tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59738272024-03-07T18:17:20.479-05:00The Stopped ClockPolitical discussion and ranting, premised upon the fact that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.comBlogger3510125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-5611698977134015212016-10-14T12:40:00.000-04:002016-10-14T12:40:26.937-04:00Rebuilding ExpertLaw<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://i66.tinypic.com/2rzywko.jpg" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
<p>One of my efforts over the past year has been to rebuild and re-invigorate my legal website, <a href="http://www.expertlaw.com/">ExpertLaw</a>. This process has been delayed and confounded by some disastrous experiences with programmers, and it has been a long, difficult process.</p>
<p>If you like the site, please consider telling your friends about it, or share a link to an article you found helpful.</p>
<p>If you have lawyer friends who want a free opportunity to promote their practices, you can let them know that they can register for the directory.</p>
<p>Lawyers and other legal professionals who want to help support an independent website may also contribute original articles to the library.</p>
<p>Expert witnesses are, as always, encouraged to sign up for a free listing.</p>
<p>If you have any ideas about how to improve the website or build out its content, please let me know.</p>
<p>Thanks,</p>
<p>- Aaron</p>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-76943629108040939132016-10-14T12:33:00.001-04:002016-10-14T12:42:49.619-04:00Long Hiatus<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://i66.tinypic.com/2rzywko.jpg" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
<p>I significantly reduced my level of blogging quite some time ago. This blog had quite a bit of traffic for new content for quite a few years and then traffic tapered off. I discovered later that the blog had been misidentified by Google as having spam content -- but that was about a year after the problem originated. Google resolved the issue quickly, but the traffic did not return.</p><p>I continued blogging regularly, but I never again achieved the level of engagement that attracted me to the platform in the first place. I did discuss some of my post offline and through email, but I don't need to maintain a blog to have those conversations. I appreciated those who continued to follow and comment on my blog, so if any of them are passing by to read this I'm sorry for disappearing.</p><p>When I decided to move away from blogging, it was also due to my perception that blogging has become just another publishing platform. In the early days, it was a very dynamic environment for sharing ideas, particularly in long form, with people reading and commenting on each other's blogs, linking to each other, and creating something that seemed not so much like a community of people, but a community of ideas.</p><p>With the evolution of the Internet, it seemed that much of the conversation moved to the short form. Twitter, love it or hate it, is the anti-blogging platform. Many people shifted their discussion of politics to Facebook, but... the signal to noise ratio is problematic. Some blogs have continued to build or maintain communities, but the manner in which Google gave up its news reader service and the gradual abandonment of RSS feeds by some major website reflects the larger changes in the Internet and how people share ideas.</p><p>I am not going to go so far as to say that blogging is dead, but I will say this: It's really now primarily a self-publishing platform, a simple-to-use CMS (content management system), and if you're starting a site you need to consider your other options -- be that a more complex content management system, or an alternative built around the present, dominant social media websites. I don't suggest hitching your entire wagon to somebody else's star, as if that star should fall you'll go down along with it but, should you go in that direction, you probably have a pretty good idea about which social media sites are likely to be around for the longer-term.</p><p>If you have any thoughts on the direction of the Internet and the sharing of information in the era of social media, please share a comment.</p>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-78486307688344121972015-09-28T19:46:00.003-04:002015-09-28T19:49:07.274-04:00How to Talk About Ahmed "Clock Boy" Mohamed Without Sounding Like a Fool<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
<p>When we're talking about people writing for <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/09/28/bill-maher-doubles-down-on-ahmed-mohameds-clock/">an outfit like Breitbart</a>, coming across as an idiot on this type of matter may be part of the job description, but for the rest of us....</p>
<blockquote>Credit where it’s due to comedian Bill Maher and HBO show Real Time, which has become one of the few mass media outlets telling the truth about “Clock Boy” Ahmed Mohamed, who was removed from his Irving, Texas school when he brought a device to the school unannounced that resembled a bomb.</blockquote>
<p>If Maher is correct, let's skip ahead to his conclusion:<p>
<blockquote>Maher has repeatedly said that he believes Mohamed should not have been arrested.</blockquote>
<p>That's the gist of the controversy -- that Mohamed <em>was</em> arrested. Had he merely been sent to the principal's office, we would never have heard of him.
</p><p>
So is that the story? A young teenager was needlessly arrested for having a clock, with Breitbart's right-wingers joining with Maher to deplore the stupidity of his arrest? Of course not. What the author actually approves is Maher's claim that the teenager was not as bright as the initial stories suggested, and Maher's anti-Muslim rhetoric. So let's take those issues in order:</p>
<blockquote><p>Maher used a zinger to shut down the notion that the boy removing the back of a piece consumer electronics and showing it to people makes Mohamed any kind of inventor, saying “This is like pouring milk on a bowl of Cheerios and claiming you invented cereal.”...
</p><p>
It’s the second time that Maher has featured the Clock Kid as a topic of discussion. On a previous episode of Real Time, billionaire Marc Cuban revealed that when he spoke on the phone with Muhamed and asked him questions, he could hear his sister whispering answers to him.</p></blockquote>
<p>Tee, hee, hee, Maher really put that fourteen-year-old boy in his place. But here's the problem: the boy wasn't arrested for plagiarism, for cheating on his homework, for patent infringement.... Even if we presuppose that he can't even tie his shoes by himself or speak in coherent sentences, that in no way stands as an excuse for his treatment by the school or by the police. It's <em>irrelevant</em>.</p>
<blockquote>When liberal Ron Reagan, Jr. attempted to claim that the device that Mohamed brought to school didn’t resemble a bomb, Maher quickly defused his argument, urging him, “Try taking that through airport security.”</blockquote>
<p>And, as Reagan correctly pointed out, it would not have been a problem -- because you're actually <em>allowed</em> to take clocks, and electronic components, onto airplanes. The boy would have placed his pencil case on the scanner belt, the person operating the scanner might have flagged the item for further review, and upon further review it would have been determined to be a clock. They might also have swabbed the case to test for any residue of explosives, only to again confirm... clock.
</p><p>
While clocks can be used as timing devices for explosives, clocks are present in many things that people routinely take onto airplanes. Cell phones, computers, tablets, ebook readers, wristwatches, travel alarm clocks.... It's really <em>not</em> alarming -- even if it's an alarm clock -- unless there's some indication that it's actually going to be used in association with an explosive device. And no, looking like your memory of the excessively complicated explosive device created by the prop department of a James Bond movie does not translate into it's being anything more than a clock.</p>
<blockquote>On that episode Maher also noted that so many young Muslim men have “blown a lot of shit up around the world.”</blockquote>
<p>The boy's religion has obviously factored into discussion of the case, and appears to be the leading factor in Maher's knee-jerk reaction to the case. It's a factor that is emphasized and amplified in the right-wing media, where you can read conspiratorial tales of how the boy's older siblings or father are activists of one sort or another, and how the whole thing was a deviously clever set-up of the school.
</p><p>
Okay.... so we have a kid who's actually stupid, and does nothing more than disassemble off-the-shelf clocks and put them into his pencil case, but at the same time who is so clever that he tricked the police into arresting him, and tricked the right-wing media machine into engaging in anti-Muslim demagoguery? I think there's a bit of tension between those two positions, but leaving that aside for the moment, proponents of the Muslim angle have a bigger problem:
</p><p>
The school does not report that it suspected that the boy's device was a bomb, real or fake, because of his religion. The school does not suggest that their knowledge of the boy's family played any role in its decision to treat the possession of the clock as a criminal matter, and to call in the police. The police don't claim that they knew the boy's religion, or that they suspected that the clock was something other than a clock because of his religion.
</p><p>
The commonality seems to be that the teacher, school officials and police officers who made the stupid decision to treat this as a criminal matter believed that anything that looks like the time from a bomb in a James Bond movie <em>has to be</em> a bomb -- be it an actual bomb or a fake bomb. That's not a matter of the boy's being the most brilliant inventor on the planet or dumb as a rock; it's not a matter of the boy being Muslim, Christian, Hindu or atheist. It's a matter of the school administration and police acting foolishly and needlessly arresting a boy for his possession of a clock.
</p><p>
The actual story is this: A boy brought a clock to school, whether disassembled or home-made, a teacher was concerned by its appearance, the school overreacted and brought in the police, and the police overreacted by making an arrest. Once you subtract the anti-Muslim rhetoric, you can move straight forward into what seems to be obvious even to a Breitbart writer, "Mohamed should not have been arrested". Your choice to inject more into the story may tell us something about <em>you</em>, but it's otherwise irrelevant.</p>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-43475663540826800762015-09-23T16:29:00.000-04:002015-09-23T16:29:00.907-04:00One of the Prices of Bigoted Demagoguery<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
<p>Professional Islamophobe Pam Geller brings <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/ahmed-mohamed-anti-muslim-activists">her trademark (lack of) insight</a> to the Ahmed Mohamed incident, the boy who was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school:</p>
<blockquote>"If you ever see a Muslim with a suspicious object, remember the lesson of Ahmed Mohamed: to say something would be 'racism,'" she wrote. "That could end up being the epitaph of America and the free world."</blockquote>
<p>A rational mind might observe that the biggest difference between a homemade clock and a homemade bomb is that the latter involves explosives. Without actual explosives, you have no bomb. Without make-believe explosives, you have no make-believe bomb. But more than that, the reason why the boy's clock looks like a bomb to people like Geller, and the reason any circuit board is going to look like a bomb to the equally addle Frank Gaffney, is because by all appearances everything they know about electronics and bomb-making comes from watching movies.
</p><p>
If we're going to embrace hysterics and suggest that any person in possession of something that looks like it could be used as a trigger device for a bomb should be arrested, whether or not they possess real, fake or imaginary explosives, we can start by arresting any person found in possession of a <a href="http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2003/06/59207">cellular phone</a>. Meanwhile, if Geller is truly concerned that arresting kids for possessing homemade clocks is going to prevent the arrest of actual criminals, I suggest that she get herself a copy of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", read it, then take a long look at herself in the mirror.</p>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-32891953001676766562015-09-20T16:40:00.002-04:002015-09-20T16:40:44.240-04:00Does Jon Snow Become Azor Ahai<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
<p>If you're a Game of Thrones fan, you know that one of the subplots involves Melisandre's belief that Stannis Baratheon is the reincarnation of the legendary hero, Azor Ahai. The books emphasize that subplot to a greater extent than the series. With the death of Stannis, it's pretty clear that he's not Azor Ahai, and... who else is left but Jon Snow?
</p><p>
So perhaps in some sort of parallel to Danaerys's survival of her husband's funeral pyre, we're headed toward the very dead Jon Snow, arms crossed on his chest clutching his sword, set ablaze... and coming back alive not as "Jon Snow" per se, but as Azor Ahai.
</p><p>
The evidence for this theory would be a cross between what would turn out to be exceptionally manipulative statements by the showrunners that Jon Snow is dead, and the fact that Kit Harrington has been repeatedly seen around the Game of Thrones set, including observation of his participation in a massive battle sequence. Let's be honest: if he's in a massive battle, it's not going to be a flashback.
</p><p>
It's not entirely clear what it would mean for Jon Snow to become Azor Ahai, save for it being difficult to believe that it won't come across as corny. Also, as popular as the show is, I don't think that its necessary to manipulate the audience to create buzz.</p>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-79299134359441408672015-08-20T16:28:00.001-04:002015-08-25T12:40:04.775-04:00Trigger Warnings on College Campuses<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
<p>The Atlantic has published <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/">an article</a> that correctly laments the rising use of "trigger warnings" by colleges, but which focuses on an unsupported thesis that there is something materially different about "kids these days" rather than examining why college administrators are sensitive to demands for those warnings. Don't get me wrong -- there are differences between generations, and in some ways today's college students are a lot more sensitive about wrongs than were past generations. For example, today's college students appear to be much more sensitive to and much less tolerant of racism, as compared to past generations.
<p></p>
A couple of decades ago, when I was in law school, my criminal law professor used sexual assault in order to illustrate some of the complexities of the law. A law professor can pose a hypothetical example of a sexual assault in which the victim sincerely believes that a sexual assault occurred, while the accused (reasonably or unreasonably) sincerely believes that everything that occurred was consensual. Such a hypothetical case allows you to examine questions of the degree to which intent should factor into criminal prosecutions, charging decisions and sentencing. Should two equivalent acts receive the same punishment, even though one offender was acting deliberately and the other was clueless? To what degree does deterring the future acts of others justify prosecuting an offender who may not have realized that he was committing a crime? Hypotheticals can also extend into cases in which consent is obtained through fraud or deception, or by a mistake of perception.
