Saturday, August 02, 2003 Yes, Brad I really like this approach. When someone says anything inadvertently racist, we shouldn't just nicely correct them and try to continue the discussion. We should start a witch hunt, hounding the offender and screaming "racism" at the top of our lungs. -Brad
First of all, inadvertant racism is pretty hard to argue. Especially in the case in point - some asshole actually had the nerve to say that reparations were being paid in the form of welfare. Reparations :: Welfare.
Second, to say that it's a witch hunt to question this kind of idiocy is a ridiculous stretch.
Third, and most importantly, of course we should yell racism at the top of our lungs as long as people are backwards enough to be racists. And while we're at it, as long as people are blind enough or racist enough to ignore racism, someone needs to keep on yelling.
Edit: In response to CW's retort that he was just quoting, here is the quote from him:
Hasn't the government, as John McWhorter argues, been paying reparations for a very long time now in the form of welfare payments, affirmative action, and other programmes targeted specifically at black people?
CW, Brad, the sentiment is racist, first of all, and asking, Hasn't the government been doing what this guy says? is not a mere reference, it's a rhetorical agreement that he supports with his arguments against reparations.
People who call Baraka anti-semetic ignore the distinction that must be made between Israel and the Israeli government. Baraka makes this distinction very clear through his condemnation of the holocaust and of persecution of Jewish peoples:
Who put the Jews in ovens, and who helped them do it Who said "America First" and ok'd the yellow stars
With a simultaneous accusation against the Israeli government.
Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day Why did Sharon stay away?
He may or may not be right to assert what he does, but he is certainly not anti-semetic.
I just came across this very interesting transcript of evil-doer Bill O'Reilly's interview with New Jersey's contentious poet laureate Amiri Barka from several months ago. For the past year O'Reilly has been hosting almost anyone he can get from the New Jersey state government and asking them why they haven't done more to get Baraka removed from his poet laureate position. His primary source of anger stems from this poem about September 11 which many claim is racist and anti-semetic (I tend to agree that parts of it are). While I don't really think there is much redeaming value to shout-fests like "The O'Reilly Factor," what is fascinating to me about the interview is the way Baraka is able to twist O'Reilly's most obtuse criticisms back at him in a way that other guests of the show have not been able to do. It is an interesting matchup between a hot-headed right-wing idealouge and a more even tempered- but no less radical- black poet.
One excerpt from the end of the show:
O'REILLY: Baraka, right. You know, I'm cloudy here because you're throwing a lot of stuff at me. You teaching schoolchildren...
BARAKA: I taught school for 20 years.
O'REILLY: ... is akin to me having Mussolini come in and teach children.
BARAKA: Well, your being on television is akin to having Goebbels on television.
Posted by Jordan,
3:34 PM
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Erase racism contest! Chien Wen said in comments: "Hasn't the government, as John McWhorter argues, been paying reparations for a very long time now in the form of welfare payments, affirmative action, and other programmes targeted specifically at black people?"
Even John Stevenson agreed with me when I said this seems racist and/or ignorant. It implies welfare goes only, or mostly to black people. The majority of people on welfare are white. How is that a program "targeted specifically at black people"?
Chien Wen blithely responded: "Careless grammar. I didn't mean that welfare was targeted specifically at black people, just that there exist these programmes."
Grammar?! If welfare isn't specifically targeted at black people, how is relevent to reparations and why did Chien Wen mention it? (The 'idea' is that black people are receiving such undeserved benefits, I guess) So here's the contest: explain what Chien Wen meant to say, preferably by fixing that grammar! Erase the racism and ignorance from his statement while still mentioning welfare and reparations. This may be difficult for some, but should be a snap for dartloggers.
My entry isn't exactly a rephrasing of Chien Wen's comment, but here's my suggested excuse: Well, it's 'technically accurate' because John McWhorter does argue it. [Ed. Does he? I don't know, but didn't George Tenet tell us that Chien Wen made a racist statement?]
Posted by Timothy,
2:59 PM
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Happy birthday, Clint
Posted by Jonathan,
2:52 AM
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Friday, August 01, 2003 For Emmett Heh.
Posted by Timothy,
8:32 PM
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Biden's Plagiarism If Delaware Senator Joe Biden does run for president again, I want him to tell us how he's going to be able to talk about George Bush's deception when his own issues with truth and credibility will be brought up again and again by the media. From the Christian Science Monitor, September 18, 1987:
The fuss began on Saturday. The Des Moines Register and the New York Times reported that Biden had used, without credit, the words of British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock during Biden's closing remarks at a debate in Iowa last month.
Mr. Kinnock, in a TV commercial in May, had said: ''Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? ... Was it because our predecessors were thick? ... Was it because they were weak, those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football? ... It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.''
Biden, using Kinnock's gestures and cadence, said in August: ''Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? .. Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? ... Is it because they didn't work hard, my ancestors who worked in the coal mines ... and could come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours? ... It's because they didn't have a platform upon which to stand.''
