Sleepless in Mississippi

Balloon Juice tips me off to the case of Cory Maye--a black man on death row in Mississippi who's been subject to one of the grossest failings of justice I've ever seen.

Radley Balko has been doing the major reporting on the case. Here's the quick summary:

Let's summarize: Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frightened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.

Read the whole post--that's barely the half of it.

Fortunately, now that the story is out there seems to be bipartisan outrage (at least in the blogosphere). Instapundit writes that the case constitutes a "total miscarriage of justice" and draws an interesting parallel to the recent scare in Miami:

In a way, this is the flipside of the Miami airport shooting. And I regard the shooting of a cop in this situation similarly: It's a tragedy, but the risk is, and should be, borne by the person who's acting unreasonably. Here, it's the cop's. When you break down people's doors and charge in unannounced, you do so at your own risk, cop or not.

"Bitter" of Bitch Girls, who characterizes herself as "normally a fan of the death penalty," says that the case is "so clearly wrong that it makes me sick to my stomach."

Publicola has a good rundown of the relevant laws. He also links to local coverage of the case, which barely glosses on the self-defense claim and doesn't feel worth mentioning at all the fact that the police were raiding the wrong house. Here's the relevant clip:

The trial for 23-year-old Cory Maye was moved from Jefferson Davis County to Columbia, Mississippi in Marion County. Maye was charged with capital murder the day after Christmas two years ago. Maye said he shot Prentiss police officer, 29-year-old Ron Jones in self defense when he burst into this [sic?] home to serve a search warrant for drug possession. Maye's girlfriend and family members said he had never been in trouble with the law and the drug charges were ridiculous. They maintained he was only defending himself.

As written here, it makes it sound like the police had a valid warrant for Maye's house, which they didn't. That obviously is a major issue that changes the tenor of the case dramatically.

I think it is indisputable that Mr. Maye's actions constitute justifiable or excusable homicide. It appears that the police did not announce their presence to Mr. Maye, and even if they did, I think that an innocent black man has legitimate reason to fear a police officer busting in his door unannounced in Mississippi. There is no way that this case should have gone to trial, at trial, there is no way he should have been convicted, and once convicted, I can only hope that he will be immediately released on appeal. But it just shows once more how easily a broken system can put an innocent man on death row.

River on the Originalists

Apologies for the lack of posts. The past few days have been exhausting--and I haven't been getting the sleep I need. It's too bad too, because there were some things I wanted to blog about in the news yesterday. But, alas.

Anyway, I give you this quickie to tide you over.

All the time, we hear conservative judges and judicial nominees, trying to rationalize decisions harmful to civil rights, women, or minorities, by saying its what the law required. Of course, that isn't technically accurate--if it were that clear, there wouldn't be a controversial case in front of them, and no angry liberals blasting them from dissent (or majority, whichever). So the more precise argument would be that it's what their interpretive philosophy of the law requires, and they believe that philosophy (generally originalism or strict textualism) is binding to them.

Whenever I hear an argument on those lines, I'm reminded of the following passage from (yes, I'm a geek) the final episode of "Firefly" ("Objects in Space"):

River: You hurt people.

Early: Only when the job requires it.

River: Wrong. You're a bad liar. [...] You like to hurt folk.

Early: It's part of the job.

River: It's why you took the job.

It seems so blindingly obvious that the conservative tail is wagging the interpretive dog when it comes to these rulings. Originalism doesn't just "happen" to lead to bad results for the politically disenfranchised, and judges who become originalists don't make that choice ignorant or even saddened by that fact. It's not just "part of the philosophy," it's why they chose the philosophy. Alito doesn't hold fast to his Casey opinion because it's what his legal philosophy dictates. He holds his philosophy because it allows him to justify outcomes like Casey.

While judges do occasionally express remorse at an outcome they claim they were "forced" to reach (see Justice Thomas in Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Stevens on Kelo), these cases are few and far between. In Derrick Bell's words, they are "contradiction closing cases," the ones where judges prove how impartial and unbiased they are--the cases everyone can point to as a response to charges of the courts playing politics. However, CCCs rarely have a major impact on law as we know it--they are by definition anomalies and will stay that way absent a major political shift of consciousness. It is the rarest of the rare when a judge will break from a position s/he is deeply invested in because s/he thinks that's what the law requires. Justice Thomas may have been willing to allow legal sodomy, but I doubt he would have lost much sleep over it's continued prohibition. But in cases where "the law," or even "the interpretive philosophy" clearly cuts one way, but the judges politics another, it is extraordinarily uncommon for a judge to stay consistent. Consider Justice Scalia on Affirmative Action or the Religion Clause--in both cases, he's been roundly criticized for taking positions wholly at odds with what his normal originalism requires.

I'm not going to say liberals are different--liberals select interpretive theories because they believe they will produce a judiciary more in line with their values. What I'm saying is that conservatives need to stop playing this shell game where they pretend like they are making decisions based on the clear mandate of "law" and that all the awful consequences are unforeseen but tragic necessities. It just isn't true.

How To Aid An Enemy

Mark Olsen of Pseudo-Polymath writes what in my mind is just a peculiar post about how liberal commentators who criticize the war often are "aiding the enemy." Not that the accusation is, in itself peculiar, because unfortunately its become rather routine from the right half of the blogosphere. But it is odd to hear it from a normally sober and reasonable voice like Mark's.

The post is short, so I quote it essentially in full:

Is the "everything was done wrong" an unpatriotic claim? Constructive criticism in time of war is not unpatriotic. But so much of the criticism is not constructive but intended for partisan aims. While helping in its primary (partisan) objective it also serves to aid the enemy. It is a calculated (or not!) strategy that hopes the aid to the enemy will be less damaging than the "hoped for" restorative that getting the opposition party back on top would effect. How fair are criticisms of actions done 2 years past, when 2 years ago the opposition did not propose better (or any) alternatives? Is aiding the enemy for partisan reasons patriotic? Certainly there are those on the way out radical left wing are strongly anti-American (while living here and reaping the benefits of its position in the world), but how about the more reasonable? Do the left wing bloggers review their posts and act themselves if they are aiding the enemy and reconsider? Do the MMSM journalists do the same? How about the knuckleheads in the opposition party in Congress?

Looking at some past wars those who complain, so many of their criticisms seem well unfounded. "Mistakes were made" is a completely disingenuous and ahistorical claim. Please, I'd ask those who complain that the Iraqi campaign was not managed well, to point out one war that was!

I'm afraid I haven't seen a "mistakes were made" claim being made that was either supportable or constructive. Have you?

As a member of the "it was done wrong" bloc (and I know that Mark knows I identify as such), I'm shocked at the imputation of partisan motives for what I consider to be an almost boneheadedly obvious criticism. I'd like Mark to imagine my writing the following:

Is "stay the course" an unpatriotic claim? Supporting the status quo in time of war is not unpatriotic. But so much of the support is not based on a genuine faith in current policies, but intended for partisan aims. While helping in its primary (partisan) objective it also serves to aid the enemy [by refusing to change policies that have inflamed the insurgency and weakened our position in Iraq and the world community]. It is a calculated (or not!) strategy that hopes the aid to the enemy will be less damaging than keeping the current party in control (or keeping the opposition out). How fair are criticisms of liberal complaints or alternative strategies, when our current plans are failing now? Is aiding the enemy for partisan reasons patriotic? Certainly there are those on the way out radical right wing are strongly anti-American (while living here and reaping the benefits of its position in the world--see Bill "let San Francisco die" O'Reilly and every member of the Christian Right who said Katrina victims were punished for New Orleans' sins), but how about the more reasonable? Do the right wing bloggers review their posts and act themselves if they are aiding the enemy and reconsider? Do the MMSM journalists do the same? How about the knuckleheads in the congressional leadership?

I'd imagine Mark would be outraged, justifiably so. This is true despite the fact that there are indeed die-hard partisans who wouldn't dream of supporting the current policy were it not Bush leading them. It's true even though the administration clearly has prosecuted this war and the entire war on terror with an eye for political gain. And it's true despite the fact that the enemy gets far more tangible aid from incompetent war planning/prosecution than it does from whatever Atrios posted today. That last part is what the dark voice in my head always whispers whenever I hear the "Democratic faint-heartedness emboldens our enemies" line. "You know how to really aid an enemy? Refuse to plan for the war and then stick with policies proven to fail!" If I were an insurgent I'd be overjoyed if someone told me we were going to stick to the same policies that have let my movement flourish over the past 24 months. I'd be considerably less concerned hearing that Dennis Kucinich wants to withdraw, and I'd be downright worried if someone said America was going to overhaul its tactics an fix those "mistakes [that] were made."