<p></p>
Some of the students in my section made strenuous objection to the use of sexual assault -- not to any specific example, but to its being mentioned <em>at all</em> -- within the classroom. The objections did not change the manner in which the class was taught, but did inspire school administrators to meet with the students who raised the objections to try to explain what the professor was hoping to accomplish and to resolve their concerns. At that time I was told by another professor that the atmosphere for discussing sexual assault cases had changed significantly, and that some professors had already stopped using sexual assault hypotheticals in the classroom despite the difficulty of formulating hypotheticals that would as clearly illustrate the legal principles they were trying to teach. The Atlantic article opens with the example of "law students asking... professors at Harvard not to teach rape law", as if it is a new development. It is not.
<p></p>
When I hear of demands for "trigger warnings", my response is not that students are somehow different from back when I was in college. It may be that there has been some shift in the number of students raising objections -- something that I have not seen documented -- but the primary difference appears to be that school <em>administrators</em> have changed how they respond to student objections. Forty years ago, the response probably would have amounted to, "It's college, and you're going to be uncomfortable at times. Get over it." When I was a student the response was more gentle, but with a similar outcome. Today, college administrators do seem much more likely to ask that a professor add "trigger warnings" or change something about a course in order to avoid making the objecting students uncomfortable.
<p></p>
Why would administrators change their approach?
<p></p>
I think the answer lies not with the modern generation of students, but with the modern approach to the funding of college education. When college education was more affordable, and colleges were less dependent upon squeezing every last tuition dollar out of a student, colleges could more easily treat their students as <em>students</em>. As states have chosen to reduce their support for public colleges, colleges have increasingly had to fight for every dollar. Part of that process has involved making life a lot easier, and a lot more comfortable, for students. Part of that process involves catering to a vocal minority that, if not appeased, is likely to create negative publicity for a college or take its tuition dollars elsewhere.
<p></p>
The authors write,
<blockquote>The press has typically described these developments as a resurgence of political correctness. That’s partly right, although there are important differences between what’s happening now and what happened in the 1980s and ’90s. That movement sought to restrict speech (specifically hate speech aimed at marginalized groups), but it also challenged the literary, philosophical, and historical canon, seeking to widen it by including more-diverse perspectives. The current movement is largely about emotional well-being.</blockquote>
I think, here, that the authors are looking at two different forms of response by college <em>administrators</em>. There was no ambiguity in the classroom instruction -- sexual assault was presented as a bad thing, empathy was extended to the victim even when the hypothetical posited an offender who did not realize that he had committed a crime, and nobody questioned why "'No' means 'no'" was sensible policy. The students who objected to any reference to sexual assault in our criminal law class were <em>not</em> interested in widening the discussion or including additional viewpoints. Had our professor been less sensitive, <em>perhaps</em> an administrator would have advised him as to how to introduce the subject in a more sensitive manner, but the key difference seems to be that the administrators were not receptive to demands that material be removed from classroom instruction on the basis that it created discomfort for some of the students.
<p></p>
While the authors of the article describe the efforts in our society to make life more safe for children, I think that they overstate their conclusions. They write, "children born after 1980 — the Millennials — got a consistent message from adults: life is dangerous, but adults will do everything in their power to protect you from harm, not just from strangers but from one another as well." I disagree that the underlying message is "Life is dangerous" but, more than that, it's difficult to see that as a distinction from prior generations. Doe the authors believe that in the past generations, parents were teaching kids that "life is safe", even when that was patently untrue? Did the generation that grew up a century ago, spending their early childhood in an age before polio vaccination and where infant mortality was common, who experienced the Great Depression, who were born around the time of World War I and saw the country go through World War II (perhaps fighting in that war) under the impression that life was safe? I somehow doubt it.
<p></p>
Perhaps the difference is that parents of past generations of kids told them, "Life is dangerous, but you're on your own, kid -- you can't count on me to keep you safe"? No, that doesn't seem plausible, either.
<p></p>
I think the authors stray off of the rails when they suggest that political partisanship may be a significant contributing factor, based on "survey data going back to the 1970s". The authors are certainly aware that past generations have also experienced times of fierce political partisanship. Our country even once had a civil war. I also have little sense that students arriving on campus are more politically aware than those of past generations. So when the authors suggest that "students arriving on campus today <em>might be</em> more desirous of protection and more hostile toward ideological opponents than in generations past", it seems fair to point out that they're engaged in conjecture, and that they haven't adequately supported a theory that even they phrase as conjecture. Similarly, when describing the advent of social media, the authors write,
<blockquote>These first true “social-media natives” may be different from members of previous generations in how they go about sharing their moral judgments and supporting one another in moral campaigns and conflicts.</blockquote>
Or... they may not be any different.
<p></p>
The authors note that faculty members may be concerned about being attacked on social media, something that might explain why faculty members and administrators are perhaps hypersensitive to certain student complaints, but that's not an observation about the <em>students</em>.
<p></p>
The authors state,
<blockquote>We do not mean to imply simple causation, but rates of mental illness in young adults have been rising, both on campus and off, in recent decades. Some portion of the increase is surely due to better diagnosis and greater willingness to seek help, but most experts seem to agree that some portion of the trend is real.</blockquote>
If they're not suggesting "simple causation", what form of causation do they in fact intend to imply? What changes in diagnosis rates has occurred, and for what mental illnesses? Which mental illnesses are now more frequently diagnosed, and what portion of the increase for any given mental illness do the authors believe might be associated with calls for "trigger warnings"? When they speak of "experts", what are the qualifications of the experts whose views they have examined and deemed relevant? What does it mean to "seem to agree", as opposed to expressing actual agreement? It's really easy to make a nebulous, speculative assertion in support of an argument, but if you want it to carry weight you have to provide some amount of substance.
<p></p>
The authors suggest that changes in the interpretation of federal civil rights law that occurred in 2013 might play a role in the changes, but that argument seems weak on a number of fronts. First, the trends they are describing started long before 2013. Second, the average student is completely unaware of those changes. Third, to the extent that administrators are responding by being hypersensitive not only to situations implicated by the actual changes, but to situations well beyond their scope, that suggests a problem with the administrators and not the students. To the extent that interpretations of the law by federal agencies are making it more difficult to teach effectively on campus, those organizations <em>should</em> reconsider or clarify their interpretations, but it's not the fault of either students or federal agencies if college administrators impose policies that extend far beyond what the law requires.
<p></p>
The article continues into what I see as some rather odd armchair psychology, such as the suggestion that triggering material could benefit sensitive students by desensitizing them to a trauma. Even if we assume that the people demanding trigger warnings are doing so because of their own sensitivities, as opposed to those of others, there is a difference between a sensitivity and a phobia -- and no psychologist in his right mind is going to conflate random encounters with material that triggers a phobic reaction or PTSD is a proper alternative for a professionally conducted process intended to desensitize and individual. In fact, you're apt to learn that such an approach could worsen the phobia.
<p></p>
They share a couple of example of "catastrophizing" that are about college administrators:
<blockquote>Catastrophizing rhetoric about physical danger is employed by campus administrators more commonly than you might think—sometimes, it seems, with cynical ends in mind. For instance, last year administrators at Bergen Community College, in New Jersey, suspended Francis Schmidt, a professor, after he posted a picture of his daughter on his Google+ account. The photo showed her in a yoga pose, wearing a T-shirt that read I will take what is mine with fire & blood, a quote from the HBO show Game of Thrones. Schmidt had filed a grievance against the school about two months earlier after being passed over for a sabbatical. The quote was interpreted as a threat by a campus administrator, who received a notification after Schmidt posted the picture; it had been sent, automatically, to a whole group of contacts. According to Schmidt, a Bergen security official present at a subsequent meeting between administrators and Schmidt thought the word fire could refer to AK-47s.
<p></p>
Then there is the eight-year legal saga at Valdosta State University, in Georgia, where a student was expelled for protesting the construction of a parking garage by posting an allegedly “threatening” collage on Facebook. The coll[e]ge described the proposed structure as a “memorial” parking garage—a joke referring to a claim by the university president that the garage would be part of his legacy. The president interpreted the collage as a threat against his life.</blockquote>
I don't think that the dean who complained about Francis Schmidt was identified, but I doubt that the dean was a 'Millennial'. The president of Valdosta State University appears to have been in his late sixties at the time of the incident, so it's safe to say that he's not a millennial. Those actions may not represent the best of what we hope to impart to college students, but they appear to support for the argument that the primary source of the problem lies with college administrators as opposed to students.
<p></p>
The article also references an incident in which an instructor's joke was misinterpreted by a student and reported as a threat, resulting in the instructor's suspension. It is no surprise that college administrators are sensitive to potential violence on campus, and does not appear to be in question that the response in that case was an overreaction. It's difficult to see how the incident has anything to do with students being too sensitive, as opposed to there being an understandable concern (even if magnified by the spotlight effect) about violence on campus.
<p></p>
My preferred approach would not be seen as very sensitive to those who are concerned about potential triggering, or who are inclined to reinvent innocuous statements as "microaggressions": I would like to see colleges instruct incoming freshmen that the can expect their ideas to be challenged as they come into contact with other students, professors, and materials that reflect opinions and perspectives different from their own, and that the risk of being at times upset or offended is inherent to the learning process. I would trust professors who were planning to use particularly disturbing or potentially offensive materials to warn their students; for the most part it's difficult to think of scenarios where the nature of the material that will be presented in a course is not foreshadowed by the subject matter. Students who are hypersensitive would be free to explore their options within that framework, or to consider other colleges. The small but influential population of students who want to protect not only themselves, but to protect others from any form of actual or or potential offense would be on notice that the administration will focus on incidents of actual bias and discrimination, but won't be tying itself in knots trying to ensure that nobody is ever offended.
<p></p>
Will that happen? Perhaps at a college that is not dependent upon accepting most or all of the students who apply. But as long as colleges are in the position of having to treat students like customers, I don't expect that this sort of trend will reverse itself -- and I find myself in full agreement with the authors' underlying position that this trend isn't good for <em>anybody</em>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-34546606149087262992015-08-11T12:36:00.000-04:002015-08-11T12:36:27.218-04:00The Other Side of the So-Called Trophy Culture<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
<p>A recent Real Sports broadcast, <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/20/hbos-real-sports-looks-into-americas-trophy-culture/">summarized here</a>, declared that our nation has a problem with a "trophy culture" that coddles kids by handing out trophies for merely showing up for games, or perhaps even simply for signing up for a team whether or not they even come to a practice. At the conclusion, Bryant Gumbel expressed that he didn't see it as a big deal, and was told by the correspondent that it was somehow emblematic of a larger social problem. I find myself far more sympathetic to Gumbel's position.
</p><p>
If you've ever seen very young children play a team sport, like Soccer, you might be reminded of kittens chasing a string. No matter how many times you tell them to hold to their positions, most and sometimes all of the kids will simply chase the ball no matter where it is on the field. At that age you will find some kids who are skilled beyond their years, but for the most part I don't see much benefit in treating a game as if it's a meaningful contest. Let the kids have fun, don't worry about the score, and focus on building their interest and skills for future years.
</p><p>
As kids get a bit older, and they divide into groups of better-skilled and lesser-skilled players, a new question arises: Are you going to give every child some time on the field, or are you going to instead focus on getting the win? When the focus is on the win, stories of bad conduct by <em>adults</em> -- don't take it from me: Here's Real Sports on the issue:
<div align="center"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MiHSzpKEt90" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
Real Sports found a person by the name of Ashley Merryman to play the part of the scold against tropies. My first reaction to her statements was, "Kids aren't that stupid," or, to put it another way, kids know the difference between getting a trophy for participation, as compared to getting a trophy for their performance. I thought that perhaps somebody had researched the issue and discovered that somebody <em>had</em> -- as explained by none other than <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/25/opinion/losing-is-good-for-you.html">Ashley Merryman herself</a>:
<blockquote>By age 4 or 5, children aren’t fooled by all the trophies. They are surprisingly accurate in identifying who excels and who struggles. Those who are outperformed know it and give up, while those who do well feel cheated when they aren’t recognized for their accomplishments. They, too, may give up.</blockquote>
So the issue really <em>isn't</em> that kids are fooled into thinking that their performance exceeds their actual skill set by getting participation trophies -- they know the difference. Having undermined her own argument, Merryman tries to turn it around by arguing that top performers might "give up" if they see other kids get meaningless trophies -- to which I respond, "That's nonsense". When I look at youth sports these days, I see kids performing at the highest levels that I've ever seen, far beyond the performance of the same age cohort when I was a kid. What evidence does Merryman offer to convince me not to believe my lying eyes? That would be... nothing.
</p><p>
At this point the case against participation trophies would seem to be that, past the age of five or six, the kids see them for what they are, and it costs a lot of money to hand out hundreds or thousands of meaningless trophies. Merryman can see that, but just can't stop herself from catastrophizing: "We have to stop letting the Trophy-Industrial Complex run our children’s lives." That would be an argument that's supported by the facts, while extrapolating that participation trophies are emblematic of the ruination of our society, the decline and fall of our civilization... not so much.</p>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-82374540968493807222015-07-04T22:32:00.001-04:002015-07-04T22:32:53.657-04:00Sorry, Game of Thrones Fans: Jon Snow is Dead<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
Was that clear enough? Let me say it again, just to be clear: Jon Snow is dead.