Biden told the audience that the thoughts had come to him as he was driving from the airport. But yesterday, Biden explained to reporters that he was at a loss for a closing statement when he got to the airport, and an aide had suggested using Kinnock's statement. Biden, who had studied a tape of Kinnock, agreed. Since then, other examples have surfaced, including an excerpt from one of Robert Kennedy's speeches. Biden explained yesterday that one of his writers had lifted the words from Mr. Kennedy, unbeknown to Biden, who failed to recognize them. The law school incident took place during Biden's first few weeks at Syracuse University. In a required paper, he copied five pages from a law review article without giving credit. He got caught, was given an ''F'' in the course, and was required to take it again. Biden claimed - then and now - that it was an innocent mistake. At the time, Biden explained in a letter to the faculty that ''I honestly didn't think it possible to plagiarize a legal memorandum.'' Biden graduated 76th out of 86 students in his class. His scholastic record was undistinguished. But there were no more ethical lapses. Dean Robert W. Miller of Syracuse told the Delaware Board of Bar Examiners after Biden's graduation: ''Mr. Biden is a gentleman of high moral character. ... There is nothing to indicate the slightest question about his integrity, industry, or ability.''
Posted by Timothy,
8:10 PM
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No Divorcing by Text-Message, Malaysia Court Rules
MALAYSIA: ELECTRONIC DIVORCE REVIEWED Reacting to an Islamic court ruling that approved a divorce initiated with a husband's text message to his wife, the government said it would tighten religious laws to bar the use of electronic messages in divorces. Under Islamic law, a man can be granted a divorce by declaring his intention to his wife and then repeating his desire before a religious law judge. Abdul Hamid Othman, the government's religious adviser, said rules to begin divorce proceedings would be made more strict and would exclude text messaging and "other easy methods, like e-mails, voice mail or even facsimile." (link via isthatlegal?)
"OK, so Zionism may not be “racism,” but this sure as hell is. Congrats to the Sharon government and Israeli Knesset for confirming what their worst enemies claim about them."
Meretz MKs Zahava Gal-On and Roman Bronfman are planning to petition the High Court of Justice to invalidate Thursday's Knesset plenum decision to pass a law preventing Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens from receiving citizenship or permanent residency status, Gal-On told Israel Radio on Friday. Gal-On said that Israel could not use the justification of security considerations to allow such a violation of civil rights.
Haaretz also says the bill was also made into a vote of confidence in the government by Ariel Sharon.
Posted by Timothy,
5:09 PM
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Hard Core Politics In case anyone was worried the blog was getting a little too serious with all this debate over reparations and slavery....
Larry Flynt has officially declared he will be a candidate for California Governor. (I don't even want to imagine the jokes Waligore could come up with for this one)... The Hustler magazine publisher has filed initial paperwork to run in the gubernatorial recall election and says he may spend a large amount of his own money if people take his candidacy seriously.
Just to keep you updated on the porn king's opposition, the ballot may also include: Fmr. VP candidate Jack Kemp, Ariana Huffington and her husband (though they promised not to run against eachother), several people calling themselves Grey Davis, Schwarzenegger (who is leaning against it but will satiate our burning curiosity on live TV just before appearing on Jay Leno), L.A. Mayor Riordan, good ol' Bill Simon, and of course Rep. Darrell Issa, the man whose car-alarms shouted at you to, "Please step away from the car."
One thing I haven't seen mentioned in any articles is whether Grey Davis, after being recalled, could mount an effort to "recall" his replacement? Hey it only costs a couple of million to get the signatures.
Posted by Dan,
2:19 PM
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Thursday, July 31, 2003 Reparations, Ethical Individualism, and Ethical Presentism In The Debt, Randall Robinson makes the appeal for reparations for slavery on the grounds that they are necessary to close the economic gap between blacks and whites as groups, which must be done to solve America's racial tensions and problems:
Lamentably, there will always be poverty. But African-Americans are over-represented in that economic class for one reason and one reason only: American slavery and the viscous climate that followed it. Affirmative action, should it survive, will never come anywhere near to balancing the books here. While I can speak only for myself, I choose not to spend my limited gifts and energy and time fighting only for a penny when a fortune is owed.
However, Robinson does not seem to be striving for complete equality for everyone and accepts certain types of inequalities, but argues they cannot be correlated with race:
After all, the object here is to close all socioeconomic gaps between the races....There will always be differences in the abilities and achievements of individuals, but achievement differences correlate with race must never be tolerated. That gap must be fully closed.
It seems reparations try to deal with two important and difficult issues: injustice in the past, and justice for groups. Jon Elster attack reparations arguments pretty much head-on by arguing for two principles (in his 1993 Monist article "Ethical Individualism and Presentism"):
...for the purposes of distributive justice, groups don't matter and the past doesn't matter. Justice is concerned with living individuals and with future individuals. The view that groups don't matter I call ethical individualism. The view that the past doesn't matter I call ethical presentism
Elster aims to rule out 'vulgar feminist' arguments like 'it is our turn to discriminate now', aristocratic notions of desert, backwards-looking affirmative action arguments, and arguments that we should be concerned about the average welfare of groups rather than individuals. So you can imagine that reparations does not fare well under Elster's analysis.
