A Reminder

Image credit: National Archives

Just to review, because it seems that occasionally major party candidates for the U.S. Senate forget this, this is where the Constitution mandates the separation of church and state. In Article 6, it says:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

U.S. Constitution - Article 6

[emphasis added]

As you can see, that bit even applies to Senators.

The other place it is mentioned is in the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

U.S. Constitution - Amendment 1

[emphasis added, of course]

These are the only places that religion is mentioned in the entire document. Further, the Fourteenth Amendment explains that this rule applies to how the government treats everyone who is an American citizen:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

U.S. Constitution: Fourteenth Amendment

It should be pretty obvious, to anyone who ever studied elementary logic at least, that the people who wrote that document didn't want any religion in charge of the government. Yes, that means even if that religion happens to be the majority religion. Whether that class of people includes any candidates running for the United States Senate these days is an open question, but whether the Constitution mandates separation of church and state is not.

What Americans Are Proud Of

From Robert Reich's column yesterday about the Republicans threatening to shut down government again if they don't get more tea and crumpets or whatever it is they're on about:

Americans may be cynical about government but we’re proud of our system of governance. And we don’t want it to be used as a political pawn in partisan power games. That’s what Republicans forget time and again. They dislike government so much they don’t see the difference between government as a bureaucracy and democratic governance as a cherished system.

The Republican Threat to Shut Down the Federal Government

As I've observed before, assertions about what the American people believe or want is more likely to be about what the person making the assertion believes or wants. It seems to be true here, too.

Now, that paragraph I quoted certainly describes my attitude. That's not the point here. The point is, what do most Americans really think? It sure is funny how not just Republicans, but Democrats lately, seem to be able to get away with ignoring or outright insulting the idea that the people who run our government do it on our behalf, not for the purpose of enriching themselves or getting re-elected.

Yet that's where we are.

It's hard to believe that so many of us respect the idea of our government when the people we elect seem to have no concept of the idea.

If anyone can provide proof that this is the attitude of the American people, it would sure be appreciated.

Quote Of The Day

Caption: No doubt many people think this image of Jesus head-butting the Koran is offensive. That's too bad, because it's really rather funny.

Image credit: Screenshot of this YouTube video by Cujo359

George W. blogging about the idea of how much we should respect beliefs that don't make any sense to us:

I still believe the most profound question is; “Can we all just get along?” In historical times our failure resulted in endless slaughter, but our methods have “improved” to where we can’t afford NOT to get along anymore.

I can’t believe that some kind of mutual agreement to tiptoe around and not offend each other is even practical in the short term, let alone a long-term solution. Progress happens when the bad ideas of the past begin to look ridiculous, and that’s never easy or inoffensive. Trying to respect the un-respectable postpones that moment almost indefinitely.

Exploring Offensive Symbolic Expression

It's a profound essay, and well worth a read. I've touched on this subject in the past, but I've never brought up the idea that there are some compelling reasons to learn to get along. As time goes on, our ability to kill each other and destroy will become greater, whether it's with biological weapons, nuclear weapons, or autonomous weapons. With that enhanced ability to destroy comes the danger that we will destroy ourselves or bomb ourselves back to the stone age over some trivial difference of opinion.

We need to learn that others have the right to destroy symbols we think of as sacred, and that we don't have the right to kill or injure them in response. Whether it's destroying a Koran, a a communion wafer, or a flag, the right to destroy one's own property in protest must be sacrosanct. That's because an idea that one person finds sacred could be as abjectly stupid as an idea no one thinks is sacred.

As I've pointed out before, it's the ideas that don't have a basis in reality that are usually the dangerous ones. There are plenty of such ideas that people are willing to kill or injure anyone who questions.

A Thought For 9/12

More humor of the kind we need:

Image credit: I Can Has Cheezburger

As Bruce Fein wrote yesterday, a nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

So, be a seagull once in a while.

UPDATE: I'm starting to think this day should become "National Be A Seagull Day". Here's a lovely little dropping satirizing the clown prince of Florida and the hateful little imbeciles who constitute his flock:


Honorary seagull George W. passes on this thought:

Anyway, it got me thinking about book-burning as a symbolic protest and I decided to hold a little protest of my own: I spent a couple hours reading the Koran. After a few more sessions I’ll write my impressions, but for now the point is that we can handle ideas contrary to our own without the Earth splitting open and swallowing us up.

Protesting Xenophobic Ignorance

I've always viewed reading religious texts as a colossal waste of time, but putting that objection aside, it sounds like a good idea. If you don't want to go to the trouble of obtaining your own copy, this site features a searchable and browsable version of the Koran. For folks whose taste in religion runs similar to mine, there's the Skeptic's Annotated Koran, the perfect companion to the Skeptic's Annotated Bible.

One way or another, we'll learn ya some of that old time religion.

Do Bigots Love Slurpees, Too?

It might have a reputation as a liberal oasis, but Seattle has its share of bigots. One of them was out there on Monday night at a local convenience store, making America safe from people who wear turbans:

A 35-year-old Seattle man is facing assault and hate crime charges following allegations that he accosted a clerk at a Queen Anne convenience store.
...
"For unknown reasons a person threw change on the floor near the victim's feet then punched the victim on the left side of the head," the detective said.