<br /><br />
Please, no more need for recycling the same old theories about why he is alive. That ground has been thoroughly covered. That horse is as dead as Jon Snow.
<br /><br />
Of course there actually are some decent arguments for why Jon Snow might somehow be resurrected. That possibility seemed quite plausible in the books, with Melisandre's presence at the Wall providing for a means of bringing Snow back from the dead -- and when Melisandre made her retreat back to the Wall as Stannis's army fell it seemed fair to ask why else she would be there but to save Jon Snow. The books also resurrect... <em>book spoiler warnings</em> Catelyn Stark. The books introduce a character, Coldhands, who seems to be a different form of living dead from the other creatures found north of the Wall.
<br /><br />
In both the show and books Gregor Clegane, The Mountain, is brought back as some sort of zombie. Beric Dondarrion is resurrected several times before (in the books) passing his power onto Catelyn Stark. There would have also been the possibility of glamouring, as we know that Melisandre can make one character appear to be another. The book also emphasizes wargs, with some theorizing that Jon Snow could have warged into his direwolf before his body died (never mind that there's no obvious way back to human form, and that we've been told that remaining too long in an animal host will cause you to lose your human character).
<br /><br />
Also, it seems like an incredible waste of a very interesting character to kill Jon Snow at this point in the story. The relationship you form with a television character is different from that you form with a character on the printed page, and the loss of Snow seems all the more stark (no pun intended) in the series. Why spend all of that time and energy building him into an interesting character only to kill him off, with nobody else of similar charisma to fill his shoes? Why drop conspicuous hints about his "real" parentage if he plays no role in the end game? From a literary standpoint, why kill off the principal point of view characters who could play a central role in the conclusion, while keeping alive others who can't possibly be on the winning team? Will people, readers or viewers, care about events at the Wall without Jon Snow?
<br /><br />
At the same time there's one consistency to Martin's writing: If you're a noble, virtuous character who puts the well-being of others ahead of your own, you end up dead. Do you really think that Snow's body will be hidden and frozen for a year, so that he can be resurrected in Season 7? (<em>Jon Snow on Ice</em>.... Is this a Disney production?) From the standpoint of good storytelling, as questionable as it may be to kill Jon Snow at this point in the narrative, a secret, frozen Jonsicle would seem to be worse.
<br /><br />
I suspect that the future story anticipates that readers won't care about the Wall post-Jon Snow, and thus won't be surprised or offended when the army of the dead defeats the remaining members of the Night's Watch (and any Wildlings who might have inexplicably continued to support their efforts in the wake of Snow's death), creating the context for a major conflict between the advancing White Walkers and the dragons of Danaerys. (That story line would seem a bit... predictable. We'll see.) Also, particularly if Jon Snow has the royal blood that many plausibly believes used to run through his veins, we can expect Melisandre to have some interesting visions in the flames of his funeral pyre.
<br /><br />
The primary evidence for Jon Snow's death comes from the show, (and if it needs to be said) not the as-of-yet unfinished, unavailable sixth book. The show did not renew Jon Snow's contract for Season 6. It's one thing to give a character like Bran a year off, without much concern for whether the part will have to be recast in a future season -- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1061992448/nm3652842?ref_=nmmi_mi_all_sf_26">children</a> and adolescents change a lot, and few would be surprised to discover that Bran looks different after a year of communing with ancient trees -- he'll look different <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1907159296/nm3652842?ref_=nm_ov_ph">even if</a></em> they keep the same actor.
<br /><br />
While daytime soap operas of old used to switch out adult characters without much concern for appearance, and Game of Thrones has done the same with at least one small part (Gregor Clegane) and with a smaller role before it became larger (Tommen Baratheon) I don't think that audiences will accept a different actor as Jon Snow. He could come back among the undead, perhaps as a hooded Coldhands-type character, but he would both be dead and be a very different character -- what would be the point? If the show wanted to be sure that Kit Harington would be available to play Jon Snow in Season 7 or beyond, given the difficult production schedule, it is highly unlikely that they would risk his taking other jobs that would prevent his participation.
<br /><br />
The show understandably shares Martin's affinity for killing off characters -- but sometimes the reasons for a death seem different, such as to simplify story lines and perhaps to control the show's budget. The death of Ser Barristan Selmy (a character whose story line died a slow on-screen death even before the showrunners made it final), the death of Mance Rayder with no glamouring, moving up the death of Shireen Baratheon and the defeat of Stannis Baratheon, <em>not</em> bringing back Catelyn Stark, killing Myrcella Baratheon (who at this point in the books was only missing an ear)....
<br /><br />
The showrunners could easily have carried Jon Snow's character forward into season six, perhaps drawing on the chapters dealing with his management of the Wildlings or delaying the death of Stannis Baratheon while having Jon Snow announce the rescue mission that precipitated his death on the printed page. But they instead chose to bump Snow off during the last episode of the season, saving themselves a big chunk of change to apply to hiring other actors, building sets and producing special effects.
<br /><br />
If in light of all of that you still think Snow is coming back, what do you think the dialogue would be upon his return in season seven? "Hey, folks, I'm back. Did I miss anything? Ooooh... are those dragons?"
<br /><br />
So stop watching the length of Kit Harington's hair -- it's going to get longer and shorter over the coming year because (assuming an occasional haircut) that's what hair generally does. Stop arguing that if you turn your head sideways and squint, you can see proof of Snow's survival because his eyes almost imperceptibly change color during his death scene. "We shall never see his like again, and now his watch is ended."Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-47183900221879542212015-05-20T10:10:00.001-04:002015-05-21T00:14:38.979-04:00The Reynolds "Charity" Empire in Decline<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
A few years ago I wrote a post entitled, "<a href="http://thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/2010/05/is-breast-cancer-society-worthy-charity.html">Is The Breast Cancer Society a Worthy Charity</a>", to which the answer was "No". The comments to that thread are extensive, and include a defense of the organization from Kristina Hixson, which avoided answering any of the tough questions or giving an honest explanation of the organization's operations. She went so far as to post a series of fake endorsements to the thread, trying to bury valid criticism behind fictitious praise.
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Oh yes, and she went on to marry the man who ran that "charity", James T. Reynolds II.
<br /><br />
Over time, the Reynolds' family of "charities" started to receive press scrutiny. The Tampa Bay Times published an article, "<a href="http://www.tampabay.com/topics/specials/worst-charities3.page">Intricate family connections bind several of America's worst charities</a>". It opens
<blockquote>Carol Smith still gets angry when she remembers the box that arrived by mail for her dying husband.
<br /><br />
Cancer Fund of America sent it when he was diagnosed with lung cancer six years ago.
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Smith had called the charity for help. "It was filled with paper plates, cups, napkins and kids' toys," the 67-year-old Knoxville, Tenn., resident said.
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"My husband looked like somebody slapped him in the face. "I just threw it in the trash."</blockquote>
The story continues,
<blockquote>In the past three years alone, Cancer Fund and its associated charities raised $110 million. The charities paid more than $75 million of that to solicitors. Cancer Fund ranks second on the Times/CIR list of America's worst charities. (Florida's Kids Wish Network placed first.)
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Salaries in 2011 topped $8 million — 13 times more than patients received in cash. Nearly $1 million went to Reynolds family members.
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The network's programs are overstated at best. Some have been fabricated.</blockquote>
The Federal Government has finally managed to <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cancer-charities-lawsuit-20150519-story.html#page=1"><em>partially</em> shut down</a> the Reynolds empire:
<blockquote>In reality, officials say, millions of dollars raised by four “sham charities” [Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, Children’s Cancer Fund of America and the Breast Cancer Society] lined the pockets of the groups’ founders and their family members, paying for cars, luxury cruises, and all-expense paid trips to Disney World for charity board members.
<br /><br />
The 148-page fraud lawsuit accuses the charities of ripping off donors nationwide to the tune of $187 million from 2008 to 2012 in a scheme one federal official called “egregious” and “appalling.”...
<br /><br />
Among the allegations is that [Reynolds' ex-wife, Rose] Perkins gave 10% across-the-board bonuses twice a year to employees [of the Children’s Cancer Fund of America], regardless of performance, and was allowed to set her own salary and bonuses up to a limit without the approval of board members. In 2010, when donations to the Breast Cancer Society were declining, Reynolds II’s salary ballooned from $257,642 to $370,951, according to the complaint.</blockquote>
What can a grifter do, but grift? Even having been shut down, the Breast Cancer Society promises to come back to leach off of the good intentions of people who want to help cancer survivors:
<blockquote>The silver lining in all of this is that the organization has the ability to continue operating our most valued and popular program, the Hope Supply. Our Board will work tirelessly to maintain the Hope Supply program services that have benefitted our many patients for years – initially under the TBCS banner as it transitions under a different organization – all with the goal of seamlessly providing services to you. I take solace in the fact that this wonderful program has the chance to continue operating.</blockquote>
There is a note of honesty, "I have loved leading TBCS...." Why wouldn't James <em>love</em> working in a job that paid him royally for performing little work, despite his indifference to the needs of the people his charity was supposed to help? It's a gravy train he's eager to re-board, so watch out for his next "charity", coming soon to a list of the nation's worst charities near you.
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If you want a good measure of James Reynolds II's character, <a href="http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/13/beware-of-these-cancer-charity-rip-offs/">watch him on video</a>.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-37495258041931946532015-02-10T16:53:00.002-05:002015-02-10T16:53:44.006-05:00Addressing the Causes of Substance Abuse vs. Addiction<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
I saw Johann Hari interviewed on Real Time the other day, and what he essentially offered during the interview was a version of the essay published <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html">here</a>, in which he argues that the real cause of addiction is the addict's environment, not the nature of the addictive substance itself:
<blockquote>This gives us an insight that goes much deeper than the need to understand addicts. Professor Peter Cohen argues that human beings have a deep need to bond and form connections. It's how we get our satisfaction. If we can't connect with each other, we will connect with anything we can find -- the whirr of a roulette wheel or the prick of a syringe. He says we should stop talking about 'addiction' altogether, and instead call it 'bonding.' A heroin addict has bonded with heroin because she couldn't bond as fully with anything else.
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So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.</blockquote>
Before I get into the obvious faults of Hari's theory, there is some merit to his position within the larger realm of substance abuse. Many people go through periods of their life in which they rely too heavily upon alcohol, or engage in the recreational use illicit substances or prescription medications, perhaps to the point that their lives seem to be coming apart at the seams, but are subsequently able to scale back or stop that behavior on their own. Their substance abuse may be largely situational, and when the situation changes so does the appeal of drugs or alcohol.
<br /><br />
The problem that Hari's theory does not address is why certain individuals are <em>not</em> able to stop using drugs or alcohol without -- and sometimes even with -- significant intervention. Why, if it's the human connection that matters, some individuals will continue to use drugs even as their actions alienate every single person who is trying to connect with them or help them. Hari's theory might explain in part how dealing with addiction can seem like a game of whack-a-mole -- how the successful cessation of the use of one substance, such as alcohol, might be associated with the onset of the use of a different substance or a behavioral disorder. But his theory does not explain why addicts have different drugs of choice, or why rates of successful recovery can differ dramatically between substances.
<br /><br />
Hari brings up behavioral addictions,
<blockquote>It was explained to me -- you can become addicted to gambling, and nobody thinks you inject a pack of cards into your veins. You can have all the addiction, and none of the chemical hooks. I went to a Gamblers' Anonymous meeting in Las Vegas (with the permission of everyone present, who knew I was there to observe) and they were as plainly addicted as the cocaine and heroin addicts I have known in my life. Yet there are no chemical hooks on a craps table.</blockquote>
Except, of course, there <em>are</em>. People <em>do</em> get a biochemical reward from gambling. Were that not the case, people would get nothing out of gambling -- there would be no thrill, just boredom associated with an overall loss of money -- and gambling would have no appeal. As it turns out, <a href="http://www.medicaldaily.com/gambling-addicts-brains-dont-have-same-opioid-systems-others-307392">there is evidence</a> "that the opioid systems in the brains of pathological gamblers may be different, affecting their control, motivation, emotion, and responses to pain and stress."
<br /><br />
Problem gamblers appear to have an issue that is similar to that of some problem drinkers, "it seems that pathological gamblers just don't get the same feeling of euphoria as do healthy volunteers". As counter-intuitive as it may seem at first blush, a rapid response to intoxicants is an evolutionary defense against over-consumption. Broadly speaking, when you need to consume more of a substance to get the same thrill, you are at increased risk of addiction.
