Month: February 2006

"And then you have a blithering idiot like Lou Dobbs, in my view, who’s using the platform of CNN in … the frame of a news show. This is not news. And so we have a political class not making sense of the world for people and that’s why the public … is so agitated," – Tom Friedman, at Yale.

Another day, more carnage in Baghdad. Official reports from Iraq and Afghanistan are also sobering:

"Reporting indicates sectarian violence is increasing," although the trend is hard to quantify, [Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, the DIA director] said. "The elections appear to have heightened tension and polarized sectarian divides." He referred to voting in December for a new permanent parliament under the country’s recently ratified constitution.
Maples said that "the perception of sectarian violence is increasing" in both Sunni areas and those dominated by the Shiite Muslim majority, and that "we continue to see a rise" in attacks led by al Qaeda in Iraq against Shiites and their religious shrines.

Elections as a catalyst for civil war? Let’s hope not.

A reader writes a long email, but it’s so smart and insightful I’m running all of it. If you’re tired of this debate, by all means skip it. But if you care about the future of individual freedom in America, read on:

"I’ve long debated whether to write you about this and other matters, but as a frequent reader I feel I can no longer remain silent.  Thank you for your follow up on Ramesh Ponnuru’s comments in The Corner.  His attacks on your earlier blogging regarding prof. George were wholly unwarranted.

Bear with me as I digress … You see, I was president of Princeton Pro-Life from 1993 until 1995 and president of Princeton College Republicans from 1992 until 1996.  I also studied in the politics department with Robert George (junior paper advisor 94-95; thesis advisor 95-96) and was a close associate of Father C. John McCloskey.  Ramesh Ponnuru was a class ahead of me and an avowedly moderate member of the conservative movement on campus at the time.

In the interest of full disclosure, my position is and always has been that the murder of abortion providers deserves the full application of state criminal sanctions regardless of spurious claims of moral justification.  Except in extreme cases, I do not support the criminalization of abortion — there are far more effective and less conflictual means to reduce the number of abortions and ease our collective culture away from the attitude that life is disposable.  Further, I am gay and support full and equal legal rights, including marriage, for LGBT individuals and their families.  I also wholeheartedly endorse masturbation as a natural, normal and enjoyable part of physical existence.

So, onto the matter at hand: how could Ponnuru take offense at your characterization of Prof. George’s position?  The good professor deliberately humorized the issue of whether killing abortionists is morally justified in an attempt to sidestep the logical conclusion to which his other views on abortion must necessarily lead.  Your emailer is exactly right – George has a predilection for cloaking his positions with the appearance of good-natured (though sometimes snide) humor, especially on issues where taking a genuine stand would cast him in an unfavorable light.  The piece you cite, along with your comments, illustrate this modus operandi perfectly, and Ramesh doesn’t like that the cliched cat is out of the bag.  Ponnuru’s attempts at rolling out "prudential" arguments notwithstanding, it’s clear to me that much of their slipperiness is caused by the political environment, not their moral views.

Moreover, George’s recommendation that Christians should pray for the redemption of abortion providers is beside the point – and Ponnuru knows better, but this is really just another dodge. It is quite possible to craft an internally consistent position that advocates praying for a transgressor’s soul in this life and the next while also favoring a certain specific punishment (legal or otherwise) for his transgression.  And the idea that compassion requires taking a lighter view of killing fetuses seems a hollow one.  Would George and Ponnuru take a similar view about a certain mother who murdered her born children out of the "compassionate" view that doing so would relieve them from a great deal of suffering?  Would they take the same view with respect to a psychopath who has a mistaken but honestly held view of the worth of adult human life?  It’s absurd if you ask me.

All that having been said, you’ve missed the point with George’s statement that you cited on policing private sexual conduct.  This particular claim turns on whether government retains the power to regulate such behavior in the absence of an individual right to the contrary (George believes there is no broad federal right to privacy).  On the surface, his position seems closer to the following:  "There is no right to masturbation (or fill in the blank with sinful sexual acts of your choosing).  Thus, the states retain the power to criminalize it, but if I were a member of a legislature I might vote against such a law because it is unenforceable."  If this is his position, then it’s really more about judicial review than outright advocacy of a particular substantive law, and it has appeal across a broad swath of the political spectrum.  It also appeals to me.

Of course, George and his allies ARE advocates for including the norms of their sexual morality in the law, but they prudently recognize that such controversial moral debates are likely to go against them on the national scale.  So, they stick to the more general, structural arguments and omit the real focus of their attention:  "Then again, I might vote for such laws because criminal prohibition of masturbation (or other sinful acts) would be ‘instructive’ regardless of whether it could be enforced, and my morality demands that the government strongly condemn non-generative sexual acts."

Is it a purely cynical move?  For some yes, for others no — the structural arguments do have independent merit.  However, there’s no denying that the theocon right has used this issue masterfully as a political tactic: attack the uses of judicial power that accomplish ends you disagree with as an incremental step toward your substantive goals.  This tactic has become both a shield and a hammer with which to build intellectual and political coalitions that chip away at "bad" precedents while ruffling as few feathers as possible by defending nominees and politicians from hard questions.

Would George and his allies really criminalize masturbation if they could? I don’t know, but I sure wouldn’t want to find out the hard way. I do know for a fact they would roll back Griswold, Roe, Lawrence, and the right to privacy, as most Americans understand it, in the hopes that they could secure regional political coalitions to recriminalize abortion, sodomy, and contraception – not to mention dispatching Roemer and repealing the few anti-discrimination laws protecting gays.  The ongoing experiement in South Dakota is proof that such coalitions are not only possible but probable, and I doubt it will end there substantively or geographically.  Many modern First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment protections likely face an equally uncertain future.

