Watch Them Fall

The New Republic has an incredible--and chilling--article about Iran up by German political scientist Matthias Kuntzel. It's behind a subscription wall, but its for articles like this that you should be subscribed to TNR already. Some of the history he gives about the Iran/Iraq war is terrifying in the inhumanity it brings to light:

During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran's forces were no match for Saddam Hussein's professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child's neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.

At one point, however, the earthly gore became a matter of concern. "In the past," wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettelaat as the war raged on, "we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the minefields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone." Such scenes would henceforth be avoided, Ettelaat assured its readers. "Before entering the minefields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves."
[...]
The chief combat tactic employed by the Basiji was the human wave attack, whereby barely armed children and teenagers would move continuously toward the enemy in perfectly straight rows. It did not matter whether they fell to enemy fire or detonated the mines with their bodies: The important thing was that the Basiji continue to move forward over the torn and mutilated remains of their fallen comrades, going to their deaths in wave after wave. Once a path to the Iraqi forces had been opened up, Iranian commanders would send in their more valuable and skilled Revolutionary Guard troops.

This approach produced some undeniable successes. "They come toward our positions in huge hordes with their fists swinging," one Iraqi officer complained in the summer of 1982. "You can shoot down the first wave and then the second. But at some point the corpses are piling up in front of you, and all you want to do is scream and throw away your weapon. Those are human beings, after all!" By the spring of 1983, some 450,000 Basiji had been sent to the front. After three months, those who survived deployment were sent back to their schools or workplaces.
[...]
Whether they survived or not was irrelevant. Not even the tactical utility of their sacrifice mattered. Military victories are secondary, Khomeini explained in September 1980. The Basiji must "understand that he is a 'soldier of God' for whom it is not so much the outcome of the conflict as the mere participation in it that provides fulfillment and gratification." Could Khomeini's antipathy for life have had as much effect in the war against Iraq without the Karbala myth? Probably not. With the word "Karbala" on their lips, the Basiji went elatedly into battle.

Thousands of children, brainwashed so that they elatedly rush to death as human bullet and mine fodder. It's a twisted display of barbarity the likes of which I can scarcely imagine.

There are no ground wars on the horizon for Iran in the near future, so the prospect of similar action for the Basiji is scant. But that does not mean Iran has not found new uses for them.

At the end of July 2005, the Basij movement announced plans to increase its membership from ten million to 15 million by 2010. The elite special units are supposed to comprise some 150,000 people by then. Accordingly, the Basiji have received new powers in their function as an unofficial division of the police. What this means in practice became clear in February 2006, when the Basiji attacked the leader of the bus-drivers' union, Massoud Osanlou. They held Osanlou prisoner in his apartment, and they cut off the tip of his tongue in order to convince him to keep quiet. No Basiji needs to fear prosecution for such terrorists tactics before a court of law.
[...]
The Basiji's cult of self-destruction would be chilling in any country. In the context of the Iranian nuclear program, however, its obsession with martyrdom amounts to a lit fuse. Nowadays, Basiji are sent not into the desert, but rather into the laboratory. Basij students are encouraged to enroll in technical and scientific disciplines. According to a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guard, the aim is to use the "technical factor" in order to augment "national security."

What exactly does that mean? Consider that, in December 2001, former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani explained that "the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything." On the other hand, if Israel responded with its own nuclear weapons, it "will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality." Rafsanjani thus spelled out a macabre cost-benefit analysis. It might not be possible to destroy Israel without suffering retaliation. But, for Islam, the level of damage Israel could inflict is bearable--only 100,000 or so additional martyrs for Islam.

"Only" 100,000--my head is spinning.

Stanley Kurtz says we're in Iraq, not to provide peace and democracy, but to show Iran we're serious. Lindsay Beyerstein dissects the argument in her own way (and if peace and democracy are completely superfluous, why not immediately pull out of Iraq to invade Iran?). But the problem, as I see it, isn't that a show of military force in the region is counterproductive to deterring Iran. The problem is that the level of fanaticism demonstrated in the above article implies that Iran may simply be undeterrable. When 100,000 deaths can be shrugged aside as the costs of martyrdom--I have no idea how to make a tactical response to that sort of mentality.

Shoot for the Stars

I meant to link to this New York Times snippet about Gambia earlier, because it amused me:

President Yahya Jammeh, a former wrestler and bird lover, said anyone aspiring to his job needed "to wait like a vulture, patiently," because he planned to stay in office at least 30 years longer. Mr. Jammeh, who is 40 and seized power in a bloodless coup in 1994, said he would consider handing over power only after he had turned his tiny former British colony into an oil producer and a "role model for Africa." Gambia produces peanuts but has not struck oil.

"I'm going to stay in power until we develop a resource we don't even have!" I suppose that's one way to guarantee you'll be ruling for a long, long time. Let it never be said that President Jammeh let geological realities get in the way of his dreams.

Whiteness Symposium

Bridget Crawford points to a paper by Stephanie M. Wildman entitled "The Persistence of White Privilege," now available on SSRN. It looks great. I'd also like to point out to any other interested parties that the broader symposium the article was a part of, "Whiteness: Some Critical Perspectives", is available online from the Washington University Journal of Law & Policy.

My seminar paper for my Foundations of Black Political Thought class is going to be on Black views of Whiteness. Any help in finding sources on the subject would be much appreciated.

How Do I Look?

Like Eric Muller, I found this post by feminist law professor Michelle Anderson on her upcoming marraige to be quite an interesting read. The opener:

I got hitched Saturday. Beforehand, I had been sheepish about telling my students I was getting married. It seemed inconsistent with my professional persona as an independent, fearless, freedom-fighting law professor. So I waited until the last possible minute to mention it. "OK, I have a quick announcement," I began a recent Criminal Law class. "I do apologize, but I have to cancel next Thursday's class because... um... well... my partner and I have decided to get married." My students then began to clap. Gads, this was worse than I'd imagined it would be. The applause grew.

Professor Muller seizes on this concept of a "professional persona." Specifically, that he doesn't conceptualize himself as having one. So, he wonders, is this a gender issue, or him being oblivious, or Professor Anderson being weird, or what?

I think there are almost definitely gender elements to this split, though as in all such things it's difficult to tell in an individual case what is personal choice and what is societal pressure. I know that I have a good idea of how I want to perceived as a professor when I enter academia (brilliant, fair, and a mix of scary, intimidating, and respected); a perception that (I hope!) doesn't really represent how I act in private life. But for women, such dreams aren't just idle fantasy, they're professional survival skills. To put it very simply, while everyone is bound by societal convention to some degree, women have a far smaller box to play in then do men. Thus, it is more likely that women will either a) find that their natural personality falls outside "acceptable" parameters, or b) be more cognizant of the borders (and thus how they appear) because they are constantly bumping up against them.

This is all just speculation on my part of course. In any event, best wishes to the new couple!

Formative Experience

I don't ever forget the fact that Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas is an army veteran. Upon reflection, I probably could tell you that he was a Salvadorean war refugee too (a central American immigrant who came here for a better life, served in the army, and now is the titular head of one America's largest civic communities? Say it ain't so, Tancredo!). I do, however, often forget that he used to be a loyal Republican. Campaigned for Henry Hyde, voted for Bush in '92--the whole works. And what changed him?

This American Prospect article details how Moulitsas' time in the military made him a Democrat. It's a fascinating read. A taste:

There's a reason most vets running for office this year are running as Democrats. The military is perhaps the ideal society -- we worked hard but the Army took care of us in return. All our basic needs were met -- housing, food, and medical care. It was as close to a color-blind society as I have ever seen. We looked out for one another. The Army invested in us. I took heavily subsidized college courses and learned to speak German on the Army's dime. I served with people from every corner of the country. I got to party at the Berlin Wall after it fell and explored Prague in those heady post-communism days. I wasn't just a tourist; I was a witness to history.

The Army taught me the very values that make us progressives -- community, opportunity, and investment in people and the future. Returning to Bush Senior's America, I was increasingly disillusioned by the selfishness, lack of community, and sense of entitlement inherent in the Republican philosophy. The Christian Coalition scared the heck out of me. And I was offended by the lip service paid to national service when most Republicans couldn't be bothered to wear combat boots. I voted for Bush in 1992, but that was the last time I voted Republican.

Certainly lends an interesting counter-point to this Josh Trevino post (over at the new and fascinating-looking Swords Crossed blog, which I introduce here).

Books Are Not My Anti-Drug

They are simply a drug.

You'll note I've added "books from my library" to my sidebar. This is a function of Library Thing, a online book-organizing tool that is nothing short of addictive. Pleseantly addictive, to be sure, but still addictive.

You can see my personal catalog here. It isn't all the books I own, but it is virtually all the ones I have here at Carleton, plus a few selected ones I remember possessing at home.

I Want MY Lawyer!

Dan Filler has an interesting post on choosing one's own attorney, and why simply having an attorney is not the same thing has having an attorney you know and trust.

