Month: February 2006

They’re having another rally in New York City. Details here. No Hamlet-like waffling. Be there.

Here’s a useful symposium on what is at stake in Iraq and why civil war is now imaginable. I agree with Noah Feldman: what’s remarkable is how these ethnic divisions were largely fostered by the incompetent invasion. They didn’t precede it – certainly not with their current ferocity. Our decision to let disorder reign – and it was a conscious decision – has been disastrous.

The Bull Moose smells meltdown. I’m not so sure. But this point is well worth considering:

"[R]emember, the best thing that ever happened to the Clinton Presidency was losing Democratic control over Congress."

Bush might be saved yet. He’s a very lucky guy. Given his incompetence, he needs to be.

One essential tactic of the theoconservative project is to disguise its true, radical aims. Ramesh Ponnuru’s latest post is a small but telling example. I cited a new, draconian bill in South Dakota that bans all abortions, including cases begotten by incest and rape. I bet that Ponnuru wouldn’t be against it. Ponnuru dismisses this by saying:

"I have already come out against the South Dakota bill, which is the latest irrelevancy Sullivan is using to distract attention from his record of misrepresentation."

Here is the post where Ponnuru opposes the bill:

"Pro-lifers are trying to enact a general ban on abortion there. Right goal; wrong means. Our moral obligation is to provide the maximum feasible, sustainable protection for the unborn. Setting up a law for the Supreme Court to strike down doesn’t advance that goal."

So you see that Ponnuru’s sole reason for opposing such a radical law is not because he doesn’t believe in it. In his words, it’s "the right goal." His opposition is because it would be counter-productive and imprudent at this moment, given the current Supreme Court, to force a challenge. This bait-and-switch on prudential compromises when challenged on basic moral positions is also his gambit with respect to Robert George. If you want to read a good account of how this is deliberate deception on the part of the theocons, read Hadley Arkes’ remarkable confession of the need to dissemble here. (Arkes seems to believe that a murderer of an abortionist is more moral than an abortionist, a view that would make complete sense from George’s and Ponnuru’s moral postulates). Meanwhile, a reader writes:

"I was a student of George’s at Princeton. Believe me, you’re representing his views entirely fairly. His "cute" little piece for the First Things symposium is pure Robbie George, all the way. I also had one of his acolytes (read: Madison Program) as a preceptor; you should have seen the reaction of a dozen college juniors and seniors when he couldn’t begin to understand why regulation of masturbation and blowjobs didn’t strike all of us as a perfectly reasonable thing for the government to engage in, even if only as "instructive" (read: criminal) laws."

These people mean what they write. When challenged, they lie about it. Repeatedly. They don’t want to sound like cranks. But they actually believe that, in an ideal world, masturbation would be a crime. And they get very upset when you point that out.

Another first-hand report:

"The last few days have been unsettlingly violent in spite of the curfew. We’ve been at home simply waiting it out and hoping for the best. The phone wasn’t working and the electrical situation hasn’t improved. We are at a point, however, where things like electricity, telephones and fuel seem like minor worries. Even complaining about them is a luxury Iraqis can’t afford these days.

The sounds of shooting and explosions usually begin at dawn, at least that’s when I first sense them, and they don’t really subside until well into the night. There was a small gunfight on the main road near our area the day before yesterday, but with the exception of the local mosque being fired upon, and a corpse found at dawn three streets down, things have been relatively quiet.

Some of the neighbors have been discussing the possibility of the men setting up a neighborhood watch. We did this during the war and during the chaos immediately after the war. The problem this time is that the Iraqi security forces are as much to fear as the black-clad and hooded men attacking mosques, houses and each other."

That last point about the security forces differs from Mohammed’s assessment below. It depends where you’re living, I guess. (Hat tip: Kevin.)

A reader alerts me to a feminist parody of Manet’s "Le Dejeuner sur L’herbe," (see below). It appeared in an anthology of women’s humor called "Titters," published in 1976. Here’s the re-imagined painting, by Mara McAfee, who painted many parodies for National Lampoon.

Mohammed at Iraq the Model believes that the riots in Iraq were orchestrated and were given the go-ahead by Ayatollah Sistani. I have no way to judge. But he also sees some positive signs:

"There are also some positive outcomes from this incident and its aftermath; the first one in my opinion was the performance of the Iraqi army which had a good role in restoring order in many places. Actually the past few days showed that our new army is more competent than we were thinking.
But the latest events have also showed the brittle structure of the interior ministry and its forces that retreated before the march of the angry mobs (if not joined them in some cases). The statements that came from the meetings of our politicians pointed this out when Sunni politicians said they wanted the army to replace the police and police commandos in their regions. This indicates growing trust between the people and the army."

Everything is still to play for. Send Clinton.

A useful primer on the Muslim fascists in France.

Ramesh Ponnuru argues that Robert P. George does indeed see a moral difference between the killing of an adult human being and the killing of a fetus, and so I am being unfair. Just read what I posted two days ago from George:

"I am personally opposed to killing abortionists. However, inasmuch as my personal opposition to this practice is rooted in a sectarian (Catholic) religious belief in the sanctity of human life, I am unwilling to impose it on others who may, as a matter of conscience, take a different view."

It seems to me that for this piece of irony to work, you logically have to assume the moral equivalence of murdering an abortionist with murdering a fetus. Which is to say, the premise of the cutesy quote I cite disproves Ponnuru’s point. And any honest reader of George would conclude that he uncategorically regards abortion as the moral equivalent of murdering an adult. How could he not? This is the same Robert P. George who has called abortion "the unjust killing of innocent human beings who, as a matter of right, are entitled to the equal protection of the laws." Ponnuru’s only argument is that George once argued that, in the theocon future paradise, it might not be appropriate to charge abortionists with "first degree murder," just murder of a lesser sort. But that is a prudential, legal judgment, not a moral one, a distinction George himself often makes. On the moral equivalence of abortion and murder, George has always been admirably forthright. He has written, for example, that for an adult human being,

"there was no stage at which he existed but was not yet a person."

In fact, the entire edifice of George’s work, which I have just finished re-reading, is absolute on the matter of the full human personhood even of a zygote.

As for masturbation, it is simply a matter of record that George believes, as Ponnuru does, that the government has in principle an obligation and right to police the private sexual lives of all its citizens to prevent them from sliding into "immorality." His view of the power of the state in this regard is extreme, and is mitigated again only by prudential considerations. As George once put it,

"’Secret’ vices have a way of not staying secret. There may be good prudential reasons not to attack them with the full force of the law … but that is not to say that, as a matter of principle, the law may not forbid them." [His italics.]

As for noting Hadley Arkes’ contribution, all I can say is that it struck me as an admirably frank admission that many theoconservatives have decided to hide their actual beliefs and objectives behind a Straussian facade of moderation. Ponnuru is upset – hysterical, actually, – when someone has the gall to rip off that facade. Of course, I do not know whether Ponnuru’s hysteria and deflection is rooted in malicious lying, indifference to the truth, incompetence in figuring out the truth, or some combination of these things. Readers need not know the answer to that question to conclude that he has something to hide. Maybe this new bill introduced in South Dakota will help elucidate matters further. Somehow, I doubt Ponnuru will be in opposition.

A group of Quebec priests take an unprecedented public stand against the bigotry of the current Vatican hierarchy.