O, what a paradise it seems!

Think Progress points out "The Response" was dwarfed by "The Need":

A good seven miles from Gov. Rick Perry's much-anticipated prayer rally, an even larger crowd of Houstonians gathered in preparation for another sacred event: the first day of school.

Some families camped out for hours to gain admittance into Houston's first-ever, citywide back-to-school event at George R. Brown Convention Center, where free backpacks, school supplies, uniforms, haircut vouchers, immunizations and fresh produce were provided.

Others were turned away.

"It was getting beyond capacity," HISD spokesman Jason Spencer said. "If nothing else, it shows the need."

Maribel Martinez and her five children ages 8 to 13 arrived around 7 a.m. to receive backpacks stuffed with supplies including paper, pencils, a pencil sharpener, glue and a compact disc of songs. They also got uniform shirts.

"This is a help, given how the economy is," said Martinez, an East End homemaker whose husband works full-time.

Beatrice Jones, who has two children in the Spring school district, arrived about 10:15 a.m. with her daughter and niece, only to find the doors closed and a police officer announcing the event was over.

"They were supposed to have school supplies, but all we got was sweating and paid parking," Jones said.

School Superintendent Terry Grier posted a Twitter message Saturday morning that security personnel had estimated the crowd at 100,000. At about 10 a.m., officials made the call to close the doors.

Although planners didn't know how many people would attend, they expected to serve at least 25,000 children, officials said.

And yes, Texas did cut $4 billion from school funding for the next two years. But there is one thing the Houston Chronicle noted which Think Progress didn't mention:

Paid for with corporate funding from Shell Oil Co. and Motive Enterprises, dental and health checks were also available, as well as lunch and live entertainment.

I can only imagine Perry would point to that as evidence that the system works. Even if it did cut off thousands, and even if there is now a very high risk that many children in Houston schools will attend without the required vaccinations, or be sent home from school until their parents can find some way to get them.

Oh, and what's the problem with funding Texas schools? Taxes, of course:

“Governor Perry deflected attention away from the major flaws in his governorship, which was that the failings of his tax reform in 2006 created a huge shortfall in Texas’s budget,” said Tom Smith, executive director of Public Citizen’s state office in Austin. Without the distraction of social issues Perry created, “more people would be asking whether that tax relief basically bankrupted the state,” Smith said.

Under pressure from federal courts demanding more equitable school funding, Texas revised how it pays for education through high school in 2006. The state enacted laws to cut local property taxes and expand a levy on business income. While the recession crimped state revenue in 2008 and 2009, companies using loopholes avoided paying as much as forecast.

And by the way: "Enrollment in primary grades through high school is projected to increase by 80,000 students a year through fiscal 2013." The Lege, you see, will be back in session in 2013; but not before.

This is the second largest state in the union, in terms of population (not just square miles). I still wonder when the rest of the world is going to start paying attention.

Living Poor with Style

Poor people don't pay taxes.

Poor people own appliances, so poverty doesn't really suck.

Poor people caused the collapse of the housing market and nearly brought down the world's financial markets. (That one was so widespread I won't even bother to look for a link for it.)

The poor, being powerless, have more power than you.

The poor will always be with us, so we'll always have somebody to blame.

Walter Brueggemann reminds me that:

The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us. Thus I suggest that prophetic ministry has to do not primarily with addressing specific public crises but with addressing, in season and out of season, the dominant crisis that is enduring and resilient, of having our alternative vocation co-opted and domesticated.

Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, Fortress Press, 1978, p. 13.

But he also warns me that:

The task of prophetic ministry is to hold together criticism [for dismantling the dominant consciousness] and energizing [for moving communities of faith with the promise of another time and situation]....Liberals are good at criticism but often have no word of promise to speak; conservatives tend to future well and invite to alternative visions, but a germane criticism by the prophet is often not forthcoming.

Brueggemann, p. 14.

These are words that apply to well and accurately to the debates I frequent on the internet: one side criticizes but offers no real promise; the other side worries ceaselessly about the future, and doesn't even tend to it well, but invites alternative visions only of disaster, with no germane criticism of the present except as it is in the hands of the wrong people. So to simply point out that one side blames the poor while the other side ignores them, is not enough; it's barely even a beginning. But I've lamented before that Robert Kennedy would walk among the poor of Appalachia, and no politician today would be seen with any person who might fit the image of "poverty." Indeed:

What’s poverty? Poverty guidelines have not changed since the 1960s: “A family is counted as poor if its pretax money income is below its poverty threshold,” which is $11,161 for a single adult — think about that! — and $17,286 for a couple with one child.

The poverty rate in 1959 was nearing 40 million. It dipped to about 23 million in 1973, only to rise again in the early 1990s to about 39 million. But the poverty rate in America in 2009 was the highest it’s been in the last 50 years, at about 43.6 million.

And yet the Heritage Foundation insists that poverty is no more, because:

In 2005, the typical household defined as poor by the government had a car and air conditioning. For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there were children, especially boys, in the home, the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or a PlayStation.[4] In the kitchen, the household had a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave. Other household conveniences included a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.

Of course, a picture is worth a thousand words, so:



The simple fact is, appliances once expensive and the province of the rich, are now inexpensive and available to almost everyone. Which doesn't even get to the slippery definition of the "typical household defined as poor." I've been in plenty of poor homes with refrigerators and stoves; mostly they come with the apartments. The poor have access to them, but not ownership of them, and that access runs out when the lease runs out, often within three months. In Texas, at least, that's the typical amount of time the poor have before a landlord can act to evict them for non-payment of rent. I am not far from a school in a "wealthy" school district where many of the students attend class for only three months at a time, because the family is constantly moving. The poor also have access to the internet; if they go to a public library. They can get air conditioning there, too, if they can't pay the electric bill in the apartment they can't pay for. Presumably that makes them rich as well.

It's a matter of perception, then. Especially when we don't like the way the prevailing conversation seems to be going, we deride the notion that perception is reality. But strictly speaking, what else can reality be, except what we perceive? And that is where the prophetic ministry enters in and begins its work: with reminders of what was ("the poor will always be with you") and critique of what is, and what should be ("Lord, when did we see you?"). It begins with changing our perceptions in a dialectic that keeps us between criticism and energizing.

Oh, boy; more hard work! Thanks be to God.

Why No One Really Listens to Paul Burka

The Texas political press is moribund. The best voice we ever had as Molly Ivins', and nobody listened to her, despite the fact she wrote two best-selling books about W. But trying to find out what is happening in the Texas Legislature is like trying to read the tea leaves in your cup after the power has gone out. Try as I might during the last session (the Lege meets for 6 months every two years, no more, no less, except for special sessions, which are as rare as hen's teeth, and last only 30 days), I couldn't find out what was going on with school funding or the budget process in general. One day the story was this, the next day it was that, another day there was no story at all, then everything changed again! And political coverage of candidates? Fuggedaboutit!

Into this breach supposedly steps Paul Burka and Texas Monthly. Except Texas Monthly is for the well-heeled in Texas, the people who live in River Oaks in Houston, or Highland Park in Dallas. Seriously rich people, in other words. Paul Burka is their mouthpiece. His most challenging political piece in my memory was a cover of W during the 2004 campaign with a single word splashed across it: "Maybe."

For Burka, that was flirting with liberalism.

So now we get this, about Perry's "The Response" prayer meeting in Houston this weekend:

"Three days before The Response, the Reliant Stadium prayer event Gov. Rick Perry initiated two months ago, the response has been spirited among those objecting to the governor’s participation.

"On Tuesday, more than 50 Houston-area religious and community leaders disseminated a signed statement drafted by the Anti-Defamation League expressing “deep concern” about a prayer rally “not open to all faiths,” while the Houston GLBT Political Caucus and related organizations announced a Friday rally at Tranquility Park to protest the event. The groups that represent gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals accused the American Family Association and other sponsors of the prayer event of hatred toward the GLBT community.

