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« April 2005 | Main | June 2005 » May 31, 2005C.S. LewisI finally watched Star Wars Episode III yesterday, and must say that the preview of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was worth the cost of admission. The upcoming on-screen adaptation of C.S. Lewis's original masterpiece is something I've been looking forward to since my parents gave me the books as a kid. Someone came out with some movies based on the Narnia series a while back, but they were awful. (Well, as a kid I remember thinking they were neat, but bad movie quality--so I'm sure their artistic quality has decreased since then.) Andrew Adamson (Shrek, Shrek II) is directing the film, and it is set in New Zealand. Hopefully this one will be as good as the preview suggests. Being set in New Zealand is not the only similarity shared by Narnia and Lord of the Rings. Authors C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were faculty members at Oxford during the same time period, and enjoyed a deep friendship that resulted in several classic stories. Their friendship, obviously influenced by a mutual love of storytelling, also resulted in some of the greatest theological writing of the twentieth century. Posted by Jonathan Bunch at 05:13 PM | Comments (8) SCOTUS' Impeccable TimingOK, you may now grin smugly and say "inmates in Ohio have more religious freedom than law-abiding parents in Indianapolis." Despite my doubts that Judge Bradford's decision in Marion County is the "most obvious violation of the Free Exercise clause ever," SCOTUS's opinion on a religious accommodation issue in prisons that receive federal funding, released today, comes at a time when the Free Exercise Clause is fresh on the mind. The case, Cutter v. Wilkinson, is the latest chapter of the give-and-take between the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment. Petitioners were former and current inmates of Ohio state prisons, and sued the state under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §2000cc-1 because prison officials did not accommodate inmates' exercise of their "non-mainstream" religions. The 6th Circuit held on appeal that the law in question was invalid on its face as a violation of the Establishment Clause because it "afford[ed] religious prisoners rights superior to those of nonreligious prisoners," which might "encourag[e] prisoners to become religious in order to enjoy greater rights." SCOTUS didn't buy the 6th Circuit's argument, reversing it unanimously. Accommodation of religious practices need not come packaged with similar protections for secular rights, which the 6th Circuit's rationale seems to require. Also, accommodations tailored to alleviate government-imposed burdens on free exercise (institutional living or military service, e.g.) have a long history of withstanding constitutional scrutiny. Thomas penned an interesting concurring opinion that traces the Establishment Clause as a limited federalism protection. Truly, Congress may make no law respecting establishment of religion, and Thomas states that Ohio's argument that Congress must refrain from infringing on a state's regulation of religion in any manner reads the word "establishment" much too broadly. Ohio's argument quoted Madison and James Iredell, and attempted to paint the quotes as demonstrative of the original meaning of the Establishment Clause, but Thomas assailed these bits as only being part of the discussion surrounding the Establishment Clause, and being more relevant to discarded Establishment Clause language ('Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or infringing the rights of conscience') than the actual text. Thomas's concurring opinion, thus, is notable for its relevance to recent discussions, for example here, (I swear there have been others) on originalism and constitutional interpretation. There really isn't much controversial in this decision, as it upholds the rationale of several fundamental religion clause cases and overturns an unworkable lower court opinion; Cutter is interesting for its timing and illumination of some of Thomas's thoughts on the "intent of the Founders" more than its ultimate holding. Posted by Adam Packer at 12:24 PM | Comments (6) Gulag? Are you sure?I'm just now getting around to catching up on Amnesty International's annual report. If you've not yet heard, it famously referred to detention facilities in Guntanamo Bay, Cuba, as the "Gulag of our times." There is no doubt that Amnesty International plays a critical role, as a politically independent entity, in reporting, researching, and campaigning against human rights abuse. But I concur with the Washington Post on this one: IT'S ALWAYS SAD when a solid, trustworthy institution loses its bearings and joins in the partisan fracas that nowadays passes for political discourse. It's particularly sad when the institution is Amnesty International, which for more than 40 years has been a tough, single-minded defender of political prisoners around the world and a scourge of left- and right-wing dictators alike. True, Amnesty continues to keep track of the world's political prisoners, as it has always done, and its reports remain a vital source of human rights information. But lately the organization has tended to save its most vitriolic condemnations not for the world's dictators but for the United States. If throwing around the term "gulag" wasn't enough, the organization has also called for the arrest of a number of high ranking United States government officials including Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Alberto Gonzales, and many others. Given the apparent lack of clarity in this area of international law, I don't know how Amnesty got from Point A (decrying an arguably illegal or immoral policy toward detainees) to Point B (talking about gulags and arresting Donald Rumsfeld et al.). Posted by Jonathan Bunch at 10:03 AM | Comments (23) May 30, 2005In MemoriamThis piece from the Indy Star had the greatest impact on me of all Memorial Day tributes on TV, radio, or print. In one list, and without great fanfare, you can visualize all who have sacrificed for this country. Dramatic soundtrack optional. Posted by Adam Packer at 10:10 PM | Comments (8) Indy's New Face
Indeed some of open wheel's best prospects have switched over to NASCAR. Jeff Gordon initially moved to Indy to do open wheel racing in the hopes of becoming the next Al Unser Jr. or Mario Andretti. But as even people who never watch racing can tell you, Gordon is now NASCAR's poster child. The golden boy who's helped it lap Indy in popularity and relevance. Now comes Danica Patrick, a talented, attractive, and well-spoken driver. MSNBC suggests she may do for open wheel driving what Tiger Woods did for golf. That's a bit of a stretch, perhaps, but it's certain that Danica can only bode good things for Indy. She's not only a woman, but she's American, and that's been relatively rare in open wheel racing recently. Matsuura, Junqueira, Giaffone, Castroneves. Do these ring a bell? If not, you're not alone. But Danica is one you can remember. I don't think we've seen the last of her. Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:04 AM | Comments (4) May 29, 2005IconoclastsBritain's Prospect magazine features a debate over the prospects of the iconic building and the "starchitects" whose brands overpower their work. Iconic buildings, the antagonist in the debate proposes, are now divorced from their surroundings--architectural one-liners thrown into the urban conversation. He has a point. Do we think of Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum as a great museum or as a great piece of habitable sculpture? The evidence suggests the former. (I have never seen anyone discuss the contents of the Bilbao museum--critical interest in the institution runs only skin deep.) It is a little harder for the pro-icon writer to suggest reasons we should love the big projects of the big names. Looking at Rem Koolhaas' CCTV Headquarters proposal for Beijing, for instance, I am struck at once by the arrogance, the antitraditionalism and the monstrousness of the structure--although I am also intrigued by the apparent fact that the building will, indeed, be self-supporting. But is this a building that has anything to do with China? Is it, as Koolhaas has claimed elsewhere, a blow for democracy and simultaneously the first step toward a post-skyscraper architecture? Or is it just...there? Designers today pay too much attention to themselves, and their self-regard provokes insecurity in the (usually uncultured) bureaucrats and gray corporate suits who approve and fund their buildings. Without any ideas of their own to use as weapons--even in self-defense--against the self-aggrandizing and overly-theorized architects, how is the average MPA or MBA supposed to resist bad design? The best line in the debate, in fact, comes when the iconolastic writer notes that projects have to be big, bold, and novel because there is no other way to convince the internationalized corporate elite that a project will work; the jetset do not have the local knowledge necessary to evaluate (nor the local attachments necessary to care) whether a project will work in its context. The good news, says the more-persuasive anti-starchitect writer, is that these architects and their non-movement will eventually fizzle out. The bad news is that we will have to look at their buildings for a very long time. Posted by Paul Musgrave at 03:00 PM | Comments (6) May 27, 2005The Slippery SlopeI'll be the first to admit that the "slippery slope" argument is used far too often in public policy debates. There is always the potential for a slope, but the degree of slipperiness is often overstated. Slippery slope arguments may be most popular in the area of civil liberties. If the government bans nuclear weapons, the argument goes, it can ban normal firearms. And if it can ban firearms, some might say, it can ban knives. Sound ridiculous? Once upon a time I might've agreed so too, but Britain is making me reconsider. An editorial in the May 28 issue of the "prestigious" British Medical Journal calls for banning the sale of kitchen knives in order to reduce fatal stabbings. For a review of U.S. knife laws visit Bernard Levine's website. Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 05:55 PM | Comments (13) Anglo-phoneyI'm going to have to second Radley Balko's endorsement of Prof. Boudreaux's trivial complaint about talking heads in the media adopting fleeting Spanish accents when pronouncing proper nouns: You know what I mean. If reporter Jones of CNN or ABC is reporting on some goings-on in, say, Mexico City, he'll not say "Meks-e-ko" (as native English speakers pronounce that country's name); instead, he'll say "Mea-he-ko" (the way native Spanish speakers pronounce it) . . .I think that strikes closest to the matter, that the media are so afraid of offending people with evil Anglophonic assimilation that they will go to such lengths. And that is condescending and pretentious. Prof. Boudreaux is wrong to confine this phenomenon only to Spanish proper nouns. Every affiliate with a token minority succumbs to the same affectation. (NB: I'm not saying these people are unworthy to be reporters, just that it's pretty obvious that those in the studio are making a special point to say their name as ethnically as possible.) Consider also the common pronunciation of the Afghan capital, Kabul, or "Kah-BOOL," though more and more, talking heads seem to be switching to the more correct "Cobble." But perhaps if there is one culture that is hypersensitive to its treatment in the media . . . Posted by Zach Wendling at 12:10 PM | Comments (16) Daily Web Digest
