripes, was designed to resemble a Jewish prayer shawl which traditionally has stripes.

Other commentary: Mark in Mexico, American Thinker.

Meanwhile, I've been looking for an excuse to link to Elie Wiesel's statement that Hamas should be forgiven if it "repents." I suppose that yes, I technically agree with that, but in what world is Hamas going to "repent"? None that I know. But while we're waiting, I'm perfectly content to slash their funding until they come to their senses. "Caution" is fine, as far as it goes--but in this case Hamas does seem to be a Devil we know. Make them earn their funding. Saying that Israel has a right to exist, cracking down on terrorism (both from their own ranks and from external groups like Fatah and Islamic Jihad), and generally not being insane don't strike me as unreasonable threshold requests.

Obama on the Filibuster

Hmm...not sure what I think of this yet. Obama criticizes the filibuster, but also says he'll support it--at least through one vote.

Basically, Obama's critique is that filibusters can only get you so far--and that ultimately, if you want to keep bad judges off the Court, you need to win elections. That's true. And furthermore, I can see why it is perfectly consistent with a vote against cloture--chiding Democrats for over-reliance on a given tactic doesn't necessarily require opposition to said tactic in every case. But...still. It smacks of politics. And I don't like politics.

Of course, there's the interesting question of whether the politics will work the way he wants them to, and that's up in the air. My TMV host Joe Gandelman thinks that it's smart politics in the short term, but could become a Bill Frist moment in the future. On the other hand, here's one liberal who is apoplectic with Obama--the type of rage I've almost never seen directed his way from the left. Josh Marshall and Atrios hit more moderate notes, but still aren't happy about it. So this could be a rare miscalculation by the golden boy--though given his sky-high status amongst nearly every stripe of liberal, I don't think it will do that much to tarnish his image over the long term.

Oh, and one more thing. Any malice I may have had toward Obama over this issue completely evaporated upon reading this:

And on the recent Hamas (hah-MAHS') victory in Palestinian elections, Obama says the United States should cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority unless Hamas recognizes Israel's right to exist.

That's a pretty ballsy call coming from an unabashed progressive. One commenter in my last TMV post about Obama said that he seemed good, but wanted to be sure he'd be strong on Middle East issues (Iran, Israel, terrorism, et al). This should go a ways in showing that he's got some fire behind him. Kudos for taking a stand.

All Obama, All The Time

Barack Obama is on the cover of the latest edition of The American Prospect. And it's a great article. Here's a snippet:

That he has not pushed through major legislation matters hardly at all, not to him, not to supporters. He is a fledgling in the minority party and, during his first year, 99th in seniority. No matter. Obama has bigger ideas.

Back to the Democrats. The first part of his answer involves some boilerplate about the usual list of issues -- education, health care, energy independence -- peppered with deferential language about wanting to "be a part of the process." Then, he gets to the business about what makes him different: "Where I probably can make a unique contribution is in helping to bring people together and bridging what I call the 'empathy deficit,' helping to explain the disparate factions in this country and to show them how we're joined together, helping bridge divides between black and white, rich and poor, even conservative and liberal." Later, in a similar vein: "The story that I'm interested in telling is how we can restore that sense of commitment to each other in a way that doesn't inhibit our individual freedoms, doesn't diminish individual responsibility, but does promote collective responsibility."

Obama wants nothing less than to redefine progressive values, make them more universal, and unite the country around them. His staggering 72 percent approval rating in Illinois -- a number that reflects strong support not only in and around Democratic Chicago, but from Republican downstate as well -- shows he may be figuring out how to do that. His first year in the Senate suggests a man on a long, ambitious, and intricate journey. It's not too much to say that the future of the Democratic Party, and maybe even the country, could be profoundly affected by where that journey ends.

That quote at the end of the second paragraph, about restoring a sense of commitment to each other, strikes me as money. Too often, the American (and global) social climate seems to be one where we climb all over each other in adesperatee race to get ahead. Very Darwinian, very Adam Smith. But at the end of the day, I don't think most Americans are happy with a social climate that makes us all each other's enemies. We want to have neighbors we can trust our kids with; we want to know that if we run into a hard economic patch, some one will be there to set us straight; we want to be assured that if we get sick, there will be a doctor we can afford giving us the best treatment available. Those aren't liberal or conservative values. They're just American values.