For ethical presentism, Elster notes that "for purposes of justice only the living matter." But Elster says a theory can still try to say the past matters if it says how the past has left morally relevant traces on the present:
I do not want to rule out theories according to which information about individuals who are no longer alive is essential to determine what is a just distribution among the living. But I would stipulate the following: injustice done to individuals who are no longer alive may constrain present distributions only if it has left morally relevant traces in the present, where what counts as 'morally relevant' is decided by whatever substantive theory we are considering.
Elster claims his two princliples are 'meta-ethical' because they are meant to rule out arguments for policies, not the policies themselves (I'm think they can act substantively to rule out policies, but I won't go into that here). So a policy that redistributes money or jobs from whites to blacks might be justifiable on other grounds besides 'reparations talk' which looks to the past; utilitarian considerations might justify it. But if we use a theory, Elster says we have to use it consistently. So, Elster says, if we use libertarian Robert Nozick's theory of restitution, we cannot appeal to average welfare of groups, as Nozick is not concerned about patterned distributions. (It's not clear to me that Nozick would agree that rectification need take place on an individual basis if present holdings were not justly acquired or justly transferred; rules of thumb would be permitted. Elster also says that John Rawls' specification of the difference principle so as to be concerned with the 'representative' person in the worst off group is also a violation of ethical individualism.)
Elster also says that we can deviate from ethical individualism if we do not have enough data to make fine distinctions (and we have principled reasons for this pragmatic approach). He gives the example of how young men pay higher rates than young women for car insurance because men as a group tend to have more accidents. Elster says that though this is "a violation of ethical individualism" it could "be justified on pragmatic grounds," if there is a "difficulty of getting accurate information about individual drivers...." and even goes so far as to say that "if the correlation was sufficiently high drivers might be rated according to the accident record of their parents."
Despite allowing for descent in car insurances cases, Elster objects to allowing this reasoning to justify reparations for slavery:
"The point is we cannot tell who, among living white Americans, are better off because of slavery. And then, treating all of them as if the were better off because we know that some of them are, is a violation of ethical individualism, a case of collective guilt..."
Elster allows that if person A has done nothing wrong to person B, but A is richer and B is poorer because of what A's father did to B's father, then compensating B at A's expense need not violate ethical individualism and presentism. But Elster notes that he has a "brute intuition" that if A's grandfather harmed B's grandfather, but A and B are no worse or better off than they would have been without that historical injustice, then no compensation can be owed. There are no morally relevant traces left in the present, so to compensate would be to violate ethical individualism. So Elster says he does not expect any claim for compensation to forthcoming.
However, is the intuition so brute that this would be unacceptable even if restored 99 B's to a position like they would have had the injustice not occurred, while hurting only a single A? If it was hard to separate out those few A's and B's, could such a reparations program be plausible?
If Elster did not allow any considerations of the past to matter, his 'ethical presentism' would be silly, but I'm wondering whether we get this result if we consider the problems connected with Parfit in the post below. In what sense does it make to talk about any historical injustice affecting individuals today? Afterall, if it hadn't happen, most of the individuals alive wouldn't likely be alive at all. So how can an injustice ever leave 'morally relevent' traces if we do not want to talk about justice for groups? If any generations-ago historical event had gone differently, no individual alive today would exist at all. That's a condensed taste of some of the stuff on reparations I have been thinking about. A lot of this stuff is offered tenatively and I'm curious what you guys think about ethical individualism and ethical presentism, and whether you can see a theory for reparations that work within those principles. I'm wondering whether there is some slipperness by the way the two principles work together (reparations is damned by one or the other), and whether the notion of collective responsibility always means collective guilt.
Posted by Timothy,
7:49 PM
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Slavery Reparations: Sacerdote Study
Tyler Cowen at the Volokh Conspiracy is a man of his word. After he sent out an open invitation for blogging topics, I asked him what he thought about Dartmouth Economics Professor Bruce Sacerdote's study "Slavery and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capitol" and he has posted on it here. Jacob Levy has an excellent response, providing some of the analysis I was looking for. Cowen replies again here.
Now I hope Cowen also talks about Parfit and the 'philosophical trick' arguing that individual persons cannot claim reparations based on the assertion that a century old injustice made them worse off than they otherwise would have been, because if that injustice hadn't occurred, they likely would not exist. No conservative advances this argument to the media. Stangely, a lot of liberals in academia seem to buy it, while academic George Sher (whom I have heard called 'an honest right-winger') tried to deal with this argument by saying that in comparing this world to the counterfactual world that would have existed without the historical injustice, we compare similarly situated persons, not identical ones. Conservative 'public intellectual' Dinesh D'Souza is willing to say that slavery made blacks today better off (because otherwise they would be in Africa). When I was working at The Nation, I asked Dinesh D'Souza if he bought the non-existence argument; he chuckled and said the relevent comparison was the group of people that would have existed with the same racial makeup.