"The ADL statement followed a June letter from the Houston Clergy Council that criticized the governor for excluding non-Christians, partnering with an anti-gay group and blurring boundaries between church and state."

My feelings about public-prayer events haven’t changed, but I’m intrigued by the Anti-Defamation League’s statement, quoted above, that the prayer rally isn’t open to people of all faiths. How are the organizers going to restrict the participants to Christians? Are they going to ask everyone who comes through the turnstiles to prove their Christian bona fides? Of course not.

Those first three paragraphs are from a Houston Chronicle story on the response to "The Response." I do wonder how clueless Burka is to imagine a fundamentalist Christian prayer service is "open to all faiths." I've participated in ecumenical services, and I made a special point during the prayer I offered to exclude even the word "God" so as not to offend the Jews present, and I also omitted any reference to Jesus as the Christ. It only seemed polite, and it had come up as an issue during the planning meeting with the one rabbi who attended. He thanked me later for my consideration.

Did we check credentials at the door? Of course not. Should we have been sensitive to those we invited who were not Christians, and speak of the one God we do worship (as do the Muslims; sadly, at least at that time, no one thought to approach the Imam in the synagogue not far from where I sit now)? Yes, I think so. Will the religious groups Perry has invited, or Perry himself, show any such sensitivity?

Do you really have to ask?

But wait, there's more!

Nor do I think that the rally “blurs the line between church and state.” The line between church and state is very clear. It’s the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The governor of Texas holding a Christian prayer meeting is not an establishment of religion.

Actually, let's just say Burka is completely clueless as to the state of the law on that issue, and leave it at that. It's embarrassing to see him display his ignorance so profoundly within two paragraphs. But it illustrates why no one takes him seriously.

As Molly once said about a Texas legislator, if he gets any dumber we'll have to water him twice a day.

Why do I say that? Well, because the church/state issue is precisely about exclusion. The Court has upheld references to God ("In God We Trust") on the grounds such things are a cultural statement with no real religious significance (which kind of diminishes the importance of the phrase, but no matter), hence no one religion is favored above another. Since at least the passage of the 14th Amendment, the 1st Amendment has been held to apply to the states as well as the federal government, so Burka's "clear" reading of the Constitution is about as muddled as the waters in a flash flood. The Response, a rally initiated by Perry and promoted from his Governor's lectern, is clearly meant to be an exclusively Christian affair. How do I know? Ask Paul Burka:

Attendance is going to fall far short of expectations and the noise generated by Perry’s critics is going to get as much media attention as the prayer rally itself. This is what happens when you think the rest of the country has the same civic and religious values as Texas.

This could have had a much different ending. Perry could have made the event nondenominational. He could have invited people and clergy of all faiths. But he elected to make it exclusionary–and not just exclusionary, but reflective of preachers who have expressed some of the most extreme religious views in Christiandom.

Another misjudgment was the public invitation to all of his fellow governors. The right way to do this was to feel out the other governors first and announce the acceptances later, when you know who is coming. Now, with only one acceptance–Sam Brownback, of Kansas, and he has said he is going on vacation this weekend–the event looks like an utter failure.

Utter failure? Really? Gee, sorta like Perry's entire tenure as Governor, then, huh?

Nobody could have predicted.....

Addendum: If you're interested, here is what Burka didn't say about Perry's prayer rally:

In interviews, the event's planners have conceded that the non-Christians will not be allowed on stage, and that the event—which Perry says is open to everyone—is intended in part to convert people to Christianity.

No, Paul, your religious bona fides won't be checked at the door. But non-Christian, non-evangelical beliefs, won't be welcome, either. And there again, Burka is clueless. Perry contacted the groups detailed in Mother Jones to organize and run this rally. NPR ran quotes from them this morning (hearing a man tell you in his own words that the Statue of Liberty is demonic is quite different from reading about it) in its story on this event. Perry is not just appealing to the Michelle Bachman wing of the GOP, he is being wrapped in this lunatic fringe, even as he tells reporters now that he may only be an usher at the event (aw, shucks).

Whatever effect this has in the GOP primaries, this is the way Perry's career ends.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Books

"Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent or praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium-smoker to his pipe."--Somerset Maugham

Are books at an end? Is John Henry truly going to lose the fight to the steam engine? (The analogy is charming, but inapt. Does anyone truly want to return to the days of manual labor, doing jobs a machine can do? Not if you've ever done manual labor, you don't....). I don't know. I don't think so, but what, I have a crystal ball and it isn't cloudy?

There is the Kindle ad running now, where the woman comments on her large bag that carries several books and magazines, and the man responds his Kindle holds thousands of books and magazines. The space around them is magically populated with probably more books than I have on the 7 bookshelves in my house (I've been cutting down over the years, and occasionally regret the loss of some book I know realize I've abandoned in time) to represent the compact wonder in his hands. And I wonder: why would I want to keep all those books in one place, on one reader? And what if I lose the reader?

I also wonder how accessible the books are. I can can my bookshelves without the trouble of flicking correctly on a screen, or remembering which button to push, or waiting for the processor to respond. I can lay the book down spread-eagled where I stopped, put a book mark in it, pile it on my desk, my nightstand, any convenient flat surface. What methods do I have to use to recover the place I left off reading, and the book, in a reader? Undoubtedly some new skill I could learn, if I wanted to. But even my college-age daughter, who grew up on computers, isn't interested in e-readers; so it isn't solely a consequence of my age that I am such a Luddite on the subject. But back to the practical question: do I really want to carry so many books with me? Is that really a benefit?

Maugham's story, "The Book-Bag," which I quoted above, first inspired me to carry a book bag of my own on trips. I grab four or five titles, some aspirational (I hope to read them), some I'm actually reading, some I want for comfort or surprise. I suppose I could carry them all on an e-reader, but why would I want to? If I limt my supply, I'm forced to read what I have. If I have my entire library with me, I'm probably more likely to ignore it all, as I too often do at home.

And there's the other problem: at this point, I own LP's, and the world is going CD. Do I buy CD's to replace all my LP's? I didn't last time. And are all the obscure and small press titles going to be available in e-form? No time soon, I'll warrant. What is available is popular titles and, frankly, I'm not interested in those. I worked in a bookstore for almost a decade, I began to drown in the tide of titles cranked out every year, most of which disappear again (returned to the publisher) without anyone so much as cracking their spines. What would an e-reader do for me, except demand I read what I don't want to read?

Or, in the famous case of 1984, allow the merchant (Amazon) to retrieve the title from my Kindle, because Amazon decided it didn't have the license for that e-version. I don't want my bookseller entering my house and removing books from my shelves. Why should they enter my Kindle and refund my purchase without my permission?

There are other problems coming along, such as whether books are hardware or software. Which, actually, is the problem right now. Do I buy the author's thoughts only, or the paper they are printed on? I like to mark up my books (something Clifton Fadiman taught me to do; see, I remember my important teachers!). How do I mark up a Kindle text? With Word? With Pages? Notepad? A grease pencil on the screen? Sometimes those notes are incredibly valuable to me, especially when I find them years later. They are like messages to my future self from my past one, when I was deeply involved in that subject and recorded ideas I've already forgotten, but thankfully wrote down.

But what is a book? Software, the ideas only? Or hardware? Why, for example, do publishers spend so much money on covers and titles and publicity? In England, the Harry Potter books started selling with two types of cover art: one for children, one for adults. Why? Because it increased sales, and allowed more people to enjoy the books. Probably less of a problem on an e-reader, as your book is always in a plain brown wrapper, so to speak. But what of authors you've never heard of? How do you browse e-books the way you do paper books? Can you read through them as you wish, or is it only as B&N and Amazon allow? Does the cover intrigue you, make you curious, make you decide to pull the book and read it? If not, what do you buy, except what you already know to buy? What will we miss unless marketing of e-books becomes available enough to encourage taking a chance, and how will it catch our eye? J.K. Rowling apparently dreamed of seeing one of her books in the window of an Edinburgh bookstore. Should new writers dream of seeing their books on a webpage at Amazon, and is that the same thing? Will we gather in bookstores bare of books, to stare at each others screens and recommend something that exists only as pixels? Is there no value to the tangible? Are we all going to be the most redoubtable of Protestants in order to remain readers at all?

