Objectivism and Ayn Rand

One of my friends (who just started her own blog, The Cynic's Corner) has just suffered a relapse into Objectivism, the philosophy created by Ayn Rand that is characterized by a rejection of altruism.

Objectivism is flawed on several levels. First of all, its logocentric, though that applies to virtually any comprehensive philosophy. However, the hostility Objectivism has to external authority makes this an especially fatal flaw. Rand cannot simultanously claim that one must be free to live ones life as one choices while at the same time making prescriptive codes of conduct and/or feelings. I have the right to give to charity, and I have the right to feel guilty if I don't! At the point where I am forced to not to do either of these things, I'm merely a slave to a dogma Rand finds more preferable. Ayn Rand is at best the rich conservative's John Stuart Mill. Second, its unsustainable. While Objectivism purports to support unbridled capitalism (and has been lauded for it by numerous conservative/libertarian pundits), the philosophy actually doesn't support capitalism at all. Professor Mark Skousen of Columbia University Business School remarks that

Roark [the protagonist in "Fountainhead"] denies a basic tenet of sound economics--the principle of consumer sovereignty. When the dean of the architectural school tells Roark, "Your only purpose is to serve him [the client]," Roark objects. "I don't intend to build in order to serve or help anyone. I don't intend to build in order to have clients. I intend to have clients in order to build." (1994:14) This bizarre, almost anti-social, attitude sounds like a perverse rending of Say's Law, "supply creates its own demand," or the statement made in the film Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come." But supply only creates demand if the supply can be sold to customers; and people come to a new baseball field only if they want to play or watch. Supply must satisfy demand, or it becomes a wasted resource.

Most capitalist authors argue that the system requires social input because the freedom of contract necessarily requires the consent of all involved party's. Christian Michel of the Acton Institute writes "Once again, if a price is paid, it is not necessarily the one that the buyer or the seller had expected to obtain at the start of the negotiation; thus, as in any social relationship, the wishes and the interests of others must be acknowledged." However, Rand seems to view the social aspect of business affairs as a necessary evil that accomponies a "free" life. Her ideal man, Roark, lives in a distorted reality that doesn't hold up in the real world. Skousen continues "The fact that Howard Roark represents the ideal man in Ayn Rand's novel and the fact that she denigrates other characters in The Fountainhead who "compromise" with client's demands suggest that Ayn Rand is philosophically in denial when it comes to comprehending the nature of business. She denies the very raison d'etre of capitalism--consumer sovereignty."
Third, Objectivism only holds up under a very narrow, deontological view of freedom. Isiah Berlin points out that "Freedom is not simply freedom of action but also freedom from the consequences of the action's of others." Rand's major limit on one's freedom of action is that you can't use other humans as a means, only as an end of themselves. Thus, I can't for example rob someone because that's using him as a means to my enrichment. However, a comprehensive view of freedom has to take into account the inadvertant ways where our actions constrain others. The easiest example is Environmentalism. A Objectivist businessman would be acting perfectly morally in clearcutting giant tracts of rainforest that he owns to sell to the market. As long as he owns the land, he isn't, in a Objectivist sense, doing anything wrong. However, the environmental damage that such an action can take has harms that extend throughout the world. Furthermore, the people who are most vulnerable to environmental catastrophes are the poor and disadvantaged, as they can't afford the expensive protections and technologies the rich have to shield themselves from environmental damage. The likely consequences of such environmental degredation on the global poor is immense. The reduction of trees will lead to desertification, which in turn hurts substinence farmers. Air and water pollution will cause an increase in disease and a reduction in life expectancy. Global warming will raise sea levels, having catastrophic results on seaside and island nations (the Pacific Island state of Tuvalu is estimated to be underwater in 50 years). Environmental refugees will cause instability and increase overcrowding in cities. Herman E. Daly, Senior Economist in the Environment Department
of the World Bank writes in POPULATION, TECHNOLOGY AND LIFESTYLE: THE
TRANSITION TO SUSTAINABILITY

"Increasing Northern incomes at the cost of Southern sustainability will lead to global insecurity. It will result in an increase in "environmental refugees" fleeing human made disasters, poisoned water, air, and soils, soil erosion, and desertification."

The list goes on in on. All of these have drastic and real impacts on people's life, liberty, and freedom. All are also entirely inconsequential in an Objectivist state. There is a fundamental myth behind Objectivist philosophy, and that is the false distinction between Public and Private. There are virtually no actions that one takes that are devoid of a public consequence. Thus when Rand argues that one shouldn't act for others or use them as an end, she makes an arbitrary judgment on which actions are sufficiently rooted in the other to qualify. The end result is that taking an extra minute to help an old lady cross the street is viewed as more invasive than precipitated massive species loss and environmental destruction through logging. Somehow, I'm not convinced.

Rules for Hamdi's Hearing?

