Month: June 2011

When Did We Become Rome? The Schiavo Case

A reader writes:

It's hard to think about decadent politics and not think about Terri Schiavo.  We argue about the role and place of government, what it can do and what it should do, and what it can't and shouldn't.  And regardless of the morality of the matter, I have a hard time not seeing this as one of the largest and most personally invasive over-reaches of Congress in my short lifetime.

Another writes:

At the time, I was a Republican who had always felt uncomfortable with the Religious Right but thought it functioned merely as a voice of moral perspective rather than a driver of right-wing public policy. The willingness of so many otherwise decent Republicans to so blatantly throw out the Constitution in pursuit of their religious ideology was a revealing moment for me. From that moment on, it seems the GOP has spiraled faster and faster toward a more Christian nationalist vision for America.     

Another:

In my mind's eye I can still see W swaggering across the WH lawn, with the helicopter blades still rotating in the background, on his way to sign that bogus special-purpose bill in March 2005.  This was before the worst of Iraq came to light and just months before Katrina, and it was a critical turning point for me. That one act of creating the Terri Schiavo bill gave the lie to all the GOP blather about the horror of government intrusion into the private affairs of individuals ("getting government out of our affairs" is how they parrot it, I think). 

Decisions made by Terri's husband (with primary legal authority, in this case) on the basis of what he knew or believed he knew about Terri's wishes were subjected to repeated, failed local court challenges by her parents, and were then second-guessed publicly for political purposes by the highest levels of government; that was the moment I knew we were doomed.

Dusting Off The Crystal Ball

David Frum predicts the future:

Bachmann wins Iowa. Romney wins New Hampshire. Absent Perry or Ryan, the field quickly empties out. The establishment rallies to Romney. The party follows just as it did in 1988, 1996 and 2000. Meanwhile talk radio and Fox News goes angrier and uglier than ever.

But, after last night's performances, Nate Silver sees an opening for Perry:

Besides Ms. Palin, the other candidate whose decision will have the most influence on the race is Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Mr. Perry — although he has some vulnerabilities — could potentially fulfill William F. Buckley’s commandment to Republicans: nominate the most conservative candidate who is electable.

Obama Anti-Israel?

The Big Lie is exploded by new polling. Americans were not fooled by the trumped up hysteria of last month. And pro-Israel Americans least of all:

A plurality (50%) says Barack Obama is striking the right balance in the Middle East situation, while 21% say he favors the Palestinians too much. There has also been no change in these views over the past year; in April 2010, 47% said Obama struck the right balance and 21% said he favored the Palestinians too much… Of those who are more sympathetic to Israel, 49 percent say he strikes the right balance, versus only 38 percent who say he favors the Palestinians too much.

Adultery’s Lubricated Slope

Douthat makes the case while engaging my arguments:

The idea that it’s possible to incorporate just a little bit of quasi-adultery into your online routines and then go no further seems to me deeply untrue to the way temptation actually works. Of course there may be some individuals and couples who can make the “it’s just the occasional sex chat, honey …” solution work: Human nature is diverse enough for that. But for the greater part of mankind, sins tend to compound rather than forestall one another, and giving in a little bit is usually a good way to ensure that you’ll eventually give in all the way.

Ross is referring to a new technology that can provide instant and new temptation to ancient human impulses. His view is that cutting online sex out of one’s life entirely is the only way to avoid its temptation. I tend, in contrast, to think that human nature is so flawed that a sane moral life cannot and should not insist on constant perfection/abstinence, but constant attention to morality, to conscience, and to what human beings can reasonably expect to achieve. If your standard is never to commit a venial sin, you will almost certainly fail. And you may set up a destructive pattern of perfection, failure, depression, more failure, more depression, a new commitment to perfection, failure … and so on: rinse and repeat. I think that cycle is horribly destructive and believe that moderation and risk-minimization is a safer guide to avoiding sin than total abstinence. That’s why diets fail; and why the Christianist South has higher rates of divorce and illegitimacy than, say, “barbaric” Massachusetts. Yes, you can get lost in an online hall of mirrors and addiction and narcissism.

Yes, there is a lack of dignity in what has happened to Weiner – but only because what was meant to be private became public. If videos of all of us taking our Morganscheisse were streamed live, a few of us would lose some dignity as well.

But if a married man jacks off to porn, I don’t think we should consider him an adulterer, let alone on a route to what Ross calls “barbarism”. (And if it is considered adultery, what percentage of American marriages would be intact?) Ditto if someone “kills” real-people-acting-as-avatars on World of Warcraft. That does not convict someone of murder. And if a married man chats online with a paid sex worker, and jacks off on his laptop, is that adultery too? What if he is just playing at wooing or preening with online strangers or fans but with no real intent to, you know, have sexual relations with any of them? In the grand scheme of social ills, these do not rank high on my list. The real-virtual distinction is a meaningful one.