Jacob Levy notes that: "I begin by noting that Sacerdote himself doesn't mention any implication his paper has for the reparations debate, as far as I can tell." Levy provides a link (via The Dartmouth Observer) to the orginal article in The Dartmouth through which most Dartmouth students (or alumni, in my case) first heard about the study. At the time, Dartmouth College's PR department also had press release on Sacerdote's study, touting the effect it could have on the reparations debate:
HANOVER, N.H. -- In a study that could create waves in the already controversial slavery reparations debate, Dartmouth College economist Bruce Sacerdote has found that the economic disparities slavery created between free blacks and those who were slaves largely dissipated within two generations after emancipation.
There was a slightly overheated letter to the editor in and a pompous reply by Chien Wen, of The Dartmouth Observer. [See also this old post by John Stevenson, also of the Observer.] It seems to me that people will use this study as 'proof' or as a scientific study against reparations, when it is not clearly that at all. This is part of a trend I worry about, whereby the abstract and resulting press from a study make it 'newsworthy' and people in the media use it as 'scientific evidence' of a normative position. Angry people will respond against the study, when the study itself might not show quite what it is said to show. Levy rightly notes that the study does not compare wealth, and Cowen dismisses this without explanation. There are a lot of theories that wealth, not simply imcome, is key to economic advancement (a basic idea is that you are willing to risk more for future possibilities if you have a base of family wealth. To take a simply example, a middle class kid can have his parent loan him the money for his first month's rent when he moves to a new city. Or consider how wealth might affect a person's willingness to forgo income in the present for educational opportunities now in the hopes of greater income in the future.)
(ALSO: see my post above for philosophical considerations on Repartions, Ethical Individualism, and Ethical Presentism)
Posted by Timothy,
5:31 PM
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Biden in the mix? According to this CBS report, Sen. Joe Biden has started making a few fundraising calls, in what could be the first step towards a presidential campaign. Of course, Biden has quite a bit of catching up to do:
He’ll need more than he thought following the arrest earlier this month of his longtime Delaware aide, Roger Blevins III, for allegedly embezzling the $350,000 leftover in Biden’s Senate re-election account, which could have been a nice nest egg for a presidential bid. Biden has just $7,000 in his coffers now.
Ouch. Biden has gained notoriety as a leading critic of the Iraq occupation, but I have no clue how he'd do as a candidate. Any thoughts?
Posted by Brad Plumer,
4:17 PM
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Sex and consent in the Midwest: Illinois has passed a new law stating that people can change their minds during sex and withdraw consent at any time:
(c) A person who initially consents to sexual penetration or sexual conduct is not deemed to have consented to any sexual penetration or sexual conduct that occurs after he or she withdraws consent during the course of that sexual penetration or sexual conduct.
My first reaction was that this is no big deal. If a woman changes her mind during intercourse and clearly states that she wants to stop, she should be able to stop. I'm guessing that this situation wouldn't occur very often. I would hope that most men could deal with the ensuing disappointment (and slight discomfort), and simply call the whole thing off.
But naturally, questions and doubts are bound to come up. As Dahlia Lithwick points out in this must-read Slate article, modern sexual assault laws are now stacked against men, after a long legal evolution. Whether this is justified or not-- and I think it is-- is a debate in itself. The issue here is that the Illinois laws make the male position even more precarious. Consensual intercourse is no longer safe; a man must now have unmitigated consent from the very first sultry glance to the final orgasm. And as the initial consents pile up, it becomes more and more difficult for any later refusal to seem at all meaningful. If a man has received consent right up until midway through intercourse, how seriously can he be expected to take a sudden display of hesitancy? I can't imagine very many people can just "turn off" during sex, especially if they're receiving vague signs of doubt. So does this make it that much easier for women to accuse men of rape, even when the man might have reasonably thought that he did absolutely nothing wrong? I can imagine scenarios where this law becomes abused: Woman consents to sex with Man, Woman thinks otherwise halfway through, confused Man doesn't stop right away, Man finally gets the hint and stops after 2 minutes, Man gets charged with rape. I don't know if this scenario is common or not, but it's within the realm of possibility, no?
Well, that's that. Ampersand has a longer post defending the law, and one with which I probably agree in the end. Even so, between this and the Kobe Bryant case, I think we very well might start seeing more discussions about protecting men from sexual assault charges.
Posted by Brad Plumer,
3:41 PM
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Changing Times: I am heartened to say that acceptance of the gay community is on the horizon. (From a CSM article, LINK)
In a recent Gallup poll, 72 percent of those aged 18-29 agreed homosexual relations should be legal, compared with 39 percent of those aged 65 and older. Most Americans don’t believe same-sex couples should be able to marry, yet 59 percent of incoming college freshmen support same-sex marriage, according to the latest survey by the Higher Education Research Institute.
Talcott on Dartlog tells someone to read D'Souza's Virtue of Prosperity. Too bad it was published before the "virtue" of Enron, Worldcom, Qwest, Arthur Andersen, Martha Stewart...
