Obama reviewing hundreds of Bush policies he may promptly undo, such as reproductive rights.
Feminists were right to be suspicious. Forgive me, PUMAs!
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Summary Fail
This Washington Post article is currently summarized on the front page of the Post's website as such:
Feminists were right to be suspicious. Forgive me, PUMAs!
Feminists were right to be suspicious. Forgive me, PUMAs!
To The Streets
Pro-equality activists are marching in California. Good. Liberals have no trouble getting riled up for wars and free trade, but we haven't had a good spontaneous civil rights march in awhile.
Todd Zywicki is outraged that some protesters are targeting the Mormon Church. Oh, spare me. He notes that Blacks overwhelmingly supported Prop. 8, but nobody is vilifying them. While Zywicki could do to read more Dan Savage, he's missing the point. Yes, Blacks voted strongly against gay equality. But there is no "Black central command" that led the charge in favor of the proposition. Indeed, there really is no Black central command at all, and insofar as there are organizations which can claim to speak on behalf of the Black community (like the NAACP), I'm skeptical that they even supported Prop. 8, much less led efforts to get it passed.
As Pam Spaulding noted, it's clear that the Black community has some work to do with regards to homophobia. But this wasn't their baby. It wasn't Black institutions that were trying to get Prop. 8 on the ballot. It wasn't Black institutions stumping up and down the state to get it passed. If protesters wanted to yell in front of individual Black churches whose ministers pressed for the passage of Prop. 8, that would be fine in my view -- those churches need to be held accountable too. But there is a qualitative difference here that goes beyond the obnoxious whine of "political correctness".
The Mormon Church, as an institution, threw itself headlong into this battle, deciding to intervene with prodigious amounts of money and manpower to promote one of the cruelest examples of state-sponsored evil still extant in America. Are they being vilified for it? Yes. Should they be? Yes. You lie down with the devil, you're going to get called names in the morning.
Of course, now that their campaign on behalf of inequality has succeeded, the Mormon Church (and Catholic Church, for that matter) are all about making nice-y. From the Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles:
And from the LDS:
Ms. Farah, too late. When you promote legislation that seeks deprive a class of human beings of their natural rights, that counts as vilification and harassment. And Archbishop Mahoney, bullshit. This is what's infuriating. Retrograde churches have every right to campaign in favor of bigotry. But they can't get all indignant when people point out, hey, taking away rights from a small, vulnerable segment of the population is bigoted! It is "against [a] group in our society." It's against gays. There is no disputing that.
Are there protests against Mormons and Blacks that go beyond the pale? Umm...yeah. Playing the polygamist card against Mormons would count too (incidentally, Zywicki's point that the Mormon Church's experience being harassed over polygamy should make them more defensive about the "traditional definition of marriage", when polygamy was part of the "traditional definition of marriage", is utterly inane). But the act of protesting, itself, is totally legitimate here. If one believes, as I do, that there is no moral distinction between state-sponsored homophobia, and state-sponsored racism, then the traffickers in the former deserve the same opprobrium that historically was directed to the latter.
Todd Zywicki is outraged that some protesters are targeting the Mormon Church. Oh, spare me. He notes that Blacks overwhelmingly supported Prop. 8, but nobody is vilifying them. While Zywicki could do to read more Dan Savage, he's missing the point. Yes, Blacks voted strongly against gay equality. But there is no "Black central command" that led the charge in favor of the proposition. Indeed, there really is no Black central command at all, and insofar as there are organizations which can claim to speak on behalf of the Black community (like the NAACP), I'm skeptical that they even supported Prop. 8, much less led efforts to get it passed.
As Pam Spaulding noted, it's clear that the Black community has some work to do with regards to homophobia. But this wasn't their baby. It wasn't Black institutions that were trying to get Prop. 8 on the ballot. It wasn't Black institutions stumping up and down the state to get it passed. If protesters wanted to yell in front of individual Black churches whose ministers pressed for the passage of Prop. 8, that would be fine in my view -- those churches need to be held accountable too. But there is a qualitative difference here that goes beyond the obnoxious whine of "political correctness".
The Mormon Church, as an institution, threw itself headlong into this battle, deciding to intervene with prodigious amounts of money and manpower to promote one of the cruelest examples of state-sponsored evil still extant in America. Are they being vilified for it? Yes. Should they be? Yes. You lie down with the devil, you're going to get called names in the morning.
Of course, now that their campaign on behalf of inequality has succeeded, the Mormon Church (and Catholic Church, for that matter) are all about making nice-y. From the Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles:
The coalition of religious communities and citizens who supported Proposition 8 wanted to preserve "the bedrock institution of marriage" between a man and a woman, said Cardinal Roger Mahoney, the Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles.
"Proposition 8 is not against any group in our society," Mahoney said in a written statement.
And from the LDS:
"The Church acknowledges that such an emotionally charged issue concerning the most personal and cherished aspects of life -- family and marriage -- stirs fervent and deep feelings," church spokeswoman Kim Farah wrote in an e-mail. "No one on either side of the question should be vilified, harassed or subject to erroneous information."
Ms. Farah, too late. When you promote legislation that seeks deprive a class of human beings of their natural rights, that counts as vilification and harassment. And Archbishop Mahoney, bullshit. This is what's infuriating. Retrograde churches have every right to campaign in favor of bigotry. But they can't get all indignant when people point out, hey, taking away rights from a small, vulnerable segment of the population is bigoted! It is "against [a] group in our society." It's against gays. There is no disputing that.
Are there protests against Mormons and Blacks that go beyond the pale? Umm...yeah. Playing the polygamist card against Mormons would count too (incidentally, Zywicki's point that the Mormon Church's experience being harassed over polygamy should make them more defensive about the "traditional definition of marriage", when polygamy was part of the "traditional definition of marriage", is utterly inane). But the act of protesting, itself, is totally legitimate here. If one believes, as I do, that there is no moral distinction between state-sponsored homophobia, and state-sponsored racism, then the traffickers in the former deserve the same opprobrium that historically was directed to the latter.
Friday, November 07, 2008
These are a Few of My Randomest Things
Kevin tagged me in a random things meme. I always get picked for this meme in particular, which is unfortunate, because I'm really pretty dull. But I don't want to break the chain, so....
Here are the rules.
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself. (See below)
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. (See further below…)
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
1) I'm perpetually early: Kevin says he's always late. Well, I'm nearly always early. I think it's a function of my status as a total goodie-goodie in school. I was literally terrified of getting in trouble, and being late to class could get you (gasp) detention. I never was late. I never got a single detention. Today, I compulsively overestimate the amount of time it takes to travel from place A to place B. At Carleton, I had classes directly across the sidewalk from my dorm. Yet, I'd constantly have thoughts like this: "I have an 11:00 class, and it's already 10:50. But I have to go down four flights of stairs to get there. Well, better get moving."
2) I'm a lefty, and I'm proud of it. Perhaps a little too proud, though, as the following story will demonstrate. I tend to sit at right-handed desks. A friend asked me about it once, and I explained that I had just gotten used to them over the years. But, I continued, it's kinda weird, because "normally I'm somewhat of a left supremacist." Except I didn't say "left", I said "White". Oops. Awkward.
3) I hate dogs. I know, I know. I'm a terrible person. I'm not even sure why. When I was kid, I was afraid of dogs, so I'm guessing there was some bad incident at age four that I'm hard at work suppressing. But yeah, Where the Red Fern Grows? Happy ending. Cats are cool though.
4) If I had to pick a favorite animal, it'd be mice. That is random, but mice seem to have played a disproportionate role in my childhood. My second grade play was narrated by mice ("Of Mice and Mozart", though I, star that I was, got to be a "composer"). A bunch of my favorite books as a kid -- Ben and Me, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Abel's Island, and later Maus -- all mice-centric. And "Tom and Jerry"? Great cartoon. Plus, I think they're cute.
5) I'm worried that all my non-academic interests seem rather violent. Not just video games. My favorite sports are boxing and ice hockey. I even played ice hockey for three years in high school. The music I listen to tends to fall into the "angry White dudes yelling" genre. My cousin once went through my iPod and declared that "for a pretty chill guy, you listen to some angry music." I though Breaking Benjamin's song "Forever" would make a nice first dance song at a wedding -- even after reading the lyrics (in my defense, the song is genuinely pretty). I don't exactly know where it comes from. In terms of my actual behavior, I'm quite passive and docile. I'm worried that I'm bottling up a torrent of rage. Or perhaps the music is a release.
6) I'm a White guy in a country that just elected a Black President. How weird is that?
Okay, now tags: PG (that blog is staying up whether she likes it or not), Matt, Phoebe, Esq. (she's due for an interim update anyway), The Gaucho Politico, and the one formerly known as Girl Detective.
Here are the rules.
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself. (See below)
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. (See further below…)
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
1) I'm perpetually early: Kevin says he's always late. Well, I'm nearly always early. I think it's a function of my status as a total goodie-goodie in school. I was literally terrified of getting in trouble, and being late to class could get you (gasp) detention. I never was late. I never got a single detention. Today, I compulsively overestimate the amount of time it takes to travel from place A to place B. At Carleton, I had classes directly across the sidewalk from my dorm. Yet, I'd constantly have thoughts like this: "I have an 11:00 class, and it's already 10:50. But I have to go down four flights of stairs to get there. Well, better get moving."
2) I'm a lefty, and I'm proud of it. Perhaps a little too proud, though, as the following story will demonstrate. I tend to sit at right-handed desks. A friend asked me about it once, and I explained that I had just gotten used to them over the years. But, I continued, it's kinda weird, because "normally I'm somewhat of a left supremacist." Except I didn't say "left", I said "White". Oops. Awkward.
3) I hate dogs. I know, I know. I'm a terrible person. I'm not even sure why. When I was kid, I was afraid of dogs, so I'm guessing there was some bad incident at age four that I'm hard at work suppressing. But yeah, Where the Red Fern Grows? Happy ending. Cats are cool though.
4) If I had to pick a favorite animal, it'd be mice. That is random, but mice seem to have played a disproportionate role in my childhood. My second grade play was narrated by mice ("Of Mice and Mozart", though I, star that I was, got to be a "composer"). A bunch of my favorite books as a kid -- Ben and Me, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Abel's Island, and later Maus -- all mice-centric. And "Tom and Jerry"? Great cartoon. Plus, I think they're cute.
5) I'm worried that all my non-academic interests seem rather violent. Not just video games. My favorite sports are boxing and ice hockey. I even played ice hockey for three years in high school. The music I listen to tends to fall into the "angry White dudes yelling" genre. My cousin once went through my iPod and declared that "for a pretty chill guy, you listen to some angry music." I though Breaking Benjamin's song "Forever" would make a nice first dance song at a wedding -- even after reading the lyrics (in my defense, the song is genuinely pretty). I don't exactly know where it comes from. In terms of my actual behavior, I'm quite passive and docile. I'm worried that I'm bottling up a torrent of rage. Or perhaps the music is a release.
6) I'm a White guy in a country that just elected a Black President. How weird is that?
Okay, now tags: PG (that blog is staying up whether she likes it or not), Matt, Phoebe, Esq. (she's due for an interim update anyway), The Gaucho Politico, and the one formerly known as Girl Detective.
Do We Still Need Civil Rights After Obama?
Working for the LCCR this summer as it sought to beat back Ward Connelly's efforts to eliminate affirmative action in Colorado, one of the primary arguments we had to respond to was the claim that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (and later, Sarah Palin) have proven that affirmative action is not necessary. Abigail Thernstrom, a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, trained her fire more broadly, asking caustically if civil rights advocates are "still going to whine endlessly about racism in America" if Obama was elected. Since Obama's election, this chorus has grown even louder. RedState, for example, congratulated Barack Obama on his victory by saying "thirty years came quickly", referring to the time frame within which Justice Sandra Day O'Connor stated that she expected affirmative action would no longer be necessary. And liberal commentators have made similar statements, albeit in more worried tones: that Obama's election would wrongly signal White citizens that the problem of racism is essentially over.
Look. Barack Obama's election was an immensely important event, and its symbolic value to the cause of racial justice cannot be overstated. That being said, in terms of its direct impact to the cause of racial equity, it is in fact mostly symbolic. All Barack Obama has objectively proven is that an incredibly talented Black man can rise to an elite position in extremely favorable conditions (as The Onion memorably put it: "Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress"). One very capable person doing very well is good news, but it doesn't make any systematic impact or really tell us anything about the strength of institutional factors. Affirmative action is targeted at the Black community writ large -- most of whom are not Barack Obama's. But you shouldn't have to be a Barack Obama for civil rights to care about you.
The focus on Obama's victory helps to maintain one of the more pernicious elements of the "politics of respectability" model of civil rights reform. During the civil rights struggle, Black leaders were very careful to present only their most cherubic, idealized face. Their most innocent children, their most clearly qualified applicants, their most gifted (and fair-minded) leaders. It would be far more difficult for the wardens of White supremacy to argue that these people should be excluded from the fruits of the American dream. By contrast, civil rights organizations were far more hesitant to stand up for, say, the Black poor (whose mannerisms might be cited as justification for racist measures), or Black criminals who -- regardless of what acts they might have committed -- still objectively ought to enjoy the same protections granted to White defendants. In this way, the measuring stick by which racial equality was measured was when a Black standout was given full opportunity to show the extent of her genius.
Most Black people, like most Whites, Asians, and Latinos, are not perfect. They are regular, flawed folks. And when "success" in civil rights is limited to elite persons getting their just deserts, we do serious violence to what racial equality should actually mean. Much of the focus on affirmative action is an upshot of the politics of respectability -- it asks what awards should be given to very talented Black men and women. I think that's important, but the totality of racial equality isn't encompassed by the question of whether a given Black student should be going to Harvard versus Tufts. Barack Obama's election may tell us important information about the prospects of the "talented tenth" (or hundredth, or thousandth). But true commitment to racial egalitarianism means looking beyond that, to the situation of the normal ninetieth. That includes the vast majority of college students, who are not elite either, but it is also extends to the many people who aren't going to college at all. Affirmative action still has a role to play in the post-Obama era, but the focus on it as the primary battleground over civil rights obscures more than it illuminates.