"After the suspect struck (the clerk) with his fist he said, 'You're not even American, you're Al-Qaeda. Go back to your country.'"

Charge: Seattle Man Attacked Shopkeeper, Calls Victim A Terrorist

The victim's offense was wearing a turban, which isn't a piece of Arab headgear. It's a piece of Sikh headgear:

A national Sikh organization came out in support Tuesday of a Seattle convenience store clerk attacked in an apparent hate crime.
...
In accusing Stainbrook of committing a hate crime, King County prosecutors asserted he targeted the clerk in part because he was wearing a turban. Turbans -- dastaars, to Sikhs -- are considered an article of faith to adherents of the religion, which originated in South Asia more than 500 years ago.

Sikh org on clerk attack: 'Americans must be free to practice their faith without fear'

According to the Seattle Weekly, the man who did this is a local criminal who has a history of violence and drunkness. That history includes:

According to court records, Stainbrook has prior convictions for assault, trespassing, public intoxication, DUI, and two separate convictions for making "terroristic threats" in Hawaii.

Man Charged With Hate Crime For Attack At 7-11

[emphasis mine] The man knows his terrorists, it appears.

Unfortunately, this is the sort of person who is likely to be set off by the hateful rhetoric that various charlatans and opportunists have been using against Muslims. If you wonder why I have criticized Democratic politicians for being so mealy-mouthed about this, here is an example of why. This guy didn't get the idea that we have an Al Qaeda cell in a 7-11 entirely on his own. It's possible that if he hadn't been deathly afraid of turban-wearing terrorists at that moment, that he just would have victimized some other person, but that strikes me as debatable.

Josh Marshall summed this up pretty well:

It's not enough that we have American Muslims facing a new wave of Islamophobia on the American right, hyped up to greater extent by the coming November election. But it appears the we now have another case of a Sikh who's fallen victim to backwoods American cultural illiteracy.

AWS (Americaning While Sikh)

Well, except that this guy doesn't seem to be from the backwoods. He doesn't even have that as an excuse.

There are days I think that you could replace half the brains in America with cabbages and not lose a bit of intellectual capacity.

A Great Diversion

Found this thanks to a comment at FireDogLake:

Cowboys and Indians: The Great Diversion from Danielle Agnello on Vimeo.

It's a little comedy of grammatical errors and bigotry. Inspired, I suspect, by actual events. Or maybe this actual event.

UPDATE: If, like me, you're using the NoScript extension to Firefox, then you may have to enable scripts from Vimeo to make the video appear on your screen.

Born In The USA

How is this for irony? A Gawker article on the anti-"Ground Zero Mosque" demonstration last Sunday includes this observation:

They even played "Born in the USA," Bruce Springsteen's famous anthem about how awesome the United States is!

Anti-'Ground Zero Mosque' Rally Freaks Out at Black Guy

The Gawker article is a study in sarcasm, and is perhaps best read to be understood. Nonetheless, if they are telling the truth about this, then this is yet more evidence that people who think this thing is worth protesting are mouth-breathing imbeciles. That is, it's more evidence besides this:

Reading comprehension is one of those skills we seem to have largely lost in America, so I'll try to make this simple by using "bullet points":

• It's not a mosque


• It's not at Ground Zero

...
It's a community center run by people of a particular religion, like a Jewish community center or a YMCA. It's two blocks from the World Trade Center, which given how built-up Manhattan is, might as well be in another city.

Obama On Religious Tolerance

Here's what "Born In The USA" has to say about American attitudes towards people who aren't like us:

I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man.

Bruce Springsteen: Born In The U.S.A. Lyrics

Now doesn't that just sound so enlightened? Some kid screws up, so send him off to someplace he probably hasn't heard of to kill foreigners. Of course, as people who have actually listened to the lyrics know, it just goes downhill from there. No wonder people want to play it at a place where they tell us all how offended they are by people who are different from them.

So, we have people protesting a "Ground Zero Mosque" that isn't a mosque and isn't at Ground Zero, who love to play a song that demonstrates how pathetic their bigotry is.

It's like they never pay attention to anything.

There are days it's tough to remember that we're the country that went to the Moon. Oh, wait. That was our parents, wasn't it?

Around The Internet Today

Guess what? The news didn't get any better while I was away. As Glenn Greenwald points out, the Democrats have begun the cowardly stampede away from defending the rights of Muslims in New York City to create a community center dedicated to greater understanding among different religions near one of the more egregious examples of how much we need such a thing:

Democrats -- following in the cowardly footsteps of Senate Majority "Leader" Harry Reid, whose book is one of the most ironically titled in history -- ran faster and faster away from the controversy. New York Governor David Paterson made it known that he wants to meet with Park 51's developers to encourage them to move to a new site. One Democratic official, Rep. Michael Arcuri of New York, actually attacked his GOP challenger, Richard Hanna, for having bravely broken with his own party to support the project; Arcuri's Gingrich-replicating attacks caused Hannah, one of the few Republicans in the nation to have defended Park 51, to reverse position by arguing today that it should move.