It's probably too much to say that there are no partisan motives floating around for any critics/supporters of the Iraq war. Undoubtedly, Republicans are more inclined to support the President's policies because it's this specific President, and Democrats are more likely to oppose them for the same reason. Need proof? Look at what Republicans said about our far more justifiable (and I say this as a war supporter) intervention in the Balkans during the Clinton years--it reads like dKos on steroids. However, I think that by and large average people discussing Iraq do so with the best interests of their country, not party, at heart. It's demeaning and wholly unwarranted to suggest otherwise.

Mark also mischaracterizes what the critique I and my cohorts make actually says. It's not merely that "mistakes were made." As Mark notes, mistakes will be made in every war. Rather, it's that this war managed to screw up in virtually every category on virtually every issue--and that isn't something one found in WWII or any modern American war this side of Vietnam. And again contra Mark, it isn't like people didn't point these issues out. People asked for pre-war planning; the Bushies didn't do it. They asked for more troops in the early stages of the campaign(doesn't anybody remember Eric Shinsiki?); the Bushies ignored them (and fired the advocate!). We asked for more efforts to build international support; our diplomatic strategy for the first year or two was essentially "f*** off." We asked that the US work quickly to build democratic institutions in Iraq; instead they dilly-dallied with a bogus "caucus" system designed to install American flacks (which, as few recall, was the original spark that gave the insurgency national currency). We requested that the US move quickly to restore order in post-liberation Iraq; we saw Donald Rumsfeld acting as if mass looting and chaos was no big deal. We asked that American troops above all present themselves as models of what a free, stable, and democratic Iraq could look like; we got an administration that is now trying to redefine "torture", detains (and, oh, also tortures) people they know are innocent, and tried to cover-up and minimize Abu Gharib. Wesley Clark just wrote an excellent outline for succeeding in Iraq where Bush has failed. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it's a far cry better than what we have now. The New Republic has been prolific in providing sensible, necessary plans for long-term solvency in Iraq--one's that don't involve cutting and running but don't involve wishful idiocy either. When it comes to "what we'd rather do," I think we've more than fulfilled our burden Mark.

Ultimately, I think it's important to discuss these issues fully and rationally. We both know of persons on both sides who clearly are looking at this just as political strategists. They should be ignored with extreme prejudice. But we do discourse no favors by painting the entire opposing side with these broad strokes. It's unfair, inaccurate, immoral, and in this case, quite personal.

Telling Other Stories

I'll admit this CNN article on Katrina's victims leaves me troubled. The piece is about the testimony of Katrina victims in front of congress, where they explicitly placed racism amongst the factors causing the slow federal response.

On the one hand, I think that there is something to the claim. Most importantly, I think that victims should have a presumption of expertise when talking about their own experiences. So when a bunch of congressional Republicans responded to their story by basically saying "no, it couldn't have happened," my immediate response is "how the hell would they know?"

On the other hand, I am very distressed by the victim's analogy to the Holocaust and concentration camps. I think that Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) was absolutely right to tag that comparison as "inappropriate."

Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina said Tuesday that racism contributed to the slow disaster response, at times likening themselves in emotional congressional testimony to victims of genocide and the Holocaust.

The comparison is inappropriate, according to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Florida.

"Not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed," Miller told the survivors.

"They died from abject neglect," retorted community activist Leah Hodges. "We left body bags behind."
[...]
The five white and two black lawmakers who attended the hearing mostly sat quietly during two and a half hours of testimony. But tempers flared when evacuees were asked by Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Florida, to not compare shelter conditions to a concentration camp.

"I'm going to call it what it is," said Hodges. "That is the only thing I could compare what we went through to."

Concentration camps weren't places of "abject neglect." They were places where human beings were congregated in brutal conditions with the express purpose of extermination. Far from neglect, concentration camps were purposeful in the most terrible of ways. I really don't think one recognizes just how brutal the conditions were in the camps, even with the type of Holocaust memorial literature most students study nowadays. Read Terrence Des Pres, "Excremental Assault" or watch "The Grey Zone"--and even those, I imagine, can only showcase a sliver of the reality.

I think there are problems when one group appropriates another's story for their own ends. I don't know what grounds Ms. Hodges has to say with such certainty that the refugee camps were like concentration camps. I'll defer to her in describing her own tale--if she tells me that conditions were awful and degrading, then I'll assume absent compelling evidence that they were. But the comparison strikes me as treading on dangerous territory. I don't think it was justified here, and I don't think that, in general, Katrina victims (or any other group not directly impacted by the Holocaust) has the requisite standing to provide modern day analogues to the horrors of the Holocaust. Let the deeds (or misdeeds) stand on their own.

Wait...No

I don't particularly mind Bruce Bartlett. Sure, he's a conservative, but the honest sort. And when I was a debater, I found his articles valuable, both for the arguments and being well-sourced. But this is just innane.

A few weeks ago, the Internal Revenue Service released data on tax year 2003. They show that the top 1 percent of taxpayers, ranked by adjusted gross income, paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes that year. The top 5 percent paid 54.4 percent, the top 10 percent paid 65.8 percent, and the top quarter of taxpayers paid 83.9 percent.

Not only are these data interesting on their own, but looking at them over time shows that the share of total income taxes paid by the wealthy has risen even as statutory tax rates have fallen sharply. A growing body of international data shows the same trend.
[...]
At some point, those on the left must decide what really matters to them -- the appearance of soaking the rich by imposing high statutory tax rates that may cause actual tax payments by the wealthy to fall, or lower rates that may bring in more revenue that can pay for government programs to aid the poor? Sadly, the left nearly always votes for appearances over reality, favoring high rates that bring in little revenue even when lower rates would bring in more.

Okay, number one--this data is absolutely meaningless without some indication of what percentage of the total income the wealthiest 1%, 5%, 10% et al bring in each year. Even in a flat tax society, the wealthiest 1% would still pay a fair percentage of the total income tax because they make a fair percentage of the total income. If they make 10% of the income, they'd pay approximately 10% of the total taxes. Since we have a progressive tax system, they pay somewhat higher than that--but the disparity isn't as crazy as Bartlett plays it up to be. The only way for the wealthiest 1% of Americans to pay exactly 1% of the income taxes would be either a) for us to live in a communist society where everybody made the same amount of money or b) for us to have some extraordinarily low flat non-percentage tax which would crush the poor. Conservative economists always use these numbers and they always use them wrong.

This observation also leads us to problem number two: if the wealthy's share of tax dollars is rising, isn't that equally explainable by a rising income gap between the rich and the poor? Indeed, wasn't that the major critique of Reaganomics--they put more wealth in the hands of the rich while the poor stagnated? That seems to be the most plausible interpretation of Bartlett's data--the rich paid a greater portion of the tax load because the rich were getting, well, dirty rich(er). This is especially true because it isn't like the wealthy got a tax cut while the middle and lower class tax rates stayed constant or rose. Everybody's taxes fell, which will counter-act the proportionality argument Bartlett tries to make.

Third, economies move for complex reasons--it's foolish to associate them particularly with one policy or another (especially, and I know Bartlett knows this, fiscal as opposed to monetary policy). For Bartlett to say that the information he provides indicates that lower tax rates for the rich will give the government more money to spend on the poor is a gross oversimplification. And his statistics don't even prove that--they say nothing about whether governmental revenues rose or fell in this time period (in real dollars), just that the rich's share rose.

Fourth, the folks who want to lower taxes don't want to do it to see increased revenues--and they definitely wouldn't want to increase said revenues. They want to shrink government further and they want to cut programs--especially those for such no-good worthless constituencies like poor people. So to characterize the "choice" by the left as between keeping up appearances and joining the noble conservative crusade for greater financing on the safety net is just absurd.

So if Justin Jones really "couldn't say it better" himself, well, then I think liberal economic theory is in pretty good shape.

Diversity Versus Specialization

Henry Manne (H/T: Todd Zywicki) also weighs in on the conservatives-in-academia issue, commenting on the same Peter Schuck article that prompted my latest post on the issue.

Like everyone else it seems, Manne starts by dismissing "any kind of government-enforced viewpoint affirmative action."

Everyone seems to recognize the morass of abuses, bureaucratic meddling and the sheer impossibility of enforcement that such an approach implies. A private solution - almost any private solution - is to be preferred to that.

Well, sure, when you put it that way. Yes, I too would not like the government busting into to our universities and mandating that they hire a quota of Republicans. But I define AA more narrowly as just a specific and institutional effort by a university to diversify their faculty or student body--in this case, politically by adding more conservatives. How they go about it is up to them. In any event, I think that Manne gets to the real core of opposition later in the piece, saying:

Certainly no one wants the government to intervene (the usual interventionists because they would lose in the short run and the anti-interventionists because they are just that).

That's closer to the heart, I'd say.