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Hari engages in the dangerous practice of predicating his entire theory on a study of rats. Rats, he tells us, will deal with isolation and boredom by using drugs, but when given many exciting alternatives to drug use they largely choose life's other pleasures over drugs. While, yes, that does suggest that environment can affect rates of drug use, it tells us nothing about why two people who enjoy pretty much the same environment can have extremely different levels of interest in intoxication.
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If you attend open AA meetings, those that welcome all members of the public, you will likely soon hear an addict describe his or her first experience with alcohol or drugs. You will very likely hear many speak of their extreme euphoria, their eagerness to repeat the experience, the steps they took to increase their access to their drug of choice and their frequency of use. While Hari would have us believe that in each case there was something -- some level of connection with others -- missing in their lives, and with some of those accounts suggesting such a lack of connection, Hari's argument nonetheless hits a stumbling block: Why do other people with similar or worse environments or levels of isolation try the same substance yet avoid a similar outcome? From another angle,
<blockquote>Time magazine reported using heroin was "as common as chewing gum" among U.S. soldiers [during the Vietnam War], and there is solid evidence to back this up: some 20 percent of U.S. soldiers had become addicted to heroin there, according to a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Many people were understandably terrified; they believed a huge number of addicts were about to head home when the war ended.
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But in fact some 95 percent of the addicted soldiers -- according to the same study -- simply stopped. Very few had rehab. They shifted from a terrifying cage back to a pleasant one, so didn't want the drug any more.</blockquote>
The thing is, every single veteran had a new, much more pleasant post-war "cage" -- so why did 5% remain heroin-addicted? Similarly,
<blockquote>If you get run over today and you break your hip, you will probably be given diamorphine, the medical name for heroin. In the hospital around you, there will be plenty of people also given heroin for long periods, for pain relief. The heroin you will get from the doctor will have a much higher purity and potency than the heroin being used by street-addicts, who have to buy from criminals who adulterate it. So if the old theory of addiction is right -- it's the drugs that cause it; they make your body need them -- then it's obvious what should happen. Loads of people should leave the hospital and try to score smack on the streets to meet their habit.
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But here's the strange thing: It virtually never happens.</blockquote>
If by that Hari means that most people who are administered powerful opiates during hospitalization don't subsequently become heroin addicts, he's correct. But if he means to suggest that large numbers of addicts don't have their addictions start with their taking properly prescribed pain medications, <a href="http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2010/08/11652.html">he's wrong</a>. Most patients will come out of surgery, deal with their inadequate post-hospitalization pain control, recover, and go on with their normal lives. Some will suffer a bit more during their recovery but again go on with their normal lives. Some will actively drug-seek, displaying behaviors consistent with substance abuse and addiction.
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If Hari's theory were accurate, we should be able to easily define who is likely to become addicted and who is not. We could simply perform a survey of that person's life, their connections, their stressors and the like, and that should give us an excellent idea of who is likely to have a substance abuse problem and who is not. The problem is, you cannot predict substance abuse or addiction in that manner. You may find overall trends and risk factors, such as a family history of substance abuse, a childhood pain condition that was not properly managed, a history of being the victim of child abuse, and the like. Yes, some predictors do suggest a behavioral component to addiction -- which is what you would <em>expect</em> from something that is in large part a behavioral health problem. But other predictors are not behavioral. Why should it be a risk factor <em>to you</em> if relatives who you have never met, or who were never in a position to model addictive behavior to you, had substance abuse problems?
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It's important to recall, also, that not everybody has the same reaction to the same substance. Alcohol triggers different physiological reactions in different people. Some people have little ability to metabolize alcohol, and within their communities rates of alcoholism are very high. Some people flush upon consumption of alcohol. Some become nauseous. Some quickly become tipsy, even with modest alcohol consumption. Others can consume large quantities of alcohol without displaying strong signs of intoxication. Similar things can be said of opiates -- if your reaction to opiates includes feeling itchy all over your body, feeling nauseous, experiencing severe constipation, or feeling confused and anxious, the odds are much lower that you're going to want to repeat the experience than if your principal memory is of euphoria.
<br /><br />
These differences in reaction are biochemical, not behavioral. It reasonably follows that some of the differences in why people become addicted to drugs or alcohol, why people prefer one substance over another, and why some people have much greater difficulty establishing and maintaining sobriety, are biochemical. Yes, you may need to address psychological and environmental issues in order to help the addict achieve a stable recovery, but simply changing the addict's environment will not cure the addiction.
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Hari suggests that the history of nicotine patches supports his theory,
<blockquote>Everyone agrees cigarette smoking is one of the most addictive processes around. The chemical hooks in tobacco come from a drug inside it called nicotine. So when nicotine patches were developed in the early 1990s, there was a huge surge of optimism -- cigarette smokers could get all of their chemical hooks, without the other filthy (and deadly) effects of cigarette smoking. They would be freed.
<br /><br />
But the Office of the Surgeon General has found that just 17.7 percent of cigarette smokers are able to stop using nicotine patches. That's not nothing. If the chemicals drive 17.7 percent of addiction, as this shows, that's still millions of lives ruined globally. But what it reveals again is that the story we have been taught about The Cause of Addiction lying with chemical hooks is, in fact, real, but only a minor part of a much bigger picture.</blockquote>
Hari makes three fundamental mistakes in his comparison. First, he presupposes that the use of a nicotine patch is evidence that a smoker wants to quit. In fact, many smokers who attempt to quit are doing so not because they want to do so, but because they are under social pressure to stop smoking. Some people are afraid to quit smoking, for example because they fear weight gain. Second, he presupposes that establishing a baseline level of nicotine will remove any biochemical incentive for a smoker to smoke. The steady baseline certainly can help control cravings, but it is <em>not</em> going to provide the spike of nicotine exposure to which a smoker is accustomed. Hari is apparently referring to <em>Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence</em>, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, June 2000, <a href="http://www.csam-asam.org/sites/default/files/pdf/misc/TobCessationReview.pdf">summarized here on page 491</a>. Yes, Third, the abstinence rate for the study was premised upon six months of abstinence, so we're not merely talking about how well smokers abstained during their twelve weeks on nicotine patches, but during a period of months after they stopped using the patch. It's interesting to see that a nicotine nasal spray resulted in a 30.5% abstention rate over the same period, as did buprenorphine -- a medication that does not imitate nicotine, but instead blocks opiate receptors. If biochemistry weren't a big part of the story, the results should have been the same no matter whether the smoker received a placebo, a particular administration of nicotine, or buprenorphine.
<br /><br />
Fundamentally, as with <em>any</em> addiction, no treatment program or assistive medication is going to work over the long-run unless the addict wants to stop using his drug of choice. Medications and treatment can provide a window of opportunity during which the addict can establish a period of abstinence and have an opportunity to consider a future both with and without his substance of choice, but unless the addict is sufficiently motivated to stop the addict will relapse. For that matter, many addicts who truly want to stop will still have problems with relapse, whether due to a momentary lapse in judgment, the strength of their cravings, or a combination of factors.
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At the end of the day, yes, it makes sense for a recovering addict to improve his environment -- to address facors, internal and external, that contribute to addiction and could contribute to relapse. To ignore the biochemical side of addiction, the predispositions that some people have to the use and abuse of certain chemical substances, and the difficulty that addicts of all backgrounds experience when trying to establish and maintain sobriety, by suggesting... is it that this could all be fixed with warm feelings, love songs and group hugs... is to turn a blind eye to the leading factors in addiction.
<blockquote>Loving an addict is really hard. When I looked at the addicts I love, it was always tempting to follow the tough love advice doled out by reality shows like Intervention -- tell the addict to shape up, or cut them off. Their message is that an addict who won't stop should be shunned. It's the logic of the drug war, imported into our private lives. But in fact, I learned, that will only deepen their addiction -- and you may lose them altogether. I came home determined to tie the addicts in my life closer to me than ever -- to let them know I love them unconditionally, whether they stop, or whether they can't.</blockquote>
I'm not one to point to a show like Interventions and argue that it's a model for addiction treatment. The purpose of an intervention is to inspire an unwilling drug addicted person to go into residential treatment. Contrary to what Hari suggests, the message is not (or at least should not be) that "an addict who won't stop should be shunned" but is instead that the family has the right to draw boundaries and to state that, if the addict chooses to continue down the road to ruin, they will have to limit their role in the addict's life in order to protect themselves and their own mental health. Sometimes it takes a dose of that sort of reality to get the addict to go into treatment. Sure, others will reject the attempted intervention, but it's facile to suggest that it is a failed intervention that causes addicts to "deepen their addiction" -- addiction is a progressive disease and thus, absent some limiting factor, gets worse over time. Many addicts describe the fear of loss of family, the embarrassment of an arrest or jail sentence, and the like as the very thing that inspired them to finally work toward recovery.
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What Hari describes as his ultimate take-away, "to let [the addicts in my life] know I love them unconditionally, whether they stop, or whether they can't", is a basic teaching of programs like Alanon, under the name of "detachment with love". Hari may not like some of the implications of that approach, the idea of telling an addict who calls you hysterically in the middle of the night that he was picked up by the police and needs to be bailed out, that he'll have to wait until morning -- or that he'll have to face the natural consequence of his decisions and find a way to bail himself out -- but allowing an addict to face those natural consequences is not an indication that you don't love them. It's a means of protecting yourself, of avoiding the anger and resentment that get in the way of love, and of allowing them to experience the negative consequences that they bring upon themselves such that they might decide that it's finally time to give sobriety a honest chance -- whether through inpatient treatment, an intensive outpatient program (IOP), counseling, peer support, and with or without assistive medication. When the addict reaches the point of <em>wanting</em> to recover, you can start implementing the structure and changes that Hari correctly associates with improving the chances of long-term sobriety. But no, when you're dealing with populations of addicts, you cannot simply work to improve their emotional environment and expect it to be a miracle cure.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-70034778990136209762015-02-04T17:22:00.001-05:002015-02-05T09:21:24.116-05:00Evangelical Christianity, Homosexuality and the Deeply Flawed "Tale of Two Bobs"<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
The other day I came across <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/gay-bob-christian-bob/">a blog post by Rod Dreher</a>, in which he embraces a parable <a href="http://www.mikedcosper.com/home/a-tale-of-two-bobs-continued-reflections-on-the-church-and-the-lgbt-community">somebody wrote a couple of years ago</a> about two neighbors, both named Bob, who get along even though the author assumes that they're <em>not supposed to</em>.
<br /><br />
The opening of the parable could be this,
<blockquote>There once were two neighbors, both named Bob. One is a neo-Nazi, the other is Jewish. They've lived next to one another in a duplex for several years, and have been good neighbors: getting one another's mail when the other travels, hauling each other's garbage cans to and from the curb, and have occasionally had a cookout together. They are friends, but they've never really had a discussion about their differences.</blockquote>
Or this,
<blockquote>There once were two neighbors, both named Bob. One is a KKK member, the other is in an interracial marriage. They've lived next to one another in a duplex for several years, and have been good neighbors: getting one another's mail when the other travels, hauling each other's garbage cans to and from the curb, and have occasionally had a cookout together. They are friends, but they've never really had a discussion about their differences.</blockquote>
Or this,
<blockquote>There once were two neighbors, both named Bob. One is an evangelical Christian, the other is gay and agnostic. They've lived next to one another in a duplex for several years, and have been good neighbors: getting one another's mail when the other travels, hauling each other's garbage cans to and from the curb, and have occasionally had a cookout together. They are friends, but they've never really had a discussion about their differences.</blockquote>
<br /><br />
The narrative continues,
<blockquote>One day, during March Madness, a stiff gust of wind knocked a tree limb into their power lines, and they found themselves without electricity, five minutes before the U of L game. They wandered out onto their respective porches and decided to go to a nearby pizzeria to watch the game.
<br /><br />
Somewhere before the end of the game, this conversation began:
<blockquote>Bob 1: Isn’t it surprising that we've become friends?
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Bob2: What do you mean?
<br /><br />
1: Well, one of us has a [swastika / KKK emblem / rainbow sticker], and the other has a [Magen David / pro-diversity sticker / fish emblem]. According to most folks, we shouldn't get along.
<br /><br />
2: Yeah, I'll admit it's crossed my mind once or twice. Does it bother you?
<br /><br />
1: Does what bother me?
<br /><br />
2: Well, that I am who I am?
<br /><br />
1: Hmmm… I don't know how to answer that. Does it bother you that I am the way that I am?</blockquote>
</blockquote>
The narrative continues,
<blockquote>
<em>Bob 2 scratches his chin, waits a moment.</em>
<blockquote>2: I suppose there are two answers to that question. One is no, not at all. We've been good friends. You took my dog to the vet when it got into a fight with a possum. You share my hatred of the University of Kentucky. What's not to like? On the other hand, I think you've have committed your life to something that's toxic to our culture, and to yourself, and I wish for your sake, my sake, and the world's that you believed something different. So no. And also, I worry about you.</blockquote>
Bob 1 leans back a little, grinning.