Of course, marketing problems can be solved, and probably will. But I'm still left with the technical questions, and the questions of physicality. Scrolls and parchment, while charming in Harry Potter's world, were long since left behind for books (which even Harry's school has). It was a far better method for storing, and retrieving, information. E-books have some advantages over books, but do they truly eclipse them the way books replace scrolls?

Of that, I am not so sure at all.....

The Widening Gyre

I think it's time to realize the insanity of the Tea Party is now a feature, not a bug, of our political system.

Athenae insists it's insanity, and the GOP now has a wild animal loose in the house that it cannot contain. But Mitch McConnell is telling anyone who'll listen that this is how the debt ceiling will be raised from now on; John Boehner brags that he got 98% of what he wanted; and TPM says the Tea Party flat out-worked the Democrats and their supporters in the debt ceiling fight.

Tell me again how the GOP is in trouble after this. Tell me again how they are riding a tiger they can't dismount. And given the lopsided votes on raising the debt ceiling, was there ever really any risk it wouldn't be raised? But might there come a time when there is a risk? Can we afford that, in the name of correcting our political system? The Tea Party says it wants to purge the system even if that means destroying the system. Is it best to counter that with our own insistence on armageddon? If both sides are ruled by mad men, who wins?

It may be we are witnessing the collapse of the system put in place in the late 18th century, or it may be we are seeing that the vaunted Founding Fathers weren't all that wise after all, and when they invented a non-parliamentary system, they bequeathed us a legislature that simply isn't up to the demands and challenges of the 21st century. Think about it: until FDR, Washington wasn't a major power center. Sheep ran on the lawn of the White House when Lincoln lived there. Politicians were badly out of touch with their constituents, and while we are appalled by pictures of legislative bodies decaying into brawls in other countries, no one has yet (to my knowledge) matched the caning on Representative delivered on another in Congress in the 19th century. Indeed, the system itself couldn't stand the strain of the peculiar institution, the hidden wound, the flaw of human slavery that was not only there from the beginning, but that had to be designed into the Constitution itself. The union and the Constitution which created it only survived because Lincoln insisted that it should, and he and several states with him were willing to go to war to make that happen. Since FDR, America has fitfully joined the nations of the world and recognized a central national government is essential to both domestic function and to establishing our place among the nations, and now more than ever our economy is bound up in the commerce of the world.

But we're still operating with an 18th century institution, one designed to limit the ability of anyone to get anything done. And now, after 200+ years of experimenting, someone has finally figured out how to bring the whole structure to a halt.

Grover Norquist pledged, decades ago, to establish a permanent GOP majority, or at least to bend the political will so that there might as well be a permanent GOP majority. Look around; he won. The Tea Party may be tiny, it may be astroturf instead of grassroots, it may simply be an excuse for the GOP to do what donors like the Koch brothers want; but it's working. The vote on the debt ceiling proves there was never any serious threat of default, but the Democrats acted like the crazy people were really crazy enough to go to Armageddon. Richard Nixon called it the "mad man" theory of nuclear deterrence. He knew nuclear war was neither winnable nor even thinkable, but he reasoned that, so long as the USSR didn't know Nixon (or any President) knew that, they wouldn't risk pushing us to the brink, because we might just jump over the edge. The GOP played the same game, and changed forever the way DC does business.

And not in a good way.

So what do we do now? Van Jones wants to organize a group to act as counter-weight to the Tea Party, but if recent history is any indication, that won't work: the Democrats won't embrace it quickly or completely enough (anybody else remember when the Dems "controlled" Congress? It lead to the debacle of the last mid-term elections), a third-party is an impossibility, and even if it works, it will just lead to more grid-lock and more disgust with politics in Washington by the American public. And so more apathy, and so still more Tea Party crazies in office.

I've seen this movie, I know how it comes out. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity." The crazies have figured out how to gain control of the system, and they aren't going to give up soon. I don't think we can even vote them out of office. Once changed, the system doesn't snap back to its original form as it rejects the foreign bodies; there are no political anti-bodies to clean up what has happened, no reset button that allows us to purge the last upgrade and start clean from an earlier position.

Welcome to the monkey house.

Addendum: Jim Sleeper turns to Yeats, too (I did it in a moment of weakness) and crafts an argument that disturbs me, if only because it points toward a Madisonian, rather than Jacksonian, view:

Leadership like Lincoln's, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt's, and Harry Truman's is an essential stimulant, but ultimately it's civil-society institutions and mentors -- in the old colleges, in new community colleges and state universities, in immigrant settlement houses, labor unions, inner-city as well as suburban churches, Little Leagues and soccer leagues -- that nurture citizen leaders. Those institutions have to be more than just safety valves for participants' pent-up yearnings and anger. They must be wellsprings, drawing from sources of dignity and faith that states and markets don't supply.

Is any of this still plausible? I've been asking my former students what they think. One, who took my seminar in 2004, became a journalist for a few years, and is now in law school, framed the challenge this way as senior:

"A set of practices, habits, customs and beliefs must be considered basic to the practice of a functioning democracy," he wrote. "The rules of democratic engagement must be inculcated in a republic's citizens.... Unlike the Constitution, though, such subtle understandings and habits cannot be codified. The ethos of a republic is at once its most inscrutable and important attribute."

Hang it all, America, there can be but one ethos! But ethos, and my ethos?

Aye, there's the rub. He's not wrong, you see. But settling on whose ethos is the right one? Well, haven't we had that fight in America for over 200 years? "Ethos" has been used to quell dissent before (see, e.g., King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail"), and while I don't like the dissent of the Tea Party crowd, I wonder if this cure isn't worse than the disease.

Anyway, it may not matter, as the GOP seems determined to be its own worst enemy:

In a meeting with editors of the Wall Street Journal, Cantor said Americans must "come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that frankly are not going to be kept for many."

The Republican plan for dealing with the exploding cost of health care is to phase out Medicare and replace it with a system of subsidized private insurance for elderly Americans, starting when people currently 55 and under reach retirement age. "The rest of us have got ample time to try and plan our lives so that we can adjust to reality here when you look at the numbers," Cantor said. "Again the math doesn't lie."

Democrats tend to favor Medicare reforms that enhance efficiency, and curtail ineffective health treatments -- basically for the government, advised by experts, to ration health care rather than to have private insurance companies do it. Eventually, before health care costs overwhelm the budget, one of these two visions will prevail. But the government can buy itself some time if it decides to raise taxes. Cantor says that won't happen as long as Republicans control the House -- even if a powerful new deficit reduction committee reaches a bipartisan agreement that includes some new tax revenue.

"The House is not going to support an increase in taxes," he said.

The solution, of course, will probably be to change the House. Easier than ditching Medicare and Social Security, I can assure you.

And 'round and 'round it goes.....

Once again, here is the steeple.....

Matthew Yglesias:

The basic dynamic of the ongoing feminist revolution is to take a very simple, almost banal claim — women and men are equal in the same sense that “all men are created equal” — and to unpack the series of very radical conclusions that turn out to follow from that.

Interesting that this is starting to trickle out to "progressives" and "liberals," especially those who are not (overtly or actually) "religious."

I was taught more radical notions of equality in seminary, 15+ years ago.

You want "radical"? Try Dom Crossan's idea of the "unbrokered kingdom," where equality is so equal no one stands between you and access to what you need to get through the day. You want radical? Try Crossan's ideas about Paul's true teachings (not the Pseudo-Pauline letters about women keeping their heads covered which everyone quotes and gets wrong because they are stone ignorant about both Paul and biblical studies). According to Crossan, the historical Paul saw no difference between men and women in Christ, and took for one of his fellow travelers (literally) a woman, Thekla (you could look it up!). You want radical? Consider the real meaning of the Lukan anointing (when Jesus actually makes a pun on "love"!, and almost means "sex"!). And I can't even begin to discuss the reinterpratations of scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, going on under a feminist reading (not to mention several other important lenses, feminism merely being one among many. Yglesias implies only one more lens is needed, when modern biblical scholarship and seminary instruction will offer you an entire kaleidoscope of new and interesting ways to view the world.)