There is an old saw in feminist circles stating that "the issue now is not to get a female Einstein hired as an assistant professor at a third-rate university. The issue now is to have a female schlub receive the same opportunities as a male schlub." The same thing applies in the context of race. We have made it so that there are avenues for the very best and brightest people of color can spread their wings and succeed. And that's not nothing. But neither is it the end of civil rights. For everyday Black folk, Barack Obama's election does not signal any meaningful change in the type of opportunities they are likely to see or the type of treatment they are likely to receive. Waving their lives away, because of what a very tiny and very separate stratum of Black people now know that they can achieve, is not legitimate practice for those of us truly committed to dismantling racial hierarchy.
Look. Barack Obama's election was an immensely important event, and its symbolic value to the cause of racial justice cannot be overstated. That being said, in terms of its direct impact to the cause of racial equity, it is in fact mostly symbolic. All Barack Obama has objectively proven is that an incredibly talented Black man can rise to an elite position in extremely favorable conditions (as The Onion memorably put it: "Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress"). One very capable person doing very well is good news, but it doesn't make any systematic impact or really tell us anything about the strength of institutional factors. Affirmative action is targeted at the Black community writ large -- most of whom are not Barack Obama's. But you shouldn't have to be a Barack Obama for civil rights to care about you.
The focus on Obama's victory helps to maintain one of the more pernicious elements of the "politics of respectability" model of civil rights reform. During the civil rights struggle, Black leaders were very careful to present only their most cherubic, idealized face. Their most innocent children, their most clearly qualified applicants, their most gifted (and fair-minded) leaders. It would be far more difficult for the wardens of White supremacy to argue that these people should be excluded from the fruits of the American dream. By contrast, civil rights organizations were far more hesitant to stand up for, say, the Black poor (whose mannerisms might be cited as justification for racist measures), or Black criminals who -- regardless of what acts they might have committed -- still objectively ought to enjoy the same protections granted to White defendants. In this way, the measuring stick by which racial equality was measured was when a Black standout was given full opportunity to show the extent of her genius.
Most Black people, like most Whites, Asians, and Latinos, are not perfect. They are regular, flawed folks. And when "success" in civil rights is limited to elite persons getting their just deserts, we do serious violence to what racial equality should actually mean. Much of the focus on affirmative action is an upshot of the politics of respectability -- it asks what awards should be given to very talented Black men and women. I think that's important, but the totality of racial equality isn't encompassed by the question of whether a given Black student should be going to Harvard versus Tufts. Barack Obama's election may tell us important information about the prospects of the "talented tenth" (or hundredth, or thousandth). But true commitment to racial egalitarianism means looking beyond that, to the situation of the normal ninetieth. That includes the vast majority of college students, who are not elite either, but it is also extends to the many people who aren't going to college at all. Affirmative action still has a role to play in the post-Obama era, but the focus on it as the primary battleground over civil rights obscures more than it illuminates.
There is an old saw in feminist circles stating that "the issue now is not to get a female Einstein hired as an assistant professor at a third-rate university. The issue now is to have a female schlub receive the same opportunities as a male schlub." The same thing applies in the context of race. We have made it so that there are avenues for the very best and brightest people of color can spread their wings and succeed. And that's not nothing. But neither is it the end of civil rights. For everyday Black folk, Barack Obama's election does not signal any meaningful change in the type of opportunities they are likely to see or the type of treatment they are likely to receive. Waving their lives away, because of what a very tiny and very separate stratum of Black people now know that they can achieve, is not legitimate practice for those of us truly committed to dismantling racial hierarchy.
Listen to Perkins!
Chief of the Family Research Council Tony Perkins is out blaming the moderates for GOP losses in 2008. What's needed, he says, is a party more committed to pure Republican principles -- fiscally and socially.
This, to put it mildly, is tough to swallow in the face of the evidence. The fact is that there are several seats in deep red territory that are now Democratic directly resulting from Republican intolerance of moderate politicians. The Maryland first, gerrymandered specifically to elect a Republican, will be sending a Democrat to Congress after a right-wing challenger knocked off a moderate incumbent who would have assuredly cruised to re-election. The Michigan 7th saw the same thing -- a right-winger who defeated a moderate incumbent in 2006 got defeated in 2008. Bill Sali, the furthest right-wing candidate in a multi-member primary in 2006, lost his Idaho(!) seat this year to a Democrat. The blood red 2nd Ohio district is competitive every year because Jean Schmidt is their representative. And so on.
Put more broadly, there is very little proof that "pure" conservative principles enjoy broad popularity in the United States (gay-bashing, alas, is a major exception). Most Americans voted for Barack Obama even though they (wrongly) believed he was raise their taxes. There isn't much proof that Americans really oppose spending on social welfare programs. Even on social issues, this was a pretty good year for liberals (outside of gay rights), winning battles on abortion, marijuana, and assisted suicide.
The fact is that, at the moment, conservative governance is not all that popular. They can talk all they want about how conservatives "abandoned conservative principles", but if they respond to this election by lurching even further to the right, they're going to spend a long time out in the cold.
This, to put it mildly, is tough to swallow in the face of the evidence. The fact is that there are several seats in deep red territory that are now Democratic directly resulting from Republican intolerance of moderate politicians. The Maryland first, gerrymandered specifically to elect a Republican, will be sending a Democrat to Congress after a right-wing challenger knocked off a moderate incumbent who would have assuredly cruised to re-election. The Michigan 7th saw the same thing -- a right-winger who defeated a moderate incumbent in 2006 got defeated in 2008. Bill Sali, the furthest right-wing candidate in a multi-member primary in 2006, lost his Idaho(!) seat this year to a Democrat. The blood red 2nd Ohio district is competitive every year because Jean Schmidt is their representative. And so on.
Put more broadly, there is very little proof that "pure" conservative principles enjoy broad popularity in the United States (gay-bashing, alas, is a major exception). Most Americans voted for Barack Obama even though they (wrongly) believed he was raise their taxes. There isn't much proof that Americans really oppose spending on social welfare programs. Even on social issues, this was a pretty good year for liberals (outside of gay rights), winning battles on abortion, marijuana, and assisted suicide.
The fact is that, at the moment, conservative governance is not all that popular. They can talk all they want about how conservatives "abandoned conservative principles", but if they respond to this election by lurching even further to the right, they're going to spend a long time out in the cold.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
78% of Jews are Very Confused
A Greek daily celebrates the Obama victory by labeling it "the end of the Jewish domination". Now, as one of the 78% of Jews who voted for President Obama, I can fairly definitively state that I was unaware that I was casting my ballot to end my "domination". But that's more a function of the mythological nature of that dominion than any misapprehension about what an Obama presidency will do.
The Jewish community will have the ear of President Obama, to be sure, but that's because American Jews are integral players in American progressive politics (it remains utterly bizarre to me the sentiment -- mostly from outside the US -- that Jews are predominantly conservative influences on American politics). And for his part, Barack Obama has shown a rare sensitivity to the concerns of Jews as Jews themselves express them (rather than how our interests are portrayed when they are sublimated within the "Judeo-Christian" worldview). That's fortunate, because what Jews want (as opposed to what outsiders -- both "friends" and enemies -- say we want) is freedom from persecution, just solutions to the conflicts which plague us and the Palestinians, and the right to participate as equals in the community of nations. If Barack Obama brings those dreams into fruition, it will be a great day not just for Jews, and not just for Palestinians, but for all persons who care about the equal dignity of all humankind.
The Jewish community will have the ear of President Obama, to be sure, but that's because American Jews are integral players in American progressive politics (it remains utterly bizarre to me the sentiment -- mostly from outside the US -- that Jews are predominantly conservative influences on American politics). And for his part, Barack Obama has shown a rare sensitivity to the concerns of Jews as Jews themselves express them (rather than how our interests are portrayed when they are sublimated within the "
The New City Slicker
I grew up in suburban Maryland, about fifteen minutes outside of D.C.. As a result, I always considered myself quite the cosmopolitan. Washington was a quick metro ride away, nearly everyone's parents worked, if not in D.C., then in a job that existed because of D.C., and the self-image of my town was very urbane and sophisticated. When I applied to college, I said that I was looking for a university that had a similar feel: medium-sized, north-eastern, near a city. Showing my lack of self-awareness, it turned out that my dream school (where I applied early decision) was actually a small liberal arts college in a small mid-western township. And so the last four years were an experience in small town, Minnesota living. Even this summer, living on my own for the first time, my apartment was out in suburban Maryland -- not in one of the up and coming D.C. neighborhoods like most of my friends.
So though I always considered myself comfortable in the city, my time in Hyde Park has really been my first time living in an urban setting. Urban is relative, of course, but we're in the city of Chicago, our streets are numbered and in grids (and reach up to big numbers like "60" -- even Northfield has a 1st Street), and there is genuine crime and poverty. This is all new to me.
Last Friday, I witnessed my first serious street crime -- a mugging or possible abduction. It occurred about a half block ahead of me on 55th street, as I was walking home from a party with my girlfriend and a friend of mine. It was spooky. After a nice long conversation with the Chicago police (who were very helpful and responsive), I remember thinking, "I don't like city living."
Today, walking back from the law school, a woman fell in beside me. It was raining, and, she announced, "I hate the rain." I thought she was a university employee, and I joked back that soon she wouldn't have to worry -- it'd be snowing. She laughed, and then told me how she had just come back from a pantry that turned out to be Saturday only. I first I didn't understand, but then I realized -- she wasn't some university administrator -- she was hungry. She said her four kids were coming back from school, and she had no food to give them. She had tried ten different restaurants and all had shoo-ed her away -- most with very little sympathy.
By this time, I had reached my destination, and she had tears in her eyes. I didn't know what to say or do, so I just told her "better days will come." She nodded, and kept walking. Reflexively, I called "have a nice day" (I always say that -- too much time in Minnesota), and immediately felt ridiculous. And once again, I thought to myself, "I don't like city living."
But why? Okay, the reaction after the crime is reasonable -- everybody prefers living someplace where they can walk around safely at night to where they have to watch every footstep. But when it came to this poor, hungry woman, there was no threat to my safety. What it did threaten was the division I've trained myself to prefer -- between my writing, and what I write about.
I've never been the activist sort. I write in support of my moral commitments, because writing is what I'm comfortable with and what I'm good at. Even this summer, working for a civil rights coalition, was a rather big step for me in the direction of tangible, direct action (at one point while working for the LCCR I was passed off as an expert on student activism -- I could barely refrain from laughing). I have a deep skepticism that significant progressive change will occur through political or even legal processes. I prefer to work alone, and activism is inherently communal (let's face it -- like any self-respecting Carleton kid, I can be a bit socially awkward). Activism is all about persuasion, mostly of lay people, and my time as a debater left me with negative opinions of both the concept of "persuasion", and the efficacy of talking with lay people about complicated philosophical, political, or ethical problems.*
To a large extent, I don't like city living because it forces one to fit into the activist mold. Each day, you see events and make choices which directly implicate the moral commitments you're fighting for. And frankly, I don't think that fast. I prefer to ponder, and wrestle, and talk things out, and deliberate. But I'm not convinced I'm not a hypocrite -- that what I really don't want is to be forced to put my money where my pen is.
The good news, I guess, is that I'm stuck in Chicago for the next three years -- for better or for worse. There is a significant "for worse" component here -- I can feel the stress rise inside me well beyond the degree to which the first year of law school is bothering me, and most of it can be chalked up to the change in scenery. But maybe there will be a change for better as well. I've always been a strong proponent of interacting with a broad array of people. Muggers probably aren't interested in conversations, but the woman I met on the street today was.
I'm pretty confident that I do not want to live in a city when I move out into the workforce. But that doesn't mean I can't learn some important things these next three years.
Peace and equality
Let's be together, let's live in harmony
Lookin' to the sky, keep your head on the rise
Think things on rockin' so well
--"think ya better D," sAmi
* This is not a knock against lay people -- not everyone needs to have deep and sophisticated opinions about Rawls, or even care about him, and just because you don't have a knack for synthesizing arguments about the veil of ignorance doesn't mean you're not good at other things, from computer science to economics to bricklaying. But just as it can get grating to my engineering friends to try and explain to me basic principles of math and physics, it's frustrating for me to try and boil down really complicated philosophical arguments for people who are not interested in the subjects. There are differences between the cases: On the one hand, engineering will go on just fine no matter how ignorant I stay whereas lay people have real influence on the development of moral norms, making it imperative
that I do attempt to explain and persuade non-philosophy folks beyond what I might be interested in doing for reasons of charity or goodwill (more frustration). The flip-side, of course, is that because moral norms represent things we want all people to abide by, I do have an obligation to make whatever principles I lay out accessible and understandable to the common person. Engineering can stay obscure to me because nobody is asking me to build a bridge. All people, however, are asked every day to live their lives in a fair and ethical manner.
None of this is meant to be an argument for why a more secluded "academic" life is objectively superior to a hands-dirty, activist path -- merely an explanation of my personal preference and how it came about.
So though I always considered myself comfortable in the city, my time in Hyde Park has really been my first time living in an urban setting. Urban is relative, of course, but we're in the city of Chicago, our streets are numbered and in grids (and reach up to big numbers like "60" -- even Northfield has a 1st Street), and there is genuine crime and poverty. This is all new to me.
Last Friday, I witnessed my first serious street crime -- a mugging or possible abduction. It occurred about a half block ahead of me on 55th street, as I was walking home from a party with my girlfriend and a friend of mine. It was spooky. After a nice long conversation with the Chicago police (who were very helpful and responsive), I remember thinking, "I don't like city living."