What Political Courage Looks Like

I'm starting to believe that there is no such thing as political courage. When you haven't seen something for as long as I haven't seen political courage among Democrats, then you really have to wonder if it hasn't gone extinct.

Arcuri actually had the nerve to try to justify this as based on his experience as a prosecutor:

This Dem Congressman from upstate New York has come out against it: "As district attorney, I spent my career protecting victims' rights, and to me, this is no different. The pain felt by many Americans from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is still very real, and I can understand how the thought of building a mosque near Ground Zero could reopen those wounds. For the sake of the victims and their families, I think another location should be chosen."

The Out-Of-Towners: Politicians From Far, Far Away Fight Muslim Center In NYC

The only good thing about this clown being a U.S. Representative is that he's no longer a prosecutor. He seems to have completely forgotten that the rights of the minority need to be protected, too. He also has forgotten, if he ever knew, the power of people working and playing together to overcome prejudice.

Meanwhile, it appears that Murcuri's constituents have a better idea how a democracy works than their congressman does:

A Siena College poll released Wednesday suggests 63% of New York voters oppose the project, while 27% support it.

But 64% of New York voters said the developers have the right to build the mosque under the Constitution, versus 28% who said they don't.

It appears New Yorkers support the right of developers to build the mosque at Ground Zero - but doubt the wisdom to do it.

Obama has 'no regrets' over Ground Zero mosque remarks; poll finds 63% oppose WTC location

Which I suppose is an example of the sentiment I expressed the other day - that part of being free is being annoyed at how others use their freedom. It would be lovely, though, if more voters recognized the spirit of the Cordoba House's goal, which is to reduce conflict between religions, rather than creating more. I'd love to see someone do a poll on how much that concept is supported by Americans. Reading to them the mission statement of the community center might be a good way of doing that, since I'll bet most don't know either the name of this project or its goals:

Park51 will be dedicated to pluralism, service, arts and culture, education and empowerment, appreciation for our city and a deep respect for our planet. Park51 will join New York to the world, offering a welcoming community center with multiple points of entry.

The Community Center At Park 51: Vision

I'm not a big fan of religion, but that doesn't sound like such a bad thing to me.

Meanwhile, Robert Reich wrote an article today about why Mitt Romney, even though he's about as serious a candidate as the Republicans have on economic matters, doesn't have a clue what's necessary right now:

Apart from the impossibility of simultaneously cutting taxes and balancing the budget without taking a meat cleaver to Social Security, Medicare, and defense spending (Romney delicately sidesteps this conundrum by urging we “reshape government programs” and “restructure entitlements”), his policies raise a more fundamental problem.

Call it the wet-noodle problem.

For Romney, the key to America’s recovery is to cut taxes on businesses and on people who invest in them. These steps, he says, are the “conditions that enable businesses of all sizes to grow and thrive.” In other words, if businesse get more capital at less cost, they’ll create jobs.
...
In other words, businesses have all the capital they need. They’re sitting on it or can borrow it more cheaply than ever. But they aren’t using it to create jobs.

Why not? Because there’s not enough demand for their products or services. Consumers aren’t buying.

Mitt Romney's Wet Noodle Economics

Habitual readers may recall that I wrote something similar about the current economic "thinking" of our leaders before I went on vacation. Reich's article is worth reading, because it provides a lot of details I either glossed over or relied on links to explain.

What continues to amaze me about both the Democrats' and Republicans' proposed solutions to our economic woes, austerity on the Democrats' and austerity plus tax breaks for the rich on the Republicans', is that they are so obviously wrong. What is missing right now is demand for products, and austerity won't help that. Anyone who understands the dictionary meaning of "austerity" should get that - austerity serves to kill demand, not strengthen it. Plus, as Reich has ably pointed out, capital isn't a problem right now, either, so tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations aren't useful measures, either.

So, yes, lots of depressing news, and I haven't even gotten into what the Democrats plan on doing to Social Security. In a diary at FireDogLake, Hugh points out why they're planning to cut Social Security, despite the fact that we've already paid enough into the fund to make it economically viable as is:

The real game here is that politicians, i.e. our elites, do not want to use general revenues, the discretionary side of the budget, to pay back Social Security Trust funds. In their view, the discretionary budget is theirs. This is also why you do not hear any serious talk of raising the income caps on the FICA. If our elites don’t want to use discretionary funds to this end, they certain don’t want to use their own wealth to that purpose either. Indeed the whole idea behind the surpluses in the first place was to give them "free" money to spend/loot. The object of cutting benefits is to limit or eliminate the need to pay back the Trust Funds and, in so doing, keep control of the discretionary budget in their hands.

Dean Baker Gets It Wrong

Want more of this? Then keep putting the same people who are doing this back in office.

Obama On Religious Tolerance

Caption: If these two can get along, why can't Christians and Muslims?. Oh, wait - different ecological niches...

Image credit: NapTiem


President Obama did something good last evening when he said this:

Recently, attention has been focused on the construction of mosques in certain communities - particularly in New York. Now, we must all recognize and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of lower Manhattan. The 9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event for our country. The pain and suffering experienced by those who lost loved ones is unimaginable. So I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground.

