Month: March 2004

All good Internet fun.

MICRO-AGGRESSION AND THE TALMUD: “There is another way to look at micro-aggression which does not reflect a pomo universe. The Talmud–not exactly a pomo book to be sure–asserts that we are responsible for causing someone pain inadvertantly through speech. “If someone has had a relative executed by hanging, do not say please hang this up for me.”
In this tradition one is never off the hook for hurting one, even inadvertantly, even if one was really misunderstood. It is true that Islamo-fascists should be seen as distinct from mainstream Islam, but even a mainstream believer in Islam feels pain by association because she feels that not everyone in the room is capable of making that distinction–even if you did.
It is not so simple that just because you meant no harm–that no harm was done. There is obviously no easy solution to this problem, and one can argue that one can only be responsible for one’s intent, however, surely, it’s not a bad thing to make people feel responsible for the feelings of others in hopes they will use their words more carefully. It is not so easy to psychologically disassociate yourselves from a sub-group especially when you know others are going to see your swarthy skin and your headcovering as evidence that you are in sympathy with them.” – more micro-aggressions against yours truly on the Letters Page.

BENNETT’S DISTORTION: Bill Bennett went on Bill O’Reilly last week and tried to defend his hostility to marriage rights for gays. O’Reilly was pretty devastating. But in the process, Bennett badly misrepresented my position. Here’s the interaction. O’Reilly had been asking the obvious question: how does letting two gay guys get married undermine a straight person’s marriage? Bennett punted for a while and then reached for yours truly:

BENNETT: Well, again, it affects the definition of marriage. And I’ll tell you why. Are they making the same promises and commitments that you are making? Andrew Sullivan, who’s one of the most articulate and intelligent advocates for gay marriage, talks in his book about the differences in gay marriage. He talks about the openness of the contract. What the heck is the openness of the contract? I know, in my marriage, there’s no openness in the contract.

O’REILLY: Well, I think what he’s saying is it’s a secular arrangement, that very few churches are going to sanction these marriages.

BENNETT: I don’t think so. I think he means something else. So I have a question. In gay marriage, will the commitments be the same? Has fidelity got the same standing?

Bennett is referring to a sentence I wrote in a ruminative aside in the epilogue to “Virtually Normal.” It became notorious for about five minutes, and it was mainly my fault. I wrote sloppily about gay male relationships outside of marriage, and spoke of some of them being “open.” Some conservative critics pounced on this and argued that it meant that I was favoring non-monogamy in civil marriage. I can see how my sloppiness might have led them to infer that (although it would have gone against the entire argument of the book as a whole), so I took pains to correct the record. I wasn’t endorsing any different standards in civil marriage for gays and straights, I said. Same institution. Same rules. I was just reflecting on differences between gay and straight relationships outside of marriage. In the Afterword to the paperback edition, I even wrote:

These reflections have been interpreted to mean that I want to incorporate into legal marriage the practice of adultery. So let me be clear: nothing could be further from the truth … [I was] referring in this instance to gay male relationships as they exist today – without the institution of marriage to support and inform them… But in case my point is not clear enough, let me state it unequivocally so that it cannot be distorted in the future: it is my view that, in same-sex marriage, adultery should be as anathema as it is in heterosexual marriage. That is clearly the implicit argument of Chapter Five. Now it’s explicit.

This is not to say we should be policing adultery, straight or gay. It’s merely what I understand by a civil, cultural marital norm. It need not apply to non-marital relationships, and such relationships can and should, in my view, be defined and determined by the two people involved in private howsoever they wish. But here’s the thing. This issue has come up before with Bennett. It even came up even when we were both on live television, and he made this very claim. I explicitly stated in front of him that he was misreading my book and misrepresenting my position on civil marriage and asked him to stop distorting it in future. He said he was glad to accept my clarification. I asked him again later in private not to distort my position in future. He is still doing so.

Here’s how to confront our looming fiscal crisis. If the president were really interested in promoting the “responsibility society,” he’d spend this election campaign showing how he’s going to save future generations from crushing debt. Instead, we get gauzy, feel-good ads designed to obscure the challenges we really face.