I'm sure someone who is far more well-versed in Constitutional Law can clarify or correct me on this, but I'm confused on the process for the hearing regarding Hamdi's status as an 'enemy combatant.'

A lot as been made of Justice O'conner's declaration that the rules for such a rehearing don't have to be as stringent as those for a normal criminal trial, for example the presumption might shift to the government and there might be looser evidentiary standards (hearsay evidence for example). However, that view only commands the agreement of 4 members of the court (O'Conner, Rehnquist, Kennedy, and Breyer). Two members of the court (Stevens and Scalia) adapt a "try him or release him" tact, and of course Thomas agreed with the government that Hamdi shouldn't be able to have a hearing at all. The interesting opinion is Justice Souter's (joined by Ginsburg). They disagreed with O'Conner that there is enough justification to hold Hamdi in detention, however they concurred in judgment because "[s]ince this disposition does not command a majority of the Court, however, the need to give practical effect to the conclusions of eight members of the Court rejecting the Government's position calls for me to join with the plurality in ordering remand on terms closest to those I would impose." He caveats though, that "It should go without saying that in joining with the plurality to produce a judgment, I do not adopt the plurality's resolution of constitutional issues that I would not reach. It is not that I could disagree with the plurality's determinations (given the plurality's view of the Force Resolution) that someone in Hamdi's position is entitled at a minimum to notice of the Government's claimed factual basis for holding him, and to a fair chance to rebut it before a neutral decision maker...nor, of course, could I disagree with the plurality's affirmation of Hamdi's right to counsel...On the other hand, I do not mean to imply agreement that the Government could claim an evidentiary presumption casting the burden of rebuttal on Hamdi...or that an opportunity to litigate before a military tribunal might obviate or truncate enquiry by a court on habeas." (emphasis added).

Hence, while 6 justices agree that Hamdi needs the ability, at hearing, to claim his innocence of the charges against him, only 4 agree that the rules for such a trial should be changed to favor the government as the plurality opinion suggests. Another four (counting Stevens and Scalia) believe that any trial that does occur needs to obey normal rules of procedure. Since a majority couldn't be reached on the the second issue, will the trial court default to normal rules of procedure or take O'Conner's plurality viewpoint? At the very least, O'Conner's view does not create precedent, taking away one of the few areas of solace for conservatives worried about the implications of this ruling on the War on Terror.

Supreme Court Rules on Detention of 'Enemy Combatants'

The Supreme Court handed down three cases that struck at the core of our constitutional scheme of government and insured that, at least to some degree, the actions of the US in the War on Terror will be bound by rule of law rather than the whim of the executive. The cases are Hamdi v. Rumsfeld , Al Odah v. US and Rasul v. Bush (consolidated), and Padilla v. Rumsfeld. The latter was dismissed on a technicality and didn't decide much in the way of substantive issues. However, the Hamdi and Al Odah/Rasul cases are extremely important in dictated how our war on terror will proceed. All the cases can be found at The Legal Information Institute.

In Hamdi's case, the court ruled that, while the detention itself was authorized by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), Hamdi still has the right to challenge his detention and contest the facts against him. Quoting Foucha v. Louisiana "Freedom from bodily restraint has always been at the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause from arbitrary governmental action." I think a quote by Herbert Packer, former Professor of Law at Stanford University, from his book "The Limits of Criminal Sanction" also is very pertinent:

"The combination of stigma and loss of liberty...is viewed as being the heaviest deprivation that government can inflict on the individual. Furthermore, the processes that culminate in these highly afflictive sanctions are seen as in themselves coercive, restrictive, and demeaning. Power is always subject to abuse-sometimes subtle, othertimes...open and ugly. Precisely because of its potency in subjecting the individual to the coercive power of the state, the criminal process must...be subjected to controls that prevent it from operating at maximal efficiency.

Though clearly the government has a compelling interest to protect the United States from aggressors and detain those who cause us harm, the court remarked that "as critical as the Government's interest may be in detaining those who actually pose an immediate threat to the national security of the United States during ongoing international conflict, history and common sense teach us that an unchecked system of detention carries the potential to become a means for oppression and abuse of others who do not present that sort of threat." The court, in my view, struck the proper balance, holding that the executive can detain enemy combatants but still has some obligation to prove in an adversarial setting that they fit within that category. This is especially important in Mr. Hamdi's case, as his father claims he was in Afghanistan for humanitarian aid purposes, and was not in Afghanistan for long enough to receive military training (we haven't heard from Mr. Hamdi himself because he is being held incommunicado by the government). Perhaps former Chief Justice Earl Warren put it best in US v. Robel, "It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile."