All told, I was a relatively early passenger on the Obama train, beginning to get excited about him even before his stellar Democratic Convention speech. But one of the things the article pressed upon me was how close we were to losing him. In a very competitive 5-way primary, Obama was neither the party establishment's preferred candidate, nor the wealthiest candidate with his hat in the ring. That he managed to take an outright majority in such a field is testament to his incredible political skill. But still, it makes you wonder: What if....

Hitting the Cronies

For quite some time now (October 2005 is the earliest post I could find quickly, but I know I've been saying it since well before that), I've been adamant that the winning message for Democrats in 2006 is an anti-corruption, clean-government, the-GOP-is-power-drunk campaign. And wouldn't you know if they aren't starting to listen. Look at this new video released by the Jon Tester campaign attacking Montana Senator (and Abramoff crony extraordinare) Conrad Burns. Oh it feels good to watch. Check out The Billings Gazette on the matter too.

Meanwhile, Rick Santorum, by far the most endangered 2006 incumbent, is getting nailed on his connection to "The K Street Project," the GOP's on-going attempt to turn the entire lobbying community into an arm of the Republican party. Basic story: he denies that he had anything to do with them; folks point out he's lying. Not good for Ricky.

While I agree with Kevin Drum that the dynamics of the electoral map make a Democratic 1994 unlikely, I still think that the corruption issue will drive a few seats our way that we wouldn't be able to touch otherwise. And as folks come around to the notion that this is a Republican scandal, not a generic "congressional" one, I see this issue becoming only more potent as November approaches.

The Center of the Blogosphere

Though it's mostly on another subject, a line from this Todd Zywicki post prompted me to ask a question that's been niggling at me for some time. He writes:

My impression is that liberal blogs tend to be in some sense larger and more centralized (such as Daily Kos), whereas conservative blogs tend to be more plentiful, smaller, and more decentralized in structure.

Zywicki isn't the first one who's said this--it's a refrain I've heard for awhile now. My question is whether it's true? And what I really wonder is how much The Daily Kos distorts our picture of the thing.

Because when it comes to Kos, Zywicki is absolutely right. Kos is large, centralized, brings together a huge community, is a fund-raising machine, participates in activism--it pretty much is a massive, do-everything hub. And there really isn't any parallel on the conservative side of things. But, and here's where my question comes in, is there really anything else like it amongst liberals either? What Kos has done is absolutely amazing, no question. But across the whole blogosphere (left and right), I think of it as something of an anomaly. Outside of Kos, liberal and conservative blogs seem to behave roughly in the same manner. They have their heavy hitters (Kevin Drum, Josh Marshall) as well as plenty of middling and smaller blogs floating around. Take Kos out of the picture, and there doesn't seem to be any more or less centralization, monopolization, or conglomerization amongst liberals vis a vis conservatives.

Am I wrong about this? I know that "take Kos out of the picture" makes for a pretty big shift in the blogworld, but even still--I think that it's fairer to call Kos a singular phenomena rather than tag it as emblematic of the whole left end of the blogosphere.

Answering the Prayer

Prayers for the Assassin--Review

One of the more tragic traits of America's current political climate today is that opponents aren't just wrong. They're hacks, they're disingenuous, they're liars, they can't possible believe all the happy and moral sounding rhetoric they spout out. It has become impossible to even imagine that one's ideological adversaries are misguided but flawed. Instead, each party views the other with complete mistrust, certain that they have no principles or values, only an endless lust for power--and that they'll say or do anything to get it.

Robert Ferrigno's Prayers for the Assassin styles itself as a revelation of what will happen if America loses the war on terror. Set in a post-Civil War 2040 America, it has nearly 2/3 of the United States under an oppressive Muslim theocracy. But ultimately, Prayers for the Assassin isn't about bashing Muslims or Islam. It's about bashing liberalism.

