Month: June 2005

Will Saletan predicts that the president will eventually move toward banning in vitro fertilization. Why?

Only two percent of leftover embryos have been put up for adoption. That’s less than the percentage donated to stem-cell research. So if you’re determined to rescue these embryos and stop the production of more, eventually you have to do what pro-lifers have done in the case of abortion: confront the parents.

Some of that is already happening, as Will shows. It seems to me that this should be directly asked of all those who oppose embryonic stem cell research. Do you believe IVF should be legal? Now watch the GOP splinter.

Thanks for your emails. Let me address three good counter-arguments. Many of you have argued that what passes for secularism today is not neutrality but active hostility to or disdain for religious faith. Here’s one formulation of the argument from an emailer:

There is unquestionably a brand of secularism that seeks to impose its own set of moral choices on all of society, e.g. the leftist hegemony that currently has a stranglehold on most universities. You yourself complained about this sort of thing in regards to Larry Summers’ lynching at the hands of the leftist establishment earlier this year.

Yes, indeed there is. One reason secularism is now threatened is because the left has abused it. I have no problem, for example, with public displays of Christian symbols in a secular society. I find the desire to root out such things as excessively persnickety. I’ve long been a defender of free speech and association for people with whom I disagree. (My conservative critics on the subject of homosexuality, for example, rarely point out that I oppose all hate crime laws, have opposed laws forbidding workplace discrimination, and supported the right of both the Boy Scouts and the St Patrick’s Day parade for discriminating against gays as private associations.) Moreover, when Christians form a majority, it’s understandable that much public symbolism will be redolent of Christian imagery and language. Secularists who want to stamp this stuff out seem to me to be lacking in the virtue of moderation – and they have helped spawn the intolerance that now flows back from the other side. At the same time, it’s silly for fundamentalists to say that they are being persecuted merely because others are treated equally in the public square. It is ludicrous for Rick Santorum to say, as he did recently, that my being allowed to marry my partner is somehow an attack on his marriage. A secular and tolerant society does not regard the rights of minorities as somehow only achievable at someone else’s expense. We are bigger than that. What is particularly remarkable is that when we are constructing a democracy abroad, say in Iraq, no one disputes the notion that it would be better for Iraq to have a secular constitution rather than a religious one. Yet these same people, when it comes to domestic politics and constitutionalism, want to insist that the American constitution is somehow a religious document. I prefer the perspective of this emailer:

I grew up in India and believed that secularism and multiculturalism were good things. This question was never even debated in my 24 years there. It is disconcerting to see that so many people in a supposedly much more enlightened country think that these are bad things.

Well, sadly, they do. And the people who believe these are bad things are the ruling faction in the dominant political party.

SECULARISM II: One other lesser point. There is obviously a distinction between the questions of same-sex marriage and abortion. With abortion, you can always claim that a life is at stake, and so neutrality, which would mean leaving the choice to individuals, is impermissible. But same-sex marriage involves no potential taking of human life and is an issue of far lesser moral import because of it. No one is tangibly hurt by someone’s public commitment to another human being. In such instances, government neutrality and secularism demand equal treatment, barring the kind of terrible social consequences no one has yet been able even to posit convincingly.

SECULARISM III: One final point. Many claim that there is no such thing as neutrality, that law is always and everywhere the imposition of one set of values over another, and that the question is merely “whose values?” Although this has a kind of late night college dorm plausibility, it essentially abandons the entire Western attempt to conceive of law as something that aims, in so far as it is possible, to provide neutral limits on human activity in order to protect the freedom of individuals to live as they see fit. Even if this will have cultural consequences, even if this may make some feel discriminated against, it is an essential goal of the liberal state to at least aspire to fairness, equal treatment of all citizens and tolerance of value-pluralism. In that sense, liberalism’s “value” is fairness, consensus and equality. And it is the only value that can appeal to Christianists, Christians, atheists, Jews, gays, straights, Muslims and Mormons alike. It is a value that may as often be celebrated when it fails as when it succeeds. And in an increasingly multicultural society, where all religions seem to be gravtitating toward fundamentalism, it is more valuable today than ever. Abandoning it, as the theocons and the leftist intolerants want, is to abandon Western freedom. I believe in fighting for such freedom both abroad and at home. In equal measure.

Here’s another piece of evidence that sexual orientation is genetically hard-wired. For my part, I don’t really see the political or moral salience of this. The origins of sexual orientation will one day be better understood. But I know of no theory – even those of the “reparative therapists” – who believe that orientation is somehow “chosen.” I know of no theorists, including those on the religious right, who seriously argue that it isn’t largely fixed (whether through genes, environment or a combination of the two) by the age of three. The point is that, regardless of its origin, sexual orientation is experienced by the overwhelming majority of homosexuals as involuntary in every sense of the word. Those activists on the far right who claim otherwise are, at some level, accusing people like me of lying about a fundamental reality in our lives. We’re not. The only salient political question is: how do you integrate a small minority of people whose sexual orientation is fixed as the opposite of the norm? Stigmatize them for being different and write them out of constitutional protections? Or integrate them into the family and the society as equal citizens, and demand the same responsibilities from them as everyone else?

SMART JEWS: Eventually, the empirical links between intelligence and genetics will be unable to be denied. But sit back and watch people try.

Here’s an unusual instance of uniformed officers speaking directly to the press about the impossible task set for them by Rumsfeld:

From last October to the end of April, there were about 400 soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division patrolling the northwest region, which covers about 10,000 square miles. “Resources are everything in combat … there’s no way 400 people can cover that much ground,” said Maj. John Wilwerding, of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is responsible for the northwest tract that includes Tal Afar. “Because there weren’t enough troops on the ground to do what you needed to do, the (insurgency) was able to get a toehold.” said Wilwerding, 37, of Chaska, Minn.
During the past two months, Army commanders, trying to pacify the area, have had to move in some 4,000 Iraqi soldiers; about 2,000 more are on the way. About 3,500 troops from the 3rd ACR took control of the area this month, but officers said they were still understaffed for the mission. “There’s simply not enough forces here,” said a high-ranking U.S. Army officer with knowledge of the 3rd ACR.

One word: duh. You have an insurgency replenished with money and men pouring in over the Syrian border. But you don’t have enough troops to stop it. Worse, your incompetent war-management has led to a deeper recruitment crisis for the military so that they’re reduced to these kinds of tactics just to stay in play. Worse still, the carnage from those enabled by our war strategy continues to mount. And the policy continues.

Harry Shearer has the goods.

A tip on the successor to Rehnquist.

A reader sends me the following quote from Newsweek, January 19, 2004:

Tuesday marks one month to the day of the capture of Saddam Hussein, humiliated and feeble, and Bush aides insist these are the death throes of the insurgency.

Readers are invited to send me statements by Bush officials describing the insurgency as in its “death throes” over the past couple of years. Anything from Dick Cheney will be particularly welcome. Just because the president holds no one accountable, it doesn’t mean we can’t.

Here’s a classic Rumsfeld quote, regarding the abuse and torture of detainees under his command:

“To date there have been approximately 370 criminal investigations into the charges of misconduct involving detainees” since Sept. 11, 2001.

Now recall that that’s a defense of his record. The real question is: if a defense secretary has presided over a military detention system in which 370 separate criminal investigations of prisoner abuse have taken place, what on earth is he still doing in his job?

Yes! Someone who actually paints has been shortlisted for the British art establishment’s famed Turner prize. The artist has actually been known to paint … flowers!

“‘The Dutch people won against this crazy constitution,’ said Tiny Kox, a member of the small Socialist Party, which was pivotal in the campaign opposing ratification.” – New York Times today.