Unlike most folks speaking on the issue, however, Manne questions whether a plurality of viewpoints is even all that desirable. Instead, the upshot of his argument is that we should favor specialization in law schools. Manne is affiliated with George Mason University, which is basically a specialty shop for Law & Economics folks, and Manne would like to import that model to other institutions. So you'd have schools that specialize in liberal legal thought and conservative thought, perhaps a Crit school or a feminist school, etc etc..

Specialization has its advantages, I suppose, but I really don't think that it's the proper model for a school. One of the key aspects of an education is exposure to competing viewpoints. Schools should, as institutions, try and challenge their students, not keep them in intellectually insulated cocoons. Students don't actively seek out opposing viewpoints, but their presence is critical to creating well-rounded citizens, a key value that I believe academia must impart. Manne writes that:

Schuck's second proposal...is the idea that every professor should present impartially and thoroughly all sides of any controversial issue. After all, he could argue, we are trying to train lawyers who may have to assume any side of a given proposition, and therefore it is the responsibility of any law professor to teach all sides.

I suppose at one time, when almost all of legal teaching was done via the rote quoting of 'rules of law,' this may have been a feasible albeit irrelevant approach. But today the fine analysis required of various legal rules - and not merely in constitutional law but equally in almost every field - requires teachers who not only understand the finer points of, say, the market theory of antitrust, but who would be embarrassed not to scoff at the opposite view. Should an antitrust professor 'fairly' present a near-totally discredited idea like monopolization being inherent in resale price maintenance? Frankly I believe that Peter is simply wrong in this. I think the best teaching, and therefore the best preparation for lawyering, is done by professors who are intellectually committed to the views they propound and who present their case as strongly as they can.

I think this is a weak argument. The whole "present a near-totally discredited idea" objection is a strawman, the idea is to teach legitimate academic controversies, not to concoct controversies for their own sake. I don't think I'm being inconsistent when I say we should teach a breadth of political philosophies, but should exclude Nazism from the canon. Also, one can agree that a Professor should strongly advocate her particular position without rejecting that colleges should be pluralist institutionally. Even if students learn best from hearing just one side presented strongly (as opposed to all sides "fairly"), there is no reason why a school shouldn't has a whole be balanced. That is, the liberal professor is unabashedly liberal, and the conservative professor is unabashedly conservative, and therefore the campus as a whole benefits from the availability of diverse views while at the same time maintaining the "committed" professor in the classroom. Indeed, a monolithic campus environment may make it less likely that a professor will be as aggressive on her pet issues in class. I think most professors feel at least a nominal obligation to insure their students are fully exposed to the their given topic. If there are a professors representing a variety of political persuasions, then they'll feel fine focusing on their strengths, knowing that interested students can find other faculty members if they wish to pursue other avenues. But if their view is the only game in town, then professors might feel obligated to be as balanced as possible to make up for the shortfall.

Of course this isn't a problem if the school explicitly labels itself "conservative" and markets itself that way. But again, I think such a school is eliminating a very important part of its mission. I don't want liberals to be so be default, and I don't want conservatives to be so because they've never heard or read a liberal. We need to encourage folks to broaden their horizons. Individuals perhaps should be specialists, but institutions should be generalists.

Montreal Massacre

A friend who attends McGill University asked me to blog about The Montreal Massacre, which happened on this date in 1989.

I had never heard of the event until he told me about it, but basically a man who felt that "the feminists" were responsible for him not getting into engineering school went to a local university and systematically gunned down all the female students he could find. In all, 14 women died before he took his own life.

There is obviously little to say about events such as this, except to remind ourselves of the risks we take when we cavalierly deny the humanity of other people. The same mentalities of hatred and extremism motivate these sort of mass killings, whether on relatively small-scales (like here) or large (like in Darfur, Rwanda, or Germany). It is almost trite to say that we must "oppose" these acts or opinions--who doesn't oppose atrocities? Except, of course, the perpetrators. Trite as it may be, a constant and omnipresent aura opposed to senseless violence, to mutilation and murder in all its forms, is the best way we can honor the memories of the victims.

DeLay Remains Under Indictment

A Texas Judge has upheld the more serious charge facing Tom DeLay while tossing out a second indictment. John Cole hits the right note, I think: this doesn't mean DeLay is innocent, nor does it mean he's guilty. It does, however, mean that he is finished as Majority Leader.

And that's something we can all celebrate.

Some Conservative bloggers are complaining that the majority of news sources are phrasing this as "some charges upheld" rather than "some charges dismissed." Glass half-full, glass half-empty. Outside the Beltway, which in itself (unlike the above links) is not making the complaint as a pure partisan point, argues that:

This isn't pedantry or partisanship on my part. Delay is in serious trouble and, even if he is ultimately acquitted on these charges, there is plenty of evidence that he played as close to the limits of legality as possible, almost certainly crossing the line of proper ethical conduct. Regardless, however, the news here is Delay's the conspiracy charges being dropped, not other charges remaining.

News, as the name implies, is about things that are different. An hour ago, Delay faced two serious charges; he now faces one. Considering that he faced the remaining charge when the day began, the new thing is the charge he no longer faces.

That seems a bit forced to me. Specifically, the "new" is that DeLay has one less charge. Broadly though, the "new" is that Judge Priest has made the first rulings on DeLay's dismissal motions. This is the first test of how Earle's much-maligned (by the right anyway) indictment will stand up. So it's news that part got dismissed, and news that part didn't--and unfortunately, incorporating both would probably be too unwieldy for an internet headline. Also, as noted above, with leadership elections in January, the decision to uphold any indictment spells the end of DeLay's leadership tenure--and that is news.

War on Terminology

Brian Leiter's guest-bloggers, with a concurrence by Carey Cuprisin, argue that the concept of a "war on terror" is absurd and should be abandoned. I'm confused. They make the following two warrants:

One really can't repeat this often enough: there is no "war on terror," not only because you can't wage war on a technique, but because there is no single agent of terrorism motivated by a unitary set of concerns.

Neither of these objections seems particularly convincing to me. I say that disclaiming the separable issue of whether or not the current administration has effectively or honestly fought such a war (it has done neither). I'm only concerned with whether such a war is conceivably possible.

To the first, I think that one could declare war on a technique, at least within the common usage of the word "war." If Major League Baseball declared a "war on cheating," I think most of us would be untroubled by the terminology itself (potentially by the hyperbole, I'll grant). To declare a war on a process is to declare that process absolutely forbidden, beyond the pale of permissible conduct. They'd be attempting to purge the tactic of "cheating" from existence, just as we might wish to purge the tactic of "terror[ism]" from the world. If one defines "terror[ism]" as the targeted killing of innocent civilians to advance a political agenda, then I think opposing it is a noble goal indeed--and one well worth fighting for. Obviously it represents a major shift in objectives from a "normal" war against Germany (a nation) or Poverty (a state of being). But I don't think our language is insufficiently flexible to adapt to it.

The latter objection is similarly too narrow. First of all, if we are declaring on a deontological level that "terror" (as defined above) is never a justified tactic, then we could fight a war against it regardless of whether the utilizers share motivations or ideologies. Again, to analogize toward cheating--regardless of whether the particular cheater is acting to win a game, or a bet, or just to prove "he can," if we're battling cheating as such then the distinctions are immaterial. Similarly, if Palestinians are terrorizing to throw the Jews out of the Holy Land, while Iraqis are terrorizing to end the occupation and the IRA is terrorizing to gain a Catholic-ruled Northern Ireland, we could still oppose the tactic as such without regard to the differing motivations. Again, this isn't to say that we are doing this (or even necessarily that we should--though I do think that), only that the term itself isn't objectionable.

In fact, I'd actually prefer that we phrase more military actions as battles against concepts rather than peoples. If we were to intervene in Darfur, I'd like it to be a "war against genocide," not a war against Sudan. The reason why is simple--the goal of such an intervention shouldn't be to exact retribution against the Sudanese people. Rather, it should be to send a message to the world that genocide--anywhere, anytime--is intolerable and will be met with the full force of the international community. Likewise, the war on terror should not be fought against the terrorists themselves or their sympathizers specifically, but rather as a broader struggle against military tactics that specifically target civilians for death and destruction. A conceptually-justified war is more likely to have the long term deterrence impacts that are missing in the status quo--Sudan would have been far less likely to engage in the slaughter in Darfur had our Kosovo intervention been framed as the response genocideers receive, as opposed to "just another" war that happened to be against Serbia.