The second set of cases (referred to collectively as the Rasul case) deals with the jurisdiction of American courts to here challenges from Guantanamo Bay detainees of their detention. This case is in certain ways more important than Hamdi, as unlike in Hamdi the prior precedent seemed to lean against the detainees. In the 1950 Supreme Court case Johnson v. Eisentrager, the court dealt with a case brought by German citizens captured in China, convicted of War Crimes in Nanking, and incarcerated in occupied post-war Germany. The court ruled that as these areas all fell outside of US jurisdiction, there was no standing to sue in that case. In that case, the court remarked that:

We are here confronted with a decision whose basic premise is that these prisoners are entitled, as a constitutional right, to sue in some court of the United States for a writ of habeas corpus. To support that assumption we must hold that a prisoner of our military authorities is constitutionally entitled to the writ, even though he (a) is an enemy alien; (b) has never been or resided in the United States; (c) was captured outside of our territory and there held in military custody as a prisoner of war; (d) was tried and convicted by a Military Commission sitting outside the United States; (e) for offenses against laws of war committed outside the United States; (f) and is at all times imprisoned outside the United States

, and concluded that no right to habeas corpus existing in such a situation.

In Rasul, Justice Stevens distinguished from Eisentrager on several grounds:

Petitioners in these cases differ from the Eisentrager detainees in important respects: They are not nationals of countries at war with the United States, and they deny that they have engaged in or plotted acts of aggression against the United States; they have never been afforded access to any tribunal, much less charged with and convicted of wrongdoing; and for more than two years they have been imprisoned in territory over which the United States exercises exclusive jurisdiction and control.

Furthermore, the court noted that Eisentrager had been modified significantly by following decisions. In Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, the court made a core revision to how it viewed Habeas Corpus claims. It now held that the writ acted on the person holding the prisoner, rather than the prisoner himself. Thus, since the people who were responsible for the detention of the prisoners in Guantanamo were within the jurisdiction of US courts, the prisoners now had standing to sue where such law did not exist at the time of the Eisentrager decision.

What's important to note in both of these cases is what they DON'T do. They don't prevent the president from detaining illegal combatants. They expressly cast aside the possibility of wars conducted under the threat of litigation. The courts holding in these cases is limited only to forcing the US to ascertain that those they imprison have committed a crime. In making these rulings, the courts put an important check on the President's power to bypass the court system and the bill of rights under the pretext of national security.

Gay Marriage

Maggie Gallagher wrote an article for the National Review where she lauded Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's testimony on Capital Hill against Gay Marriage. I think its important to dissect the article and the argument, considering that Gallagher claims its the "single most eloquent and articulate defense of our traditional understanding of marriage I have heard from an American politician."

Romney testified:

"Given the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. . . Should we abandon marriage as we know it and as it was known by the framers of our Constitution? Has America been wrong about marriage for 200 plus years? Were generations that spanned thousands of years from all the civilizations of the world wrong about marriage? Are the philosophies and teachings of all the world's major religions simply wrong? Or is it more likely that four people among the seven that sat in a court in Massachusetts have erred? I believe that is the case."

First of all, with regards to religion at least, the claim is inaccurate. Buddhists have expressed no problem whatsoever with gay marriage. While politicians like to equate the Judeo-Christian(-Muslim if they're feeling inclusive) tradition as a complete representation of the religious mainstream, millions of southeast Asians would beg to differ. Second, as marriage is different in a legal vs. a spiritual sense, its possible for everyone to be right. That is, the legal implications of marriage are defined based on constitutional and statutory law, which mandates equality amongst all people, including (as the Supreme Court has reminded us in Romer v. Evans and more recently in Lawrence v. Texas) Gay people. Thus, the benefits of civil marriage have to be open to all people regardless of sexual orientation. And while yes, technically homosexuals can still marry (just of the opposite sex), forcing them into such an arrangement raises all sorts of separate moral issues (what about the partner who is faced with a spouse that isn't attracted to them? Is sex outside of marriage ok in this case? Etc). Merely asserting that this issue was resolved a long time ago doesn't resolve the issue today.

"Marriage is also for children. In fact, marriage is principally for the nurturing and development of children. The children of America have the right to have a father and a mother."

Though marriage also provides an environment for raising children, Gov. Romney would do well to brush up on his facts. There is no social science research that suggests that homosexual parents fare worse in raising children than heterosexual ones, indeed, the American Academy of pediatricians writes in its policy statement on the matter

The American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes that a considerable body of professional literature provides evidence that children with parents who are homosexual can have the same advantages and the same expectations for health, adjustment, and development as can children whose parents are heterosexual.

Most studies that conservative "family" groups cite have rhetoric along the lines of "studies show that children do better when they have a mother and a father." Why don't they just say "studies show kids with gay parents do worse"? Simple: that's not what the studies are reporting on. The social science research that is being quoted here compares TWO PARENT homes with SINGLE PARENT homes, not gay couples vs. straight couples. The evidence in the latter comparison is very limited, but at the moment the experts seem to be in consensus that, given the reality of children in situations where their parents are in a homosexual relationship, the largest possibility of psychological harm comes in the form of that union having no possibility of being recognized.