Posted by Jonathan,
1:56 PM
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Wednesday, July 30, 2003 Could Gore be Back? If this is even a remote possibility, I find it really surprising. Polls show that Gore could quickly capture the nomination even he jumped in as late as this November (he leads in polls tests everyone else by 30 points). But his jumping in would be quite a "screw you" move to current field which he assured months ago that he would not run. I am personally torn. I really liked him in 2000 but his personality grated a lot of Americans. That could happen again. Choice quotes about his return:
"...a former Democratic National Committee official close to Gore told The Hill he believes the former vice president may enter the Democratic primary this fall.
A second Gore confidant, Steve Armistead, a local Tennessee government official, said: “I think he’d like to grit his teeth and jump back in, but I can’t speak for him." LINK
Posted by Kumar,
9:52 PM
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Interesting Choices on Speech Coverage As of 3 when I got home, and now, top story on NyTimes.com and CNN [that was thus related] was Bush on gay marriage. On Fox, Bush confident Saddam will be caught; also talks about other world hot spots, and on BBC Al-Qaeda threat 'still real'. Now, most of these websites automatically reposition articles based on viewership - not sure about the BBC. That is, more people click on it, it goes on top. Isn't it sort of interesting what more people click on?
Posted by Jared,
7:22 PM
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Tom DeLay, Israeli at Heart
Or so says this NYT article. I'd be astounded to think any smart Israeli would claim him. But some of those Zionists are so rabid, they'll take any help they can get. Reminds me of that fable about the frog and the scorpion.
Posted by Jonathan,
3:43 PM
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I Wonder If This Campaign Worker Got Fired: (From a Slate article on a reporter covering a Kerry event in Iowa, LINK)
As I'm leaving the event, I run into a Kerry campaign worker. He stops me and asks me about Dean and what he's like. He says he'd really like to hear him speak, but it's not kosher for staffers to go to other candidates' events. Maybe if he goes in plain clothes, he muses. Everyone talks about what a great speaker Dean is, he says, but how does he interact with people? I tell him I was impressed.
The more I tell him about Dean, the more crestfallen he seems to get. Without mentioning Kerry, I tell him that Dean never appears to be trying to walk out of a room. He interjects: "That's a real problem we have, because Kerry's a senator, so he needs to be back in Washington. Dean's basically unemployed, so he can spend all day hanging out with three people." It's only a feeling I get, but I can't help wondering if he signed up with Kerry because he thought Kerry would win, and now he's questioning his decision. As I head out to catch my plane, I think that the girl on his right appears to be consoling him.
Posted by Kumar,
2:17 PM
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Lack of News Conferences: Given Bush's news conference in the Rose Garden today, a lot of stats are coming out about how few news conferences President Bush has given. (According to WaPo, this is Bush's 8th. By this time, Clinton had 33, and daddy Bush had 61.) But why are Bush's numbers so low? With Clinton under the Monica scandal, it made sense (whether you agree or not) because he was hiding from press' questions about Monica. Was it Clinton's great orator skills that gave him such high numbers. Well, no, considering older Bush was doing even more. Bush, in fact since 9-11, has been a truly untouchable president towering over the media and DC politics, prosecuting two wars and other things. Even before 9-11, he was not mired in scandal. Given such political strength, what explains such low number of conferences? Most Republicans claim that Bush is a fine speaker and likes to banter with the media, so why does he hide from them? Even if you buy that the White House likes to run a tight ship where there are few leaks, it still does not explain why our elected President is not talking? I don't really get it. Thoughts?
Posted by Kumar,
1:59 PM
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A Media with Some Teeth: I was impressed that the media did not shy from asking some tough questions from President Bush. Below are some of my favorites.
QUESTION: Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to Al Qaida were a key part of your justification for war, yet your own intelligence report, the NIE, defined it as, quote, "low confidence that Saddam would give weapons to Al Qaida." Were those links exaggerated to justify war or can you finally offer us some definitive evidence that Saddam was working with Al Qaida?
QUESTION: Building, sort of, on that idea, it's impossible to deny that the world is a better place and the region certainly a better place without Saddam Hussein. But there's a sense here in this country and a feeling around the world that the U.S. has lost credibility by building the case for Iraq upon sometimes flimsy or some people have complained nonexistent evidence. And I'm just wondering, sir, why did you choose to take the world to war in that way?
QUESTION: Since taking office, you've signed into law three major tax cuts, two of which have had plenty of time to take effect, the third of which, as you pointed out earlier, is taking effect now. Yet the unemployment rate has continued rising, we now have more evidence of a massive budget deficit the taxpayers are going to be paying off for years or decades to come, the economy continues to shed jobs. What evidence can you point to that tax cuts, at least of the variety that you have supported, are really working to help this economy, and do you need to be thinking about some other approach?
QUESTION: Mr. President, you often speak about the need for accountability in many areas. I wonder then why is Dr. Condoleezza Rice not being held accountable for the statement that your own White House has acknowledged was a mistake in your State of the Union address regarding Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium? And also, do you take personal responsibility for that inaccuracy?