First, there is the matter of plea bargaining. While plea bargains are usually available in criminal cases, they almost always require a modicum of attorney-client trust. Why? First, if the deal requires a defendant to cooperate with the government, the defendant must trust the lawyer to handle this sometimes dangerous transaction properly. Second, when a deal is available, many defendants will not accept it if they think their attorney has negotiated inadequately or, worse, is in league with the prosecution. The higher the stakes in the case - when a defendant is facing decades in jail, for example - the more a defendant must trust his lawyer.

There is also the matter of trial preparation. Defendants often have a great deal of knowledge that can help secure a better deal, or result in a better trial outcome. They know witnesses. They know the facts of their own crimes. They know their own personal history. But defendants are often reticent about sharing this information with lawyers they don't trust.

Finally, there is the trial itself and, particularly, a defendant's decision whether to testify. Defendants often want to tell their story. Defense lawyers often want them to remain silent. This decision ultimately rests with the defendant. If he doesn't trust his lawyer, he is less likely to listen to her advice.

These subjective notions of trust and solid relationships, Filler argues, are pervasively under-valued by Court precedent. Presumably, the focus of some jurists (e.g., Scalia) on "brightline" rules has something to do with this. It's really difficult to quantify how much "trust" is enough trust, or when a more trusting relationship would have yielded tangible benefits to a given case. However, in my view, where ex post facto review is difficult, that makes it all the more important to utilize pre-event proxies to try and maximize these values.

It's Not All About Us

Shakespeare's Sister has a post decrying the Bush administration's tendency to label every bad despot as another incarnation of Hitler.

Saddam Hussein and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are indecent, maniacal fuckwits, but that doesn't mean they were/are a threat to Americans even if they want(ed) to be. The administration didn't sell the Iraq war as a humanitarian intervention to protect the people most likely to suffer at the hand of Saddam--his own people--but as a preemptive strike against a nation that both intended and had the ability to harm the American people. Iran is now the same story. And once again, they're not selling it as a rescue mission on behalf of Iranians (or even Israelis), but as an American national security concern, which is patently false.

The point I'm going to make is a bit iffy here, because Shake is pretty accurate when she says that the Iraq war (and the potential Iran war) was/is not being sold on the grounds of humanitarianism or human rights. So fair play for her.

But even still, the rhetoric of the post seems to imply that the Hitler analogy is proper for nation's who display a manifest threat to our country's existence. My first thought upon a Hitler comparison, however, is to the commission of genocide. Saddam Hussein wasn't "like Hitler" because he posed a serious threat to American security (he didn't). If he was like Hitler, it was because he used poisonous chemicals to slaughter hundreds of thousands of his own citizens.

The Glenn Greenwald post she cites to does the same thing. The "Hitler" analogy is made with reference to "a crazed and irrational lunatic who wants to dominate the world." All very bad qualities to be sure, but they're united by the fact that they are problems for us. Hitler is bad because his lunacy pushes him into war with us, he's too irrational to know when to stop attacking us (or our interests), and even if he doesn't actually go to war, crazy people destabilize the ordered international system we so depend upon to go about our business in relative peace and prosperity.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be concerned about ourselves, of course. But I think Hitler was bad for reasons wholly apart from his maniacal desires toward world domination. I think the whole thing with the genocide and gassing and killing of innocents (even those who didn't live in other countries and thus couldn't destabilize anything!) was bad too. Really bad, in fact. And this spectre of genocide, whether it is Iraq in Anfal, or Iran with its threats to wipe Israel off the earth, can quite legitimately provoke comparisons to Hitler.

I wrote in a previous post that, to some people, Hitler's crime wasn't that he killed millions of Jews, it's that he invaded Poland. Had he just stuck to his internal minorities, then there is no threat to external security, no challenge to the prevailing world order, and thus, Hitler becomes "just another" sadistical dictator. Perhaps we should tut at him, but heaven forbid we stop the slaughter. It's no longer our problem, he no longer threatens us.

I don't claim that the Bush administration has any credibility on this issue, because it doesn't. And I know that both Glenn and Shakespeare's Sister are not pro-genocide. I just wish that, when listening to the left dialogue about Iran and pre-war Iraq, there were fewer shadows of Kissengerian Realism, and a bit more empathy with the plight of the oppressed in their own country, not just ours.

Ethics You Love To Hate

Via Professor Bainbridge, an interesting quote on rage, hate, and politics from the Rev. William Sloan Coffin:

If you love the good, you must hate evil; or else you are sentimental. But if you hate evil more than you love the good, you become a damn good hater! And the world has enough of that kind of activist.

Incidentally, Rev. Coffin is the namesake for Doonesbury character Reverend Scot Sloan.

Loving the good more than you hate the evil...this strikes me as an important lesson many pundits could learn. It's not about fuzzy feelings: "we're all in this together." It's about self-discipline and limitation, preventing justified ethical outrage from descending into moral vigilantism. We hate the evil of terrorism. And justifiably so. But do we hate it more than we love the principles of human dignity? The answer to that question, on an abstract level, can tell us a lot about our torture policy.

American Pioneers

Fordham Law Professor Eduardo Penalever has a great editorial in the Washington Post about the famed "pioneers" who settled the American West:

A number of the politicians calling for the criminalization of illegal immigrants may not be aware that they and a good many of their constituents could themselves be direct descendants of people who did some illegal migrating of their own many years ago. Much of the territory of the United States was settled by people -- hundreds of thousands of them -- who disregarded the law by squatting on public lands.

Of course, they had a ready reason for doing so: Like today's immigrants, they were seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Indeed, many of the current residents of the states between the Appalachian and Rocky mountains can trace their roots directly to these onetime criminals -- whom we now call "pioneers."
[...]
Eastern politicians, many of whom dabbled in land speculation, condemned the squatters' defiance of federal law. They accused squatters of being "greedy, lawless land grabbers" who had no respect for law and order. In 1815 President James Madison issued a proclamation warning "uninformed or evil disposed persons . . . who have unlawfully taken possession of or made any settlement on the public lands . . . to remove therefrom" or face ejection by the Army and criminal prosecution. Henry Clay expressed a widely shared sentiment in 1838 when he dismissed the squatters as a "lawless rabble."

As The Genealogue says:

Perhaps if the government had built a wall to keep out these opportunistic scofflaws, they would have given up their dreams of better lives.

And of course, the nation would have been better for it.

This is Minnesota

Today, at the dining hall, was a quintessential Minnesota moment. It perfectly embodied the two qualities I most associate with Minnesota: incredibly friendly and helpful, and somewhat insular and unaware of the practices of other cultures.

It's passover right now, and that means no bread. Sad for me. Here in Northfield, the majority of the residents (which includes most of our dining hall staff) know absolutely nothing about Passover. They know it's going on right now, because the dining hall tries to accommodate us poor, afflicted Jews, but they know nothing of the specifics.

Anyway, one of the ways the college tries to ease the burden on us Jews is by having Matzah Pizza available every night. Tonight, when I got to the dining hall, however, there was no sign for Matzah Pizza. I asked the person working nearest to where the Matzah Pizza normally is served if they had it this evening. What followed was rather amazing (and amusing).

She said she wasn't sure, but she'd ask if there was someone who could make it for me. This request bounced around no less than five dining hall employees, most of whom did not even know what Matzah Pizza was. The dining hall was serving Mexican pizza on flatbread this evening, and at one point several of them gathered around that pizza to debate whether that qualified as "Matzah Pizza." I should note that the term "Matzah" was used only intermittently, more often it was referred to as "the cracker." Finally, I intervened on the side of those who (correctly) were arguing that Matzah Pizza was like any other personal pizza they make all the time, but on Matzah instead of pizza crust.

The original woman whom I asked then proceeded to get to work, but first asked "with no cheese right"? Slightly confused, I assured her that, no, cheese was fine. Now it was her turn to be confused. "But cheese is a dairy product." Apparently, her overseer at told her that Jews couldn't eat dairy (during Passover?). I explained that we could eat dairy, just not along with meat, and that this prohibition was a year-round thing, not just during passover.

Eventually, the pizza was made and she brought it over to my table (this was very nice of her, as normally we students just pick it up ourselves). It was delicious.

Clear as Black and White

Via Booker Rising, I came across this analysis of Maryland's (my Maryland) Senate election. The author, Robert George, is a Black Republican, and he criticizes the state and national Democratic party for getting behind Rep. Benjamin Cardin (who is White) in the primary, as opposed to former Rep. (and NAACP President) Kweisi Mfume.

The fact is that Mfume is well-positioned, if he so chooses, to play hardball with the Democratic establishment. If anything, the DNC memo could be interpreted as saying that black voters refuse to be taken for granted in the Democratic-heavy state. If the Democrats don't want to nominate a black candidate, African Americans can still support one of their own in the general election.

There are...problems with the post though. For one, its rather amusing to my ears to hear a Conservative using the "one of their own" rhetoric." Isn't that the type of radical, anti-integrationist rhetoric conservative Blacks decry from their liberal peers? What's good for the goose...