Posted by ITA Staff at 09:58 AM | Comments (2) May 26, 2005Gambling and PoliticsIn 2002, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell included in his election campaign a plan to legalize slot machines in the state and use the revenue to fund property tax cuts for homeowners. The initiative passed last summer. Slot machine parlors will soon be operating in the state that began as William Penn's "holy experiment". Unfortunately, as this AP article reports, property tax relief may be seen by only a small minority of homeowners. Under the plan--known as Act 72--in order to receive a share of gambling revenues, school districts must institute or raise (by at least 0.1%) their local earned income tax and must seek voter approval for future property tax hikes above the rate of inflation. With the deadline for making the decision approaching, only 25% of school districts have opted into the plan. This may be disappointing, but it's hardly surprising. Legalizing gambling in the interest of liberty is one thing, but doing so for tax revenue is often a short-sighted decision. A 2004 study in Nova Scotia cited evidence that "the government's estimate of gambling profits may be illusory, because it does not account for the higher health care, justice, social service, productivity loss, and other costs generated by problem gambling." Furthermore, obtaining state funding from state-licensed gambling--just like state lotteries--is a form of regressive taxation that most hurts those who can least afford to gamble, yet do so out of hope that a windfall will lift them out of their financial situation. Granted, the immediate reason Rendell's promise of tax relief may not come to fruition is not because of gambling's social costs. School districts just don't want to give up their power of taxation. But it just adds another mark against "gambling for revenue" schemes. (For more research about gambling, see the report of the National Gambling Impact Study commission.) In other Pennsylvania political news, ex-Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Lynn Swann is considering running against Rendell for governor in 2006. For those wondering whether his role as an ABC Sports commentator will give Swann an unfair advantage, fear not. Gov. Rendell is featured every week during the NFL season on a Philadelphia Eagles post-game show on a regional cable network--an endeavor he began as mayor of Philly and has continued as governor. Posted by Eric Seymour at 12:25 PM | Comments (0) Daily Web Digest
Posted by ITA Staff at 11:38 AM | Comments (0) Most Obvious Violation of Free Exercise Rights Ever?Here's a story for you aspiring Indiana attorneys about a judge you may someday argue before. I can't imagine what on earth he's thinking, but Cale Bradford, Chief Judge of the Marion Superior Court in Indiana, has issued the most blatantly unconstitutional opinion I've ever heard of. In a divorce in which both of the parents are Wiccan, the judge placed a provision in the divorce decree forbidding them from exposing their son to "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals." The parents have filed an appeal to have this provision struck from the decree, and I cannot imagine they could possibly lose that appeal. I had the same reaction upon reading this as their attorney did: "When they read the order to me, I said, 'You've got to be kidding,'" said Alisa G. Cohen, an Indianapolis attorney representing Jones. "Didn't the judge get the memo that it's not up to him what constitutes a valid religion?" Apparently not. One wonders where the judge got his law degree, from Billy Bob's Law School and Bait Shop? Posted by at 10:32 AM | Comments (57) The Network Is The AuthorityThe very word "authority" is unfamiliar from overuse. There is a difference, for instance, in the way that a physics textbook, a Cabinet secretary and the MTA are all "authorities," and yet the reasoning behind calling each of these entities "authorities" is similar. In each case, the idea is that authority is something that can be granted and, once granted, proceeds relatively unchecked. Depending on the circumstance, this may not be a bad thing. The MTA (New York's Metropolitcan Transit Authority, which runs buses and subways), for instance, is not tremendously efficient, but it isn't that awful; the Port Authority of NY&NJ, which owns airports and trains and the World Trade Center (leased to a private developer), is similarly not all that bad. But once we move from such relatively acceptable ideas, and especially from situations in which having an authority makes sense (someone has to own the subways) into environments in which authority should be earned and constantly tested, authority can become a dangerous concept. Such thinking lies behind Gary Wolf's useful, brief essay in Wired magazine on why many of the survivors of the 9/11 attacks were wise to disobey or disregard authority in that instance. It turns out that the authorities were not authoritative--better information could be had from private communications networks. The FDNY's communications failed during 9/11; Blackberries and cell phones worked, albeit irregularly. The network of private citizens constructed a more reliable net of information in this instance. So much for "authority." Posted by Paul Musgrave at 10:23 AM | Comments (3) How Much For The Stealth Bomber in the Window?Caleb McDaniel passes along this fantastic Google Maps photo. Many nerds...died...to bring us this information. Meanwhile, Nancy Nall alerts us to Sen. Evan Bayh's Flickr account. Posted by Paul Musgrave at 09:47 AM | Comments (4) May 25, 2005Deer PornA pair of amorous deer have appeared on the south lawn of IUPUI's brand-new Herron Art School building just west of Downtown Indianapolis, which ought to ruffle a few community-standards feathers in the conservative state capitol. I've yet to go take a look, and the picture on WTHR's website leaves a lot to the imagination, so I will save the mock outrage until I see for myself if the sculpture truly captures the essence of Bambi does Dallas. Posted by Adam Packer at 06:46 PM | Comments (3) The Elements of Blog StyleTo my knowledge, the blogosphere lacks its Dr. Strunk and Mr. White. Without it, we are all in the dark on the peculiarities of blogging style, for though blogging looks like writing, it is a very different creature. Consider this reprint of two ITA posts in the Evansville Courier and Press. Here, our blog posts have been reproduced in a static medium (as NRO puts it, on "dead tree"), and they become subtly different creatures. The difference is less distinct with Adam Packer's post on mascots, but it comes across clearly (to me, anyway) when my post on housing stock is put on paper. Without hyperlinking, the brief essay reads very differently. One of the beauties of blogging, after all, is the ease with which we bloggers can paint our pictures on the 'infinite canvass'--unlike print or television, our musings are unconstrained by time or space concerns, and we can link to as many full-text original sources as our readers can stand. (This process becomes almost invisible to the blog reader; please note, for instance, that I've already done so twice in this brief post.) Without the link to the original paper on housing stock, the Courier and Press readers rely on my summary to judge the argument--but my three equation-free paragraphs are hardly sufficient to convey the full meaning of the mathematical paper, which itself contains numerous references to other texts. All of this is lost on paper, as is the grace note of linking to a Reason writer grudgingly admitting that highly-regulated New York is nonetheless a desirable place to live. Blogging, then, requires different thinking about style than writing for a static, standalone medium. And trying to write good blog while also keeping the demands of print in the back of my mind is difficult--note, for instance, that the "presented here" in my online post survives into print, even though it serves absolutely no purpose on paper and probably confuses the reader. ("Presented where?") Online, it makes perfect sense. Offline, it's counterproductive. Posted by Paul Musgrave at 03:27 PM | Comments (1) Scrambled EggheadsJonathan Bunch's most recent post is a response to my earlier arguments about how the nature of politics and the interests of the various groups that comprise they machinery of political parties and their associated voting coalitions makes it difficult--almost impossible--to blame ideational failures for electoral collapses. Bunch attempts to clarify his argument, simultaneously disclaiming any belief that conservatives function as ideological and policy-making guides for the GOP while asserting that the Republicans do, in fact, have partisan structures that allow them both to generate new policies and sell them to voters faster and better than Democrats. I agree, but I think that this only underscores my earlier propositions that Bunch unfairly conflated "Democrats" and "liberals," and that in analyzing the electoral failures of the liberal-Democratic coalition Bunch laid too much stress on ideas as a causal factor of political success. (May I note, by the way, that Bunch's original post was entitled "Liberalism," but dealt principally with Democrats and Democratic figures? I offer this as a partial explanation for my belief that Bunch has sought, from the beginning, to conflate the two groups.) In his initial post, Bunch sought to demonstrate that Democrats needed not to "reframe" their existing ideas, but rather that they might need to rethink those ideas: "Using the rhetoric that worked when unemployment was 20% might not work as well when unemployment is 5%...The world has changed since the days of Democratic dominance. So has the United States. It is nothing more than self-serving to believe that the same ideas that yielded Democratic dominance in the past necessarily support dominance today." At the same time, Bunch asserted the Democrats have become detached from fundamentally progressive thinkers: "Jonah Goldberg argues that the fact that liberals rarely, if ever, invoke liberal icons like John Dewey, Reinhold Niebuhr, or TNR founder Herbert Croly, demonstrates that liberalism is 'dead.'" (Incidentally, if the summary in The Wilson Quarterly (Spring 2005) is accurate, Goldberg is repeating an argument by Martin Peretz in the 28 February issue of The New Republic.) These two contentions admit of two interpretations. The first is that the progressive tradition of Dewey et al is a font of useful, or at least attractive, ideas the Demorats' intellectual corps could use to build a policy programme uniting the party's factions. The second is that the progressive tradition is bankrupt and that the Democrats had better begin marshalling their forces to seize some ideas now held by the Republican Party. Bunch recognizes this, but does not translate this recognition into a strategic prescription. The Democrats can adopt the "Third Way"--which The Economist describes as Thatcher-lite, and which George Stephanopoulous and many other first-term Clintonistas thought was a betrayal of the Democratic tradition--while trying to bring back progressive ideas like the pedagogical thought of John Dewey. In my original response to Bunch, I posited that the ideas expressed by the Democrats were less the product of reasoned debate and more the product of compromise among competing interest groups within the Democratic Party; this is, I believe, how most party platforms are formed (at least by parties that actually matter to the electoral process in all but the most exceptional elections). I also argued, in passing, that the Republican coalition is at least as fractious as the Democrats'; this assertion, however, demands an explanation for why the Republicans win the elections Democrats lose. As we will see, both of these