Stay Focused

There's a new game in town for Miami crime fighters. The US attorney is reallocating resources toward a grave threat. One so important, he's willing to take attorneys off child endangerment cases to fight. For in this post-9/11 age, we can spare no effort in fighting...

Porn.

No, not porn featuring children. Just plain old-fashioned adult consensual pornography.

When FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month, they wondered what the top enforcement priority for Acosta and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be.

Would it be terrorism? Organized crime? Narcotics trafficking? Immigration? Or maybe public corruption?

The agents were stunned to learn that a top prosecutorial priority of Acosta and the Department of Justice was none of the above. Instead, Acosta told them, it's obscenity. Not pornography involving children, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.

Acosta's stated goal of prosecuting distributors of adult porn has angered federal and local law enforcement officials, as well as prosecutors in his own office. They say there are far more important issues in a high-crime area like South Florida, which is an international hub at risk for terrorism, money laundering and other dangerous activities.

His own prosecutors have warned Acosta that prioritizing adult porn would reduce resources for prosecuting other crimes, including porn involving children. According to high-level sources who did not want to be identified, Acosta has assigned prosecutors porn cases over their objections.

I suppose it makes perfect sense. I mean, after all, Miami doesn't have even traces of a drug problem. Or trafficking. Or terrorism. Or illegal immigration. Or gang violence. So why not pander to the rabid Christian Right (yes, they're giving full-throat support to Mr. Acosta)--it's not like we have anything BETTER TO BE DOING!

Balloon Juice with the tip (and mutual indignation).

An Americanized Tragedy

UNC Law Professor hits it out of the park critiquing the "Americanization" of injustices elsewhere in the world:

The comparison [between violence by Blacks in the 1970s South and Palestinians in Israel] reflects a basic mistake we Americans make over and over again: we "Americanize" the rest of the world's conflicts, seeing them through the lens of our own national experience. We look at the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and see two groups of people divided by ethnicity, race, and religion. We see one of them as historically powerful and the other as historically powerless. We see one of them as oppressor and the other as victim. And, most crucially, we explain this dynamic by reasons that are familiar to us from our own experience: the powerful group oppresses because of a historical commitment to sustaining what it imagines to be its own superiority and to reinforcing what it imagines to be the inferiority of the victim group. The "freedom struggle" is the fight of the group labeled as inferior to establish its inherent human dignity and equality, and to secure the rights and advantages that belong to dignified and equal human beings.
[...]
What has emerged over the last 60 years in and around Israel is not a "freedom struggle" in anything like the sense of the struggle of American blacks for freedom from slavery, from Jim Crow, and from their vicious and oppressive legacy. What has emerged instead is a struggle over the ownership of disputed land after the demise of Western colonialism in the region. The Palestinian terrorism whose efficacy D.G. Martin wants us to reflect on has been violence not to establish a principle of equality and dignity, but violence to extinguish the fact and idea of a Jewish state in the region, and to turn "every inch" of the current State of Israel into a Muslim theocracy. Any doubt about this is resolved by even a quick glance at the founding covenant of Hamas. (I recognize that many Palestinians do not deny Israel's right to exist, that some Palestinians are not Muslim, and that some Palestinians would not want a theocratic Palestinian state. These Palestinians, however, are by and large not the people practicing the terrorist methods that Martin invites us to consider.)

Of course, the intensity of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle has led some people on both sides of the divide to demonize those on the other, and to speak of them, and treat them, as less than fully human. This vocabulary and these actions can, at times, revive echoes and images of American white supremacy in our American ears and eyes.

But Gaza and the West Bank and Jerusalem of today are decidedly not the Oxford, North Carolina of 1970--or, for that matter, of 1770 or 1870.

So it's not just that torching an uninhabited tobacco warehouse in Oxford in 1970 is different from blowing up a Passover Seder in an Israeli hotel in Netanya in March of 2002 in the sense that one was property destruction and the other cold-blooded murder. That's true, but it misses the much more important point that the two incidents can only be grouped together as "political violence" in aid of a "freedom struggle" in the same way that (to use my earlier example) the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania can be grouped together as "unexpected incidents at sea" that led to "shipping disasters."

Spot on. I'd broaden it out a bit to say that leftist critics of Israel often "Westernize" the conflict, in that they wish to incorporate their pre-existing (and devastating) attacks on imperialism to the situation. In reading critiques by so-called "leftists," I'm often struck by a weird sense that the majority of them basically thought "Hey! I've got this perfectly good theory of Colonialism. Why not use it?" After all, while neo-Colonialism is all well and good, if you squint hard enough, Israel can become a real life Colony in the Rhodesia model--and what self-respecting liberation theorist can pass up a target like that?

The problem, of course, is that Israel isn't "the West," Jews aren't European Christians, and whereas colonialism implies outsiders versus insiders, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is between two insiders (historically oppressed ones at that).

One could rather easily I believe deconstruct some of the basic assumptions (many closetly anti-Semetic) that undergird the leftist Critique of Israel. And indeed, that is a project I wish to undertake at some time off blog.