The second problem is that there really isn't any analysis on why Mfume is a better candidate than Cardin. I'm not following the race that closely, but I have heard murmurings that Mfume is not a particularly strong campaigner. In an update to the post, Mr. George responds to a study showing that White Republicans and Independents are more likely to vote Democrat when the Republicans run a Black candidate by arguing that in many of these cases the candidate might just be a sacrificial throw-away, not a serious performer. That may or may not be true (I doubt it can explain the whole thing), but it does seem to mandate at least some analysis on George's part as to whether Mfume is a solid candidate in his own right. And he really can't bring himself to compliment the guy, calling him a "conventional liberal" who was a better leader in the NAACP than the "insane" Julian Bond. High praise, that is. And there is absolutely nothing written about Cardin in the piece--how can we evaluate who the Democrats pick without a comparison to the leading candidate?

Part of the "problem" (and what a problem to have!) is that the Democrats in Maryland have a really deep bench. In many places, Mfume would be a tier-one candidate, as he deserves to be. Unfortunately, this is Maryland, and we have a lot of rising stars peaking right about now. Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan and Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley are both extraordinarily popular in their home territories, and I think both of them stand a chance of unseating Governor Bob Ehrlich. That primary is one of the rare cases where my "reluctant" support of a candidate (O'Malley) is not due to a personal shortcoming on his part, but rather because both men are absolutely stellar politicians and deserve advancement. And beyond Cardin and Mfume, many people were floating my Representative, Chris Van Hollen, for Sarbanes' open seat as well. He withdrew his name from consideration, but he's considered a front-runner for Mikulski's seat when she retires. I should note that Duncan and Van Hollen, like me, both are from the DC suburb part of Maryland--the part that George says has "little connection to the broader Maryland." Ah, it's good to be excluded from my own home state.

In any event, this post shouldn't be taken as an endorsement of Cardin over Mfume, or vice versa. As I said, I'm not informed enough on the merits of the two candidates. But I don't think George does a particularly good job of explaining why Mfume is the right man for the Democratic party. Color me unconvinced.

Justice Kennedy Speaks Out

I've made no secret that I'm a fan of Justice Kennedy. And it's important to say that, because I don't think he has many. Liberals think he's too conservative, and conservatives think he's too liberal. In actuality, I also think he's too conservative as well, but I respect his clear passion for justice that really shines through in some of his more noteworthy opinions (Lawrence, Romer, Roper, Lee). I know better than to insist on absolute conformity with my personal beliefs as a precondition for respect.

In that light, I want to commend Kennedy for speaking out on the Darfur crisis in his keynote address at the American Society of International Law conference (H/T: Melissa Waters). He also apparently spoke on issues of social justice and the abandonment of civility in discourse.

In his keynote address to the ASIL Annual Meeting today, Justice Kennedy focused on the international crime of genocide, all but calling on the world community to do something to stop the ongoing atrocities in Darfur. It was a stunning -- and I thought compelling -- speech for a sitting justice.

As reported by the AP, Kennedy stated:

"It is the duty of the world to do more than watch," he said.

Kennedy said that after the genocide in Rwanda "the world wept but little, and then went on its way."
[...]
I was struck by the tone of Kennedy's remarks, which he delivered soberly and without reference to notes. They appeared to be from the heart -- the thoughts of a man genuinely troubled by the incivility of discourse in the world, with the persistence of extreme poverty, and with erosion in the rule of law. Kennedy demonstrated that he has been deeply affected by his experiences with judicial exchanges in Europe and in his more recent role on the UN special panel promoting access to justice for the poor.

Apparently, the trend for sitting Justices who attend the conference is to speak on the role of international law in judicial opinions. Kennedy is a particular lightening rod in this controversy, so I'm sure he could have said a lot (though that also may be the reason why he largely declined to speak). But while that debate is important, I think the themes Kennedy touch on transcend an ultimately minor point of jurisprudential wrangling.

I'm rather late to the party here, because this news broke on March 31st. But reading about this makes me even more proud to call myself a Kennedy supporter. We just seem to share the same values. Even though he's far more conservative than I am, I feel confident that Justice Kennedy does not let his political ideology or personal dispositions infect his sense of what is right. That's really important to me.

A lot of my liberal friends, even when they acknowledge the good Kennedy has done in Church/State and gay rights cases, say they can't forgive him for Bush v. Gore. I'm sorry, but while I too think that case was a travesty, it's time to get over it. Kennedy is a stellar Justice and a fine citizen. He deserves our support.

Immigration Roulette

My blogfather, Joe Gandelman, points me to a great blog post on the growing immigration controversy by Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young. Young and I have clashed swords (and compliments) in the past, but she's a smart gal and a blogger I respect immensely. I kind of vaguely knew she was an immigrant, but for some reason I never really made the link between her and this debate. I say "some reason", but I think I know at least part of the reason: Cathy is White. As Michael Sean Winters reminds us, the one thing the GOP has done successfully in this debate is change the imagery of "immigrant" from "Ellis Island" to "Mexican climbing over a fence." I think that most Americans lack the imagination to conceptualize a desperate Belarussian climbing over a barrier to get into America, so those people are mentally separated out from "actual" immigrants (the bad kind).

But I digress. A key argument in this whole flap is how we deal with legal immigrants. Conservatives say that any path toward citizenship for those who entered the country illegally amounts to a "slap in the face" to those who entered legally. I think the participation of legal immigrants in the marches belies that sentiment pretty decisively. But Cathy offers moral backing to the argument:

I am a legal immigrant myself. As many of you know, I came here with my family in 1980 from the Soviet Union; at the time, we automatically received refugee status on the grounds that we feared persecution in our native country. (Which, actually, was not even technically accurate: the Soviet Jews coming here at the time had to fear persecution only if they wanted to openly practice Judaism -- which, for my non-religious family, was not an issue -- or if they were political dissidents.) And that is something I tremendously appreciate, but I am also aware of the fact that I got a special break due to Cold War politics, and that a lot of people around the world who had as good a claim to fleeing oppression or persecution did not get the same break. So my reaction is not "but I came here legally!" but more like, "There but for the grace of God..."

She then goes on to compare the immigration system to a lottery system--there really is no rhyme or reason to who gets a visa and who doesn't. This essential arbitrariness is what distinguishes illegal immigration from other types of crimes: unlike murder or robbery, its only illegal for some.

I have serious moral qualms about declaring a person illegal for the "crime" of living somewhere. This seems like a rather radical expansion of the concept of criminal culpability. The only comparable offense I can think of is trespassing, and I personally don't think that the proper analogy for the land built by huddled masses is to a private country club. The trespassing analogy also treats the nation as a whole--not just individual homes or businesses--as private property. The idea of a completely privatized public should scare us all. As Ambrose Bierce wrote exactly one century ago:

The right to property implies the right to exclusive use, and therefore the right to expel trespassers. Therefore, if A B and C own all the land, D E and F have no place to be born, or born as trespassers, to exist.

This may seem like a rather stretched analogy, until we remember those who want to expel the children of immigrants, born in the USA. Under this paradigm, these people would be "born as trespassers," and that label seems immoral in a very visceral sense.

The point is that, when debating this topic, the first and foremost concern has to be respect for human dignity. I remarked to a friend earlier tonight that one of the reasons I love the immigration protests is that they are finally putting human dignity back on the political table--we're finally discussing it again. I should have added that this is only a benefit if human dignity wins, and as Cathy reminds us, "anti-immigrant panic has been, again and again, responsible for ungenerous and sometimes downright inhumane policies unworthy of America." Hopefully, narratives like hers can help us break the cycle.

Any Sympathy I Had Is Now Lost

I don't view the controversy over whether pharmacist can refuse to dispense Plan B and other like prescriptions because they have moral objections as cut and dry as many people do. Primarily, this is because I do generally believe that genuine conscientious objectors should get exemptions from generally applicable laws, statutes, or rules unless there is a compelling interest why they must be compelled to obey. I actually do think that forcing pharmacists to fill these prescriptions meets this burden, because often taking these pills is time-critical and other times it may be necessary for a woman's life or health. Given that you can't guarantee that another pharmacist will be on call or that another pharmacy will be nearby, I think there is a valid compelling interest that overrides individual conscience. But, as I said, that conclusion isn't a given from my perspective.

However, the surest way to lose my support on an issue like this is to take the principle to utterly absurd conclusions that appear to be far more motivated by animus against woman's health clinics than objections to abortion. For example, refusing to dispense non-abortion related prescriptions because the source was a clinic that, among other things, performs abortions (links:
Bitch, Ph.D and Prettier than Napoleon). That stretches way beyond any conceivable claim of conscience--even if I thought that the right of conscience extended to not dispensing emergency contraception, there is no way the claim goes so far as to allow the general refusal to dispense prescriptions from certain doctors or clinics who also participate in morally objectionable behavior. That stretches the logical line well past its breaking point.

I always try to give folks the benefit of the doubt in heated controversies, but honestly, sometimes y'all make it hard....

Optimific is a Word!