The advocates tell us the skies have not fallen in Massachusetts; nothing has changed, they assure us. Romney points out that small things have already begun to change, foretelling the bigger, sadder changes to come. First, the marriage licenses change so they no longer read husband and wife but "Party A" and "Party B." The Department of Health insists that birth certificates also change. The line for mother and father becomes "Parent A" and "Parent B."

Horrors upon horrors! I can see the crumbling of society already. What proud new mom, upon seeing their child's birth certificate, will be so incensed on being labeled "parent" as opposed "mother" that they will say "That's it! This baby isn't worth it any more!"? I honestly can't see how a slight linguistic adjustment is any way linked to the gloom and doom rhetoric of Gallagher and her ilk.

The transformation of mother and father into "Parent A" and "Parent B" is the model of the paradigm shift now underway in Massachusetts. The distinctive features of the union of male and female are going to have to be removed from our notions of marriage and family. The experience of same-sex couples will become the new norm for family life, because the "unisex" idea that gender has no public significance is the only model that can be construed as "inclusive" of both opposite-sex and same-sex unions. The result is not neutrality but the active promotion of a new unisex ideal, in which the distinctive features of opposite-sex relations will be submerged, marginalized, cast to one side, and redefined as discrimination in order to protect the new court-ordered public moral standard of the equality of same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

Again, Gallagher seems to feel that legal openness precludes the possibility of anyone having an alternative view on a subject. Of course the Gay Marriage movement is itself a refutation of this standard, as gay couples certainly were fervent, legal rules notwithstanding, that they should be considered married. So while the legal paradigm may shift in favor of the inclusive "unisex" mentality Gallagher abhors, there is still plenty of room for individuals, churches, and organizations to hold true to beliefs of gender role separation. Unless the government actually ENFORCES unisexuality upon the entire populace (which would entail, among other absurd things, mandated equal childcare time between mothers and fathers), no one is forcing Gallagher to change anything about her life, views, activities, or mindsets at all.

The change has begun: The needs and desires of a tiny fraction of adults in alternative families are becoming the basis of a new moral norm. Anyone who departs from it risks thundering denunciation from self-righteous elites who are no longer satisfied with tolerance and civility — living with our deepest differences — but wish to impose their vision of morality on the majority.

What on earth is the imposition? Its not like gay couples are going to be setting up camp in your living room. Gay couples are asking for nothing BUT tolerance and civility, tolerance of their relationship's existence and the basic civility of not making these relationships official legal abominations. It seems to me that it is Ms. Gallagher who can't stand to live in a society that respects the "deepest differences."

Liberal Media Bias?

A new study by Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo purports to provide a definitive proof of a "liberal media" bias.

The gist of the study is that they measure the amount of times specific "Think Tanks" are cited by newspapers, and also measures how often those same think tanks are cited by congressman. A think tank that is cited by conservative members of congress (via ADA rankings) is labeled "conservative," one cited by liberal members is labeled "liberal." The study found that newspapers cited the liberal institutions at a far higher rate than the conservative ones, and thus concluded that there is a systematic media bias.

At first blush, its a compelling argument. But the flaws in the analysis are numerous. Joel Jacobs remarks on a few of them:

SOURCES CONSIDERED
To reach a fair conclusion about media bias, one would ideally consider all media. There are almost ten thousand newspapers in the country, mostly local. The study considers three papers, all national. There are thousands of magazines that have some political content. The study considers NONE. 22% of Americans get their news from radio; the study considers no radio sources. There must be hundreds (perhaps thousands) of television news sources, mostly local. The study considers three. Thousands of blogs and other Internet information sources; study considers one.

Certainly, studying all media sources would be difficult or impossible. Barring that, a responsible researcher would be obliged to study a number of media outlets that is significant enough, and representative enough, that one could safely generalize. The authors do not even attempt to argue that they have studied a representative sample. Given the absence of radio, magazines, and local media (which is where, I believe, most people get their news), it's hard to call this list representative. If the New York Times is liberal, but most smaller papers are conservative (which is plausible given that conservative chains like Murdoch and Hearst own a great many papers), then there's no overall "liberal bias."

TIME PERIOD

Though the study claims to cover quite a large time period, the data at the end reveal that the analysis of newspapers is limited to the GW Bush years. (And, as noted below, the data for the remaining media outlets are too limited to be useful.) The problem with concentrating on a period when there was a Republican President and a Republican Congress (or at least House) is that it's the government that, by and and large, is making news. Thus, a typical story might have a government official announcing or explaining a policy, and an "independent" source (perhaps a think tank) giving the other side. Most people would consider this sourcing (Administration says X, Think Tank argues Y) to be balanced. Under the study's methodology, though, this would be a "liberal" bias, because only think tanks are considered.


