Month: December 2006

It’s now clear that I’m guilty of one example of sloppy word use in "The Conservative Soul," and I’ll correct it in future editions. Here’s the paragraph:

One famous example of just such a pursuit of intimations was Tory prime minister Benjamin Disraeli’s decision to back universal suffrage in the nineteenth century. "Toryism" if turned into an ideology would have rejected this as a negation of its own identity and meaning. Tories were defined by their adherence to the prerogatives of the monarchy, nobility and rural, landed gentry. The idea of bringing vast masses of untutored and possibly radical working class voters into the political system seemed like socialist revolution.

Disraeli differed. He saw that England was changing, that the industrial revolution was urbanizing Britain at a rapid pace, that the masses were acquiring economic power and leverage, that they were susceptible to being coopted by dangerous and radical forces. He intuited that the job of a conservative was to deal with changing social reality. So he proposed coopting the working classes for Toryism, giving them the vote, appealing to their patriotism and faith, and remaking conservatism in his time.

All of this is true except for the word "universal." Obviously, Disraeli didn’t include women, and not all men, in suffrage in the 1867 Reform Act. Wikipedia provides the most concise summary:

The Reform Act 1867 (also known as the Second Reform Act, and formally titled the Representation of the People Act 1867), 30 & 31 Vict. c. 102, was a piece of British legislation that greatly increased the number of men who could vote in elections in the UK. In its final form, the Reform Act 1867 enfranchised all male householders and abolished compounding (the practice of paying rates to a landlord as part of rent). Due to this act working-class men gained suffrage for the first time in Britain.

So you can see my gist was correct, and my point stands, but my wording was sloppy.

"The first service that one owes to others in community consists in listening to them. Just as love for God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gives His Word but also lends us His ear … Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and, in the end, there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words," – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.

Tuxedo, New York, 7.20 pm.

"By this selfish action, [Mary] Cheney is not merely disrupting society, she is being cruel to her child … Her pregnancy is further evidence that participation in homosexual activity distorts value systems, inducing practitioners to harm the commonweal. Our society already has too many children born without the benefits of marriage; Cheney’s action is not only a bad example, but poor treatment of an innocent child," – Paul Cameron, of the Family research Institute, on the Christian Newswire.

The Speaker is revealed as at best untruthful by the House Ethics Committee:

Mr. Hastert has said that he was unaware of suspicions surrounding Mr. Foley until he resigned his seat. But the panel found that "the weight of the evidence supports the conclusion that Speaker Hastert was told, at least in passing, about the e-mails" months before the resignation both by his majority leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, and by Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, who headed the party’s Congressional campaign committee.

Even so, the committee said, "neither the Majority Leader nor Rep. Reynolds asked the Speaker to take any action in response to the information each provided to him, and there is no evidence that the Speaker took any action."

Who did take it seriously? The openly gay Clerk of the House, Jeff Trandahl:

Others familiar with Mr. Foley’s actions were keenly aware of the potential for a scandal that could ruin Mr. Foley and cast the House in a bad light, the investigators found. For instance, many months before the scandal erupted, then-House Clerk Jeff Trandahl conferred with Representative John M. Shimkus, the Illinois Republican who was head of the board that oversaw the pages.

Mr. Trandahl testified before the ethics committee that he told Mr. Shimkus that Mr. Foley persisted in his actions despite being warned "multiple times," and that Mr. Foley was "a ticking time bomb."

So the straight Republicans covered up or ignored Foley’s grossness and an openly gay man did all he could to stop it.

(Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke/AP.)

A new study clarifies things a little. It’s firewalled but the data reveal 112 deaths of prisoners in U.S. custody from 2002 to 2005 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Money quote:

Forty-three detainees reportedly died as a result of homicide (37 in Iraq and 6 in Afghanistan). Homicide is defined by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division as "death resulting from the intentional (explicit or implied) or grossly reckless behavior of another person or persons." Homicide for the purposes of death classification is a neutral term that neither indicates nor implies criminal intent. Of the Iraq homicides, 22 detainees reportedly died of gunshot injuries. Fifteen of those were shot during riots or attempted escapes, and 2 expired in detention from gunshot injuries sustained during fire fights in the field prior to being taken into custody.

