Things People Blame the Jews for, Volume VII: Jews

It is unsurprising that the "blame the Jews" phenomenom would eventually come a full circle. The idea that the entire idea of a "Jew" is a myth is hardly new -- anyone who has seen a "Black Israelite" on a street corner is familiar with the trope, but it has gotten some new life recently with the publication of Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People. Sand, a professor of modern French history and film studies, contends that the entire idea of a "Jewish people" is a myth invented towards the end of the 19th century as part of the Zionist enterprise. He further argues that (Ashkenazi) Jews are not descended from people who left modern Israel in the Roman era, but rather are descendants of Khazars (a long-gone kingdom in modern Russia).

One thing that is often remarked upon about anti-Zionist discourse is how it takes attributes that apply to nation-states generally and ascribes a uniqueness (or at least a special virulence) to them when applied to the Jewish state in particular. With Sand's argument we see much the same thing, but applied to the concept of "nations" more broadly. The idea of a "nation" as an "imagined community", whose bonds are constituted intersubjectively rather than representative of some eternal and pure blood tie, is not exactly revolutionary in the field. And that the idea of Jewishness as a nation in the modern sense didn't begin to form until the 19th century too, wouldn't be surprising -- the concept of nations in their modern form didn't begin to emerge until the 19th century. Jewish "peoplehood" was in all probability no more or less developed than those of other peoples across history; but that doesn't make it fake (then or now).

The very, very elementary mistake some people draw from this is that, because the origin story is partially mythological, the community is a fiction. We decide what ties bind us. None of them, in all likelihood, translate into any sort of eternal, transhistorical truth -- an observation that has no bearing on their validity. It's how people screw up social constructivism more generally -- "socially constructed" is not a synonym for "fake." Most important elements of our lives are socially constructed, that doesn't make them any less real.

Nor does it particularly matter whether any individual Jewish person can individually trace their bloodlines to someone who lived in Jerusalem in 259 B.C.E. Let's say Sand is 100% right that modern Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazars, who were converted by Jewish missionaries from the Holy Land. To assert that this makes anybody any less Jewish or any more disconnected from a historical or Bible-era Jewish people requires us to say that only way to be "truly" part of a people is to descend via bloodline. But that's (a) not true and (b) not something Jews have ever believed. Descent can make one a member of the tribe, but it doesn't make one any more of a member than a convert. In this, one can say that Jewish identity reached a modern (or perhaps post-modern) form ahead of the curve -- our conception of peoplehood was less predicated on a literal chain of "who begats", and instead embraced the idea of created a community and nation out of shared intersubjective bonds and commonalities of creed. Not only is this not an illegitimate form of social organization, nominally it would seem to be superior to assertions that are quite literally based off ethnic essentialism.

The normative argument Sand wants to make -- undermining the "reality" of a Jewish people and its connection to Israel by way of genetics -- is something I've criticized before (and criticized when it is applied to Palestinians, who also are accosted with charges that they are johnny-come-latelys to the territories):

I hate this. I hate this in all of its forms. I hate it when folks try and tell me that Jews don't really belong in the Middle East because they actually descend from Khazars. I hate it when people argue that Palestinians aren't a "real" people because they didn't have national ambitions until relatively recently. I hate it when Israelis are accosted as inauthentic because they have the "wrong" eye color. I hate it when people seem to think this entire conflict is properly resolved via an impossible historical inquiry into who got to the Holy Land "the firstest with the mostest".

It all just strikes me as incredibly primitive -- based on old-school notions of ancestral ties and bloodrights and purity that have no place in modern discussions. I'm a Levi, so I assume I descend from relatively deep Israelite strands. But who knows -- maybe there are some European converts in my family tree. So what? And if some persons with African blood identify as Palestinian and are so recognized by the Palestinian community -- good for them! It is sordid business, this attempt to police each other's racial authenticity for our own transparently political ends.

And that's the problem here. There is an ongoing debate over the genealogy of Ashkenazi Jews (a debate with far more qualified participants than professors of modern French history, I might add), but to assert that it resolves any claims regarding the legitimacy of a Jewish state requires us to believe in some very retrograde notions of statedom -- that they really are and must be predicated on purity of blood and bloodline and a belief that this volk is eternally tied to this soil. The problem being that nobody believes that, and claims of that sort have long since ceased to be necessary for the maintenance of a national identity.

The bizarre summation of Sand's normative attack is that the only legitimate identities are those actually based on historically verifiable racial purity; Jews actually comprise a variety of ethnicities who may or may not share blood ties with ancestral Jews, therefore, Jewishness is a falsehood. To state that argument is to refute it: all identities are socially constructed, and that fact does not falsify the identity to anyone but someone more enamored of old-school racist ideologies than I think Sand would prefer to admit.