<blockquote>2: Did I offend you?
<br /><br />
1: No, not at all. In fact, I would probably give the same answer about you, though I'd phrase it a little differently.
<br /><br />
2: How so?
<br /><br />
1: Well first of all, I’d talk about your barbecue skills, and I’d admit that I like your smelly dog. Second, I’d say that I think who you are and who I am is more complex than beliefs and commitments… but I think that's true for myself too.
<br /><br />
2: You don't think you chose to be that way?
<br /><br />
1: Did you?
<br /><br />
2: I guess I did and I didn't. Or maybe, I didn’t then I did. It was something I didn’t want, but eventually I had to admit it.
<br /><br />
1: I guess I didn't and then I did.
<br /><br />
2: That's a better way of putting it.
<br /><br />
1: For both of us.
<br /><br />
2: For both of us.
<br /><br />
1: So all this simmers in the background while we see one another, day by day.
<br /><br />
2: Yep.
<br /><br />
1: But we just keep on being neighbors and sharing the occasional pizza.
<br /><br />
2: Yep. Breathing the same air, trying to figure out how to get along.</blockquote>
<em>The game got heated for a few moments and they drifted away from the conversation. Soon, it started up again.</em>
<blockquote>1: Let me ask you something.
<br /><br />
2: Shoot.
<br /><br />
1: You're saying that you didn't choose to be the way you are, but then you did.
<br /><br />
2: Yeah. It was a journey. I didn't want to believe it, but eventually, it became undeniable, and I had to accept it inwardly, and then I had to accept it outwardly.
<br /><br />
1: How did your family react?
<br /><br />
2: Well, they're more sympathetic to you than me… It wasn't easy. It still isn't. I get snarky comments occasionally, especially during election seasons.
<br /><br />
1: Oh yeah… the worst.
<br /><br />
2: The worst. Let me ask you something now.
<br /><br />
1: Okay.
<br /><br />
2: Has it caused trouble for you? Like, at work or anything?
<br /><br />
1: Well, sometimes. Some folks just think it's awful, and you have to win them over by just being an ordinary person.
<br /><br />
2: Because they think you're a monster?
<br /><br />
1: Because they think you're a monster.
<br /><br />
2: That's familiar.
<br /><br />
1: Yep.</blockquote>
The game ends, the two walk back home, and their friendship resumes. Conversations return to this topic, and both try to convince the other of their errors… But thus far, not much has changed. They remain good friends and good neighbors.
</blockquote>
The author argues,
<blockquote>This parable is meant to do two things. First, it’s sort of a Rorschach test. Which of the Bobs is a Christian, and which one is gay? In a culture that remains hostile to the LGBT community at one end of the spectrum, and at the other end, hostile to Christians who hold traditional beliefs, we will find folks like both Bobs: their social experiences are almost interchangeable.</blockquote>
Even within the context of "Which of the Bobs is a Christian, and which one is gay", the exchange is strange and contrived. When you recognize the fact that, perhaps with a slight adjustment for time and place, the exchange as easily "fits" contexts in which one person's views would be unacceptable by broadly held contemporary standards, the parable falls apart as a highly strained false equivalence. There is a difference between disliking somebody because of their beliefs, particularly when those beliefs cast you as somebody who is destined to Hell or inherently inferior, and disliking somebody over an aspect of their being that they cannot change -- such as their heritage, or their (or their spouse's, or their children's) skin color.
<br /><br />
If you want to reduce it to a parable about mutual acceptance, to make it a song and dance number for a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, you don't need to bring religion or status into the discussion. <a href="http://www.songlyrics.com/rodgers-and-hammerstein/the-farmer-and-the-cowman-lyrics/">">The farmer and the cowman <em>can</em> be friends</a>. You say tomato, and I say to-mah-to. You say goodbye, and I say hello. The exchange actually works <em>better</em> if you treat the disagreement as being over a triviality. Consider Dr. Suess's story of the star-bellied sneetches, creatures identical in all respects save for the presence of stars on their bellies, who come to realize the absurdity of using that distinction as the basis of a claim of superiority. That form of the narrative can still serve as an analogy for much more serious, real world, bigotry and discrimination, but without the need for a false analogy.
<br /><br />
<div align="center"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mEhHeILa3HE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br /><br />
<blockquote>Secondly, I think this conversation is very real and true to life. It’s a conversation that I’ve had in one form or another with many friends over the years. I’ve also had conversations that were much less friendly. But the context here is, I think, the key: being neighborly, being a friend, creates space for conversations that are hard. And while that probably won’t resolve the growing public tension over these issues, it might help us to live at peace with our neighbors, and that is, in some ways, far more important.</blockquote>
Except the conversation is not real and is not true to life. I'm not going to rule out the possibility, for example, that a member of the Westboro Baptist Church gets along with his gay neighbor, but this is not the conversation such a person would be <em>at all</em> likely to have with that neighbor. Also, the author starts from the preconception that gay people "shouldn't get along" with evangelical Christians, and vice versa. While some evangelical Christian churches and movements do preach intolerance, that's not prerequisite to being an evangelical Christian. And while a gay person might not like getting the stink eye from somebody who is intolerant of his relationships, there's absolutely no reason to presuppose that being gay predisposes you to not "get along" with an evangelical Christian. For goodness sake, you can both <em>be</em> an evangelical Christian <em>and</em> be gay.
<br /><br />
The parable seems to recognize the inherent weakness of trying to analogize the condemnation of a group of people based on status -- something they cannot change -- and criticism of people based upon their beliefs, even sincerely held religious beliefs. The Bobs are posited as having this interchangeable view of their realizing that they were gay, or their embracing a form of evangelical Christianity that regards homosexuality as a mortal sin,
<blockquote>2: You don't think you chose to be that way?
<br /><br />
1: Did you?
<br /><br />
2: I guess I did and I didn't. Or maybe, I didn’t then I did. It was something I didn’t want, but eventually I had to admit it.
<br /><br />
1: I guess I didn't and then I did.
<br /><br />
2: That's a better way of putting it.
<br /><br />
1: For both of us.
<br /><br />
2: For both of us.
</blockquote>
The problem here is that "gay Bob" would be describing a process by which he recognized and accepted his homosexuality despite strong social pressure not to be gay. Accepting the fact that you are gay is not a "choice" as posited by the narrative. In contrast, if a person in fact struggles with whether to join a particular religious or social movement, and struggles with those portions of its beliefs that teach intolerance of others, their ultimate decision to remain within the movement and to embrace those beliefs comes as the result of an <em>actual</em> choice. Under the interchangeable narrative, "Christian Bob" describes himself as coming from a family that holds different views than his own, and is accepting of gay people ("they're more sympathetic to you than me"). While "Christian Bob" may believe that his religion dictates his attitudes toward gay people, under the narrative he chose the path that led to those beliefs.
<br /><br />
Some try to draw a fine line between homosexual thoughts and homosexual practices -- the conception being that if a gay person <em>doesn't</em> accept his homosexuality, or if he does accept it but represses any action on his desires, that he is somehow elevated above a homosexual person who involves himself in a gay relationship. Under that thesis as it plays out in the real world, you're asking homosexual people to either live a lie, usually at the expense of another person (their heterosexual spouse), or to openly state that they are homosexuality and then to live a life of chastity. Even if the latter path were realistic, many evangelical communities would <em>not</em> be welcoming to such an individual. We can debate the extent to which that's the result of the teachings of their church, the result of larger social views, or some combination thereof, but it's a reality. There's a vast difference between not excluding a gay parishioner and welcoming them into your church as a full and equal member.
<br /><br />
To the extent that the narrative reminds evangelical Christians of the teaching that you can love the sinner while hating the sin, that you can be accepting of others without compromising your Christian values, that you can be neighborly even toward people whose lifestyles you find to be sinful, great. The preconception of the narrative, that evangelical Christians "shouldn't get along" with gay people is not necessary -- you can be a devout Christian without hating <em>anybody</em>. Why does a contrary impression exist? Not only because of the antics of groups like the Westboro Baptist Church ("God Hates Fags"), but because of attitudes like <a href="http://micahjmurray.com/i-cant-say-love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin-anymore/">those acknowledged here</a>,
<blockquote>I can't look my gay brother in the eye anymore and say "I love the sinner but hate the sin." I can't keep drawing circles in the sand.
<br /><br />
I thought I just needed to try harder. Maybe I needed to focus more on loving the sinner, and less on protesting the sin. But even if I was able to fully live up to that "ideal," I'd still be wrong. I'd still be viewing him as something other, something different.
<br /><br />
Not human. Not friend. Not Christian. Not brother.
<br /><br />
Sinner.
<br /><br />
And despite all my theological disclaimers about how I'm just as much a sinner too, it's not the same. We don't use that phrase for everybody else. Only them. Only "the gays." That's the only place where we make "sinner" the all-encompassing identity....</blockquote>
The author clearly felt immense pressure within his religious community to reject homosexuals. He also speaks of how, upon reflection, he can continue to hold his religious beliefs without joining in with that type of condemnation of his literal and figurative brothers. The author of the "Bobs" narrative asserts,
<blockquote>Christians make space for others all the time; neighbors who are adulterers or gluttons, alcoholics or tax cheats. We have family members who are liars and Christians – at their best – love these folks because they know that they are no different but for the grace of God. And so, Bob can make space for Bob even while he lovingly extends the offer of grace in Jesus Christ. That offer includes a call to repent of Bob’s sins, and that’s a tough pill to swallow.</blockquote>
Save for the contrived assertion that "Gay Bob" is agnostic, "Gay Bob" could have been Christian who attends a church that is accepting of his homosexuality. I doubt that the same sort of emphasis on "the offer of grace in Jesus Christ" or repentance of sins would be asserted if this were "Evangelical Bob and Presbyterian Bob", yet save for the author's contrivance "Gay Bob" could a devout Presbyterian, <a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/10/first-openly-gay-pastor-ordained-in-the-pcusa-speaks/">perhaps even a minister</a>.
<blockquote>But the truth is that the other Bob wants to convert Christian Bob too – not to being gay, of course, but to his own worldview.</blockquote>
As the "Two Bobs" narrative unfolds, there's no reason to believe that to be the case. That is, with "Christian Bob" being able to be friends with his gay neighbor, there's little more that "Gay Bob" could hope to accomplish -- and no reason to believe that "Gay Bob" would be particularly interested in trying to push "Christian Bob" into making further concessions. After all, if most or all evangelicals were as neighborly, the author would have felt no need to write his parable.
<br /><br />
Dreher's take-away from the parable was this:
<blockquote>Cosper’s point is that Bob 1 can be the gay agnostic, or the traditional Christian, and the same moral would apply. If you can’t see how either one could play either role in the conversation, perhaps you need to work on your empathy.</blockquote>
For reasons I've already outlined, and which should be readily apparent from the applicability of the parable to other contexts in which it becomes instantly uncomfortable, Dreher's first take-away fails due to narrative's reliance upon a false equivalence.
<br /><br />
The argument for empathy -- for <em>mutual</em> empathy -- is more interesting. While the narrative flounders when it attempts to draw a parallel between immutable aspects of a person and their social or religious beliefs, there is no question but that people can be friends with evangelical Christians without sharing or endorsing their beliefs. Sure, just as political discussions are off the table at a lot of family Thanksgiving dinners, there may be discussions that don't occur in the interest of good neighborly relations, but that's part of how we get along with others who don't fully share our views.
<br /><br />
The false analogy makes the argument for empathy a bit awkward -- I'm hard pressed to think of any gay person I've ever known who held the sort of blanket views of evangelical Christians that the author seems to believe are prevalent -- but certainly, there's room for neighbors with different social, political and religious views to find common ground. (Nonetheless, if "Christian Bob" is marching with the Westboro Baptist Church or is actively protesting gay marriage and lobbying politicians for a ban on employee benefits for same-sex partners, he needs to take responsibility for the fact that his actions make it much less likely that he will find common ground with his gay neighbor.)Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-88936085701832569442015-01-14T15:12:00.002-05:002015-01-14T16:06:05.938-05:00Divining the Meaning of an Election<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
Michael Gerson has written a column in which he accuses political parties of... I guess it's of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-washingtons-parties-cant-agree-even-on-the-meaning-of-an-election/2015/01/12/6b247aa4-9a76-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html?wprss=rss_opinions">not sharing his personal beliefs</a> about what is signified by the outcome of an election. Should we find it surprising that politicians characterize the political climate as being consistent with their own, and their party's, political agenda even when the facts might suggest otherwise? When G.W. Bush was pushing Social Security privatization as part of the supposed mandate from his 2005 re-election, despite its not being an election issue, Gerson was still working for him as a speechwriter. If Gerson wants to pen an interesting column on what it means to have a mandate, the collapse of that effort should provide plenty of material.