But for now, Professor Muller's post is a incisive and badly needed analysis of how many liberals misinterpret the conflict.

It's The Second Shot That'll Sink You

I'll admit, I saw the first one coming. The minute I read these articles responding to increasing religious harassment in the Armed Forces, I knew that the FRC would be up in arms in its daily briefing (the New York Times also has its take). I've blogged on this issue before, but I am still amazed at just how far these extreme right wing organizations will go in defending Christian supremacy.

An investigation found pervasive hostility toward religious minorities in the Air Force.

Among other incidents, the academy commandant had urged cadets to use the "J for Jesus" hand signal with the thumb and index finger, the head football coach had told players that he expected to see them in church, and Jewish cadets had experienced anti-Semitic slurs after students were urged to see the Mel Gibson film "The Passion of the Christ."

As a result

[t]he Air Force...issued sweeping guidelines yesterday that say prayers are not appropriate at most official events and discourage commanders from speaking publicly about their religious beliefs.

This is what the FRC deems to be an "overreaction." In response to documented instances of religious harassment by both the commanding elite and the rank-and-file, the service asks merely that official events not become prayer meetings, and that commanding officers by mindful of the power differential between themselves and their subordinates--one which easily can make generic religious discussion into a very hostile endeavor. It should be noted that in all its coverage of the controversy, the FRC has not once even alluded to, much less condemned, the allegations of anti-Semetism that prompted the investigation in the first place.

And they wonder why Jews object to their claim to speak for "Judeo-Christian" values. It's because they don't respect us--unless of course, we can be used as a tool for their other political goals.

As for other views:
Bump in the Beltway believes the stories. Ranting Profs thinks that the headline "Air Force Sets Rules Limiting Religious Expression" is "as neutral and information packed as could be." Are you kidding? "Limiting Religious Expression" is a loaded phrase--it plays right up to every naive fear of anti-religious suppression that rightwing groups are trying to make this out to be (when in reality it's a reaffirmation of the tolerant traditions that make our armed forces representative of the nation--not particular sects). Jonah Goldberg professes ignorance but believes that "it sounds like the Pentagon is taking the issue(s) seriously and responding responsibly." Assuming that the issue doesn't get hijacked by, oh, the FRC, I'd agree. By contrast, Stones Cry Out echoes the FRC line that this is just political-correct intrusion by those "push[ing] for vapid generic faith" (presumably, the faith of Jews, non-evangelical Christians, Buddhists, Wiccans, Atheists, and other minorities who wish not to proselytized by their commanding officers can all be grouped under "generic"). Like the FRC, SCO does not even acknowledge the presence, potency, or relevancy of anti-Semetism in the military--viewing the issue solely as an instance of Christian victimization.

But, as I said, this one I called out in advance. The one that truly stunned me--the brutal "two" in "one-two combination," was their stirring homage to former Senator and continued racist Jesse Helms (R-NC).

It's not Helms' description of abortion as a "Holocaust" that gets me. No, it's his continued insistence on defending, justifying, and promoting his blatantly racist stances against African-Americans throughout his political career. Again, from the Post:

Helms devotes an entire chapter to his views on race relations, defending his record as a 1960s television commentator and senator who challenged most of the nation's civil rights legislation.

"I felt that the citizens of my community, my state and my region of the country were being battered by this new form of bigotry," he wrote. "I simply could not stay silent in the face of this assault -- and I didn't."

Helms rejected the notion that racist tendencies drove him to oppose the creation of a national Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in 1983, or to run a 1990 campaign ad tying his black opponent to affirmative action.

He wrote that he opposed the King holiday in part because the Senate rejected a Helms amendment that would have unsealed the FBI files of the civil rights leader. Helms contends that King's advisers included communist sympathizers.

To be perfectly clear, Senator Helms, you know nothing of bigotry except that which you spouted yourself. What exactly was "battering" the south? Was it freedom riders trying to desegregate schools? Or perhaps it was the uppity blacks themselves, forgetting their place and trying to vote (of all the indignities!)? Trent Lott gets slammed for praising Strom Thurmond--but while I think Lott deserved what he got, at least Strom had the dignity to apologize later in life for his racist past. Helms, by contrast, is entirely unrepentant (if not proud) of his role in preserving the racial caste system. But to the FRC, he was:

the moral conscience of the Senate, always holding firm to upholding the traditional values that are embraced by most Americans. Throughout his career, until his retirement in 2002, he was a pathfinder for Americans...a statesman who was willing to challenge Democratic and Republican administrations alike when he thought they threatened or ignored the principles that make this country great.

Between the ellipses is plenty of fawning over Helms' pro-life views--but nothing that even hints at a condemnation of racism. Nada. Squat. So we can only conclude that, to the FRC, segregation, lynching, bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination of all sorts are part of the "traditional values" that "make this nation great."

Stunning, but somehow, not surprising.

It's Good To Be King--I Mean Governor

Things are not well in the heart of Appalachia. Kentucky is currently embroiled in a giant corruption scandal. No less than nine members of Governor Ernie Fletcher's administration are currently under investigation for a variety of felonies and misdemeanors. Or, rather, they were--until Governor Fletcher decided to issue a blanket pardon to all of them.