One of the critical aspects that can make or break a novel is how well it constructs its "world." If it's a fictional universe, is that universe cohesive, uniform, and logical? Or is it built solely to satisfy the plot devices of the author? If (as in Assassin) the novel is set in the "real world", then are the historical events the author lays out reasonable predictions? This is Assassin's first real failing, as the book depends on several wildly implausible leaps to get us from a largely secular democracy to a near-totalitarian Muslim theocracy.

The premise of the book is that nuclear bombs had been set off in New York City, Washington D.C., and Mecca, Saudi Arabia. At first, it was assumed that these attacks were precipitated by Muslim extremists, but the world is shocked when America airs confessions by an Israeli spy that in reality, the "Zionists" were behind the attacks in order to discredit the Arab world. Credulous sheep that they are, the global populace buys the frame wholesale, and the new world order begins. A "Euro-Arabic" alliance invades Israel, which flees to Russia for sanctuary (apparently Russia gets over its severe internal anti-Semitism to do this--a social shift justified...in no way whatsoever). From here, things get a bit hazy. Americans convert en masse to Islam, though it is disputed as to why (some say it's because they blindly followed the conversion of a few pop and movie stars. Others say it's because they were sick of cheap, diluted religion and wanted something with some muscle behind it). In any event, the newly converted Muslims immediately launch a Jihad, dividing America into the Muslim North and West, and a Christian South consisting entirely of the states of the old Confederacy.

It only takes one or two sentences implying that the old South is bravely fighting for freedom against the Northern oppressors to realize that the author is clearly trying to affect some kind of psychological guilt release for conservative southerners, caught between their claims of uber-patriotism and the uncomfortable truth that they were the only Americans to openly commit treason against the state (and in the purpose of that most American of ends--slavery). The juxtaposition where this rebellion is justified is meant to imply that the last one is too. Otherwise, why would the only rebel states be the confederate ones?

To be sure, I do think that most American Southerners would not be too keen on the prospect of Islamic rule--and probably would fight aggressively against it. But the problem is that's true for most Northerners too. Not only are most Northerners not Muslim either, but their political beliefs are if anything even farther removed from radical Islam than are the prevailing opinions in the American south. Ferrigno shows zero respect for liberal ideological commitments--the entire spectrum of northern liberal socio-political norms is wiped away without any explanation whatsoever. That Ferrigno views his book as a political conflict, as opposed to a religious one, is further demonstrated by the political geography of his new nation. In addition to the aforementioned (and wholly unwarranted) North/South divide, the primary cities in the Muslim state are selected not for their connection to the American Muslim community, but for their connection to the American liberal community. Even though Detroit probably has the largest and most influential Muslim community in a major U.S. city, Seattle is selected as the capital of the new state (why not just make it Boston and be done with it?). San Francisco is labeled as "Sharia Central," and we are told that the Golden Gate Bridge has been redecorated using the skulls of stoned homosexuals (talk about a political turnabout!). One can almost see the author smirking as he wrote that package--he thinks it delicious irony, we know it's just wild delusion. Because what is missing is why the good denizens of Seattle, or San Francisco, or any northern liberal city made the abrupt switch from being on the left edge of American politics to the right fringe. Presumably, it's because of their Islamic conversion, but that just shifts the question back a notch (as well as raising the ultimately fatal question of why a largely liberal community would convert as one to an extreme manifestation of a religion opposed to their whole value system). The move only makes sense if one believes that liberals are normatively vacuous--that their entire ideology is just political parroting. This may be satisfying to hear for a certain class of rabid right wing partisans--but it's intellectual insulting to anybody else with a political pulse.

To be blunt, there is almost no set of reasonable assumptions one could make in which Ferrigno's scenario would play out. The book tries to draw a parallel between the Islamic strife growing in Europe and America's future. But the analogy is flawed--Europe has not even attempted to assimilate its Muslim minority, nor has it made even the slightest effort to incorporate Islam into it's cultural mosaic (the problem in Europe, ironically, is that there is no multi-culturalism, not too much of it). Muslims in Europe are in a permanent state of marginalization--designed to be a perpetual underclass. It doesn't take a Political Science major to predict ethnic strife resulting. By contrast, America's pluralist tradition and the recognition that "American" encompasses all faiths and ethnicities have made us a model for internal religious relations. There have been virtually no instances of home-grown Muslim terrorism in America; nearly all of our post-9/11 conflict has been with radical Muslim's who have been raised and educated in other states. The failure to even attempt to distinguish the overwhelmingly moderate American Muslim community from their radical Middle Eastern (and European) colleague is wholly unwarranted, wildly essentialist, and probably crosses the line into overt racism. Even in the Middle East, not all Muslims are reactionary radicals--there is, again, no reason to assume (and no reason given) for why in the space of a few years the entire American Muslim community abandons even the semblance of modernist ideals. That there is a powerful and radical variant of Islam in the world today is no answer--that's been true of pretty much every major world religion across history. Radicalism is only a path, it is not (in the case of Muslims or anyone else) an inevitability.