Today, walking back from the law school, a woman fell in beside me. It was raining, and, she announced, "I hate the rain." I thought she was a university employee, and I joked back that soon she wouldn't have to worry -- it'd be snowing. She laughed, and then told me how she had just come back from a pantry that turned out to be Saturday only. I first I didn't understand, but then I realized -- she wasn't some university administrator -- she was hungry. She said her four kids were coming back from school, and she had no food to give them. She had tried ten different restaurants and all had shoo-ed her away -- most with very little sympathy.
By this time, I had reached my destination, and she had tears in her eyes. I didn't know what to say or do, so I just told her "better days will come." She nodded, and kept walking. Reflexively, I called "have a nice day" (I always say that -- too much time in Minnesota), and immediately felt ridiculous. And once again, I thought to myself, "I don't like city living."
But why? Okay, the reaction after the crime is reasonable -- everybody prefers living someplace where they can walk around safely at night to where they have to watch every footstep. But when it came to this poor, hungry woman, there was no threat to my safety. What it did threaten was the division I've trained myself to prefer -- between my writing, and what I write about.
I've never been the activist sort. I write in support of my moral commitments, because writing is what I'm comfortable with and what I'm good at. Even this summer, working for a civil rights coalition, was a rather big step for me in the direction of tangible, direct action (at one point while working for the LCCR I was passed off as an expert on student activism -- I could barely refrain from laughing). I have a deep skepticism that significant progressive change will occur through political or even legal processes. I prefer to work alone, and activism is inherently communal (let's face it -- like any self-respecting Carleton kid, I can be a bit socially awkward). Activism is all about persuasion, mostly of lay people, and my time as a debater left me with negative opinions of both the concept of "persuasion", and the efficacy of talking with lay people about complicated philosophical, political, or ethical problems.*
To a large extent, I don't like city living because it forces one to fit into the activist mold. Each day, you see events and make choices which directly implicate the moral commitments you're fighting for. And frankly, I don't think that fast. I prefer to ponder, and wrestle, and talk things out, and deliberate. But I'm not convinced I'm not a hypocrite -- that what I really don't want is to be forced to put my money where my pen is.
The good news, I guess, is that I'm stuck in Chicago for the next three years -- for better or for worse. There is a significant "for worse" component here -- I can feel the stress rise inside me well beyond the degree to which the first year of law school is bothering me, and most of it can be chalked up to the change in scenery. But maybe there will be a change for better as well. I've always been a strong proponent of interacting with a broad array of people. Muggers probably aren't interested in conversations, but the woman I met on the street today was.
I'm pretty confident that I do not want to live in a city when I move out into the workforce. But that doesn't mean I can't learn some important things these next three years.
Peace and equality
Let's be together, let's live in harmony
Lookin' to the sky, keep your head on the rise
Think things on rockin' so well
--"think ya better D," sAmi
* This is not a knock against lay people -- not everyone needs to have deep and sophisticated opinions about Rawls, or even care about him, and just because you don't have a knack for synthesizing arguments about the veil of ignorance doesn't mean you're not good at other things, from computer science to economics to bricklaying. But just as it can get grating to my engineering friends to try and explain to me basic principles of math and physics, it's frustrating for me to try and boil down really complicated philosophical arguments for people who are not interested in the subjects. There are differences between the cases: On the one hand, engineering will go on just fine no matter how ignorant I stay whereas lay people have real influence on the development of moral norms, making it imperative
that I do attempt to explain and persuade non-philosophy folks beyond what I might be interested in doing for reasons of charity or goodwill (more frustration). The flip-side, of course, is that because moral norms represent things we want all people to abide by, I do have an obligation to make whatever principles I lay out accessible and understandable to the common person. Engineering can stay obscure to me because nobody is asking me to build a bridge. All people, however, are asked every day to live their lives in a fair and ethical manner.
None of this is meant to be an argument for why a more secluded "academic" life is objectively superior to a hands-dirty, activist path -- merely an explanation of my personal preference and how it came about.
The New City Slicker
I grew up in suburban Maryland, about fifteen minutes outside of D.C.. As a result, I always considered myself quite the cosmopolitan. Washington was a quick metro ride away (in fact,
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Those Left Behind
In his victory speech last night, Senator Barack Obama stated that this election gave us an
At least with regards to gay Americans, he was wrong.
* California narrowly voted to overturn its state supreme court ruling granting gay couples the right to marry.
* Arizona passed its own amendment barring gay marriage, after narrowly failing in the endeavor two years ago.
* Florida managed to leap its 60% hurdle to also write discrimination into its constitution.
* Arkansas prohibited gay couples from adopting children.
There was a sense yesterday and today that America had taken a great step forward -- that it had spoken with a voice of inclusion and respect for all persons, regardless of who they are or how they were born.
I can't imagine what it feels like to be someone who was written out of that message of inclusion. The historic nature of this election makes the resounding repudiation America gave to the equal human dignity of gays and lesbians that much more shameful. The nation this year was primed to be thinking about discrimination. In a very real sense, the decision to cast a ballot for Barack Obama was a decision to cast off the weight of our prior inequities. In such a context, the choice to strip gay and lesbian Americans of their natural human rights was more than just a failure of imagination. It was an affirmative decision by the electorate to announce that gays and lesbians are less than full Americans. In past years, we could blame inertia, apathy, and ignorance. This year, it was willful.
It is a decision that we will look back upon in shame, and it is a decision that is a disgrace to America, no matter what other barriers we broke today.
answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.
At least with regards to gay Americans, he was wrong.
* California narrowly voted to overturn its state supreme court ruling granting gay couples the right to marry.
* Arizona passed its own amendment barring gay marriage, after narrowly failing in the endeavor two years ago.
* Florida managed to leap its 60% hurdle to also write discrimination into its constitution.
* Arkansas prohibited gay couples from adopting children.
There was a sense yesterday and today that America had taken a great step forward -- that it had spoken with a voice of inclusion and respect for all persons, regardless of who they are or how they were born.
I can't imagine what it feels like to be someone who was written out of that message of inclusion. The historic nature of this election makes the resounding repudiation America gave to the equal human dignity of gays and lesbians that much more shameful. The nation this year was primed to be thinking about discrimination. In a very real sense, the decision to cast a ballot for Barack Obama was a decision to cast off the weight of our prior inequities. In such a context, the choice to strip gay and lesbian Americans of their natural human rights was more than just a failure of imagination. It was an affirmative decision by the electorate to announce that gays and lesbians are less than full Americans. In past years, we could blame inertia, apathy, and ignorance. This year, it was willful.
It is a decision that we will look back upon in shame, and it is a decision that is a disgrace to America, no matter what other barriers we broke today.
To My Conservative Friends
2004 was a more difficult year for me than 2000. 2000 was the first political election I followed with any level of sophistication (I was 14), and it was an education to be sure. I first voted in 2004, however, and that year stung, because I saw a country which had seen what President Bush had wrought upon the nation, and still a majority of Americans re-elected him. If you want to search through my archives from that time period, you'll see that I was not a happy camper.
I asked then that my conservative friends not gloat at me, and it is only fair that I oblige them back. Many Republicans are, obviously, quite unhappy with this result. Believe me, I've been there. But I want to take this moment to reach out to you. John McCain got the votes of 46% of all Americans. Given that President Bush's approvals are in the mid-20s, there are plenty of folks out there who preferred McCain, who still recognize that something went fundamentally wrong over the last 8 years. Many of these problems are one's that will require bi-partisan efforts to correct. Restoring impartiality to the Justice Department. Rooting out corruption and politicization in bureaucratic agencies. Restoring balances on executive power. These are things which Republicans and Democrats can, and I hope, will work together to achieve vibrant and sustainable solutions.
On many other issues, conservatives and liberals remain quite a ways apart. And that's okay. This year, the electorate gave progressives a sweeping mandate for change. Obama's electoral college tallies are approaching rout levels, and on the Congressional and Senate side, Democrats still performed quite strongly (though slightly below the optimistic estimates that came forth over the last month or so). We will take this historic opportunity as a chance to prove that progressive ideas work. But conservatives can and should continue to pitch their best laid plans to the public and on the House and Senate floor. Barack Obama was a former faculty member here at Chicago Law School, and one of my professors today noted that Sen. Obama has an openness to ideas that is rare amongst the political set. If you pitch your plans and proposals in good faith, with an eye towards getting bills and past and moving our nation forward, then I pledge as a Democrat to listen.
The greatest break we could make from the last eight years, would be to heed Barack Obama's advice from four years ago. If we will it, we can cease to be a collection of red states and blue states. Working together, we are more. We are the United States.
I asked then that my conservative friends not gloat at me, and it is only fair that I oblige them back. Many Republicans are, obviously, quite unhappy with this result. Believe me, I've been there. But I want to take this moment to reach out to you. John McCain got the votes of 46% of all Americans. Given that President Bush's approvals are in the mid-20s, there are plenty of folks out there who preferred McCain, who still recognize that something went fundamentally wrong over the last 8 years. Many of these problems are one's that will require bi-partisan efforts to correct. Restoring impartiality to the Justice Department. Rooting out corruption and politicization in bureaucratic agencies. Restoring balances on executive power. These are things which Republicans and Democrats can, and I hope, will work together to achieve vibrant and sustainable solutions.
On many other issues, conservatives and liberals remain quite a ways apart. And that's okay. This year, the electorate gave progressives a sweeping mandate for change. Obama's electoral college tallies are approaching rout levels, and on the Congressional and Senate side, Democrats still performed quite strongly (though slightly below the optimistic estimates that came forth over the last month or so). We will take this historic opportunity as a chance to prove that progressive ideas work. But conservatives can and should continue to pitch their best laid plans to the public and on the House and Senate floor. Barack Obama was a former faculty member here at Chicago Law School, and one of my professors today noted that Sen. Obama has an openness to ideas that is rare amongst the political set. If you pitch your plans and proposals in good faith, with an eye towards getting bills and past and moving our nation forward, then I pledge as a Democrat to listen.
The greatest break we could make from the last eight years, would be to heed Barack Obama's advice from four years ago. If we will it, we can cease to be a collection of red states and blue states. Working together, we are more. We are the United States.
My President
President Obama. President Barack Obama. President Barack Hussein Obama.
It's all good, baby.
It's all good, baby.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Election Day Liveblog
It won't be a reprise of 2006, but I'll keep jotting down thoughts throughout the night. Latest posts will be at the top (for real this time -- sorry about before):
***
12:36 AM: It's bed time for me. I'll have more thoughts tomorrow (probably). Suffice to say, this was a great moment for America -- regardless of whether you supported Barack Obama or not, it is impossible not to feel joy about the barrier he brought crashing down.
12:10 AM: It's recount time in the VA-05, but the Democratic challenger will enter with a 1,000 vote advantage. Suck it, CNN.
11:55 PM: Lest I be entirely a gloomy gus right now (and let's be clear, I'm still on a tremendous high just from "President-elect Obama"), let's look at some of the good news that's come out recently:
1) I think Obama will take both Indiana and North Carolina.
2) Democrats are poised to pick up both the VA-02 and the VA-05 -- the latter of which CNN erroneously called for incumbent Rep. Virgil Goode several hours ago.
3) New Mexico is now solid blue -- House, Senate, Governor, and President.
4) Franken still has plenty of votes to pick up in Hennepin (Minneapolis) and St. Louis (Duluth) counties.
11:53 PM: I think a lot of Democrats were taking Mary Jo Kilroy's election for granted in the Ohio 15th -- a problem, given that she's down 1,000 votes with 96% reported.
11:21 PM: Oh, and echoing the below point, there are going to be some disappointing losses for incumbents. And not even old, tired guys like Kanjorski, but promising new folks like Boyda (D-KS) and Cazayoux (D-LA) (the former is down, the latter is out). Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX) also went down in defeat.
11:19 PM: Not to be a downer, but I think we're going to leave quite a bit on the table down ticket. I'm not optimistic about Minnesota. I'm getting worried about Oregon. There have been a few House seats we've ended up on the wrong side on -- not just the long shots, but one's that we genuinely thought we could take.
I think my standards are too high.
11:15 PM: Obama is on tonight, but I think it is getting lost in the moment. There is a collective exhale, stemming from how important this day is, and not even Obama can rise above that.
10:56 PM: Just because I'm excited about Obama, don't think Minnesota will escape my wrath if it re-elects Coleman and Bachmann (and gives Paulsen the nod over Madia).
10:46 PM: I had forgotten entirely about ballot measures. The news doesn't look good, particularly for gay rights.. The California gay marriage ban has an early lead, but only 8% has reported. Arizona will likely ban gay marriage (a move which was defeated last cycle), and it will be joined by Florida, and Arkansas will likely ban gays from adopting children (which eventually has to be ruled unconstitutional.
Other issues are more of mixed bag. Washington looks to legalize physician assisted suicide, Michigan will allow medical marijuana, and Colorado will not define life as starting from conception. While Nebraska will ban affirmative action, it may be narrowly beaten back in Colorado. The parental notification law for abortion in California is polling dead even.
10:41 PM: Sen. Mary Landrieu has apparently held her Louisiana Senate seat. There will be no Senate-side pickups for the GOP (they have won a handful of house seats).
10:35 PM: Now that Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) has gone down in defeat, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) may take on the title of the ultimate Republican survivor. He's pulled back into the lead by 8 points in his southwestern Ohio district.
10:32 PM: McCain's concession speech was very pretty. I couldn't figure out what the crowd was yelling, though.
10:12 PM: Also problematic is Louisiana, which had fallen a bit below the radar. Sen. Mary Landrieu is up only 2 points with 82% of the vote in. We already lost a House seat in the Cajun State.
10:10 PM: The biggest nail-biter is looking to be the Minnesota Senate race between Norm Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D). Franken's sitting on a 2,500 vote lead with 28% in.
10:00 PM: It's been called: Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States.
9:53 PM: With 44% of the vote in, Frank Kravotil's 2,500 vote lead is the largest margin I've seen yet in the Maryland 1st. This would be another feel good pick up, as it's a direct result of the GOP's banishment of moderates.