I should also note that I think Leiter's guestbloggers (both surnamed "Stanley", so I'm going to refer to them as "the Stanley brothers") are too glib in their dismissal of the terror threat. Admittedly, bin Laden and his cohorts do not possess armies capable of massive world domination. But that isn't where the threat comes from. It may be trite, but the face of the world is changing. The "insight" of terrorism is that one can cause significant impacts in global affairs without the major expenditure of resources that conventional warfare requires. Hell, you don't even need a state. And the way that the world is evolving makes us more vulnerable to such an attack, not less. Consider the argument by leftist scholars Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt (as summarized and applied by Legal Fiction):

First, they whine about the collapse of non-capitalist alternatives and the rise of globalization. But second, and here's the key, they argue that the trends of globalization are making it easier to strike down the global capitalist economy dragon. And to make their point, they rely on the concepts of networks and interconnectedness (or for you Clinton fans out there, interdependence). The idea is that the global economy is becoming one big, connected entity. In this sense, they seem to be agreeing with Thomas Friedman that the world is flattening.

But here's the catch. Because everything is so interconnected, the entire network itself is more susceptible to attack because destroying one important node can - Abramoff-style - bring the whole thing crashing down. It's sort of like creating a black hole that would suck down everything around it, which is pretty much what Abramoff is at the present.

Most disgustingly, though most presciently perhaps, the authors heap a lot of praise on radical Islam, largely because they view it as most clearly rejecting modernity and as the most willing to act against it. They wrote all this before 9/11, but you can see where I'm going with this. And when you do, you should hopefully develop a greater sense of urgency about the magnitude of the threat posed by nuclear terror. Under this view, 9/11 was not merely an attack on the country or the West, but an attack upon an important node of the global economy. Thus, what's most frightening about terrorism in the age of globalization is its ability to potentially bring the whole damn thing crashing down. And a well-placed nuclear bomb could do just that.

It's amazing in retrospect that destroying the center of the financial universe did not trigger a more destructive chain reaction across the markets. Maybe that's because we're not as connected as we think we are - yet. But we're getting there.

When you think of the world economy as a network, it's easy to see how a terrorist attack - or the collapse of stability in the oil-rich Middle East - could really suck our entire world economy into chaos. A nuclear strike on New York, or a collapse of Saudi Arabia, or any number of scenarios could trigger a financial panic spreading at the speed of broadband. And as the world's financial centers grow more connected, and capital grows more fluid, there's a greater chance that the world could experience on a much larger scale what Argentina recently experienced.

This is what makes terror such a threat--it's the ultimate geo-political jujitsu. Nearly any aggrieved party can access the tools necessary to cause massive international chaos. Such a threat should not and cannot be easily dismissed. I agree that a long-term strategy to address this requires that the US move away from it's aggravating realpolitik and start practicing what it preaches in foreign affairs. As long as the US supports dictatorships, we'll be prone to attack. But eliminating our direct support is only half the battle. In any world that has massive amounts of political injustice and an American hegemony, terror will still be a risk. As such, ultimate solvency can only come when all the aggravating factors--imperialism, racism, totalitarianism, autocracy, ethic strife, etc., are, if not eliminated, then at least subject to severe and immediate international sanction.

In the end then, I do not find that the use of the term war on terror should, as the Stanley brothers so diplomatically put it, cause the speaker to "be laughed out of serious society." And I am shocked to hear them say that this rhetoric is as "appallingly and transparently ridiculous as...old films of Stalinist or Nazi propaganda." I'd say that this would be the example of rhetoric that should get someone "laughed out of serious society," except that a serious society would remember just how serious the crimes of Hitler and Stalin were and wouldn't degrade them in the endless quest for political points.

Campus Pluralism For Conservatives And Others: A Plea For Affirmative Action

Rick Garnett examines a topic near and dear to my heart: conservative presence in academia. He links to an essay by Yale Law Professor Peter Schuck:

What can be done," Schuck asks, "to make professors practice what they preach on diversity? Alas, no easy remedy exists. The tenure system and the lack of mandatory retirement will project existing faculty bias far into the future. Moreover, the elite schools recruit new law teachers mainly from the top ranks of their recent graduates, whose own predominantly left-liberal views are fortified by their professors. And adopting affirmative action for conservative viewpoints would be odious and, for public law schools, almost certainly a First Amendment violation.

In my campus political journals I have specifically advocated for political affirmative action, at least at Carleton. We are an overwhelmingly liberal college, and I think that's bad for open debate and pluralism. But I offered it explicitly as a trade--conservatives who are agitating against liberal bias at schools (but rarely able to point to explicit practices with intent to discriminate, the threshold for litigating discrimination in racial contexts) would have to admit an equal standard for minority applicants as well. Some conservatives (like, apparently, Schuck) wouldn't take the trade because they find AA morally wrong in any case. But I'd like to think that this may be an opening toward a broader acceptance of the principles of affirmative action--especially a culture pluralist defense.

From the start I drew a comparison to racial affirmative action--saying that both could be justified on the grounds of including hitherto excluded voices in the academic environment. As always with a critical position, the key is context. Nobody can seriously argue that conservative Christians are an "excluded voice," historical or otherwise, in American society writ large. But there is a compelling case that they are very much outsiders in the academy. A well-known study by Northwestern Law Professor James Lingdren (cited by Schuck) notes that the most excluded sub-group in academia, proportionally, is white Christian women. They are even less likely to be present on tenure ladder posts than groups who have faced overt societal discrimination, such as Blacks or Hispanics. This should alert us to the fact that, just as individualist indicators of racism can mask the way that structures can oppress, too rigid a focus on solely the super-structure can cause us to ignore how "mid-range" institutions (universities, or perhaps cities) can have power dynamics that both work within but are also independent of the broader social trend. This is how a conservative can feel isolated at, say, Oberlin, even though she lives in a country with a Republican President, Senate, and House, two Republican Senators, and a spot in the GOP column in the 2004 Presidential race.

I've discussed this position with my (mostly liberal) friends at school, and they've generally come down against. This isn't surprising--it's a novel argument and it's facially harmful to liberal interests. However, the objections they made were not too compelling. I'll address them (and other potential pitfalls) here.

First, they argue that while race is immutable, politics is a matter of free choice, thus, colleges should feel no qualms about prioritizing some over others. I'd respond that a choice may be technically "free" but still not something that should be institutionally sanctioned--consider my choice of religion. I'm not immutably Jewish, but I don't really consider it a "choice" either. People may feel similar about their political opinions--I don't view opposition to genocide like a melon that I prefer at the grocery store. I view it as a core facet of my ethical personhood; a position that, if I abandoned, would make "me" unrecognizable to myself. Furthermore, at some level the benefit of political views is in their pluralism and contestability. A college can qualitatively say that a "belief" that 2+2=4 is objectively better than the belief that said equation equals 5. There is no benefit to hosting that debate on campus. But a vibrant political atmosphere on campus requires not unity but division and pluralism--it requires a variety of political positions beyond those that might be gotten naturally. If Carleton "on its own" gets a mostly liberal student body and faculty, then it should reach out for more. Clearly there are outward limits--we don't need a debate that the Nazis were justified on campus either. But ultimately, in terms of benefit I see political position as the type of identity that is valuable in its diversity, not singularity, and it should be treated as such.

A pragmatic objection was also made: it's far easier to falsify political beliefs than, say race. In otherwords, if I said I was black and show up for my interview with glow-in-the-dark-pale skin, the admissions staff is likely to notice. But the odds they'd catch a political slight-of-hand is slim--and even if something did come up, I could always claim I've changed my mind (who knows, I may even really change my mind). I'll concede these raise some pragmatic difficulties (though this doesn't dilute the moral force of my argument). However, I think it can be overcome. For one, the people who we're really concerned with--politically active students, are unlikely to sacrifice their souls on an admissions applicant. Think about your average Kossack. Do you really think they'll be able to bring themselves to write "conservative" on an application, even at the prospect of a marginal benefit? I'm skeptical. Furthermore, we can buttress the applicant's credibility by looking out other activities. If someone writes "Young Republicans Club President" and worked in Tom DeLay's office, we can assume they're being truthful. Since these qualities are indicators of the type of political activism we're looking for anyway (a politically passive conservative, or liberal, does little to add to the intra-campus debate), we can minimize system gaming.

Some people conceded that such a program might be useful for faculty recruitment, but not for student admissions. The justification for this was that while it's somewhat easy to divine a professor's political leanings based on her scholarship, there are relatively few opportunities for a college to find out what party their applicants adhere to prior to them entering the college. Because of this, bias is most likely not present for student admissions and thus requires no remedy. This I think looks at the problem to narrowly. Even without knowing the political affiliation of a prospective student, there are still subtle ways a college can send out signals to the effect of "Republicans Not Wanted." Any decent research on Carleton will inform a would-be student of our extreme liberalism. A visiting student may hear derogatory remarks that all Republicans are racist or evil or warmongers. There may be small or non-existent conservative programs and organizations on campus. These together can lead to a hostile environment that will drive off conservative prospies before they even apply. And given the existence of (and liberal response to) parallel problems with regards to race and gender that also exist in the pre-application stage, I believe that these harms rise to the level of discriminatory conduct that should be combated.

