Month: November 2005

THE NEXT CONSERVATISM?

It’s a long essay in the new Weekly Standard, but well worth reading. Authored by Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat (who are friends and former guest-bloggers in this space), the essay is so wide-ranging I’m not going to summarize it. But here’s a proposal I like a lot. It’s to do with taxes. Reihan-Ross raise the idea of reforming the curent system and would

remove all families earning less than $100,000 from the tax rolls. For those who want to see a daring tax reform that leaves an impression in voters’ minds and pocketbooks, this would be an avenue worth exploring.

Recall that the income tax was originally designed as a single-rate tax on a relatively small number of high earners. We still have something like it today, in the form of the alternative minimum tax (AMT), which was designed to ensure that the affluent pay at least some income tax. Bush’s tax commission has called for the abolition of the AMT, which isn’t indexed to inflation and will start biting into middle-class paychecks within the decade. But perhaps the GOP should consider an alternative: Why not reform the AMT and abolish the regular income tax instead?

Michael J. Graetz of Yale Law School, hardly a wild-eyed utopian, has called this the “back to the future” plan. Graetz would raise the AMT exemption to $50,000 for single-earners and $100,000 for joint returns, and impose a single rate of 25 percent on all earnings over those thresholds. To replace the lost revenue, he would also–and this is the controversial part–introduce a consumption tax of 14 percent.

The essay is packed with provocative ideas like these. It grapples with health-care in a way that avoids the pitfalls of socialism but moves us toward a more rational, universal insurance system. It’s also pro-family in a manner that makes a lot of sense to me. We need to support those who are rearing the next generation more effectively than we now do (and I’d include, of course, gay parents in this). Anyway, read the piece. You’ll find plenty to agree and disagree with, but the debate itself is overdue.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY I: “As a student of history and a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, I long have been impressed by the example of George Washington, who was a strong believer in fiscal discipline. In his 1796 farewell address, Washington admonished the nation to avoid ‘not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.’ Americans today would be wise to heed Washington’s timeless wisdom.” – David Walker, Comptroller General of the U.S., in a piece titled, “Spending Is Out Of Control.”

JUDGES AND COMMUNION

Ramesh elaborates the questions about Catholicism he believes are legitimate in a Senate hearing:

“Would you hesitate to re-affirm Roe and Casey because you would be afraid that your church would deny you communion?” … “No. If I voted to re-affirm Roe, it would be because I believed that it was the correct legal conclusion – because I concluded that the combined force of constitutional provisions and precedent made it so – and not because of any moral views I hold about abortion policy; and I am confident that my church would understand that. Indeed, if I conclude that Roe is correct as a matter of constitutional interpretation, then I would be morally bound to say so. If I pretended that Roe was wrongly decided, while knowing better, I would be guilty of the sin of lying, and would not be able to present myself for communion.’

Here’s the question I’m still wrestling with. If a judge were to say that he supports Roe because he believes that there is a right to privacy in the Constitution and that that right applies to a woman’s ownership of her own body, and thereby the right to abort an unborn child, would that trigger the church hierarchy’s removal of that judge from the communion rail? And how could that threat not affect a judge’s rulings as a matter of fact?

CHURCHES AND THE IRS: A liberal church gets its tax exempt status pulled because of a sermon last October called “If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush.” I’m with the IRS. Now let’s be consistent and start pulling tax exemptions from all churches that conflate their spiritual mission with campaigns for various candidates and parties.

FROM AN IRAQ WAR ALUM

An email examines the objective dehumanization of “the enemy”:

I am a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and an increasingly liberal defector from the GOP, and like you I have been confused by the GOP’s simultaneous promotion of a ‘culture of life’ and of torture.
I was in Iraq in 03-04 and was really disheartened when Abu Ghraib broke in the media; I didn’t think the war was justified, ex ante, and the revelations of what was happening at the prison really made me feel like a Nazi. I employed a number of Iraqi laborers, and after the Arab media showed the photographs it was very difficult to look those guys in the eye.
As to balancing the seeming contradiction between torture and life, the only conclusion I can reach is that the pro-torture lobby has taken the rhetorical construction of ‘The Terrorists’ that was the centerpiece of administration pronouncements from 2001-2003 to its logical extreme – ‘They’ (that is, ‘The Terrorists’) are unworthy of life because ‘They’ don’t respect life. ‘They’ behead people, while all we do is beat them to death. ‘They’ hate us for ‘what we are,’ while we hate them for – well, I guess because of ‘what They are.’ But because we are a Benign Force, it’s different.
In class, I compared the construction of The Terrorists to the construction of Japanese identity during World War II, assigning the John Dower book, “War Without Mercy.” The enemy is so alien that he has abandoned any consideration as a human being. Consequently, exterminating him is appropriate.

Or torturing him for that matter. Wars are dangerous things. They corrupt us unless we remain vigilant. And one real worry is that because the president sincerely believes that his motives are good, he can find ways to dismiss or ignore or even condone things that are objectively wrong. This is especially a danger for those who believe their actions are sanctioned by their own God. If their motives are pure, they can do no wrong …

THE P.C. LEFT AND SCIENCE: Some readers have written in to say that John Derbyshire’s description of the editors of ScienceWeek as “intellectual Left-fascists” is overblown. I have to agree in this instance. There is a snooty liberal snobbism in the editorial, but it does not oppose unfettered research into the evolution of the human brain. Money quote:

There is certainly no reason to believe that the human brain has stopped evolving, and certainly brain size is a biological parameter that may indeed be changing, but we don’t think this work is of much particular anthropological significance. We would say the work needs to be done (and supported), but we are not at the point yet of making important conclusions from such studies.

There are, however, many on the left who object to any study of human genetic differences as inherently racist or sexist or bigoted. Science can be none of those things. Either the data exist and support conclusions, or they don’t. That, I think, is Derbyshire’s broader point, even if he’s off-base in this particular example.

A CATHOLIC DEMOCRAT

Tim Kaine seems to be leading the way:

Kaine defended himself against Kilgore’s attack on the subject by saying that it is his beliefs as a deeply religious Catholic that lead him to oppose the death penalty and abortion. But he also said he would follow the law on capital punishment and advocate laws that protect the right to abortion.
“The elite never really got that argument,” said David Eichenbaum, one of Kaine’s media advisers, referring to columnists and others who wondered how Kaine could be, in his words, “morally” opposed and yet pledge not to try to change the law. “But people who heard him got it.”

And Benedict XVI wants him denied communion.