Furthermore, as much as conservatives hate to admit it, there is a real and vibrant liberal tradition in America. When people in San Francisco say they support gay rights, they aren't just biding their time until it's politically convenient to bash lesbians with rocks. Sometimes a spade really is a spade, and by and large the liberal desire for a pluralist, secular, and progressive democracy is quite genuine. Only a tiny sliver of left-wing academia even purports to defend Islamic radicalism as such, and I suspect even this group would default to its underlying progressivism if the prospect of a theocracy hit our doorstep. I hate to make the argument, because (as I said earlier) I don't believe any major American political unit really would buy into fundamentalist Islam, but if anything it is far more plausible that the conservative elements of American society would make common cause with their Islamic compatriots. If any stoning of homosexuals is on the American horizon, it's going to happen in Birmingham well before it happens in San Francisco.

In every aspect, the book goes out of its way to insult liberals and their allies, while at the same time implying that there are no actual liberals at all. The only Christian group to align with the Muslim theocracy is the Catholic Church--traditionally the largest liberal Christian denomination. Perhaps the only positive attribute given to the Islamic State is that it purports to have no poverty ("you can have your social welfare state--but only if you're willing to have women locked in their homes!"). And nearly every character in the book has dialogue along the following lines:

Main Character: This regime is crushing us! We can't write freely, we can't read freely, we can't even think freely!

Minor Character: Would you prefer the old regime? I remember back then, the government was so bad they [banned prayer in school/funded obscene art projects/struck God from the Courtroom/let criminals run amok in the streets].

With all the subtlety of a sledge hammer, Ferrigno is blaming liberals and liberal policies for turning all of America into a parody of its individualist, modernist values. Lovely sentiments, but in the real world things are more complex than that, and conservatives deserve at least as much blame for systematically undermining modernist values as liberals do for (perhaps occasionally) pushing them too far.

Prayers for the Assassin can be an entertaining thriller, along the lines of The Da Vinci Code (although nowhere near at that level of talent), if one can overlook the naked political agenda behind it. This is a bit like saying Darfur is a nice place to visit if one can overlook the genocide, but in a sense it doesn't matter because I honestly think Ferrigno wants us to take his geo-political predictions seriously. Otherwise, why would he be seeking out political bloggers for reviews? If that's the case, then it might be the saddest thing of all, because Ferrigno's vision has all the plausibility of a drug-induced hallucination. I'm not actually going to say the book is completely bad, because purely as a drama it hits a good pace and pulls the reader along. But the political stench so overpowers the rest of it, and is so blatantly partisan, that whatever benefits it might have as pulp fiction are completely eradicated. If you're going to relax with mindless fiction, try to avoid the ones which suck out your soul in the process.

Pro-Life Progressivism

Apropos my obligatory Roe post, I think there are several readers who would be interested in an upcoming Symposium in the University of St. Thomas Law Journal entitled "Pro-Life Progressivism" (H/T: Thomas Berg). Professor Berg has posted his introduction to the Symposium onto SSRN, and Mark Sargent's contribution, "The Importance and Coherence of Pro-Life Progressivism" is already online.