I'll admit that the constitutional objection (in public schools) that Schuck made is not one I had thought of, and could be problematic. I'd have to see the precedents on the matter, but acting on a blank slate I think that a political AA plan is constitutionally defensible, again, on much the same grounds racial AA is--if racial AA can be constitutionally justified on pluralism grounds as opposed to merely reparative ones. Ultimately, I think a political AA program can live or die on the same issues that racial ones face. The goal isn't to discriminate in favor of particular viewpoints, but to improve institutional vitality, a clearly legitimate interest that isn't being met by "neutral" criteria. It also is vulnerable to the same particular challenges AA has faced. For example, a program by an already conservative campus to recruit more conservatives would be suspect for the same reasons the Court outline in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989) (holding unconstitutional a racial affirmative action program enacted by a black-majority city council in a black majority-city). The one area where a political AA program would be vulnerable where racial AA is strong is the existence of significant past discrimination, which is not present. But I don't think that's the only way to justify AA, so I don't think that should be dispositive.

I can't speak for conservatives as to whether or not they can, on a philosophical level, accept an affirmative action program for themselves (though I am curious what they would like university deans to do about the bias problem if that solution is off the table). But as liberals, I think we should support efforts to create a more diverse and pluralistic campus environment on all fronts--racial, sexual, religious, and political.

A Brief Word About The Word

First of all, I want to thank Creek Running North for hosting this "blog against racism" day. I am a firm believer in discussing racial issues, and judging by the responses, CRN has managed to bring a wide swath of the blogosphere together on this topic. So kudos.

It may seem rather churlish, then, for me to take issue with the post that started it all. But in order to "blog against racism," we have to define what "racism" means. And that's a difficult proposition.

Racism is a nebulous concept. In the modern era, everyone agrees that to be "racist" is a very bad thing. But that's about as far as we get. "Racism" has been defined as deviating from the color-blind principle, intentionally discriminating against a minority group, prejudice against someone on account of race, stigmatization on account of race, and acting to preserve racial hierarchy, to name just a few. Significant cleavages have formed those who measure racism by intent and those who measure it by effects, those who see it as individualist and those who see it as structural, those who see it as theoretically neutral and those who see it solely as part of an exercise of power. One could quite easily be racist under one definition but not racist under another, indeed, at times the definitions are mutually exclusive (consider Affirmative Action, necessary to dismantle racial hierarchy, but a clear violation of color-blindness).

There are costs to this confusion. First, obviously, it makes it difficult for anti-racism activists to train their fire when we're not sure what the target is. Second, though, I believe this ambiguity plays a deep role in the reticence of many people to enter racial conversations in the first place. As long as the term "racism/t" possesses the two qualities of being a) absolutely evil and b) definitionally contested, a discussion on race becomes akin to walking into a minefield. Given the scant hope that any individual conversation will be the racial breakthrough we've all been looking, a rational actor easily could conclude that the risk is too high. And indeed, that is a relatively accurate description, in my opinion, of how many Whites view the topic of Race today.

In this context, then, it is very tempting to try and distill "racism" down to some core essence--a particular definition that can become the center of the debate and clear the air. And that's what Chris Clark attempts to do with his "effects" definition. He makes his argument thus:

But it increasingly clear to me --and probably has been for some time to people smarter than me--that many folks think of the word "racist" as meaning something akin to the word "evil." Thus the defenses of the cartoon that focused on the artist's intent. If his intentions were benign, then he is not evil and thus not racist.

Anyone who's studied the history of racism can trot out numerous examples of racist behavior committed with allegedly good intentions, from Moynihan's "benign neglect" to the myriad acts of condescension by white liberals toward their black acquaintances. I assume, people being more or less the same now as they were two hundred years ago, that there were a number of slaveowners who told themselves they took wonderful care of their chattel property.

Ask a Klan member whether he or she has good intentions. I guarantee you the answer will be in the affirmative, even as the cross is lit.

Intentions are all well and good, but more important are the assumptions from which those intentions spring. Garbage in, garbage out: bad information times good intentions equals bad results. And those results are the most important thing of all. A cartoon depicts stereotypical dark-skinned tribes as cannibals? That's racism. The poor people who could not flee a flooding city because they had no access to transportation or a lifetime of mistrust of authority were almost all Black? That's racism. People advocate locking up enemy nationals, defined by ancestry? That's racism.

I agree that this represents a serious problem. Many scholars have documented the shortcomings of "intent" as a measure of racial discrimination. The past few decades have showcased amply that neutral actors making good faith decisions can still preserve a racially stratified society. Some measure of effects is clearly necessary if we are to change the status quo.

At the same time, problems with a pure effects test are readily apparent as well. For one, it labels nearly every human being (of any race) as a racist. Studies have shown that both Blacks and Whites subscribe, at the subconscious level, to negative stereotypes about African-Americans. The famous "doll experiment" cited in Brown v. Board is perhaps the most prominent of these studies, but other more recent and more chilling findings have been made--for example, both Blacks and Whites are more likely to interpret an ambiguous action by a Black male as aggressive or hostile; a finding that raises serious questions about racial profiling and police violence. Clearly, Blacks don't "intend" to subscribe to stereotyping that keeps their race under the heel of brutal criminal sanction (and, I'd argue, neither do most Whites). But the effect is still present. These mindsets cannot be excised easily or quickly, which means that for the short to mid-term we have to basically conclude that the entire United States--Black, White, Asian, Jewish, whomever--is racist.

This is problematic on two levels. Pragmatically, saying "everybody's a racist" will prove a major barrier to engaging the country (especially Whites) in a serious racial dialogue. Either they'll ignore the message as hyperbolic, or worse, they'll take the message and use it to dilute the moral valence of racism. Either way, the net effect is negative. We have to remember that the goal of these projects is not to develop some fuzzy theory that makes us feel morally righteous. It's to bring about real change in the real world, and that's going to require compromises. Second, on a moral level the effects test places a ethical burden on individuals that is impossible to fulfill. In his essay "Saints and Heroes," James Urmson notes:

If we are to exact basic duties like debts, and censure failures, such duties must be, in ordinary circumstances, within the capacity of the ordinary man....So, if we were to represent the heroic act of sacrificing one's life for one's comrades as a basic duty, the effect would be to lower the degree of urgency and stringency that the notion of duty does in fact posses. The basic moral code must not be in part too far beyond the capacity of the ordinary men or ordinary occasions, or a general breakdown of compliance with the moral code would be an inevitable consequence; duty would seem to be something high and unattainable, and not for 'the likes of us.'

We want to think that an "effects" test of racism will alert the general populace that they are complicit in a racist society and encourage them to change their behavior. More likely, though, they'll just conclude that not being racist is an impossible goal and abandon the quest all together. That would be a death knell for the movement.

So if I don't like "effects" as a definition of racism, and I don't like "intent" as a definition of racism, then what's my response? I'd argue that the problem isn't with any particular definition. Rather, the problem is that "racism" is a term being asked to do far too much work. There is no way that a single word can encompass all the meanings that "racism" needs to juggle. To borrow from Lawrence Blum (whose spectacular book, "I'm Not a Racist, But...", heavily influenced this post), we need a more complex vocabulary to talk about race. We need words to condemn the shocking acts of intentional discrimination, stereotyping, prejudice, and violence that still occurs today. At the same time, we need vocabulary that can both alert unenlightened Whites about the current racial status without immediately placing them on the defensive. As I wrote in a paper I am in the midst of preparing:

Whites tend to define racism as consisting of "only the most extreme example[s]...rabid[] hate [or]...violence." This obscures the myriad of ways in which racial prejudice and inequality acts as a barrier to minority success even amongst people who abhor violence and profess equality of opportunity. At the same time, others define racism as any type of racially-charged action or mentality which causes ill effects. Such an expansive definition "will not help bring whites to the reconciliation table and may only foster resentment." Operating between these two poles is a position which uses a variety of terminology beyond the simplistic "racist/not-racist" dualism to deal with racial questions. Lawrence Blum argues that "'[r]acism' and 'racist' should be reserved for certain especially serious moral failings and violations in the area of race. They should not be permitted to include everything [racially related] that someone might justifiably disapprove of.