And you’ve hit the nail on the head — these people are bright enough to know that their radical agenda would scare the pants off most Americans, even many Republicans (it scares me and I fall into both categories).  Thus, their best option is to engage in disingenuous rhetorical games designed to leave their opponents tied in intellectual and political knots, and with Roberts and Alito on the SCOTUS, they can smell victory around the corner. They most certainly don’t want a bunch of hayseeds ruining it with their corn-belt idealism. Of course they get upset when you call them on it!

As for your tongue-in-cheek comments regarding Ponnuru’s "hysteria", I can only say that I have always known him to hide himself behind various facades depending on the circumstances.  Liberal, moderate, conservative?  Whatever works at the moment."

For me, an instructive moment was when Rick Santorum insisted that he was only opposed to judicial activism in banning sodomy laws. Then he let it slip that he’d support an anti-sodomy law in his own state if the courts let legislatures decide. The theocons often use the legitimate judicial activism argument to conceal their real agenda. Gay people have borne the brunt of this so far, but we are not their ultimate targets. We’re a tiny minority, easily beaten up on in the public discourse. But the broader aim is the policing of all private morality, straight or gay. You’re next. But they’re not exactly going to tell you that, are they?

A reader writes:

"What you say about Mayor Ken Livingstone is only half the truth. It’s pretty ridiculous that he should be suspended for four weeks and by a sub-committee of the unelected Standards Board for England and certainly the system needs reforming; for example, the elected Greater London Assembly could rule on the conduct of the Mayor. But Livingstone’s conduct certainly deserves censure. What he said was boorish and aggressive – in virtually any other walk of life something would’ve been said to him. Imagine an office worker calling a stranger a "concentration camp guard" and his manager not having at least a word with him.  Furthermore, Livingstone seems all in favour of free speech but not, apparently, in favour of journalists being able to do their job without a hail of verbal abuse."

I don’t disagree with any of that. The only thing I objected to is the undemocratic way in which a democratically elected mayor was suspended for saying offensive things. My objection is particularly apposite now. In the West, we cannot berate Muslims for not tolerating blasphemy of their faith if we turn around and then punish free speech which offends our own sensibilities. and the way in which parts of the Jewish community in Britain have embraced this double standard does them no credit. Much of this began with the pernicious notion of "hate crimes," one of the worst concoctions of the p.c. left, designed to police people’s thoughts in exactly the same way that the mullahs do. We are learning that once you create exemptions for free speech, it comes back to bite you. We should repeal these idiotic laws. They are an insult to our freedom.

The ABC News interview: a partial transcript.

I had no idea that Sean Hannity’s fan base has a dating site. I’m not sure whether this particular fan is for real or some kind of parody. But it’s pretty funny nonetheless. Oh, and here’s the one gay guy ballsy enough to post a profile. Does Sean know about this?

It bans all abortion, except when the life of the mother is at stake, a state of affairs Ramesh Ponnuru regards as the "right goal." No incest or rape exceptions. But it may well also ban the morning-after pill. Ron Bailey has more on its implications.

Given Ramesh Ponnuru’s recent meltdown, this email may hit the mark:

"As you’ve no doubt noticed, some denizens of the conservative punditocracy are beginning to flip-out and lose their cool. I can’t speak to the case of Ramesh Ponnuru.  But in the case of Bill Kristol’s crankiness on Fox News Sunday, we seem to be watching somone under a great deal of pressure. The Fukuyama article and the Wm. F. Buckley column have obviously come as body blows. Without questioning the purity of motive or truthfulness of Bush and the neocons, I think it can be safely said that the historical verdict on this great gamble in Iraq is unlikely to be kind. General Odom may come to be seen as the wise man. On top of all this, the Dubai ports case has forced the right to scramble and adopt the soft language of John Kerry (diplomacy and trust are more important than drawing clear lines in the sand) reversing years of careful GOP message making in the space of ten days. It’s enough to make one batty …"

I’m frankly amazed at the lack of coverage on many conservative sites of what is actually happening in Iraq, the blanket silence over the Mora memo, the avoidance of the Buckley piece, and so on. But it is always a good day when ideologues crack. That’s how the light gets in.

One constant feature of the debate over allowing gay couples to settle down and get married has been Stanley Kurtz’s persistent efforts to portray this essentially conservative idea as a leftist Trojan horse for polygamy, the end of the family, and God knows what else. Kurtz is even more slippery than Ramesh Ponnuru on many of these points. Jonathan Rauch calmly dissects them here. There is no plausible evidence that allowing gay couples legal equality has either caused any decline in heterosexual marriage or even correlates with it.

The roster of editors of The New Republic is a relatively small, battered but feisty one. After the bloodbath that accompanied my own departure from the editorship, I’m delighted this transition has gone so amicably. Peter Beinart and Peter Scoblic guided the magazine back to its mission of providing the intellectual heft for liberalism, and they deserve great credit for that. In my judgment, Leon’s back-of-the-book remains indispensable for any thinking person. I don’t share Kevin Drum’s assessment that TNR simply needs to abandon its support of the Iraq war to regain momentum and readership. I think its principled maintenance of a muscular internationalist liberalism is critical to its soul. I was proud to have kept that alive on my watch (even though I’m not quite as interventionist as many of my colleagues), and see Peter Beinart as one of the best advocates for that position in the country. I’m glad he’ll be writing more. Frank Foer is a terrific choice because he has such an uncanny sense of a good story, gets the popular culture, has a deep understanding of the hegemonic right, and, above all, has a sense of humor. Welcome to the club, Frank. Now make some trouble.