Not to disparage Yglesias and Susan Miller Okin, but the church has been doing this stuff for more than a generation now (it wasn't that new when I encountered it). Sure, it's slow to trickle out to the pews (too slow!), but honestly, the most radical ideas I have encountered are still the ones I met in seminary.

Which says something about modern society.....

Welcome to the Monkey House

Alright, I'll play:

Athenae sounds righteously fit to be tied.

David Frum sounds like a Democrat.

And AmericaBlog sounds the alarm:

To put it differently, by operating in such a framework, the Democratic Party is actively destroying liberalism as a valid set of ideas to be considered by the American public.

Let me work backwards from the end: the last time Democrats were liberals, McGovern lost to Nixon. Before that, it was Johnson; and much as I admire LBJ, he wasn't all about the Great Society and the War on Poverty. Vietnam, anyone? Humphrey ran against Nixon in '68, and while Humphrey was considered the "liberal" then, as many have noted since, Nixon would be too liberal for the GOP today.

Ronald Reagan, he of ballooning budget deficits and a near record number of increases to the debt ceiling, would be too liberal for the GOP today. And might I point out David Frum sounds awfully liberal?

Give me a hammer and a church-house door, and I'd post these theses for modern Republicans:

1) Unemployment is a more urgent problem than debt.

...

2) The deficit is a symptom of America's economic problems, not a cause.

....
3) The time to cut is after the economy recovers.

....
4) The place to cut is health care, not assistance to the unemployed and poor.

....
5) We can collect more revenue without raising tax rates.

....
6) Passion does not substitute for judgment.

....
7) You can't save the system by destroying the system.

Those are Frum's seven points, sans explanations. I've gotta say, I think Obama would only strongly agree with the last two. And Frum is the conservative, Obama the liberal?

How did I find myself in the funhouse, and how do I get out?

Athenae wants to rip Frum for backing the Tea Party, who should from now on be known as the Bull Goose Loonies. That, I think, is unfair. I've more or less followed David Frum since he was a regular, smug, and arch-conservative commenter on NPR. Over the years, as he's seen the GOP shift rightward under his feet, he's actually started to sound more sensible; sort of like a modern-day Barry Goldwater, who seemed nuts in 1964 but now seems almost wise and common-sensical, in the face of Paul Ryan and Rand Paul. I would still disagree with Frum on most things, as my theology and my beliefs put me somewhere to the far left of Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman, but that's no matter. I can make common cause with Frum when he says things like the article Athenae and I both linked. In fact, I'd like to go back and pick up his explanations for his positions, and expand on 'em a bit....

...if only I thought anyone was paying attention.

It's Money That Matters

Yes, Rick Warren actually tweeted that. And begun the pile-on has: here, as well as here; here, and here, just to name four. Most of those are with either analyses of the statement (no, it is neither true nor correct) or with references to Scripture (probably someone somewhere has even reached to the "10 Commandments" to say something about bearing false witness, i.e., telling lies).

I would prefer only to point out that Warren retracted this tweet. Not, apparently, because he saw the light and realized the inhumanity and stupidity of what he said; but rather, because it embarrassed him. Perhaps he didn't like being reminded that people matter more than things and ideas; perhaps he realized he stood as exposed and malevolent as Ebenezer Scrooge declaring the poor should die and decrease the surplus population. I don't know that he realized the life his Lord and Savior led, or who he lived among on this earth, or he'd never had typed that tweet in the first place.

And I'd rather not respond with more scriptures. A), that's been done; B) it smacks of prooftexting; and C), I prefer the words of St. Basil and St. Ambrose, who more directly addresses Warren's particular sin:

"What keeps you from giving now? Isn't the poor person there? Aren't your own warehouses full? Isn't the reward promised? The command is clear: the hungry person is dying now, the naked person is freezing now, the person in debt is beaten now-and you want to wait until tomorrow? "I'm not doing any harm," you say. "I just want to keep what I own, that's all." You own! You are like someone who sits down in a theater and keeps everyone else away, saying that what is there for everyone's use is your own. . . . If everyone took only what they needed and gave the rest to those in need, there would be no such thing as rich and poor. After all, didn't you come into life naked, and won't you return naked to the earth?

"The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry person; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to the person who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the person with no shoes; the money which you put in the bank belongs to the poor. You do wrong to everyone you could help, but fail to help."

Basil
4th Century

"The large rooms of which you are so proud are in fact your shame. They are big enough to hold crowds--and also big enough to shut out the voices of the poor....There is your sister or brother, naked, crying! And you stand confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering."

Ambrose
4th Century

17 centuries later, and it's a lesson we still struggle to learn.

UPDATE: Rick Warren has not only removed the tweet, but tweeted again to acknowledge "it did sound mean." Which is a lovely use of the passive voice and a masterful misdirection: Rick Warren didn't say the poor don't pay taxes and would love to see the rich taxed! The tweet did! And it was mean! Not wrong, ignorant, or cruel; not directly contradictory to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth! No. It was just "mean." No, wait; let me be accurate. The tweet wasn't "mean." It "sounded mean."

Silly me, I didn't even know tweets had voices. I thought they were messages created by real people. Tweets are alive! Or at least, they are independent of their creators.

Well...that's okay, then. Mean ol' tweet. Good thing Rick Warren had no responsibility for it. He's not mean! He said so.

"Whole Sight; Or All the Rest is Desolation"

I was teaching rudimentary logic and logical fallacies to a Composition and Rhetoric class this morning. I realized there were several involved in the Norway bombing/shooting story, which I first heard about on BBC World Service the day of the event.

Several Americans with ties to Norway called "World Have Your Say" as the news was first being reported, to lament the crime as Norway's "9/11," and to decide for the Norwegians that they would have to increase their border security and airport security, because clearly this was the action of foreigners, probably Muslims (I don't think that was ever said explicitly, but the subtext was clearly that radicals from outside Norway had done this). There was even speculation reportedly coming out of Norway that this action was by foreign terrorists.

Of course, the man who says he did it is as Nordic as they come, and he did it because he hates Muslims and sees them as a threat to Norway and to Europe. Far from being Norway's "9/11" (the observation is not new with me), this was Norway's "Oklahoma City."

Right-wing pundits in this country were harsher and more belligerent than any of the callers I heard on BBC that day; and now they are clinging to their conclusions like barnacles on a ship. Which isn't much of a surprise, but it is surprising how quickly we jump to conclusions in the absence of any information; how readily we believe in the evilness of the "other," and how banal and homegrown such evil often is. Just after the Oklahoma City bombing, people were blaming foreigners and "Muslims" (a catch-all category for evil people). When it turned out to be Timothy McVeigh, suddenly it wasn't such a dynamic story anymore; and it didn't produce the introspection and examination of our right-wing violence that it should have. As Think Progress points out (in the link), the right wing pundits in this country who first decreed Muslims were responsible for the horrors in Norway, still insist we must remain vigilant against Muslims around the world.

That the suspect here is a blond Norwegian does not support the proposition that we can rest easy with regard to the panoply of threats we face or that homeland security, intelligence and traditional military can be pruned back. To the contrary, the world remains very dangerous because very bad people will do horrendous things. There are many more jihadists than blond Norwegians out to kill Americans, and we should keep our eye on the systemic and far more potent threats that stem from an ideological war with the West.

There are a number of logical fallacies in that paragraph, too, including the conclusion that even if Muslims didn't do it, they might as well have.

Still no recognition that it was the hatred of Muslims that drove Anders Brievik to act, and that he acted thinking an attack on the ruling Labour Party would make him the savior of Norway.

