This Can't Actually Be True, Can It?

Lindsay Beyerstein links to a story about a VA nurse being investigated for sedition. Her offense? She wrote a letter to the editor which included the following:

"I am furious with the tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence of this government," it began. "The Katrina tragedy in the U.S. shows that the emperor has no clothes!" She mentioned that she was "a VA nurse" working with returning vets. "The public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder," she wrote, and she worried about the hundreds of thousands of additional cases that might result from Katrina and the Iraq War.

"Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, Brown, and Rice should be tried for criminal negligence," she wrote. "This country needs to get out of Iraq now and return to our original vision and priorities of caring for land and people and resources rather than killing for oil. . . . We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit."

Now, I should say that I disagree with the contents of this letter. But I damn well don't think the author should be charged with sedition. I'm not sure exactly which law "sedition" refers to, but I imagine it's in 18 U.S.C. 115, which deals with "treason, sedition, and subversive activities." Section 2388 of this part of U.S. code, which punishes

Whoever, when the United States is at war, willfully causes or attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or willfully obstructs the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, to the injury of the service or the United States, or attempts to do so

with up to 20 years in jail, seems to be the most on point.

Being threatened with 20 years in prison for dissenting against government policies is absolutely appalling. And truly frightening. Fortunately, according to this article the ACLU of New Mexico is on the case, and I can't imagine that this investigation will go anywhere, given how incredibly blatantly it violates the constitution of the United States (and, as Rox Populi notes, probably the Hatch Act as well).

There is a growing climate in this country that dissent is intolerably, and potentially treasonous. It is a feeling that stems from the actions of our highest governmental officials, who have made their political careers by solely listening to their favored sycophants, and for whom the idea that their might be alternative, yet valid, perspectives is utterly foreign. We need to restore the idea that free speech, free press, and free petition are vital aspects of the American way, wartime or no. And it genuinely frightens me to see how those values get eroded more and more with each passing year.

Semantics

A few recent posts have gotten me thinking about a word problem. Don't worry, not like math, actually a problem relating to words and phrases. There are some words out there whose common or contemporary meaning clashes with an older or literal meaning. I'm not talking about cases where the meaning has just changed over time, I'm talking about where there is actually the potential for bona fide conflict.

Specifically, I'm thinking of cases where the problem has real political or philosophical impacts. For example, when I premised my review of Prayers for the Assassin on its assault on liberalism, someone called me out and said that actually, American leftists aren't liberals--using the philosophical definition of classical liberalism as a guidepost. Now, I actually think most American liberals are more "liberal" than conservatives, but the point is that these terms are easily hijacked by really aggravating people who think they're making a clever point, despite the fact that none of us had any say in the development of our political lexicon. Similarly, David Bernstein has a post up about Juan Cole using the phrase "anti-Semitism" to refer to racism against Arabs, on the grounds that they're a "Semitic" people too. Of course he's technically right, and I'll grant that the choice of terminology used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment was unfortunate, but seriously. Nearly everybody knows what "anti-Semitism" is meant to refer to in these contexts, and the use of it otherwise is simply distortive.

Are there any other words where these problems come up?

Birthday

Happy Birthday to me! Not the blog, which will turn 2 in June, but myself, who turns 20 today!

So, yeah. Woot for me. And hope you all have nice days as well (I'm feeling generous).

Plog?

So Yin Blog tells me that Amazon.com has a new feature called the "plog", I.E., a "personalized web log." According to Professor Yin, Plog gives "you short blog posts from authors that amazon thinks you like (based on past purchases)." Since I've been impressed by the efficacy of Amazon's general recommendation program, I think this feature has the potential to be pretty neat too (although I also have to agree with Yin as to the name--"plog?").

But the problem is, I can't find it. Is it up on their site somewhere, and I'm just missing it? Or is it still in the works, with no public release yet?

Help appreciated.

"Choose" Life

PG points me to the latest twist on the ubiquitous "Choose Life" license plates Southern states often offer as an option. Now, a South Carolina bill would offer the choice of a "Choose Death" license plate as well! Oh, hooray for even-handedness.

The bill is similar to many that have popped up in state legislatures over the past few years: it would have the Department of Motor Vehicles issue Choose Life license plates, with the fees collected therefrom going to Citizens for Life, and to issue Choose Death plates with funds going to the "Department of Mental Health to use for counseling post abortion trauma in females who have had abortions."