DATA USED

An overall conclusion about bias requires consideration of a number of components:

1. What stories media cover.

2. How prominently they cover them (e.g. putting anti-administration stories on the front page or at the "top of the news," and burying pro-administration stories on p.27 would be a liberal bias).

3. What facts are presented in the stories.

4. What sources the stories rely upon.

5. What positions the media's editorials espouse.

Even on its face, the study addresses only one very small piece of #4. The majority of sources that the media rely upon are not think tanks at all, much less the 200 "think tanks" (I'm sure the American Association of Retired Persons would be surprised to learn that it's a think tank, BTW)
. Considering only citations to these few organizations (and not other organizations, political leaders, academics, etc.) is like, well, a doctor saying "You're healthy because your hair looks ok."

The data are so limited as to be useless. While they don't show any overall bias, they do suggest that the media studied just don't cite think tanks all that often: in many cases not even every day. USA Today cited think tanks about 400 times in about 240 days. I don't read USA Today, but let's assume 30 political stories a day. That would mean a think tank is cited in only about 6% of stories. (The percentage would be lower if multiple think tanks are sometimes cited in a single story.) How can you generalize from that?

Similarly, CBS and ABC cited "think tanks" less than 100 times per year. Figure, what, seven political stories per night (I don't watch TV news either), and 260 days a year of nightly news (do they broadcast on weekends?) That's 1,820 stories a year. Again, think tanks are not even an issue for the vast majority of stories, so it seems an obscure variable to focus on.

OTHER EXPLANATIONS

Another problem with the study is that it ignores other, equally plausible explanations for the data. Consider the possibility that the Republicans in Congress are more right of center than the Dems are left of center. Assume further than many of the think tanks (or at least the ones whose names come up a lot) are relatively centrist. One would expect Dems to cite the think tanks more, and the study would then classify the think tanks as "liberal," which would throw the other results off. I'm not trying to prove this theory, just to point out that a good study must rule out explanations other than its preferred conclusion, and this study doesn't do that. It is at least possible that one party relies on relatively unbiased organizations more than the other party does (who knows, maybe it's the Republicans, but if true, it undercuts a key assumption of the study).

One must approach critically a conclusion that, the authors admit, they were expecting to reach before they even started the study. Media bias is a very difficult subject to study, and I just don't think this study comes up with anything that supports broad conclusions.

Mr. Jacob's second area of analysis in "Data Used," (on placement of stories) is especially interesting to me. I've seen numerous examples where stories that I think should be front page news are relegated to the back pages or omitted entirely. Often, this happens when a story isn't seen as fitting the "narrative" that has already been set up for the parties involved. For example, articles detailing the Bush Administration intense effort to undermine Homeland Security efforts in the post 9/11 era are virtually impossible to find because President Bush has effectively made his "tough on terror" persona the narrative that news stories had to fit within to be seen as mainstream. Jonathan Chait wrote a superb article in The New Republic back in 2003 detailing this very phenomena.

[E]ven when the mainstream media reports on Bush's efforts to limit homeland security spending, they still accept his basic assertion that homeland security is his top priority. Take, for instance, this Washington Post story from October 19, 2002:

[T]he White House appears to have put more emphasis on holding the line on overall spending levels than on winning the spending increases it has sought. The president's high-stakes demand for fiscal discipline in areas he has not emphasized has jeopardized his top priorities. In limbo are billions of proposed dollars to secure the nation's ports and skies, defend against bioterrorism. ... Instead of funding those proposals, lawmakers voted this week to keep federal agencies running at current spending levels until Nov. 22, leaving town with the non-military side of government practically operating as if Sept. 11 never happened. Yet White House spokesman Ari Fleischer sought yesterday to paint the impasse as a Bush victory.

Isn't it just a bit odd that the president would work tirelessly to scuttle his own "top priorities" and then revel in their failure?

Part of this is due to the way newspapers are set up. The New Republic wrote on October 31st 2003:

A Bush announcement is the province of the White House press corps, whose reportage is generally deemed the most newsworthy. Legislative arcana is the turf of less prestigious congressional reporters. So, when Bush announces a new, "compassionate" initiative, the story makes a big splash on the evening news. When it dies in Congress, the story ends up in the back pages of the newspaper.

The reverse is also true, once a narrative gets fixed in the public mind the media will often exaggerate it well beyond its logical bounds. The same (October) TNR article continues:

Once the news media has settled on a perception of a political figure, it becomes nearly impossible to dislodge. One reason is that the evidentiary standards for a piece of "news" drop if that news seems to fit a preconceived pattern. In 1988, for instance, reporters decided that GOP vice-presidential nominee Dan Quayle was stupid. Quayle certainly was not a brilliant man, but plenty of politicians with equally mediocre minds do not have their intellect savaged the way Quayle did. Part of the reason Quayle couldn't shake his reputation was that any tiny gaffe he committed became national news.