Every time I use "optimific" in a sentence, somebody snickers. When I ask why, they tell me that I made the word up. Sometimes they are more unsure, and just wonder if I made it up, other times, as did Mark Olsen, they just flat out accuse me of a Bushism. But these people are wrong. Optimific is a word. It's used by utilitarianism, and refers to an act which produces the absolute best possible total consequences. Run a google search--it's there.

While it's true that, when pressed, I can't find a real difference between "optimific" and "optimal," except that the former is more philosophical-sounding, the redundancy is hardly my fault. And to all of you who laughed at my "misnomer," bow your heads in shame.

That is all.

PS: It would be more ironic that Blogger spellcheck doesn't recognize "optimific" if it didn't also not recognize "blogger."

She Agrees With Me, She Agrees With Me Not...

Or: "Is There a Moral To This Story?"

At Carleton, we operate on a trimester system, so I only take 3 classes a term (not including any PE or music lesson type classes, like Fencing). This term, those classes are Post-Modern Political Thought, The Speaking Voice, and Foundations of Black Political Thought. Two out of those three are taught by Black professors; ironically, the one that isn't is the Black Political Thought class (whose professor is one of my favorites at the college). Two out of three professors of color is not bad, but on the flip side amidst these 3 classes there are only 4 Black students. That's a pretty awful ratio. Admidst the whole political science faculty, there are only 3 scholars of color, two of whom are temporary (I've heard our latest tenure-track hire is a scholar of color, though). And while I haven't verified this personally, rumor has it that the entire college has only one female scholar of color on the faculty. That's abysmal. But the meta-situation--too few Black professors at a college that claims to value diversity--is nothing that hasn't been said before. My odd set-up this term--two Black professors in three classes with four Black students--was what seemed rather unique.

One of those Black students is in my Foundations of Black Political Thought class (that class is actually only 4 people). She's a very nice and intelligent girl. She's also a cheerleader for the Minnesota Vikings (so much for the "cheerleader as mindless waif" stereotype!). Anyway, we were talking after class today, and she had mentioned how someone at cheerleading practice had asked her "do you prefer to be called Black or African-American?" And her response (paraphrased, obviously) was interesting to me:

I wanted to make sure my response didn't scare her off from ever asking such questions again, because I know that it's hard for a White girl to really engage in these topics, and that it took courage to ask. And I didn't want to give a 30 minute lecture of race theory based on the stuff we've been learning in this class. So I emphasized that I couldn't speak for every Black/African-American/Nigerian-American/Person of Color she'll meet, but Black is fine, although if you're going to refer to me in the third-person I'd really prefer Jill [name changed]

I like that answer. It's not a lecture, it's not scary, it deals with requisite complexities and gives the appropriate disclaimer, and ends with a reminder that she can just be Jill.

But the part about not speaking on behalf of every person of color is particularly meaningful to me, because of something I catch myself doing in the class. As I said, there are only four students, and amongst there is a slight, but noticable (to me at least) ideological split. I don't want to call it "sides," because that would wildly over-state what's going on, but Jill and I seem to agree a bit more often with each other than either of us do with the rest of the class [she's the only Black student of the four of us]. And whenever I make a comment and she says "yeah, I agree with what David said," or vice versa, she makes a comment that I find myself nodding with, I feel a little burst of pride. And I'm ambivalent about that proud sentiment. On the one hand, it feels like a vindication of the CRT reading I do, and my geniuine effort to become more educated on race issues, read and listen to minority stories, and all the other projects I've adopted over the past year or so that have greatly expanded my personal and philosophical horizons. In a certain respect, it feels like validation, that the transfer process from books and articles to personal beliefs didn't corrupt the message--I really am "getting it." On the other hand, it feels really shallow to me also. On a basic level, "hooray! The Black girl agrees with me" seems quite degrading and dehumanizing to her. And more importantly, it places way too much pressure on her--I'm generalizing a whole personal philosophical validation based on just her perspective; precisely what she told her cheerleader friend not to do. It's not that I'm forgetting that she's not the only Black person in the world (although she is the only one taking a Black Political Thought class with me right now), it's that I don't know if this personal pride feeling I'm getting can be justified based on just one person validating me. And of course, this whole thing could be entirely overwrought, and it all might just be my ego puffing up on agreement (by anyone!).

The personalization of "storytelling" and perspective-based scholarship has its advantages, but this is a major drawback. One never knows whether what you're getting is representative. In fact, it seems like a considerable portion of such work is dedicated to warning us not to treat any particular perspective as representative of a larger truth. As a result, it's near-impossible to pin down anything concrete these stories can tell else, besides perhaps increasing our empathy (which is definitely important!). There's really no way to mediate between conflicting narratives either--if one Black person tells me that Affirmative Action is critical to her personal and collective liberation, and another tells me it makes her feel like a token, how do I evaluate the two? I could just keep asking until I find a reasonable consensus, but this seems trite (and besides, a framework of evaluating the truth-value of narratives via body count is a game minorities are going to lose, simply because there are less of them). There's a vertigo here--I never know if I am getting a benefit, if there even is a benefit to be had, or if I'm even allowed to claim a benefit I think I have. This is dizzying.

Anyway, I'm not sure of that was really deep, or really meaningless, but it was really nagging on me, and now it's out there to the world. Comments appreciated.

Spirit of Selma

I've barely been able to contain my giddiness over the immigration marches. The beautiful irony of people who in America illegally all rising as one to proclaim their love for America and its values really just ties me up inside. The New York Times even is saying this might be the start of a new civil rights revolution:

Academics and political analysts say the demonstrations represent the largest effort by immigrants to influence public policy in recent memory. And the scope and size of the marches have astonished politicians on Capitol Hill as well as the churches and immigrant advocacy groups organizing the demonstrations, leading some immigrant advocates to hail what they describe as the beginnings of a new, largely Hispanic civil rights movement.

What a day that would be, if true.

Legal Fiction's Publius was at the march in DC. As he so often does, he captures my sentiments exactly, and shows just how special this event was:

The first thing that stood out today was the sheer magnitude of the crowd. The Post reported that there were hundreds of thousands of people there. I believe it. People just kept pouring in from the streets. For those who haven't seen it, the Mall is a big place. And it was packed - at least from where I was standing, which was approximately halfway between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. [I'd like to see an aerial shot to see how far it extended between those two landmarks - anyone?]

In addition to the size, it was the nature of the demonstration that was so moving. The crowd consisted of families and children and groups of friends - all of them waving American flags and holding signs reading, "We are America," or "First-Generation American" and so on. Personally, I get annoyed with the deification of our flag, but it worked yesterday. It seemed very appropriate.

All in all, it was a positive demonstration - one rooted not in anger, but in hope and in a longing for recognition and dignity (the latter being the theoretical foundations of democracy promotion). These people were appealing not to base anger or resentment, but to our better angels. In the face of reality - the faces of the excited, hopeful families before you - Mickey Kaus and Michelle Malkin's nativistic rantings just sort of float away.

I won't pretend like I'm not at least partially please at the discomfort Republicans are facing at this pushback. The right has drawn on this playbook--exploiting American fear and mistrust of a minority group--one too many times for my tastes, and it's about time they got their just desserts. But honestly, this isn't about politics for me. Families who want a better life, who want to vote in a country where that vote means something, who want nothing more than to be a citizen of our nation, who want their children to have real opportunity in life: this is what our country is at it's best. I'm just thrilled that we have hundreds of thousands of people--legally here or not--willing to march in the streets and remind us of that fact. Status under the law notwithstanding, they're already Americans in my eyes.

"Unnecessary at this time"

What. The fuck. I don't swear too often. But reading about the latest "plan" for NATO to intevene in Darfur provoked an exception. Kevin Drum has the scoop. Here's the relevant excerpt:

The proposal, which still faces uncertain approval within NATO because of concerns that it could be a distraction from operations in Afghanistan, falls well short of more aggressive measures that some have advocated, such as sending ground combat troops or providing air patrols to protect peacekeepers and prevent the bombing of villages. These options have been ruled out as unnecessary at this time, an administration official said.

And for the record, I do pretty much agree with Drum that this isn't really Bush's fault. The US has been pretty awful on Darfur, but Europe makes us look like altruistic saints. Even still, I think that if Bush spent half the political capital he devoted to such lovely catastrophes like Social Security privatization, he could push a Darfur intervention through the resistance. So I'm letting him entirely off the hook. And oh yeah, no amount of domestic or international resistance justifies crap like this.

Dean's World has the same thought I do. On the other hand Daimnation thinks that an intervention would "just make matters worse" (with 400,000 deaths already, I'm skeptical) and frets that such an intervention wouldn't come with the consent of the Sudanese government (admittedly, genocideers tend not consent to forces trying to stop their slaughter). However much my heart may "bleed", I can guarantee you it's spilling less blood than the Janjaweed are on a daily basis as they sow terror throughout the region.