IT CAN BE AVOIDED: Bob Barr, uber-conservative foe of Bill Clinton and architect of the Defense of Marriage Act, reiterates his opposition to the anti-gay constitutional amendment: “I just don’t think the federal government should use the Constitution to start defining social relationships. And I say that as a very strong opponent of same-sex marriage. But to me, just because you have a problem — that’s not a reason to amend the Constitution.”

The violence in Iraq – even the horrifying sectarian mass murders last week – have failed to derail the tortuous political process. That’s hugely good news. It’s not surprising that there should be last-minute renegotiations, brinksmanship and the like in forging a new constitution in a fissiparous country. That’s called politics. It hasn’t been practised in Iraq for many, many years. Its emergence – however imperfect – is wonderfully good news. Instead of lamenting this wrangling, we should be encouraged. What we’re seeing is something you simply don’t see anywhere else in the Arab-Muslim world: negotiation trumping violence. This isn’t a path to democracy. In important ways, it is democracy. The first true post-war victory is ours – and, more importantly, Iraq’s.

THE PANDESCENDERER: John Kerry’s history of political acrobatics makes Bill Clinton look resolute. My take, now posted opposite.

THE CHURCHILL PARADOX: Winston won a war and lost an election. Bush hasn’t even won the war yet … but the lessons could still apply.

BLAIR ON ‘IMMINENCE’: The British prime minister devastates the conspiracy theorists and retroactive spinners on why he went to war:

It is said we claimed Iraq was an imminent threat to Britain and was preparing to attack us.
In fact this is what I said prior to the war on 24 September 2002: “Why now? People ask. I agree I cannot say that this month or next, even this year or next he will use his weapons.”
Then, for example, in January 2003 in my press conference I said: “And I tell you honestly what my fear is, my fear is that we wake up one day and we find either that one of these dictatorial states has used weapons of mass destruction – and Iraq has done so in the past – and we get sucked into a conflict, with all the devastation that would cause; or alternatively these weapons, which are being traded right round the world at the moment, fall into the hands of these terrorist groups, these fanatics who will stop at absolutely nothing to cause death and destruction on a mass scale.
“Now that is what I have to worry about. And I understand of course why people think it is a very remote threat and it is far away and why does it bother us. Now I simply say to you, it is a matter of time unless we act and take a stand before terrorism and weapons of mass destruction come together, and I regard them as two sides of the same coin.”

When I read this man’s speech with its clarity and foresight on the terrifying nexus of WMDs, terror-states and terrorists, I am both relieved and depressed. Relieved because a leader of the moderate left understands that this should not be a right-left issue. It is a life-death issue. Depressed because John Kerry seems utterly immune to Blair’s perspicacity.

HOW LIBERAL IS KERRY? Not as liberal as Clinton or Carter or Kennedy. Or so says a poli sci professor.

“In fact, Fonda was neither wrong nor unconscionable in what she said and did in North Vietnam. She told the New York Times in 1973, “I’m quite sure that there were incidents of torture…but the pilots who were saying it was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was systematic, I believe that’s a lie.” Research by John Hubbell, as well as 1973 interviews with POWs, shows that Vietnamese behavior meeting any recognized definition of torture had ceased by 1969, three years before the Fonda visit. James Stockdale, the POW who emerged as Ross Perot’s running mate in 1992, wrote that no more than 10 percent of the US pilots received at least 90 percent of the Vietnamese punishment, often for deliberate acts of resistance. Yet the legends of widespread, sinister Oriental torture have been accepted as fact by millions of Americans.” – Tom Hayden, still finding excuses for totalitarianism, the Nation. (My italics.)

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “My brother, Sean, debated Kerry back in 1970-71. Sean was a leader in Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. He and a colleague lunching with Kerry one time, before or after a debate, believe it or not.
Discussing some moral point or other, Kerry came out with: ‘You just have to understand the higher modalities of the situation.’
This has been a catchphrase in our family ever since.”