Among all homicides, at least 11 involved blunt trauma or asphyxiation. At least 3 homicide cases have resulted in murder charges and 3 resulted in voluntary manslaughter charges.

For the 12 homicide cases for which final autopsy reports are available, gunshot wounds accounted for 4 of the deaths. The remaining 8 homicides were due to: (1) pulmonary embolism due to blunt trauma; (2) blunt force injuries complicating coronary disease; (3) strangulation; (4) blunt force with rhabdomyolysis; (5) cortical brain contusion and subdural hematoma; (6) blunt force with compromised respiration; (7) asphyxia due to chest compression and smothering; and (8) asphyxia due to occlusion of the airway and blunt force injuries…

According to a review conducted by Human Rights First, at least 11 detainee deaths may have been due in part or in whole to physical abuse or harsh conditions of confinement. They further concluded that at least 8 detainees in US custody were tortured to death. Steven Miles, reporting in this journal, put the number of deaths due to torture at 17, with 11 cases occurring in Iraq and 6 occurring in Afghanistan. Many of these deaths involved torture or abuse related to harsh interrogations of the detainees by US personnel.

43 homicides in U.S. military custody need the context of a brutal conflict during which the president and defense secretary essentially suspended the Geneva Conventions. Given the signals from the top, it is perhaps surprising that more prisoners weren’t killed or tortured to death. It should be noted that 43 homicides is, at this point in time, one night in Baghdad. 36 were killed by insurgent mortar attacks on military prisons. I post this for the historical record.

The attempt to reverse Canada’s decision to allow gay couples the same rights as straight ones just collapsed. The Tory prime minister, Stephen Harper, has declared the issue closed for good. I repeat: the Tory prime minister. David Frum must be weeping somewhere. Money quote:

Nova Scotia MP Gerald Keddy, one of the few Conservatives who last year voted in favour of the bill that redefined marriage to include gays and lesbians, said he firmly believes this is the last time the matter will come before Parliament.

But Mr. Keddy, who has been targeted for political attack by groups that object to his pro-same-sex stand, said those battles may not be over.

"I expect there will be a bit of that that will go on," he said.

"But we will march ahead and we will cross that bridge when we come to it," Mr. Keddy said.

In Britain, the new Tory leader actually boasts of gay equality as a political principle, celebrating civil partnerships in his annual speech to his party. Such partnerships are legally identical to civil marriage, and now a year old in the UK.  Only America’s South really remains in bitter opposition – and the Republican party that is now increasingly a hostage of its own base. But this debate is now over in the West as a whole. Except in the heads of the far right. On this, as on so many other matters, they live now only in the bubble of their own delusions.

A reader writes:

My sister is not gay, but she did have a child without the benefit of a father (through artificial insemination by an anonymous sperm donor, as I assume Mary probably did). I remember raising some concerns with my brother, who has 4 children while I have none. His response was basically this. There are so many children conceived unintentionally and born to parents who really don’t want them, here at least is one conceived intentionally to someone who wants nothing more in this world than to do everything possible to make that child happy. I thought he had a good point and have never questioned my sister’s decision since.

My point is not to compare having and raising a child in some optimum environment, but to the real world fact that few children have anything close to that. After all, there is more to an optimum child-raising environment than just having two parents of the opposite sex. What about having the resources to raise a child properly? What about having two people to love a child a care for it in a world with so many single parents? Isn‚Äôt two better than one? I think these are things that those who advocate a traditional family structure always overlook. It’s ultimately a question of balance and comparing a situation to what is often the case and not some optimum that seldom exists.