Waving the Flag

Is it just me, or has the more recent coverage of the immigration protests emphasized the amount of American flag-waving, and de-emphasized the amount of foreign flag-waving? I don't know if this is due to media bias, or immigrant advocates shifting their strategy in the face of a hostile first-reaction to the presence of foreign flags at their rallies, or correction of over-coverage of foreign flags at those original rallies. But it seems like something worth pointing out. My guess is mostly on #2, as evidenced by this excerpt from an NYT story:

In Atlanta, a sea of demonstrators, most of them dressed in the white T-shirts that have become emblematic of the immigrant rights marches, moved along a two-mile route, with marchers carrying signs about their rights and the competing bills in Congress. Most of the marchers carried American flags, as the word has gone out to demonstrators over the last few weeks over the Internet and flyers that they needed to show more willingness to assimilate, although some carried flags from their home countries of Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua.

In any event, I love these protests. It's such a beautiful pushback against those who'd use fear and prejudice to try and morph "person trying to live the American dream" into "criminal and possible terrorist." I think most minority groups are like J.R.R. Tolkein's Ents: difficult to arouse from slumber, but whose power is unstoppable when riled up. If immigrant rights constitute a "magic mirror" into how America really views racial minorities (i.e., how we'd treat them if it weren't for pesky civil rights laws and constitutional amendments), then the immigrant rallies hold an important lesson for those politicians who've made a career out of exploiting White America's continuing legacy of racial mistrust. You push too hard, and they'll push back. Tread lightly.

Go Alex!

As the week begins, can I just offer my good wishes to Alex Doonesbury, as she gets her college admission decisions? Sure, rooting for a comic strip character may seem a little odd, but the genius of Trudeau is that all of his characters seem just a bit more real to me.

PS: To my actual real life friends who are hearing from colleges, good luck to you too. Except the two who already got admitted to Carleton. I hope you get rejected everywhere else.

An Empathic Approximating Experience of My Own

Rachel Sullivan has a great post up (here/here) about lynching and White empathy for the victims. One of the more interesting things she mentions is how Whites might learn how to empathize with Blacks on the subject of racism. She quotes a book by Hernan Vera, Joe Feagin, and Pinar Batur, White Racism: The Basics (themselves quoting Tiffany Hogan and Julie Netzer) on what they call "approximating experiences." They identify three ways this can happen:

(1) "Borrowed approximations," relying on stories that blacks tell to make sense of black experience; (2) "global approximations," relying on general humanism and values of fairness to relate to black oppression; and (3) "overlapping approximations," relying on aspects of their own oppression to make sense of similar black experience. (232)

I think this makes excellent sense, and is a crucial tactic we should utilize more often. Rachel continues, arguing that:

Rather than focusing on our own views and experiences, we need to step outside of our perspectives and try to develop the approximating experiences that challenge the apathy indifference that racism creates.

I left a comment contesting that this was precisely what Feagin, Vera, and Batur had in mind:

I think it's really important to look at the story's of other people, especially minorities, but I think that "develop[ing] the approximating experiences" is something that occurs inside our perspectives, not by stepping outside of them. Feagin and Vera seem to agree; their three methods of developing these experiences are "relying on stories that people of color tell about their experiences, relying on general humanistic values, and relying on aspects of their own oppression." The first one requires the stepping outside, but the second and third both require deeper engagement with one's own self and personal perspective. So I'd argue that if approximating experiences are what we want, then we need to encourage more storytelling by Whites qua Whites, not only so we can learn from them, but so they can learn from themselves and create these commonalities that link their own experience to that of their fellow human beings.

But irregardless, I found the post fascinating, and the Vera/Feagin/Batur formulation interesting, so I decided to go check out the book.

Here's where things got fun. I was browsing through the stacks for the book, and my eye catches on a slim, brown volume nestled between two examinations of White racism. It's called "The Jewish Onslaught." Disturbed, I force my eyes away, and keep looking for the book I want--which I soon find only a few steps away. I pluck it off the shelves, and set it down. Then, I scan for other potentially helpful books in the same area (I've rapidly discovered that this is a great way for finding useful materials I'd otherwise never have seen). But I'm drawn inexorably back to "The Jewish Onslaught." It's at the very top of the shelf--I reach up to grab it, but my hand slips, and as I fumble it falls to the ground with a loud clatter. Embarassed, I pick it up and open it. The author is one Tony Martin, a Professor in African-American studies at Wellesley College (no fringe figure, then). The book was published in 1993, apparently as a defense to a furious Jewish response to a prior book, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews. I started reading. Allow me to share some of the rhetoric found in just the first chapter.

The title of the screed, "the Jewish onslaught" (it gives me chills everytime I read it) is repeated throughout. He slurs Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as "African America's most notorious Judaeophile" (3). He refers to "the last three decades of Jewish assaults on Black progress" (4). And again: "Hillel chapters have become the campus-based shock troops in the ongoing Jewish onslaught against Black progress (5). When Jewish organizations criticized him "in the midst of one of their highest holy celebrations" (I'm guessing this was between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but it's left unclear), he mockingly notes this "matter was of such extreme urgency and importance...as to override their religious scruples" (9), as if Jewish law prohibits responding to threats when there is praying to do (it doesn't). He derisively refers to the "hackneyed allegation of 'anti-Semitism'" (9). He argues that the relative lack of non-Jewish protest against him proves that this is just the "Jewish ability to make a lot of 'noise' and fill the media with their lies" (10). The inevitable comparison of Jews to Nazis first shows up on page 11. He refers to "organized Jewry's campaigns against those the would wish to destroy" (12). "[A]ll the dirty Jewish tricks" he writes constitute a "textbook case study of organized Jewish intimidation (12)."

The purpose of mentioning this book is not to launch into some claim about how Black leftists are anti-Semitic (for the very simple reason that this would be a moronic claim to make). Rather, I just appreciate the irony of finding my own "empathic approximating experience" in the process of researching "empathic approximating experiences." I'm nearly positive I've read stories about Black professors who, searching through the stacks for some research (perhaps looking for a historical document on American race relations) spots upon a book with a title like Are Blacks Human? or something of the like. It's a constant reminder of subordinate status, a weight that can be ignored but never completely lifted. I've seen books like Professor Martin's before, but my finding it sitting along side all the other books in the "anti-racism" section of the library, while searching for a book to aid in my fight against racism, made this one hit more powerfully than any of its predecessors.

In the next edition of The Lens, you should find my article "Reforging the Sword That Was Broken: The Revival of the Jewish/Black Relationship." And if you look inside your local library, you should be able to find a copy of Jews and Blacks: Let The Healing Begin by Cornel West and Michael Lerner. The efforts of soul-crushers like Martin cannot stop us from rebuilding the alliance between Jews and Blacks. My Jewish identity is not something I need to overcome to participate in anti-racism practice, it is a crucial part of what motivates me to join the struggle. Now, more than ever, Jews and Blacks need to join together in the fight for mutual human dignity. And the best way I can spit in Dr. Martin's eye is to prove that combining Jewish values and Black values will create a human whirlwind that will permanently banish haters like him to the fringes of the public sphere, where he belongs.

It's The Freakin' Weekend

It's the weekend, and boy did I need one. From sending a rough draft of my article to a Boalt Hall Dean, to getting hired as a research assistant for the summer, it's been one great, if tiresome, week. For my research duties, my Philosophy overlord professor/supervisor basically assigned me stuff she knew I'd be interested in finding on my own. Specifically, she wants to look up the reactions of White southern newspapers to pre-Brown Supreme Court decisions. The specific foil is a claim made by another philosophy professor that essentially went "I grew up in the Jim Crow south: my dad was racist, my mom was racist, my minister was racist, there was nothing on my perceptual horizon that even suggested that racism could be wrong." She's skeptical, and wants me to see if the coverage was so one-sided as to buttress the claim. Really interesting stuff.

In addition to searching for newspaper archives, I'm thinking of starting with Michael J. Klarman's From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality, an article Eric Muller is working on regarding "Judging our Ancestors," and the work of Derrick Bell. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Timmy Is Angry

Balloon Juice co-blogger Tim F. has two brutal posts up today. The first, Baby Steps to Authoritarianism points out that the Bush administration has yet to rule out any warrantless wiretapping technique, including domestic-to-domestic calls.

Question: is there anything that Gonzales has explicitly ruled out? Extralegal executions? Heh heh, trick question. Even if Gonzales does categorically rule something out he can always clarify his answer later. Senate testimony will go on meaning diddly-squat until the Republican Senate stops giving fellatio and calling it oversight.

"Clarify" I think deserves to be in quotation marks.

The second post is on the breaking news that Bush authorized the leaking of the Plame memos even as his office was decrying leaks. The legal issues are complex, but ultimately irrelevant, because in the court of public opinion, it shows Bush to be a flip-flopping hypocrite who used national security documents to further his personal political agenda. Remember McClellan's famous ultimatum: "[I]f anyone in this administration was involved in it [the Plame leak], they would no longer be in this administration."

Looks like a bunch of resignations should be coming.

We'll Deal With It When It Happens

Whenever I or other liberals claim that racism and racist policies are relatively prevalent in contemporary America, conservatives claim that a) we're lying, but b) even if it's true, then we can address them when they happen. There's no need to create all these "special rights" and enforcement agencies and pre-clearances for such a minor problem.