For better or for worse, "racism" is a term that is value-laden, it simply can't be used to describe more mundane acts of racial import. This isn't to trivialize them--only focusing on the most extreme cases won't bring about substantial cases when the majority of racial disparities come about via actions not deemed "extreme" but normal. However, as a tactical matter, anti-racism advocates need to diversify their arsenal. We should preserve "racist" for the worst of the lot, and condemn the rest, not necessarily as "racist" acts but as acts that preserve racial hierarchy. That should be seen as a moral wrong that exists independent of racism, but does not come with the personalized condemnation that is concurrent with the term "racist." To talk of racial reconciliation requires that we expand our horizons beyond just one word. Rather than blogging against "racism", we might blog against racial hierarchy--a status propped up by many pillars. Racism is indeed one of the more invidious among them, but it is not the whole edifice.

Being a devoted fan of Critical Race Theory, I've blogged on the topic of race and racism quite often. Here are a few posts from my archives:

Race LASIK

Race, Education, and Society

The Internal Critic and Intersectionality: Who's Looking Out For The Minority Right?

Standpoint Theory, The "Voice of Color", and "Uncle Toms": Positioning Conservative Minorities

Dissections of Power: Can Blacks Be Racist to Whites?

Side By Side

Back in June, I wrote a post entitled "The General and the Tactician" which noted the differences in how each approaches a state of war. The tactician (by which I mean a political tactician) sees war as a political object, and thus will view it through political lenses. He isn't wholly unconcerned with actually winning the war, but he will freely utilize spin, PR offenses, insinuations, and other such devices in order to maintain a lead in the polls--even if it comes at a disadvantage to the troops on the ground. The general, by contrast, is much more reticent to do so, because at the end of the day it is his men who are out there bleeding and dying. This isn't to say generals always give the straight and narrow, but they are less likely to hew to a partisan line when it is to obvious military detriment.

It is in that context that I found this article in the Washington Post very interesting. It reported on a joint meeting with the press by Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Peter Pace (the General) and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (the Tactician). When put up side by side, it was incredible to see just how unwilling Gen. Pace was to toe the line Rumsfeld laid out. At first it was on issues of little consequence: Rumsfeld wanted to change the moniker "insurgent" to "enemies of the legitimate Iraqi government"; Pace just couldn't bring himself to say it. But soon it moved to a major dispute over an issue of critical importance:

When UPI's Pam Hess asked about torture by Iraqi authorities, Rumsfeld replied that "obviously, the United States does not have a responsibility" other than to voice disapproval.

But Pace had a different view. "It is the absolute responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it," the general said.

Rumsfeld interjected: "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it."

But Pace meant what he said. "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it," he said, firmly.

Pace, of course, is absolutely right. And the reason he's adamant is because the more torture becomes mainstream, the more risk our soldiers face when they fall into the hands of the enemy. Certainly, al-Qaeda will continue to be brutal regardless of what the US does. But the precedent will be laid down for future wars and conflicts, ones in which the enemy, perhaps, is more morally ambiguous. It's good to see Pace recognizes that. It's better to see he's willing to take Rumsfeld to task when he doesn't.

Others commenting:
QandO:

A big "Semper Fi!" to General Pace for standing up to the SecDef in public, and laying down a clear, ambiguous bright-line rule on how US forces are supposed to respond, even if they see Iraqi government forces treating prisoners inhumanely.

Andrew Sullivan:

Thank God for decent soldiers like General Pace and Ian Fishback. I have to say I do not recognize the Don Rumsfeld I once knew in the callous, reckless, immoral stances he has taken these past three years. It is a matter of urgency that he be replaced, if this war is to regain its moral standing and military effectiveness.

Carpetbagger:

I give Gen. Pace credit for sticking to his guns, but the fact that this mini-debate took place — at the podium during a Pentagon press briefing — is not reassuring. These two are supposed to be conveying Defense Department information to the nation and they can't even agree on how the U.S. military responds to torture by Iraqi officials? What kind of message does that convey?

Kevin Drum, CIP.

Is He Kidding?

I'm really confused about Ethan Leib's description of the relationship between Jews and the Christian Right. On second thought, I think he's confused. Basically, he claims that:

We all know that the Evangelicals and the Jews are in bed together, facilitating the U.S.'s Israel-friendly policy...the Zionist agenda is possible, in large measure, owing to Christian Zionism on the Religious Right. That may be a controversial idea, but a kernel of it must be true.

Leib uses this to frame the recent attacks by prominent Jewish leaders against the Religious Right's anti-Jewish calls to demolish the separation of Church and State (I blogged about those events myself here). He may be being sarcastic, but if so I'm missing it.

I won't deny that Christian Right support for Israel is not an important factor for maintaining support for Israel (not the least because America certainly doesn't care about Jews qua Jews). But I think it is, far from something "we all know," wildly inaccurate to say that Jews and Evangelicals are "in bed together." Certainly, Evangelicals have used their strong support for Israel to attempt to crack the normally solidly Democratic Jewish constituency. And I am aware of otherwise liberal Jews for whom those efforts have currency, especially contrasted with some Democrats' luke-warm (at best) support for the Jewish state. But by and large, these efforts at penetration have failed dramatically. 78% of Jews voted for Clinton in 1996, 79% for Gore in 2000, and 76% for Kerry in 2004. In fact, the last time a Republican candidate got even a plurality of the Jewish vote was Warren Harding with 43%--and that's only because Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs took 38% of the Jewish vote (the Democratic candidate took another 19%). And though the Jewish GOP vote is slowly starting to rise, it still remains in abysmal territory--George W. Bush did 11 percentage points worse in 2004 than his father did in his 1988 trouncing of Dukakis.

On issues aside from supporting Israel (which I still refuse to characterize as a "conservative" viewpoint), Jews overwhelmingly identify with liberal positions. As of September, 2004, two-thirds of Jews opposed the Iraq war. Michael Lerner has pointed out that Jews were the only white ethnic group to oppose California Proposition 209 (barring Affirmative Action), and that Jews and Blacks together constitute the most solidly liberal voting blocs in America today. Jews tend to be pro-choice, support gay marriage (at 64%, they are more likely than any other group [PDF] to be pro-equality here) and stem cell research, and favor liberal fiscal policies. And their views on the Christian Right? Well, in Newsweek's run-up to the 2004 election, they wrote that:

[M]any Jews are uncomfortable with Bush's embrace of the Christian right, whose solidarity on the issue of Israel strikes some as a cynical, self-interested ploy.

I'm not going to say that it is or is not a "self-interested ploy" for conservative Christians to support Israel. I will say that if it is, it's failing miserably. I obviously welcome support for Israel from any quarter--it is nice to see the Christian Right be on our side for once. But Jews continue to be their own separate force in politics, and claims that they are "in bed" with the religious right (just like claims that they are trending conservative) lie somewhere between alarmist and mythical.

Deep Sacrifice

This interests me. The AP reports that, amidst a sea of Republicans being caught in the Abramoff scandal, there are also connections to North Dakota Democrat Sen. Byron Dorgan. Now, we should of course be wary of who's making these accusations, but let's say that Dorgan is indeed illicitly involved in this sordid affair. Partisan Democrats would thus be faced with a choice. Try to shield Dorgan, and blunt the effectiveness of the "Culture of Corruption" attack they've been making against Republicans; or, let Dorgan swing and lose a wildly popular Democratic Senator in blood-red North Dakota. While obviously it isn't a straight shot "principled or partisan" issue (Democrats could politically conclude that the benefits of keeping the focus on corruption outweighs losing a red-state Senate seat), it is a good indicator of how serious the partisans are about corruption in government. Right now, voters see little difference between congressional Democrats and Republicans, suggesting that they haven't internalized the message that Democrats are any more anti-corruption than the GOP is. An unequivocal stance of zero-tolerance could change that.

As such, it's heartening to see DKos not hesitate for a moment: "I'm not interested in nuance on this issue. If Dorgan becomes collateral damage, then so be it."

Thunderous Silence

Apologies for light blogging. I returned to work today (only Monday, Thursday, and Friday, but 9-5:30 those days), and I'm a bit tired. Anyway, you can't help but love reading this Obsidian Wings masterpiece on Joe Biden's Iraq editorial and the Bush reaction--plus a few Republican commentators who got caught flat-footed.

Basically, it called for a timetable for achieving certain specific goals (including withdrawals), more support for infrastructural development, and stronger training for the Iraqi army. Nothing too fancy--pretty much what Democrats have been saying all along. And since it was Joe Biden, the GOP attack dogs quite predictably pounced, with attacks such as "clueless," "fundamentally wrong," and the moniker "slow Joe." How abashed they must have been, when Bush administration officials declared Biden's plan to be "remarkably similar" to the President's own! Oh the humanity! That makes Bush too "clueless," "fundamentally wrong," and "unfit to direct this country's foreign policy."

Democrats are having a field day. Republicans are, surprise, mostly silent (though QandO is properly ashamed of his colleagues).