It could have been worse--the original rumor on the street was that the Governor was going to pardon himself as well. As it stands now, he still will testify in front of the Grand Jury--and by "testify" I mean "appear," since he's already stated he'll be taking the 5th the entire way through.

Blue Grass Report has been doing a great job covering this issue, but the best part was their flashback feature to then Rep. Fletcher's and other Republicans responding to scandals in Governor Patton's administration. Fletcher ran specifically to contrast himself from the scandal-plagued Patton--and look at him now. Pulling every trick in the book to get out of jail. Democrats are fuming, and considering impeachment.

But the last laugh may be the Donkey's. BGR reports that the pardons may make it more likely Fletcher sees jail time, because now his underlings can't take the Fifth when they're called to testify (first person to say that this is proof Fletcher wants to make sure justice is done gets smacked).

The wheels are coming off the wagon...

All in Perspective

David Corn writes a hard-hitting post regarding Clinton and the Rwandan genocide. It turns the left's pet slogan, "Bush lied, people died," and replaces it with "Clinton lied, hundreds of thousands died."

I agree that Clinton's inaction during the slaughter was, by far, the greatest blemish on his presidency, and one that's utterly unforgivable. I also think that it is equally unforgivable on the part of the nation. There was barely any agitation from any quarter (outside the usual human rights suspects) for an intervention. The Republican Party was in the heat of its "we're not the world's policeman" schtick, it would have fought any allocation of US troops to the region tooth and nail. Especially after Somalia, the use of American troops to stop African bloodbaths was just too tempting a target. In fact, we know Republicans would have taken that response, since they did just that when Clinton partially redeemed himself and intervened to stop the Kosovo slaughter. This isn't to forgive or absolve Clinton, rather, it is to note that being bystanders genocide is a crime that falls on all our heads. And with Darfur probably past the point of no return--we'll soon have yet another mark on our collective wall of shame.

An honest perspective on President Clinton's tenure will relegate his dabbles with Ms. Lewinsky to a troubling footnote, compared to his inaction in Africa. Similarly, it might be more to President Bush's shame that Darfur and its millions will have happened "on his watch" than WMDs or Plamegate or what have you. It's a non-partisan sin, contra some, both Clinton and Bush are roughly in the same boat when it comes to their respective genocides--an uncomfortable silence. While Uncorrelated argues that at least American has brought some attention to the dispute. However, to be honest--at least as a government, we haven't. And basically the only concrete action we have taken, labeling the conflict a "genocide," may have been worse than nothing, legitimizing the notion that a bona fide genocide is still ignorable and triggers no obligations on signatories of the Genocide Convention. Again, this shouldn't absolve the world for its silence--but it takes a rather perverse view of American obligations toward genocide victims to argue that merely saying the word "genocide" elevates our Darfur policy even marginally above abominable.

Back into Eden

An interesting post by Ian Ayres probing how God treats Free Will. It then side-steps into an analysis of God's punishment of Eve, and how it seems rather obsolete via modern advances:

Indeed, the trifecta reappearance in our world of painless childbirth, the appearance of different sex unions where the man does not rule over the woman (pace MacKinnon) and the appearance of women whose desire is not for their husband might all be signs that the punishment is no longer in effect. You see, sin without free will is not even possible. Pharaoh’s failure to let the Israelites go when his heart was hardened by God cannot in good conscience be considered sinful. The reappearance of choice – of women that choose whether or not to desire husbands – opens up the possibility for sin, but it does not indicate that same-sex desire is sinful. Indeed, it may be a sign that we are step closer to the garden, a step closer to grace.

I'm curious how else one can define it (time to call in a favor on Pseudo-Polymath). Perhaps it is humans blatantly flaunting God's will--but then, the Bible is rather clear about what happens when we do that. So--what? Have we finally achieved penance for original sin? And what does that entail for modern Christian theology?

I Love Jerry Kang

Jerry Kang is a Law Professor at UCLA. Why do I love him? Well, for one, he's just published a spectacular article, Trojan Horses of Race, in the Harvard Law Review (118 Harv. L. Rev. 1489). Essentially, the article runs through a bevy of research on implicit racism and then critiques specifically the role constant local newscasts of black criminality has in reifying racist attitudes. The article is superb, I can't recommend it highly enough.

But what really sells me on the good Professor is his answer in his FAQs to the charge that the whole thing is just "politically correct mumbojumbo." He retorts:

"First, it's now politically correct to be politically incorrect"

and then goes on to note that he has a mountain of scientific data backing him up.

Oh SO true. Political correctness is perhaps the most politically lethal characterization one can have today. It's so horribly misnamed, it's almost comical.

Exploding in a Puff of Straw

Jim Lindgren links to an interesting article by KC Johnson regarding the response in some quarters to recent studies showing a liberal slant in academia. While the comments to the article make what seem to be valid critiques of the methodology of the study, some of the responses--both those cited by Williams and those that came out in comments--are just crazy.