Sorry, SCOTUS: Pixie Needs Me

Something about this I find absolutely hilarious. Judge Richard Posner was asked about the possibility of serving on the Supreme Court. After noting he was probably too old, he also stated that he thought the Supreme Court wasn't "a real court" because of its selective docket and overly politicized nature. Moreover, with its limited case load it doesn't give the justices sufficient opportunity to write. But the most important barrier to seeing Justice Posner is ... his cat Pixie:

Posner also reveals in the interview that he works from home at least half the time, and one reason is his cat, Pixie. “I’m a very big cat person,” Posner says. Pixie is affectionate and "her little face falls" if Posner or his wife leaves the house. "The cat wants us at home," he says.

I don't know why that paragraph cracks me up, but it does.

Let's Get Ready to Humble!

I was thinking about Michael Buffer's famous line, said before boxing matches around the world -- "Let's get ready to RUMBLE!" It is an iconic phrase -- possibly one of the most iconic in the world. Everybody knows it, even if you've never seen a boxing match.

Buffer is getting on in years, and eventually (hopefully not too soon) he'll die. And when that happens, the phrase will die with him -- not just in the sense that nobody will say it, but it's massive cultural penetration will rapidly become almost unintelligible. In 100 years, not only will nobody remember that phrase, but if they stumble on a historical artifact which references it, they'll have no idea what it means (culturally -- literally speaking, they could probably parse it out). Even if a historian did happen to be familiar with it, how would he explain it in terms of its incredible global reach? For something so ubiquitous, it really has no substance behind it whatsoever -- it's just a neat phrase, said in a neat way, that people around the world associate with the start of the fight.

This sounds a bit maudlin, and I don't mean it to be -- I actually think it is kind of neat that as a species we have managed to unify behind something as shallow and ridiculous as this. But it was a strange thought to have, and what is the purpose of having a blog if you can't share strange thoughts?

I'm assuming the Post will be apologizing for Richard Cohen shortly?

Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all.

A different sort of gag might be appropriate for Richard Cohen when he thinks he wants to talk about race.

Also, his assessment of current "convention"

Monday, November 11, 2013

What Was Needed Was More Gunfire

The tragic story of a shooting spree at a Texas party that left two teenagers dead is precisely why I don't understand the "more guns will keep us safer" argument. The short version of what happened at the party is that some idiot decided to fire off his gun into the air "in a celebratory fashion." Someone else took that as a threat, and fired into the crowd (presumably in the direction of the original shooter). In the ensuing chaos, two innocent people were killed.

That was bad enough. But imagine there were six armed people there, or twelve. And they don't necessarily know each other, and they see other people pulling out guns and firing, and they have no way of knowing who are the bad guys. And so the whole party massacres itself.

Real life, particularly in a civilian mass shooting situation, isn't like Call of Duty. There are no uniforms and nothing glows red when you target an enemy. What more guns means in this situation is more chaos and a situation where not even the cops can tell who is a threat and who is trying to "help".

Things People Blame the Jews for, Volume VI: Energy Speculation

One of my new practice groups at the firm (see my shiny new bio!) is energy, an area which is quite new to me. I spoke to a partner who described how you can appraise how senior someone is in the energy law field by asking them "where does electricity come from" -- my answer, as of now, is: "the wall."

This is a shame, though, because as a Jew, energy markets (and energy speculation) are apparently my reason for existence in Washington. Here's Texe Marrs (there's a name!) with the lowdown [http://www.texemarrs.com/042011/zionist_oil_speculators.htm]:

They’re doing it again! Three years ago, two Rothschild-owned Wall Street banks—Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley—artificially drove the price of oil up to $142 a barrel, and the American economy collapsed. One year later, the price had fallen to $32 per barrel—and the oil companies were still making money, (They bring it out of the ground for a puny $4 per barrel!)

Now, Rothschild's Wall Street manipulators are back in business. For weeks now, oil gasoline demand has actually decreased. Nevertheless, the Wall Street criminals are driving the price of oil up through the roof on the oil futures market—which they own! That’s right, they own the commodities future exchanges!

And here’s what else you need to know:

1. President Obama is colluding with these bums. His Fed Reserve (with Jewish chairman Bernanke) gave 73 billion dollars in “loans” to Libya and Gaddafi. But Gaddafi’s oil goes to France, not the U.S.A.!


2. Obama’s Treasury Secretary (the Jew Geithner) gave a two billion dollar “loan” to Petrobras, the Brazilian oil giant, to drill in the Atlantic, off the coast of Brazil. Surprise: Brazil’s oil goes primarily to Red China and India, not the U.S.A.!