.

Finally, the last major problem with the Media is an effort for TOO MUCH non-partisanship, to the point where they don't dispute blatant falsehoods. TNR gives the example of the treatment of Bush's tax cut proposal on the campaign trail:

Democrats cited analyses--using models developed by nonpartisan economists at the Treasury Department--showing that Bush's tax cut would give more than 40 percent of its benefits to the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers. Bush responded with an analysis of his own showing that his tax cut would give a mere 22 percent to the top 1 percent. But Bush's analysis--or, more precisely, his economic flunkies' analysis--arrived at this number by excluding the elimination of the estate tax and the top income tax cuts, the very elements that most benefited the rich. In other words, Bush's "analysis" was a deliberate and obvious sham. But the press treated it as legitimate. As The New York Times reported, "the richest 1 percent of taxpayers would get between 22 percent and 45 percent of the tax benefits, depending on how the calculations are done."

At some point in time, one has to wonder when this myth of a liberal media will die. Are there some stories with a liberal slant? Sure. Are there some stories with conservative slants? Absolutely. If anything, the problem with the media is their willingness to go along with preset story lines even when the facts don't justify them. This ends up unfairly tagging all Republicans as heartless, rich white men and all democrats as soft hearted, pacifist pseudo-communists. If the media started reporting things as they are, rather than as the storyline says they should be, maybe this problem will start to go away.

NFL Nationals

Though this blog emphatically ISN'T about my personal life, I do feel the people who competed/placed at NFL Nationals deserve some recognition.
Champions:
-LD Debate-
Jed Glickstein, Edina HS, MN
-Congress (Senate)-
Matt Futch, Nova HS, FL
-Congress (House)-
Josh Weiss, Lake Brantley HS, FL

Also, special shoutouts to Adam Gaya (third in Senate); Julia Kamentezky, who's name I can't spell and who FINALLY made it home (4th in House); Matt Turetzky (3rd in house); Chris Meyers (semis in Senate), and Greg Ihrie and the Entire Myers Park team.

And how could I forget my muslim sistah, Rasheed!

Reagan's Legacy

I'm abit behind on the bandwagon here (give me a break, I started the blog today!) but I think Reagan's death represents a unique oppurtunity to reflect on the legacy of Reaganism which now dominantes the Conservative Right. A wise man once said that Reagan was "Easy to hate but impossible to dislike," and that may be true (I was too young to feel Reagan's impact directly). However, Reagan's undeniable influence over American politics is still being felt today, and in the face of an outpouring of efforts by politicians of every stripe to align themselves with "Reagan's legacy," its important to examine what exactly that is.

The Washington Post pointed out on June 9th that Reagan's economic policies are responsible for our current budget deficit predicament, culminating in VP Cheney's famous quote "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." Did Reagan actually prove that? Well,the article points out

The fiscal shift in the Reagan years was staggering. In January 1981, when Reagan declared the federal budget to be "out of control," the deficit had reached almost $74 billion, the federal debt $930 billion. Within two years, the deficit was $208 billion. The debt by 1988 totaled $2.6 trillion. In those eight years, the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the largest debtor nation.
To some economists, the impact was clear. Interest rates rose in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the economy slowed, then slipped into recession, and productivity barely advanced. Americans feared their nation had slipped into the shadows of Japan and Germany.
Reagan's "economic policy . . . was a disaster," University of California at Berkeley economic historian J. Bradford DeLong wrote this past weekend on his Web site. "The tax cuts made America a more unequal place, and the deficits slowed economic growth in the 1980s significantly."

The problem with these deficits isn't just economic. Professor Niall Ferguson of New York University's Stern School of Business notes that America's massive military might is underwritten by foreign capital, largely European (including the reviled French) and Japanese. 'This could make for a fragile Pax Americana if foreign investors decide to reduce their stakes in the American economy, possibly trading their dollars for the increasingly vigorous euro,' he writes. (Quoted from the Straits Times, May 5 2003, "Even an Imperial Colossus Needs Friends and Allies"). The problem of deficits is that they make the US dependent on whoever we owe the money too. We see the same sort of problem with our trade imbalance with Japan, and our betrothel to OPEC even when we know that our oil money is flowing directly into the hands of terrorists.

Reagan also unfortunately contributed to the deep polarization of America. If Reagan re-energized the Republican party, it was by exploited racial tensions in the south to convert the Dixiecrats permenantly (everyone, especially african-americans, knows how he kicked off his presidential campaign with a ringing endorsement of "states rights"). In addition, Reagan's adminstration's first response to the AIDS epidemic was to mock gays and lesbians. Finally, Reagan's political base was a significant realignment from the traditional Republican stronghold. Businessmen of all stripes and "Rockefeller Republicans" were replaced by neo-conservatives and religious activists. The rise of Reaganism can be seen as the direct cause of the fall of the centrist wing of the Republican party.