9:49 PM: Almost as good as Obama winning, is watching the repellent Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) go down in flames. She's losing 58/42 with 59% in to Betsy Markey.
9:39 PM: Took them long enough. CNN moved the VA-05 back into toss-up land. Goode is down 700 votes with 3% outstanding. Of the six counties which have votes left to report, 4 are in Goode's camp (though nobody has much left on the table).
9:19 PM: Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-FL) looks like he's going down. Good. Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) might follow suit. No tears for him either, though a few might be warranted for having to say "Rep. Lou Barletta, crazy immigrant hater". The only truly saddening loss that's visible right now would be Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX), who took Tom DeLay's old seat but was always the underdog to retain it.
9:01 PM: Thus far, the House races have represented a Democratic cleanup of 2006, with the Donkey picking up a bunch of the seats we just missed last time around. The latest victim: New England's final Republican, Chris Shays (R-CT).
8:57 PM: It's always exciting when Maryland has a competitive race. Currently, we're witnessing a deadlock in the MD-01, where right-winger Andy Harris is struggling to retain this conservative seat in the face of strong Democratic head winds, his own extremism, and a tough opponent who was endorsed by the incumbent Republican Representative whom Harris knocked off.
8:40 PM: Projection fail: CNN still "projects" Virgil Goode to win in the VA-05. Unfortunately, he's currently down 2 points with 89% in. Charlottesville came through big time for Perriello (it's all in now). It's not locked down, and much of the remaining votes are in Goode territory, but it's definitely "too close to call".
8:35 PM: Ohio news ahead. First, CNN just called it for Ohio. That's big. On the House side, random district #1 (the 3rd) is now 52/48 for the GOP, but random district #2 (the 12th) is at 49/48 for the Democrats with 20% in. Finally, Rep. Steve Chabot's (R) perpetually endangered 1st district is, well, endangered, with the Democratic challenger currently sitting with 57% of the vote. However, that's pretty much all from early voting.
8:19 PM: All my friends have been freaking out about Virginia. I told them to chill. McCain is up 20,000 votes, with 2/3 of the vote in. A huge chunk of that is from Northern Virginia, where Obama will rout. Things are looking good there.
7:51 PM: Kentucky's Senate race continues to be deadlocked, even though Lunsford is not racking up huge margins in Jefferson County (Louisville). In fact, nobody seems to know exactly where he's doing well enough to hang with McConnell. I still predict a loss. Just more heartbreaking than predicted.
7:43 PM: In the Virginia 2nd (Drake), it's essentially deadlocked with 15% in. My intuition is that this race will be Norfolk (D) and Virginia Beach (R) duking it out for supremacy. But I'm not sure about that.
7:41 PM: Virgil Goode's political life depends on how lazy UVA students are. He's up by 12,500 votes with 62% in, Charlottesville hasn't reported at all.
7:23 PM: The first strange blip of the night comes from the OH-03, which was not on anyone's map. The Democrat is up 52-48 with 0% reporting ... but 58,000 votes cast sounds like more than 0% to me. I'll keep an eye on it.
7:16 PM: House races we won't win: IN-03, KY-02. Races that still look good: VA-05, everything competitive in NC. Charlottesville is where to look in the VA-05 (that's where UVA is), and if Rep. Virgil Goode loses in a year suffused with anti-Muslim paranoia, it'll be that much sweeter.
7:06 PM: It's still early in Florida, but just judging off the House returns, the D machine is in good shape. Obama is currently overshooting projections in several vote-rich, Democrat-rich counties.
7:01 PM: Deep breath: Maryland's been called for Obama.
6:54 PM: The Democratic wave might be so strong this year that Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-FL), who took over Mark Foley's seat only to have a whole slew of marital infidelities (including some pretty sketchy behavior) revealed, might managed to squeak out a win. Though it's a good sign about the broader trends in this race, I still hope he loses -- we don't need the seat, and we're better off without folks like him in our caucus.
6:35 PM: I'm hearing good things about Obama in Indiana. He's significantly outperforming Kerry's margins so far. Early returns in the Indiana 3rd (Souder) do not look great, but that race was a long shot anyway.
***
12:36 AM: It's bed time for me. I'll have more thoughts tomorrow (probably). Suffice to say, this was a great moment for America -- regardless of whether you supported Barack Obama or not, it is impossible not to feel joy about the barrier he brought crashing down.
12:10 AM: It's recount time in the VA-05, but the Democratic challenger will enter with a 1,000 vote advantage. Suck it, CNN.
11:55 PM: Lest I be entirely a gloomy gus right now (and let's be clear, I'm still on a tremendous high just from "President-elect Obama"), let's look at some of the good news that's come out recently:
1) I think Obama will take both Indiana and North Carolina.
2) Democrats are poised to pick up both the VA-02 and the VA-05 -- the latter of which CNN erroneously called for incumbent Rep. Virgil Goode several hours ago.
3) New Mexico is now solid blue -- House, Senate, Governor, and President.
4) Franken still has plenty of votes to pick up in Hennepin (Minneapolis) and St. Louis (Duluth) counties.
11:53 PM: I think a lot of Democrats were taking Mary Jo Kilroy's election for granted in the Ohio 15th -- a problem, given that she's down 1,000 votes with 96% reported.
11:21 PM: Oh, and echoing the below point, there are going to be some disappointing losses for incumbents. And not even old, tired guys like Kanjorski, but promising new folks like Boyda (D-KS) and Cazayoux (D-LA) (the former is down, the latter is out). Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX) also went down in defeat.
11:19 PM: Not to be a downer, but I think we're going to leave quite a bit on the table down ticket. I'm not optimistic about Minnesota. I'm getting worried about Oregon. There have been a few House seats we've ended up on the wrong side on -- not just the long shots, but one's that we genuinely thought we could take.
I think my standards are too high.
11:15 PM: Obama is on tonight, but I think it is getting lost in the moment. There is a collective exhale, stemming from how important this day is, and not even Obama can rise above that.
10:56 PM: Just because I'm excited about Obama, don't think Minnesota will escape my wrath if it re-elects Coleman and Bachmann (and gives Paulsen the nod over Madia).
10:46 PM: I had forgotten entirely about ballot measures. The news doesn't look good, particularly for gay rights.. The California gay marriage ban has an early lead, but only 8% has reported. Arizona will likely ban gay marriage (a move which was defeated last cycle), and it will be joined by Florida, and Arkansas will likely ban gays from adopting children (which eventually has to be ruled unconstitutional.
Other issues are more of mixed bag. Washington looks to legalize physician assisted suicide, Michigan will allow medical marijuana, and Colorado will not define life as starting from conception. While Nebraska will ban affirmative action, it may be narrowly beaten back in Colorado. The parental notification law for abortion in California is polling dead even.
10:41 PM: Sen. Mary Landrieu has apparently held her Louisiana Senate seat. There will be no Senate-side pickups for the GOP (they have won a handful of house seats).
10:35 PM: Now that Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) has gone down in defeat, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) may take on the title of the ultimate Republican survivor. He's pulled back into the lead by 8 points in his southwestern Ohio district.
10:32 PM: McCain's concession speech was very pretty. I couldn't figure out what the crowd was yelling, though.
10:12 PM: Also problematic is Louisiana, which had fallen a bit below the radar. Sen. Mary Landrieu is up only 2 points with 82% of the vote in. We already lost a House seat in the Cajun State.
10:10 PM: The biggest nail-biter is looking to be the Minnesota Senate race between Norm Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D). Franken's sitting on a 2,500 vote lead with 28% in.
10:00 PM: It's been called: Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States.
9:53 PM: With 44% of the vote in, Frank Kravotil's 2,500 vote lead is the largest margin I've seen yet in the Maryland 1st. This would be another feel good pick up, as it's a direct result of the GOP's banishment of moderates.
9:49 PM: Almost as good as Obama winning, is watching the repellent Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) go down in flames. She's losing 58/42 with 59% in to Betsy Markey.
9:39 PM: Took them long enough. CNN moved the VA-05 back into toss-up land. Goode is down 700 votes with 3% outstanding. Of the six counties which have votes left to report, 4 are in Goode's camp (though nobody has much left on the table).
9:19 PM: Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-FL) looks like he's going down. Good. Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) might follow suit. No tears for him either, though a few might be warranted for having to say "Rep. Lou Barletta, crazy immigrant hater". The only truly saddening loss that's visible right now would be Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX), who took Tom DeLay's old seat but was always the underdog to retain it.
9:01 PM: Thus far, the House races have represented a Democratic cleanup of 2006, with the Donkey picking up a bunch of the seats we just missed last time around. The latest victim: New England's final Republican, Chris Shays (R-CT).
8:57 PM: It's always exciting when Maryland has a competitive race. Currently, we're witnessing a deadlock in the MD-01, where right-winger Andy Harris is struggling to retain this conservative seat in the face of strong Democratic head winds, his own extremism, and a tough opponent who was endorsed by the incumbent Republican Representative whom Harris knocked off.
8:40 PM: Projection fail: CNN still "projects" Virgil Goode to win in the VA-05. Unfortunately, he's currently down 2 points with 89% in. Charlottesville came through big time for Perriello (it's all in now). It's not locked down, and much of the remaining votes are in Goode territory, but it's definitely "too close to call".
8:35 PM: Ohio news ahead. First, CNN just called it for Ohio. That's big. On the House side, random district #1 (the 3rd) is now 52/48 for the GOP, but random district #2 (the 12th) is at 49/48 for the Democrats with 20% in. Finally, Rep. Steve Chabot's (R) perpetually endangered 1st district is, well, endangered, with the Democratic challenger currently sitting with 57% of the vote. However, that's pretty much all from early voting.
8:19 PM: All my friends have been freaking out about Virginia. I told them to chill. McCain is up 20,000 votes, with 2/3 of the vote in. A huge chunk of that is from Northern Virginia, where Obama will rout. Things are looking good there.
7:51 PM: Kentucky's Senate race continues to be deadlocked, even though Lunsford is not racking up huge margins in Jefferson County (Louisville). In fact, nobody seems to know exactly where he's doing well enough to hang with McConnell. I still predict a loss. Just more heartbreaking than predicted.
7:43 PM: In the Virginia 2nd (Drake), it's essentially deadlocked with 15% in. My intuition is that this race will be Norfolk (D) and Virginia Beach (R) duking it out for supremacy. But I'm not sure about that.
7:41 PM: Virgil Goode's political life depends on how lazy UVA students are. He's up by 12,500 votes with 62% in, Charlottesville hasn't reported at all.
7:23 PM: The first strange blip of the night comes from the OH-03, which was not on anyone's map. The Democrat is up 52-48 with 0% reporting ... but 58,000 votes cast sounds like more than 0% to me. I'll keep an eye on it.
7:16 PM: House races we won't win: IN-03, KY-02. Races that still look good: VA-05, everything competitive in NC. Charlottesville is where to look in the VA-05 (that's where UVA is), and if Rep. Virgil Goode loses in a year suffused with anti-Muslim paranoia, it'll be that much sweeter.
7:06 PM: It's still early in Florida, but just judging off the House returns, the D machine is in good shape. Obama is currently overshooting projections in several vote-rich, Democrat-rich counties.
7:01 PM: Deep breath: Maryland's been called for Obama.
6:54 PM: The Democratic wave might be so strong this year that Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-FL), who took over Mark Foley's seat only to have a whole slew of marital infidelities (including some pretty sketchy behavior) revealed, might managed to squeak out a win. Though it's a good sign about the broader trends in this race, I still hope he loses -- we don't need the seat, and we're better off without folks like him in our caucus.
6:35 PM: I'm hearing good things about Obama in Indiana. He's significantly outperforming Kerry's margins so far. Early returns in the Indiana 3rd (Souder) do not look great, but that race was a long shot anyway.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Ad Watching
My vote went out in the mail weeks ago, and was exactly for who you thought it would be in a state where it couldn't have made even a remote difference even if I had gotten a bit nifty. But here in Chicago, I've started to see a few political ads. One for Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who is up for re-election here and is sure to win it. One ad attacking Barack Obama for his affiliation with Jeremiah Wright -- obviously the GOP was going to go there eventually, and even if it is from an "independent" group I imagine the subtlety will be lost on the swath of swing voters who find those sorts of attacks distasteful. And there was one ad for Antoine Members, who is running against Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), and though you wouldn't know it from the ad or his campaign site, is a Republican. I imagine even the most entrenched Senate incumbents put out a few ads re-introducing themselves to the crowds, and national ads put out in Chicago undoubtedly hit the Northwestern Indiana region, so I'm going to pin down Members' ad as the most futile expenditure I've seen so far (the 1st District generally gives Democrats around 80% of the vote).
The War Within
Ezra Klein thinks the prevailing model of how racism might take the election away from Obama is non-sensical:
Not to be a cynic, but that's not even close. What folks are worrying about is the voter who has some racist tendencies but, being a good American, finds them shameful and wrong, and suppresses them. One way by which to affirm one's not racist status is to express support for Barack Obama -- and through that affirmation you can persuade yourself, too, that you're not a racist. The question, then, is whether these voters will be able to pull the trigger in the ballot box. This is a battle of psychology -- the racist id going to war with the rationalizing ego and super-ego -- and it will rage mostly beneath the surface and in code. The voter whose id wins out isn't going to say to himself "I'm sorry, but I just can't vote for a Black guy", he'll say "I'm sorry, but I just don't trust the guy."
That's not to say that everyone who is voting against Obama because they don't trust them is engaging in justification for latent racism. The point is merely to show that we could see a noticeable effect from racism reflected in the final polls, without thinking that folks have just been playing tricks on the pollsters. The tricks are being played in their own minds.
It's one thing to build a mental model of a quietly racist electorate. Under this hypothesis, McCain, a war hero and credible candidate, would see unnatural levels of support as voters who were turned off by Barack Obama's skin color pretended they were attracted to McCain's biography and political platform. But that's not evident in the polling -- or, if it is, it hasn't been enough to give McCain a lead. So instead, the model seems to be that a substantial slice of the electorate are prankster racists who have spent the campaign deceiving pollsters so that, come election day, they can trigger a McCain upset, destroying the credibility of random statistical sampling and really putting one over on liberals who thought this country would turn out for a black guy named Hussein. I guess that's possible, but it doesn't seem very likely.