<br /><br />
Gerson's commentary is largely inspired by the recent midterm election,
<blockquote>The GOP is feeling the momentum of its best congressional performance since the New Deal, and Senate Republicans are enjoying the pleasing weight of committee gavels in their hands. Elected Republicans generally believe that [President] Obama was humbled by voters and should act like it — that he should make concessions commensurate to his losses, as President Clinton did following his 1994 midterm defeat.
<br /><br />
Obama, in contrast, seems to view the November outcome as his final liberation from a dirty political game characterized by complete Republican bad faith. He finds no repudiation in the verdict of an unrepresentative, midterm electorate. And he is no longer required to pretend that he cares about the political fate of the 4th District of Podunk. His reaction to the election has been to seek new avenues of executive action as an alternative to congressional dysfunction. So far, he has been politically rewarded.</blockquote>
My initial reaction to this split of opinion is pretty simple: The midterm election involved the House of Representatives and the Senate. Neither party disputes the obvious consequence of that election -- the Republicans took control of the Senate. However, the President did not stand for re-election and, as much as his political opponents might want to point to their electoral successes in a different branch of government as a reason why the President should abandon his own political agenda, that's <em>not</em> the way our system of government is constructed. We don't have a parliamentary system, where the party with the most seats gets to form a government with the party head becoming Prime Minister.
<br /><br />
Gerson argues,
<blockquote>This type of polarization seems more psychological than ideological. Obama and congressional Republicans are inhabiting alternative political realities, with no overlap in which compromise might take root.</blockquote>
Although ideology comes into play, the word for which Gerson should have been searching is "political". Contrary to Gerson's suggestion, "Obama and congressional Republicans" are <em>not</em> "inhabiting alternative political realities" -- they are seeking to advance their own political agenda within the constraints of our political system. Gerson proceeds to explain that "'The meaning of elections... is almost always contested'" and "Election outcomes are not self-interpreting" -- well, no kidding.
<blockquote>As to the 2014 election: "It may well be," [political scientest Frances Lee told me, "that no single conventional wisdom will ever emerge. . . . Faced with ambiguity, people tend to believe what they want to believe. When people are surrounded by social networks that also want to believe the same thing, their views will harden further."</blockquote>
Cognitive bias 101... which, of course, has absolutely no relevance to how the President and Congressional Republicans interpret or respond to the election.
<br /><br />
Gerson opines,
<blockquote>The parties do not view themselves as losers, even when they lose. The 2012 election should have demonstrated to Republicans (among other lessons) that they need a seriously revised outreach to minorities, women and working-class voters. The 2014 election should have demonstrated to Democrats (among other lessons) that a reputation for unreconstructed liberalism seriously limits their geographic appeal.</blockquote>
That, of course, is abject nonsense. If the lesson of the 2012 election is supposedly that Republicans "need a seriously revised outreach to minorities, women and working-class voters", a lesson the Republicans most certainly did not internalize, then the election of 2014 would be that the Republican Party does <em>not</em> need any such revised outreach. I'm reminded of how some commentators, speaking on climate change, confuse weather and climate -- it's the overall climate that requires the Republican Party to evolve. The big picture. The next twenty years. The result of a specific election is a data point, not a trend line.
<br /><br />
When it comes to the President, it would be helpful if Gerson provided us with his conception of what it means to be an "unconstructed liberal". The term is bandied about in right-wing circles, but with little attention to meaning or consistency. It seems often to be used to describe somebody who adheres to far-left liberal positions. If that's what Gerson perceives in Obama's legislative history and his present political goals, to put it mildly, he's out of touch with reality. To the extent that Gerson is applying a dictionary definition of "unreconstructed", attempting to suggest that the President is advancing a liberal agenda that has become criticized or is unpopular, it's an odd argument. One of the reasons we have representative governments, and one of the reasons we elect officials for terms of years, is to insulate the political process from popular whims and prejudices. Further, such a definition would mean that Gerson is looking at opinion polls, not the result of the 2014 election and <em>certainly</em> not the results of prior elections.
<br /><br />
Gerson's focus on <em>geographic</em> appeal is interesting, given that he presents geography as a problem for the Democrats but not for his own party. While it's not surprising that a Republican like Gerson would suggest that the Democrats should abandon their platform in favor of one that of his own party, it's not clear that doing so would actually do much to change the political map in the red states. What it <em>would</em> do is alienate blue state voters from the party, something the Republicans would no doubt appreciate but which would be entirely counter-productive to the Democratic Party itself. Gerson can't have helped but notice a clear red state, blue state divide in the 2014 election, yet he shows no sign of concern that the Republicans disavow their platform in order to woo more blue state voters. Under this interpretation of his statement, Gerson's suggestion to the Democrats is either a form of preaching to the Republican choir or is the sort of advice you give in the hope of handicapping an opponent who heeds it.
<br /><br />
Gerson concludes,
<blockquote>Both parties could gain electoral advantages by realistically addressing their weaknesses, which would also open up the possibility of legislative progress. But everyone, unfortunately, seems to like what they see in the mirror.</blockquote>
Except... not so much. To the extent that Gerson correctly identifies trends within the population, he could make the argument that both parties need to focus on that long-term picture. Within that context it makes sense for the Republicans to pass a bipartisan immigration reform bill -- like the one that the Senate passed last year, but which the Republicans would not even allow to come up for a vote in the House. Instead the House is serving up <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/13/politics/house-immigration-vote/">a mess of a bill</a>, unlikely to even gain Senate approval, but which seems to be fairly characterized as throwing red meat to anti-immigrant factions of their base.
<br /><br />
Gerson might argue that the GOP is proving his point, that they need to pass something along the lines of the bipartisan Senate bill to help ensure the party's successful future. But even accepting that as true, the problem would be that the Republican Party, like Gerson, is focused on data points as opposed to trends. They're out to win the next election, not to lose that election for the sake of potentially positioning themselves to dominate politics a decade or more into the future. It's the President who has the eye on that future and, even if Gerson chooses to characterize his immigration policy as "unreconstituted liberalism", as something that should be abandoned, through the President's action the contrast between the Republican position and the Democratic position is made stark. Obama is taking the long view.
<br /><br />
It's worth noting that Gerson is also playing the "pox on both your houses" game, in which he depicts both the Democrats (through Obama) and the Republicans as being equally at fault for legislative gridlock. The Republicans have come to the political realization that when a Democrat is in the White House, their party benefits from gridlock. The Senate immigration bill represents the sort of bipartisanship that Gerson would have us believe that we need (even as he suggests that the weaker reforms the President enacted through executive orders represent some form of liberal extremism) -- House Republicans killed the bill. Right now there is no chance that the Republicans are going to offer the President a reasonable immigration reform bill, let alone one that could fairly be characterized as bipartisan. There's similarly no chance that they will offer a reasonable healthcare reform bill (perhaps instead passing a score of "ObamaCare repeal" bills to add to the pile of their prior failed attempts) or a reasonable bill to address carbon emissions.... Where's the opportunity for the President to do anything <em>but</em> stand up for his core beliefs and do his best to advance the long-term interests of his party? It's not an issue of the President's liking what he sees in the mirror -- it's a matter of his being sufficiently politically literate to read the handwriting on the wall.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-85205189825074701092015-01-05T11:06:00.000-05:002015-01-05T11:06:37.735-05:00Hey, Firefox: Don't Mess With My Preferences<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
I know that Mozilla/Firefox ended its contract with Google and entered into a new search <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/19/mozilla-partners-with-yahoo-which-will-become-the-default-search-engine-in-firefox-next-month/">contract with Yahoo!</a>, but that doesn't mean I want them to mess with my settings and make Yahoo! my default search engine.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-38860618750817023522014-12-14T12:32:00.002-05:002014-12-15T09:37:34.163-05:00Just a Little Bit of Torture?<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
Via <a href="http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Its_Definition_Friday_At_The_Cafe">Charles Pierce</a>, I found Jonah Goldberg's unimpressive defense of the use of torture. Goldberg opens,
<blockquote>For a long time I resisted the word “torture” when discussing the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used against high-value captives in the War on Terror. I don’t think I can do that anymore.</blockquote>
Let's be blunt, here. There's only one reason somebody like Goldberg would shy away from the use of the word "torture" and it's because he's a coward. The facts were out there. The Senate report adds some shocking details, but if you weren't willing to call "torture" by its name until you learned that it may have involved hummus, you were either choosing not to look at the facts or you were scared of alienating your patrons and followers. In his new defense of torture, Goldberg makes clear that he believes the techniques we <em>knew</em> to be involved in "enhanced interrogation" were torture:
<blockquote>What some of these detainees went through pretty obviously amounted to torture. You can call it “psychological torture” or something to that effect, but such qualifiers don’t get you all that far.</blockquote>
So, then, he's a coward.
<br /><br />
Goldberg immediately walks back from his concession of the obvious:
<blockquote>It’s true that torture is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. Everyone can agree that hot pokers, the rack, and the iron maiden qualify. But loud music, sleep deprivation, and even waterboarding? At first, maybe not. But over time, yes. Torture can be a lot like poison: The dosage matters.</blockquote>
To me, that paragraph seems internally inconsistent. The initial argument is that there can be sincere disagreement over whether certain practices constitute torture. But rather than advancing that argument, Goldberg switches to one of degree -- that certain techniques only become torture if they're applied in a repeated or prolonged manner. Goldberg's <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/216114/tortured-logic/jonah-goldberg">on the record here</a>. If he has scruples, they're newly discovered:
<blockquote>Within this broad range, arguments over what is or is not torturous are to be had. The most debated technique is “waterboarding,” which terrifies its recipient into believing he is drowning. Apparently, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded until he gave us a bounty of information. Technically, the McCain amendment would ban such treatment.</blockquote>
Goldberg knew at that time that Mohammed was waterboarded repeatedly, yet he had no problem suggesting that waterboarding might not actually be torture and that it should not be prohibited. Goldberg also displayed an inability to comprehend the moral and legal issues behind torture:
<blockquote>But, as Charles Krauthammer notes in the current issue of The Weekly Standard, there’s reason to believe even McCain would endorse a “sliding scale” that would allow the Khalid Mohammeds to get roughed up under certain circumstances. In other words, McCain makes the sorts of distinctions mentioned above–he just doesn’t want them written into law. Indeed, under the “ticking time bomb” scenario, McCain believes the president should willfully break the law McCain has authored. That’s a pretty Kerryesque position: He’s for it, except when he’s against it. So much for absolutism.</blockquote>
Krauthammer proposed banning torture but with exceptions that would subsume the rule -- he would allow for torture in the "ticking time bomb" scenario, and for what he calls "slow fuse" suspects such as Mohammed. Even if you don't follow Krauthammer's definition of "ticking time bomb" so broadly as to include a situation where the enemy has captured a soldier, the difficulty of its implementation should be obvious: If you don't know what information a suspect has until <em>after</em> you torture him, you're going to end up torturing people who have no information, who may have been deliberately fed misinformation for you to elicit, and who you presuppose are going to lie to you. You, as a torturer, also don't know either if or when the lie becomes the truth.
<br /><br />
You risk getting an avalanche of information that buries the truth. You risk getting several versions of the truth, with amendment or new "details" added at every turn simply to get the torture to stop. In a non-ticking time bomb scenario, such as a soldier's being held hostage, you may have the luxury of repeatedly returning to your suspects to torture them again and again, until they give you better information... assuming they have it. But in an actual ticking time bomb scenario, you won't know if you have the right person, you won't know if you're getting accurate information, and you may in fact end up chasing red herrings of your own creation rather than following valid leads.
<br /><br />
It's not clear that Goldberg accepted, or even understood, Krauthammer's distinction between the "ticking time bomb" and the "slow fuse". Krauthammer endorsed torturing somebody like Mohammed on the assumption that he's going to have useful information that he won't otherwise provide to interrogators -- and because he doesn't believe that suspected terrorists are deserving of basic human rights or dignity. Krauthammer's exceptions are so broad that his proposed limited prohibition of torture would not prevent <em>any</em> torture. His conception of the "ticking time bomb" is so broad as to encompass pretty much any possible, future terrorist attack or the location of a captures soldier. It's difficult to believe that he would object to the use of torture to find arms stashes, or to find people higher on the food chain, all in the name of preventing imminent terrorist attacks -- because terrorists are <em>always</em> plotting the next attack. Any detainee is thus reasonably treated as a "ticking time bomb" -- and if, for some reason, you can't make that case, you can simply apply the subjective measure that you think the person is "high value" and can be tortured to obtain whatever information he holds.