Although I prefer to avoid terms like "pro-life" and "pro-choice", given that I a) am on the fence and b) like both values, I think that much of the positions that would fall under "pro-life progressivism" would closely mirror my own. An excellent quote found in Professor Sargent's footnotes illustrates the point of convergence:

While liberal feminists support the legality of abortion, many have moral reservations about the high incidence of abortion in the United States. Nevertheless, for these feminists, the way to reduce the incidence of abortion is not to burden or coerce involuntarily pregnant women but to press for reform policies to create alternatives for such women. This sounds remarkably similar to what some Catholic pro-lifers are currently doing regarding abortion policy in the United States – educating public opinion and sponsoring programs which offer alternatives to abortion for involuntarily pregnant women. This is not to minimize basic differences between Catholics and feminists concerning the moral status of fetal life and the primacy of women's autonomy. Rather, it is simply to point out possible areas of agreement and cooperation between these two groups at least with respect to public policies to assist women. [Mary C. Segers, "Feminism, Liberalism, and Catholicism," in CATHOLICISM AND LIBERALISM 263-64 (R. BRUCE DOUGLASS & DAVID HOLLENBACH, EDS., 1994)]

I have advocated heavily for this sort of "alternatives-first" approach to the abortion issue. In fact, where I break with most pro-lifers is that I advocate that method to almost a complete exclusion of the traditional "legal sanctions" model, where abortion is outlawed and/or criminalized. I do have moral qualms about abortion, but they are tempered by two major points: 1) That I also recognize the competing value of woman's autonomy which I think is very important here and 2) that I think abortion represents a singularly poor venue for law-based solutions. As I result, I reconcile my internal divide by trying to reduce the number abortions not by prohibiting it, but by reducing the times when abortion is either necessary, coerced, or is "the best available choice."

Anyway, I'm just a novice at this issue. Hopefully the Symposium itself will be quite thought-provoking!

Gun (and Bait) Registration

Interesting story via BlackProf about a Florida bill which would mandate that gun and bait shops offer voter registration. In of itself, I see no problem. But as usual with these sorts of things, the problem is one of disparate impact. A Democrat in the legislature tried to amend the bill to add beauty shops and day care centers to the list, and was rejected. I think it's fair to say that gun and fishing aficionados are more likely to vote Republican, while day care centers and (to a lesser extent) beauty shops might attact more Democrats. By making an aggressive push for one party's registration, while ignoring the other, I think the state crosses the line from fair promotion of democracy into naked partisan gamesmanship.

Show a little class, Florida.

Obligatory Roe Post

It's Roe's anniversary (a friend noted the irony of calling it a "birthday"), so I suppose I have to write something about abortion politics in America today. I think I write abortion much less than most political commentators, primarily because a) the issue doesn't interest me that much and b) I'm rather conflicted on the subject anyway. I remain probably closest in alignment to a Clintonite "safe, legal, rare" philosophy, but my guiding star is that every abortion represents, in some respect, a failure of society. A failure to provide adequate birth control, a failure to make child-birth a real option for women, a failure to stop penalizing working mothers--whatever it is, something went wrong. So our policies should try and fix those underlying problems, rather than a (to my mind) simplistic solution based off criminalization.

So I'd just like to cite a few statistics I think would be of interest. In Jimmy Carter's new book (as quoted by Chainz of Restless Mania), he writes that

Canadian and European young people are about equally active sexually, but, deprived of proper sex education, American girls are five times as likely to have a baby as French girls, seven times as likely to have an abortion, and seventy times as likely to have gonorrhea as girls in the Netherlands. Also, the incidence of HIV/ AIDS among American teenagers is five times that of the same age group in Germany.... It has long been known that there are fewer abortions in nations where prospective mothers have access to contraceptives, the assurance that they and their babies will have good health care, and at least enough income to meet their basic needs.

This leads Chainz to comment a feeling I've had for a long time, that the pro-life movement, as an institution, doesn't seem to really care about the lives of the innocent. I think Feministe once said they weren't "pro-life", they were "pro-birth". They just want the child to be born. Once that happens, they promptly lose interest in his or her future (if they don't become actively hostile to it).

I also wrote two articles in our progressive political journal (The Carleton Progressive) about Roe, one laying out the reasons for pro-choice liberals to let it die, and the second explaining why I didn't actually believe the analysis I gave in the first (links if they become available). A pro-life friend of mine read the articles and wanted to discuss abortion with me. Mostly, I just made an elongated argument of what I said above--I don't like abortion, but I don't think law is a good solution to the problem, and instead we need to deal with underlying effects while keeping it "safe, legal, and rare." But he cited me statistics that said 90% of women who get abortions use them for "birth-control" purposes. I said I was skeptical of the study (or at least how its findings got labeled). He sent me a link, and I think my skepticism was justified.

