Month: March 2006

Here’s a pic from a free speech rally in Trafalgar Square. More here.

A reader writes:

"I had never seen or heard the Sandra Day O’Connor quote you gave yesterday. The quote with the line about "defining the mysteries of life" for one’s self. Oh man, what a rich load of blather that is. I come from a background of "hard" science (I’m a Electrical Engineer), the same sort of science that deals with a little thing we call the real world, a place where there are such things as facts, and where there exists obvious right (as in "correct") and wrong (as in "incorrect).
It doesn’t take a overactive imagination to guess what legal topic caused O’conner to was so poetic; hmmm, abortion maybe? Ask a biologist if we get to define our own "mysteries" of life … and everyone’s own meanings be correct.  Sandra simply conjurs out of thin air such metaphysical ideas as "personhood" for determining whether to bestow any rights – in fact the ultimate right, that of life – upon a living human being, and then turns phrases about the mystery of it all. Gag me. Sandra isn’t fit to carry Scalia’s lunch tray…"

Well, tell us how you really feel. One small point: the quote may be Kennedy’s, it turns out, although O’Connor joined the opinion with Souter. It’s confusing from the PDF I read who actually wrote those sentences. (Anyone settle it for sure?) One larger point: I agree that it’s a stretch to go from that definition of human freedom to constitutional protection for all abortions. But the statement of where liberty is most important – in the freedom to decide for yourself what you believe about what cannot be known – seems to me to be an excellent standard. The electrical engineer has no special expertise over these matters, except as a human being and citizen. And neither does anyone else. Hence our radical equality under the constitution; and the fundamental freedom it guarantees. To believe or not to believe: that is a question the American government should be entirely neutral about.

Don’t believe the hype.

"My head’s going to explode just thinking about this. The clerics claim that it’s an insult to G-d, which is a barrel full of tripe. It is Muslims who are insulted by [Rahman]’s conversion to Christianity, not G-d. More specifically, it’s the self-hating and insecure kind who can‚Äôt stand to see this man continue to draw breath. Make no mistake, if he is executed it’s not any different from an HONOR KILLING," – Murat Altinbasak, a moderate Muslim blogger in Rhode Island, on the potential death sentence in Afghanistan for a Muslim convert to Christianity.

A reader writes:

I was struck by Jason Alexander’s most impassioned comments on the Bill Maher show last night. They related to his children’s exposure to forces that were not "wholesome". He was the "liberal" voice on the panel – speaking on Iraq, etc. – but somehow kept coming back to his efforts to limit his children to those influences that they were emotionally prepared to handle, and exactly how difficult that was in current society.

I think it’s a point that is not sufficiently written about. Everyone is so stuck on left vs. right – family-values-christian-right vs. amoral secularists.  I am a married and childless 38 year old female who lives in the West Village in New York. I am considered a "liberal" by my deeply Republican siblings (3) who all live in Republican suburbs in various U.S. locations. (I am an "Economist" liberal — i.e. a righty in the U.K. but that’s not relevant.) While my siblings fiind my surroundings shocking (I live opposite a transvestite club), I am deeply shocked by what passes for normal in Republican suburbs. I spent some time researching and designing costumes for my 6-year old niece’s dance recital because the costumes proposed and readily accepted by the majority of the mothers were in my eyes prostitute garb. I spent some time encouraging my sister to object to the costumes as only a handful of other mothers agreed with her that the proposed costumes were a bit risque for the 6-year old set.

It’s a not very well understood fact that there are a great many "liberals" who bristle at the "family values" tag but who feel deeply about morality and the value of individuals. I turn off at the "family values" label because I understand it to be anti-women. The friend with whom I most often discuss the horror of today’s morals (inadvertently buying "Dinner Date Barbie" for a 7-year old niece and finding out that said Barbie comes equipped with a black lace teddy) is a card carrying Democrat and regular donor to Emily’s list.

Or maybe I am too naive. The corporate-driven and supported ubiquity of Britney Spears has long been attributed to the permissiveness of the left. The reality of course is quite different. It’s obvious that the current culture is seen as a problem by a broad cross-section of people. Maybe it’s time to define morality in non-political terms that a majority of Americans can get behind.

I should concur that while I’m very easy-going around adults, I too get very socially conservative around kids. I don’t believe in sheltering them from the world, but I do believe in protecting them for a while, and I can certainly sympathize with parents who want their children not to be exposed to what is now available. That doesn’t mean I’d censor anything; just that, if I were a parent, I’d be vigilant. That doesn’t quite fit into the crude red-blue axis, does it? But then a lot doesn’t. Which is part of our predicament.

This is one of so many stories that never usually make it into the press. This one did, because the D.C. cop died while going out of his way to do his job. No, Gerard Burke wasn’t shot on duty; and the crime he was pursuing was not the most dangerous or important (although it was certainly not trivial). But he did his duty, even when he was off-duty, and his family and friends now have to go on without him. In this, his life is like that of so many other good cops whose work is unsung and without whom, we’d live in hell. It’s worth stopping every now and again and saying thanks.

(Photo: MPDC).

"[I]ndifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing off of one part of the world from another, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening. There can often be doubt about the most enormous events … The calamities that are constantly being reported – battles, massacres, famines, revolutions – tend to inspire in the average person a feeling of unreality. One has no way of verifying the facts, one is not even fully certain that they have happened, and one is always presented with totally different interpretations from different sources. Probably the truth is undiscoverable but the facts will be so dishonestly set forth in that the ordinary reader can be forgiven either for swallowing lies or for failing to form an opinion …" – George Orwell, "Notes on Nationalism," 1945.

Barbara Bush donated to the Katrina relief fund – but she ear-marked her donation so that it can only be spent to buy educational software from her own son Neil’s company. Charity begins at home, it seems. More here. This strikes me as a big deal.

A reader writes:

"In regards to the whole idea of atheists being untrustworthy, you may find this reviling experience worth relating.
My ex-wife and I recently had a nasty custody dispute. In this dispute, I recently came very close to losing serious ground in my ongoing battle to be a central part of my son’s life. The entire case for the opposing side had nothing to do with how I am as a parent; in fact, every witness for the other side could say nothing but good about my son’s psycholigical health and good about my parenting. Instead, the entire objective of the other side was to smear me in court for being an atheist, or at the very minumum, not attending church regularly.
To make a long story short, the judge took away Sunday visitation from me permanently (I have my son every other week rather than every other weekend, so the change could have been much worse), so that the child "could get the religious instruction he needs" via my ex-wife. Similar verbiage actually appears in the court order. The repulsion I felt about all of this can never be described coherently. I was verbally lambasted by a judge in the United States of America for my religious beliefs, and suffered punishment for it (or perhaps, my son did, depending on viewpoint)… This happened in Mississippi, and I know better than to fight it – given that the original lawsuit aimed to reduce my visitation to every other weekend, I could have fared much worse, and the judge rightly guessed I would not wish to appeal and risk losing more ground when the case is sent back for reconsideration. But still, I have never, never felt so violated."

I wondr if more of this goes on than we are aware of.

A former insider’s exploration of the radical theo-conservative at the heart of the attempt to remake America into a Christianist country (alas, brief, free registration required). My own post on Richard John Neuhaus’s latest anti-gay smear can be found below.