But let me be clear: as a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure.

President Obama's Ramadan speech, 2010

It's astonishing how many people don't get this in America. Part of the price of freedom is being annoyed sometimes by how others exercise that freedom.

What's more, as religious symbols go, this is one that even I don't find annoying, for reasons explained by James Standish who, according to his bio, "Represents the Seventh-day Adventist Church to the United Nations. Deputy secretary general of the International Religious Liberty":

2) There is no "Victory" Mosque

The stated goal behind building the Muslim center in lower Manhattan is to recapture the spirit of mutual respect between Judaism, Christianity and Islam that existed in Cordoba, Spain, from 700 - 1200 AD. While Europe was trapped in the Dark Ages, marked by bloody religious repression, Cordoba thrived as a commercial and cultural center with what was, for the time, a high level of religious freedom. For example, in the 10th Century, Cordoba became the intellectual capital for Jews worldwide. The stated point of the project is creating a world where Jews, Christians and Muslims connect again in a way that builds mutual understanding and respect. This is precisely the opposite goal of the 9/11 terrorists.

The Great "Ground Zero Mosque" Hoax

In sharp contrast to what any of a number of purebred idiots have said and written on this subject, this center isn't Islamist gloating over the dead of 9/11. It's about trying to live together peacefully with each other. If the people making those claims weren't utterly ignorant of any history that occurred prior to their births, they might have understood that just from its name.

Unfortunately, though, educational standards have slipped markedly in this country in the last half century, and you don't need to look any further to find examples of this trend than in this debate. For instance, there's this fool:

Well, I think building a mosque just there is in bad taste, and deliberately provocative, like a big new Serbian Orthodox Church at Srebrenica. Out of consideration Imam Feisal should build it somewhere else. If he’s determined to go ahead, the government should not, and cannot legally, prevent it. Suggesting I am lumping all Muslims together is contrary to what I wrote. If you want to argue with some stereotype of your own, a Christian whose one-dimensional view of Muslims you can dismiss, I’ll withdraw and leave you to it.

Posted by Marcel on 08/14/10 at 11:16 AM

Dismayed To Incoherence: Comment 7

This was, naturally, after this commenter had been told explicitly that this site wasn't a mosque. Reading comprehension is one of those skills we seem to have largely lost in America, so I'll try to make this simple by using "bullet points":

• It's not a mosque


• It's not at Ground Zero

Caption: This is where the Cordoba Community Center will be located. The World Trade Center is that big open space to the south.

Image credit: Screenshot of Google map by Cujo359

It's a community center run by people of a particular religion, like a Jewish community center or a YMCA. It's two blocks from the World Trade Center, which given how built-up Manhattan is, might as well be in another city.

I realize all this is complicated facts and stuff, but sometimes it really does help to understand what you're arguing about. Maybe you won't get offended so fast if you do.

Meanwhile, I applaud President Obama's effort to wade into this intellectual quagmire, and try to answer the bigots who oppose this thing. He's got quite a bumpy road ahead of him, that's for sure. As Glenn Greenwald pointed out yesterday, there's not much political upside here, and there are plenty of people who don't know what they're talking about, but have firmly held ideas nonetheless. Assuming he knows that, which I think is a good assumption, it's the first genuinely courageous thing he's done since taking office. It's hard to square that with his running away from this issue, or this one.

Election day must be near.

UPDATE: Nate Silver has an interesting perspective on this, thanks to the only poll that asked whether the builders of the "mosque" should be allowed to build at that location:

Essentially, public opinion on this issue is divided into thirds. About a third of the country thinks that not only do the developers have a right to build the mosque, but that it's a perfectly appropriate thing to do. Another third think that while the development is in poor taste, the developers nevertheless have a right to build it. And the final third think that not only is the development inappropriate, but the developers have no right to build it -- perhaps they think that the government should intervene to stop it in some fashion.

Obama's remarks, while asserting that "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country," and that the "principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are," simply reflected the view that the developers had a First Amendment right to proceed with the project -- a view that at least 60 percent of Americans share.

Obama Defense of "Ground Zero Mosque" Less Risky Than it Seems

So, maybe not so Hopey Changey after all. And as I wrote already, I'm cynical enough about the President at this point to believe he's already aware of all that, too.

It remains true, though, that he's on the right side of this particular issue, at least rhetorically. Like his "courageous" speech about Iraq when he was in the Illinois Senate, it's pretty clear there's not much that he'll actually have to do about this in order to be taken seriously, simply because there's not a lot besides talking that he can do at this point. This is really a local matter, as long as it doesn't get to the federal courts.

UPDATE 2: OK, that's more like it. Obama walked back what he said last night today. I'm a lot less confused now.