The study asked what the "main reason" women had an abortion across several categories:

Wants to postpone childbearing--25.5%
Wants no (more) children--7.9%
Cannot afford a baby--21.3%
Having a child will disrupt education or job--10.8%
Has relationship problem or partner does not want pregnancy--14.1%
Too young; parent(s) or other(s) object to pregnancy--12.2%
Risk to maternal health--2.8%
Risk to fetal health--3.3%
Other--2.1%

I'd imagine that whoever said this totaled up to 90% was only counting the last three categories as not "birth-control". But I'd only put the first two categories as "birth-control," the rest seem like perfectly reasonable decisions by a pregnant mother reflecting on her future and social/economic situation. The leads to less than 30% of women using abortion as "birth-control," and upwards of 70% using it as a response to some form of external economic, social, or medical pressure.

So there's your obligatory Roe post. I hope you're happy. Comments appreciated, but again, this isn't an issue that really concerns me that much. I understand people who take it very seriously--I understand why this can be your be-all-end-all. But even still, I'd be much happier if this issue was reduced in importance in American political debates and we let other issues rise to the fore.

Patrolling the Old Line State

According to Alas, a Blog, a Maryland court has issued a decision holding that the prohibition against same-sex marriage violates the Maryland constitution. That's a positive, but Ampersand is worried that the legislature will overturn it. And state Democrats seem none-too-pleased either.

As Amp notes, to overturn the state constitution, you need the approval of 60% of both legislative chambers, plus a majority of Marylanders voting for it on a ballot referendum. I think that the Maryland state senate, at least, can block this off. With 33 Democrats to just 14 Republicans, anti-gay forces would need to poach 15 Democrats (and hold their entirely party together) in order to pass the amendment. This doesn't seem feasible to me. What may be problematic is the alignment of the state's highest court, which apparently consists of 3 liberals, 3 conservatives, and one Democrat appointed by a Republican whose tenure is too new to evaluate. So there is no guarentee that the ruling will even survive on a legal level.

However, that won't stop it from impacting highly contested races in the state. Maryland currently has an open senate seat that Democrats should hold (but Republicans are making a game effort for). More intriguingly, Democrats have been itching to take a shot at Governor Robert Ehrlich ever since he slid into the office past the incompetent Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Two of the state's hottest political stars, Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan and Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, have both declared their opposition to Ehrlich in 2006 election. By all accounts, he should be sweating, but gay marriage is always a life boat for conservatives anywhere. If this was any other election season, I could see the Maryland legislature resisting anti-gay moves, but this is the most in-the-air electoral season Maryland has seen in a long time, which could lead to some kooky positions. Keep an eye out.

Penetrating Ideas

Richard Jeffrey Newman has posted a superb response to my piece regarding the links between anti-Semitic and anti-Israel ideologies. If you start reading the post, this may seem to be a bit self-serving, as he agrees with most of what I say. But he also makes what I consider to be a fair attack on me at the end--that by saying that anti-Semitism is the key issue in the I/P debate, I'm marginalizing Palestinians who presumably have other values at stake. And that's true--while I believe that anti-Semitism is "the" center in the outside academic debate swirling around the conflict, for the actual on-the-ground participants, there are a multiciplity of factors in play that vary from person to person and go well beyond anti-Semitism. I don't think that most of the locals--Israeli or Palestinian--have all that much use for the rhetoric of the intelligentsia anyway, they've got more immediate problems on their hands. But even still (perhaps especially still), their perspectives do matter and shouldn't be rendered invisible as a by-product of a justified attack on the global academic left. So, as I said in his comments, I modify my previous assertion: while I think that anti-Semitism is "the" center for western academic discourse on Israel, it is one of at least two (possibly more) centers in the localized conflict environment.