Not to be a cynic, but that's not even close. What folks are worrying about is the voter who has some racist tendencies but, being a good American, finds them shameful and wrong, and suppresses them. One way by which to affirm one's not racist status is to express support for Barack Obama -- and through that affirmation you can persuade yourself, too, that you're not a racist. The question, then, is whether these voters will be able to pull the trigger in the ballot box. This is a battle of psychology -- the racist id going to war with the rationalizing ego and super-ego -- and it will rage mostly beneath the surface and in code. The voter whose id wins out isn't going to say to himself "I'm sorry, but I just can't vote for a Black guy", he'll say "I'm sorry, but I just don't trust the guy."
That's not to say that everyone who is voting against Obama because they don't trust them is engaging in justification for latent racism. The point is merely to show that we could see a noticeable effect from racism reflected in the final polls, without thinking that folks have just been playing tricks on the pollsters. The tricks are being played in their own minds.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Homophobic AFSCME Ad Against McConnell
The AFSCME labor union put up an ad insinuating that Kentucky Senator (and Minority Leader) Mitch McConnell (R) was discharged from the military for being gay (telling him it's time to be "straight" with Kentucky. Subtle). It was followed up by a flier that was even more explicit on the subject (it is unclear if the flier was put out by AFSCME as well). Regardless, it is horrible that a putatively progressive organization would try influence an election by stoking homophobia.
I want to beat McConnell. I don't like him, and the thought of a 60 seat Senate majority makes me giddy. But not like this.
If you want to give AFSCME a holler, here's the link.
I want to beat McConnell. I don't like him, and the thought of a 60 seat Senate majority makes me giddy. But not like this.
If you want to give AFSCME a holler, here's the link.
The Accidental Invasion
In the vein of Switzerland's accidental invasion of Liechtenstein last year, and the British attacking a Spanish fishing town a few years prior to that, now we see that the Mexicans have wandered across our very own southern border:
Oops! How humiliating! Or, for recognized crazy man Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), just another tell-tale sign of the ongoing apocalypse:
Happy weekend to everyone!
Seven members of the Mexican military were found inside the United States on Friday, telling border agents they had become disoriented while on patrol and accidentally crossed into the country, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said.
The incident began about 8 a.m. Friday, when the Border Patrol's Yuma, Arizona, sector was notified that a military-style Hummer was broken down, Customs and Border Patrol said in a written statement.
Agents said they found the vehicle about 200 yards from the Colorado River, and the seven individuals were dressed in military-style clothing. Customs and Border Patrol later determined that the troops' entry was unauthorized.
U.S. agents told the Mexican troops they were inside the United States and "peaceably" took them into custody, the statement said. "At no time were any hostilities exchanged between the agents and military officials."
The Hummer was equipped with a turret-mounted machine gun, the Border Patrol said.
According to Customs and Border Patrol, the soldiers were assigned to the 23rd Regiment Motorized Cavalry of the Mexican Army. The soldiers said they believed that they were still in Mexico because they remained on the south side of a newly constructed border fence.
Oops! How humiliating! Or, for recognized crazy man Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), just another tell-tale sign of the ongoing apocalypse:
"This is not an uncommon occurrence," Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, told CNN. "Often times, it is the result of the Mexican military providing cover essentially for drug transportation across into our country, and/or creating a diversion so it will draw our people away from the place where the drugs are coming across."
Happy weekend to everyone!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Too Much Credit
I may have been too kind to Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) the other day, when I jokingly interpreted a CNN headline as him claiming to have been "vindicated" by a federal jury convicting him of seven counts of corruption. But no, he's going there, claiming that he has "not been convicted yet", a point he reiterated in a debate with Democratic candidate Mark Begich: "I have not been convicted of anything."
It's like Alaska politicians don't even comprehend the meaning of investigation. First Gov. Palin, and now this? It's utterly bizarre.
Alaskan Dave Noon translates for the rest of us lowlanders.
It's like Alaska politicians don't even comprehend the meaning of investigation. First Gov. Palin, and now this? It's utterly bizarre.
Alaskan Dave Noon translates for the rest of us lowlanders.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Bargaining Power
46% of Florida voters think "violent" is a good descriptor of Blacks, but large majorities also find them "dependable" and "hard working". As Ta-Nehisi Coates remarks, that sounds like a recipe for a raise, if anything.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
I Call it a Win
The CNN headline says "Stevens sees vindication". What they mean, of course, is that Stevens is promising he'll be exonerated upon appeal. But what I preferred to interpret it to mean is him pulling a Sarah Palin, and claiming that the jury verdict which convicted him of eight counts of corruption actually showed he was perfectly ethical at all times.
Daughter of a Slave Votes for Obama
It's hard not to smile at this. It's amazing that we are still that close to the emancipation proclamation (not to mention Jim Crow barbarity).
I Know Who You Know
Gov. Sarah Palin: "It seems that there is yet another radical professor from the neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama," referring to Columbia University professor (formerly at the U of C) Rashid Khalidi.
Look, any politician who spent time in public life is going to have some unsavory associations. For example, I hear John McCain is well acquainted with a pathological liar who is out on the campaign trail building yet another bridge to nowhere. Such is politics.
Anyway, as far as I can see, Prof. Khalidi seems rather tame (although not someone with whom I would necessarily agree with). What he does have is a few superficial signifiers that might make some Jews uneasy -- being part of Columbia University's Middle East Studies program (which is a war zone between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine forces), and the fact that his endowed chair is named after Edward Said. But he was not, as the McCain campaign is saying, a spokesperson for the PLO, and most of his active criticism of Israel has come at the level of policies which are certainly in-bounds to be criticized (even if I disagree with the particulars).
Look, any politician who spent time in public life is going to have some unsavory associations. For example, I hear John McCain is well acquainted with a pathological liar who is out on the campaign trail building yet another bridge to nowhere. Such is politics.
Anyway, as far as I can see, Prof. Khalidi seems rather tame (although not someone with whom I would necessarily agree with). What he does have is a few superficial signifiers that might make some Jews uneasy -- being part of Columbia University's Middle East Studies program (which is a war zone between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine forces), and the fact that his endowed chair is named after Edward Said. But he was not, as the McCain campaign is saying, a spokesperson for the PLO, and most of his active criticism of Israel has come at the level of policies which are certainly in-bounds to be criticized (even if I disagree with the particulars).
Civil Rights Roundup: 11/29/08
Your daily dose of civil rights and related news
The White House is asking its (now totally apolitical!) Justice Department to hamper 200,000 Ohio residents from voting.
Black voters are really nervous about the integrity of this election.
A Black Brazilian immigrant gets a lesson in racism upon arriving in America.
Lawyers have finally secured access to a top-secret Guantanamo Bay camp where we hold high-ranking terrorist suspects.
The total number of hate crimes dropped slightly this year, with falls in race and religion-based attacks making up for rises in targeting based on sexual orientation and ethnicity/national origin. As far as I can tell, this means we're no longer hating based on being Black or Muslim, now the problem is being Gay or Latino.
It's also not a great time to be a Jew.
A judge in Ohio has required the state to allow the homeless to register with addresses that are not buildings.
The LA Times calls for the re-enfranchisement of ex-felons.
Anita Hill (of all people!) says racial amnesia may be the cure for our racial ills.
Nearly 20% of New York City's Asian population lives in poverty.
Criminals are targeting illegal immigrants, whom they see as easy marks because they're afraid to go to the police.
The 11th Circuit upheld sectarian prayer hosted by local governmental agencies, so long as the process was open to people of all faith backgrounds. Amazingly, this is actually an improvement over the 4th Circuit, which held that the state could host prayers and then proactively exclude those from disfavored minority faiths.
An Orthodox Catholic group is protesting Fordham University (a Jesuit school) giving an ethics award to pro-choice Justice Stephen Breyer.
The White House is asking its (now totally apolitical!) Justice Department to hamper 200,000 Ohio residents from voting.
Black voters are really nervous about the integrity of this election.
A Black Brazilian immigrant gets a lesson in racism upon arriving in America.
Lawyers have finally secured access to a top-secret Guantanamo Bay camp where we hold high-ranking terrorist suspects.
The total number of hate crimes dropped slightly this year, with falls in race and religion-based attacks making up for rises in targeting based on sexual orientation and ethnicity/national origin. As far as I can tell, this means we're no longer hating based on being Black or Muslim, now the problem is being Gay or Latino.
It's also not a great time to be a Jew.
A judge in Ohio has required the state to allow the homeless to register with addresses that are not buildings.
The LA Times calls for the re-enfranchisement of ex-felons.
Anita Hill (of all people!) says racial amnesia may be the cure for our racial ills.
Nearly 20% of New York City's Asian population lives in poverty.
Criminals are targeting illegal immigrants, whom they see as easy marks because they're afraid to go to the police.
The 11th Circuit upheld sectarian prayer hosted by local governmental agencies, so long as the process was open to people of all faith backgrounds. Amazingly, this is actually an improvement over the 4th Circuit, which held that the state could host prayers and then proactively exclude those from disfavored minority faiths.
An Orthodox Catholic group is protesting Fordham University (a Jesuit school) giving an ethics award to pro-choice Justice Stephen Breyer.
Dreadful Jury
Seriously, y'all need to stop giving me these cases, if only to check my terrible puns. Anyway, the Supreme Court of South Carolina has ruled 3-2 that an attorney striking a juror on account of his dreadlocks constituted an impermissible race-based challenge and is unconstitutional. Courts have been rather resistant to protecting so-called "performative" aspects of one's racial identity, which is a problem, because race-linked cultural tags provide an easy way to circumvent anti-discrimination protections while still claiming to be following the letter of the law.
Even if one is not consciously trying to game the system, in an environment where it is "wrong" to hold negative opinions of people by virtue of the race, those sort of sentiments will be shifted towards "acceptable" prejudices that serve much the same function. "I don't dislike the juror because he's Black, I dislike him because he has dreadlocks" serves as psychological rationale that lets one maintain their status as a good person. If the man didn't wear dreadlocks, it would be something else (baggy clothes, afros, rap music). And for those African-American folks who have nothing tagging themselves as Black to the outside world -- well, sometimes they'll make it through (proof that we're fair after all), and sometimes we'll simply fall back on flimsier abstracts ("he just didn't feel right to me").
There's an extent to which this is all unavoidable. But there's also an extent to which we can clearly say "the law doesn't have to help". If people are going to use proxies to actualize their prejudices, at the very least we can make them be more creative about it.
Even if one is not consciously trying to game the system, in an environment where it is "wrong" to hold negative opinions of people by virtue of the race, those sort of sentiments will be shifted towards "acceptable" prejudices that serve much the same function. "I don't dislike the juror because he's Black, I dislike him because he has dreadlocks" serves as psychological rationale that lets one maintain their status as a good person. If the man didn't wear dreadlocks, it would be something else (baggy clothes, afros, rap music). And for those African-American folks who have nothing tagging themselves as Black to the outside world -- well, sometimes they'll make it through (proof that we're fair after all), and sometimes we'll simply fall back on flimsier abstracts ("he just didn't feel right to me").
There's an extent to which this is all unavoidable. But there's also an extent to which we can clearly say "the law doesn't have to help". If people are going to use proxies to actualize their prejudices, at the very least we can make them be more creative about it.
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Racialization of False Accusations
As the echo of Ashley Todd's false claim of being assaulted by a Black Obama supporter fades into the political background, I found in interesting to observe how the incident was racialized. There did not seem to be any doubt amongst the commentariat that this was an effort to spark a racial response in the electorate. But Ms. Todd's actions were not seen as a signifier or example of White character as a whole. Her accusation was not something "they" (White people) do. It was a "callback" to a bygone era, or it was an aberration from general White practice.
Contrast that to how, for example, the fictive claims in the Duke Lacrosse case, or Tawana Brawley, were treated. They were racialized as well, but unlike Ms. Todd they were used to make broad, sweeping statements about what "they" (Black people) do with regards to putative racism -- namely, just make stuff up. It was not seen as exceptional, or aberrational. It was a valid measuring stick from which to look at all claims of racialized White-on-Black violence.
The instinct, I feel, in Ms. Todd's case was the proper one. Take note of how race is being used by the perpetrator of the fraud to create a certain reaction, and condemn those who exploit that sentiment without proper verification. But don't impute the event wholesale onto the entire race. White folks do not want Ms. Todd's frame-up to become the standard by which we are measured. But fair is fair -- if we want the benefit of the doubt, we have to give it when faced with parallel situations on the other side of the racial divide.
Contrast that to how, for example, the fictive claims in the Duke Lacrosse case, or Tawana Brawley, were treated. They were racialized as well, but unlike Ms. Todd they were used to make broad, sweeping statements about what "they" (Black people) do with regards to putative racism -- namely, just make stuff up. It was not seen as exceptional, or aberrational. It was a valid measuring stick from which to look at all claims of racialized White-on-Black violence.
The instinct, I feel, in Ms. Todd's case was the proper one. Take note of how race is being used by the perpetrator of the fraud to create a certain reaction, and condemn those who exploit that sentiment without proper verification. But don't impute the event wholesale onto the entire race. White folks do not want Ms. Todd's frame-up to become the standard by which we are measured. But fair is fair -- if we want the benefit of the doubt, we have to give it when faced with parallel situations on the other side of the racial divide.
Stevens Guilty On All Counts
The prosecution did its level best to botch the case, but nonetheless a jury has found Alaska Senator Ted Stevens guilty on all seven counts of his federal corruption trial.
Sen. Stevens indicated that he will seek a new trial. My guess is that the amount of screw-ups in the prosecution's handling of the case will, at the very least, keep them tied up in appeals for years. Even still, this is hardly good news for his re-election chances.