3. Obama’s Marxist EPA and Energy Department hassles U.S. oil drillers with a blizzard of regulations—all to intentionally force Americans to buy foreign oil owned by Rothschild and other Israel and Jewish billionaires. This in spite of the fact that the U.S. oil reserves are greater than Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, and all the rest of the world’s nations combined.

What the environmental crazies and Obama plan is for the price of gasoline to shoot up to $6.00, even to $10.00 per gallon. They think that Americans will be forced to drive less and thus their Global Warming scam will be enhanced.


4. Fidel’s Cuba and Red China are drilling new oil wells in international waters off of Florida, but Obama says “No!” to American drillers.


5. Iraq’s abundant oil is being shipped by oil pipeline through Israel to tankers sitting off the coasts of Gaza and Lebanon and is going directly to Red China. That’s right, Rothschild’s Israeli partners have been given—yes, given!—all of Iraq’s oil. They’re making a mint selling it to the Communists in Beijing. Remember when Dick Cheney promised us that the invasion and occupation of Iraq wouldn’t cost Americans a dime, because Iraq’s oil would pay for it? Well, now you and I see what rotten, filthy liars these politicians are!

If there's one thing a billionaire (Jewish or otherwise) loves, it's Marxism. And if there are two places Jews have infinite sway, they're Iraq and Saudi Arabia

UPDATE: Somebody must have forwarded this shocking hot take to Guatemalan activists protesting energy prices there.

Who Cares About Deficits?

I've been meaning to welcome my old debate teammate (and very, very technically, former co-blogger) Emily Mirengoff to the blogosphere. She's been writing an ongoing series on education that is well-worth your time.

Her blog is titled "A Moderate Mindset", and last month she put up a post entitled "A Moderate Solution to the Government Shutdown." I, too, have sometimes written on the moderate label, a characterization I'm sure Emily would find laughable (in my defense, see my "The Moderator's Voice" post, where I discuss how I reconcile my currente leftist beliefs with what I take to be the virtues of "moderation" -- I think she might view it with a surprising level of agreement).

In any event, here were the counters of her proposal:

On the Obamacare issue, the Republicans are dead wrong. The law passed; they were unable to overturn it; and they shouldn't be holding the budget hostage in retaliation.

On the debt ceiling issue, the Democrats have spiraled completely out of control. Below is a video of a Democrat who agrees with me. He may look familiar to you; he’s a political rising star named Senator Barack Obama.

[...]

So here’s the compromise: President Obama agrees to institute a real debt ceiling–and actually adheres to it by cutting down government spending–and in return, the Republicans abandon their doomed anti-Obamacare campaign. It would truly be an astounding day for the U.S. government: Both parties acting reasonably! Compromise! The government re-opening!

Okay, from one erstwhile moderate to another, let's rap.

On the one hand, we have Republicans unreasonably holding the country hostage while they engage in futile efforts to try to block the healthcare law. They should knock this off, and that would be their side of the compromise. Now, a substantial part of the "problem" here isn't that Republicans oppose the Affordable Care Act. That's their prerogative! It's that they're engaging in extreme levels of hostage taking to substitute for the fact that they are not, currently, in a position to repeal the ACA. I take it that Emily is not proposing that Republicans not try to overturn the ACA if in the future they happened to regain control of Congress and the Executive Branch (such a promise would be unreasonable and entirely unenforceable in any event). So the Republican side of the compromise would be "stop trying to repeal Obamacare until you actually are able to repeal Obamacare." That's not nothing, given that the ongoing GOP temper tantrum on this issue is doing real damage to the country, but you can imagine why Democrats wouldn't exactly be leaping for joy over it.

On the other side, Democrats are supposed to accede to spending cuts in order to bring the deficit under control. The "Democrats have spiraled completely out of control" on the debt, and the way to fix it is spending cuts. We might begin by quibbling with the notion that Democrats have not concerned themselves with deficits -- tough to swing, given that deficits have been slashed dramatically during Obama's tenure in office. But since we're still running a deficit, debts continue to accumulate, and the debt ceiling remains a problem. To the extent we care about reducing our debt load, more steps need to be taken.

The real question is, why is this a "Democratic" sacrifice? The answer is that, somewhat strangely, Emily says we should reduce our deficit level solely by reference to spending cuts. But that is only one way to skin the cat -- another way of reducing deficits, of course, is by raising additional revenue.