points argue against Bunch's emphasis on ideas as a determinative factor in politics. Aside from the structural advantages Republicans currently enjoy in certain contests (for instance, in the Senate), the GOP's enduring advantage springs not from the inherent superiority of its argumentation but from its appeal to the electorate. This appeal, in turn, derives in part from the success of the midcentury Democratic Party and the early-20th century Progressives. The great liberal/progressive movement won (most of) its battles for equal suffrage, basic racial civil rights and clean government; having won the day, it revealed itself as a spent impulse--there are very few issues today on which liberals are so clearly on the side of the angels as they appeared to be on these matters. (It is noteworthy, in fact, that modern right-wingers evince no desire to overturn the direct election of senators, repeal women's right to vote or reinstitute Jim Crow--before its demise, the progressive tradition vanquished the organized forces of American reactionaries.) We are dealing with a wholly new set of issues in American politics now because of the ubiquity of once-progressive beliefs. Republican presidents and legislators do not argue for isolation--they are, instead, at the forefront of efforts to expand American influence worldwide. Even the efforts to reform the welfare state appear less as the manifestation of the desires of a broad swath of voters and more as the result of an elite project to impose a McKinleyite revolution from above. In this environment, Republicans derive the remainder of their advantage from the intense sophistication of their media and rhetoric and the occasional (all-too-frequent, for my snobbish intellectual tastes) calculated unsophistication of their platforms. Anecdotes about welfare queens supplant Hayekian arguments about the weaknesses of the welfare state; simplistic assertions about the efficacy of spreading democracy unseat considerations of Realpolitik; and more people learn about conservatism from Sean Hannity than Edmund Burke. (Or even William F. Buckley.) As a consequence, much of what passes for conservative thought in the United States is neither conservative nor thought. Often it is nativist, populist or dangerously naive. Liberalism suffers from the very same flaws; the prominence of entertainers like Michael Moore and Al Franken among left-leaning figures must give Todd Gitlin and Martha Nussbaum heartburn. To relate this to Bunch's assertions: It is not only the average Democrat who lacks a foundation for their ideas in an intellectual tradition. So too does the average Republican. But the Republican Party can count on a more ambitious and appealing media from which to learn his talking points (often more appealing because more entertaining; I prefer NPR and CSPAN to both Fox and CNN, but I can hardly watch CNN from boredom). This is not, however, a failure of Democratic intellectuals so much as it is a consequence of the structure of the media (and, indeed, of the relative unpopularity left-leaning intellectuals have almost always faced in the United States). Bunch, then, is wrong when he writes "There [are] a-lot of eggheads in the Democratic Party, and certainly a-lot of eggheads who are liberal. But, they aren't doing much to develop or communicate ideas that will appeal to the interests of persuadable voters." The success of the Republican Party--of any realistic party in a democracy--is not a result only of the quality of its ideas (which clearly at times can be lacking) but of other factors as well, including the party's ability to communicate those ideas and build coalitions that can tolerate each other. The Republican Party's strengths as a political organization lie much more in these two points than in the former, largely because politics is not a seminar but a contest of organized interests. But Bunch believes in the primacy of ideas. The Democrats, he writes, could use ideas to construct coalitions: "John Dewey could serve as the source of ideas that appeal to the interests of voters who are deeply concerned with the pedagogical failures of our public education system, or Woodrow Wilson the source of ideas for a foreign policy that threatens global terrorism." The alert reader will note, however, that neither will be effective. Dewey will fail, not just because the Neanderthals will demand a "back to basics" programme (as Alfie Kohn writes, as if we ever left the basics), but because the structure of American education mitigates any federal attempt to proscribe curriculum at the broadest level, much less a Washington-directed effort to redo the whole system, with its thousands of independent school corporations. As for Woodrow Wilson: It is difficult to see what Wilson would have done or said that Bush has not. (Evoking Wilson, by the way, is in most respects an argument that the progressive tradition has drawn down its last assets: Self-determination is hardly desirable in a post-Rwanda world, and would any American voter--or even a French voter--trust a League of Nations?) In the daily workings of politics, interests trump ideas. The successes of the Reagan Revolution (and, though little credited, of Carter-era deregulation) have taken a generation to consolidate--and those were the easiest battles to win: It is much simpler to argue against marginal tax rates over 70 per cent than under 40 per cent, and self-reliance is easier to prescribe for General Motors than Boomers seeking to offload their parents' medical bills on Uncle Sam. In the meantime, the bloat of the federal government has continued to the point that National Journal reports that lobbyists begging for earmarks from Congress's appropriations committee believe the field is saturated. (When lobbyists say there are too many special interests asking for handouts....) Given that ideas are important to statecraft, but less so to the conduct of political parties (the American political tradition gave the world Jefferson and Lincoln, but also "I Like Ike" and the bridge to the twenty-first century), I repeat my earlier judgment that the future of American politics over the next few years will not depend on any particular innovation in the message or even in the medium. Indeed, a seemingly random event could tip the balance over the next four years, and what we now perceive to be Democratic incompetence may well emerge in hindsight as the formation of the bold new generation of progressive activists who dominate American politics for the next forty years. (Or, I hope, not.) Posted by Paul Musgrave at 02:10 PM | Comments (4) One Criminal, Two Death Sentences?Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels decided yesterday not to postpone the execution (or commute the sentence) of convicted murderer Gregory Scott Johnson so that he could donate his liver to his ill sister, Debra Otis. Mitch wasn't convinced that a plan to transplant Johnson's liver into Ms. Otis was medically sound enough to warrant postponing his execution. Johnson was executed early this morning. This story was high-profile in Indiana for the past week, and it showed potential to become a major national story, but Johnson's death today ends it with a whimper rather than the blast of ethical, medical, and legal fireworks I expected when the story first broke. The story and its attendant issues had all the elements of being a big one, but when Ms. Otis's own specialist and Clarian Health's transplant expert wrote Mitch a letter explaining that Mr. Johnson was not a "medically appropriate organ donor", it assured that the debates about these issues would remain theoretical for now. But why, in the name of giving Ms. Otis a chance, and just in case her doctors were wrong about Johnson being an inappropriate donor, didn't Mitch step in and take Johnson's liver? That decision would have been speculative at best, and both unethical and prohibited by organ donor procedures at worst. Even if the procedure was deemed "medically appropriate," the remaining hurdles were still significant; for example, under the rules of organ procurement and distribution, Johnson's liver would go to a patient matched to the organ based on a combination of factors, and not necessarily to Ms. Otis. This uncertainty punches a big hole in the reason Gov. Daniels might have made an exception here. If the liver wouldn't go straight to Ms. Otis, allowing Johnson to donate it is no longer an attempt to save his sister. Such a decision would amount to harvesting organs from death row, which would start a moral firestorm - not exactly Mitch's modus operandi. Remember, this is the Mitch Daniels of an open mind but a strong decision, and ordering a stay of execution based on medical speculation would not be consistent with his style. Those who had arguments loaded and ready to use on both sides of the ethical issues may be disappointed about the lost opportunity to debate, but there will be no decisions about those issues, including whether Indiana will attempt to harvest the liver after Johnson had KCl coursing through his body, disregard the United Network for Organ Sharing's apparent ban on the use of condemned criminals as donors, or take a partial liver transplant and nurse Johnson back to health just long enough to kill him. Johnson died as scheduled, and took his liver with him. So why was this the right decision? The precedential weight alone would have been a disaster for Daniels. Every death row inmate would ask for a delay to "further explore the possibility" of organ donation to a sick relative, if only for the reason of delaying execution. If Daniels had allowed the exploration of transplant options on the slim evidence in front of him and the Clarian physicians, he would have legitimized such evidence as sufficient for a stay. There are the countless other issues of ethics and medicine at play here, but looking through the narrow lenses of the law, precedential weight is the reason that makes it clear that Mitch Daniels couldn't permit Johnson to give up his liver before (or after) being put to death. Posted by Adam Packer at 01:45 PM | Comments (1) Re Liberalism (Part 3)Paul Musgrave's response to my earlier commentary on liberalism does a nice job of tackling some of the weaknesses in my argument. However, in doing so he accuses me of making several assertions I never made, and writes several paragraphs in response to an argument I never really wrote. Where did I say anything about new ideas being manufactured by conservatives or Republicans? (I would have responded just as he did had I made some of the arguments he assumes I made.) Musgrave's compelling argument is, in that light, a long non-sequitur. But, since we are discussing Republicans now, and not Democrats, let me respond. I'll then get back to the original topic and respond to those arguments that do address my initial post. Musgrave assumes that I believe the Republicans are the avante garde, or somehow manufacturing bold policies that are befuddling Democrats. To the contrary, I don't think new ideas are primarily responsible for the coalitions that have benefited Republicans. With the help of generous financial contributions from sympathetic sources, the Republican organization has been able to take boring philosophical ideas, put them through the highly organized policy-making class Musgrave mentioned--in addition to talk radio and conservative publications--and make old ideas appeal to the interests of the general public. Republicans have also capitalized on the fact that the socially conservative interests of some swing voters have taken precedent to some of interests advanced by the traditional liberal ideas that brought success to the Democratic Party in the past. James Carville offered one of the most succinct explanations for the