Sen. Stevens indicated that he will seek a new trial. My guess is that the amount of screw-ups in the prosecution's handling of the case will, at the very least, keep them tied up in appeals for years. Even still, this is hardly good news for his re-election chances.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Backyard Brawl
The Anchorage Daily News endorses Obama -- a development that is utterly meaningless but for the deliciousness of it all.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Second Verse, Same as the First
One of the few serious disagreements I had with the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights was about the infamous Durban anti-racism conference held in 2001. The LCCR was an integral player in getting it set up, and pushed quite hard for the US to participate, while at the same time working from the other end to tamp down on the rampant anti-Semitism and make it into an event worth working with. In the end, they achieved neither goal -- the US bailed and the conference was rife with vicious anti-Semitic activity. But I found out this summer that a sequel to Durban is on the horizon. My opinion was that the event was damaged beyond repair and it would be better to let the thing die. But the word I got was that the LCCR appears willing to jump once more into the breach and try and save the conference from itself.
Unfortunately, early indicators look like I had the right instincts. A variety of NGOs are already raising alarms that the conference's tenor is, once again, going to focus solely on Israel as the supreme global purveyor of evil and darkness, and resurrect long abandoned notions that the Israeli state is facially illegitimate and primarily (if not solely) at fault for the conflict with the Palestinians. The worrisome motions are being pushed by the Asia region states, as well as the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
The NGOs are fighting to derail these motions, but I doubt they will succeed. Not only do the two groups in question comprise a lot of states, but they also are nations which wield disproportionate influence upon the various non-aligned states, making it a difficult alliance to counter. Jews, whose global influence tends to come more in the non-existent mysterious cabal form, once again stand ready to learn a lesson about how much easier international power politics is when you represent hundreds of millions of people and huge swaths of the world's land mass and resources.
Leaflet circulated at the Durban I NGO conference. By contrast, even mild messages in support of Israel were expelled by conference organizers.
Unfortunately, early indicators look like I had the right instincts. A variety of NGOs are already raising alarms that the conference's tenor is, once again, going to focus solely on Israel as the supreme global purveyor of evil and darkness, and resurrect long abandoned notions that the Israeli state is facially illegitimate and primarily (if not solely) at fault for the conflict with the Palestinians. The worrisome motions are being pushed by the Asia region states, as well as the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
The NGOs are fighting to derail these motions, but I doubt they will succeed. Not only do the two groups in question comprise a lot of states, but they also are nations which wield disproportionate influence upon the various non-aligned states, making it a difficult alliance to counter. Jews, whose global influence tends to come more in the non-existent mysterious cabal form, once again stand ready to learn a lesson about how much easier international power politics is when you represent hundreds of millions of people and huge swaths of the world's land mass and resources.
Leaflet circulated at the Durban I NGO conference. By contrast, even mild messages in support of Israel were expelled by conference organizers.
Wilson Execution Stayed
The 11th Circuit has stayed the execution of Troy Wilson. I grappled with some of the issues surrounding Mr. Wilson's potential innocence here. Recall that the U.S. Supreme Court gave a stay to Mr. Wilson earlier, only to later reject his appeal. So don't get your hopes up.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Those LAPD Profiling Stats
I flagged this study by Yale law professor Ian Ayres in the civil rights roundup [The link in which I've now fixed -- DS], but I just wanted to block quote some of the findings:
The LAPD, of course, isusing the study as an impetus for much needed reform hotly contesting the validity of the numbers. Some of their objections are methodological, ones I think Prof. Ayres dispatches quite handily. But several betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what this sort of finding means, and demonstrates how the "are you calling me a racist!?!!?" reaction acts to stifle really important and necessary discussions.
The police representatives say, basically, that the study is flawed because a) it does not account for the race of the stopping officer and b) data cannot tell us what individual officers are thinking when they make any given decision to stop or frisk a suspect. Both of these objections operate from the same basic thought, which is basically that the purported conclusion of this report is that the LAPD is racist, that racism is purely a function of the state of mind of a particular actor, and that raw data can't provide that information and in any event it is patently absurd to think that, say, Black officers have racist views towards other Blacks.
Now, Prof. Ayres said that he did, actually, find that the racial disparities in rates of arrest did fall somewhat when at least one of the arresting officers was of the same race as the suspect. This, he points out, is bad news, because it indicates that the disparities may be attributable to racial bias. But, he goes further, that really isn't the point of the study -- it makes no claim as to the state of mind of any or all of the arresting officers. The point is to demonstrate that, whatever is driving the policing policies in Los Angeles, they are falling on Black and Latino persons far more than can be at all justified by legitimate policing goals. That's a problem regardless of what is in brains of the officers when they are making the decisions, and regardless of what race the arresting officer is.
What Prof. Ayres research shows, if anything, is that intention is not a necessary component to demonstrating a racially unjust distribution of effects. Responding to this type of data with flailing assertions about it's all meaningless because intent is missing prevents these really rather simple insights from getting into the public consciousness. I might say that intent or foreseeability is a component of moral culpability, and without knowing the state of mind of any individual LAPD officer I cannot justly label them bad persons. But showing that the systematic distribution of effects is improperly skewed so as to unfairly burden certain racial groups is sufficient to show that an injustice is present, and impel upon society a duty to rectify it.
Related Posts:
The Profile, 8/18/07
"Fit the Description", 12/14/06
We found persistent and statistically significant racial disparities in policing that raise grave concerns that African Americans and Latinos in Los Angeles are, as we put it in the report, "over-stopped, over-frisked, over-searched and over-arrested." After controlling for violent crime rates and property crime rates in specific neighborhoods, as well as a host of other variables, we found the following:
For every 10,000 residents, about 3,400 more black people are stopped than whites, and 360 more Latinos are stopped than whites. Stopped blacks are 127% more likely to be frisked -- and stopped Latinos are 43% more likely to be frisked -- than stopped whites.
Stopped blacks are 76% more likely to be searched, and stopped Latinos are 16% more likely to be searched than stopped whites.
Stopped blacks are 29% more likely to be arrested, and stopped Latinos are 32% more likely to be arrested than stopped whites.
Now consider this: Although stopped blacks were 127% more likely to be frisked than stopped whites, they were 42.3% less likely to be found with a weapon after they were frisked, 25% less likely to be found with drugs and 33% less likely to be found with other contraband. We found similar patterns for Latinos.
Not only did we find that African Americans and Latinos were subjected to more stops, frisks, searches and arrests than whites, we also found that these additional police actions aren't because of the fact that people of color live in higher-crime areas or because they more often carry drugs or weapons, or any other legitimate reason that we can discern from the rich set of data we examined.
The LAPD, of course, is
The police representatives say, basically, that the study is flawed because a) it does not account for the race of the stopping officer and b) data cannot tell us what individual officers are thinking when they make any given decision to stop or frisk a suspect. Both of these objections operate from the same basic thought, which is basically that the purported conclusion of this report is that the LAPD is racist, that racism is purely a function of the state of mind of a particular actor, and that raw data can't provide that information and in any event it is patently absurd to think that, say, Black officers have racist views towards other Blacks.
Now, Prof. Ayres said that he did, actually, find that the racial disparities in rates of arrest did fall somewhat when at least one of the arresting officers was of the same race as the suspect. This, he points out, is bad news, because it indicates that the disparities may be attributable to racial bias. But, he goes further, that really isn't the point of the study -- it makes no claim as to the state of mind of any or all of the arresting officers. The point is to demonstrate that, whatever is driving the policing policies in Los Angeles, they are falling on Black and Latino persons far more than can be at all justified by legitimate policing goals. That's a problem regardless of what is in brains of the officers when they are making the decisions, and regardless of what race the arresting officer is.
What Prof. Ayres research shows, if anything, is that intention is not a necessary component to demonstrating a racially unjust distribution of effects. Responding to this type of data with flailing assertions about it's all meaningless because intent is missing prevents these really rather simple insights from getting into the public consciousness. I might say that intent or foreseeability is a component of moral culpability, and without knowing the state of mind of any individual LAPD officer I cannot justly label them bad persons. But showing that the systematic distribution of effects is improperly skewed so as to unfairly burden certain racial groups is sufficient to show that an injustice is present, and impel upon society a duty to rectify it.
Related Posts:
The Profile, 8/18/07
"Fit the Description", 12/14/06
Civil Rights Roundup: 10/23/08
Your daily dose of civil rights and related news
Breath-taking results from a study by Ian Ayres on racial profiling by the LAPD. I'm probably going to write a separate post on this one -- the data is jaw-dropping.
The polls on Proposition 8 have been narrowing, and it looks like the right to gay marriage will go down to the wire.
Three Jews, Four Opinions has a good perspective on how Jews concerned about Halakah should approach issues like same-sex marriage.
ACORN is fighting back against smears that it is (among other things) destroying the fabric of democracy.
America wastes the talents of immigrants with college and professional degrees. One in five college educated immigrants are either unemployed or in unskilled professions, and the problem persists even when the field is restricted to those here legally. Unsurprising note: Highly educated African and Latino immigrants fare worse than their Asian and European peers.
The number of low-income families in America has risen by 350,000.
The EU parliament has given a prestigious human rights award to a Chinese democracy proponent, in direct rebuke to the ruling Communist regime.
The Senate is trying to get the number of foreclosures under control in exchange for the massive bailout money the banks are getting from the federal government.
A federal court is preparing to rule on the propriety of citizenship tests for voters.
In Wisconsin, the forces who care about voter suppression (Democrats) gear up to do battle against those who care more about voter fraud (Republicans).
Though it has been trying to make some reforms, the system for re-enfranchising ex-felons in Florida remains seriously broken.
The Government Accountability Office blasted the civil rights record of the USDA, saying it was unresponsive to reports of discrimination and suggesting it be brought under external oversight.
The British High Court wants to see documents which might verify whether a British Guantanamo detainee was tortured.
Breath-taking results from a study by Ian Ayres on racial profiling by the LAPD. I'm probably going to write a separate post on this one -- the data is jaw-dropping.
The polls on Proposition 8 have been narrowing, and it looks like the right to gay marriage will go down to the wire.
Three Jews, Four Opinions has a good perspective on how Jews concerned about Halakah should approach issues like same-sex marriage.
ACORN is fighting back against smears that it is (among other things) destroying the fabric of democracy.
America wastes the talents of immigrants with college and professional degrees. One in five college educated immigrants are either unemployed or in unskilled professions, and the problem persists even when the field is restricted to those here legally. Unsurprising note: Highly educated African and Latino immigrants fare worse than their Asian and European peers.
The number of low-income families in America has risen by 350,000.
The EU parliament has given a prestigious human rights award to a Chinese democracy proponent, in direct rebuke to the ruling Communist regime.
The Senate is trying to get the number of foreclosures under control in exchange for the massive bailout money the banks are getting from the federal government.
A federal court is preparing to rule on the propriety of citizenship tests for voters.
In Wisconsin, the forces who care about voter suppression (Democrats) gear up to do battle against those who care more about voter fraud (Republicans).
Though it has been trying to make some reforms, the system for re-enfranchising ex-felons in Florida remains seriously broken.
The Government Accountability Office blasted the civil rights record of the USDA, saying it was unresponsive to reports of discrimination and suggesting it be brought under external oversight.
The British High Court wants to see documents which might verify whether a British Guantanamo detainee was tortured.
Cotton Eye Joe
The correspondence of a certain confused LGM reader, who goes off on a rant about how horrifying socialism is and how the country is divided between hard working Americans and lazy moochers of the public dole, would be funny enough in its own right. But tack on the fact that her example of her membership in the ranks of the independent, don't need no government, work for a living crowd is her successful cotton farming operation, just adds a whole new level of hilarity.
For those curious, the amount America spends on (illegal, under international trade agreements) cotton subsidies is $3 billion yearly.
In related confusion about what socialism is, Mark Olson explains that while Barack Obama is not, technically, a socialist, under a more "casual" usage of the term he is, in fact, socialist, because on the continuum of government regulation he is somewhat closer to actual socialism than the speakers making the allegation. There is, of course, incongruity of labeling tax cuts for most Americans (but hiking top income rates from 36% to 39%) socialism, but identifying massive government buyouts and bailouts of entire industries and nationalizing the means of production as, well, something else. But even casting that aside, if Barack Obama is socialist under a definition by which we could call the Cato Institute "socialist" because it is more interventionist than Murray Rothbard, or the Bush administration is legitimately "fascist" because it is more relaxed about civil liberties than the Democratic Party, then it's hard for me to get all worked up about it.
For those curious, the amount America spends on (illegal, under international trade agreements) cotton subsidies is $3 billion yearly.
In related confusion about what socialism is, Mark Olson explains that while Barack Obama is not, technically, a socialist, under a more "casual" usage of the term he is, in fact, socialist, because on the continuum of government regulation he is somewhat closer to actual socialism than the speakers making the allegation. There is, of course, incongruity of labeling tax cuts for most Americans (but hiking top income rates from 36% to 39%) socialism, but identifying massive government buyouts and bailouts of entire industries and nationalizing the means of production as, well, something else. But even casting that aside, if Barack Obama is socialist under a definition by which we could call the Cato Institute "socialist" because it is more interventionist than Murray Rothbard, or the Bush administration is legitimately "fascist" because it is more relaxed about civil liberties than the Democratic Party, then it's hard for me to get all worked up about it.
Pat Buchanan and Tom Tancredo's Steamy Love Affair!
Not really. But Austria appears to have its equivalent going down:
Via LGM
The successor of the Austrian far-right leader Jörg Haider was dismissed yesterday after he revealed a “special” relationship “far beyond” friendship with his former mentor.
In emotional interviews with the national broadcaster and a tabloid newspaper Stefan Petzner spoke openly about his affair with Haider, who died at the age of 58 in a high-speed car crash after heavy drinking session at a gay club this month. Haider’s party, the Alliance for the Future of Austria, captured 11 per cent of the vote in national elections last month .