Put another way, let's say we posit that Republicans care about deficits and Democrats don't. Republicans would demand steps for deficits to be reduced. Democrats wouldn't be particularly interested because (per stipulation) they don't care about deficits. And they'd be concretely adverse to cutting spending on social programs they value. But Democrats don't really have any objection to raising taxes on the wealthy, or removing the privileged and distorted position capital gains enjoy vis-a-vis other forms of income in our tax code. So presumably, if what Republicans cared about was "deficits", this would be an easy agreement to hammer out: high-income taxes are raised, deficits go down, everyone is happy.

This, of course, is not the terms of the debate. As Jon Chait has noted, the Republican position on deficits is that they would do anything to reduce the debt load, except contemplate any increase in taxes whatsoever. It is a very impressive thing that the GOP has managed to stake out this position -- rejecting even 10:1 spending cut/tax increase propositions -- while still convincing people that their primary concern is with deficits, rather than with cutting spending. And not just any government spending, either: As we learned from the Farm Bill debacle, the real object is slashing government spending that helps poorer Americans, demanding slashes to food stamps while fighting bitterly to maintain subsidies to wealthy agricultural producers (even the National Review found this to be beyond the pale). Certain spending -- for example, defense spending, or corporate subsidies -- doesn't seem to be problematic to the Republican Party at all. Hell, the Affordable Care Act reduces deficits -- yet for some reason this does not endear it to supposedly deficit-conscious Republican congressfolk. Deficit reduction is, at most, a tertiary issue -- perhaps a happy side-effect of depriving impoverished Americans of food, but nowhere near as important as insuring that income earned via capital are taxed at half the rate of earnings won through labor.

I should say that while I obviously oppose these Republican policy priorities substantively, I'm not really bothered by the fact that these are their priorities as opposed to deficit-cutting. Republicans have policy objections to government spending money on healthcare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and other programs that primarily benefit poorer Americans. If, as a consequence, deficits are also reduced, that's a nice benefit, but it is a bonus, not the primary motivator, and where there are available deficit-reduction opportunities that don't cohere to these priorities (such as raising taxes, or, for that matter, passing the Affordable Care Act), they'll oppose them. Democrats, for their part, support these sorts of programs and wish to expand them. While they'd probably be willing to mitigate their impact on the deficit by passing higher taxes on wealthy Americans, that isn't their priority either and if that avenue is unavailable they'd rather keep the programs and expand the deficit. All of that is perfectly fine, it just demonstrates that deficits and debt are not actually what's driving the current controversy between the parties, and so bootstrapping the debt ceiling to the argument doesn't make a lot of sense.

The real lesson we've learned, hopefully, from the past few months is that the debt ceiling isn't something to grandstand about (and I hope Barack Obama, looking back on his senatorial self, has been appropriately chastened). So my moderate proposal flowing out of the shutdown crisis is considerably simpler: abolish the debt ceiling outright.

Note I am not saying that Congress should rack up infinite deficits. But the amount of debt we incur in a given year is a product of the budget negotiated within Congress and approved by the President, and the presence of a debt ceiling doesn't change that. All the debt ceiling does is threaten a global economic meltdown whenever Congress, as is often, can't get its act together. In essence, what the debt ceiling does is say "we, Congress, cannot be trusted to pass budgets which reduce our debt load. As a consequence of that dysfunction, we will periodically put the entire world at the risk of an unnecessary massive economic calamity unless we decide to take an affirmative step to stop it." This is not sound policy, whether as a tool for reducing the debt or for anything else.

If Congress wants to incur less debt, it should achieve that through the budgetary process. We should incur as much debt (or not) as results from the negotiated balance of revenues to spending that Congress approves in its budget. If that results in too-high debt levels, then the budget should be rerenegotiated to either lower spending or increase revenues. Periodically arming, defusing, and then rearming a ticking time bomb is neither helpful nor sensible. And that lesson, hopefully, has become quite clear.

Law, Law, Everywhere There's Law

Anytime a lawyer looks at a new industry, he or she is immediately struck by just how much law there is about it. It can be quite intimidating. In order to, say, build a water treatment plant, it isn't enough to simply know how to build the plant. One has to be aware of a massive buffet of rules and regulations that govern the field -- zoning, building codes, environmental approvals, laws governing any financing -- the list goes on and on. The amount of effort it takes just to know what you need to know, let alone to actually know it, let alone to actually do it, is daunting. Good for me professionally, but daunting.

So in that sense I can be sympathetic to complaints that there is too much red tape stifling businesses. But then I think about it a little more, and I can't help but think my complaint boils down to crying that filling important social functions takes hard work. Poor us -- we'd like to be able to plan the development of a major public utility in an afternoon and then golf for the next three weeks, but we can't (thanks, Obama). And phrased that way, it feels a little ridiculous.