Reagan's values also represented the epitome of "politics over principle." It could be said that Reagan had no principles at all aside from acceding to the popular will. The New Republic wrote on January 9th 1989

"Critics of Reaganism have to come to terms with this fact. Reagan's greatest political skill was his obedience. Conservatives who puzzle over why he failed to cash in his popularity chips for real policy changes have simply gotten it the wrong way round: Reagan produced the policies for the popularity chips. When Americans wanted him to cut taxes, he did so. When they wanted him to stand up to the Soviets, he obliged. When they hankered for détente, he offered them Geneva, then Reykjavik, and finally Moscow. The only crisis of his presidency came when he traded arms with people Americans profoundly distrusted. Even then, like a nervous, otherwise exemplary employee caught engaged in creative accounting, his instinct was to tell his bosses--and to believe--that he hadn't done it.
On almost all the issues on which Americans disagreed with him, Reagan caved. On social conservatism--on abortion, women's rights, affirmative action--he yielded to popular edginess. Even acts of daring were by popular demand: Grenada an attempt to push the polls up after the Lebanon debacle; the Libya raid an attack on an enemy no one could support. Only on protectionism and Central America did Reagan resist the ratings, and even then it was spirited retreat. When real presidential conviction met real congressional opposition and public indifference (over the contras), Reagan's instinct was to push the matter out of politics altogether--and leave it to the devices of Poindexter and North."

Iran-Contra was, by far, the worst example of the type of moral duplicity made in the Reagan administration (and who's ghost seems to be the best manifestation of the "Reagan Legacy" in the W. Bush admin). Selling weapons to an arch-enemy in order to undermine democracy in Latin America. Reagan miscalculated (he thought the US would support the contras as generic "anti-communists"), but the effort was clear: Even democracy itself could be sacrificed in order to look "tough on communism." Today, the Bush administration prostrates itself to such illiberal nations like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Russia, and others in order to bring the maximum rhetorical force to its claims its fighting terror.

This is not to say the Reagan was the sum of all evil in politics. Reagan undoubtedly had a significant role in ending the cold war, he made people proud to be American's again, and for all his faults he did seem to make a geniune effort, as has been often said, "to make sure his adversaries never became his enemies." However, a proper reflection on Reaganism needs to include its faults as well as its glories, and the fact remains that Reaganism is a dangerous political ideology that caused far more harm than good.

Hegemony

One of the purposes this blog was created for was to share some of the best arguments I've heard on various issues, for use both by the general populace and by debaters. Those who debated with me knew that one of my favorite issues was US Hegemony. Posts such as these, which seek to provide various arguments on a broad topic area, will be updated frequently (or whenever I find a new article I find particularly compelling). So, without further ado, some of the best arguments, statements, claims, etc on US hegemony.

Lee Kim Chew wrote a superb article in the Straits Times on May 5 2003 that makes alot of good points. I especially like the quote from Josef Joffe

'The aim should be not only to prevent but also to pre-empt hostile coalitions by undercutting the reasons for their formation. The point is to make other powers willing participants in the American system.'

Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay of the Brookings Inst. write in the New York Times on May 10 2003:
"An empire built on international cooperation, alliances, and law...is the only way to reassure countries fearful of American dominance and to keep them from using their diplomatic and economic power to contain the United States. As the Iraq war underscored, the United States' great power enables it to act alone and still achieve many of its goals swiftly and effectively. But over time such a unilateral exercise of power will breed more and more resentment abroad to the point that other states may decide to work together to obstruct the chosen American course. Then the United States could stand alone, a great power frustrated in the pursuit of its most important goals."

Benjamin Barber, Professor of Civil Society at the University of Maryland and author of "Jihad vs. McWorld" writes in his article Declare our Interdependence!
"Yet nations that have long cherished their independence, or recently struggled to achieve it, are learning the hard way that there is neither freedom nor equality nor safety from tyranny - nor security from terror - on the basis of independence alone. In a world in which ecology, public health, markets, technology, and war affect everyone equally, interdependence is a stark reality on which the survival of the human race depends. Where fear rules, and terrorism is met by shock and awe only, neither peace nor democracy can ensue...
Where once nations depended on sovereignty alone to secure their destinies, today they depend on one another. In a world where the poverty of some imperils the wealth of others, where none are safer than the least safe, multilateralism is not a stratagem of idealists but a realistic necessity. The lesson of 9/11 was not that rogue states could be unilaterally preempted and vanquished by a sovereign United States, but that sovereignty was a chimera - that HIV and global warming and international trade and nuclear proliferation and transnational crime and predatory capital had already stolen from America the substance of its cherished sovereignty well before the terrorists displayed their murderous contempt for it on that fateful morning."