“He was the man of my life. Our relationship went far beyond friendship,” Mr Petzner, 27, said after only a week in the job, adding that Haider’s wife, Claudia, 52, “did not object” to their relationship.
Via LGM
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Wardrobe Malfunction
One of the hot button issues of the day is Sarah Palin's $150,000 wardrobe, and whether she has to pay income taxes on it. To my ears, the real question is whether it is a just state of affairs where female politicians have to spend so much more on their personal appearance than their male counterparts. One tactful columnist had the following to say:
To my mind, the burden being put on Gov. Palin is just an extreme version of the Jespersen dilemma. Jespersen was a female bartender working for Harrah's who was forced, under new grooming regulations, to wear makeup to her job. This imposed an additional hurdle to her entering the workforce: though men also had grooming requirements, they were generally less expensive to maintain than those given to women. In such a case, women are being penalized upon entering the workforce solely for being women: that second X chromosome means that they can be required to shell out more as a threshold requirement before they are allowed to compete for the same job men are going after. Likewise, Gov. Palin, because she's a woman, has to spend a lot more time and resources on her attire and appearance before she can compete as an equal in the political arena.
From a feminist perspective (which wants Gov. Palin to lose, but not because she is hobbled from competing as a woman), there are two angles of attack on this. On the one hand, you could indict the norms of appearance that require so much more out of women than men. Alternatively, one could (perhaps provisionally) accept those norms, and demand offsets so that the costs of their enforcement do not fall on women but on some other party. For example, if Harrah's Casino wants to demand women alter their appearance above and beyond their requirements for men, it could be forced to pay for the difference in value (I imagine if that requirement did exist, the gender-differential would be eliminated quite rapidly).
How it works in cases like this, where nobody is "forcing" Gov. Palin to spend so much on her clothes, but there is a generalized knowledge that if she didn't pay that extra attention, she'd be political toast, is more complicated. But the income tax question gives a hint. Regardless of whether Gov. Palin is correct in asserting that she does not have to pay taxes on her "borrowed" wardrobe is right as a matter of current law, one could argue that creating such an exception, by mitigating the cost of additional clothing (at least on the candidate) would help alleviate some of the burdens our gendered appearance norms currently place on female politicians. It wouldn't eliminate it entirely, as it still would cost more for Parties to run these candidates, but it would at least make a dent. A purist might also feel feminists advocating for such a rule would be capitulating to the legitimacy of the underlying gendered-appearance sentiment, which is what really has to be taken apart for gender equality to be obtained (that was the first approach I outlined). But advocates for this plan might respond that we can't wait for a revolution that might never arrive, and in the meantime provisionally accepting the realities of ingrained sexism, and working to mitigate their impact, is the best that can be hoped for (a Derrick Bell style argument).
All of which goes to show how deeply entrenched patriarchal norms continue to have an impact today, even against the most elite and accomplished female figures.
Today’s big So What: It cost $150,000 to dress Republican Sarah Palin. It is all about image in politics.
A killer presidential candidate needs killer clothes. Democrat Hillary Clinton wore cheesy polyester pantsuits. If she shelled out a few bucks on something you couldn’t get at Kmart, she might be president...
Women are supposed to look good and smell nice. The reason that Democrat John Edwards was mocked for his $400 haircuts was it was a girlish vanity. The “I Feel Pretty” video aims at his masculinity. The song is sung by a girl.
A double standard? You betcha.
To my mind, the burden being put on Gov. Palin is just an extreme version of the Jespersen dilemma. Jespersen was a female bartender working for Harrah's who was forced, under new grooming regulations, to wear makeup to her job. This imposed an additional hurdle to her entering the workforce: though men also had grooming requirements, they were generally less expensive to maintain than those given to women. In such a case, women are being penalized upon entering the workforce solely for being women: that second X chromosome means that they can be required to shell out more as a threshold requirement before they are allowed to compete for the same job men are going after. Likewise, Gov. Palin, because she's a woman, has to spend a lot more time and resources on her attire and appearance before she can compete as an equal in the political arena.
From a feminist perspective (which wants Gov. Palin to lose, but not because she is hobbled from competing as a woman), there are two angles of attack on this. On the one hand, you could indict the norms of appearance that require so much more out of women than men. Alternatively, one could (perhaps provisionally) accept those norms, and demand offsets so that the costs of their enforcement do not fall on women but on some other party. For example, if Harrah's Casino wants to demand women alter their appearance above and beyond their requirements for men, it could be forced to pay for the difference in value (I imagine if that requirement did exist, the gender-differential would be eliminated quite rapidly).
How it works in cases like this, where nobody is "forcing" Gov. Palin to spend so much on her clothes, but there is a generalized knowledge that if she didn't pay that extra attention, she'd be political toast, is more complicated. But the income tax question gives a hint. Regardless of whether Gov. Palin is correct in asserting that she does not have to pay taxes on her "borrowed" wardrobe is right as a matter of current law, one could argue that creating such an exception, by mitigating the cost of additional clothing (at least on the candidate) would help alleviate some of the burdens our gendered appearance norms currently place on female politicians. It wouldn't eliminate it entirely, as it still would cost more for Parties to run these candidates, but it would at least make a dent. A purist might also feel feminists advocating for such a rule would be capitulating to the legitimacy of the underlying gendered-appearance sentiment, which is what really has to be taken apart for gender equality to be obtained (that was the first approach I outlined). But advocates for this plan might respond that we can't wait for a revolution that might never arrive, and in the meantime provisionally accepting the realities of ingrained sexism, and working to mitigate their impact, is the best that can be hoped for (a Derrick Bell style argument).
All of which goes to show how deeply entrenched patriarchal norms continue to have an impact today, even against the most elite and accomplished female figures.
Bureau of Prisons Bans Shackling Pregnant Women
The Bureau of Prisons has barred the shackling of pregnant inmates during transportation, labor, and delivery. Recall that a recent case out of Arkansas held that such acts did not violate the 8th amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. That was a state law, and this is a federal rule, so it wouldn't have applied in the particular case (unless it changed the calculus behind the ever-shifting "cruel and unusual" standard), but it does give human dignity advocates some desperately needed legal momentum.
Up and Down at UM
After the first year of barring race-conscious programs at public universities in Michigan, the local press has begun to examine the fall-out. Basically, the stats are mixed, but the upshot is that minority enrollment shifted to lower-ranked schools, and higher ranked programs are having trouble attracting even qualified minority applicants because their scholarship programs also had to be discontinued. One interesting outcome (though it might be statistical noise) is that minority enrollment dropped even at schools that did not previously use race conscious admissions procedures.
Also, interesting article given the topic: Richard Lempert, David Chambers, & Terry Adams, Michigan's Minority Graduates in Practice: The River Runs Through Law School, 25 L. & Soc. Inquiry 395 (2000). Basically, it surveyed the history of minority Michigan law students admitted under affirmative action programs, in terms of their success after graduation. The results? Under every metric measured, these students performed equal to their White peers.
But remember, they weren't qualified to be there.
Also, interesting article given the topic: Richard Lempert, David Chambers, & Terry Adams, Michigan's Minority Graduates in Practice: The River Runs Through Law School, 25 L. & Soc. Inquiry 395 (2000). Basically, it surveyed the history of minority Michigan law students admitted under affirmative action programs, in terms of their success after graduation. The results? Under every metric measured, these students performed equal to their White peers.
But remember, they weren't qualified to be there.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
FYI: It Still Won't Have Been Tried
Actual socialists know: Barack Obama ain't no socialist.
Via Ta-Nehisi Coates.
I remember reading that the head of the American Communist Party was asked by a reporter if "FDR's New Deal carried out the communist platform?"
The man responded: "Yeah, on a stretcher."
These are hard times to be a socialist in America. And not just because there's a bourgeois-bloated Starbucks on every other corner, thumbing its capitalist nose at the proletariat.
No, it's tough these days because you've got politicians on the right, the same guys who just helped nationalize the banking system, derisively and inaccurately calling the presidential candidate on the left a socialist. That's enough to make Karl Marx harumph in his grave.
Local communists, rarely tapped as campaign pundits, say Sen. Barack Obama and his policies stand far afield from any form of socialism they know.
John Bachtell, the Illinois organizer for Communist Party USA, sees attempts by Sen. John McCain's campaign to label Obama a socialist as both offensive to socialists and a desperate ploy to tap into fears of voters who haven't forgotten their Cold War rhetoric.
Via Ta-Nehisi Coates.
I remember reading that the head of the American Communist Party was asked by a reporter if "FDR's New Deal carried out the communist platform?"
The man responded: "Yeah, on a stretcher."
Monday, October 20, 2008
Democrats Love Superior Firepower
If Barack Obama advertised in video games. I particularly like the huge-ass tank with "HOPE" emblazoned on the side.
Also, McCain's video game ads.
Also, McCain's video game ads.
Prosecutor Speaks in the Troy Davis Case
Former federal judge, now law professor Paul Cassell links to the prosecutor's account of what happened in the Troy Davis case. You may know about his case: After being convicted of murdering a police officer, Davis has been pursuing a new trial ever since seven of nine non-police witnesses against him recanted their testimony, basically saying they were coerced into giving their statements by the cops.
There's a lot of hand waving going on here, but basically the reliability of the recantations comes down to whether or not you think it is more likely that witnesses are subject to intimidation by police investigators, or by groups like Amnesty International investigating potential wrongful convictions. My default stance is to be suspicious of unrecorded police questioning in Black on White crimes in Georgia. The affadavits Amnesty provides are compelling to me because of their consistency -- they all give very similar accounts of police harassment, and come back to a consistent theme that the police wouldn't let the witnesses leave until they said what the police wanted to hear.
For his part, the prosecutor, Spencer Lawton, actually uses the 80% recantation rate as evidence in favor of collusion and manipulation. He raises the specter of anti-death penalty forces coming in, long after the event in question, and basically guilting the witnesses with the specter that their testimony may be putting an innocent man in prison. Is it possible you don't remember clearly? Are you sure that Davis is the shooter?
The problem with this defense is that it doesn't match up with the affidavits Amnesty actually obtained. They're not, by and large, based off fuzzy memories or unclear recollection of the events in question. They, nearly without exception, are premised off police intimidation to get certain testimony -- something unlikely to be that fuzzy and not premised off any difficulty in remembering the events of the murder. Lawton notes that the witnesses were questioned about this at trial and did not say anything about intimidation. But at trial the police threats (if they so happened) were likely to be fresh in the witnesses mind, and going against one's sworn statement raises the prospect of a perjury investigation (something which, if I were a sleazy cop, would be sure to remind my cowed witnesses of after they signed the document).
The other part of Lawton's argument, which is a bit more subtextual, is that the affidavits were acquired by groups with an anti-law and order agenda in general, who are motivated simply by blanket opposition to the death penalty. The problem is that Amnesty appears to have worked quite hard to acquire statements implicating another man in the crime. Opposition to the death penalty hardly seems consistent with trying to get another person convicted of capital murder (although they could hope that the new suspect would not get a death sentence).
All of this really just points back to my current, long-standing intuition about the death penalty. Our system is so badly broken that there is really no way that it can imposed in a fair and just manner, where we can be sufficiently assured of the defendant's guilt. When, for example, there isn't that essential trust that the police won't try and coerce testimony -- particularly when the victim was another officer -- it is simply impossible to evaluate the reliability of trial testimony in the face of future recantations. In such an environment, the death penalty cannot be justly put into practice.
There's a lot of hand waving going on here, but basically the reliability of the recantations comes down to whether or not you think it is more likely that witnesses are subject to intimidation by police investigators, or by groups like Amnesty International investigating potential wrongful convictions. My default stance is to be suspicious of unrecorded police questioning in Black on White crimes in Georgia. The affadavits Amnesty provides are compelling to me because of their consistency -- they all give very similar accounts of police harassment, and come back to a consistent theme that the police wouldn't let the witnesses leave until they said what the police wanted to hear.
For his part, the prosecutor, Spencer Lawton, actually uses the 80% recantation rate as evidence in favor of collusion and manipulation. He raises the specter of anti-death penalty forces coming in, long after the event in question, and basically guilting the witnesses with the specter that their testimony may be putting an innocent man in prison. Is it possible you don't remember clearly? Are you sure that Davis is the shooter?
The problem with this defense is that it doesn't match up with the affidavits Amnesty actually obtained. They're not, by and large, based off fuzzy memories or unclear recollection of the events in question. They, nearly without exception, are premised off police intimidation to get certain testimony -- something unlikely to be that fuzzy and not premised off any difficulty in remembering the events of the murder. Lawton notes that the witnesses were questioned about this at trial and did not say anything about intimidation. But at trial the police threats (if they so happened) were likely to be fresh in the witnesses mind, and going against one's sworn statement raises the prospect of a perjury investigation (something which, if I were a sleazy cop, would be sure to remind my cowed witnesses of after they signed the document).
The other part of Lawton's argument, which is a bit more subtextual, is that the affidavits were acquired by groups with an anti-law and order agenda in general, who are motivated simply by blanket opposition to the death penalty. The problem is that Amnesty appears to have worked quite hard to acquire statements implicating another man in the crime. Opposition to the death penalty hardly seems consistent with trying to get another person convicted of capital murder (although they could hope that the new suspect would not get a death sentence).
All of this really just points back to my current, long-standing intuition about the death penalty. Our system is so badly broken that there is really no way that it can imposed in a fair and just manner, where we can be sufficiently assured of the defendant's guilt. When, for example, there isn't that essential trust that the police won't try and coerce testimony -- particularly when the victim was another officer -- it is simply impossible to evaluate the reliability of trial testimony in the face of future recantations. In such an environment, the death penalty cannot be justly put into practice.
Civil Rights Roundup: 10/20/08
Your daily dose of civil rights and related news
The US Supreme Court will resolve a circuit split on identity theft by illegal immigrants. The question is whether aggravated identity theft requires knowledge by the user that the documents he obtains are those of a real person, as opposed to fabrications.
