Month: December 2008

Jamie Kirchick has a helpful piece in the Advocate. He notes that Mormons make up 2 percent of California’s population yet contributed more than 50 percent of the funds for Prop 8. He also notes the structure of the church, which makes it, in so many ways, a great complement to Christianist politics. Put all the elements of the LDS church together and turn them into a political movement and you can see why Hugh Hewitt sees it as a vehicle for future political power:

Because the church requests that members tithe 10% of their annual income, LDS leaders are able to gain an accurate picture of how much their congregants earn. With this information in hand, bishops in local communities went from house to house in California asking for specific amounts of money for the Yes on 8 campaign — an incredibly effective fund-raising tactic.

Jamie’s also shrewd in noting that the 1950s nuclear family has special theological salience for Mormons:

According to Mormon dogma, marriage extends into the afterlife and couples continue to have "spirit children" who populate extraterrestrial worlds.

A secular amendment to a secular constitution was passed partly in order to protect the integrity of "spirit children."

I know of few writers as knowledgeable or as emphatic on the idea that government experts can solve most of our difficult problems than Jonathan Cohn. Here he’s summarizing Jonathan Gruber’s column in the NYT on universal health-care serving as a fiscal stimulus:

Gruber, who is one of the nation’s most respected experts on health care issues, goes on to make a point familiar to readers of this space. Reform, he notes, could eventually create a more rational health care system in which we don’t throw away so much money on administration, inefficient care, or unnecessary treatments. And less waste in health care means more money for other, more productive purposes.

Here’s one, slightly oversimplified way to think of it: Health care reform would help the economy in the short term–by increasing spending on medical care. It would also help the economy in the long term–by reducing spending on medical care. Pretty neat, huh?

If only more really respected experts would make all of our lives more efficient. Pretty neat, huh?

East Lansing, Michigan, 12.30 pm.

That’s the assumption behind disappointment at the 2008 turnout final results and results in Bloomberg sentences like this:

Still, turnout fell short of the 140 million voters many experts had forecast.

Mark Blumenthal tries to find any evidence that those experts existed.

Plumer on the logistical problems of plug-in hybrids:

…plug-in hybrids and electric cars still look like the cleanest, surest way to end our dependence on oil, though lest anyone think that’s entirely cost-free from a sustainability standpoint, the BBC had a recent piece on analysts who are fretting about whether there’s enough lithium in the world to make all those advanced car batteries. (One official from Mitsbuishi, which is unveiling an electric car soon, expects lithium demand to outstrip supply in less than ten years, unless new reserves are brought online.) Chile, for one, has been dubbed the Saudi Arabia of lithium—a light metal that’s most easily harvested from the brine under salt flats—but the world’s largest reserves may be in Bolivia. Yet Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, isn’t terribly keen on welcoming in foreign mining companies to exploit the area, which could become a bone of contention for electric-car makers trying to keep battery prices down. Never a dull moment in the resource wars…

Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow James Jay Carafano wants to use friggin’ lasers on the Somali pirates:

Less-potent lasers "would be effective for addressing a range of threats." The weapons "could, for example, disable the engines of small boats." Or they could "detonate shoulder-fired missiles before they strike their targets." Or they could "trigger IEDs [improvised explosive devices] from a safe distance before they threaten passing convoys," Carafano offers. Why, there’s practically nothing the ray guns can’t do.

A reader notices that Goldberg isn’t just intellectually dishonest, he’s incapable of taking a stance on the issue:

Probably because half my family is Mormon, I was more sympathetic to Jonah‘s column and more bothered by the anti-Mormon stuff that (while somewhat exagerrated) I’ve witnessed here in CA.

But on a more substantive note, take a look at Jonah‘s view on same-sex marriage and on the impact of the campaign in its favor:  "My own view is that gay marriage is likely inevitable and won’t be nearly the disaster many of my fellow conservatives fear it will be. But the scorched-earth campaign to victory pushed by gay-marriage advocates may well be disastrous, and "liberals" should be ashamed for countenancing it."

Note, as is typical of him:  He doesn’t actually take a stand on anything other than whether someone else ought to "feel" a particular emotion about his conduct.  He does this over and over in his writing.

1. "gay marriage is likely inevitable" – he not only refuses to take a stand on what he thinks about it, but he can’t even go out on a limb and predict that it "is" inevitable.  If it’s only "likely inevitable", he’ll never be wrong.

2. "gay marriage … won’t be nearly the disaster many of my fellow conservatives fear it will be." Again, no actual stance on his own part and since it "won’t nearly be the disaster" he can’t be wrong there, either.  If it is a disaster, it won’t "be nearly the disaster" and if it’s not a disaster, then he "predicted" that too.

3. "the campaign … may well be disastrous" – again no actual stand and he can’t ever be wrong.

The only thing he takes a stand on:  "liberals should be ashamed". Other people have to "feel" a particular emotion.

You can take most of his columns and perform the same analysis.

He’s useful as a diagnostic for what’s wrong with conservatism. But sadly not much else.

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"I should confess that behind my passion on this subject is a core religious conviction – that all human beings have dignity in the eyes of God and that treating any human being in this way is an absolute moral evil."

I am a confirmed, confident atheist, and yet I am in complete agreement with you on this.

I suppose, for myself, I could revise your statement as "Behind my passion on this subject is a core moral conviction – that all human beings have dignity, and that treating any human being in this way is an absolute moral wrong." (I am skeptical of the existence or usefulness of "absolute evil".)

I really appreciated this:  "I have not made my argument on religious grounds because I believe in the separation of religion and politics and made my case in language that anyone – believer and non-believer – can engage equally."

So here is a question for you:  Let’s say Darren Vandeveld was an atheist instead of a Catholic. Would you have titled your post "An Atheist Takes A Stand"?  Would you have even written it? How would most people have reacted to that? What if instead of a "devout Catholic," Vandeveld was a lapsed Catholic, or an unenthusastic one?  What if he was a Baptist, a Buddhist, a Muslim, or a wiccan?

I think opposition to torture can spring from humanism or simple moral decency, not just religious faith. I just found, as a fellow Catholic, Vandeveld’s example was an inspiration. As well as a rebuke to the shamefully reticent Catholic hierarchy. If the Pope had challenged Bush on his record of torture, it would have meant a great deal. But this Pope appears to care more about power than about truth. And an alliance with the American president trumps a principled response to that president’s enforcement of an absolute moral evil. Maybe if that evil had something to do with sex Benedict would raise his voice.

From Gallup:

Only 31% of black Democrats in America say homosexual relations are morally acceptable, roughly the same as the 30% of Republicans who agree, while very much different from the 61% of nonblack Democrats who say homosexual relations are morally acceptable.

And does anyone believe that it is a coincidence that the most homophobic racial group in America also has the highest rate of HIV transmission?

(Hat tip: Dan Savage).