Things People Blame The Jews For, Volume V: Law (Schools)

I have begun my trek into the world of legal practice, but it is important to remember my roots as a legal academic. Specifically,, a Jewish legal academic. Oh, does that rub some people the wrong way [http://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=78280]:

They’re barely two percent of the population, but research indicates that jews occupy slightly more than half of the teaching slots at America’s top ten law schools. (By ranking of U.S. News & World Report, these are: 1. Yale; 2. Stanford; 3. Harvard; 4. Columbia; 5. NYU; 6. Chicago; 7. Berkeley; 7. Michigan; 7. Pennsylvania; 7. Virginia.) The same people who give you the endless song and dance about overrepresentation of white males in every sector they haven’t yet commandeered for themselves have nepotistically positioned their racial crime syndicate to decide who becomes a power player in 21st-century AmeriKwa -- and they breathe not a word of this prodigious legal enormity to the mass public. The simple fact is, jews and people trained to think like them exercise an effective monopoly over the legal profession. In a country in which you can hardly pick your nose without counsel, that fact is grounds for some very serious thought about where we’re headed, and what’s going to be left of normal whites like you and me when we get there.

VNN researched the matter online (you can verify all the findings, the names and pictures, online at vnnforum.com ). This was easy to do, since all these schools list their professors by name. It is clear from the very look and feel of these sites that the attitude of the folks training our top lawyers is the same as the jewish business owner who said, “I only hire jews, women, and gays.” Normal white males need not apply, and the ones who do attend these schools, are either self-hating liberals to start with, or bent that way after Prof. Selznik’s “words mean what they have to” course. Simply look at the graphics used by these top ten schools to see the future this type envisions: women and coloreds and jews, with nary a white male to be found. This is the utopia the jew prepares for our race. When they say “abolish,” they mean it. White genocide is very plainly the agenda of the jews who control our law schools.

Of course, this raises tantalizing questions about my own exit from an academy that was apparently built for my own personal pleasure. Was I expelled as a dissident from the Elders' orthodoxy? One would think my anti-discrimination law focus would have kept me safe from charges of apostasy. Maybe the problem was the opposite, my lack of subtlety? Or perhaps it was random caprice -- sometimes, a random zag is the best way to throw folks off the trail. Regardless of the explanation, one can be sure it is nefarious.

Tantrum Ad

If I were a Democratic strategist tasked with running ads right now (or really, right after the shutdown), this is the one I would have run:

SCENE: Two PARENTS, a MOM and DAD stand outside a closed door. Inside, a TODDLER can be heard screaming and throwing a tantrum. The parents look at each other.

MOM: Should we say something?

DAD: I think we have to.

They enter the room. Inside, is a child's bedroom with toys reflective of Washington (e.g., a miniature Washington Monument. The toddler is revealed to be an older white man in a baby outfit featuring an elephhant -- a CONGRESSMAN.

MOM: Do you know why you're in here?

CONGRESSMAN (sullenly): No.

MOM: Yes you do. The government shut down, the debt ceiling, the constant obstruction ...

DAD: I know you oppose expanded health care access, but that's not appropriate behavior.

CONGRESSMAN [screaming]: But I hate it! I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT!

[He throws the toy Washington Monument, which bounces off of MOM's chest. She closes her eyes in exasperation.]

MOM: You're in timeout until you learn how to behave yourself.

[The CONGRESSMAN resumes screaming, and both parents leave the room]

MOM: That hard.

DAD: I know, but if he's not punished, he won't learn.

Scene ends, splash screen comes up asking people to send Republicans in Washington a message

Call me any time, DCCC.

Pope Fraud!

Allegations of widespread "voter fraud" is a story I've followed with some interest over the past few years, despite the fact that "voter fraud" in the United States is virtually non-existent. This factoid seems not to discourage anyone, and certain themes stand out in the attempts to stir up a panic about it:

1) Voter fraud is an organized part of a vast conspiracy to bring America under the dominion of scary Marxist brown people, probably at the orchestration of ACORN.

2) Voter fraud is epidemic, despite its empirical rarity.

3) Relatively minor instances of voter irregularities will be drummed up and exaggerated beyond all reason as proof of said epidemic.

Following these conclusions gives a rather different spin on this report about the circumstances of Cardinal Bergoglio (now Pope Francis') election to the papacy:

What happened? After the fifth ballot was cast and the ballot box containing the votes of the 115 cardinal electors opened, the ballots were counted as always before being scrutinised and the resulting number was 116. There was one extra ballot. One of the cardinals had mistakenly placed two ballots in the box without realising it: one contained the name of his preferred candidate and the other was blank.