The Fourteenth Amendment

Image credit: National Archives

Media Matters for America did an excellent job of researching the origins and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which some anti-immigration proponents have asserted wasn't meant to cover children of foreigners. Here is the text of the part of that amendment that applies to citizenship:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

U.S. Constitution: Fourteenth Amendment

As several of the sources cited by MMA note, the language is clear and unambiguous. It does not make exceptions for those born to foreigners, or to those whose parents were somehow criminals. There was considerable debate over these words, and, not surprisingly, historians and legal scholars have noted this:

Colombia University historian Eric Foner stated during the August 2 edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees that it's "not true" that the 14th Amendment was not intended to apply to the children of aliens, adding, "The 14th Amendment was debated for months, and the wording was very, very carefully worked out. If they had meant to exclude any kind of people, aliens, children of aliens, they would have done so."
...
James C. Ho, the solicitor general of Texas who previously clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, worked in the Bush administration, and served as chief counsel to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), wrote in 2006 [(PDF)] that "no Senator disputed the meaning of the amendment with respect to alien children" and "nothing in text or history suggests that the drafters intended to draw distinctions between different categories of aliens."

Fox promotes false claim that 14th Amendment was not meant to apply to children of immigrants

Anyone who wonders about such claims should read this article.

Note that there are also people who maintain that the Constitution should be amended to exclude children born of illegal immigrants. That's another argument altogether. I don't agree with it, but factually their basic position is correct - the Constitution would have to be amended. Whether that is wise is another discussion. Personally, I don't think it is, partly because it makes the definition of citizenship more complicated, and serves to take away peoples' rights.

That is, however, an argument for another day. On the question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment's definition of citizenship was meant to apply to the children of immigrants or foreigners, the answer is clearly that it was.

Eagles And Chickens

Caption: A USAF F-15 Eagle. Apparently, gay people can't fly them, even with 18 years of experience.

Image credit: Arpingstone/Wikimedia



I'd written before about Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, the decorated F-15 pilot who is in danger of being discharged because he's gay:

Which makes this next story all the more remarkable to me. You could say it's a story about a real-life Jack Harkness, but instead of his being respected for who he is and what he's done, he's being drummed out of the military, because he's been exposed as gay.
...
[T]hey're drumming him out while our military is involved in two wars, where his skills as an experienced fighter pilot could, presumably, come in handy.

Some Of Us Aren't There Yet, But It's Time They Caught Up

What I didn't know at that time was how his being gay had been discovered:

With me so far? Here's where things really get crazy.

In defending himself, the aviator argues it was consensual sex and in so doing reveals himself to be gay. That is in apparent violation of Don't Ask Don't Tell, and now the Air Force is trying to boot him out of the service, just one year before his 20-year hitch is up and he gets his pension.

The Posterboy For Everything Wrong With DADT

Admittedly, LTC Fehrenbach's sexual orientation is against Defense Department policy. There are several things troubling about this, though. First of all, he didn't just blurt out that he was gay. This wasn't a case like that of former Army Lt. Dan Choi. He was being investigated, and so he was either in a position where he had to lie to the police, or he had to tell them he was gay.

The second is that I used the phrase "Fehrenbach's sexual orientation is against Defense Department policy". It's a bit like saying "LTC Fehrenbach is white, which is against DoD policy". It's something that his genetic inheritance makes him, and it has nothing to do with how well he performs his job.

If the Obama Administration had any guts, they'd fix this, but they don't. And that's the other troubling thing. The White House is really good at being tough with people who won't hit back. Anyone who will, or any issue that will actually exact a price for making a stand, they can't run away from fast enough.

So, after an outstanding 19 year career, it's almost certain that LTC Fehrenbach will be dismissed from the service, with nothing more than a "don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Martin Wolf On Income Redistribution

There's not too much I can add to the thoughts expressed in Martin Wolf's essay at the Financial Times today. In some ways, this sums it up:

The vote is more evenly distributed than wealth and income. Thus, one would expect the tenor of democratic policymaking to be redistributive and so, indeed, it is. Those with wealth and income to protect will then make political power expensive to acquire and encourage potential supporters to focus on common enemies (inside and outside the country) and on cultural values. The more unequal are incomes and wealth and the more determined are the “haves” to avoid being compelled to support the “have-nots”, the more politics will take on such characteristics.

What Is The Role Of The State?

There are many reasons that I think libertarianism, when taken to its extremes at least, is thoroughly wrong-headed, but this is one I hadn't quite considered before. The action of a functioning democracy will always be to try to redistribute income. If the distribution is fundamentally unfair, as it is in many Third World countries, or is becoming that way, as it is in the U.S., then I don't consider such a thing an evil to be stamped out or legislated against. And if there's one thing that is clear from my own observations of mature economies, it's that money tends to accumulate in an uneven distribution naturally. To some extent, that's good - ambition and smarts aren't evenly distributed. There should be some reward for being more productive. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that the person who runs a corporation is hundreds of times more productive than the professionals it employs, as the distribution of incomes in American corporations these days would suggest.

So, while I agree with Jefferson's maxim that the government that governs best is the one that governs least, I only take that maxim so far. As Wolf points out, there are other ways to make a nation's economy nonfunctional, and in this age of overpaid CEOs and runaway financial instruments, we're seeing that sometimes government regulation is the best way of keeping markets free. Allowing money, and thus power, to concentrate in too few hands makes that government regulation less likely to be effective.