<br /><br />
Although it seems obvious, Goldberg was completely unable to grasp the distinction between the positions of people like McCain and Kerry, and the unprincipled arguments of somebody like Krauthammer. Kerry and McCain were prepared for the possibility that the mythic "ticking time bomb" might actually be found, with the President being called upon to authorize torture in violation of the law. A President who could not make the case would be subject to impeachment, and he and those following his orders could face criminal charges. Such an approach should all-but-eliminate the possibility of a Bush-Cheney torture regime, as their programs would be plainly unlawful. Krauthammer, on the other hand, would have been perfectly happy to give that regime the full blessings of the law.
<br /><br />
Goldberg is upset with the idea that once something is identified as torture, it should be deemed off-limits:
<blockquote>One of the great problems with the word “torture” is that it tolerates no ambiguity. It is a taboo word, like racism or incest. Once you call something torture, the conversation is supposed to end. It’s a line no one may cross. As a result, if you think the enhanced interrogation techniques are necessary, or simply justified, you have to call them something else. Similarly, many sincere opponents of these techniques think that if they can simply call them “torture,” their work is done.</blockquote>
Pierce points out the stupidity of Goldberg's points of comparison:
<blockquote>This is a guy who has made a comfortable career out of the notion that liberal fascists use "racism" as a club to bludgeon conservatives into silence when those conservatives are only trying to have a discussion about values and the public schools. Is he implying here that people use the words "incest" and "torture" in the same way? Do liberals cry "incest" when conservatives are only trying to talk about the gene pool out of which have emerged their hot cousins?</blockquote>
But more than that, Goldberg again displays the same sort of cowardice that plagues not just his musings on torture, but most of his work. He just <em>told us</em> that he was tremulous of using the word "torture" to describe torture, yet he's now suggesting that all it takes to get us back to where we were a few years ago is a properly applied euphemism. There is no similarity between suggesting that torture should be illegal, and using a euphemism to describe acts you know to fall under the definition of torture in order to try to sidestep legal and moral issues. Beyond that, Goldberg knows that torture opponents are <em>not</em> simply articulating a definition and declaring their job to be done:
<blockquote>The problem is that the issue isn’t nearly so binary. Even John McCain — a vocal opponent of any kind of torture — has conceded that in some hypothetical nuclear ticking-time-bomb scenario, torture might be a necessary evil. His threshold might be very high, but the principle is there nonetheless.</blockquote>
As previously explained, McCain would have the torturer and those who authorized his acts face possible prosecution, defending his breach of a torture prohibition based upon a strong argument of necessity. McCain would have the torturer clearly demonstrate courage in his convictions, a concept that appears to be outside of Goldberg's comprehension.
<blockquote>And nearly everyone understands the point: When a greater evil is looming in the imminent future, the lesser evil becomes more tolerable. This is why opponents of the interrogation program are obsessed with claiming that it never worked, at all.</blockquote>
Here, again, Goldberg is unable to maintain internal consistency. He cannot simultaneously hold up John McCain as the iconic opponent of the torture program, while pretending that McCain is "obsessed with claiming that it never worked." While some do take the position that torture "never" works, most opponents of torture recognize that you may be able to gain useful information from torture -- but with much of that information subject to being elicited through rapport-based interrogation without the moral issues of torture, or the confounding problem of useful facts being buried in an avalanche of lies and misinformation pouring out of a suspect who will say <em>anything</em> to make the torture stop.
<br /><br />
Goldberg also steps right past the obvious, that <em>proponents</em> of the torture program have a very long history of lying about the program and the intelligence they gathered. They lied about the scope of the program. They lied about its effectiveness. They lied about the utility of information they gathered. Knowing that their actions would shock the conscience of the nation, they systematically destroyed the evidence. You would not expect that level of deceit, exaggeration and cover-up from people who <em>sincerely</em> believed in their program.
<br /><br />
Lt. Col. Douglas A. Pryer, U.S. Army, wrote an essay for Foreign Policy, entitled, <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/12/05/i-dont-believe-a-word-of-what-torture-advocates-say-and-neither-should-you/">I don’t believe a word of what torture advocates say—and neither should you</a>.
<blockquote>Predictably, torture’s acolytes are already responding: The report was a Republican witch hunt led by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. Facts were selectively culled by partisan staffers in order to paint the program in the worst possible light. Other staffers could’ve selected different facts and reached completely opposite conclusions. Sure, there were problems with the program, but these techniques really did “work.” They saved lives. Someday, the truth will be revealed, and the men and women who performed this “hard, dirty work” for good ends will be lauded as the true heroes they are. In the mean time, trust us regarding this program’s success. WE KNOW.
<br /><br />
Hogwash. I’ve never believed a word of what torture’s advocates say, and neither should you.</blockquote>
The author, who managed interrogation operations for the 1st Armored Division (1AD) in Baghdad from Jul-Nov 2003, asked that several of his prisoners be "re-interrogated" at Abu Ghraib,
<blockquote>Now, this is important: not once during this period did my Division receive any useful intelligence from Abu Ghraib. We received a few reports that Abu Ghraib interrogators seemed to think contained useful intelligence, but they contained nothing of substance that wasn’t contained in earlier reports. It was a mystery to me then why our interrogators in Baghdad produced actionable intelligence nearly every day but those at Abu Ghraib produced nothing of value—not little of value, NOTHING of value.</blockquote>
He opines,
<blockquote>But while trying to make sense of my own experiences, I’ve also read extensively on the subject, and all that I’ve read reinforces the same conclusion: torture is an immensely impractical intelligence-gathering tool. Professional interrogators who have become truly expert at employing rapport-based approaches decry torture’s effectiveness as an intelligence-gathering tool. Yes, you sometimes get the truth, but this truth is rarely substantial and is typically buried in what I’ve heard professional interrogators call “the longest list of lies in the world.”
<br /><br />
Those who claim that torture has more chance of success than rapport-based approaches have limited (if any) direct experience with these approaches. They’re rarely real interrogators....
<br /><br />
When the 9/11 attacks took place, nearly 3000 Americans lost their lives, and so many Americans lost their minds, U.S. Army interrogation doctrine (as expressed in the 1987 Intelligence Interrogation manual) had it right: “Experience indicates that . . . the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.” Unfortunately, this doctrine—which reflected the practical experience of generations of interrogators—was thrown away by arrogant amateurs who thought they knew more than the professionals.</blockquote>
He points out that there's more to the debate than "does it work",
<blockquote>The question of "does it work" aside, there are HUGE strategic drawbacks to torture, such as how it undermines the rule of law, corrupts those who use it, undercuts military training, cedes moral high ground to our nation’s enemies, creates distrust among allies, sows dissension at home, serves as a source of recruits and donations for our nation’s enemies, creates irreconcilable enemies, and makes the ultimate goal of any conflict—its peaceful resolution—increasingly difficult.
<br /><br />
Quite simply, for a mature democracy in the information age, there may be no surer tool for prolonging conflicts and shaping defeat than employing torture.</blockquote>
By pretending that opponents of torture begin and end their argument with, "It's wrong", Goldberg conveniently avoids addressing any of the more difficult arguments against torture.
<br /><br />
Goldberg then brings in the false analogy:
<blockquote>And this suggests why the talking point about drone strikes has such power. Killing is worse than torture. Life in prison might be called torture for some people, and yet we consider the death penalty a more severe punishment....
<br /><br />
It’s odd: Even though killing is a graver moral act, there’s more flexibility to it. America killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people in World War II, but few would call that murder because such actions as the firebombing of Dresden were deemed necessary to win the war.
<br /><br />
In other words, we have the moral vocabulary to talk about kinds of killing — from euthanasia and abortion to capital punishment, involuntary manslaughter and, of course, murder — but we don’t have a similar lexicon when it comes to kinds of torture.</blockquote>
It would be interesting to hear Jonah Goldberg's description of the <em>military</em> justification of the firebombing of Dresden, which I expect would be about as deep as his understanding of <a href="http://www.salon.com/2008/01/11/goldberg_2/">Mussolini's connection to fascism</a> -- "Oops, I forgot Mussolini was a fascist".<sup>1</sup>
<br /><br />
Goldberg is obviously no student of history, but if he were he might have learned that the allied commanders who ordered such acts as the firebombing of cities in Japan <em>knew</em> that their acts were legally dubious and <em>knew</em> that they would likely result in war crimes charges if the Allies lost the war. That is the very sort of accountability that John McCain wishes to bring to torture -- to have the person making the order do so in contemplation that his decision could result in his spending many years in prison (or, in the case of war crimes, the hangman's noose), something that also likely plays into the public acceptance of the necessity defense.
<br /><br />
Also, in war the question is almost never going to be, "Should we fire a missile or should we conduct a precision raid to kill or extract an enemy leader or terrorist". While it may be true that, in hindsight, a terrorist might prefer to be tortured and imprisoned over being blown up by a drone, perhaps along with members of his family, that only becomes relevant if the putative target of a drone strike decides to turn himself over to U.S. forces.
<br /><br />
Goldberg is essentially arguing that, having accepted that torture is wrong, we need a new euphemism for torture, or at least for the <em>modest amount</em> of torture that Goldberg would have us see as something other than torture. Actually, the issue of whether or not an act constitutes torture can be made reasonably clear, using a definition such as Lt. Col. Pryer's, "Today, I judge any tactic designed to inflict physical or mental pain severe enough to 'break' someone to be 'torture.'". Goldberg might want us to believe that offering a criminal suspect a cup of coffee during an interrogation is an insidious form of sleep deprivation, tantamount to making him stand without sleep and forcibly waking him every time he dozes off, but I suspect that most others can see the difference between an interrogation that goes on arguably past the point when a suspect should be allowed to sleep and intentional sleep deprivation.<sup>2</sup>
<br /><br />
Moreover, in the former case the suspect can argue in court that the circumstances of the interrogation became unduly coercive -- and that is made easier if it's clear that interrogating officers were intentionally depriving the suspect of sleep in order to continue the interrogation of a suspect whose mental faculties were breaking down. There is no point to trying to use Goldberg's "little bit of torture" approach, as torture is only useful <em>if</em> the suspect breaks. Once you make the decision to torture, there's <em>no level</em> at which your actions do not constitute torture.
<br /><br />
I don't want to overstate things here. Sometimes a suspect can be inspired to provide self-incriminating information based upon threats or statements that <em>are</em> coercive, but are not deemed to be torture. The federal government has a reputation for threatening to bring charges against a primary suspect's spouse, or possibly other family members, when pressuring a suspect to confess to a crime or to accept a plea bargain. Suspects detained for interrogation may be told that a co-defendant is making a confession that implicates them, and that if they don't confess they'll get a more severe penalty. I don't think that Pryer is referring to causing a suspect to break his silence, or break from a prior narrative, when he speaks of "mental pain severe enough to 'break' someone" -- but I would not be surprised if he argued that you would be much more likely to get reliable information from criminal suspects if you successfully use rapport-based techniques, particularly if he's familiar with false confession cases.
<br /><br />
Goldberg then presents the argument, "Our torture is different, because our motives are pure,"
<blockquote>When John McCain was brutally tortured — far, far more severely than anything we’ve done to the 9/11 plotters — it was done to elicit false confessions and other statements for purposes of propaganda. When we tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it was to get actionable intelligence on ongoing plots. It seems to me that’s an important moral distinction. If I torture a fiend to find out where he left a child to suffocate or starve in some dungeon, that’s a less evil act than torturing someone just to hear them renounce their god or country. Also, KSM was not some innocent subjected to torture to satisfy the grotesque desires of some sadists. He is an unlawful combatant responsible for murdering thousands of innocent Americans.
<br /><br />
This may sound like nothing more than a rationalization. But that is to be expected when you try to reason through a morally fraught problem.</blockquote>
What it sounds like is both an oversimplification <em>and</em> a rationalization. While it is true that torture states use torture in order to obtain statements useful for propaganda purposes, as well as to generally intimidate the public, it is <em>not</em> true that they thus <em>never</em> use torture to gain intelligence about criminal, dissident, or terrorist activity, or to try to obtain useful intelligence from enemy soldiers. I suspect, also, that their torturers are every bit as good at rationalizing their conduct as is Goldberg when it comes to his insistence that when Americans torture they have only the purest of motives.
<br /><br />
Here, again, Goldberg avoids addressing the <em>actual</em> positions of torture opponents. People like John McCain fully embrace the idea of American exceptionalism, and are going into this debate with the assumption that our motives in using torture will be pure. Unlike Goldberg, however, he has enough understanding of both history and the realities of torture to recognize that the use of torture should nonetheless be extremely rare, and that the legal framework for the use of torture should force decision-makers to consider both the need for torture and all reasonable alternatives before authorizing its use.