"The operation was not to kill as many people as possible but to give a strong signal that could not be misunderstood that as long as the Labor Party keeps driving its ideological lie and keeps deconstructing Norwegian culture and mass importing Muslims then they must assume responsibility for this treason," according to the English translation of Heger's ruling that was read out after the hearing.

Still not enough self-awareness, in other words, among the right wing pundits in this country that it is precisely their ideology that created a massacre in a peaceful country. And no, I'm really not exaggerating:

While [Frank] Gaffney’s [anti-Islam] views may seem absurd, he is incredibly influential. He regularly appears on Fox News, major conservative conferences, and his writing is referenced in the manifesto by the alleged Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. Moreover, Gaffney was a pivotal figure in organizing the hysterical protests against a planned Muslim American community center in lower Manhattan.

I live in the world of ideas; sometimes, I think, too much so. But I don't live in the world of ideas to the exclusion of my humanity. At least, not as much as some do:

When it emerged that these acts of terror were the work of a native Norwegian who thought he was striking a blow against jihadism and its enablers, it was immediately clear to me that his violence will deal a heavy blow to an urgent cause. [...]

In Norway, to speak negatively about any aspect of the Muslim faith has always been a touchy matter, inviting charges of “Islamophobia” and racism. It will, I fear, be a great deal more difficult to broach these issues now that this murderous madman has become the poster boy for the criticism of Islam.
....
Perhaps Brievik’s inexcusable act of vicious terror should serve not only as a warning that there may be more elements on the extreme Right willing to use violence to further their goals, but also as an opportunity to seriously reevaluate policies for immigrant integration in Norway and elsewhere. While there is absolutely no justification for the sort of heinous act perpetrated this weekend in Norway, discontent with multiculturalism’s failure must not be delegitimatized or mistakenly portrayed as an opinion held by only the most extremist elements of the Right.

The Big Idea must prevail, or all else is desolation. As I have said before:

Ideas don't matter. Things don't matter. People matter.

It is not too much to say that the supremacy of the Big Idea above all else is precisely what drove Breivik to act as he did:

Heger said Breivik had accused the ruling Labour Party of betraying Norway with "mass imports of Muslims."

He said his bombing of government buildings in Oslo and massacre at a summer camp for Labour's youth wing was aimed at deterring future recruitment to the party.

"The goal of the attack was to give a strong signal to the people," the judge quoted Breivik as saying.

The people of Norway are not mourning the loss of an Idea, or even of their security. They are mourning the unnecessary, inexcusable, unacceptable, loss of lives. They are mourning people. People are who matter.

Still Messing with Texas

Where to start? Well, let's start at the point where I learned about this controversy:

The firing of University of Texas System special adviser Rick O'Donnell sends a message to Gov. Rick Perry from the legions of University of Texas supporters: Don't meddle with UT.

O'Donnell lost his $200,000-a-year job last week after angering some state lawmakers.

Who, you may ask, was Rick O'Donnell, and why do you care? Well, he was appointed to a position as advisor to the Board of Regents of the UT system (there are several UT's besides the big one in Austin). That's the connection to Gov. Goodhair. And before O'Donnell lost his job completely, he got in enough trouble to be reassigned from his position as an advisor to the UT System Board of Regents:

O'Donnell was reassigned Thursday as special assistant for research, reporting to Scott Kelley, executive vice chancellor for business affairs, said Anthony de Bruyn, a spokesman for the system. O'Donnell will assist two panels advising the regents, one on productivity and excellence, the other on online and blended learning.

O'Donnell will continue to be paid $200,000 a year, de Bruyn said.

The controversy here is best explained by Paul Burka. O'Donnell's "advice" to the Board was to denigrate research in favor of teaching:

Another of the reforms is “split research and teaching budgets.” This may not seem like a big deal. The idea is simply to increase transparency and accountability by emphasizing teaching and research as separate efforts in higher education. But many observers, myself included, suspect that the real agenda is ultimately to curtail the role of research in higher education. Why? Because it costs money. Sandefer has written that academic research consumes two thirds of every dollar spent in American universities. Once the public sees how much more money is spent on research than on teaching, it will demand that spending on research be cut. This is why, to the UT brass, splitting budgets amounts to a frontal attack on the classic model of a research university. “Teaching and research are inextricably linked,” UT president Bill Powers told me. “Splitting the research and teaching budgets devalues the synergy between two essential components that are the essence of a world-class institution.” Like all the TPPF recommendations, the objective is not to improve the academy but to diminish public support for it in its current form.

Note those words Burka used: "transparency" and "accountability." I'm tempted to run down a side trail and point out that their casual use by Burka betrays his political leanings; but that's for another day. To continue the theme a moment, consider that "academic research" is probably code for "soft research," i.e., not the stuff associated with physics, chemistry, oil and gas engineering, etc. The University of Houston, not surprisingly, is noted for its "hard" research facilities. I don't think U of H is under attack at the moment, although Texas A&M, hardly a liberal arts outpost, is suffering its own problems from Perry's other idiotic idea: paying teachers based on student evaluations.

That's a particular hobby horse of mine, but think about it for a moment: if you, the student, know what the teacher is supposed to be teaching you, you aren't a student, you're a peer of the teacher. You don't need to be taught by that person. And if the teacher isn't making you happy, or piquing your interest, or keeping you entertained or interested? Is that entirely the teacher's fault? Is the teacher's job to please you? Or to teach you?

There aren't too many models in history of great teachers who win stirring evaluations from their students. Jesus is constantly shown berating his disciples for their inability to understand him; but that's pretty consistently the model for any teacher/student relationship.

Back to Perry, though; O'Donnell was forced to resign during the last Legislative session (6 months every two years; they're gone for good now) because UT Alumni heard about his proposals for their beloved UT-Austin, (and the system at large) and threw a fit even the Legislature couldn't ignore. Keep that in mind, because Perry's efforts aren't finished, they're just beginning:

The University of Texas and Texas A&M are public universities in desperate need of budget reform to provide transparency and accountability to the students and taxpayers that fund them. The higher education bureaucracy in Texas has created an inefficient system where:

• 22% of Faculty members do not teach a single class per semester;
• The average faculty member spends only 21% of his time teaching and the remaining 79% performing research or administrative tasks;
• The average course load of a tenured faculty member is 1.9 classes per semester;
• Yet despite these statistics, from 1999 to 2009 faculty salaries increased at almost twice the rate of inflation.

Perpetuating this wasteful spending are the “Edu-crats”, a ruling elite of academics focused on doing less, but making more, all the while ignoring the needs of students and caring nothing for the cost born by the taxpayers. Sign below to demand Higher Education Reform for Texas NOW!

We demand:

• An end to teacher tenure;
• That research and teaching budgets are separated;
• Disclosure of the salaries of tenured faculty, the number of students they teach, and the research dollars they bring in.
• That researchers keep 90% of the money their research generates;

Instituting these reforms will elevate the quality of higher education in Texas and ensure that universities prioritize the needs of students, parents, and taxpayers over entrenched, overpaid academics. Please sign below to tell the Regents at the University of Texas and Texas A&M to embrace these reforms!

That's a petition on offer from FreedomWorks, Dick Armey's lobbying group. If you don't live in Texas and/or don't care about Texas' systems of higher education, you might wonder why you should care. Well, maybe because Rick Perry is about to enter the GOP nomination race, and he's already showing up very favorably against Michelle Bachmann.

Does that mean I think Perry could win the nomination? No. I don't think he has a snowball's chance in hell, and would be delighted if he did win it. It would be 1964 all over again, with Perry playing the role of Goldwater. What worries me is that such a radical and destructive idea could ever become mainstream, or even become law in a radical legislature. FreedomWorks got its head handed to it in Texas on this issue, but that doesn't mean it won't try again, especially with the Legislature out of session. The UT Board of Regents is strong, but not that strong; it took the ire of the Legislature to get them to fire O'Donnell. Without the Legislature, they might throw away UT's academic achievements in favor of this insanity.