QUESTION: Mr. President, with no opponent, how can you spend $170 million or more on your primary campaign?
QUESTION: And with 15 fund-raisers scheduled for the summer months, do you worry about the perception that you're unduly attentive to the interests of people who can afford to spend $2,000 to see you?
QUESTION: As you said just a few moments ago and say frequently in your speeches, the deficit was caused variously by the war, by recession, by corporate scandals, the 9/11 attacks. But just a couple of weeks ago, on July 15th, the Office of Management and Budget put out a report saying that without the tax cuts that Congress passed the budget would be back in surplus by 2008, but with those tax cuts factored in we have deficits that year and further years out of at least $200 billion, to use the phrase, as far as the eye can see. Aren't tax cuts in part responsible for the deficits and does that fact concern you? Are we now in a period where we have deficits as far as the eye can see?LINK
Last week, the House overwhelmingly passed a measure that would repeal a portion of the Patriot Act, which had been passed while the rubble at the Pentagon and World Trade Center still smoldered. The so-called Otter amendment would take away federal investigators' power to conduct "sneak-and-peek" searches — unannounced searches of homes and businesses.
The measure would be a small adjustment to the Patriot Act, but it indicates a growing belief among lawmakers that some investigators have abused their new powers and need to be held more strictly accountable. Those concerns may diminish any prospects for a sequel to the Patriot Act.
...
The Justice Department already seems to be adjusting its sights. One person familiar with the department's agenda said the original Patriot II proposal is now "dead."
The article notes that there seems to be a vast shift in Congress' attitude towards surveillance: "One top congressional aide said members seem primarily interested these days in their role as watchdogs. 'We are going to do aggressive oversight, looking into how the act is working,' one person said." This CNet article has a great summary of the new "privacy-backlash backlash" making the rounds in Washington. As they say, read the whole thing.
Posted by Brad Plumer,
12:30 PM
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Your friendly neighborhood Greens
Janos Marton puts up yet another invective against the Green Party today in the D. Nothing particularly new or striking, I suppose, though this paragraph was interesting:
The logic that the Greens should abandon the national stage and go local is just as preposterous. If a district is really liberal enough to elect a Green to any position of importance (and where could this happen outside of California or Madison?), then what could a Green in office accomplish that the same person could not accomplish as a Democrat? If you want to institute publicly financed elections, vote Democrat and get a liberal into office who will do it.
I've heard the "go local" argument before, and I don't think it's at all preposterous. The logic I've heard is that the Greens should go after those districts that have been gerrymandered into Republican strongholds. That's right: they should run in conservative, not liberal districts. Democrats spend little, if any, on these areas, and have all but conceded these House races. Thus enter the Greens, who try to rally college students, activists, and other disenchanted voters, in an effort to upend the GOP. At best, the Greens win the race and wrestle Congress away from the Republicans. At worst, they raise awareness on liberal issues and get voters out to the polls.
Now Janos might say all this is silly. If these districts can't elect a Democratic representative, how in the hell could they ever vault a Green into office? But the fact remains that the Greens can appeal to a large number of voters disgusted or disillusioned by the Dems. That's a valuable skill, and a joint Green-Democrat strike could be a powerful liberal force. Unfortunately, for this to happen the Greens would have to hate Republicans more than they hate Democrats, and that doesn't seem at all true right now.
"In the street close by an angry crowd pointed to a pool of blood in the road, near where one car was shot at as it approached the US soldiers. One witness told me: "My neighbours were getting out of their car when they started shooting," he said. "A woman was hit and a man got out of the car to say they were doing nothing wrong. So the soldiers fired at him, and at his brother in the car." At a central Baghdad hospital a US guard confirmed "several deaths", all of them as a result of gunshot and shrapnel wounds.
In Mansour people gathered around me. One man in the crowd expressed his outrage. He said the Americans always shot first and then they asked the questions. "There was no need for these shootings" another said. "Maybe the Americans thought Saddam Hussein was there, but they just got hysterical. They shot innocent civilians in front of our eyes." Another man told me he was no friend of Saddam Hussein's and he had not liked the former regime. "But I cannot accept the way the Americans treat us," he said. "When I see things like this I can understand why people want to drive them out of our country. If this happens more and more then I will also join this resistance." "
Posted by Nikhil,
7:14 AM
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But not on this one (reverse chronology)...
By now I'm sure you've all heard about this [NYT incarnation]: the DARPA (part of DoD) plan to predict security events using a market. In this case, the market allows people to trade in futures of events such as assassinations and terrorist attacks. This is not a simulation. This is a real market. Two of my favorite Senators, Dorgan (D-ND) and Wyden (D-OR) have already voiced their outrage, and I suspect others from both sides of the aisle will join in the condemnation of another Poindexter program. However, to my mind, one of the biggest problems is that this atrocity is "a program for which the Bush administration has sought $8 million through 2005." $8 million dollars to open a market to bet on assassinations. If Jared opened the same market with an eye on the Bush administration (something to which Senator Dorgan alludes, albeit not with Jared in mind), Jared would go to prison. When it's other people's heads on the block, it's an $8 million dollar experiment. Don't they have better things to do with $8 million? Maybe Howard Dean should raise enough money to buy this program and shut it down. Or turn it into a futures market on the longetivity of the career of whomever gets stuck with this potato, if it provokes some more outrage.