GOP's recent success when he paraphrased the heart of some of their most voter friendly ideas: "[They're] going to protect you from the terrorists in Tikrit and from the homos in Hollywood." I doubt anyone who frequents ITA is unaware of the difference between libertarian ideas and those advanced by social conservatives (or the difference between liberalism and Democrats). There's a reason I avoided discussing Frank Meyer: I wasn't concerned with how the Republican Party should play its cards to keep libertarians and conservatives happy at the same time. Although that is an interesting debate that has existed for a very long time. (While I'm here, First Things has an article discussing the new "Fusionism.") Musgrave makes an excellent point when he says that good conservative ideas--deregulation and others adopted by Republicans (who, by the way, are sometimes different from conservatives)--don't need much updating. Where Musgrave errs is in assuming that I actually contested, or would contest, this proposition. Though I dedicated few words to the notion, my post made it obvious that I think Republican ideas--and the old conservative ideas that sometimes fuel them--are in most cases long lasting and preferable. Even if I didn't consider them intellectually superior, Republicans have done a better job of building coalitions of interests by using ideas, whether old or new. In any event, that was not the point. Had I dedicated my post to the prowess of Republicans I wouldn't have felt moved to mention Democrats so often. Perhaps this argument was lost for the same reason Musgrave accuses me of failing to make fine distinctions--I wasn't trying to make them because I assumed they were understood by anyone who watches politics with any attention. Now I'll go back to the argument I was making--about Democrats. If I'm redundant, it's because I'd like to make some fine distinctions readily apparent. I must not have made it clear enough, but the spirit of my argument was that new ideas--or ideas that Democrats are not right now adopting, even if they are old ones--will be what enable the Democrats to win elections in the future. Any attempt to replicate the structure that the Republican's have used, or the re-packaging of old ideas, will be unable to shake the coalitions that sprang up in replacement of those that once supported the interests advanced by the liberalism that thrived in the Democratic party. The machinery that enabled Republicans to overcome a population of overwhelmingly self-identified Democrats was created in response to the same "liberalism" that Dean wants the Party to return to. For Democrats to win, with the help of liberalism, it would require them to (1) overcome the incredibly established right-wing machinery that sprang up to defeat Democrats (and its brand of liberalism), by simply returning to the same liberal ideas that once yielded Democratic victories; or (2) develop or communicate new liberal ideas (not necessarily revolutionary ones) that appeal to the interests of persuadable voters. There a-lot of eggheads in the Democratic Party, and certainly a-lot of eggheads who are liberal. But, they aren't doing much to develop or communicate ideas that will appeal to the interests of persuadable voters. In this regard I do think there has been a failure on the part of the top tier of your model to articulate policy alternatives that can persuade, or appeal to the interests of, voter classes who have "realigned" themselves. This problem is compounded, for the Democrats, because George Bush has made it a point to spend like a Democrat while adopting some "progressive" ideas, all in the name of "compassionate conservatism." In this sense, you could say that Republicans have been more successful than Democrats at using liberal ideas to appeal to the interests of swing voters. What Howard Dean and his supporters are saying is that they would rather focus on alternative 1, and just try to overcome Republicans by doing what Republicans did--because they genuinely believe the old ideas they've been harping on for a long time now can still win them elections. A recent Pew survey does a bit to explain why I think that plan will fail. In the survey it was reported that "disaffecteds" and "upbeats"--two groups of swing voters--voted for George Bush by large margins despite overwhelming support for a higher minimum wage and national health insurance. In your fifth paragraph you help make my point. To put in your terms, the Democratic Party platform has been unable to reflect the interests needed to build coalitions that can win elections. It's not hard to think of several "issues" that could be affected by philosophical liberalism in a way that would benefit the Democratic Party. At this point though, the Democratic leadership seems happier to recycle the same ideas despite an electorate that has changed. This is not to say that liberalism could not be the source of winning ideas; simply that it doesn't look like it will be at this point in the Democratic Party. (As simple examples that could be popular to swing voters: John Dewey could serve as the source of ideas that appeal to the interests of voters who are deeply concerned with the pedagogical failures of our public education system, or Woodrow Wilson the source of ideas for a foreign policy that threatens global terrorism.) As I alluded in my earlier post, I tend to think that coalitions of swing-voters will benefit the GOP unless the Democratic Party is willing to try a new "Third Way" which sometimes openly rejects liberalism, on some issues, in favor of some conservative ideas. I'm not saying that any ideas need to be produced, although that may be necessary. I don't mean to suggest that the ideas should be revolutionary either. I doubt liberalism will be the source of ideas that undergirds Democratic victories in the near future. I say this simply because our electorate has changed enough that the interests of current persuadable voters will ultimately lead them to reject the liberal ideas currently adopted by the Democratic Party, in favor of any number of interests that Republicans have represented recently--whether it be liberal (or hawkish) foreign policy, activism on social issues, tax cuts, free trade, or populist approaches to education and entitlement programs. With that behind me, let me conclude: Howard Dean Democrats should (1) acknowledge that the liberalism they espouse is failing to inspire ideas that can win elections by appealing to the interests of persuadable voters, and react to this fact by borrowing some conservative ideas; or (2) come up with some liberal ideas, aside from those we've heard about over and over, that can move swing voters. Posted by Jonathan Bunch at 11:39 AM | Comments (0) Blood FeudThe Washington Post carries a fascinating story about John Ames and Perry Brooks, two farmers in Virginia. Ames was once a lawyer and decided he wanted to start farming, so he moved to rural Caroline County to build a top-notch herd of Angus cattle. Being the sly lawyer that he is, Ames took advantage of a little-known 1887 law that says if you build a fence, you can charge the adjoining land owner half the costs of putting it up. As you can imagine, most of the elderly and retired neighbors were shocked to receive a massive bill which was half the cost of the most expensive fence that Ames could find. Although all the neighbors protested the move, it was Perry Brooks who absolutely refused to pay up and Ames sued for Brooks' $45,000 share. The case reached all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court, which surprisingly ruled the law was constitutional. As it happens Brooks also raised cattle and as proof that irony knows no ends, one of Brooks' bulls broke through the expensive fence and tainted the lawyer's high-class herd of cattle. That's when Ames decided to take action by shooting someone, but it wasn't the bull. A fine example of reality besting fiction. Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 09:37 AM | Comments (6) May 24, 2005Filibuster compromiseToday's biggest news is arguably the Senate's "bipartisan" compromise to avert the elimination of the filibuster on judicial nominees. It's always struck me as odd that Republicans would point to the Constitutional provision granting "Advice and Consent" powers to the Senate as a Constitutional impediment to judicial filibusters, but fail to mention similar powers granted to the legislature for ordinary resolutions. Do these powers not also bar the use of filibusters? To be clear, I am neither endorsing nor criticizing the use of filibusters. I am simply taking the recent arguments put forth by some Republicans to their natural conclusion. If Congressmen oppose judicial filibusters on Constitutional grounds, it seems they must oppose all filibusters that prevent full Congressional votes. For a more lengthy analysis of the compromise visit Michael Meckler's Red-State.com. Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 04:55 PM | Comments (12) The Internet Will Devour Your SoulAn article in last month's Chronicle of Higher Education profiles a disparate group of ivory-tower Luddites discontent with the consequences of information overload. The advocates for a slower, more boring life point out that overuse of technology is diminishing the time we spend interacting face-to-face, which in turn will lead to a generation bereft of the basic skills needed to maintain interpersonal relations and achieve even the most basic level of reproductive success. More importantly, however, we’re no longer reading books as they're meant to be read, as Middlebury scholar in residence Bill McKibben suggests: "My basic point is the best thing to do with a scholarly book is to sit and read it," rather than skim an excerpt that is revealed by a search engine. "A book is not just an accumulation of facts, it's an argument, a cumulative piece of knowledge, and is designed to be read sequentially." These brave new technologies, however, did not spring into being fully formed, but gradually evolved from cultural precursors. The style of information browsing and retrieval that weblogs have created, in which one topic leads to another in an expanding web of information, is strikingly similar to the method of scholarly research, especially scientific research. The average Nature article is only about twice as long as a verbose blog post. Extended narratives certainly have their niche in the intellectual ecology, but science (and current events and other subjects that thrive on up-to-date information) have always thrived on rapidly accessed chunks of information. Today, those chunks are even smaller, and can be accessed even more quickly, but the process remains, if not the same, at least very similar. As for the argument that a book is designed to be read in a certain manner, well, that doesn't necessarily matter. It's likely that Beethoven meant for his symphonies to be heard in their entirety, but if I want to listen to one of his slow movements out of context I don't feel guilty for a second. McKibben goes on to suggest that somehow today's students are losing the ability to contemplate: "There's the real danger that one is absorbing and responding to bursts of information, rather than having time to think... What's only gradually becoming clear is not just a pragmatic drawback but an intellectual drawback to having so many trees that there's no possibility of seeing the forest." It's not clear what the difference is between thinking and responding to bursts of information; indeed, to proponents of modern-day neuroscience there is no such difference. If, in fact, the history of science tells us anything, it's that one very well-established fact is worth a thousand sweeping generalizations. Darwin's masterpiece On the