Which, you may still say, doesn't affect you. On the other hand, if systems like UT and Texas A&M adopt such ridiculous policies, the rot would begin, and the resistance to it might not be as strong as you would expect. And if you think our educational systems across the nation aren't already a problem for us, the Pentagon respectfully disagrees with you:

By investing energy, talent, and dollars now in the education and training of young Americans -- the scientists, statesmen, industrialists, farmers, inventors, educators, clergy, artists, service members, and parents, of tomorrow -- we are truly investing in our ability to successfully compete in, and influence, the strategic environment of the future. Our first investment priority, then, is intellectual capital and a sustainable infrastructure of education, health and social services to provide for the continuing development and growth of America's youth.

Those are all long-term goals; not a short-term calculus. The appeal of the position of FreedomWorks is to do something right now! that fixes everything for us. That is, of course, no fix at all. It is delivering power to those not worthy to wield it, and who don't have the public interests at heart. The statement of the Pentagon understands the nature of investment, and of the "continuing development and growth of America's youth," a promise that is always in the future. FreedomWorks wants change now!, and for its own sake. That is the radical change of mere destruction. Investment is about planting trees your grandchildren will enjoy sitting under. In education, that investment is made through research and investigation and the freedom to pursue thought that is guaranteed by tenure. The educational system may be imperfect, but it is not so riddled with "waste, fraud, and abuse", or, in the new and improved lingo of FreedomWorks, a lack of "transparency and accountability," that we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If change is needed, it is not the radical change of destruction. If we need anything right now, it is more education and more thinking and more research; not less.

Maybe it would be a good thing for Perry to enter the primary race. If he can be associated nationally with this position, sunlight might prove, once again, to be the best political disinfectant.

Is This A Great Country, Or What?

Everyone on TeeVee and radio agrees life expectancy in the US is higher than it was in 1935 when Social Security was made law. Of course, nobody on TeeVee or the radio lives in Mississippi.

But the US is a big country, and while parts of Mississippi have a male life expectancy of 67, behind nations like the Philippines, women in areas of Florida live as long, on average, as the Japanese, who top the longevity rankings.

Life expectancy is one of those slippery concepts that isn't nearly as unitary as we think it is. For one thing, life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at 65 years old are different things. As the Social Security Administration helpfully points out that,, the life expectancy for males who reached 65 in 1935 as 12.7 more years. In 1990, it was 15.3 more years. The increase in the number of 65 year olds in the country is due to a growing population, i.e., a larger cohort of persons available to live to 65. What, then about the life expectancy in Mississippi? Obesity is a prime factor. Obesity rates in the US have gone ever upward since the late '70's. We see so few such people in public life that Chris Christie is still an anomaly among public figures, although obviously he isn't among the US population. Obesity, according to the BBC article, is one of the factors driving "early death" among Americans. 1 in 3 Americans, per that report, is classified as "obese." But you don't see those people sitting in the pundit chairs or among the chattering classes. They aren't telegenic.

When pundits and pooh-bahs declaim that people are living longer than they did in 1935, it isn't based on statistics or an understanding of numbers. What the pundits and pooh-bahs see is not the people in Mississippi who have little or no access to good health care, and who have problems with obesity and tobacco consumption (nobody on TeeVee smokes or is fat). They see people like them. They refuse to see the inequality in the system. But don't take my word for it. Compare the BBC article:

It is precisely this kind of inequality that goes some way to explain why the US - and the UK to a lesser degree - lag behind other countries, according to Danny Dorling, a professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield in the UK.

He believes a more even distribution of wealth, even if the average were lower, could mean longer lives for everyone.

"I think stress is a part of it - this is the key thesis of Michael Marmot and his book on the status syndrome. People get worn out faster with greater inequality.

"However there is much more. If you have most health spending just going on a few people who have the best health to begin with - [as in] the US system - that is hardly efficient.

"In a more unequal rich country more doctors are working on things like plastic surgery. More dentists whiten teeth than fix bad teeth and so on."

With this CBS article on the same report:

Why are life expectancy estimates rising in some counties and falling in others? Murray and his colleagues say it's not issues like poverty or racial makeup that explain the difference, but high rates of obesity, smoking and other preventable health problems.

Some experts disagree, saying the findings may be tied to the availability of good health care or with the migration of healthy people from one place to another. But Murray said his research finds migration theories are not the answer - there's been little movement in or out of most places with the lowest life expectancy. In several cases, counties with plummeting life expectancy were next to or very near counties with rising longevity.

Where should you live if you want the best shot at a long life? Metro areas with lush jobs and universities - Georgia's Fulton County (Atlanta), Washington, Alexandria, Va., and New York City for men - or Alexandria and a Wyoming county home to the affluent Jackson Hole, for women.

Notice the objective even-handedness of "some experts disagree." And then it quickly abandons any mention of access to healthcare, and ignores entirely any problem of obesity. Besides, the answer is clear! It's not how you live, it's where you live! Get out of Mississippi now! Move to Jackson Hole, or Alexandria, or New York City! Hey! It's a free country! Ain't no inequality here!

The British expert mentions dental care, which is almost an Austin Powers joke on this side of the pond. But do you ever see anybody on TeeVee with really bad teeth? I mean, really? The chattering classes all live within an enclave of beautiful teeth and thin people who never smoke and get regular checkups. It's significant the BBC is reporting this story. As best I can tell, NPR is covering it on their "health blog," and getting the message wrong, again:

Americans may be living longer than ever, but we're lagging behind the life expectancies for the leading nations in the world. A fresh analysis shows there are wide variations in how long Americans can expect to live, depending on their county of residence. Obesity and smoking are problems.

Some of us are living longer. Some of us aren't. The World Bank shows a rise in American life expectancy of almost 9 years over 5 decades. That helps put Mississippi in perspective. They aren't enjoying that rise in longevity, or if they are it is up from a deep bottom indeed. The reasons are stark, but we don't want to talk about them. We'd rather talk about budget deficits and reducing government spending 10 years from now (the money we're spending now was committed years ago). We'd rather be innumerate and stupid about statistics and look around and see our rich, privileged friends are living longer, so this must be the best of all possible worlds. I am reminded again of who Jesus of Nazareth ate and drank and talked with, and who he didn't. Life expectancy was probably greater for the wealthy in Rome and Palestine, too, than it was for beggars and fishermen and carpenters.

To Abraham and to his descendants, forever

America is a "Christian nation," the right wing insists. Uh-huh:

Undocumented workers are fleeing [Alabama] to avoid the new anti-immigrant climate sure to be created by the new law. Under the legislation’s auspices, any individual that provides an illegal immigrant with a job, a place to stay, or even a ride can be prosecuted by the state.

Although the funding for the law has not yet been procured, the threat is still enough to send immigrant workers out of the state in droves. And unfortunately for the disaster-stricken residents of Tuscaloosa and the surrounding counties, “Hispanic workers, documented and undocumented, dominate anything to do with masonry, concrete, framing, roofing, and landscaping,” local contractor Bob McNelly said.

This looming disaster for the Alabama construction industry follows closely on the heels of a dire labor shortage in Georgia’s agricultural sector, which is attributed to the state’s strict new immigration law that takes effect today. Around 11,000 jobs have gone unfilled, even though the state’s unemployment rate is above the national average at 9.8 percent, and the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association has estimated that around $300 million in profits have been left to rot in the fields.

Bryan Tolar, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council, describes his state’s labor shortage as “unprecedented” and expresses amazement that Alabama would pass such a similar immigration law after seeing its economic consequences across the state line. “It was like, ‘Good Lord, you people can’t be helped. Have you all not been paying attention?’” Tolar said. “As we say in the South, bless their hearts.”

At a time in which states cannot afford to spend money on anti-immigrant enforcement and industries are struggling to get back on their feet, GOP lawmakers are continuing to ignore the real economic impact of pandering to their xenophobia.

There really isn't much room for xenophobia in the laws of Moses:

Exodus 22:

You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans. If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them. If you take your neighbor's cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbor's only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.