Meanwhile, if I'm reading this email (reprinted by PrawfsBlawg's Hillel Levin) correctly, then Professor Kenji Yoshino has favorably cited my blog post on his book. Here is the relevant Yoshino quote:

In terms of remedies, I'm with the person who responded to your post by observing that a rights-based approach can protect difference by finding common ground at a higher level of generality. To take a simple example, a right against discrimination on the basis of religion would protect individuals of different religions. I don't think this universal rights approach is a panacea, but I do think it is an avenue our courts and legislatures should explore further. In fact, as our country gets more diverse, I think we will be driven toward this universal liberty approach because the group-based equality approach lends itself to the very balkanization you describe. Last quote: "Ironically, it may be the explosion of diversity in this country that will finally make us realize what we have in common. Multiculturalism has forced us to vary and vary the human being in the imagination until we discover what is invariable about her." p.192.

The emphasis is my own. So is that person me? Well, here was my quote:

When we affirm the right of other cultures to have their own identity free from social stigma, we aren't crafting some bordered ethnic sovereignty model within which they can freely operate and from which we are irrelevant players. It isn't a conference of exclusivity. It's just a different type of shared value: the value of autonomy, the value of human dignity, and yes, as Levin says, the value of respect. I wish for my choices to be respected, and thus I respect the choices of others. This is not an uncrossable gap. Much the opposite, it creates a very strong and very deep bond between all of us as persons that, by protecting ethnic, religious, and social bonds, also transcends them.

I've trolled through the comments in Hillel's posts, and I don't see anything closer what he purports to agree with than that. So I think I can fairly say it was me.

There's no impact here. It's just cool to have a Yale Law Professor say "yeah, this guy's got it down." And like with the other post, it's nice to see that smart people are agreeing with what I say. I love a good debate, but having allies every once in awhile does wonders for the ego.

Cover Four Defense

Yale Law Professor Kenji Yoshino has published what looks to be a fascinating book, "Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Liberties". It also has its own website giving us the nickel explanation of the book's concepts.

Essentially, Professor Yoshino argues that many marginalized persons, be they racial minorities, women, homosexuals, religious persons, or the disabled, "cover" their identity in order to assimilate into contemporary society. "Covering" is a cousin to other ways that minorities try to minimize the stigma that comes with their disenfranchisement. Probably the most well studied way of doing this is by "passing," simply pretending to be a member of the dominant cultural group (for example, a light-skinned black who acts and expects to be treated white); another Professor Yoshino adds is "conversion" (being coerced into becoming part of the dominant group, as in homo- to heterosexual conversion therapy). "Covering" specifically does not consist of denying ones status as a person, but minimizing or "toning down" the more well-known aspects of it. A black woman not wearing cornrows, for example, or a Jew who foregoes his Kippah, for example, would both be "covering" their identity even if they don't explicitly hide it.

Yoshino says that covering can occur across four axes: Appearance, Affiliation, Activism, and Association.

Appearance concerns how an individual physically presents himself to the world. Affiliation concerns his cultural identifications. Activism concerns how much he politicizes his identity. Association concerns his choice of fellow travelers -- spouses, friends, colleagues.

Some people cover over only a few of these, others across all of them. However, all of us cover to some degree, as we all suppress certain aspects of our identity in order to fit into what mainstream society expects of us.

I first heard of the book through PrawfsBlawg, where Hillel Levin has written two posts discussing the book. He's sympathetic, but wary of the type of division that can occur when we put too much attention on what separates us rather than things that unite us:

At the same time, however, I strongly believe that there is a value in conformity. It seems to me that the melting pot ideal--with all of its limits--is still a worthy ideal; and surely the melting pot calls on us all to conform and cover. I fear that Yoshino's argument, if taken to its logical conclusion, leads to a world in which we can all respect each other--a laudable goal--but in which we cannot talk to each other. After all, our communication and identification is based on our common and shared experiences.

I understand Levin's concerns, but I don't they necessarily flow from Yoshino's argument, even if taken to its "logical conclusion." Protection from covering does not eliminate the qualities that we share, it just moves them to a more abstract level. Christians and Jews don't share a common practice of wearing skull caps, but they do share a common value of religious autonomy. Yoshino, I believe, is cognizant of this, writing in his Q&A section that

courts can still protect individuals from covering demands, by relying on liberties that all Americans hold. For example, the Supreme Court struck down a statute in 2003 that criminalized same-sex sexual intimacy. But it didn't decide the case as a gay-rights case. Rather, it said that we all -- straight or gay -- have a right to control our intimate sexual lives. I love this approach because it protects our right to be different, but by focusing on what unites us as Americans rather than on what divides us.