Origin of Species, for example, begins with a ludicrously detailed account of his experiences breeding pigeons, understanding that eventually led to one of the greatest intellectual revolutions in the history of mankind. Trees can be just as valuable as forests. There may well be drawbacks to the modern information revolution, and its effects should be studied carefully. However, just as information technology should not be blindly accepted, it should also not be blindly pushed away. The average American fifth-grader's brain contains knowledge far beyond the horizons of what the ancient Greeks could even have contemplated. If, to gain this knowledge, we have had to sacrifice a bit of serenity, that seems to me a Faustian bargain worth making. Posted by Adam Tierney at 04:35 AM | Comments (3) May 23, 2005Liberals Not Eggheaded Enough?New ITA contributor Jonathan Bunch criticizes liberals for spending too much time worrying about their "narratives" and their "framing" of issues. Instead, Bunch says, liberals need to get to the nut of their problem: That their ideas themselves need changing. Bunch characterizes Democrats as a party in thrall to moribund ideas, and contrasts them with the intellectually nimble Republican party with its bold and brilliant conservative avant-garde. I find this argument not a little misguided, but the reason Bunch's piece goes off in the wrong way is enlightening. Let's consider a simplified model of a political party defined by four groups (not all necessarily internally homogenous). The party's intellectual elite, the eggheads and analysts and professors who develop or appropriate policy ideas, make up one group; the officeholders, candidates and key staffers make up another. There is the broad mass of the party, its activists and habitual voters, who will stay with the party and work for it over a long period of time (although, in the long run, any group may enter or leave a coalition; contrast African-American voting patterns at the end of the 19th century with the same group's voting habits at the end of the 20th). Finally, there are the swing voters to whom the party may appeal at any given time, although always at the risks of dampening the enthusiasm (and, less likely, losing the support) of the party's base. This model, I think, holds for both parties. And it partly explains why Bunch, like the National Review writers he cites, are wrong, first, to conflate "liberals" and "the Democratic Party;" second, to ascribe the philosophical weaknesses of the Democracy (to use the 19th and early 20th century term) to a purely intellectual failing; and, third, to pin on the Democrats' intellectuals and politicians the apparent inability of the Democrats to articulate a bold alternative to the innovative conservatism Bunch claims to see. (There are other problems with Bunch's argument, which I address below.) "Liberals" and "the Democratic Party" are not the same thing; at times they do not even rhyme, although the two groups have been closely allied since the end of the 1960s and may be as closely aligned now as they have ever been. Many liberals think the Democratic Party is altogether too moderate, even conservative, and would share Bunch's assessment of the weakness of the party in generating and explaining new policy ideas. (Most of Jon Stewart's jokes about the Democrats come from this vein.) A party that includes Brad DeLong and anti-NAFTA activists, Joe Lieberman and Barbara Boxer is one that does not subscribe to any particular dominant ideology. Liberals come in many flavors, but a generic liberal (as opposed to a leftist, a Green or a moderate) would at least be more consistent than the Democratic Party on most issues. This, though, brings us to the reason why liberals and Democrats are distinct, as well as why the failure of the Democratic Party to enunciate an opposition party programme is not an intellectual failure. Liberals are ideologues, and ideologues always have the indulgence of seeking to become pure and consistent. The Democratic Party, however, is--like all democratic parties--a permanent political organization aimed at winning control of the machinery of the state through peaceful means. A party so organized--that is, a party that is determined to be relevant and indeed responsible--cannot afford in most times the luxury of consistency. It is a coalition of interests, not a consensus of thinkers, and its party platform must reflect that. To put this in terms of the four-group model advanced above: The policy-making class, the officeholding class, and the two different types of voters (loyal and potential) are not going to be able to come up with a consistent platform. Few mass governing democratic parties are. For the Democrats, the diversity of their coalition is, in the medium term, an especial hindrance to the resolution of some of their key internal tensions. Until the union movement dies out, for instance, the unions will vote and campaign Democratic, and that will tie the politicians' hands about appealling to pro-trade voters in the swing category, no matter what the policy wonks say. (Wait twenty or thirty years, however, and unions in the tradable goods sector will probably be extinct in America.) The intellectuals and policymakers, therefore, cannot be held accountable for any supposed failure to generate and explain bold new ideas: The structure of political life in a two-party system works against them. Here, though, we have to take up the other major reason why Bunch is wrong in his assessment of the contemporary state of liberalism, and that is his assertion that conservatives, considered as a group and considered as synonymous with the GOP, have a monopoly on the creation of new ideas. The evidence simply refuses to bear out that statement. The best ideas the Republicans have--and they are very good ideas--are deregulation, free trade and a generic presumption in favor of liberty against enemies foreign and domestic. These also happen to be, in the American context at least, rather old ideas. And as long as certain qualifications are admitted (for instance, that sometimes regulation may be the quickest and cheapest way to solve certain problems), they are ideas that don't require much updating. The generation of new ideas, in other words, is not--more accurately, should not be--the job of conservatives. Here again, though, Bunch's terminology blocks him from making the necessary fine distinctions. The most glaringly obvious flaw in this part of his argument is simply that Republicans do not agree with each other on a great many subjects, from the absurdity that was the theocratic justification for the intrusion of the state into the affairs of the Schiavo family to the dispute between small-government activists and free-spenders over how much money a Republican government (which the federal government now is) should spend to the continuing arguments between social conservatives and libertarians over the degree to which government should interfere in anyone's lives. Here we have, in much the same degree, a picture very similar to that of the Democratic Party. Claiming a monopoly on policy innnovation for the Republican Party is to mistake the advantages of a monopoly on federal power and the longstanding (and enjoyable) ability of Republicans to speak their minds loudly for true intellectual ferment. I do not, I wish to reiterate, mean to knock the Republicans--my party--for this; as I indicated above, I don't think we need to reevaluate our core ideas of government all that often, although there is a clear need for us to update (not enlarge) government's role in this or that sector. To do anything else, I believe, would be to arrogate to the government that power which properly belongs in the private sphere--namely, the power for individuals to run their own lives. (Yet, as I indicated above, there are apparently a great many people who vote for most of the same candidates I do who think that the government should intrude into that sphere on moralistic or religious grounds.) The greatest intellectual clashes are always to be found among those who march behind the same banner. In Russia, before the revolution, when there were no more than a handful of Marxists, nonetheless there were whole forests felled for the paper of the frantic scribblings of the squabbling socialists. Much the same process is at work today within the two American political parties and the two broadest ideological camps in American political life. Democrats never try to persuade other Democrats that Republicans are wrong; that is taken for granted. But this Democrat will want to persuade his fellows that Democrat is misguided, because the rewards for the winner of intraparty contests are more certain than those to be won in interparty campaigns. Similarly, only very dull conservative writers are still arguing against Communism and the 1970s environmentalism of, say, Paul Ehrlich (which is not to say that only a very few writers are engaged in those battles). Those campaigns were won, or at least settled, long ago. The real action is now to be found in the shots that Reason takes at the National Review. Of course, very little of this matters to partisans. The Democrats and Republicans remain nearly evenly matched, and in such an environment, it is unlikely that an ideological revolution will take place. It is more likely that events and interests, not ideas, will decide the next campaign. Posted by Paul Musgrave at 03:21 PM | Comments (4) Extreme Makeover, TV Lineup EditionI am disappointed that more people didn't answer "reality TV" in the newest Caesar's Bath meme, because it would have dovetailed nicely with FOX's announcement of a largely reality-free fall primetime schedule and my plan to comment on the announcement. I was most interested in Arrested Development getting picked up for the fall. Anyone who has yet to watch it, give it a shot. Funny, smart, etc. More importantly, FOX's announcement gives additional credibility to the months-old rumble that we are entering an era of reality TV anti-proliferation, after which only the big reality shows (Apprentice, Idol, Survivor, Amazing Race) will be left in network primetime. This development will not significantly affect my viewing habits, but it does give me renewed faith in the independence of the American mind. If The Man can't force-feed us even our lowest common denominator (television) for too long without us growing bored, we must still be capable of some degree of independent thought. What will replace reality as the new TV fad? My money's on Desperate Housewives knock-offs. Whatever it is, each network will have a version or two to try to sell us on. In related news, the sub-genre of unwatchable reality show has hit rock bottom with the announcement of Dancing with the Stars, which pairs a celebrity with a professional dancer for hours of stepping on each others' feet. Blah. Posted by Adam Packer at 11:08 AM | Comments (3) Maryland's Anti-Gay GovernorWarning: This is an angry post and it contains some language that reflects that anger. If that bothers you, don't read it. Via Jason Kuznicki, a story I missed: the governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich, has vetoed a bill that would have given gay couples the legal right to be treated as a relative in medical situations. As the Washington Post reports: Modeled after laws in California, Hawaii and other states, the legislation would have granted nearly a dozen rights to unmarried partners who register with the state. Among those: the right to be treated as an immediate family member during hospital visits, to make health care decisions for incapacitated partners and to have private visits in nursing homes. And as Jason notes, this is not just a legal codification of something gay couples already