Our Decision

A reader writes:

Hammer. Nail. Head.

The question for the American people is this:

Send 500,000 troops and raise taxes to pay for the war, or retreat.

What is unfortunate is that the Democrats seem incapable of putting the issue to the American people in this manner while the Republicans are content in avoiding it altogether in hopes of staving off defeat in November. The current state of political polarization and what passes as our political discourse means we will never, ever be asked to meaningfully discuss the pros and cons of either option by our political leaders.

My personal opinion is that we should get out, but if presented with a viable way to stave off collapse and catastrophe through the sending of more troops and the expenditure of more money, I would consider supporting it. What is clear, however, is that current policy only portends more and greater disaster if we continue on the path we are on now. The status quo is only a recipe for failure. That we are still on it is entirely due to our dysfunctional, paralyzing domestic politics.

Christianism Watch III

"The civil rights movement, [Rev. Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Texas] said, was grounded in moral authority, truth and righteousness, the impetus to freedom, constitutional authority, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In contrast, he said, the gay rights movement was inspired ‘from the pit of hell itself,’ and has a ‘satanic anointment.’ The gay rights movement was birthed and inspired by the anti-Christ. He suggested that the anti-Christ is himself gay, citing a verse from the book of Daniel saying the anti-Christ will have no desire for a woman.

‘I don’t think there is any issue more important than how we are going to define the family,’ McKissick said . Television shows portraying homosexuality in a positive light have put us ‘on the road to Sodom and Gomorrah,’ and ‘God’s got another match … He didn’t run out of matches," – another report from the Values Voters summit last weekend. Welcome to today’s Republican Party: where using black homophobia to win white and black voters is a central electoral strategy.

“Walking Back” on “Tyranny”?

Late last night, before nodding off, I wondered, as I often do, whether I’d hyperbolized the threat from the looming detention-torture bill. "Legalizing tyranny" is a very strong phrase and I don’t want to cry wolf. In the sense that this president intends to seize random Americans and rush them into black sites and torture them at will, it’s hyperbole. But in a deeper sense, I think it’s completely accurate. The system we’re talking about is to do with wartime. A president in the past has had the option of seizing enemy combatants on a battlefield and detaining them without charge as POWs. There’s no threat to liberty there. What’s new is that in this war, enemy combatants have been designated as such not just on the battlefield – but anywhere in the world. What’s new is that they are no longer entitled to POW status. What’s new is that this war is for ever. So any changes are not just for a time-limited emergency but threaten to alter basic balances in constitutional order. What’s also new is that torture is now allowed on the down-low, on the president’s authority. And what’s also new is that an enemy combatant may or may not be an American citizen.

Put all that together and you really do have the danger of taking emergency measures for wartime and transforming a peace-time constitution into an essentially martial system, where every citizen or non-citizen can be apprehended at will and detained without charge. I repeat: this is a huge deal. It really should be a huge deal for conservatives who care about restraining government power. Its vulnerability to abuse is enormous; sanctioned torture, history tells us, never remains hermetically sealed. It always spreads. It eats away at decency and law and civility. If the president sincerely believes that torture is our most potent weapon in this war, and that habeas corpus is a quaint relic from the past, then we are in far greater peril than even the most dire pessimists believe.

Kinsley on Newspapers

Good sense, as usual. Brutal on the L.A. Times. Money quote:

[T]here is room between the New York Times and myleftarmpit.com for new forms that liberate journalism from its encrusted conceits while preserving its standards, like accuracy.

I’m not sure what that new form will look like. But it might resemble the better British papers today (such as the one I work for, the Guardian). The Brits have never bought into the American separation of reporting and opinion. They assume that an intelligent person, paid to learn about some subject, will naturally develop views about it. And they consider it more truthful to express those views than to suppress them in the name of objectivity.