Once before, I blogged on an article in favor of a more ideologically diverse academic sphere that was so bad it made me want to run away from the position as fast as I could. Fortunately for everyone, now there is a leftist counter-balance, an argument against a more diverse academic sphere that is equally horrific in its explication.

The author of this "argument" is Montclair State Professor Grover Furr. Though rather lengthy (not that I have the right to complain about that), it basically comes down to the rather novel core that Liberal = Good and Conservative = Bad. Well, when you put it like that, hell yes we want more liberals! Why didn't I think of it before?

Of course, Professor Furr's "logic" only makes sense if you subscribe to a few of the logical leaps (to put it mildly) he makes along the way.

Ideologically, most college faculty are trained to use evidence, and to entertain and discuss differing viewpoints. This is congenial to "liberalism", and even more so to to Marxism, but not to certain dogmatic strains of thought, and modern "conservatism" is among the latter.

During the past 30 years or so the limits of acceptable opinion in the American academy, especially in the humanities and social sciences, have been greatly expanded. This in turn has meant that graduate students have been increasingly exposed to viewpoints that were formerly considered "taboo." It also means that subjecting traditional beliefs to scrutiny and doubt is far more common in higher education than it was a generation ago. This is itself a "liberal" ideology.

Most college faculty feel threatened by those who show any inclination towards censorship, especially in teaching. Those who advocate various kinds of censorship these days are overwhelmingly "conservatives."

I won't claim to be an expert on Marxism--my particular brand of liberalism leans more towards Deconstructionalism, Critical Theory, and Post-modernism. However, it seems rather odd to claim that Marxism is particularly open to differing views. Marxism is a totalistic philosophy--it claims class struggle is the root of all conflict and all social structures. Thus, it is inherently unreceptive to differing views of how the world came to be as it is--not just conservative claims of "objective merit" or the "invisible hand," but also liberal explanations like structural racism, sexism or tribalism. This isn't to say that Marxism hasn't informed many liberal social theories--it has, and it should, because it was an interesting (if in my view ultimately wrong) development in the philosophical field. But most modern liberal theories can't co-exist with Marxism all that easily, considering that they don't view class as the breeding ground of everything wrong in society. One also might note that the continued presence of true-believer Marxists represents pretty good prima facia evidence of their stubborn refusal to face the facts--after all, Marx was pretty much dead wrong in his predictions of how the world would respond to capitalism (let alone his claims that it was "inevitable").

Professor Furr's allegations of censorship is also rather peculiar, considering that he specifically argues that a minimization of conservative viewpoints is a bona fide goal colleges should strive towards ("...we can never have too few
'conservatives.'"). I think that skirts pretty close to the edge of censorship. But regardless of whether it is or is not, conservatives can make a pretty good case that liberals are no strangers to the censorship mentality. Black Liberal Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy has noted the actions of liberal groups targeting purveyors of "hate speech,"--sometimes correctly, sometimes overzealously. Liberal Law Professors Richard Delgado, Mari Matsuda, and Charles Lawrence III all have advocated for campus speech codes. We can debate the merit of these proposals--we can even debate whether they're advocating "censorship." But it certainly is a close enough call that Furr's sweeping claim that "conservatives" are the main proponents of censorship has to be called into question.

Furr continues in his semantical quest which assures conservatives can only represent evil:

In my experience, there is considerable prejudice among academics against certain ideas that are strongly associated with the Republican party -- to its shame, I may add -- and so could be called "conservative."

Support for racism -- the Republican Party depends upon racism for success in national elections; support for dogmatic religious beliefs; for strongly authoritarian views of almost any kind, including "my-country-right-or-wrong" jingoism; for naked, unbridled exploitation; for knee-jerk anti-radicalism and anti-communism; in culture, for "tradition for the sake of tradition" -- these attitudes and ideologies, all of which are strongly associated with conservatism and the Republican Party, are rightly abhorred by most academics, who have excellent material reasons to identify with the "little guy."
[...]
And the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are themselves highly ideological. Lots of blue-collar workers would call themselves "conservative" if asked certain questions (e.g. about war, patriotism, homosexuality, etc.), but would have to be classified as "liberal", in fact, "radical", if asked about social policies (whether public employees should have the right to strike; about 'right-to-work' laws; the desirability of minimum-wage laws, etc.).

The blatantly distorted picture Furr draws of conservatism qua conservatism should be obvious by itself, but it is all the more ironic because, in his comment to the article itself he protests that Professor Williams "dishonestly equates 'liberal' with 'Left', an absurdity that lumps John Kerry with Marx or Lenin." Yet he seems utterly untroubled grouping "conservative" with "reactionary right." It is of course true that there are quite a few conservatives who (in effect if not in rhetoric) support these atrocious positions--and certainly one can find plenty to criticize in the modern Republican party. But a basic knowledge of Political Science would dictate that the views and positions of a party should not be presumed to represent those of all the parties members--especially in a two party state. Thus Furr makes his claims either a) knowing full well that many self-described conservatives would not support many of the policies he says they do (when's the last time you've heard a conservative say "I support naked, unbridled exploitation"?) or b) is so incredibly unaware of the world surrounding him that it is amazing he could have picked up his Ph.D. without getting run over by a truck on the way to the ceremony.