Exodus 23

You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard. Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your homeborn slave and the resident alien may be refreshed.

Please note that God doesn't get angry about who you sleep with; God gets angry about how societies treat the poor, and will make your families poor and defenseless, to right your injustice: "If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans." It isn't that God is bloodthirsty; it is that God is righteous. And God's righteousness doesn't have much to do with what we would like to see happen. If there is a day of reckoning in the offing (and I'm not saying there is based on Mosaic law; that law applies to the children of Abraham, not to the nation state of America), it's not coming because states are validating same-sex marriages. It is coming because, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Which would be very disturbing news to some of us, indeed:

My soul extols the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has shown consideration for the lowly stature of his slave. As a consequence, from now on every generation will congratulate me; the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy will come to generation after generation of those who fear him. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has put the arrogant to rout, along with their private schemes; he has pulled the mighty down from their thrones, and exalted the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as he spoke to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever. (Luke 1:46-56, SV)

Why I always thought "Freakonomics" was a scam

This is the latest "debate" on the intertubes (at least according to Andrew Sullivan and Momocrats). It brings to mind again that fools rush in where angels fear to tread; and not because it's a scary space, but because fools are, well....fools.

As I was saying, we've dealt with these kinds of issues before: if you make a thought experiment of it, it's easy to craft a hypothetical situation which seems too dire to allow for a rational resolution. Yet such a resolution must be found, and suddenly you feel trapped on the horns of a dilemma. That, or you are a first year law student in torts class, where no answer you give seems right, and for every rule of law you'd swear was soundly established, there is a contrary court ruling setting an entirely different precedent.

That is, until you understand torts, and law, and court rulings, and precedent. Until, in other words, you do the hard work required in learning to think like a lawyer. Which is not to say all decisions about law should be left to lawyers, but it is to say there's a reason laws are complicated, and judges and lawyers are educated, and that nobody really gets to put into action arguments about public policy as simplistic as Steven Levitt's (or, if they do, they don't stay in public office long, and the laws get repealed or ridiculed off the books). Honestly, law makes enough mistakes without being this dumb.

There is in the law, for example, the standard of the reasonable and prudent person. Lawyers will immediately recognize that fictional being has almost no relevance here, but this is for the non-lawyers, so bear with me. In trying to figure out hard situation in which justice must be done, but also in which justice must be balanced, the courts long ago recognized the concerns of society and the concerns of the individual, and sought to balance those. Thus appeared the reasonable and prudent person, who...well, here, let me give you the classic definition, courtesy of A.P. Herbert:

The Common Law of England has been laboriously built about a mythical figure-the figure of ‘The Reasonable Man’. In the field of jurisprudence this legendary individual occupies the place which in another science is held by the Economic Man, and in social and political discussions by the Average or Plain Man. He is an ideal, a standard, the embodiment of all those qualities which we demand of the good citizen. No matter what may be the particular department of human life which falls to be considered in these Courts, sooner or later we have to face the question: Was this or was it not the conduct of a reasonable man?
....
This noble creature stands in singular contrast to his kinsman the Economic Man, whose every action is prompted by the single spur of selfish advantage and directed to the single end of monetary gain. The Reasonable Man is always thinking of others; prudence is his guide, and ‘Safety First’, if I may borrow a contemporary catchword, is his rule of life. All solid virtues are his, save only that peculiar quality by which the affection of other men is won. For it will not be pretended that socially he is much less objectionable than the Economic Man.

Though any given example of his behaviour must command our admiration, when taken in the mass his acts create a very different set of impressions.

He is one who invariably looks where he is going, and is careful to examine the immediate foreground before he executes a leap or bound; who neither star-gazes nor is lost in meditation when approaching trap-doors or the margin of a dock; who records in every case upon the counterfoils of cheques such ample details as are desirable, scrupulously substitutes the word ‘Order’ for the word ‘Bearer’, crosses the instrument ‘a/c Payee only’, and registers the package in which it is despatched; who never mounts a moving omnibus, and does not alight from any car while the train is in motion; who investigates exhaustively the bona fides of every mendicant [beggar] before distributing alms, and will inform himself of the history and habits of a dog before administering a caress; who believes no gossip, nor repeats it, without firm basis for believing it to be true; who never drives his ball till those in front of him have definitely vacated the putting-green which is his own objective; who never from one year’s end to another makes an excessive demand upon his wife, his neighbours, his servants, his ox, or his ass; who in the way of business looks only for that narrow margin of profit which twelve men such as himself would reckon to be ‘fair’, contemplates his fellow-merchants, their agents, and their goods, with that degree of suspicion and distrust which the law deems admirable; who never swears, gambles, or loses his temper; who uses nothing except in moderation, and even while he flogs his child is meditating only on the golden mean.

That is a satirical definition of a fictional figure, but you get the idea. The law (common, not necessarily legislative; there is a difference) considers carefully the difficulties involved in commonly encountered situations, and seeks a way to resolve them that is as fair and just to as many as possible. What it comes up with may be easily portrayed as farcical, but that's because the basis for it is not what any one person might prefer. It is a clear attempt to set a standard that the affected community would largely find equitable, especially given the competing interests present in even the most insignificant of legal disputes.

And then there's Steven Levitt's "Daughter test;" which, frankly, is just stupid. And being stupid, it prompts stupid responses:

There are lots of activities we AP-class types find acceptable — drug use, gambling, etc. — because we sort of assume that everyone has the same level of impulse control that we do. And if you have good impulse control, then drugs and gambling are just pleasant ways of filling in your free time. ... But if you're not part of the AP-class cohort, there's a pretty good chance that your impulse control isn't quite as good as all that, and an excellent chance that even if it is, you're keenly aware that good impulse control isn't exactly universal.

The question of what is acceptable to whom is a valid legislative, and even legal, question. But presuming "we" are different (hem-hem, i.e., "superior") from "them" is...need I go on? Perhaps I should, with a pertinent example:

I had a client, some 20+ years ago now, who was a former narcotics police officer. Driving to a deposition with him (on a personal financial matter, small potatoes, nothing to do with corruption or drugs or anything interesting), I asked him about the drug laws and the "drug war," then not yet 20 years old. He said that if some people could only get ahold of Sterno, they'd use that to get high. You weren't, he said, going to keep certain people from trying to get high, no matter what you did.

I suppose Kevin Drum would say those people had "impulse control" problems. Or maybe they just want to get high, and damn the consequences. I heard in passing that drug testing of wastewater indicates a higher use of methamphetamines in the U.S. than previously thought. I guess a lot of us have trouble with "impulse control."

And, of course, who pays the price for Steven Levitt wanting to treat the world like we are all his daughter? Mexico is collapsing on its northern border, and the violence is spilling into America, because of the demand for drugs in America, and the fact that they are illegal. Drug usage has not diminished, and the costs of the "war on drugs" continue to rise, with no end to the battle in sight, and absolutely no declaration of victory, however minor, in the offing. We in America blithely ignore our part in what is happening. A pipeline has two ends, and that stuff isn't being pushed north, it's being sucked here.

The law, as I said, considers carefully the difficulties involved in commonly encountered situations, and seeks a way to resolve them that is as fair and just to as many as possible. The law doesn't say: "Well, I don't like it, so you can't do it." When it does say that (as it has with current U.S. drug policy, which is a creature of the Legislature, not the common law), it creates far more problems than it solves, and even creates criminal empires where none need exist. It is not a question of impulse control, nor of what I don't want my daughter to do. It is not even reducible to a simple phrase or a simple test.

The idea that public policy should be based on how I can understand its effect on me, personally, is the nadir of the "Me Generation." It isn't, as Douthat avers, a "touch of Kantianism." There isn't even a whiff of Kant about it. It's simply stupid and mindless. But maybe that's the magical thinking that turns apples into oranges.