The mistake meant the whole voting session had to be cancelled, without the ballots even being scrutinised. If they had, Bergoglio would probably have probably come out on top. It was decided that another vote should be cast immediately. The mishap would not have influenced the cardinals in any way as none of them knew what name (in this case none) was on the extra ballot. On the sixth ballot and after the fifth scrutiny, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires won a clear majority: way above the expected quorum of 77 votes. Then the white smoke billowed out of the Sistine Chapel chimney and Pope Francis greeted the crowds for the first time.

Seems an amusing if innocuous story. But translated into the American fever swamp coverage of voter fraud, and we'd get something like this:

Catholics were shocked when Hispanic Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected to the Papacy. His radical views and known ties to Latin American Marxists have already manifested in a papacy that has at every turn eviscerated traditional Catholic values. But the mystery may have been solved: A Breitbart exclusive reveals that his "election" may have actually been the result of widespread fraud in the sacrosanct election proceeding. Sources inside the Vatican have confirmed that one of the election rounds simply wasn't counted after an unrevealed Cardinal was caught trying to stuff the ballot box. Despite evidence of a potential corruption scandal, allies to Cardinal Bergoglio not only refused to tabulate the ballots, they forced a highly irregular immediate revote where their preferred candidate surged to a shocking victory .....

And so on and so forth.

We Are ... The Resistance

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I wanted to become a lawyer.

The government has moved to ban the [defense from using the] word “government” [to refer to the prosecution]. The State of Tennessee offers precisely zero legal authority for its rather nitpicky position, and the defense can find none. The Plaintiff has failed to carry its burden on this motion. Moreover, the Plaintiff’s proposed ban on speech would violate the First Amendment. The motion should be denied.

Should this Court disagree, and feel inclined to let the parties basically pick their own designations and ban words, then the defense has a few additional suggestions for amending the speech code. First, the Defendant no longer wants to be called “the Defendant.” This rather archaic term of art, obviously has a fairly negative connotation. It unfairly demeans, and dehumanizes Mr. D.P. The word “defendant” should be banned. At trial, Mr. P. hereby demands to be addressed only by his full name, preceded by the title “Mister.”

Alternatively, he may be called simply “the Citizen Accused.” This latter title sounds more respectable than the criminal “Defendant.” The designation “That innocent man” would also be acceptable.

Moreover, defense counsel does not wish to be referred to as a “lawyer,” or a “defense attorney.” Those terms are substantially more prejudicial than probative. See Tenn. R. Evid. 403. Rather, counsel for the Citizen Accused should be referred to primarily as the “Defender of the Innocent.” This title seems particularly appropriate, because every Citizen Accused is presumed innocent.

Alternatively, counsel would also accept the designation “Guardian of the Realm.”

Further, the Citizen Accused humbly requests an appropriate military title for his own representative, to match that of the opposing counsel. Whenever addressed by name, the name ”Captain Justice” will be appropriate. While less impressive than “General,” still, the more humble term seems suitable. After all, the Captain represents only a Citizen Accused, whereas the General represents an entire State.

Along these same lines, even the term “defense” does not sound very likeable. The whole idea of being defensive, comes across to most people as suspicious. So to prevent the jury from being unfairly misled by this ancient English terminology, the opposition to the Plaintiff hereby names itself “the Resistance.” Obviously, this terminology need only extend throughout the duration of the trial — not to any pre-trial motions. During its heroic struggle against the State, the Resistance goes on the attack, not just the defense.

WHEREFORE, Captain Justice, Guardian of the Realm and Leader of the Resistance, primarily asks that the Court deny the State’s motion, as lacking legal basis. Alternatively, the Citizen Accused moves for an order in limine modifying the speech code as aforementioned, and requiring any other euphemisms and feel-good terms as the Court finds appropriate.

The government's motion was denied.

The Importance of Being Earnest

There is a widespread consensus that the attorney who argued for the plaintiffs in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action (regarding the constitutionality of Michigan's anti-affirmative action constitutional amendment) did a poor job. The chatter about her performance is amplified because she was not originally scheduled to argue the case, instead substituting at the last minute. There's been a lot of speculation about why that happened, but Tony Mauro may have uncovered the answer:

Detroit civil rights lawyer Shanta Driver made a last-minute decision to argue in a high-profile Supreme Court affirmative action case on Oct. 15 in part, she said, because so few African-American lawyers appear before the justices.

Speaking at a rally of affirmative action supporters in front of the court after the argument, Driver said that only one black lawyer—who spoke for 11 minutes—appeared last term before the justices. It was important, she added, for her as a black woman to argue in Schuette v., Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action to show the justices that someone “who really could speak for the movement” was making the case to save affirmative action.