New York Times Columnist Thomas L. Friedman as spoken of the "Godzilla Effect" in Foreign Policy. This occurs when the global hegemon (IE, the US) acts in such a manner as to make other nations feel that they don't have any influence in the international system, especially over decisions that directly impact their daily lives. When that mood becomes prevelant, countries tend to take actions to make their voices heard, and in a situation where the dominant power has virtual total control over political, economic, conventional military strength and communicative channels, that response tends to come in the form of terrorism. Not only that, but the immense conventional power gap between the hegemon and those who wish to resist it means that terrorists are unlikely to contain themselves to "traditional" guerilla warfare. Rather, they will seek to use Weapons of Mass Destruction, nuclear, biological, and chemical, to equalize the playing field so as to make the US view them as a true and viable threat. Already, rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, fearful of what happened to WMD-less states such as Yugoslavia and Iraq that became victims of US military intervention, have become more aggressive about obtaining WMDs and accelerrating pre-existing programs. They view these weapons as the only true check against an otherwise omnipotent United States which does not feel constrained by international law, multipolarity, or even the UN.

These all are arguments for increased US multilateralism and the rejection of the Bush administration's neo-conservative, unilateral tendencies. However, hegemony has its defenders. Zalmay Khalizad of the RAND Inst. writes in the Spring 1995 edition of the Washington Quarterly
"A world in which the US exercises leadership would hold tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more receptive to American values--democracy, free markets, rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such a nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, US leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the world to avoid another cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange."

Though the dangers of continued US Hegemony have been expounded on at length by liberal commentators, abandoning US hegemony holds significant risks as well. Stephen Rosen writes in the Spring 2003 edition of National Interest
"The US could give up its imperial mission...This would essentially mean the withdrawal of US troops from the middle east, Europe, and mainland Asia...But those who are hostile to us might remain hostile, and much less afraid of the US after such a withdrawal. Current friends might feel less secure and, in the most probable post-imperial world, would revert to the logic of self-help in which all states do what the must in order to protect themselves. This would imply the relatively rapid acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Iran...and perhaps Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and others. Constraints on the acquisition of biological weapons would be even weaker than they are today...The costs of such a world...would not be small. If the logic of American empire is unappealing, it is not at all clear that the alternatives are that much more attractive."

Pledge Case Ruling

The ruling just came down in US v. Newdow, the infamous pledge of allegiance case. It didn't reach a decision on the merits of the issue, rather it threw out the case on standing grounds. Stevens wrote the opinion, Rehnquist and O'Connor concurred in judgment but argued that Newdow had standing and the pledge was constitutional. Thomas concurred in judgment, also agreed Newdow had standing, and claimed that the pledge would be unconstitutional under current 1st amendment jurisprudence. He used that to launch into a diatribe why the current jurisprudence was flawed and the need to override Lee v. Weissman (1992).

A few thoughts:
I agree with Dana Mulhauser when she says the ruling is the best liberals (like myself) could hope for (The New Republic, 6/15/04, "Thank God"). A ruling that the pledge doesn't violate the constitution would be bad for obvious reasons. A ruling that the pledge DID violate the constitution would be bad because it would provoke a backlash similar to the Hawaii Supreme Court ruling which gave gays the right to marry, which spawned DOMA in the federal government and 38 states. The backlash would be even more pronounced here because of election year politics, what better way to motivate conservatives than the imminent threat of a Godless America? The dismissal of the case on a technicality (standing) dodges these harms and gives liberals a chance to fight another day.

All that being said, on a strictly legal basis the ruling is flawed. For the first and undoubtedly last time in my life, I find myself agreeing in part with Rehnquist and in part with Thomas, Newdow clearly did have standing to sue, and under current 1st amendment interpretation the pledge is clearly unconstitutional. Anyone who hasn't done so already should read the original 9th circuit appeals opinion, it presents a very persuasive case for why this is so. Thomas also convincingly argues why it is unconstitutional under current precedent. As to the standing claim, it seems to me that Stevens mischaracterizes the issue. He seems to feel that because Newdow's efforts to protect his religious views conflict with Sandra Banning's (his daughter's mother, with legal custody) efforts, Newdow can't file suit. However, I don't see where the conflict is. Newdow isn't asking for an injunction to prevent Christian influences from reaching his child. He's asking that government not take sides in his religious quarrel. That religion is a personal matter and often the matter of intense personal disagreement is the reason the first amendment exists, to prevent government intervention in something that was outside the purview of an overarching government authority.

The Original

Hey everyone! My name is David, and I am an ex-debater from Bethesda MD. My 4 years of debate has given me a healthy appreciation of the issues that concern America, and a desire to share some of the better arguments on some those issues I've come accross during those years. So hopefully, whenever I come up with a good idea (or stumble across someone else's), I'll post it on here.

See you soon,
David