UPDATE: Paul Krugman nailed anti-government idiocy yesterday in his column:

How did we get to this point? It’s the logical consequence of three decades of antigovernment rhetoric, rhetoric that has convinced many voters that a dollar collected in taxes is always a dollar wasted, that the public sector can’t do anything right.

The antigovernment campaign has always been phrased in terms of opposition to waste and fraud — to checks sent to welfare queens driving Cadillacs, to vast armies of bureaucrats uselessly pushing paper around. But those were myths, of course; there was never remotely as much waste and fraud as the right claimed. And now that the campaign has reached fruition, we’re seeing what was actually in the firing line: services that everyone except the very rich need, services that government must provide or nobody will, like lighted streets, drivable roads and decent schooling for the public as a whole.

America Goes Dark

I think part of the problem in America has been the tendency of many individuals, and this is not just true of conservatives or libertarians, to favor sloganeering and name-calling over facts and logic. Did anyone "Serious" ask President Reagan who that "welfare queen" was, and why she hadn't been investigated for fraud? A reasonably bright fifteen year old child should be able to ask questions like that. But no, people who were inclined to believe such things simply believed it, no matter that no real proof was ever offered.

When the majority of the country is inclined to believe such obvious bullshit, there's little that we can discuss intelligently. We're now paying the price for that, too.

Quote Of The Day

This one is from Juan Cole, at his blog Informed Comment:

[W]hat is at stake in both gay marriage and Muslim mosque building from the point of view of those who believe in the American tradition of civil liberties for individuals, in the default position that the government has no business regulating unharmful individual activity. It is nothing less than the assertion of inalienable rights over the whims and emotions of a very large mob.

Mosque Building and Gay Marriage vs. Mob Rule by the Right

People who whine about the "rights" of the majority not to be offended by actions of minority groups ignore this point entirely: There has to be a good reason to restrict someone's rights, or potentially none of us is free to offend someone. I am neither gay nor a Muslim, but the lack of freedom for them represents a potential lack of freedom for me.

That's another reason it's worth fighting for.

Proposition 8 Struck Down

Caption: This article didn't really require a picture, but it seems appropriate, and I'm helping Yves Smith out with her link problem.

I can report that something good happened today:

A federal judge overturned California's ban on same-sex marriage Wednesday, the latest twist in a legal saga which could have nationwide implications for the divisive social issue.

In a written opinion, Judge Vaughn Walker ruled in favor of rights activists who argued that a November 2008 referendum which barred gays and lesbians from tying the knot was discriminatory and therefore violated the US Constitution.

Judge Overturns California Gay Marriage Ban

Of course, the inevitable question is, what happens on appeal? The conventional wisdom seems to be that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will uphold the ruling. The question on my mind, like many folks I suspect, is what happens at the Supreme Court? Bmaz seems to think that Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is often the deciding vote these days, will come down in favor of upholding this ruling:

I believe that Linda [Greenhouse] is spot on the money with her analysis of what drives Anthony Kennedy in his jurisprudence. And this is exactly what his longtime friend, and Supreme Court advocate extraordinaire, Ted Olson will play on and argue when the day arrives. It is exactly what Vaughn Walker has ingrained in to and framed his extraordinary decision today on.

BREAKING NEWS: Court Overturns Prop 8; Joy For Marriage Equality

So, not so likely. I've learned not to underestimate the Supreme Court, or DC in general, when it comes to abject displays of stupidity, but this may hold up.

At least one thing that happened today was good. That's something.

The Price Of Freedom, Continued

Image credit: National Park Service

“If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.” - Lewis Carroll

As Josh Marshall writes, it's painful to be reminded of these things, but Peter Beinart reminds us that the jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) wasn't always about making sure Muslims didn't build their churches where decent folk might be somehow troubled:

The ADL calls itself “the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency.” Coming from an explicitly Jewish organization, that’s an audacious claim. But it’s an inspiring one, too. The ADL was born in 1913, after a Georgia jury falsely convicted a Jewish factory owner named Leo Frank of murdering a Christian employee. The men who defamed, and later lynched, Frank were anti-Semites. But they were not only anti-Semites. Three months after Frank’s murder, some of his tormenters met on Georgia’s Stone Mountain to refound the Ku Klux Klan, an organization that would now dedicate itself not merely to terrorizing African-Americans, but to terrorizing Catholics and Jews as well.

Against this backdrop, the founders of the ADL made their organization a kind of mirror image of the Klan. If the Klan saw anti-Semitism as one component of the struggle to maintain white, Protestant supremacy, the ADL would make its opposition to anti-Semitism one component of the struggle against white, Protestant supremacy. If bigotry was indivisible, anti-bigotry would be indivisible too. “The immediate object of the League is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people,” declared the ADL’s charter. “Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.”


Hateful Ground Zero Hypocrisy

As Beinart goes on to point out, the ADL just forgot the principles of reason and tolerance it was founded on. Eventually, it became the organization that decided it was OK to keep a muslim place of worship out of an area because of a dreadful crime that some fanatical adherents to that religion committed there.