"We'll enforce the laws when they're broken" has theoretical problems in its own right, but let's take a step back here. Because when you come down to it, we, um, don't.

UNC Law Professor Eric Muller has spectacular post on a 1996 Supreme Court case called U.S. v. Armstrong, which significantly raised the bar for when a defendant can force the government to turn over evidence pointing to racism in its practices.

The defendants in the Armstrong case had come forward with some evidence -- not a ton, but some -- that the US Attorney in Los Angeles was singling out blacks for crack cocaine prosecutions in federal court. It was enough evidence to persuade the federal trial judge to allow the defendants discovery of some material in the prosecutor's files and records. But the Supreme Court shut that discovery down, pooh-poohing the evidence of racial discrimination that the defendants had managed to come up with and setting an absurdly high burden of proof for defendants trying to prove discriminatory prosecution.

Muller then links to a similar case currently moving through Georgia courts. Relying on Armstrong, the Court denied the defendant's request for discovery into the Prosecutor's motives. So the ACLU sprung for the $60,000 necessary to fund the study privately. Here's what they found:

"Of 629 convenience stores in the six-county area in the sting, 80 percent are owned or operated by whites, according to the A.C.L.U.'s court filing, but fewer than 1 percent of the stores in the sting are white-owned or operated. The filing said the clerk at the only white-operated store was known widely as a methamphetamine addict whose husband was in prison for making the drug. None of the Indians charged are accused of using or making methamphetamine."

This is just a mind-blowing disparity that seems to be prima facia proof of racist intent. But because of Armstrong, there was no legal right to this information, it never would have come out if it weren't for the ACLU offering its resources. As Muller notes, most poor defendants don't have groups willing to throw $60,000 at their plight. Because our legal system pretends that racism is a smaller problem than it is, it virtually guarantees that the very real racist practices and policies in our criminal justice system will continue unchecked by law. Hence, even "when it happens," we don't "deal with it", we just figure out new ways of rationalizing it.

Level Up!

PG over at Half the Sins of Mankind has taught me the Strike out ability how to use "Strike Out" font. I will now become obsessed with my new toy a better blogger for it.

Thanks PG!

Law in the Cultural Mind

In the context of a book on the law of Star Trek, VC-guest blogger Ilya Somin comments that such projects, while perhaps entertaining, "won't help law professors overcome the invidious stereotype that we are a bunch of nerds who have no life," and wonders "if this is the most productive possible use of academic research effort."

While I understand the visceral "this is juvenile" reaction, I think there are interesting insights that such work can provide. I can't comment on Star Trek, because I've really never seen the show. But I can talk about Harry Potter. And (thanks to Volokh, as it turns out) I've read a very interesting article on law and Harry Potter, entitled: Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy [Benjamin H. Barton, 104 Mich. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming May 2006)]. It's not just that they're fun to read and offer interesting new perspectives on cultural icons [debater sidenote: rumor has it that there are "Consult the Ministry of Magic" counterplans floating around the debate world. The Barton articles forms the basis of my counter-attack to such CPs--arguing basically that the MoM is an oppressive dictatorship that censors the press, tortures children, executes people without trials, holds trials (again for juveniles) without representation, has no known democratic accountability, and has blatantly institutional corruption and influence-peddling]. They also teach us about how we view our own society.

Recall that in Sci-Fi and Fantasy books, the author is creating her own world with essentially a blank slate. She could, if she wanted, do anything. But she is constrained by two major factors: a) her own imagination and b) popular prejudices, what she feels the public can conceptualize while still finding the novel accessible. It's a fine line between "alien and evocative" and "totally unrecognizable/insane." The best authors land just on the right side of that line. So, looking at these novels can inform us of our cultural horizons--what simply has to be there for us to even recognize a government as a government, a judicial system as a judicial system, a society as a society, et al. For example, J.K. Rowling still uses the language of government in her book ("Ministry of Magic"), but there is no real talk of democratic accountability or a parliament--it appears to be a technocracy. But correctly surmising that most readers couldn't really grasp the idea of a shadowy guild running a modern European country without even pretending to be a state, she uses governmental rhetoric even thought that isn't really descriptive of what's going on in the books.

Furthermore, I'd argue that even beyond the issue of horizons, analysis of law and other such things in the popular realm can be a canary for how the people view law (an entity that, remember, most people only have a vague grasp of). Barton argues that Rowling's depiction of government in HP is a plea for libertarianism--the sometimes incompetent/sometimes oppressive government is nearly always placed in opposition to the heroic, rule-breaking individuals. Obviously, I don't think that HP will cause a massive libertarian brain-washing amongst its readers. Nor do I think people are buying HP because they are pre-disposed to libertarianism. But I do think that the fact that so many people are buying these books shows that they find the metanarrative contained within recognizable and not viscerally objectionable--it isn't beyond their consciousness. If we accept that analysis, then figuring out these books are saying becomes vital--it offers compelling insights into the national psyche and predictions about where law (or at least the popular conceptions thereof) might be going.

"Right" and Wrong in Affirmative Action Debates

It's not often that I really disagree hard core with the folks at BlackProf. Sure, we have our quibbles, but for the most part I feel like I'm in line with their intellectual and social mission.

This post, however, from guest-blogger Terry Smith, I must register my strident dissent from. Basically, the thesis is that often times, "Affirmative Action" hires aren't the type of minority progressives and radicals representative of the community of color at large, but rather are persons who are rather apolitical about race, or even (gasp) political conservatives. This, we can't have:

Attend a regional People of Color Legal Scholarship conference and you will not fail to hear the side chatter about racial betrayal-the white who expediently emphasized his Spanish surname when applying for a teaching job, then had nothing to do with people of color once in the academy; the black "conservative" who used race as his distinction to enter the academy but for whom race is now irrelevant; the "raceless" Asian whose ethnicity is taken into account for diversity purposes, but whose a-politicism is perceived as an inherent characteristic of a model minority.

The exchange between my two colleagues and the conversations at these conferences raise hard, discomforting questions about diversity and affirmative action. What is the value of a Spanish surname? Does the black conservative provide a type of intellectual diversity even if he has relied on his race as the active agent in his mobility? If so, why should the academy have an especial interest in black conservatives, given the under-representation--relative to the general population--of black progressives and radicals? Finally, if race and ethnicity are unimportant to a candidate personally, why should the academy--or any employer--count them as attributes in the hiring process?

First, note the rhetoric here: "race betrayal." I leave it without comment, only to say that I for one find such language to be quite frightening regardless of the source.

Second, I think the attack echoes eerily of the conservative "diversity of the crayon box" response to Affirmative Action--with all the implications. Conservatives use this to undermine the credibility of any disfavored minority professor. Smith, for his part, displays this same hostility to minority conservatives--they're only there to provide checkbox diversity, but they aren't actually offering anything of value to the university (or, at least, aren't offering optimal value--which is the same dodge conservatives use to get out of explicitly saying minority profs are underqualified).

Third, I'm not sure about the "under-representation" point as it applies internally to the Black community. That is, I know that there are disproportionately fewer Black professors than there should be given the Black population. But, within the subgroup, are minority progressives and radicals over- or under-represented compared to minority conservatives? This, at best, is an open question.

Fourth, I'm rather surprised that Smith seems to feel that the race and ethnicity of a minority candidate--any minority candidate--can be so easily boxed off and put away. One of the major premises of the CRT movement is that this analysis is unavoidable and that affirmative action serves as a check against internalized racism. Moreover, Smith gives little proof that these minorities are deliberately playing on their race to get their position--since most minority conservatives claim to oppose affirmative action, I think they would say they got their position (or that they hope they would get their position) without its benefits. Minority professors get justifiably angry when people say "you wouldn't have gotten hired if it weren't for affirmative action." Is the same not true for minority conservatives?

Smith continues to dig the hole yet deeper:

The frustration of a senior black professor at an elite law school underscores the point. She complained to a friend that her institution hired a black candidate for a tenure-track position. This decision by a premiere institution, one would expect, should have elated her. But she noted that she had not even been consulted about the hire, a slight in her eyes. Moreover, she feared that, left to its own devices, her institution had selected a black candidate whose own identification with blacks as a collective people was unclear at best and who would probably have few or no relations with black students. Although she fumed privately, the senior black scholar did not suggest that she might make a public issue of the matter. Instead, hers was the voice of resignation, a concession that if her institution was to hire people of color at all, they would fit the profile of the black they had just hired.

Minority scholars' quest to save affirmative action will be pyrrhic if the end-result is this kind of check-box, bean-counting affirmative action. We have as much right, ability and vision to define for our institutions what affirmative action should be as do the institutions themselves. Some of our prescriptions are certainly not without complication and risk. For instance, in questioning the authenticity of a minority candidate, are we insisting on an essentialism among people of color that requires uniformity of thought and politics that is itself inconsistent with academic freedom? Would our opposition to inauthentic minority candidates simply leave us with the arguably greater evil of fewer people of color in the academy? Is this a preferable result?