Posted by Jonathan,
2:37 AM
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I've gotta go with the "conservatives" on this one...
"I think everybody feels that it's a good idea because some of the kids who are gays and lesbians have been constantly harassed and beaten in other schools," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday. "It lets them get an education without having to worry."
You know, when they integrated schools racially, black people, well, they didn't have it too easy, either. New York City says re-segregate? And please, all, this isn't an invitation to note how in many places there is still de-facto segregation anyway. Nor is it a place to complain about busing practices. Does anyone actually think that this is a theoretically sound proposition?
Posted by Jonathan,
12:20 AM
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Monday, July 28, 2003 2 funny things Here and here.
On the rare occasion when he attended a faculty meeting, he'd take with him a wooden mechanical device that was shaped like a human hand--Lord knows where he got the thing-- set it on a desk, and then demonstrate his boredom by turning a crank that drummed the fingers.
I died laughing when I read this (link via oxblog).
Posted by Timothy,
7:58 PM
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Girly Man Read this hilarious old Weekly Standard piece on the prospect of Arnold running for governor. Here are some exerpts, particularly concerning allegations of sexual harassment (link obtained from a twenty something woman running for Governor in the recall and selling promotional thongs rather than simply bumper stickers):
For advice on how to dodge questions about his political future, Arnold has turned to Maria Shriver, who once told her Kennedy kin: "Don't look at [Arnold] as a Republican, look at him as the man I love. And if that doesn't work, look at him as someone who can squash you." His wife, he says, gives him eloquently simple advice: "She said, 'Don't screw up.' I said, 'How can I make sure of that?' She said, 'Don't talk.'" ... Last year when asked to speculate about a possible Arnold candidacy, presidential adviser Karl Rove sounded enthusiastic, telling the New York Times, "That would be nice. That would be really nice. That would be really, really nice." Arnold could face a major impediment, however. Last year, stories in both the National Enquirer and Premiere magazine alleged that Arnold had been grabby with some British television hostesses while promoting a film ("Kindergarten Cop-a-Feel" chimed one tabloid), as well as engaging in some more sustained extramarital shenanigans. With an Arnold run rumored to be imminent, Gray Davis's campaign manager, Garry South, wasted no time faxing the articles to reporters, with the inscription, "a real touching story." As for the charges, Arnold says they are outlandish and untrue. Much of the Premiere reporting contains background sniping. Many of the named grousees were in strangely public situations that would have seemed reckless even by Clintonian standards if Arnold had been committing actual lechery, instead of harmless flirtations in bad taste. For instance, Denise Van Outen, onetime host of Great Britain's "Big Breakfast" show, in which she interviewed guests in a bed, was openly flirtatious with Arnold, saying, "You grabbed my breast," then adding, "I really like it. Go on, have another go." To which Arnold replied, "It was a handful. I never know if my wife's watching. I'll tell her it was a stuntman." There were also examples of more piggish behavior--for instance, Arnold supposedly groped "Terminator" co-star Linda Hamilton in a limo in front of her boyfriend/director James Cameron, and a visitor to the set of one of his films is supposed to have happened on him in his trailer, orally gratifying someone other than his wife. Arnold says these are fantasies. After the Premiere piece, numerous celebrities, including Hamilton and Cameron, wrote letters to the editor claiming the charges were "pure fiction" (the reporter stood by his story).... "That does not mean I'm not guilty of some of this stuff," he says, referring to his well-earned reputation for having a ribald sense of humor. "In the last few years," he says, "I've toned it down because it has become a different world now, because of the sexual harassment. . . . You do things that someone today may take as [going] too far." Then, with a Mephistophelean smirk, he adds, "But no one that has been around me would believe that a woman would be complaining about me holding her." At this point, antsy handlers pull Arnold to the front of the plane for "planning," but not before he promises, "I'll be back."
Posted by Timothy,
7:44 PM
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What Do You Value More: Truth or Solidarity: Speaking to my father last night, I learnt that my uncle was very upset that I was trying to get my thesis published. The problem: that my thesis studied state repression and dissident groups and Kashmir was one of the case studies. My uncle's argument: "if a nice respectable Hindu boy like him starts saying that India committed any sort of repression, everyone will say....'look even the Indians admit it.'" He worries that I will weaken India's case in the larger debate. Pleased though I am that he gives me such importance, I am amazed how quickly he dismissed the value of truth to that of solidarity with a country/cause he agrees with. (Possible similarity to the calls to stand by Israel and not criticize, because Israel needed the solidarity)
What do people think? I think my uncle needs to get his priorities straight. Thoughts?
...on C-SPAN promoting her book to some "Independent Women's Forum" or somesuch quipped that Democratic college women are notoriously ugly, and it was good to be in a room where they weren't around to ask her questions.