Her comments, which have gone unreported, help solve the mystery surrounding Driver’s surprise appearance before the court in one of its most important cases of the term. Until the morning of the Supreme Court arguments, Driver’s law firm partner George Washington, who is white, was listed by the court as the one who would make the case for state programs that give a boost to minorities.

Josh Blackman declares this to be "startling" and "patronizing to the Justices." But I'm not sure that's fair.

I should preface by saying that I don't have an opinion on whether the attorney's performance was in fact good or bad -- both because I haven't listened to the argument and, more importantly, because I agree with the also-generally-agreed-upon consensus that she was drawing dead to begin with. And we will never truly know whether the decision to swap in Driver would have made any difference. Counterfactuals are of course impossible and most people are skeptical that the quality of oral argument really impacts the Supreme Court's decisions, particularly in high-profile cases like this.

All that being said, I do want to make the simple observation that the way in which the race of an advocate or interlocutor affects the way we make decisions is an empirical and psychological one, and shouldn't be waved away on the grounds that it is "patronizing." There are many people affiliated with the Court in the early 90s who are convinced that the presence of Thurgood Marshall deterred his colleagues from being as aggressive as they would have liked in rolling back Warren Court race precedents, and that it made a significant difference when he was replaced by Justice Thomas. Driver seemed to think that it was important for liberal judges to see her, and perhaps her presence would impact how hard they'd dig in their heels in writing their dissent (or whether to dissent at all).

The point is that the impact on race in modern society is often framed in terms of politeness -- it's impolitic or rude to speculate that something like race might matter. But the impact of race on perception exists independently of how we would like polite society to operate, and we shouldn't be short-changing inquiry into the question by framing the entire question as ill-mannered.

Energizer Bunnies

I had my first day of work today. Obviously, I've had quite a few "first days of work" before, but this one was different because unlike all of my previous jobs, this one is of indefinite duration. Summer jobs end with the summer ends, my clerkship and my teaching position were both for defined one-year stints. But my tenure at a law firm can continue on and on, until one of us decides to cut the cord. In the words of Community's Mr. Radison:

This is forever. This is what we do now. This is who we are.

But God willing, someday I will win regionals.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume IV: Sex

"Every generation," the saying goes, "thinks it invented sex." Wrong. The Jews invented sex -- at least, the dirty, perverted, sexy sex whose kinky hotness is erotically destroying civilization as we know it. From "The Secret Sex Life of the Jews" [http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/10/19/secret-sex-life-of-the-jews/]:

No class of men appears to be quite as sex-obsessed as the Orthodox Jews and the rabbinate. If you compare the religious texts of the various world religions, you will find that all of them—with the single exception of Judaism—maintain a high moral tone throughout. They don’t keep harping on about breasts and penises, prostitutes and semen. Judaism does.
[...]
Jews certainly have sex on the brain. And they have transmitted their obsession to the rest of society. We have all become infected, to a certain degree, with the sex virus.
[...]
Of one thing we can be reasonably certain: any society that attracts large numbers of Jews can expect within a few years to enter a spiral of decadence. Moral anarchy sets in. Sexual promiscuity throws open its Pandora’s box of evils. We saw it in Weimar Germany.

We see it gathering pace in America today. We see it above all in Israel, a society of fanatical settlers and rabid right-wing rabbis: a country surely doomed to implode from within, sooner or later, under the pressure of its own moral and military excesses.

I cannot help feeling that a great storm is brewing and that only a military coup or revolution can now save America. Save it from what? From the spiritual cancer that is consuming it from within, and from the iniquitous wars into which it is being lured— Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and soon perhaps Iran—on behalf of a foreign nation and its disinfo agents in America.

Unless a miracle soon occurs and some charismatic leader comes to our rescue, an unimaginably bleak future surely awaits us: a future in which the only consolations left to us will be mindless entertainment, drugs, alcohol, sexual intoxication — and suicide.

This is ridiculous of course -- anyone who thinks suicide will save them from the endless march of Jewish sexy sex obviously has never heard of autoerotic asphyxiation (thanks Hebrew school!).

That being said, you can't deny that she has a point. Jews are overwhelmingly liberal on issues of sex and sexuality. Seventy percent support gay marriage. Ninety percent support legalized abortion in most cases. Ninety four percent of Jews reported having premarital sex. Shameful, I know. And as this exclusive behind the scenes footage of a typical Bar Mitzvah demonstrates, dirty, filthy sex lies at the very center of what it means to be a Jew:

Citicare

Citibank just emailed me to let me know that I have some rewards points expiring at the end of the year. Since I am mandated to use them or lose them, I dutifully logged onto the Citibank "Thank You" website to see what my ~6000 points could buy me.