They aren't the only organization to do that lately. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) did much the same thing when it rushed to judge Shirley Sherrod a racist, despite the fact that it produced the original video that Andrew Breitbart's site published in doctored form. It forgot that rushing to judgment without knowing the facts is what bigots do.

This is the problem with living in a free society. People are often free to do things you find annoying. They're free to advertise their religions loudly and often, which certainly bothers me. They're free to say stupid things, and thoughtless things, even on the air. As long as I have the right to say, in turn, that these people are stupid, and to explain why, I'll live with that. It's the price I pay for being able to speak my mind.

It's a price we all pay for being free.

When I coined the phrase molestus hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning, it should have been obvious that what I was referring to isn't reasoning at all. It's just letting your prejudices rule your thinking. There is a purpose to reason, and there is merit in learning the facts and reflecting on their meaning before reaching a judgment. In the era of 24 hour news cycles, we need to remember this, both as producers and consumers of news.

That's another price we all pay for being free.

But most of all, we need to remember who we are, who we want to be, and what the really scary people do. I wonder sometimes if most of us even know what that means anymore.

Marijuana Madness

Jane Hamsher asks the obvious rhetorical question about marijuana and the problems along our southern border, which is "When we discuss immigration, why aren't we talking about marijuana?"

It's a good question. As Dave Anderson observed at Ian Welsh recently:

One of the options for managing violence in northern Mexico is for the government to embrace a most favored cartel (mfc). Since at least April of this year, the Sinaloa cartel has been rumored to be a contender for the spot of the most favored cartel. The argument is that there is a tacit agreement that the MFC and the Mexican government would cooperate with each other to suppress other cartels. The MFC would agree to divert some of its kickbacks to the relevant governmental elites as well as maintain urban security with a tolerable and much lower level of violence as its competitors would no longer be alive or competing with it.

Most Favored Cartels And Car Bombs

The Mexican government, in short, cannot stop all the cartels from operating, so they have picked one to back, and let it either absorb or kill off the rest. That's what all the money we've sent to Mexico for marijuana has helped create: a state that can't even fight its own criminal elements.

This violence threatens to spill over into our country, but our politicians mostly don't have the nerve to say this is true.

Our current drug policy, particularly regarding marijuana, is madness. All it does is make the domestic prison industry happy, and corrupt the governments of our neighbors and allies.

Some Of Us Aren't There Yet, But It's Way Past Time They Caught Up

Former United States Army Lt. Dan Choi was interviewed by Rachel Maddow yesterday about his recent discharge from the Army.


My favorite quote from this interview is Choi's description of what it felt like to be discharged:

First time I'm a civilian since I was eighteen years old. It's - You know, as much as you can prepare for this kind of consequence, and I knew what I was getting into when I appeared on your show the very first time, as much as you build up your armor and get ready for those words saying that you're fired, you can't deal with that pain and that emotion.

[my own transcription. Beware inadvertent misquotes]

Blindly rushing into a situation isn’t nearly as courageous as deliberately taking a step, knowing what you’ll pay to do it. Dan Choi did that last year. He was a West Point graduate, and he clearly wanted to be a soldier. He just didn’t want to lie about who he was to stay one.

That’s what makes what Choi did heroic, and I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot more of him in the future.

This isn't the first time I've written about the wasteful and inhumane Don't Ask, Don't Tell law that has been causing the military to shed good people when it needs them most:

To say this makes no sense is a vast understatement. The Air Force and other U.S. military services actively seek out these folks and discharge them. At the same time, the Army, in particular, has been, at least until the economy tanked, recruiting criminals and people with health problems to fill its ranks. [USAF] LTC [Victor] Fehrenbach is by no means the first highly skilled person the military have dismissed, either[.]

Some Of Us Aren't There Yet, But It's Time They Caught Up

Nor will Dan Choi be the last, I'm sorry to say. As I noted in that article, the President Obama could have stopped Choi's discharge with a stroke of a pen, yet he didn't. He could have stopped the service from actively seeking out gay and lesbian service members. But he has not.

As I also wrote in that earlier article, we're ready for this change to happen:

[A]s part of the larger trend of acceptance of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGBT) people on TV [the openly bisexual Torchwood character Captain Jack Harkness] is significant. Jack Harkness is a heroic character, and the series makes no bones about that. It's taken for granted. In many ways, Western society has learned to accept LGBT people. There are openly gay and lesbian entertainers. A couple have their own talk shows. Tens of millions of Americans watch these people every day and think nothing of it. Most of us, if we just forget how things have been in the past, think there's nothing terribly remarkable about that.

Some Of Us Aren't There Yet, But It's Time They Caught Up

The embedded video in this article features an openly lesbian television journalist interviewing an openly gay man. Most of the country, including a large share of the U.S. military, have caught up with this.

It's about time the President got caught up on some of his campaign promises. After the Shirley Sherrod debacle, you might think he would start noticing how few people are left in the sleigh.

Quote Of The Day: Cutting Through Nonsense

Caption: A kitchen knife. It has three edges, but it will still cut through vegetables.