Yes, this is a santorumy slope in many ways, but the element that Ross (and the Vatican) dismisses is that sex need not always be deadly serious. There is a vital part of the human experience that we call “play”. Fighting the need for play gets sex and work out of proportion and can distort our moral lives in ways far worse than the occasional victimless online flirt. And that’s what this technology has really opened up: not the potential for sin, which is always with us, but the potential for play. From Angry Birds to anonymous chat rooms to World of Warcraft to Chatroulette or Grindr or OKCupid, this is a safe zone for unsafe things by virtual people. That’s why we call it play. It is often a balance to work or lack of work. It is not the end of civilization. It is, in fact, the mark of one.

What Was Pawlenty Thinking?

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P.M. Carpenter's guess:

[Pawlenty] has quietly conceded the race, and is already looking forward to Mitt Romney's call about the Number Two slot. Meanwhile he'll be a good, obedient little puppy dog on the campaign trail.

A reader adds to this post:

At the end of the debate last night, something kept gnawing at me. I'm a Republican voter who was pretty content with the '08 field (I backed McCain; please don't mention Palin, it still smarts).  This year's crop just seemed so formulaic, so full of GOP bromides.  The missing element, I think, is the McCain/Huckabee factor. 

I'm certainly no fan of Huckabee's theocratic tendencies, but he and McCain performed the task of reminding the other candidates that in their collective and admirable desire to cut government, secure the borders, etc., actual – and frequently innocent – human lives are caught in the balance. 

I'll cop to tearing up when McCain reminded his colleagues – which much disappointment evident in his voice – that Mexican immigrants are God's children too, and worthy of our consideration and respect.  Huckabee, likewise, cautioned the candidates that in the process of affecting immigration reform, we needn't grind our heels in the faces of innocent children.  This perspective, this sensitivity to the suffering of others, was absent from the stage yesterday.  McCain and Huckabee are flawed men and were flawed candidates, but they were brave enough to expose themselves to at least a bit of political risk in order to ask for some kindness for the less fortunate.  To my great disappointment, I don't see that willingness in the '12 crowd.

(Word cloud from the New Tasman.)

Is Accountability Coming?

AbuGhraibScandalGraner55

Here's something I didn't expect to see in print any time soon:

"the grand jury is conducting an investigation of possible violations of federal criminal laws involving War Crimes (18 USC/2441), Torture (18 USC 243OA) and related federal offenses."

One possible war crime under investigation is the murder-by-torture of the one individual killed in Abu Ghraib:

Unanswered questions surround the killing. According to official reports, investigators were unable to examine key evidence because the victim's blood was removed from the floor of the death cell on orders of a U.S. military officer. The CIA allegedly removed a blood-stained hood that had been placed over the victim's head. A CIA supervisor later admitted he destroyed it. Immediately after the killing, CIA and military personnel argued over who might be blamed; the corpse was iced to slow decomposition and stored in a shower room overnight, before being spirited away with an intravenous tube attached to one arm, creating the impression that al-Jamadi was still alive.

Can the GOP actually defend this murder? I'm sure they'll try.

Living Catholicism

A small reminder of what matters:

Father John, as his parishioners call him, says he is trying to live the words of Jesus Christ, as he has seen them lived out.

Unni was 16 when his father died. The St Theresa Parish community in his hometown of North Reading responded with meals delivered to the family’s door, with rides to practices and rehearsals and whatever help they could offer a broken family. “People lived out the Gospels,’’ Unni, 49, said in an interview yesterday evening. “That’s when I learned what church was.’’

Now, he embraces gay and lesbian parishioners in the same spirit. How long can he last in Benedict's church?

The Tea Party’s Economic Emphasis

John Avlon notes what I remarked on last night:

Among the night's revelations: leading candidates Romney and Pawlenty have formally joined the one-note social conservatives in supporting a federal marriage amendment to block same-sex marriages in the states (so much for the guiding principles of originalism and federalism).

Likewise, opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest is the new pro-life litmus test. To hear Michele Bachmann tell it, the founding fathers’ wrote the Declaration of Independence almost solely to illuminate the post Roe v. Wade world and victims of rape and incest are outliers who too often cloud the debate.

I see no distancing from the most extreme positions on homosexuality and abortion.

The view that the federal constitution is the place where gays are to be permanently excluded from family life and that abortion should be criminal even when the woman has been raped by a relative or a non-relative: these are now non-controversial in the GOP.

I think that many observers have gotten things the wrong way round. Because the emphasis is understandably on the economy and the debt, some have concluded that the social issues do not count so much any more. But it seems to me that the economy and debt act more as a distraction from the underlying story that the GOP keeps moving ever rightward against modernity's toleration of minorities and established social norms on abortion. As society shifts on gay rights, the right has dug into a position that was unserious and impractical six years ago. But that doesn't matter. Both issues are doctrine, you see. And this party is, at heart, a church.