So, the real question is: do the commentators stranded by their own present just ignore the inconsistency, or try to spin some convoluted explanation for why it's all okay? I can't wait to find out!

Forever To The Left

Alright, so trolling around the blogosphere I see a few more resources that might have been useful in my last post, "The Left I Fell In Love With".

Let's start with the commenter to my original post. I want to reiterate that the "blame America" syndrome is not something that affects most or even many Democrats. It remains tightly contained to a small segment of the fringe. At the same time, I will stand by my claim that too many Democrats seem to take small stock in our historical commitment to human rights and liberation. I don't take this from Republican cherry-picking--I read Democratic sites and while it doesn't rise to the level that it's caricatured as, some of it really seems to be shocking when one thinks about it. Consider the comment itself. (S)he says that "[c]riticizing Mr. Bush's unwarranted Iraq adventure does NOT imply endorsing Saddam Hussein - it is more often a "plague on both their houses" situation." Well, that's okay and not okay. I do wish for a plague on both their houses. But while I want Mr. Bush to have a sort of mild flu, I want Saddam Hussein to come down with a particularly virulent and painful form of Ebola. Bush has done some terrible things in office, but clearly he does not even approach the horror of a Saddam Hussein. And the next line--that the US government (including current administration officials) supported Hussein at the height of his genocidal rage. I've never understood why that is trotted out as an argument against an intervention--I'd argue that it imposes a greater obligation on the US to make up for its complacency with past evils. Maybe it shows that Donald Rumsfeld shouldn't lead the charge, but that's an argument that can be made easily just on present performance.

Finally, what is still missing from even the charitable interpretation of the "plague on both your houses" argument is the point I made in the original post: there isn't any coherent alternative plan besides an aggressive American foreign policy to solving these moral catastrophes. The closest thing I've heard from the anti-war left is "the sanctions were working--they could have kept Saddam contained." Well, perhaps. But all that means is that Saddam would be contained to his own borders, where he could continue to murder, rape, torture, and maim with impunity. Paired with the empirical fact that sanctions fell hardest on women and the poor, and what you get isn't a human rights argument--it's a security-based argument that gives us the moral cover to allow thousands to perish. Sure, sanctions would insure that Saddam wouldn't threaten us, but we're not the only people at risk here. I don't consider this to be an adequate liberal response.

I'd also like to point readers to two stellar articles that went up on The New Republic's website over Thanksgiving (TNR, incidentally, has been a major exception to the crypto-isolationist movement creeping through the left). The first, by Lawrence Kaplan, takes issue with the Democrat's newfound love for foreign policy Realism.

The complaint here isn't with the Bush team's execution of its project to export democracy. It is with the idea itself....What we have in [its] place is a crude and cheap version of realism, which, although ostensibly a method of analysis that eschews ideology, is rapidly becoming an ideology of its own. Unfortunately, its key tenets as laid out by the Gary Harts and Paul Krugmans of this world--non-interference, narrowly defined vital interests, a foreign policy scrubbed of idealism--provide no adequate response to the war of ideas in which we're presently engaged and will be long after the war in Iraq draws to a close. Nor do its proponents factor in the steep moral price bound to be exacted by trading in Woodrow Wilson for Brent Scowcroft. Is it really necessary to point out how deeply amoral U.S. foreign policy was during the Kissinger and Scowcroft years? If idealism has failed in Iraq, the solution lies in the realm of means, not in abandoning idealism...

The second article, by John Judis, warns that a rising tide of isolationism may be overtaking the country. Isolationism did not augur the US' finest moral moments (acquiescing to the Nazi's rise to power, ignoring the Rwandan genocide in 1994, etc.).

I want to also state that I think nobody is fulfilling this obligation--by criticizing the Left, I do not mean to exonerate the Right. The flip-side of this argument is that nobody is taking this obligation we have seriously. I really liked this Kevin Drum post (linking to Dahlia Lithwick) because it shows how the right is also betraying this fight under the guise of fighting it, using an example I hadn't thought of before.

[Lithwick] Had Padilla been charged and tried back in the summer of 2002, rather than touted as some Bond villain - the Prince of Radiological Dispersion - his case would have stood for a simple legal proposition: that if you are a terrorist, a supporter of terrorism, or a would-be terrorist, the government will hunt you down and punish you. Had the government waited, tested its facts, kept expectations low, then delivered a series of convictions of even small-time al-Qaida foot soldiers, we in this country would feel safer and we would doubtless be safer.

Instead Padilla, like Hamdi, was used as fodder for big speeches. They became the justification for Bush's position that some people are so evil that the law does not deter them, that new legal systems must be invented - new systems that bear a striking resemblance to those discredited around the time of Torquemada.

[Drum] Exactly. The corrosion of civil liberties highlighted by these cases is bad enough, but it's not the only problem they've caused. Every time a dramatic set of charges turns out to be baseless, it sends a very public message that the war against terrorism is just a sham, a campaign of partisan fearmongering being used as little more than a political club. This is the same message sent by the Bush administration's misuse of intelligence, the lack of WMD in Iraq, the politically motivated orange alerts, the strategically timed marketing campaigns, and the transparent political stunts played by congressional Republicans last week in response to John Murtha's speech.

The American public can hardly be expected to take terrorism seriously if it's obvious that the Bush administration itself views al-Qaeda as primarily a political opportunity rather than a real problem. Sooner or later, we're going to pay the price for this feckless and irresponsible approach.

That's the meta-point here. Democrats are rightfully upset that Bush was misleading in his pre-war run-up. That was a grave sin, and he should take his fair sure of flogging for it. But that cuts both ways, Bush deserves to be bashed for jeopardizing the credibility of a really important mission, but Democrats had the obligation to sign on to the program even if they disagreed with the methodology. If the Democrats even were opposing the Iraq war on the grounds that we should be instead intervening in Darfur or North Korea (seriously advocating it, not just as a talking point), then I'd consider that to be a legitimate point of disagreement. But attacking the project of democratization itself is simply not consonant with liberal ideals. The issues that face us today, whether it's terrorism or human rights (I think the two are inextricably tied), are too important to be tied up in political considerations. They need to be addressed full-frontal and in good faith. And if I seem to come down harder on liberals, that's because I have more faith in them to bring about real, lasting, compassionate, and effective solutions to the problems we're faced with.

The Left I Fell In Love With

Well, I'm back from Rhode Island--hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I saw some family members I hadn't seen in awhile, which was nice. But alas, back to the old grind.

Fernando Teson has a post on PrawfsBlawg that I think is really important. It urges liberals to stop focusing on slamming President Bush, and instead "reconstitute itself and recover the great imagination about equality and freedom." Teson attacks those protestors who took to the streets not to call for the elimination of a genocidal monster, but instead to protest his elimination. There is simply no excuse for that.

I took Feminist Theory this last term, and it was very instructive on this count. I should hasten to say that the vast majority of the works I read were intelligent, thought-provoking, and in many cases spot-on. People who deride modern feminism need to read more of it, because it has a devastating critique of our modern world and brings up challenges that need to be addressed.

However, there were a few people who, in class discussions, I argued read less like serious liberal scholars and more like conservative plants meant to discredit the whole movement. These people reflexively attacked America on every front, defended despotic regimes, and offered no plan or suggestion for improving women's rights in other countries (regarding the US, of course, they were verbose in their criticisms). John Kerry and the Democratic Party do not "blame America first." These people blame us first, last, and always.

In some frustration, I wrote my final paper calling for a more active feminism (which, for this post, I'd extend to liberalism in general). One that wouldn't just talk about "injustice" and "oppression," but would actually take active steps to change them. This implies some level of political realism. Calling for the capitalist power structure to wither away and die from your Southwest Missouri State University ivory tower won't actually help anyone. Joining a coalition pushing for a multilateral intervention in Darfur just might. Seize opportunities when they present themselves--the purpose is to help people, not to win tenure or even elections. I should add once again that the type of person I mentioned above--the total America-hater who slams anything our country does and overtly props up dictatorial regimes is a tiny minority in America today. The vast majority of liberals are committed to a just global order and a better world--they're just blinded by (justifiable) rage at the current administration. But even still, I think that a principled left, dedicated to true reform and possessing a commitment to action, would be far more effective both in the world and at the ballot box, than what we have today.

UPDATE: I've got a longer addendum up addressing some further issues that have been raised since I posted (including those by Mister Commenter Guy).

Down on Warner and Feingold

I read two articles on Presidential candidates today, both of which left me softer on the candidates than I was going in.