The website is a disaster. Every page has failed to load at least once if not multiple times that I've clicked on it, making it virtually impossible to browse for items (let alone filter my searches). Once it spontaneously logged me out of my account, causing me to have to start everything over. I finally found a product that I wanted (a cast iron skillet), but I had to enter a new shipping address, and I can't do that because each time I click "submit" the page times out and I have to reinput the information.

In conclusion, clearly Citibank is a failure and must be repealed, and the entire project of private capitalist enterprise has been discredited.

Project Runway All-Stars 3: Initial Thoughts

They don't give us any time to relax, do they? The week after Season 11 of Project Runway ends (and immediately following the reunion special), we begin a new season of all-stars! Some first thoughts:

* When they started to announce the designers' mentor, Jill and I squealed with excitement in anticipation of Joanna Coles. And then it was Zanna Roberts Rassi. Such a quick mutual high-to-low is a rare thing.

* I can't believe there's already been three seasons of all-stars (and that doesn't include the special one episode all-stars challenge they did when the show moved to Lifetime. Everyone forgets about that).

* Andy South changes gender and becomes Ari South, and she still isn't the designer whose look has altered the most. That honor goes to Jeffrey Sebelia, who now looks like an extra from a Jeff Foxworthy routine. Elena doesn't count because Elena looks like a completely new person every single episode, thanks to an infinite array of hairstyles.

* I'm glad Viktor didn't go home. I liked his look and generally like his aesthetic, and think he has more to show. I think Melissa was the clear loser of the challenge though (Korto was a bit lucky to be safe, I thought, and Daniel's usual insanity coin-flipped the wrong way).

* I'm not Seth Aaron fan, but that outfit rocked. Also, his vibe is now more "L'oreal executive vice president" than his previous "hyperactive clown." It's an improvement.

* Elena wins her first ever challenge! No complaints by me -- the look was very cool and very her. I have no doubt, however, that she will still bring the crazy this season.

* Also, I understand she meant well, but greeting the guest judge/theme with "my dad will be so psyched" is probably not the preferred reaction.

* Irena's dress! Va-va-voom! Definitely could have seen that on top.

Currency Manipulation

The Washington Post issues its endorsements for local Virginia House of Delegate seats. All four are currently occupied by Republicans, and there discussion of each race begins by observing that, in essence, the incumbent is a lunatic. There's the one who was one "of a handful of lawmakers to speak out against an otherwise highly qualified judicial nominee who happened to be gay." There's the one who "voted to study whether Virginia should develop its own currency as a hedge against financial chaos." There's the one whose "contempt for homosexuals is surpassed only by his disregard for women who have abortions; he suggested that God exacts vengeance on women who abort their fetuses by assuring that their next pregnancy will produce a disabled child." And finally there's the one "who has tormented gays, immigrants and women with his right-wing views."

Well, that makes life easy doesn't it? Not so fast! Two of these four somehow managed to get the Post's endorsement anyway. That's because it appears that the Post's only criteria for its endorsement was a vote for a transportation bill the paper thought was important. Two of the incumbents voted for the bill and garnered an endorsement, two opposed it and saw the nod go to their challenger. Simple as that.

In case you're curious, the lucky duo who got the endorsement were Mr. Won't Vote for the Gay and Mr. Create our own Currency (incredibly, the Post managed to call both "pragmatists" for their transportation vote in the same paragraph that they opened by detailing their extremism).

And They Never Saw a Latte Again

Some folks are buzzing about the fact that Conde Nast is ending its internship program after being sued for not paying its workers. This has led to some gloating from libertarian sorts, who are elated to inform us that when government forbids for-profit employees from working for free (or for pennies), sometimes the opportunity to work at starvation wages goes away!

Color me unconvinced. I'm truly unconvinced that nobody at Conde Nast will now be doing ... whatever it is that the interns did that allegedly kept them in the office 12 hours at day at $12 a day. The difference is now the person (a) won't be called an "intern" and (b) will get something approximating an entry-level worker's salary. This is not a bad thing. Indeed, it is kind of the point. Whatever wonderful experiences one gets by being one's own Devil Wears Prada extra is now available to people who actually need their jobs to pay money.

The 47%, Redux

Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) takes a page out of Mitt Romney's book (via):

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) took a page from the Mitt Romney playbook when he told a conservative audience at an event last week that 47 percent of able-bodied people in the state don't work, the Bangor Daily News reported Tuesday.

[...]

"Number two, when you talk about workforce development, it really means that the people that -- about 47 percent of able-bodied people in the state of Maine don't work," LePage said. A woman can then be heard on the recording reacting to that figure, to which LePage reiterated "About 47 percent. It's really bad."

Politifact rates this statement "mostly true" because the real figure undoubtedly contains two digits followed by a percent symbol.