I suspect the former, though, because of his laughable efforts to group many conservatives into "liberalism"--at least when they say what he likes. For example, I don't think "right to strike" counts as a "radical" position anymore. What would happen if a conservative said that he considers himself a radical environmentalist--but based on his readings of economics he is convinced that the free market (mixed with, say, tax subsidies for environmentally friendly research) is the best way to fix the problem? I'd say he's wrong and misguided, perhaps. But certainly he isn't advocating "naked, unbridled exploitation." Is he actually a liberal, albeit one strayed from the path? I don't think we can play word games like that. Furr's claims only make sense if conservative is defined as in alignment with its most extreme wing--a claim that is akin to (and roughly as bad as) saying that all liberals are communists (which, as noted, Furr complains about!). If we agree there is such thing as a moderate conservative, or--perish the thought!--there are stalwart conservatives who still aren't racist, then there exists a vein of legitimate discourse that is as yet unfilled in colleges and universities.

At best, all I'm getting out of Furr's claims is that we should make Ms. Ann Coulter into Professor Ann Coulter. Okay, no argument. But should we chuck Professor Eugene Volokh on the street? I think it is rather absurd to call him a minion of evil. Indeed, this liberal wishes there were more professors like him.

Restrain Yourself

The VC links to a really interesting story regarding the controversial Kelo and Raich cases (eminent domain and medical marijuana, respectively).

Addressing a bar association meeting in Las Vegas, Justice Stevens dissected several of the recent term's decisions, including his own majority opinions in two of the term's most prominent cases. The outcomes were "unwise," he said, but "in each I was convinced that the law compelled a result that I would have opposed if I were a legislator."

In one, the eminent domain case that became the term's most controversial decision, he said that his majority opinion that upheld the government's "taking" of private homes for a commercial development in New London, Conn., brought about a result "entirely divorced from my judgment concerning the wisdom of the program" that was under constitutional attack.

His own view, Justice Stevens told the Clark County Bar Association, was that "the free play of market forces is more likely to produce acceptable results in the long run than the best-intentioned plans of public officials." But he said that the planned development fit the definition of "public use" that, in his view, the Constitution permitted for the exercise of eminent domain.

Justice Stevens said he also regretted having to rule in favor of the federal government's ability to enforce its narcotics laws and thus trump California's medical marijuana initiative. "I have no hesitation in telling you that I agree with the policy choice made by the millions of California voters," he said. But given the broader stakes for the power of Congress to regulate commerce, he added, "our duty to uphold the application of the federal statute was pellucidly clear."

A liberal judge voting against his policy preferences? Why, why, that's impossible! They're all activists--every last one of them.

And so it seems that some righties can't get there heads around the fact that Stevens might actually believe the law binds him to this particular result. Mike Rappaport, for example, says "give me a break" and thinks Stevens merely wants to deflect criticism from his role in an unpopular decision (why an 85 year old man with life tenure on the nation's highest court would be so concerned about self image goes unstated). What causes his immediate dismissal of the simple explanation--that Stevens actually believes what he says? Easy--"It is only judges who follow the [originalist] approach that are significantly restrained by the law." (Ethan Leib also weighs in on Rappaport's post).

Not that we're too self-assured or anything. I think it's abundantly clear that judges who are manifestly committed to an originalist understanding are quite capable of acting with reckless abandon (Scalia's opinion in Division of Employment v. Smith, anyone?). And of course, any principle worth its salt will restrain a judge from doing something he might otherwise like to do--I'm skeptical that devout Catholic Anthony Kennedy is a huge fan of sodomy, yet somehow he found the jurisprudential basis to realize the constitution "neither knows nor tolerates classes amongst citizens."

Other people are more sanguine. Helvidius thinks that it is probably true in at least some cases that Stevens really is voting against what he believes is "right," but posits that every judge has a "breaking point" at which time s/he ceases to interpret the constitution and instead searches for a rationale to justify the result s/he deems necessary. This is probably true to an extent--though of course it applies to all judges, not just liberals. PG of De Novo also hits on this--noting that Scalia's "duty" to protect criminal defendants from illegal processes seems to magically disappear once they've been convicted. Where do it go? But unlike Helvidius, PG is not so quick to label Scalia as giving in to mere "desire." That seems reasonable to me--there are many ways of interpreting the constitution, and I'm not so self-assured in my own method to tar those with opposing methods as being fundamentally ideological. Wrong, perhaps, but not deliberately so.

In any event, while I dislike the notion of judges deciding cases on partisan whim, I am far less alarmed at the supposed epidemic of activism than some of my peers. Frankly, I've seen no evidence that any judge on the Supreme Court consistently subverts constitutional interpretation to naked political desire. So Stevens' statement comes not as a shock or tragic exception, but as the way things are.

Hell of a Pedigree

Kos links to a story on Montana Governor (and Democratic rising star) Brian Schweitzer's plan for energy independence. Essentially, its a method developed eighty years ago that can derive gasoline from coal--and with skyrocketing oil prices, it's economical again.