And in the news today an event which prompts me to publish this post: the Supreme Court has decided that the First Amendment protects minors having access to violence and gore, but not to sex. Why? Because we've always done it that way:

California’s argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read—or read to them when they are younger—contain no shortage of gore. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim in-deed. As her just deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers “till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jealousy.” The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales 198 (2006 ed.). Cinderella’s evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves. Id., at 95. And Hansel and Gretel (children!) kill their captor by baking her in an oven. Id., at 54.

High-school reading lists are full of similar fare. Homer’s Odysseus blinds Polyphemus the Cyclops by grinding out his eye with a heated stake. The Odyssey of Homer, Book IX, p. 125 (S. Butcher & A. Lang transls.1909) (“Even so did we seize the fiery-pointed brand and whirled it round in his eye, and the blood flowed about the heated bar. And the breath of the flame singed his eyelids and brows all about, as the ball of the eye burnt away, and the roots thereof crackled in the flame”). In the Inferno, Dante and Virgil watch corrupt politicians struggle to stay submerged beneath a lake of boiling pitch, lest they beskewered by devils above the surface. Canto XXI, pp.187–189 (A. Mandelbaum transl. Bantam Classic ed.1982). And Golding’s Lord of the Flies recounts how a schoolboy called Piggy is savagely murdered by other
children while marooned on an island. W. Golding, Lord of the Flies 208–209 (1997 ed.).

That will undoubtedly be the money quote (or part of it) from this opinion, but this line should not be overlooked:

JUSTICE ALITO recounts all these disgusting video games in order to disgust us—but disgust is not a valid basis for restricting expression.

Unless, of course, you find sex disgusting. Which is a longstanding American tradition, so it's okay to use disgust in that situation.

All of this, of course, could violate Levitt's "daughter" test. My daughter went through a phase where she watched violent movies, the kind of thing that would literally make me sick. It was kind of odd, since she saw a video about animal butchery that put her off meat for a little while; and she faints at the sight of blood, or even when she gets an injection. But she enjoyed violent films. Should I support the ban of violence in books, movies, and video games?

I dunno. I find the whole conversation disgusting. Maybe I should support a law banning it, so my daughter never has to hear about it.

I'm not sure what it means....

I have a burning desire to introduce Stephen Metcalf to Reinhold Niebuhr:

Another way to put it—and here lies the legacy of Keynes—is that a free society is an interplay between a more-or-less permanent framework of social commitments, and the oasis of economic liberty that lies within it. The nontrivial question is: What risks (to health, loss of employment, etc.) must be removed from the oasis and placed in the framework (in the form of universal health care, employment insurance, etc.) in order to keep liberty a substantive reality, and not a vacuous formality? When Hayek insists welfare is the road is to serfdom, when Nozick insists that progressive taxation is coercion, they take liberty hostage in order to prevent a reasoned discussion about public goods from ever taking place. "According to them, any intervention of the state in economic life," a prominent conservative economist once observed of the early neoliberals, "would be likely to lead, and even lead inevitably to a completely collectivist Society, Gestapo and gas chamber included." Thus we are hectored into silence, and by the very people who purport to leave us most alone.

Never mind the implicit invocation of Godwin's Law there (which always brings an end to every argument, or at least is meant to); Digby tells me this article is heating up the intertubes. I wouldn't know; my internet neighborhood is so far out in the sticks it's off the map. But it's an interesting article, if a bit facile (then again, it's Slate, not a philosopher's forum). And I have to admit I'm not familiar with Robert Nozick's work (a book-length response to Rawl's Theory of Justice? *Yawn!*) There are a universe of responses to any position, but I would simply respond to Nozick's position with this:

John Adams in his warnings to Thomas Jefferson would seem to have had a premonition of this kind of politics. "Power," he wrote, "always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws. Our passions, ambitions, avarice, love and resentment, etc., possess so much metaphysical subtlety and so much overpowering eloquence that they insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience and convert both to their party." Adams's understanding of the power of the self's passions and ambitions to corrupt the self's reason is a simple recognition of the facts of life which refute all theories, whether liberal or Marxist, about the possibility of a completely disinterested self. Adams, as every Christian understanding of man has done, nicely anticipated the Marxist theory of an "ideological taint" in reason when men reason about each other's affairs and arrive at conclusions about each other's virtues, interests and motives. The crowning irony of the Marxist theory of ideology is that it foolishly and self-righteously confined the source of this taint to economic interest and to a particular class. It was, therefore, incapable of recognizing all the corruptions of ambition and power which would creep inevitably into its paradise of innocency.

The Irony of American History, by Reinhold Niebuhr. Charles Scribners' Sons, New York, 1952.

"Every thinking person," writes Metcalfe, "is to some degree a libertarian." Yes, but in Christianity, we call that original sin, not an original insight. The problem with libertarianism is not that it leads to false conclusions of the type even Nozick finally rejected, but that it makes a virtue of selfishness. Niebuhr (a much better choice for examining this problem than Kant, I'd say) recognizes this limitation, and also recognizes we must act to overcome it, or at least to keep it in check. The evil of losing my personal liberty is not outweighed by the evil of keeping my liberty as unchecked as possible: both ends employ the same means to reach the false conclusion of perfection (or, at least, of perfectability). In a passage that might well have been written in response to Nozick (and to Metcalfe), Niebuhr writes:

The liberal world which opposes this monstrous evil is filled ironically with milder forms of the same pretension. Fortunately they have not resulted in the same evils, partly because they are not as consistently held; and partly because we have not invested our ostensible "innocents" with inordinate power. Though a tremendous amount of illusion about human nature expresses itself in American culture, our political institutions contain many of the safeguards against the selfish abuse of power which our Calvinist fathers insisted upon. According to the accepted theory, our democracy owes everything to the believers in the innocency and perfectibility of man and little to the reservations about human nature which emanated from the Christianity of New England. But fortunately there are quite a few accents in our constitution which spell out the warning of John Cotton: "Let all the world give mortall man no greater power than they are content they shall use, for use it they will. . . . And they that have the liberty to speak great things you will find that they will speak: great blasphemies."

And Niebuhr neither limited, nor excused, the Church or the religious believers from this error:

In any event we have to deal with a vast religious-political movement which generates more extravagant forms of political injustice and cruelty out of the pretensions of innocency than we have ever known in human history.

I should note, again, he wrote those words in 1952. 59 years later, they still describe the situation America finds itself in. Good to know there's been some progress.....

Just consider that quote from Adams, against Nozick's idea of "liberty:"

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws. Our passions, ambitions, avarice, love and resentment, etc., possess so much metaphysical subtlety and so much overpowering eloquence that they insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience and convert both to their party.

Nozick is, of course, asking for power; the power to preserve his liberty against all perceived challenges. And isn't that standard precisely the one that convinces us we are doing God's service when we are actually violating all of God's laws? Or at least tearing up precisely what we mean to preserve, if you prefer non-religious language? According to Metcalf, Nozick finally repudiated this position.

"The libertarian position I once propounded," Nozick wrote in an essay published in the late '80s, "now seems to me seriously inadequate." In Anarchy democracy was nowhere to be found; Nozick now believed that democratic institutions "express and symbolize … our equal human dignity, our autonomy and powers of self-direction." In Anarchy, the best government was the least government, a value-neutral enforcer of contracts; now, Nozick concluded, "There are some things we choose to do together through government in solemn marking of our human solidarity, served by the fact that we do them together in this official fashion ..."

(which, ironically, is not a great deal stronger, more persuasive, or all that different, from John Rawl's theory of justice.)

In other words, he came back to the conclusions of Adams and Jefferson. My only question is: what took him so long?

Oh....I think I know. And I dare to say religion had something to do with it; the absence, in this case; but clearly the presence, in Adams' case. Which is not to say this is a Christian nation after all; but the determined efforts to expunge all religious influence from all public discourse, efforts that began with the Enlightenment and reached their peak in 19th century Europe, especially in Anglo-American philosophy, is failing still to bear the fruit it promised.

Which is, more and more, very interesting....