All of this is obvious to anyone but a fanatic. But fanaticism is what we’re dealing with. When I hear people on cable news reiterate that a child is best brought up with a mother and a father and cite studies showing the toll that fatherlessness takes on mainly black urban kids, all I can say is: yes. Yes. YES. YES. But so what? What’s the relevance of that to Mary Cheney? Is she to be forbidden to have a child? Is Virginia about to pass a law not only shredding gay couples of any legal protections but threatening to take their children away from them as well? Is it not enough that one mother will have no legal rights over her child?

Here are the only relevant questions. Should it be illegal for lesbian or single women to get artificially inseminated? If artificial insemination is legal, is it better for the child to have a stable, two-person home or not? That’s it. What’s the Christianist answer? I heard it on O’Reilly Wednesday night when he had one of the Foxbot women on to tell him what he already thinks. He ended his "fair and balanced" segment by asking her if a husband should be "mandatory" for lesbian or single moms. The answer was yes. What does he mean by "mandatory"? I assume making it illegal for lesbians to have their own children. If that’s what they want, they should say so.

Reality-based conservative Robert A. George has more thoughts here.

"Some general, and even systematical, idea of the perfection of policy and law, may no doubt be necessary for directing the views of the statesman. But to insist upon establishing, and upon establishing all at once, and in spite of all opposition, every thing which that idea may seem to require, must often be the highest degree of arrogance. It is to erect his own judgment into the supreme standard of right and wrong. It is to fancy himself the only wise and worthy man in the commonwealth, and that his fellow-citizens should accommodate themselves to him and not he to them. It is upon this account, that of all political speculators, sovereign princes are by far the most dangerous.

This arrogance is perfectly familiar to them. They entertain no doubt of the immense superiority of their own judgment. When such imperial and royal reformers, therefore, condescend to contemplate the constitution of the country which is committed to their government, they seldom see any thing so wrong in it as the obstructions which it may sometimes oppose to the execution of their own will. They hold in contempt the divine maxim of Plato, and consider the state as made for themselves, not themselves for the state. The great object of their reformation, therefore, is to remove those obstructions; to reduce the authority of the nobility; to take away the privileges of cities and provinces, and to render both the greatest individuals and the greatest orders of the state, as incapable of opposing their commands, as the weakest and most insignificant," – Adam Smith, a conservative of doubt, "Theory of Moral Sentiments."

(Photo: Nell Redmond/Landov.)

"There’s something to be said for having a Republican who supports civil rights in this broader context, including sexual orientation. When Ted Kennedy speaks on gay rights, he’s seen as an extremist. When Mitt Romney speaks on gay rights he‚Äôs seen as a centrist and a moderate. It’s a little like if Eugene McCarthy was arguing in favor of recognizing China, people would have called him a nut. But when Richard Nixon does it, it becomes reasonable. When Ted says it, it’s extreme; when I say it, it’s mainstream. I think the gay community needs more support from the Republican Party and I would be a voice in the Republican Party to foster anti-discrimination efforts.

The other thing I should say is that the gay community and the members of it that are friends of mine that I’ve talked to don’t vote solely on the basis of gay rights issues. They’re also very concerned about a $4 trillion national debt, a failing school system, a welfare system that‚Äôs out of whack and a criminal justice system that isn’t working. I believe that while I would further the efforts Ted Kennedy has led, I would also lead the country in new and far more positive ways in taxing and spending, welfare reform, criminal justice and education. That’s why I believe many gay and lesbian individuals will support my candidacy and do support my candidacy," – Mitt Romney to the Boston gay paper, Bay Windows, in 1994.

Romney is on record supporting the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act for gay and lesbian workplace protection. He is on record supporting leaving the question of marriage to the states. He is on record supporting an aggressive outreach to gay and lesbian voters and is on record speaking of sexual orientation in the clear context of civil rights. How can he therefore be favored by the Christianist wing of the GOP? Can Hugh Hewitt support a candidate with these positions, which are diametrically opposed to his own? And if Romney has reversed himself on all this, is it not appropriate to ask: why? Was he lying then or is he lying now? What does he really believe? Or is he prepared to say anything that serves his career interests at any given time?

More analysis here.

(Photo: Paul Sancya/AP.)