This was promptly followed by a barrage of questions from ugly (or, to be fair, occassionally only grotesquely overweight) Republicans. Maybe Ann the Cheerleader should stick with what she obviously knows best and write a book on beauty or weight loss for her friends.
Intentional-yet-still-funny-because-it's-a-slur-on-Coulter-moment: Ann is presented with a writing implement, courtesy of the Claire Booth Luce foundation for somethingoranother declaring her a "Luce woman."
Posted by Jonathan,
8:40 AM
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Sunday, July 27, 2003 Rice is feeling the heat
Democrats, however, see a larger problem with Rice and her operation. "If the national security adviser didn't understand the repeated State Department and CIA warnings about the uranium allegation, that's a frightening level of incompetence," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), who as the ranking Democrat on the Government Reform Committee has led the charge on the intelligence issue. "It's even more serious if she knew and ignored the intelligence warnings and has deliberately misled our nation. . . . In any case it's hard to see why the president or the public will have confidence in her office." (WaPo, via drudge)
Posted by Timothy,
9:49 PM
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Bush Disrespects Flag
"The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature."
But that very law, in another section, grants the president leeway in this: "Any rule or custom pertaining to the display of the flag of the United States of America, set forth herein, may be altered, modified, or repealed, or additional rules with respect thereto may be prescribed, by the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, whenever he deems it to be appropriate or desirable; and any such alteration or additional rule shall be set forth in a proclamation."
I have added the emphases, because Emmett seems to not care that Bush can change rules of customs only by proclamation. Any argument excusing the President falls apart on the sole basis that there surely never was any proclamation altering the part of code quoted above. That law does not say that any action of the President, is by definition, respectful of the flag, as the President can do no wrong here. It would be an odd theory which held that every action the President does to the flag, even through forgetfulness or accident, is thought to automatically change long standing rules and customs, without the President even having to say so.
Section 8 of the code begins "No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America; the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing." Yet the flag and its customs of respect should metaphorically dip for every action of George W. Bush? It seems that Emmett thinks that if Bush violates previous custom, it is custom that is wrong, not Bush, and custom that must bend to his will, whim, and every incidental action. Either Bush has decided it is respectful to sign autographs on flags and did not bother to tell us, or he did not realize he was being disrespectful (in which case, how could anyone think this gives Bush 'leeway' to change what Bush might not even be aware of?)
If Clinton had done this, the right-wingers would be frothing at the mouth, saying it shows how unpatriotic Bill is; they would be concerned about the underlying customs. Bush's actions could not plausibly be said to show respect for the flag (unless you think our Great Leader's signature makes a flag that much more special; we owe our allegiance to him and his interpretations of our nation's symbols and he could never violate those, of course). Too often, conservatives allow patriotism and respect for our nation's symbols to be simply redefined by Bush's perogative, as in their minds the sovereign may never err.
Posted by Timothy,
9:16 PM
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Where's the (selective) outrage? Jaime Sneider at The American Scene writes about the American decision to show the pictures of the dead Hussein brothers:
According to the article, "Mohammad Emara, an Egyptian Islamist scholar, told Al Jazeera television that displaying the bodies publicly was against Islamic Sharia law." I find this more than a little hypocritical ... funny how no muslim leaders were expressing outrage when Al-Jazeera played tapes of murdered U.S. soldiers.
Um... didn't WE get outraged that those tapes [of American POW's] were shown? If 'muslims' are being hypocritical, aren't Rumsfeld, the Defense Department, and conservative pundits also being hypocritical? I'm shocked, shocked, that conservatives would be so selectively outraged at hypocricy. It does bring up an interesting point: when both liberals and conservatives switch sides are they both hypocrits? Can one call the other a hypocrit for doing the same action they are doing? How does this game get played out in the media and the spin-wars?
Update: A National Review blogger says almost the same exact thing. You'd think they get talking points or something.
Posted by Timothy,
7:55 PM
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John Stuart Mill Had Me Pegged Yesterday I was sitting in my apartment, reading John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism for my upcoming political theory comprehensive exams. Mill argued that we have consider the quality of a pleasure, not simply its quantity; once a person had known a a higher pleasure, he asserts, that person would not voluntarily choose a lesser pleasure fit for a swine. I was reading a paragraph that began: "It may be objected that any who are capable of the higher pleasures, occasionally under the influence of temptation, postpone them to the lower..." I was tired and read only up to here:
I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change, voluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance;
Without even thinking about it, I stopped reading and started playing a Nintendo game I had paused a while earlier. After a minute or two, it suddenly I had just helped confirm Mill's assertions by unthinkingly putting his intellectual work aside to try to kill Gannon's phantom in the Legend of Zelda. I looked back at the continuation of the passage:
and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupation to which their position in life had devoted the, and the society intto which it has thrown the, are not favorale to keeping that higher capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only one to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer capable of learning.
P.S. I do NOT think blogging is a higher pleasure!
Posted by Timothy,
7:27 PM
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Shooting Fish in a Barrel?
