Month: June 2007

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) talks on her cell phone while walking toward the U.S. Capitol building June 27, 2007 in Washington DC. The Senate is continuing to work on immigration legislation.

I have been on the list at the Cingular Store in Midtown East for 1 month. I live and work in Midtown East.  I am guaranteed an iPhone. I have a lot of experience waiting on line … My fee is $400.  If you need a second iPhone please let me know in your message," – a current NYC Craigslist posting.

It’s a whodunnit!

A reader writes:

Reading Rotello’s argument I found myself reminded of the Patriot Act. Both opt for security over freedom, and both are rooted in a paranoia and sense of hyper-vigilance where the world can be viewed only as a series of threats.  There’s no victory, no end-game. Had Rotello had his way, even a gay community with no extant HIV could only peer out at the rest of the world terrified that another virus was about to descend. Without enforcing constant background checks and latex, the viral terrorists would return.

The real parallel strikes me as between dated safe sex campaigns and the terror alert system. Both rely on fear that has been replaced among most people with cynicism. Which makes effective disease and terror protection actually harder. If authorities are honest with people, they tend to get better results in the long run.

One reader agrees with me:

I agree with your position about the Gospels not mandating a welfare state. Jesus seemed most concerned about what we were like on the inside, which is why the widow’s tiny donation to the poor of a mite – all that she had – was worth so much more than the very large donation of another. A welfare state attempts to care for the poor, but does so through compulsion. From the perspective of the teachings of Jesus, those who are compelled to "be good" aren’t really any better off than those who choose not to do good.  In fact, some of his harshest attacks were for those who kept "the letter of the law" while not attending to those things which we have a difficult time measuring: kindness, generosity, forgiveness, love. Giving grudgingly is not following the Gospel message. Those who contend that the Gospel message teaches us to have a welfare state have uncoupled Christ’s teachings, choosing to obey – or, rather, force – one, and neglect the other.

It works the same on the right as on the left, of course. Compelling good behavior does not give us good people, for if the laws are ever removed the people will be as they always were.  (I’m excluding children; raising children is a different – and difficult – matter.)  It does not appear to be possible to force a man to heaven.

But boy how many have tried.

It may be impossible to avoid, according to a new study:

This study shows that our environment greatly influences our perceptions. Even infants at 3 months of age demonstrate signs of racial preference, but this preference is limited to the race they are mainly surrounded by. Heightening cross racial contact mitigates the effects of the bias. Is the own-face race bias a problem? Perhaps: the bias signals a lack of diversity in surroundings. The influence of the own-race face phenomenon may carry over into our daily perception and can cause some racial prejudice beyond our direct control.

A reader has put up the section of my C-Span interview from last fall about my HIV infection. It may help to put some context behind my defense of the drug companies, and behind the resilience of my religious faith.

Another case of being totally out of touch. More commentary here.

Marty Lederman wades through the legal thickets and finds much less there than meets the eye. WaPo reaches the same conclusion. Meanwhile, Leahy ups the ante.

Well worth revisiting these days. Money quote from a bracing piece:

Not merely militarism but war itself is repellent to any orthodox conservative. It is a great uprooter of men and material and a fine destroyer of tradition. The costs of conflict are monumental, the rewards too often minimal. With each falling bomb, international order is torn asunder – contrary to hawkish bombast, war is never fought to maintain or advance an existing order, but always to institute a new one. Bellicosity prompts a disregard for national and popular sovereignty, two important items on the conservative agenda. Randolph Bourne was correct: war is the health of the state, and true conservatism pictures the state as a necessary but terribly sour pill.

Yes, but sometimes the state must be defended by force and enemies deterred. No conservative should rule out war. But what marks conservatism is extreme prudence in initiating conflict, a principle I foolishly rushed past in the wake of 9/11.

(Photo: Wissam Alokaili/AFP/Getty.)