SANCTIFYING THE EU: The current Pope has been producing saints at roughly the rate that Nokia produces cell-phones, so it is unsurprising that some candidates shock. But the latest one is particularly odd: Robert Schuman, one of the founders of the European Union. The trivialization of sanctity by this pontiff is only matched by the politicization.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: “The people in Iraq are learning that…a democracy is also about protecting minority rights.” – Jerry Bremer. Now if only he could persuade the president to feel the same way about America.

BUSH’S FLIP-FLOPS: Kerry’s not the only one. Here’s a list.

WHY CIVIL UNIONS SUCK: An army wife details how practically impossible it is to get equal treatment as a married couple – even with a big fat power of attorney. Money quote:

After dating for two years, my then-boyfriend was deployed to South Korea with the U.S. Army. We made all the necessary preparations so that I could handle his affairs while he was away. I had everything from bank account numbers to a fully inclusive power of attorney notarized by the judge advocate general.
During his deployment, we discovered what many other couples in similar situations (including civil unions) have also discovered: The power of attorney was respected, or rejected, on a whim by banks, insurance agencies, etc. I simply wanted to pay his bills, and was refused. Some companies even refused to take payment from my own accounts!

They subsequently got married. He was severely injured in Afghanistan. It was then that she realized that without civil marriage, she wouldn’t even have been notified of his accident! When I think of all the gay men and women now serving their country in Iraq and elsewhere, it boggles the mind how they must feel now that their commander in chief has turned on their civil rights.

CORRECTION: I was guilty of sloppy terminology Saturday. Martha Stewart wasn’t convicted of perjury, but of lying to federal prosecutors in the course of an investigation. My point about the importance of telling the truth in such a situation stands.

However mad I am at Bush, just a few minutes reading John Kerry’s foreign policy and cultural perspective makes me want to … well, it just spoiled my breakfast. Read this foreign policy discussion. Now imagine 9/11 had never happened. It isn’t hard. Al Qaeda is mentioned once. I repeat: al Qaeda is mentioned once. My stomach lurches at the thought of another terror attack while Kerry is president. What would be his first response: reach for a dog-eared copy of the early Sartre? Look, Eliot is a spectacular poet. I’ve read him year after year after year. I dramatized the “Four Quartets” at Harvard. But that’s not a qualification for the presidency. Then there’s this classic line of pretentiousness and self-regard: “I remember flying once; I was looking out at the desert and I wrote a poem about the barren desolation of the desert. I wrote a poem once about a great encounter I had with a deer early in the morning that was very moving.” Oh God. Four years of this?

Jonathan Rauch takes on president Bush’s awful arguments on marriage rights.

There is something unseemly about the Marthafreude now breaking out all over. But there is nothing unseemly about the verdict. It wasn’t about insider trading. It was about perjury. Perjury matters. If it is allowed to prosper, it will destroy our legal system. All the other comments about this case seem to me to pale beside this obvious fact. Yesterday was therefore an extremely good day for the republic. It was, as Martha would say, “a good thing.”

I have tried to answer David Frum’s questions about states’ rights and civil marriage, but he has not answered mine. Yesterday, he claimed that Eliot Spitzer’s decision that, under current law, New York state would happily recognize same-sex marriages from another state, vindicated his argument. That argument is as follows:

In other words, the promise that states will not have same-sex marriage forced upon them against their will will soon be falsified in New York – and soon in many other states as well.

Sorry, but unproven. Nothing is being forced on New York State. If New Yorkers wanted to pass a law, like 38 other states, that would refuse to recognize Massachusetts’ marriages, they could easily do so. But they haven’t. State autonomy means that states not only can refuse to recognize another state’s marriages, but that they can agree to recognize them as well. Liberal states might well decide to recognize Massachusetts’ marriages. That’s not a violation of the principle I laid out at all. Frum doesn’t seem to have the faintest grasp of the legal principles involved here. He also refuses to answer my simple question: which of the 1,049 civil and legal protections that he enjoys with his wife would he deign to grant me and my partner? Does he even support civil unions? We know exactly what he is against: civil marriages for people unlike him. But what, exactly, is he for? I ask a second time.

We were all told that fighting the Iraq war would destroy global alliances, wreck our ability to work with allies and generally render the U.S. a pariah. So how are France and the U.S. cooperating so easily in Haiti? Hmmm.