I'm a bit surprised at the "gatekeeper" mentality this professor had about her role in the university: "there is no way through the gates of the university but through me." Especially when we talk in such vague terms like "authentic," the prospect that such a world would lead to "an essentialism among people of color that requires uniformity of thought and politics" is not just a risk but a virtual certainty. The rhetoric itself is what's doing the essentializing--I'm relatively confident that Clarence Thomas would object strenuously if someone declared that he was not "authentically" Black. This language of authenticity is a mere dressing up of "who's a normal and who's an outsider, and the marginalizing effect is unavoidable.

Furthermore, the undertones of absolute authority within one's own fiefdom are extremely disturbing to me. From how the story was presented, it appears this professor did not know one way or the other if the new minority hire would establish links into his or her community--she just assumed that "left to its own devices," the academic establishment wouldn't hire such a person. But that isn't an assumption we can just fiat into existence. If she was just acknowledging the risk, that would be one thing, but she seems to be already resigned that her prediction is the reality. Smith signs onto this presupposition at the end of his description: "if her institution was to hire people of color at all, they would fit the profile of the black they had just hired," a profile which we technically don't even know about. "Defining your own reality" is all well and good, but shouldn't this new professor get a chance to define hers without having to get it validated first?

Put bluntly, while an external group should give significant leeway for a minority group to undertake its own affairs, that leeway shouldn't extend to permitting exclusivist policies targeted at internal subminorities. This is not a place where deference is due. As I wrote in a previous post:

Acting as if this was just folks debating ("free speech"?) blinds us to the realities of power and forces us to pretend that Blacks do all agree on the terms and conditions regarding opposition to racism--and moreover, we have to play that role by accepting the very controversy that is under dispute--that black leftists are "right" in how they frame the racism debate and the conservatives are "wrong."

Conservative minorities aren't irrational loons who need to be cooped up lest they scare the children. They have a story too, and it's vital that we hear it. The university system has no obligation to abet their marginalization.

Okay, I'm Beginning to Love Feingold

Feingold's co-sponsorship of the Darfur intervention bill has already made me forgive his past indiscretions regarding the Balkans (I know I have the link somewhere, but for the life of me I can't find it! Consider this my repudiation, then). And his principled, unapologetic defense of gay marraige is a sight for sore eyes. I don't think he'll be the candidate in 2008. But America would certainly be well served if he could be elected President (H/T: Shakespeare's Sister).

On the Edge of The Abyss

So, while Ron Paul gets pretty much everything wrong on immigration, Fareed Zakaria nails it spot on:

Many Americans have become enamored of the European approach to immigration -- perhaps without realizing it. Guest workers, penalties, sanctions and deportation are all a part of Europe's mode of dealing with immigrants. The results of this approach have been on display recently in France, where rioting migrant youths again burned cars last week. Across Europe one sees disaffected, alienated immigrants, ripe for radicalism. The immigrant communities deserve their fair share of blame for this, but there's a cycle at work. European societies exclude the immigrants, who become alienated and reject their societies.

One puzzle about post-Sept. 11 America is that it has not had a subsequent terror attack -- not even a small backpack bomb in a movie theater -- while there have been dozens in Europe. My own explanation is that American immigrant communities, even Arab and Muslim ones, are not very radicalized. (Even if such an attack does take place, the fact that 4 1/2 years have gone by without one provides some proof of this contention.) Compared with every other country in the world, America does immigration superbly. Do we really want to junk that for the French approach?

The United States has a real problem with flows of illegal immigrants, largely from Mexico (70 percent of illegal immigrants are from that one country). But let us understand the forces at work here. "The income gap between the United States and Mexico is the largest between any two contiguous countries in the world," writes Stanford historian David Kennedy. That huge disparity is producing massive demand in the United States and massive supply from Mexico and Central America. Whenever governments try to come between these two forces -- think of drugs -- simply increasing enforcement does not work. Tighter border control is an excellent idea, but to work, it will have to be coupled with some recognition of the laws of supply and demand -- that is, it will have to include expansion of the legal immigrant pool.

Ching Ching Ching. We have a winner. Aside from the perfect taunt on the issue ("Come on, do you really want to be French?"), Zakaria is absolutely right on the merits. Aside from absolutely draconian measures, there is no way we can deal with the immigration issue that does not involve increased legalization. The right is right about one thing: half measures like guest-worker programs will not fix this.

But to be honest, this is what scares me most of all. Congress being what it is, it most likely will pass some sort of half measure to "deal with" the immigration problem. It will inevitably fail, and the chorus will go up for even more severe crackdowns on these communities (and, as we're seeing, their children as well). Kevin R. Johnson once argued that America's attitudes and policies towards immigrants were like a "magic mirror" reflecting how we would treat other minorities were it not for pesky barriers like Civil Rights laws and the 14th amendment. There is no doubt that this issue has unleashed something very ugly in the hearts of many US citizens. I see talk of turning the US/Mexico border into a firing range, hear folks casually discuss "rounding up and detaining" illegals (am I the only one who flinches each time I hear "round up and detain" used with respect to other human beings), read about a bill passing in the House that would make it a felony to feed the starving, clothe the naked, or house the homeless, and I fear for our country's humanity. Not that we're there yet, but where we are going? The guest-worker program will fail, and when it does, I know that the right will use its failure to provoke another backlash against the immigrant community. This one, I fear, will not be containable.

This is why we must make our stand now. Those immigrant protest were incredibly inspiring to me. The GOP was on the ropes, and they again went to their oldest card--dividing America along ethnic and racial lines. They wanted to wedge Democrats and distract the voters from Iraq, from healthcare, from Tom DeLay, from Jack Abramoff, from the NSA--from everything. So they targeted a powerless minority group, constructed a debate centered on villification. It was the perfect plan. Except, this time the minority group didn't take it lying down. They fought back. They stood up. They took to the streets and boldly asserted that they too were Americans, they too were people. By showing their faces, they became human, and what looked to be a walkover for the Republicans became a real fight. They mounted a tiger, and they can't get off. And the tiger is getting hungry.

This sort of push back was long overdue. Those people who the right marginalizes, dehumanizes, and villifies as less-than-human have to stand up for themselves. The immigrant community did it, and the GOP is now backed into a corner. Hopefully, this experience will make them pause before they try to divide again.

Living The "American" Dream

Texas Representative Ron Paul has a pretty standard "kick the immigrants out" piece. It's standard bad argumentation. He strawmans:

We're often reminded that America is a nation of immigrants, implying that we're coldhearted to restrict immigration in any way. But the new Americans reaching our shores in the late 1800s and early 1900s were legal immigrants. In many cases they had no chance of returning home again. They maintained their various ethnic and cultural identities, but they also learned English and embraced their new nationality.

That's true. The immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s were legal immigrants. The immigrants of the 1600s and 1700s, however, weren't. "Legality" isn't going to cover you here.

Again, most of this is pretty boilerplate, and you can get the responses anywhere on the web right now. But I do want to talk about this section:

Birthright citizenship similarly rewards lawbreaking, and must be stopped. As long as illegal immigrants know their children born here will be citizens, the perverse incentive to sneak into this country remains strong. Citizenship involves more than the mere location of one's birth. True citizenship requires cultural connections and an allegiance to the United States. Americans are happy to welcome those who wish to come here and build a better life for themselves, but we rightfully expect immigrants to show loyalty and attempt to assimilate themselves culturally. Birthright citizenship sometimes confers the benefits of being American on people who do not truly embrace America.

For starters, the incentive isn't all that "perverse." Dreaming a better life for your children is "perverse" only to the perverted. Second, I have no idea what this "connection to America" point is all about. Surely, waving foreign flags doesn't obviate an American connection, does it (do you know how many Norwegian flags I see here in Minnesota?)? I really don't get the folks claiming that these protestors embrace their countries of origin instead of America. The fact that people are marching to stay here, to take part in the American dream, is pretty powerful proof that they "embrace" America--more so than many citizens from families with deep roots in America (including those whose ancestors came here "illegally" in the earliest days of European colonialization). If someone sees a march whose message is "cede Arizona back to Mexico," you let me know, but until then I think is pretty clear that these people wish to take part in America and our ideals. Third, why limit this to the children of illegals? If the problem is that location isn't enough, it's about ideology, why not test all children to see if they are sufficiently loyal to America? Won't that be fun? All those times that the right has called liberals unamerican--it wasn't just an ad hominem, it was a setup to strip them of their citizenship! We disagree on many aspects of what the American ideal is, but one thing I think is uncontested: America is a place where families should be able to work to improve the lives of themselves and their children. I dare you to test the immigrant community--legal or not--on their commitment to that ideal. Finally, stripping of birthright citizenship runs into the not-quite-minor problem of the 14th amendment, which reads in relevant part "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Children born of illegals are "born in the United States", and they are without question "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" (that's why we can prosecute them for crimes), hence, they are citizens. There isn't any way around that. Southern Appeal says there is a "debate" over whether the "such a change would require a constitutional amendment or simply a return to the pre-1900 Supreme Court understanding of birthright citizenship." With all due respect to my originalist friends, if the pre-1900 Supreme Court read the preceding clause in such a way as to preclude children-of-illegals being regarding as citizens, then that only shows those venerable old men to be illiterate. It does not change the plain meaning of the text.