I think that's really important analysis, because it cuts to the heart of why I can support new progressive civil rights projects such as this. If the end result was to divide us into non-communicative cultural fiefdoms, then I don't think whatever benefits we might be able to pull would be worthwhile; aside from the fact that I think inter-group dialogue benefits us all, my Jewish background makes it morally imperative that society has the capability to intervene in other cultures' "problems"--at least in certain limited situations. But I don't think that "equality of difference" paradigms will lead to that world. When we affirm the right of other cultures to have their own identity free from social stigma, we aren't crafting some bordered ethnic sovereignty model within which they can freely operate and from which we are irrelevant players. It isn't a conference of exclusivity. It's just a different type of shared value: the value of autonomy, the value of human dignity, and yes, as Levin says, the value of respect. I wish for my choices to be respected, and thus I respect the choices of others. This is not an uncrossable gap. Much the opposite, it creates a very strong and very deep bond between all of us as persons that, by protecting ethnic, religious, and social bonds, also transcends them.

Yoshino gives the example of parallels between homosexuals and religious persons (obviously different religious groups have different views on homosexuality, but let's focus on the conservatives). Anti-gay discrimination, in its current form, is primarily against "flaunting" homosexuality--you can be gay, but don't let me see it. And while I think that the cries of the religious right that they are persecuted against are wildly overblown, the one area I think they do have a just claim is that in many places, being "flamingly religious" comes with massive social stigma. At Carleton, I know a fair few religious persons--nearly all feel compelled to erect some defense around it. The liberals are quick to disassociate themselves from the Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell wing of their faith, less they be tainted as bible-thumping Neanderthals. And the conservatives mostly just withdraw from political dialogue completely--they know a hostile environment when they see one.

In other words, at some level religious persons and homosexuals are in the some boat. Religious Christians feel compelled to cover their identity in order to receive mainstream legitimacy; homosexuals feel compelled to cover their identity in order to receive mainstream legitimacy. This similarity of status creates grounds for social change--the right of homosexuals to not be just heterosexuals with better hair can be analogized to the right of Christians to not be just atheists wearing crucifixs. This sort of comparison strikes me as fruitful grounds for social reform in areas where classical forms of communication have stagnated.

Ideological Players

In an otherwise sad post commenting on the demise of the print version of Legal Affairs, Orin Kerr also points me to the latest debate on their site, this one between Yale Law Professor Peter Schuck and Texas Law and Philosophy Professor Brian Leiter. The subject is one of my favorites, whether law schools should strive for more ideological diversity. So far the debate has largely tracked traditional lines, with Schuck citing all sorts of studies saying that there are more Democrats than Republicans on law school faculties, and Leiter indicting the credibility of the studies (or at least, the ability to draw the conclusions Schuck does with the data presented).

Leiter also argues that ones general political orientation is a poor indicator of what one feels about legal issues. He asks "what exactly is the 'white Republican female' viewpoint on the analysis of causation in tort law, default rules in contract, the empirical foundations of the hearsay exceptions, the scope of the dormant commerce clause, the relevance of behavioral law and economics, or the professional responsibilities of insurance defense lawyers?" I'll admit I probably couldn't answer those questions because I don't have any formal legal training. But I'm still not convinced political ideology has no bearing on any of these things. Presumably, all have normative implications--that's why we're debating them. And the process by which we determine what issues or positions or arguments are correct seems relatively constant across various issues--even esoteric ones. Obviously, people do break from the "mold" in their beliefs, and I'd even be willing to concede that there is a significant portion of persons wgo, for a variety reasons, conduct normative legal analysis using a separate value system than their political analysis receives. But I don't think that the way politics interacts with law and legal teaching can just be dismissed, or minimized to the degree Leiter does.

Anyway, the debate is on-going at the site. So we'll see how it plays out.