have. Time after time, gay couples have been denied these rights across the country despite having signed medical power of attorney and making their wishes known to the hospital or other service provider. Equality Maryland has a long list of examples from that state alone. For Jason, this is personal and very real: The decision affects me personally. I am in a committed seven-year relationship that my nearest biological relatives do not recognize. They may very well prevent my husband Scott from visiting me if I were incapacitated and would almost certainly reject his advice on end-of-life decisions. I would say the law in this case treats him as less than an infant, it treats him as a pariah. What makes it even worse is the patently ridiculous argument that Ehrlich used to justify his veto: He said, however, that the bill's requirement that couples register as life partners "will open the door to undermine the sanctity of traditional marriage." The words "fucking" and "moron" come immediately to mind. Wouldn't you love to hear this guy try to babble his way through an attempted explanation of how letting gay couples visit each other in the hospital or plan their partner's funeral will "undermine the sanctity of marriage"? This is purely about denying the most basic rights to gay people, rights that the rest of us take for granted. And what makes me most angry about it are statements like this: Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr. (R-Anne Arundel), a leader of the petition drive, said organizers would soon decide whether to continue, in case lawmakers override Ehrlich's veto in January. Dwyer said he was "very pleased that the governor has sent a strong message about the morality of the state." Yes, you vile bigot, he has done exactly that. He has committed the state to the utterly immoral position that a person can be denied emotional comfort in the most vulnerable time of their lives as a matter of official policy. Imagine the pain that is caused for those who lack such basic protections. Let's put a face on it: Bill Flanigan had to live through everyone's worst nightmare when his partner, Robert Daniel, became critically ill while they were traveling together. Alone in a strange city, they were separated during Robert's precious last hours. Bill and Robert were registered domestic partners in their home city of San Francisco. When they traveled to the east coast, they brought their durable and medical powers of attorney with them, knowing that Robert's health was fragile. In Havre de Grace, the staff at Harford Memorial Hospital made them both as comfortable as possible and allowed Bill to remain with Robert through the night. When Robert was transferred to the Shock Trauma facility in Baltimore, their nightmare truly began. Bill waited for information and access to Robert, but was not called up from the waiting area. He asked for information and was told that partners were not accepted in Shock Trauma. Bill knew that Robert's medical power of attorney was in his file, and asked that a supervisor be sent so that he could explain his need to be with Robert. No supervisor ever responded to his request. Four hours after Bill and Robert arrived at the Shock Trauma unit, Robert's sister arrived from another state. She was immediately brought to Robert's side, and she demanded that Bill also be brought in to Robert. When Bill and Robert were finally reunited, Robert had lost consciousness, and never regained it. Bill and Robert were denied their right to be together as Robert lay dying. Robert's own wishes about his medical care were ignored when Bill was not allowed to advocate for him. Bill is haunted by the promises he made and was not able to keep. He promised his partner that he would not be forced to undergo unwanted life-extending interventions. He promised his partner that he would not be alone. He promised that they would say goodbye to each other. Bill Flanigan is not alone. Similar scenes have been played out thousands and thousands of times around the country. We've known many people whose families, unaccepting of their child's homosexuality, denied even visitation rights to the person that their child loved the most and needed the most at their most critical times. And they have the audacity to call this moral? It makes me seethe with anger, the image of these people smugly congratulating themselves for their self-righteousness while hurting so many good and decent people. Jesus had a few words for such bigots: "Whatever you do unto the least of these, my brethren, you do unto me also." I have more than a few words for them too, mostly of the 4-letter variety. If this is "morality", what on earth is its opposite? Posted by at 10:10 AM | Comments (35) Mascot MadnessI, also, would like to thank the ITA board for extending this opportunity to me. I believe life is a series of opportunities, and your adventures only come when you pick up an opportunity and run with it. Josh approached me about doing this quite a while back, so I have some posts in the works that might be a little outdated. I still think these issues need to be addressed, however, so old or not, here they come. Fort Wayne's Indiana Tech became the latest organization to change its sports mascot in the name of sensitivity last week when it removed a Native American warrior symbol for that of a Roman warrior. This is a new twist on this old topic; I cannot recall another situation in which the team or school changed the mascot but not the nickname in the pursuit of the public image of a respectful climate. I suppose a mascot change could be a reasonable compromise when applicable, but isn't a warrior who represents Ft. Wayne's heritage more appropriate? A Native American warrior may have been the most appropriate symbol of the school given its location in Ft. Wayne, which was the site of one of the most triumphant victories of the Native Americans against their pioneer aggressors. Now, however, the school has lost the opportunity to use its mascot as a means for discussion about the heritage of Ft. Wayne and reflection on the struggles of Native Americans in the name of sensitivity. A (quite cowardly-looking) Roman warrior has no value whatsoever. Marquette University has been struggling mightily with its nickname and mascot for years. Since the 1950s its teams had been known as the Warriors, but in 1994 changed that to the Golden Eagles, and recently announced a change to "Gold." Marquette alumni and students must have had a massive identity crisis at this point, and clearly made their feelings known, because MU has now announced a new naming process after outcry regarding the change to Gold. You can even submit your own suggestion for MU's nickname on the MU website. (NB: votes for "Warriors" will not be counted, and the online suggestions will not be counted as votes). Given the school's Jesuit heritage, I imagine some of the wiseasses around here will have suggestions. Feel free to post your ideas in response; there's nothing better than having some fun at Marquette's expense. Perhaps Pope Benedict XVI will log on and suggest a new nickname in keeping with his well-known feelings about Jesuits. In any case, this story highlights how ridiculous the mascot madness has become. I will continue to track our nation's universities' drive to be known more for the controversy over their athletic teams' mascots and nicknames than their academic programs. UPDATE: Marquette has announced the 10 finalists for their "new" nickname, and they include some of the old nicknames that the school has been known for in years past. I am rooting for Golden Eagles to return, which would underscore the silliness at the root of all this. Posted by Adam Packer at 09:46 AM | Comments (9) LiberalismI'd like to thank Joshua and the rest of the crew at In the Agora for the opportunity to contribute to this highly regarded forum. I hope readers find my contributions interesting, challenging, and professional. If they are not, please let me know. I have dedicated my first post, which is longer than usual, to what I consider one of the most interesting questions in politics right now: whether liberalism is anything more than a hollow word claimed by those who vote for the Donkey. A few have argued that liberalism has failed to inspire any positive movement in the Democratic Party in a long time.Others, including Howard Dean, are arguing that the only thing wrong is the Democratic marketing machine. I suspect that the answer is found somewhere in between, but would like to explore the topic a bit. As an example of those who believe the problem is with the marketing, here's how Dean explained to Tim Russert the need to use less polarizing language when discussing the issue of abortion: But when you talk about framing this debate the way it ought to be framed, which is 'Do you want Tom DeLay and the boys to make up your mind about this, or does a woman have a right to make up her own mind about what kind of health care she gets,' then that pro-life woman says 'Well, now, you know, I've had people try to make up my mind for me and I don't think that's right.' This quote encapsulates how Dean has come to believe that it's not the underlying idea in any contemporary political debate that matters--it's the words used to convey it. It's pretty clear that Dean sees no point in changing much in his party with regard to this hot issue, or most others. (Gun control may be up for grabs.) Dean may be correct in perceiving that a message can be dead on arrival due to poor communication, but he's off track if he thinks a dead message can be revived by nicer words. This is especially true in a political climate dominated by 24/7 news, sound bites, and books full of talking points and issues that have been burned into the consciences of most voters. A few months ago Robert Reich wrote in TNR that the real problem may be deeper than mere rhetoric. Unfortunately, even Reich stopped short of giving credit to the GOP for beating the Democrats at building coalitions through positive action and better ideas (opting instead to credit "narrative" for the Republican advances). In fact, Reich argues--and I suspect he has some support for this notion--that "people don't think in terms of isolated policies or issues. If they're to be understandable, policies and issues must fit into larger narratives." So the real problem is not that the policies or issues have caused voters to form new coalitions--it's that the Democratic narrative is screwey and the Republican narrative has wooed sheepish voters. I think Reich is right to emphasize the importance of narrative that voters can wrap themselves around. But, he takes it for granted that the Democrats have good ideas around which to wrap a narrative. To a greater extent, I think folks like Martín Peretz, Victor Davis Hanson, and Jonah Goldberg are right when they characterize the Democratic Party as a reactionary party struggling to come up with ideas. Hanson recently articulated several reasons that the Democratic Party is out of touch. His argument can be summed up in a few words: Democrats have not had an update in several decades. Dean and others bow to the meme that the heart of the Democratic Party is found in class warfare. Hanson does an excellent job of briefly explaining how class distinctions are much more amorphous than they were in past decades. Using the rhetoric that worked when unemployment was 20% might not work as well when unemployment is 5%. Hanson seems like a genius for pointing out something relatively un-revolutionary. Similarly, in the print edition of National Review (sorry, no link) Jonah Goldberg argues that the fact that liberals rarely, if ever, invoke liberal icons like John Dewey, Reinhold Niebuhr, or TNR founder Herbert Croly, demonstrates that