People who want to move to America are not "perverse." They are not invaders. They are not terrorists. They are our greatest asset. I tremble for the day where America is not the destination of choice for those dreaming of a better life. That will be the day I know the sun has set on America's moral dominance. But we'll be locked so tight in our little castle, we might hardly even notice.

UPDATE: This post has what is effectively a part two.

Sunshine Into The Heart of Darkness

Tom DeLay is done. Finished. Caput. "Retiring" from Congress. And it is beautiful. I can even express how happy I am.

Back when the Grand Jury first indicted old Tommie, a group of friends hosted a "Tom DeLay party." Basically, we wrote him little letters to commemorate the occassion. Stuff like:

Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
A Texas Grand Jury
Just Indicted You!

Ah, it was grand. But seeing him out of office, it's just that much sweeter.

Time Magazine has an exclusive interview on its website. It's pure gold. Some excerpts:

My main point was that this country was built on morals and religion. Our greatest leaders were very strong believers. There is a connection between religion and politics, and religion and government. There has to be for this country to have accomplished all it's accomplished and for its future. How many times have the great leaders--Ronald Reagan, Roosevelt, Lincoln, George Washington--have said there is a connection between morals and religion. And there has to be. The people that go to church understand that a country has to be based on some sort of religion and fear of God because they understand that.
[...]
If you know that we're all sinners, then you know that we have to work hard to have a moral foundation. So I felt very liberated in being able to say that. I didn't have to worry about being the spokesman for the Republican Party and all that kind of stuff.

Ah, American theocracy. I'm glad he feels "liberated" enough to call for that. James Madison would be rolling in his grave, but he wrote that pesky bill of rights, so screw him. Meanwhile, I'm just loving the expressed need for "fear" in our polity. Can someone cue Grand Moff Tarkin here? "Fear will keep them in line."

Christine DeLay [on the media not covering DeLay's work for foster homes]: [T]hey're scared to death it might make that Tom DeLay look like he could be part human.

Hey, y'all are the ones always screeching about the media needing to be more objective. Sometimes the truth hurts.

DeLay: Abortion on demand is still in this country, and I want to end abortion as we know it.

TIME: What would be the mechanism for doing that?

DeLay: I don't know. All I know is that's what my world view is.

Well that lays it bare doesn't it? A plan, Mr. DeLay, give us a plan. To be clear, he doesn't have one because he doesn't actually care what happens to these women or these now-born children. That, more than anything else, shows the moral bankruptcy of DeLay and his allies. If you're going to radically change American society, you better damn well plan for those who you're ripping the ground out from under. But it's always been DeLay's policy to shoot first and blame the liberals later.

I want to get rid of this tax code and replace it with a fair tax--national sales tax. That would be a revolution in this country. We will return to an economic leader. It would cause people to move back to the United States in order to do business.

People do move to America in order to do business. They're known as immigrants--often illegal ones. Remember them? They're currently serving as pawns in a crass political maneuver that is in the process of blowing up in your face.

"When I was elected to Congress, I was a self-centered jerk."

"Was"? "Was"?!? Honey, you still got a ways to go on that sin.

TIME: In public life, have you ever committed a crime?

DeLay: No.

TIME: Have you ever done anything unethical?

DeLay: No.

Oh dear. I seem to recall you singing a different tune a few months back:

Mr. Hurt: Have you ever crossed the line of ethical behavior in terms of dealing with lobbyists, your use of government authority or with fundraising?
Mr. DeLay: Ever is a very strong word.

So ends a sordid chapter in American politics. DeLay says that he wants to continue lobbying for conservative causes on the outside of Congress. Here's hoping he spends plenty of time in jail first.

The folks at Public Campaign Action Fund are celebrating--justifiably. Their original "Daily DeLay" blog helped get this ball rolling. So for tonight, I join them in merriment. Tommorow, it's back to the trenches.

Kudos for Kos

Andrew Sullivan is not a natural fan of Markos Moulitsas, head honcho at The Daily Kos. So when Sullivan gives praise to the uber-lefty blogger, I'm left curious about what's up.

The post is regarding immigration policies. And Kos is showing an advertisement featuring a waving Mexican flag. Whose campaign was it from?

The answer is Florida Governor Jeb Bush. And the voiceover is simply stirring.

NARRATOR:
It doesn't matter where we come from
Or why we come
We have found opportunity in this land
A better education for our children
The health care our families deserve
A state that has opened up its heart
And has told us, "This is our home"

JEB BUSH, (speaking to the camera in perfect Spanish):
We all want a better life
Together, we're making this all possible in this land
Our house (Nuestra casa)
Florida
Our home (Nuestro hogar)

Kos could have pivoted to a standard "look how hypocritical the Republicans are" bit. But he didn't. Instead, he simply wrote the following:

Not just a great ad, but a great homage to the immigrant culture. We can love this nation yet still love and honor the nations we came from. What else is St. Patrick's Day parade? How many Greek flags fly in Chicago's Greek Town? How many Italian flags in Boston's North End?

Not all Republicans are xenophobic haters. Many of them could learn a thing or two from Jeb Bush.

After reading some of the rabid hate that this issue has brought out on the right, it was wonderful to hear a Republican speak the words America needs to hear. And it was even more gratifying to hear a partisan Democrat endorse them.

When Brownback Isn't Enough

Let's say you're a voter who wants to restore "Christian" values to America. Sam Brownback's coddling of genocide victims and bleeding-heart statements of concern for North Korean human rights violation just make him too liberal for your tastes. Where do you go?

Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee seems like a good bet. While Rob Anderson finds his poor knowledge of television evolution objectionable, I am more disgusted by his homophobic slap at Barney Frank ("we've seen our country go ... from Barney Fife to Barney Frank"). Homosexuals in Congress? Soon, they'll demanding that we treat them like humans!

All the extremism of Brownback, without any apparent concern for human rights abroad. What can you say--he fills a niche!

Definitely Better Than Them

Though I try to mostly read thoughtful (which, unfortunately, usually means centrist) blogs rather than wade around in the muck of the partisan blogosphere, I do admit every once in awhile I wander over to the harder stuff. And, since I lean left, my partisan indulgences tend to also represent the left edge of the spectrum as opposed to the right. Because of this skew, I'll occassionally stumble across some really nasty stuff from these folks, which I dutifully condemn as an insult to the progressive name. These are just front page posts--if I wandered into the comments section, I'm sure I'd find more.

Since I don't tend to read the hard-right conservative sites, I don't usually have parallel stories to tell, to show that this is a sin both sides engage in. So when someone comes out and says "this is all the liberals faults," I usually can't cite to a hard source to prove otherwise. And admittedly, in my darkest moments of self-doubt, I wonder: "Do they do it too?"

The answer, unfortunately, is yes. And the bile on the right makes even the worst offenders I've seen on major leftwing blogs look like the Care Bears. Sadly, No gives us this smattering from a LittleGreenFootballs post on immigration (H/T: Michael Froomkin):

It is past time for the US citizens to put an end, a complete end, to foreigners, many here illegally, coming into the US and then "demanding" that the US change to support their concepts of how the US should function.
[...]
These IDIOTS leave their country because they do not like it but now want the US to change. We need a new law. If foreigners protest a US law or policy, they are DEPORTED IMMEDIATELY.
[...]
If they are found to be illegals, they are branded.
[...]
If they are found in the US a second time, put them aboard a leaky WWII vessel and tow it into the middle of the Pacific and leave it there.
[...]
Create a bombing and straffing range along the US/spixico border. No warnings as to when it will be used and DO make use of it. Dropping a few thousand bombs and a few hundred thousand shells fired into the area will have a significant impact on these illegal spixicans crossing into the US.

Casual calls for slaughter, racial epithets, grouping both legal and illegal immigrants under the moniker "foreigner" and urging them all to be deported if they criticize any US policy (including, presumably, the one in which they get branded then towed out to drown). Makes me pine for the days where the worst bigotry I blogged on concerned Michelle Malkin's tits.

See also Neil Boortz calling US representative Cynthia McKinney a "ghetto slut". I should add that I detest Rep. McKinney. But my intense dislike for her politics doesn't rationalize vicious slurs such as this.

So when I plead for liberal bloggers to be better than "this" (referring to some racial or sexual attack), it should be clear that they remain better than this.

For Better or For Worse

Andrew Sullivan links to an Egyptian cartoon contest protesting the Danish Mohammed cartoons. As he says, it's better than riots. On the other hand, the fact that at least three of the cartoons played off anti-Semitic themes kind of ruins the whole "tolerence" meme that these protests are pretending to play off of. Can somebody remind me what the Jews had to do with this controversy? Please?

You can see all of the cartoons published here.