DON’T BLAME BUSH: For the dismal job situation. It’s far more complicated than Kerry would have you believe. Noam Scheiber is on the case.

44,000 POUNDS: That’s how much mustard gas Libya had accumulated.

THANK GOD FOR KRAUTHAMMER: Charles Krauthammer has never written a dumb column, to my knowledge. Even on emotional subjects such as civil marriage, he brings to the debate a calm reasoning that wins the respect of his opponents as well as his supporters. And that is also why his searing criticism of Mel Gibson’s inflammatory and idiosyncratic version of the Passion is so helpful. I’m tired of people believing that Gibson is representing Catholicism. He isn’t. He is a rebel against Catholicism, specifically the reformed, open, repentant Catholicism of the Second Vatican Council. Gibson doesn’t recognize the authority of the current Pope; he doesn’t recognize the current mass – the central ritual of Catholics across the world. People are mistaken in believing that he merely prefers the Latin mass; he doesn’t. He favors the Tridentine mass, a relic. He believes that all non-Catholics are going to hell, another heresy. He is clearly and palpably anti-Semitic. His movie is an act of aggression against Jews, and, as such, is an act of aggression against Catholicism and the current Pope’s heroic efforts to confront the shameful history of the Church with regard to the Jewish people. Charles notes how Satan walks and lives and breathes among the Jews in the movie. He doesn’t mention that young Jewish children actually turn into demons at one point in the movie, a device that only students of medieval anti-Semitism would notice. In fact, one reason that today’s viewers do not notice the hatred of Jews in the movie is because, mercifuly, they are not familiar with the medieval tropes that signal evil and that Gibson trafficks in. Gibson knows. And he knows how his movie will play in those parts of the world where anti-Semitic tropes are still recognized. Notice I am not accusing people of good faith who have found inspiration in the story portraayed in this movie of being anti-Semitic. I’m sure that many if not almost all of that devition is genuine and not motivated by anything but spiritual hope and reflection. But that cannot disguise the malice that lies beneath. And that Gibson would use the message of Christ to advance it is what makes it doubly unforgivable.

THE YOUNGEST METROSEXUALS: Capitalism strikes again.

Suddenly, the real reason for Moscow’s resistance to toppling Saddam Hussein seems clearer. And the Bush administration’s coddling of Putin more baffling. I guess the damage Putin can still do is greater than the damage Russia has already done. Like Pakistan.

“MICRO-AGGRESSION”: It’s a new term to me, but my conversations with college students this past couple of days have convinced me it’s real. What’s a micro-aggression? It’s when you offend somebody for the usual p.c. reasons. You need not mean to offend someone; you may even be trying to flatter them; but if they feel they’re offended or hurt in any way, it’s a “micro-aggression.” An accumulation of “micro-aggressions” can lead to actual aggression. I accidentally committed a “micro-aggression” two days ago when I used the term “Islamo-fascist” to refer to terrorists or unelected despots who use Islam as a cloak for their violence or tyranny. One poor young student was reduced to tears because I used this term. She said she felt attacked because she is a Muslim. I pointed out that the entire point of the term is to distinguish these theocratic thugs from genuine, mainstream Muslims. And she acknowledged that. Nevertheless, I had committed a micro-aggression. If I were on a campus today, I might be subject to discipline. What you have here, perhaps, is a post-modern, post-Christian attempt to resurrect different levels of sin. I committed what Catholics call a “venial sin,” a small-bore, not-too-important, micro-sin. But unlike Catholic teaching, which insists that for something to be a sin, it must be consciously intended, with “micro-aggressions,” your motives are irrelevant. In pomo heaven, the individual, after all, has no real autonomy, no independent soul, no personal conscience. He’s just reflecting the interplay of power-structures. So in the pursuit of progress, we have resurrected the imperatives of Catholic moral teaching and removed moral responsibility at the same time. They call this a step forward. It’s the opposite. One recalls Foucault’s classic book, “Discipline and Punish.” It’s all that’s left of his philosophy on American campuses.