liberalism is "dead." Goldberg is right. Democratic apologists have resorted to pointing to a hodge podge of favorable results even if those results happened forty years ago or look nothing like Liberalism. You're much more likely to hear a Democratic leader summon some piece of New Deal legislation in defense of today's Democratic Party than you are a strong argument that John Dewey's views on progressive education would produce favorable results if applied to today's challenges. Goldberg argues, and I think succinctly but accurately, that the Democratic Party has tried to build victories on the underlying policy of "we like good things" rather than resting on a real philosophical foundation that can be tracked. This might not necessarily be a bad thing if they were winning, but they aren't. The world has changed since the days of Democratic dominance. So has the United States. It is nothing more than self-serving to believe that the same ideas that yielded Democratic dominance in the past necessarily support dominance today. Sure, there are some ideas that will survive, but even those need the repackaging that Reich et al. believe to be the whole problem. The unwillingness to face voters and buy into the program that they want--instead, insisting that they must buy the Democratic program--will lead to success if avoiding a strong dose of self-evaluation is the goal. (It's a-lot easier to blame a thromping on the other team's all-star than on your own teams lack of winning ideas.) However, if the Democratic Party wants anything to change, they must be willing to address something other than their rhetoric. As Bull Moose put it recently: The Democrats have figured how to oppose the Republicans, but have yet to benefit from their role as an opposition party. Innovative reform ideas will help make the Democrats an effective governing party. So, go ahead, structure is fine, but persuasive ideas are divine. Even if he didn't mean toJoe Trippi indicated some familiarity with the heart of the problem when he endorsed Simon Rosenburg for DNC Chair: The question for the next Democratic Party chairman is not, and should not be "How do we reshape our message?" The role of our next chair must be to build a competitive apparatus, and organization that can win elections and defeat the Republicans. I think the last two quotes portray part of the reason Bill Clinton was able to "triangulate" his way to eight years in the White House. The New Democrats were willing to put the old package on a new--or borrowed--set of ideas, even as critics claimed it would ruin the Party. Whether it was liberalism or not that reigned during the Clinton years, it won elections. Don't expect Howard Dean to learn this lesson before he loses his job. Posted by Jonathan Bunch at 08:41 AM | Comments (6) ITA ExpansionPlease join me in welcoming ITA's newest members - Jonathan Bunch and Adam Packer. Both are intelligent and gifted writers and are sure to keep ITA as one of the blogosphere's best stops. Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:00 AM | Comments (1) May 22, 2005Bachelors, Masters, Doctorate Degrees Available Now!Are you frustrated in your career? One of America's top universities is now accepting applications! Posted by Paul Musgrave at 10:22 AM | Comments (0) May 21, 2005Caesar's Bath, part IIThe meme is back by popular demand. Here's the original text: Behold, the Caesar's Bath meme! List five things that people in your circle of friends or peer group are wild about, but you can't really understand the fuss over. To use the words of Caesar (from History of the World Part I), "Nice. Nice. Not thrilling . . . but nice."The main rule is that if you participated in this last time, you have to list five new items. Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:56 AM | Comments (16) Support Our Sponsors
Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:47 AM | Comments (0) May 20, 2005Saying Goodbye to Reggie MillerLast night was a bittersweet one for me as a basketball fan. Yes, the Pistons beat Indiana to advance to the conference finals. But they did it by ending the career of one of my favorite players, Reggie Miller. Miller was the guy you loved to hate and then came to love out of sheer respect for his talent and his will. He was brash and bold. He talked smack on the court, but then he backed it up. And has there ever been a better clutch shooter than Reggie? I think the game against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden, in the playoffs, scoring 8 points in 9 seconds to keep his team alive, answered that question. The end of the game is what separates great talents from great players. There are athletes with all the talent in the world who treat the ball like a live grenade when the pressure is on. Chris Webber is 6'10" with the body of a greek god and more athletic talent than practically anyone else in the NBA at his size, but you couldn't pay him to take the last shot (though teams keep paying him millions despite his tendency to implode under pressure). Reggie was a guy who thrived on pressure, who loved having the ball in his hands at the end of the game with the score tied - and especially on the road, with 30,000 fans hating you simultaneously. He lived for it. And most of the time, he hit the shot that killed you. Over the course of an 18 year career, he went from being one of the most hated players in the league to one of the most beloved and respected. He went from being a spastic, gangly beanpole with ears that looked like they were drawn on by a cartoonist to being a symbol of all the things that are right in professional sports. He never demanded a trade or held out for a bigger contract. He spent his entire career with a small market team. He graciously accepted a diminished role toward the end of his career and then, when his team was decimated by injuries and suspensions and needed him more than ever, he had perhaps his finest season in his last. And he went out on top, leading his team further than anyone could ever have expected and going 11 for 16 for 27 points. We were playing poker last night with the game on in the background, but we stopped the game when they took Reggie out for the last time. My brother said, "This ovation could go on for a long, long time." It was a touching moment, and I was happy to see the whole Pistons bench on their feet and cheering for him. He was the kind of guy that you had to respect as a competitor. And it was fitting that he was knocked out by Rip Hamilton, the man who has patterned his game after Reggie, the man Reggie says will carry on his legacy. Goodbye, Reggie. Every true basketball fan will miss you, but the hall of fame is calling. Posted by at 01:00 PM | Comments (16) Reaction to Revenge of the SithMinor spoilers ahead... So, I saw Star Wars Episode III last night. In short, I had high hopes for the film and was not disappointed. There were a lot of nice touches that neatly bridge the gap to Episode IV, thereby tying together the entire 6-film, 28-year franchise. It's certainly the darkest of all six episodes, as we witness the near-extinction of the Jedi and the equally heart-wrenching transformation of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader. Rather than heading straight to the dark side out of a lust for power, we see Anakin torn by his competing allegiances as well as his love for Padme. Anyone who has ever experienced love and loss will have gained a perhaps unexpected sympathy for Darth Vader by the end of the film. But I noticed something during the climactic confrontation between Skywalker/Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi. A bit of dialog that went something like this: Skywalker: You are either with me - or you are my enemy. What the heck? Did Lucas just blow a big wet kiss to Michael Moore? Apparently, there's a lot of hub-bub about this already in the blogosphere and elsewhere. Some viewers of the movie saw several other bits of dialogue that could be interpreted as political allegory, but Star Wars has always been about courageous rebels fighting an "evil empire," a story that lends itself to just about any political situation. But the above seems an obvious imitation of President Bush's much-mocked claim that "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists." I gave Lucas a pass for his changes to Episodes IV-VI, something that caused a lot of fans to lose all respect for him. But taking arguably the most climactic moment of all six films--the fulcrum of the entire series--and inserting a hackneyed political jab? That is unforgivable. Posted by Eric Seymour at 09:01 AM | Comments (24) Performance Enhancers--A RejoinderIn a recent ITA entry, Eric Seymour stated his belief that performance-enhancing drugs, and specifically substances like Adderall that improve one's ability to perform certain tasks (in Adderall's case, concentration). Seymour's post comes after this post some months ago on my personal site, this post on ITA, and this post by Jason Kuznicki on Positive Liberty. Eric's basic arguments are designed around his contention that "the idea of mental performance-enhancing drugs makes me uncomfortable." In support of this, he argues that these drugs may put their users at risk, allowing them "to gain a short-term advantage at the expense of long-term health"; that those who choose not to use the drugs will forfeit their competitiveness; and that the drugs will give an unfair advantage to the rich. I seek to establish that none of these are a basis upon which to ban performance-enhancing drugs. Assuming that there may be risks to these drugs, we have to remember that if these risks are too great, they will simply not be available on the marketplace for OTC use (and, possibly, for prescription use). Therefore, our discussion can remain focused on drugs that have only a mild risk or no risk at all. And this is a far more fruitful ground for ethical inquiry, anyway, because the former case allows individuals to determine how much they value extra productivity and the latter allows us to consider only the ethics of performance enhancing substances. In the former case, people can easily choose whether they want to assume a mild risk--say an expected outcome of shaving off a year or two of their life (which could mean a low probability of losing decades of life or a high probability of losing a few years)--in exchange for gaining the ability to concentrate better, think smarter and work harder. The "competitiveness" argument does not apply here, as I argue below. Some will exercise this choice, as a great many people choose to improve their present utility by consuming Big Macs. Whether society will be better off depends on how the drug affects productivity and life expectancy--we could become a society that trades off a brief "adult" career ended by death with smashing successes instead of drudging through decades of labor and watching the sunset of an uneventful life. However, on what basis could we condemn even this choice?1 It is, after all, one's own body and one's own life, and there would be no basis for banning this activity on societal grounds unless all substances trading present utility for future life expectancy (red meat, alcohol, driving above 30 mph) were also banned. If the drugs have no risk at all, however, then society will unambiguously benefit in the aggregate. It is interesting that Seymour's concerns are primarily distributional: It is not that the rich will choose an early death and a productive life that concerns him, but the possibility that the poor will be unable to afford the same choice. But this is no different from a great many other choices the rich have and the poor don't. When I was in high school, many teachers forbade us to use computers to type reports (they didn't know about the Internet