Image credit: Yashima



Stephanie Zvan, over at Almost Diamonds wrote this a few days ago:

People who are talking about how being mean or angry doesn't teach people to think critically or evaluate evidence are missing half the point. Skepticism is only partly process. It's also a set of values. Good luck getting someone to put in the time and effort required for critical analysis if they don't understand why objective truth is worthwhile. Expect to be told to lighten up and go get some sunshine if the person you're talking to doesn't understand--viscerally--the harm done by relying on unworthy sources of "knowledge."

On The Utility Of Dicks

Truth, so the saying goes, is a three edged sword - your side, my side, and the reality. That might be true, at least in the sense that there will always be a bit of room between our understanding of the universe and how it actually works. That's no excuse for not learning what is known about the world, and it's no reason to avoid criticizing an opinion that differs from our knowledge of reality because someone really, truly believes it with all his heart.

I've written before on the frustration of trying to discuss with religious fanatics their complete lack of understanding of their world. The people I wrote about in that article aren't interested in a reasoned discussion of beliefs. They're just out to promote theirs. If you just tell them nicely that you disagree with them, they think they've found someone they can convert, or at least someone who is interested in discussing their nonsense. At least if you tell them forthrightly that they're lunatics and they should learn something about their own religion before insisting that we plaster its commandments all over our public buildings, they'll at least understand that you're not a pushover.

So, yes, when some fool comes along, hears the end of that discussion, and decides that I'm being unreasonable by explaining that I'm not going to "respect" beliefs that make no sense, I get a little uppity. If you'll notice, the knife in the illustration has three edges. Two of them are close together. The other one's the dangerous one.

There, that's a saying I can get behind.

Odds 'N Ends For The Fourth

Image credit: Cujo359

Just a few things around the 'Net that might be of interest...

First of all, Liz Ditz of I Speak Of Dreams has written a terrific post that links to my article about DDI and Quackwatch. There's an executive summary:

The very, very short version: an independent health-care-fraud muckraking association is being intimidated, via a law suit with a $10 million dollar claim. The suit has been filed on behalf of a for-profit laboratory that does millions of dollars of business providing tests that enable quack or questionable "therapies" for heart disease, autism, and other conditions.

The for-profit laboratory has deep pockets and has associates with even deeper pockets.

If you want to support health-care-fraud muckraking, go here to donate. If you are a skeptic or dislike legal bullying, you should donate.

Health Consumer Activist Group Subject to Legal Threats -- Send Help

[link from original]

This article goes into a lot of detail that I skipped in mine. It's worth a read, I think. It turns out there's now a petition to sign as well. That's the link to the text of the petition. You do read the text of petitions before you sign, don't you?

The second bit of business is this article by Ian Welsh on what it ought to mean to be American:

On this, the 4th of July, I, a Canadian, want to talk to Americans about their values. Perhaps that’s presumptuous. Perhaps I should just shut it and say “it’s none of my business.”

I could argue that it’s my business on purely pragmatic grounds: where goes the US, Canada often follows. We are a US subject state in all but name, and your failure to fix your problems makes it much harder and sometimes impossible to fix our problems.

But forget that. I don’t primarily care about the US because of Canadian interests, I care about the US because I care about the American dream.

America Cannot Be America At Perpetual War

I think that the best way to remember what has made America great, and what's really worth fighting for, is to learn what foreigners say about what America means to them. What makes us great isn't baseball, Disneyland, or our military, it's that tradition of citizens being involved in their country, and having a framework that allows them to do so without fear. We're losing that, and with it we're losing the only thing that makes us special.

So if you want to get fighting mad, go read.

Finally, Dana Hunter wrote yesterday about her trip to Lincoln Park:

Like many parks around these parts, it has interesting rocks. I encountered one almost immediately upon hitting the beach, which meant the beach got neglected[.]

Lincoln Park

So here you are, some Lincoln Park beach:
Image credit: Cujo359

Click to enlarge. I know sometimes it's hard to see the beach for the driftwood, and the rocks.

Have a good Sunday. If you're anywhere near America, enjoy the fireworks.

Quote Of The Day

Glenn Greenwald, referring to a report that says that terrorist activity directed at America has increased in 2010:

Maybe, one day, we might want to ask: "why"? Is it because they Hate Us For Our Freedoms more than ever before? Are we Extra Free now, thus increasing their Hatred to brand new levels? Or are they still angry about George Bush's cowboy swagger even though he's been gone for a-year-and-a-half? Or is it that those Crazy Primitive Hateful Muslim Fanatics are being pumped full of more unfair anti-American conspiracy theories than before? Or does something else explain this? Is there perhaps anything we're doing to cause it? Asking all that may not be as fun or as profitable as picking out all the new rights we're going to restrict and renounce and the shiny new powers we're going to vest in our leaders each time there is another attempted Terrorist attack, but it's probably still a good idea to do it anyway.

The Unasked Question

For the life of me, I cannot understand why, when he was elected as much as anything to end them, President Obama has continued the same failed policies of the Bush Administration toward the Muslim world and terrorism. Yet here we are, trying to avoid losing any more rights and knowing full well that we'll be stuck in both Iraq and Afghanistan for the remainder of his term of office.