Alright, so I'm intrigued. But oh, the history...

The Fischer-Tropsch technology, discovered by German researchers in 1923 and later used by the Nazis to convert coal into wartime fuels, was not economical as long as oil cost less than $30 a barrel.
[...]
The fuel that comes out of the Fischer-Tropsch method (also used by South Africa during their embargo years) burns cleaner than current fuels, stripping out sulfur, arsenic, and other nasty byproducts. [quoting from both the article and Kos]

Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa. Now there's a nice set of play mates.

Triumphant Return

So, I'm back from the beach. I know I said I'd blog, but I didn't count on going to a posh and trendy resort and having internet access that resembled a bad cell phone commercial. Aside from the fact that the moons had to be aligned in order to even connect at all, the rates sounded like something Verizon would mock: "75 cents for the first hour and 10 cents a minute after that!" What the hell?

But aside from that, it was a good trip--or as good as can be expected considering I don't like warm weather and don't like South Carolina. Read a bunch of books--a cheap sci-fi piece, but also Barack Obama's autobiography (stellar!) and Randall Kennedy's book "Nigger" (thought-provoking).

I'll re-enter the blog circuit full time (I swear!) tommorow.

Myrtle Beach Bound

Work's over for me, but I'm off to Myrtle Beach for the next few days--Sunday through Thursday. I'm bringing my computer up, but obviously posting rates will be dependent on the timing of various vacation-ly activities.

Which, sadly, means you'll probably see no drop in frequency.

People Please

Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly has been writing a flurry of posts regarding an American withdrawal from Iraq. For example, here he links to Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) demanding that the US get out of Iraq--possibly the first time Hagel has been this explicit on the matter. But the really interesting post is here, when he asks when pro-war liberal hawks are going to start proposing a timed withdrawal. While acknowledging that Democrats need to watch out for allegations they are weak on security, Drum seems to think that there is frankly no choice, and gives three solid reasons why a timed withdrawal is the best policy option:

The presence of American troops is what's largely fueling the terrorism-driven Iraqi insurgency in the first place. Announcing in a credible way that we plan to leave -- really leave -- would at least partially draw its fangs.

As long as American troops are around, Iraqi leaders don't have enough incentive to make the hard choices needed to agree on a constitution and train troops to guard their own country. A no-nonsense announcement from the U.S. would force them to get moving.

The military can't keep up its current tempo in Iraq for much longer, and sometime in 2006 a drawdown is probably going to become necessary no matter what. If that's the case, it's better to do it on our own terms instead of waiting to be forced into it.

I think these make a lot of sense. I have two concerns however.

My overriding framework for evaluating any Iraq policy is how it affects the people. No, not our people, the Iraqi people--the folks whose country we invaded. I think that too often the Iraqi people are getting lost in the Iraq debate. Liberals talk about dead American troops and mounting costs. Conservatives talk about all the terrorists we're killing. (And nutjobs talk about how awesome the terrorists killing American troops are). We have a moral obligation to not leave the people in a state of chaos, and unfortunately so far we've been performing miserably in that respect. For liberal hawks like myself, this has been THE most disappointing part of the invasion--that after all of this, we couldn't even guarantee Iraq a future. But I'm not quite ready to give up hope yet--I think there still must be some way that we can, if not "win" in Iraq, avoid a disaster. At this point, however, I'm open to arguments that withdrawing is the best way to help create a better Iraq--if not that we should abandon the project of creating a better Iraq all together.

Of Drum's three arguments, the third is irrelevant to the "people first" framework, and the second argument I just don't think is true. A sudden withdrawal I think is likely to create a panic amongst political leaders in Iraq. MAYBE this will result in them pushing aside silly differences and creating a working government, but somehow I'm skeptical. More likely, the panic will exacerbate pre-existing tensions and make the problem worse, not better. I mean, it's not like liberal values are doing so great in the constitutional process even with--in effect--unlimited time for negotiations. Push comes to shove, and I think everybody becomes a lot more testy and thus a lot more radical.

Whether or not you believe my likely conclusion or Drum's depends a lot on how you evaluate argument one. I'll assume, arguendo, that our troops are the root of most of the current terrorism against us. The question, then, is whether Iraq has passed the "tipping point" where it is so destabilized that it cannot support itself without outside assistance (IE, US troops doing right). After all, even if most of the terrorists are drawing their support right now as resisters against the occupation, it is a bit fanciful to assume that if we leave, they'll quietly disarm and go away. So, if you think that without the aggravating factor of US troops Iraq will be able to right itself, then withdrawal will seem like a good option. If you think that a withdrawal will lead to a power gap that will likely be filled by violent militias and a bloody civil war, then US troops (for all their flaws) become the last bulwark before disaster. Cynic that I am, I believe the latter.

Basically, if liberal withdrawal advocates want to win over liberal hawks to their position, they have to show some methodology by which Iraq won't obliterate itself the minute the US leaves. Barring that, I'll stick with the occupation I know, rather than the Lebanese-style civil war I know even better.

Ethics in Ohio

Embattled Ohio Governor Bob Taft just was found guilty of several ethics violations and was forced to pay $4000 in fines.