Starting with Virginia Governor Mark Warner. It's always impressive for a Democrat to win statewide in Virginia, all the more so when he can use his coattails to bring another Democrat in his place. And certainly, Warner does seem to be generating a fair bit of enthusiasm amongst the young campaign worker set. However, in reading this article, I couldn't help thinking he sounded very standard politician--just saying what audiences wanted to hear. No risks, no willingness to take a stand. Consider this passage:

Warner often prefaces remarks by warning that he's "about to say something a lot of people might not agree with." He does this in his speech to the Harvard Democrats. As listeners brace for something controversial, Warner comes forth with the familiar refrain that Democrats can't compete in only 16 states in presidential elections. When a student follows up by asking what individual states Democrats should compete in, Warner pauses, stares at a spot on the ceiling for a few pregnant seconds before answering, finally:

"The South," he says, then mentions some "opportunities in the Midwest."

Wow...I can see the savage netroots crowd ripping him apart over that one. Warner has proven voter appeal, and that counts for something. But I just don't know if he has enough independent thought behind those buck-teeth of his to be worthy of our support. At least one blogger read the article and still is putting him as his top 2008 choice, so maybe I'm an anomaly.

Meanwhile, I finally read TNR's "Hillary-slayer" article about Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold. Feingold is in some ways the exact opposite of Warner. Quirky, independent, willing to buck the party line when his principles call for it. And I respect that. A lot. Feingold is in many ways a breath of fresh air, and he has a lot of good accomplishments to his name that warrant a close look at his candidacy. Many politicians claim to be independent thinkers. With Feingold, there's no way to deny it. Like Dean, Feingold draws most of his support from the left wing anti-war crowd, and, also like Dean, Feingold is no where near as liberal as his supporters might be led to believe. Of course (again, like Dean), given the state of the political media, nobody will know that no matter how deep Feingold goes in the primaries. But I know it, and that appealing blend of progressive and principled is a sight for sore eyes here.

The problem is that in the area where we most need someone who's willing to buckle down and do the right thing, political finger-waving be damned, Feingold's on the wrong side. He has a long and consistent record of opposition to American humanitarian interventions--even in the midst of ongoing or imminent genocide.

Feingold has long harbored wariness about U.S. military action. When Republicans forced a 1995 Senate vote to cut off funding for U.S. military forces in Bosnia, for instance, he was the sole Democrat to join 21 conservatives in support of the resolution. As other Democrats waxed idealistic about human rights, Feingold fretted about Vietnam parallels and worried that "our attempting to police the world threatens our own national security." By 1997, he was fighting to cut off funding for military operations in Bosnia and to begin an early withdrawal of U.S. forces. "What they haven't done is define a concrete exit strategy for our American troops," he said at the time. "This administration needs to sit down and work with Congress to map out a specific schedule for bringing our troops home, or they will be there for a very, very long time." Likewise, Feingold cast just one of three Democratic 'no' votes against the 1999 Kosovo bombing campaign. "It's a compelling notion that the American government has an obligation to stop brutality and genocide. I can't dispute that," he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in March of 1999. "But how can we be acting in Bosnia and Kosovo and not Rwanda, or Sudan, or East Timor, or even Tibet?"

So people of Darfur (or their inevitable heirs elsewhere in the globe) will be free to die no matter how brutal the atrocities get. I'm probably one of the few pro-war liberals for whom Feingold's anti-war stance is not too bothersome. But this crosses the line. I don't think I can bring myself to vote for someone who would have abandoned Kosovar Albanians to Slobodan Milosivic's murderous hordes.

I'm heading to Rhode Island for Thanksgiving. The computer, alas, is not. So this blog will be off from Tuesday afternoon until my return on Friday afternoon. See you then!

Big Noise In Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has resigned from Likud, the party he helped found, and is starting his own centrist party to run in new parliamentary elections.

The Head Heeb has a spectacular analysis of the political implications of the move. One major impact is that Israeli voters now have clear choices in the forthcoming elections. For the past several years, the two major parties, Labor and Likud, have drifted closer to the center, including significant time spent as coalition partners. But Sharon's split will push Likud firmly back into the ranks of the nationalist right. Meanwhile, Labor just took a hard turn to the left with the upset victory of union activist Amir Peretz in their leadership primary. Many people are expecting moderates from both parties to defect to Sharon's new National Responsibility Party, setting up a contest with a definitive left, right, and center.

The timing of this move couldn't be more dramatic. As Fruits and Votes reminds us, the Israeli election will take place soon after the Palestinian legislative elections, which undoubtedly will play a crucial role in spinning the results. And with Nobel Peace Prize recipient Shimon Peres now a persona non grata in Labor, he too might jump to Sharon's boat ("Kiss of Death"? I'm not sure I'd go that far. Meryl Yourish is calling Sharon to win the PM slot again, and if I had to put my money down, I'd place my bet there as well).

Armand wonders about the impact on Shinui, a pre-existing centrist party and the one I currently identify with. Assuming that the new party doesn't suck all the life out of Shinui (either by voter or political defections), I'd assume they'd join a coalition with Sharon. However, the reaction of Shinui chairman Tommy Lapid was far from welcoming. Shinui currently has 14 members in the Knesset, a substantial bloc in the 120 member body (by comparison, Likud had 40 members pre-defection). I would not be surprised, though, if some of those seats were lost to Sharoniks. At least one commentator thinks Shinui is "done".

Predictions remain fractured (as they should at this early stage). Cosmic-X thinks that Sharon is going to be spending time with grandkids soon enough. But then, he thinks that his new party's support will draw mostly from far-left Meretz and Labor dissidents, which strikes me as spectacularly unlikely. "ingenious" is the term used by Clarity and Resolve, and as I said above that's the camp I tend to fall into. One assessment I have no qualms signing onto though: It's going to be messy.

By far the best overall round-up is at IsraellyCool.

You Go (B)Oy!

This is what I like to hear! Jews standing up for themselves and taking on the "religious right's" false claims to represent all religions (H/T: Balloon Juice).

The leader of the largest branch of American Judaism blasted conservative religious activists in a speech Saturday, calling them "zealots" who claim a "monopoly on God" while promoting anti-gay policies akin to Adolf Hitler's.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, said "religious right" leaders believe "unless you attend my church, accept my God and study my sacred text you cannot be a moral person."

"What could be more bigoted than to claim that you have a monopoly on God?" he said during the movement's national assembly in Houston, which runs through Sunday.

The audience of 5,000 responded to the speech with enthusiastic applause.

Yoffie did not mention evangelical Christians directly, using the term "religious right" instead. In a separate interview, he said the phrase encompassed conservative activists of all faiths, including within the Jewish community.

He used particularly strong language to condemn conservative attitudes toward homosexuals. He said he understood that traditionalists have concluded gay marriage violates Scripture, but he said that did not justify denying legal protections to same-sex partners and their children.

"We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations," Yoffie said. "Yes, we can disagree about gay marriage. But there is no excuse for hateful rhetoric that fuels the hellfires of anti-gay bigotry."

I should say that I think his "Hitler" analogy is being misinterpreted. I don't think he's saying that the policies of the religious right are "akin" to Hitler. Rather, he's reminding us that hatred is a slippery slope--each time society labels one of its members sub-human, it becomes that much easier to demonize another and another and justify all manner of atrocities. Jonathan Glover, Professor of Ethics at Kings College, put it best:

Respect for dignity is one of the great barriers against atrocity and cruelty. To acknowledge our shared moral status makes it harder for us to torture or kill each other. The erosion of the protective barrier creates danger. When one group tramples on the dignity of another, it tramples on its own inhibitions, and [a] massacre may not be far off.

AmericaBlog may be slightly hyperbolic, but it's also right: America's human rights history does not come near to inspiring the confidence that "it could never happen here."

In any event, I agree with Cafe Politico:

This was long overdue but better late than never. More people of faith need to speak out against attempts by some evangelical Christians to paint every political/moral issue within their narrow, often bigoted framework. I am tired of the public falling for the talking point that the GOP is the God's Own Party.

If Christianity wants to represent itself as the sole province of hyper-conservatives, I suppose that's its business. But I'll damned if I let them drag my religion down with them.

Balloon Juice also reminds us that Rabbi Yoffie is not the first major Jewish figure to sound this theme recently. Foxman took some flack from, well, Jewish conservative flacks who haven't quite managed to distinguish our religion from Christianity. One can perhaps cherry-pick a few cases where Jewish organizations have gone over the top (although I'd assert that in the current environment, it's best to err on the side of caution). But the world the Christian Right seeks to create is not one that includes our religious message. It is not a Jewish world. And with all due respect to my dear friend Dennis Prager, the more I read about Jewish theology and ethics, the more I turn to the left, not right. When it comes down to it, Judaism is a force for progressivism and change, not maintaining status quo injustices, and I've yet to see anyone persuade me otherwise. And for the record, Jews have other interests beyond just Israel (although to be clear, Foxman is a vocal advocate for Israeli interests as well).