yet) because it favored the middle-class students over our working-class peers. I doubt such a policy would be practicable today. However, the advantages to being born into a rich family (to take an arbitrary distribution of social resources) extend far beyond being able to turn in neatly-formatted reports. There is the security of knowing that one's family has sufficient resources to feed, house and clothe its members; the advantage of growing up in a family that is likely to be more educated than the average (wealth and education are modestly correlated, at least); and the ability to partake in activities (travel, tutoring, extracurricular events) that enrich the mind. Seen in this context, indeed, a concentration pill (or a clear-thinking pill, or whatever) would be a boon for the poor, just as the availability of cheaply-printed books made knowledge more readily accessible. What, then, is left of Seymour's points (which are some of the stronger points that critics of performance-enhancers can offer)? Nothing, except a vague feeling that the whole idea is somehow wrong. Reason's Ronald Bailey describes "A Day at the Brain Spa", in which depression, jetlag, language-acquisition weakness and nervousness are all treated with pills that are pretty much available today. I think it is safe to say that many people will be uncomfortable with the scenario outlined in the article. But that is because it is an outline and not a lived experience. Were I to describe the mechanics of a typical month to my ancestors, they would probably wonder how I could stand to spend hours in flight, working on a portable computer, and communicating across continents via telephones. More to the point, they probably wouldn't understand why I would choose to live that way--certainly the stress and the expense would do me in. In other words, the feeling of discomfort comes less from the artificiality of the intervention and more from its novelty. Once the pills begin to make their way to market, we'll all adjust to them. And if we have problems adjusting, our doctors can prescribe something for that. 1But see Posner in Aging and Old Age for a compelling argument that one's youthful self is a poor trustee for the interests of the same body's older self. Posted by Paul Musgrave at 04:25 AM | Comments (4) Daily Web Digest
Posted by ITA Staff at 04:13 AM | Comments (0) May 19, 2005Alaskan Pork
The bus stop there now is a simple steel-and-glass, three-sided enclosure. Wilson wants better lighting and seating. He also likes the idea of heated sidewalks that would remain free of snow and ice. And he thinks electronic signs would be nice.Ted Stevens is a member of a party that allegedly seeks "smaller, more responsible government." Yeah, right. Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 05:51 PM | Comments (8) How Not to Tell a LieThis is just perfect, Bill Frist babbling on the floor of the Senate yesterday trying to explain why 5 years ago he was voting to sustain a filibuster against Richard Paez, a Clinton judicial nominee, when today he keeps claiming that it's unprecedented, unconstitutional and obstructionist to do the very same thing: SEN. SCHUMER: Isn't it correct that on March 8, 2000, my colleague [Sen. Frist] voted to uphold the filibuster of Judge Richard Paez? Someone needs to remind him that the Paez nomination had been waiting for a vote for 4 years at the time, so his excuse is nonsense. And that if something is unconstitutional, as he claims, then it's unconstitutional to do once, not just multiple times. I'd love to hear the opposite too. I'd love to hear Sen. Lieberman babble as he tries to explain why 10 years ago he said: "I know that some of our colleagues will oppose the alteration, the amendment, that Senator Harkin and I are proposing on the grounds that the filibuster is a very special prerogative that is necessary to protect the rights of a minority. But in doing so, and I say this respectfully, I believe they are not being true to the intention of the Framers of the Constitution, which is that the Congress was the institution in which the majority was to rule, not to be effectively tyrannized by a minority." Senators Kerry, Kennedy, Boxer, Feingold and 15 others voted to end all filibusters in the Senate, not just for judicial nominees, in 1995. And every single current Republican voted against it. But they've exchanged scripts now, reading the same words they feigned such outrage at a few years ago. And the followers of both parties lap it up without question, their short memories and partisanship-addled brains shrugging off the cognitive dissonance. Mr. Mencken, where are you now? Never have your words been truer: "The two parties spend most of their time and effort attempting to convince us that the other is corrupt and unfit to lead, and each succeeds admirably at this task." Posted by at 05:16 PM | Comments (9) Star Wars, Nothing But Star Wars...In case you were wondering what happened to ITA today, this is a national holiday for geeks. For those of you who've just been rescued from being shipwrecked on a deserted island, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith opens today. And right on cue, an illegal copy of RotS has appeared on the Internet. Which Star Wars character are you? Take this quiz. For a serious, PG-rated summary of Episodes I and II, click here and here. For a hilarious, R-rated summary of the same, click here and here. Once again, the comic strip "Foxtrot" by Bill Amend has featured an homage to the galaxy far, far away. Start at last Monday's strip and work your way forward. (If you don't recognize where the title of this post came from, click here.) Posted by Eric Seymour at 03:26 PM | Comments (3) May 18, 2005Bitter IronyWho wrote the NY Times article on Galloway's testimony before the Senate? None other than Judith W.M.D. Miller.... Posted by Paul Musgrave at 04:34 PM | Comments (2) Boltin' on JohnAs summer settles in, we have had few big stories of late, which makes the ephemeral sideshows of politics more interesting, if only out of need for blog fodder. One of the most enduring so far is the confirmation of UN Ambassador-designate John Bolton. The beleaguered nominee has been thrashed about in the press and in a very long committee process, and delivered to the floor without an approval--only to be held up by the antics of Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). What gives this flap longevity? As usual with hot topics among the punditry, there are many issues, some partially obscuring the others. Neo-Cons et alia No doubt, paleocons will also clamour for inclusion in the pro-Bolton camp, not so much because they like the man as they like his message. This is a bona fide UN hater (and international law-in-general hater), which has been a popular pastime of the Right since before Gulf War II. A few choice quotes:
Except he won't. Or at least, probably won't. The Bush Administration changed course in the second administration, paying greater lip service to multilateralism and the utility of the UN. It's not likely that having done this, they would then dispatch a troublemaker to New York. Rather, this administration is famous for the loyalty and unity of its appointees; Bolton almost certainly was nominated because he will reliably fall into step with the wishes of the White House. Conservatives who expect Sheriff Bolton to bust into the UN Saloon to clean up the place, as one political cartoon depicted, are deep in wishful thought. Bolton will do as he's told, and in this respect, he will be little different than any other person who could pass the Administration's vetting process. But let's suppose that Bolton does preach a little of the Hellfire to the other delegates, what would be the consequence? Almost everyone agrees that the UN needs to be reformed and deserves criticism. Why not give it a little sting for good measure? Conservative optimism for the UN, however, is very odd, even for wishful thinking. As John Cole pointed out, we did send a "bully" to the UN in 2000, Senator Jesse Helms: We brought the original bastard, THE Alpha Conservative of the 20th century, the biggest ass-kicker we had, Satan and Hitler and Strom Thurmond all wrapped up in one hard-of-hearing package, marched him right into the middle of the UN with both guns blazing, and . . . they yawned at him.So, from the perspective of the cheering section over at the Project for a New American Century, the confirmation of John Bolton probably is not highly consequential. The Insiders Regardless of ideology, nearly everyone is familiar with office politics, and so can sympathize with the institutional opposition to Bolton's nomination. This guy is the office jerk, and he's being unjustly promoted based upon connections instead of merit. And to really twist the dagger, he's a major league something-or-other. Leaving out that his belligerent credentials grate against careerists at State, personality conflicts alone are enough to raise heated objections. To recap: he's rude and blunt, he yells at his subordinates and others, he's made some of the cry, he can be a bully, etc -- and the icing on the cake: he's a brownnoser. The highest, and most sensational, charge against Bolton's temperament came from Melody Townsel, a USAID contractor who recounted a violent confrontation with Bolton in a Moscow hotel. (I find Byron York's apology fairly persuasive in the absence of a rebuttal. Townsel's claims do seem a tad outlandish.) Ultimately, however, being a jerk isn't criminal. As much as I would hate to see some unbearable scoundrel from my office get promoted, I will assert that being a jerk is not sufficient grounds to bar someone from public office. On the contrary, I'm annoyed by the modern fetish for all public officials to be likeable. Charisma is somehow a public virtue, often trumping merit. William Kristol wrote along this line recently: Bolton disagreed with--he even disliked!--a couple of bureaucrats. He challenged them . . . And do the Democrats . . . really want to have as a new standard for exclusion from high office whether an official has ever lost his or her temper? For future government jobs, perhaps the Democrats should add to the job description: Only girlie men need apply.EXCEPT, if there was one job at which I think temperament is one important criterion for judging merit, it would be 'diplomat.' And so on this point, I think Bolton's detractors have a valid gripe. We don't need girlie men, as Adlai Stevenson could attest, but we do need someone with enough self-control to avoid being counter-productive. Democrats Senate Democrats and their comrades have picked up this charge that Bolton is a jerk, partly because it's a valid concern and partly because it's a handy brick to lob at him. And while Kristol points out that that one brick isn't sufficient to defeat him, Kevin Drum points out at least five more:
The second, fourth, and fifth bricks are more substantial. The fourth brick might simply be dismissed as principal-agent theory in practice, but given the substantial natur |
Yesterday rookie sensation Danica Patrick gave an inspiring run at the Indy 500 crown and may have opened the door for her sport's comeback. Once upon a time the Indy 500 was the mecca of racing and a must-see television event on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Millions tuned in to watch A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti and the Unser boys battle it out. In 1974, the Indy 500 attracted a 16.4 rating, higher than the NBA Finals' 13.5. But by 1994, the ratings had been cut in half, down to 8.3. And last year it attracted a measly 4.1. While racing was skyrocketing in popularity, it was NASCAR that was in the lead. Clearly, "the greatest spectacle in racing" has been anything but that in recent years.