While I could use this as a jumping off point for my usual tirades against corruption and power-madness in the GOP, I won't. Why? Because aside from the lapse itself, I think Gov. Taft handled this exactly as a good statesman should. He plead "no contest" to the charges and immediately apologized. Furthermore, Governor Taft has fired several folks over corruption charges--though how much of it he himself was linked to, I'm not sure.

I wouldn't be so quick to give the Governor a free pass except the violations in question were extremely minor--a few unreported golf trips. If the Governor is implicated in the Coin Pension Fund scandal though (which he might), then you won't see me quite so conciliatory.

Troubled Youth

If you don't see any posts from me tonight, it's because I'm out committing a crime spree with my friends. Specifically, a college-bound neighbor is hosting a "pirating party," where we all can exchange music, movies, and other such media files before we head back to college.

I, personally, will not be partaking, since it is rather redundant--anything you can get here will be available at college: someone in the dorm is bound to have it.

But alas, some criminals are just irredeemable...

The Invisible Hand Just Groped Me!

Most people seem a bit more conciliatory (in comments here and here) toward Roberts' stance against equal-pay/equal-work than I did. The general argument is that so long as we're talking about different jobs that require similar educational levels (as opposed to two people doing the exact same thing), then we should defer to the invisible hand's assessment of their "actual" worth rather than relying on judicial determination.

If it were that simple, I'd be in that camp too. But the problem is that I don't think you can divorce the issue of female pay from lingering sexism in American modes of the thought. It remains true that "woman's work" is devalued in American culture (when it is paid at all), females often constitute "invisible labor" that is just assumed to be available at all times. Formal antidiscrimination laws allow us to remedy the most egregious manifestations of this (such as unequal pay for the same exact job), but it does nothing where the jobs are different and have been laced with gender-based tropes that positively or negatively effect their value.

Is it possible that all "female jobs" would still be worth less than "male" ones if both were stripped of their sexual tenors? Possibly. But the problem is we have absolutely no idea. However, at best, the invisible hand would seem to indicate randomness--that is, if we've truly transcended sexism, then "similar" formerly male and female jobs might not all pay the same, but there wouldn't be a discernible pattern where one is consistently worth more than the other.

The argument that women are paid less because of pregnancy and such also doesn't hold water. First of all, it makes at least as much sense that the labor would be worth more because it is scarcer--assuming that these studies are adjusted for hours worked (which seems elementary), the built-in absences mean there are, on average, fewer women available for the same quantity of work (since there isn't anything that shows female jobs require less productivity than their male equivalents), and thus the reduced supply should drive prices up. But more importantly, this reifies one of the key points made by radical "second wave" feminists like Catherine MacKinnon--it acts like motherhood and pregnancy should be seen as freebies worth nothing--a devaluation if I've ever seen one.

Also, riffing off what PG says, I still think that the equal pay/equal work stance is more controversial than the opposition to Wallace. Again, this isn't because I think Wallace is less defensible, indeed, considering I'm a church/state zealot I'm probably one of the biggest supporters of Wallace there is. Like PG, I consider myself to be a social liberal and economic moderate. However, my generic line of thought is basically the following: If you asked the average American the following two questions:

1) Woman are paid an average of 60 cents for every dollar a male makes. Do you think that the government should try to reduce this disparity?

and

2) Alabama tried to reincorporate prayer in school by passing a law allowing voluntary, silent prayer during a mandatory "moment of silence." Do you think this is unconstitutional?

I think far more persons would fall on Roberts' side on the latter question than the former. Hence, I consider the former to be more "radical," notwithstanding my stringent objections to the latter.

PS: I'm not entirely alone. Suburban Guerilla also seized upon the equal pay issue for specific condemnation. Kevin Drum just wants to know what's so much more radical than this that the Bush administration refuses to release the memos containing it.

Forgotten Histories

You know, if you listened to some of the stuff coming out of right field, you'd almost forget our entire nation was founded by illegal immigrants.

Throughout our nation's history, we've had relapses into fervent anti-immigrant hysteria. The Know-Nothings, Chinese Exclusion Laws, 1920s quotas, and today Samuel Huntington's "American Creed" all have two things in common. First, they demonstrate an amnesia about how immigration has constantly made our nation stronger, more diverse, and more powerful. Second, they all are directed at certain hated ethnic groups: Germans, Chinese, Southeast Europeans, Mexicans, etc.. In all cases, this ethnic group is imputed to be inferior to the "stock" American, somehow having bad habits and traits that will prove detrimental in the long run. The fact that history has time and again proved us wrong appears to be no object--whoever first decided (probably less than 20 years after our nation's founding) that America had received enough immigration and we hitherto were perfect created an evil power which appears to be immortal.

In this context, Fox News' framing of the illegal immigration issue draws on a long history of xenophobia, racism, and American triumphalism which has long been the source of some our nation's greatest failings.

"Illegal immigrants--violent, carrying disease, and with possible ties to terrorism?"