PG makes the clever riposte that she's all about "choosing life," but she objects to giving money to groups which are about eliminating the "choice" aspect of it. In fact, while I think she may be taking this whole thing a bit too seriously, I think she is on to something about what this reveals about the pro-life movement. For all the talk about how feminism turns women into liberal, witch-craft practicing lesbians, conservatives have (finally) come to terms with the fact that most Americans support the idea of women, you know, having rights and not being seen as the state as baby-making machines with no human agency. So in recent years, pro-life rhetoric has shifted to sound more "pro-woman." And while I feel that this has created openings to work with the pro-life movement on areas of mutual concern (like effective pre-natal care), I don't think that they've really morphed into a "pro-woman" movement that happens to disagree with mainstream feminism on what policies will help American women thrive. This isn't to say that their belief that women have human dignity isn't genuine, only that it's tangential--the key issue is still banning abortion, for which aiding women (to their eyes) is a welcome but wholly ancillary benefit. PG notes that the South Carolina bill only makes sense if the pro-life paradigm privileges ending abortion over concern for women:

The idea of sending revenue from the Choose Death plates -- in the unlikely event that anyone bought such a thing -- to the state mental health department for post-abortion trauma counseling is almost as stupid. Certainly some women are manipulated into having abortions and later feel terribly about them. But the time to help those women is before they have the abortions they'll regret, not to carry them around afterwards at abortion rallies as totems for the anti-legalization movement's belief that no woman really could want to terminate a pregnancy and they're actually helping women by taking that misleading option away. Most states mandate that abortion providers give counseling, which is wholly sensible when not attached to a requirement that there be a waiting period between in-person counseling and the abortion. Such state-forced waiting periods may put a heavier burden on women who have difficulty taking off from school or work, traveling to the provider, finding child or elder care, etc.

Of course, all of the ideas embedded in the South Carolina bill make sense from the long-term strategy of banning abortion, just not from the short-term perspective of actually helping women.

I often need to remind myself of this, as my big political weakness is that I love bridging divides between conflicting camps. But you got to remember that just because you can work together on some important issues doesn't mean they'll come around on their core. Know thy friends.

Popularity Contest

Countries rate how much they like each other (hat tips to Drum and Drezner). The United States is doing pretty poorly--but better than Iran! Actually, there is some good news in the report. We're doing well across the board in Africa, with every country giving us at least a plurality of positive sentiment. We also have high approvals in the Phillipenes, Poland, and (most hearteningly) Afghanistan. Even Saudia Arabia splits 38/38 on approval/disapproval.

Unfortunately, there is also a lot of bad news. The thing that outright scares me the most is that Iraqis have higher approvals for Iran (33/44) than they do for us (26/65). That's a sign something is going awry. Also, mitigating Afghanistan's high approvals for us is the fact that they seem to just be cheery people in general. Outside Russia (which is entirely understandable), no country gets lower than 45% approval ratings--Iran gets 47% approval, its highest in the world. And while beating Iran is a plus, we're more unpopular than any other country polled. Also, given that the most popular country is Japan (and "Europe" in general is polled even higher), what does that do to the claim that all these people hate us for our freedom? I mean, I know we have differences on a lot of issues with the Europeans and Japanese, but the fact remains that they are all quite liberal nations, all told, certainly far more so than, say, China or Russia.

One important area to watch is the relative popularity of China versus the US in Africa. China has really made a play to be the go-to superpower there, while the US still has a lot of good will due to its emergency assistance operations, lack of a colonial legacy, and generic position as beacon of democracy. The U.S. has the advantage in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Ghana, while China is ahead in Congo and Senegal. One important thing to remember is that much of China's "support" in the region comes in the form of propping up local strongmen. The US has been known to do that too, of course, but for China it's rapidly approaching a policy. China has also been a key supporter of the Khartoum regime as it continues its grisly genocide, holding off international sanctions and intervention and placing more of the burden on the Africans themselves.

Lots to parse here, and I'm no expert. Still, interesting stuff.

Megasynagogues and Megachurches

In defending the "megachurch", Christine Hurt draws an interesting parallel to Jewish Community Centers:

JCCs around the country have been doing the same things as megachurches for a really long time. Here, under one roof, let's put all the activities of life so that people can come and stay and be with their village. Our youngest goes to preschool at the JCC, I work out there, the kids swim there and take art classes, I go to Mom's Night Out, and the list is endless. After some remodeling is done, there will be a Starbuck's and a manicurist. If we weren't moving, I might quit my job and just hang out at the JCC all day. That's the point.

I can do her one better--my actual synagogue is currently housed in our local JCC (long story involving a breakaway from our old congregation). So we really do encompass the whole nine yards inside one building, just like a "real" mega-church (though we're much, much smaller).

That all being said, I think that much of the megachurch critique centers around a fear of southern church radicalism, not really anything about breaking down "communities" (though that may serve as a good fig leaf). Though most northern liberals, I think, harbor a latent mistrust of southern religiosity in general (buttressed by the anti-gay and anti-liberal mentalities associated with them), I think most also feel that pluralism is a check--with many churches and pastors to choose from, people will be exposed to different messages and perspectives that will create a more heterogeneous community. Combining everything into one megachurch also means eliminating many of those voices and centering the entire religious message around one uber-pastor (and perhaps a few of his associate preachers). All the articles I've read about megachurches include at least something about how the pastor is in many ways like a politician with various constituencies he has to manage. One of those constituencies (and, I'd wager, normally a quite powerful one) is the radical religious right. And my guess is that this group would thus wield a disproportionate amount of power in determining the church's message on issues of political importance--gays, poverty, war, abortion, et al.

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.