Immigrants with family members on both sides of the US/Mexico border are dreading increases in border fortifications, as they may interfere with simple visits to the border to share pictures, food, or just conversation together across the line.
Meanwhile, the dance between border patrol agents, and those who are waiting for their chance to make it back over, continues along the edge of the fence.
In spite of all this, immigration has been a surprisingly quiet topic on the campaign trail. The Bishop of Orlando reminds the candidates, however, that it is not an issue they'll be able to ignore once in office.
DC is switching strategies on homelessness, trying to get the homeless permanent housing first before proceeding to crack the underlying causes of their plight.
More former DOJ officials are coming out with the obvious: the Bush administration's investigations into "voter fraud" are entirely politically motivated.
Unsurprisingly, the Wall Street Journal comes out in full support of the efforts to ban affirmative action, which they describe as "the same kinds of discrimination they were designed to prevent" (right down to the lynching, no doubt). Moral relativism, anyone?
Dog bites man in Cleveland, and Black defendants in low-level drug cases are treated substantially worse than their White counterparts.
Nebraska is changing the rules on its "safe haven" law, to allow only infants up to three days old to be dropped off without penalty.
Several luminaries, including Desmund Tutu and Sandra Day O'Connor, showed up at Harvard to speak at a conference on race relations.
Steve Chapman writes for Reason Magazine that "the people", not the courts, should decide when gay people are equal human beings.
The US Supreme Court will resolve a circuit split on identity theft by illegal immigrants. The question is whether aggravated identity theft requires knowledge by the user that the documents he obtains are those of a real person, as opposed to fabrications.
Immigrants with family members on both sides of the US/Mexico border are dreading increases in border fortifications, as they may interfere with simple visits to the border to share pictures, food, or just conversation together across the line.
Meanwhile, the dance between border patrol agents, and those who are waiting for their chance to make it back over, continues along the edge of the fence.
In spite of all this, immigration has been a surprisingly quiet topic on the campaign trail. The Bishop of Orlando reminds the candidates, however, that it is not an issue they'll be able to ignore once in office.
DC is switching strategies on homelessness, trying to get the homeless permanent housing first before proceeding to crack the underlying causes of their plight.
More former DOJ officials are coming out with the obvious: the Bush administration's investigations into "voter fraud" are entirely politically motivated.
Unsurprisingly, the Wall Street Journal comes out in full support of the efforts to ban affirmative action, which they describe as "the same kinds of discrimination they were designed to prevent" (right down to the lynching, no doubt). Moral relativism, anyone?
Dog bites man in Cleveland, and Black defendants in low-level drug cases are treated substantially worse than their White counterparts.
Nebraska is changing the rules on its "safe haven" law, to allow only infants up to three days old to be dropped off without penalty.
Several luminaries, including Desmund Tutu and Sandra Day O'Connor, showed up at Harvard to speak at a conference on race relations.
Steve Chapman writes for Reason Magazine that "the people", not the courts, should decide when gay people are equal human beings.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Dueling Profs
Professor Strauss (in Elements of the Law), after assigning us a passage from Holmes' The Path of the Law: "Holmes originally became famous for his study on the Common Law, which I personally find unreadable...."
Professor Fennell's Torts assignment for Monday: Read pages 77-84 and 88-96 of Holmes' The Common Law.
Professor Fennell's Torts assignment for Monday: Read pages 77-84 and 88-96 of Holmes' The Common Law.
Powell Endorses Obama
Former Secretary of State and Republican Party luminary General Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama for Presidency. Percentage of Republicans who thought he'd be a great Presidential candidate himself in the 1990s, who now will view him as a traitorous wench, at 80% and rising.
It was an interesting endorsement video to watch. It is clear that Powell thinks the modern Republican Party has stretched way beyond where he's willing to go in terms of its race rightward. The concerns he laid out about the current GOP extend from the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as VP, to the prospect of two more conservative judges on the Supreme Court, to the steady increase of Islamophobic fear-mongering that has characterized the Party since 9/11. Now, it is fair to say that Powell -- himself always a rather moderate Republican -- may have simply been pushed off the edge as the party lines shift direction. And the Republican base will not take his defection as a repudiation, because Powell is precisely the type of fellow that they want out of the Party anyway. The inquisitorial process may soon give the GOP the purity of a political graveyard, but God help them if they aren't redoubling their efforts to excommunicate the insufficiently zealous.
But some of Powell's complaints should, in an ideal world, resonate with Republicans and Democrats alike. His anecdote about the Muslim-American soldier who died in Iraq for our country was quite moving, as was his rhetorical question about the seven year old Muslim kid who wonders if he can be President in America. The answer should be yes, but every signal we've received over the past few years indicates no. And that should trouble us, as it clearly does General Powell.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that it is clear this was a difficult endorsement for General Powell to make. Many Democrats had vague positive feelings towards McCain for awhile, but found them quite easy to discard once we witnessed the campaign 2008 version rear its ugly head. But to many independents and moderate Republicans, John McCain was something of a hero. He was their leading man -- a politician who they thought had integrity and unimpeachable character. General Powell stresses that his endorsement in no way represents a repudiation of Senator McCain. But it is clear he is deeply depressed by the direction Senator McCain has taken his campaign -- lots of clarity on Bill Ayers, very little on the economy. And I have to think that for many moderates, who saw in John McCain the very model of the right kind of politician, this election cycle must have been a painful experience indeed.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Hope Happened To Me
Y'all might think I'm the most cynical White person on race relations alive in America today. But that isn't true. Take this post from Too Sense. It's entitled "Obama Campaign Bus Stopped In Mississippi", and links to an Onion article in which Barack Obama's bus is stopped under false pretenses by a racist Mississippi cop. Noting it's satire, the author nevertheless asks, "But, before you read this, ask yourself one question: when you saw the title of the post, didn't part of you think it might actually have happened?"
To which I responded, I thought the title of the post was telling me that the Obama bus made a campaign stop in Mississippi, not that it was stopped by the police. So I was elated: "Hurray, Obama thinks Mississippi is in play!"
Hope. It happened to me, and it can happen to you.
In somewhat related news, I'm not sure what to think of the opening anecdote to this post (below the Kerouac quote).
To which I responded, I thought the title of the post was telling me that the Obama bus made a campaign stop in Mississippi, not that it was stopped by the police. So I was elated: "Hurray, Obama thinks Mississippi is in play!"
Hope. It happened to me, and it can happen to you.
In somewhat related news, I'm not sure what to think of the opening anecdote to this post (below the Kerouac quote).
Choose Your Own Proposition 4 Adventure!
On the ballot in California is a proposal (Prop. 4) which would require teenagers seeking abortions to notify their parents. It doesn't require their consent, and it has exceptions for abusive parents and a judicial bypass option.
Sound okay to you? Well then play Modern Mitzvot's Choose Your Own Adventure: Prop. 4 Saga! Fun for the whole family (except the pregnant teenage daughter, of course)!
Sound okay to you? Well then play Modern Mitzvot's Choose Your Own Adventure: Prop. 4 Saga! Fun for the whole family (except the pregnant teenage daughter, of course)!
Obama Calls the ACORN Bluff
So John McCain has been crying wolf over ACORN registration fraud? Fine, says Obama, let's appoint a special prosecutor to take a look at it, along with all other allegations of voter fraud or voter suppression. The McCain campaign's response? Strident opposition, of course. It's an "absurd" attempt to "criminalize political discourse". But, the spokesman continued,
Yes -- having qualified professionals actually take a look at your allegations would be a threat when your claims are completely bogus.
Meanwhile, it is worth stressing again what this ACORN business is all about. ACORN's objective is to register as many new voters as possibly (or, depending on your level of cynicism, as many new liberal voters as possible -- it actually doesn't matter for purpose of our analysis). It pays some of its employees by the amount of registrations they collect, and some of those employees collected fraudulent registrations -- either by registering the same person multiple times, or by simply putting down false names. ACORN is legally bound, however, to turn in every registration card that it receives -- a good thing if you think they're just a left-wing front group, as it means they can't sort through the cards and chuck out all the Republicans.
But if ACORN's goal is get new (liberal) voters out there, registration fraud doesn't help them. Federal ID is required for first time voters, so even if Micky Mouse is on the rolls, he's not going to show up at the polling place, ID in hand, and cast a ballot. There is, in fact, virtually no evidence that registration fraud spills over to voter fraud. The fraud here is being committed on ACORN, who has to pay its employees for bogus registrations that don't actually help their cause.
Rest assured that, despite these threats, the McCain-Palin campaign will continue to address the serious issue of voter registration fraud by ACORN and other partisan groups, and compliance by states with the Help America Vote Act's requirement of matching new voter registrations with state data bases to prevent voter fraud.
Yes -- having qualified professionals actually take a look at your allegations would be a threat when your claims are completely bogus.
Meanwhile, it is worth stressing again what this ACORN business is all about. ACORN's objective is to register as many new voters as possibly (or, depending on your level of cynicism, as many new liberal voters as possible -- it actually doesn't matter for purpose of our analysis). It pays some of its employees by the amount of registrations they collect, and some of those employees collected fraudulent registrations -- either by registering the same person multiple times, or by simply putting down false names. ACORN is legally bound, however, to turn in every registration card that it receives -- a good thing if you think they're just a left-wing front group, as it means they can't sort through the cards and chuck out all the Republicans.
But if ACORN's goal is get new (liberal) voters out there, registration fraud doesn't help them. Federal ID is required for first time voters, so even if Micky Mouse is on the rolls, he's not going to show up at the polling place, ID in hand, and cast a ballot. There is, in fact, virtually no evidence that registration fraud spills over to voter fraud. The fraud here is being committed on ACORN, who has to pay its employees for bogus registrations that don't actually help their cause.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Anything Can Be Not Racist
On the now infamous Obama food stamp, where he is surrounded by fried chicken, watermelons, ribs, and kool-aid, there is very little to say. The only thing noteworthy is that the creator of the piece and her family are denying it's racist. That's unsurprising -- anything that's accused of being racist is always denied to be such. The American South was adamant that it did not treat it's Black residents the least bit unfairly.
Maybe this case will impress upon us that racism can always be denied. Always. The denial, on its own, doesn't establish jack. And if anything, the justifications offered here (the author is married to a Mexican-American, the author also eats fried chicken) go to show that these typical defenses are not in the slightest way inconsistent with racism. We are watching living proof that you can do something racist and be married to someone non-White. You can do something racist and still support Alan Keyes for President. They're not mutually exclusive.
Maybe this case will impress upon us that racism can always be denied. Always. The denial, on its own, doesn't establish jack. And if anything, the justifications offered here (the author is married to a Mexican-American, the author also eats fried chicken) go to show that these typical defenses are not in the slightest way inconsistent with racism. We are watching living proof that you can do something racist and be married to someone non-White. You can do something racist and still support Alan Keyes for President. They're not mutually exclusive.
Palin Away
Concurring with Ezra Klein and Kevin Drum, I'm reasonably confident that Sarah Palin will cease to be a player in national politics after the McCain/Palin ticket goes down in ignoble defeat. Sure, the base loves her. But, as Klein notes, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) inspires the same sort of love while still managing to be coherent (indeed, quite articulate) on matters of national policy. Republicans are not utterly insane -- they know that Palin has become synonymous with all that the American center (much less the left) finds detestable in the current GOP. There is simply no way any reasonable Republican will decide to double down on the biggest failed bet of the 2008 cycle.
I'll just add that in the first set of 2012 Presidential GOP primary polls, we'll inevitably see Gov. Palin's name high on the list. This is solely a function of name recognition -- remember how well Joe Lieberman was doing early in the 2004 cycle? Let the primary season swing into full bloom, with some genuine solid Republican candidates running against her, and she'll be taken down right quick.
I'll just add that in the first set of 2012 Presidential GOP primary polls, we'll inevitably see Gov. Palin's name high on the list. This is solely a function of name recognition -- remember how well Joe Lieberman was doing early in the 2004 cycle? Let the primary season swing into full bloom, with some genuine solid Republican candidates running against her, and she'll be taken down right quick.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
W to M
The SEIU has a clever new ad up:
Via Too Sense. The irony is that, to the extent that it's misleading, it's because it's being too nice to President Bush. Tough for Republicans to go out and remind everybody that President Bush spent most of his tenure as an avowed opponent of increasing the minimum wage.
Via Too Sense. The irony is that, to the extent that it's misleading, it's because it's being too nice to President Bush. Tough for Republicans to go out and remind everybody that President Bush spent most of his tenure as an avowed opponent of increasing the minimum wage.
Cue Up Barry White
Phoebe Maltz wins at debate live-blogging:
Drill, baby, drill.
Obama just told parents to "turn off the television." Is this a sign that the X-rated portion of the debate is about to commence?
Drill, baby, drill.
Subtle
The latest GOP mailer, heading out to Virginia:
The mailer proceeds to give out standard Republican fare on how Obama "thinks terrorists just need a good talking to," before concluding with:
Even McClatchy flatly says that the mailer is making "a play on the fears, expressed by some Democrats in the primaries and some Republicans this fall, that Obama is a sort of Manchurian Candidate fronting for an anti-American identity or agenda." I think we've moved beyond "palling around with terrorists" now, haven't we?
"Terrorists don't care who they hurt," says the cover the brochure, arriving in mailboxes Wednesday in the battleground state of Virginia.
The words appear over a picture of someone in shadow eyeing or photograhing the front of an airplane, an apparent reference to the fact that terrorists used hijacked airplanes to kill Americans in 2001.
Flip open the brochure, and the photo is of Obama.
The mailer proceeds to give out standard Republican fare on how Obama "thinks terrorists just need a good talking to," before concluding with:
Barack Obama: Not who you think he is.
Even McClatchy flatly says that the mailer is making "a play on the fears, expressed by some Democrats in the primaries and some Republicans this fall, that Obama is a sort of Manchurian Candidate fronting for an anti-American identity or agenda." I think we've moved beyond "palling around with terrorists" now, haven't we?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