Of course, some immigrants are violent, are carrying disease, and are tied to terrorism. But it is absurd to essentialize the entire group like that--there just isn't any justification to it.

There has been but one immigration movement this nation has seen that has been characteristically "violent, carrying disease, and [tied] to terrorism." But it isn't this wave. This isn't anti-Americanism. The sins of past bear no guilt on the denizens of the present--so long as we face up to them. But to insist on an asymmetry where they are the disease carrying violent hordes is to deny solid history, and is reminiscent of the worst forms of white supremacy.

Americans speaking on immigration need to look inside the mirror.

Swinging Both Ways

I meant to link to this earlier, but forgot. In a way, it represents a lot of what I feel about Iraq.

The link points you to two stories. One is on the Bush administration finally starting to admit that its wildly optimistic assessments of Iraqi Democracy were completely unrealistic. As a supporter of the Iraq war on humanitarian grounds, I've been forced to deal with this more than most anyone. I can't just say "I was deceived by WMDs," because I wasn't. I believed in this mission. I can't stand the thought of leaving another child under the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. So when President Bush says: "We can get that bastard out and spread freedom," I'll admit I'm all ears.

As Dan Savage notes, the liberal hawks wanted this thing to succeed more desperately than anyone else. For us, it wasn't about abstract notions of "the war on terrorism" or "punishing evildoers" (though we thought it would help those too). It was about changing lives, about freeing oppressed people from the most horrific of tyrannies. I can live with failing to find Saddam's WMDs (if there were any). I can't live with the notion that we raised the hopes of millions only to plunge a nation back into chaos.

The worst part is the what ifs. Leftist anti-war supporters are crowing that this war was doomed from the start. The US can't just expect to waltz in and pull democracy out of thin air in a fractured and balkanized environment like Iraq. Is that true? I don't know. I prefer to think that the incredible series of blunders the Bush administration made in its handling of the post-war occupation fumbled what could have been a golden opportunity. Of course, preferred is a relative term: In this case, it merely means that I think completely discrediting the philosophy of spreading freedom and aiding the oppressed is better than that philosophy being futile in the first place. Hurray.

The second story is optimistic. It's about Sunnis uniting against efforts by insurgents to drive Shiites from Ramadi. The solidarity I hoped, prayed, would emerge. Could it be true? After so many disappointments, I fear to take too much stock. It may be an aberration, it may be a trend. It may mean a lot, or perhaps nothing at all. Only time will tell.

The latter story gives me a sliver of hope against the former's confirmation of my worst fears.

The Radical Within Roberts Stirs

See? If it weren't for the release of memos, we'd have never known about this:

On the issue of gender equality on worker wages, Roberts was critical of three Republican congresswomen who supported the concept.

Roberts referred to a 1983 case in which the Washington state supreme court found the state guilty of discrimination for paying women less than men for jobs of "comparable worth."

Roberts said in a February 3, 1984, memo that the ruling smacked of judicial activism. "This is a total reorientation of the law of gender discrimination," he concluded, since "it mandates nothing less than central planning of the economy by judges. Under the theory judges, not the marketplace, decide how much a particular job is worth."

Later that month, Roberts again addressed the issue, noting three GOP lawmakers applauded the ruling. One was then-Rep. Olympia Snowe, now the senior U.S. senator from Maine. The congresswomen complained women at the time earned only 60 cents for every dollar earned by men.

"I honestly find it troubling that three Republican representatives are so quick to embrace such a radical redistribute concept. Their slogan may as well be 'From each according to his ability, to each according to her gender,'" said Roberts.

Roberts also opposed the Court's ruling in Wallace v. Jaffree. There, the Court ruled that an Alabama law which nominally only affirmed the right of students to pray silently during a moment of silence, but whose legislative history made it clear it was designed as an end-run around prior School Prayer cases like Engel v. Vitale, was unconstitutional under the 1st amendment. Though this case is nearer and dearer to my heart, I recognize it is far more controversial. Roberts' position on gender equality, by contrast, seems absolutely fringe. The "market" should decide what a woman's job is worth? If there was ever a clear cut example of a market failure, it seems like this was it (60 cents versus a dollar--come on). And Roberts' comparison of judicial efforts to remedy rather blatant sex discrimination in the work place to "central planning" is just absurd. This is precisely the type of ideological blindness to clear facts that I hoped Roberts would avoid.

My support is slipping.

Well This is Disheartening

You think Americans have shallow support for civil liberties? Compared to the rest of the free world, we're a nation of ACLUites. Orin Kerr brings us some revealing poll data from Canada:

What measures for the war on terrorism do Canadians support?

Deporting or jailing anyone who publicly supports terrorists or suicide bombers.

Oppose/strongly oppose: 15%
Strongly support/support: 81%
Don't know: 4%

Having video cameras in all public places.

Oppose/strongly oppose: 25%
Strongly support/support: 72%
Don't know: 2%

Giving the U.S. any information it requests about Canadian citizens whom they suspect of being terrorists.

Oppose/strongly oppose: 33%
Strongly support/support: 62%
Don't know: 5%

So the winner, by Technical Knockout...America. Congratulations on being the best of the mediocre.