<br /><br />
--------------------------------<br />
Footnotes:
<br /><br />
1. Goldberg's actual statement,
<blockquote>Mussolini was born a socialist, he died a socialist, he never abandoned his love of socialism, he was one of the most important socialist intellectuals in Europe and was one of the most important socialist activists in Italy, and <strong>the only reason he got dubbed a fascist</strong> and therefore a right-winger is because he supported World War I. </blockquote>
Goldberg's defense of his error is that he "misspoke", a claim that may be true but, if so, is akin to somebody professing to be an expert on the Middle East conflicts while forgetting, even momentarily, about Mohammed's connection to Islam. Actually, given that Mussolini <a href="http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm">railed <em>against</em> socialism</a>, it would be a bit like such an "expert" arguing that Mohammed unsuccessfully tried to stop Islam.
<br /><br />
2. One wonders what distinctions Goldberg would draw that would render the techniques of torture to be, in his view, non-torture. Is there actually a degree of waterboarding that could be deemed anything <em>but</em> torture? Would he defect rectal feeding -- "As long as you don't use any more hummus than you get in one of those airline snack packs" -- or would he concede that some techniques are <em>always</em> torture even if used only to a limited degree?Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-68910435633622814812014-12-11T00:28:00.001-05:002014-12-11T00:28:26.144-05:00Should We Keep the Facts of Torture Secret<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
An argument I've heard any number of times, in which I find little merit, goes <a href="http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2014/12/brookes_context_counts_in_assessing_torture">like this</a>:
<blockquote> Some, like U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), argue that the Islamic State and al-Qaeda already have the United States in their cross-hairs, so what’s the difference. That’s true in general, but will this report’s release help these groups find new foot soldiers, followers and funding?
<br /><br />
The info in this document, especially with its lurid details, could prove a propaganda bonanza for existing or future terrorist groups — not to mention "lone wolves" who may be incited to violence by it.
<br /><br />
This is a serious risk.</blockquote>
The assumption behind the argument is that the people who were on the receiving end of U.S. torture are every bit as in the dark about it as the people of the U.S., who were told about water boarding and not much else. As if, when asked, a suspect who was tortured but eventually released would decline to describe what happened during his detention, lest he make people angry at the U.S.
<br /><br />
I recognize that a lot of people <em>here</em> bought into the "They hate us for our freedom" canard, but <em>really</em>.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-1446711115682118412014-12-02T16:02:00.002-05:002014-12-02T16:06:51.380-05:00A Republican Punch That Shouldn't Have Landed<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
With the Republicans <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/02/republicans-cut-agency-funding-retaliation-obama-immigration">making noise</a> about withholding funding from DHS, a rather irresponsible form of brinksmanship, The Guardian describes an exchange between Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson and Lou Barletta (R-PA):
<blockquote>Yet Barletta did land one of the Republicans’ few punches when he pressed Johnson over the fact that undocumented migrants granted permits to stay in and work in the country would not qualify for benefits under the Affordable Care Act.
<br /><br />
He said that put them at an advantage over US citizens, who he referred to as “American workers”.
<br /><br />
“You don’t think an employer will think, ‘Do I keep an American worker and provide health insurance or pay a $3,000 fine, or do I get rid of the American and hire an undocumented worker?’” Barletta asked.
<br /><br />
“I don’t think I see it that way,” Johnson said. “You don’t think any American workers would see it that way?” Barletta continued.
<br /><br />
“I don’t think I see it that way,” Johnson replied. “No, sir.”</blockquote>
A better response would be, "If in your analysis of the legislation that's even a remote possibility, passing a bill to prevent that problem would provide a quick and easy resolution in favor of the American worker."Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-41540342482488017722014-12-02T12:10:00.000-05:002014-12-02T12:10:05.386-05:00Racism: New vs. Old<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
David Brooks informs us,
<blockquote>But the other reason that the civil-rights era comparisons [to Ferguson] were inapt is because the nature of racism has changed. There has been a migration away from prejudice based on genetics to prejudice based on class.</blockquote>
How might that new class-based racism manifest itself in the real world?
<blockquote>This class prejudice is applied to both the white and black poor, whose demographic traits are converging.</blockquote>
That doesn't seem quite right. Consider, for example, Charles Murray's writings: poor white folk are on the wrong end of <a href="www.amazon.com/Coming-Apart-State-America-1960-2010/dp/030745343X">a cultural divide</a>; poor black folk are on the wrong end of <a href="www.amazon.com/Bell-Curve-Intelligence-Structure-Paperbacks/dp/0684824299/">the bell curve</a>.
<blockquote>But classism combines with latent and historic racism to create a particularly malicious brew.</blockquote>
And what is it that percolates from this brew?
<blockquote>People are now assigned a whole range of supposedly underclass traits based on a single glimpse at skin color.</blockquote>
So... unlike old-fashioned racism, where people might be judged by the color of their skin, we now live in a <em>new</em> era in which people are judged by <em>class</em>, which is merely <em>inferred</em> by the color of their skin?
<br /><br />
Having described in some detail the manner in which the elite of "18th- and 19th-century Britain" looked down on the poor, it's pretty clear that there's nothing new in the class divide that Brooks describes. The elite of that era might have been more apt to ascribe their success to class and station, while Brooks is enthralled with the notion that we're in a different sort of "meritocracy", but other than that Brooks is still describing people who perceive themselves as being in an elevated social class looking down on those they regard as their inferiors. Classism is anything but new.
<br /><br />
Even if I disregard that history and assume that Brooks has identified an actual change in the thought process behind racism, why would it matter? Is the distinction supposedly that the "new" racist will set aside his assumptions based on skin color if the person he assumes to be of an inferior class somehow demonstrates that he's part of the "respectable' meritocracy"? While certainly there are some people, past and present, who see skin color and reach the unyielding conclusion that the person they are looking at is inferior in every way, it seems to me that even in far more overtly racist times, racism has worked in pretty much the way Brooks describes -- an assumption is drawn based on skin color, but with some room for somebody to prove that they're exceptional -- that they're not like the majority of their race, people who can be discounted based on that glimpse of pigmentation. The change Brooks describes is one of degree, not one of kind.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-34954048005270938352014-11-24T15:37:00.001-05:002014-12-01T19:43:02.060-05:00Moving Past the Cosby (Side) Show.....<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
A few weeks ago I read an article in which a journalist was questioning why rape criticisms against Bill Cosby didn't get much media attention. The accusations have been percolating since the mid-1980's and many people were aware of the accusations, although not necessarily the full details. Now they charges have broken through into mainstream public consciousness, and they're all over the media.
<br /><br />
The media deserves no award for bravery, coming to the story this late in the game. Whatever excuses may have existed in the past, it is difficult to see the story as anything but the media's siding with the rich and powerful up to the point that the story penetrated the public consciousness -- by virtue of a comedian's accusations against Cosby going viral. While some in the media are offering some introspection, and you'll find an occasional <em>mea culpa</em>, the intensity of the present coverage seems to me to reflect another failure of the media, its tendency to shine a spotlight on an issue of current controversy or debate in order to try to grab as many viewers or readers as possible, even if that means tending toward the salacious or missing the forest for the trees.
<br /><br />
Dare I suggest, I think there is a <em>very</em> big forest out there, covering the same time period as the accusations against Cosby, and that the media is <em>continuing</em> to protect the wealthy and powerful.
<br /><br />
A few years ago in the U.K., a series of stories broke about a deceased entertainer who, as it turned out, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/27/how-bbc-star-jimmy-savile-got-away-with-allegedely-abusing-500-children-and-sex-with-dead-bodies/">was a serial child molester</a>. If you even scrape the surface of the story, you hit the same sort of issue you encountered in the Jerry Sandusky case -- acts that were sufficiently brazen and careless that they ended up <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jerry-sandusky-trial-janitor-and-victim-5-testify-about-alleged-shower-assaults/">being witnessed by others</a>, but with the decision made not to involve the police. Not to kill the golden goose, or tarnish the image of his employer, but to cover up. The accusations against Cosby are similar to <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435255/Samantha-Geimer-Roman-Polanskis-rape-victim-describes-sex-attack-graphic-time.html">those made against Roman Polanski</a>, except Cosby is alleged to have targeted adults.
<br /><br />
Corey Feldman has indicated that, as teen stars, he and Corey Haim were targeted by predatory adults. You don't have to look very hard to find "casting couch" stories in which young actresses, and some young actors, found themselves in awkward situations with people -- usually unnamed -- who were trying to obtain sexual favors in exchange for a part, or other help advancing their careers. Sometimes when a story breaks about a predatory individual it's immediately apparent that his predilections were widely known, and widely ignored. Australian entertainer Rolf Harris, accused of sexually assaulting teenaged girls, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-27503268">earned himself the nickname "the Octopus"</a>. <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/rolf-harris-not-the-only-octopus-in-entertainment-20140702-zssnl.html">An Australian news journalist recounts</a>,
<blockquote>Rolf Harris was known as “the Octopus”. But he wasn’t the only one.
<br /><br />
During 25 years in television, I was warned by colleagues about dozens of stars who would grope, molest or harass anyone who took their fancy.
<br /><br />
These include a presenter who is a household name.</blockquote>
An example is given of how that nationally famous news presenter sexually groped a female employee as recently as two years ago, but his identity is withheld. The article identifies only two sexual offenders, both of whom had already been publicly identified by others and one of whom had been criminally convicted.
<br /><br />
I stumbled across <a href="">a letter written in response to a Richard Cohen column</a>,
<blockquote>Richard Cohen wrote in his Nov. 18 op-ed column, “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-the-medias-self-indulgent-examination-of-character/2014/11/17/7072ad96-6e8e-11e4-ad12-3734c461eab6_story.html">None of our business</a>,” that the sexual misbehavior of a “great man” should go unpublished. I disagree.
<br /><br />
A man who believes in his own greatness may feel he is exempt from rules of honorable behavior that apply to others. That belief reveals a possibly dangerous arrogance in his character.
<br /><br />
Sure, the press can go overboard with scandal, and as a former reporter and journalism teacher, I deplore that. But as a woman, I’d like to know if a so-called great man lies to his wife and uses women as sex objects. I may vote for him anyway when weighing that knowledge against his other attributes, but I’ll see him more clearly as imperfect and flawed, and most certainly avoid calling him “great.”</blockquote>
The column is about Martin Luther King, Jr., and the FBI smear campaign against him,
<blockquote>I did not know at the time [in 1964] about King’s affairs. I learned about them later, once the FBI bugs of King’s home and hotel rooms had become common knowledge in newsrooms around the country. But here’s the thing: No one printed a word of it. I know of no item in a gossip column and, since celebrity TV junk was still in the future, nothing on the air either. Lots of people knew the secret, but the press in those days respected the privacy of public figures: King was saved from ignominy. He was preserved for greatness.</blockquote>
Cohen also mentions Gary Hart, FDR, JFK, Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Lyndon Johnson, Anthony Weiner.... For the most part, examples that involve consensual extramarital relationships. Jefferson's case is particularly discomfiting -- you <em>can't have</em> a consensual relationship with a slave, although contemporary knowledge of the affair might have offended more people based upon her race than upon the fact that it was an extramarital affair or involved a profoundly coercive power dynamic.
<br /><br />
Cohen's complaint also is of another time. Gary Hart brought to an end the era in which you could be an unapologetic skirt chaser and still aspire to national office. Senator Bob Packwood helped end the era in which powerful politicians could do whatever they wanted to their employees behind closed doors -- and, if you recall, he threatened to take down other politicians who he claimed had committed acts comparable to his own, before choosing instead to exit politics and enrich himself by becoming a lobbyist.
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I find it difficult to be wistful for an era in which the powerful could easily abuse the weak, even in a nominally consensual adult-to-adult relationship. It may be that media coverage of politicians' sexual peccadilloes has the unfortunate effect of causing somebody with non-abusive tendencies to either stay out of politics or to lose an election, but I think there is nonetheless a significant net benefit. We have enough sociopaths and narcissists at the head of government and industry without also giving them -- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_congressional_page_sex_scandal"><em>restoring</em> to them</a> -- free reign to sexually abuse their underlings. In the current era, MLK would know that if he didn't control himself with women he would almost certainly be held accountable in the court of public opinion. It would be up to him to decide if it was worth the risk. It should not be the media's job to protect him from himself, let alone to "protect" us from knowing the truth.
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We have had an evolution in our society over the past fifty years, relating to how we treat sexual abusive conduct and how we respond to sexual harassment in the workplace. The improvement has come not only through improved legal remedies for victims of abuse, but through the publicity surrounding abuse cases. There is a valuable social lesson to be learned from stories about abusers being held accountable for their conduct, both in terms of helping other victims of abuse feel less isolated and in letting them know that legal remedies are available.
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It's really easy, alarmingly easy, to <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/09/the_outrageous_arrest_of_roman.html">rally to the <em>defense</em> of the rich and powerful</a> with little risk to your professional reputation. There's certainly a lot more risk in taking on the rich and powerful, and more difficulty in convincing your publication's lawyers to let you push a story into the public consciousness. I find it difficult to give a reporter or commentator credit for ignoring an open secret for years or decades, only to jump onto the story when it is finally broken by others, even if they admit that they should have addressed the story earlier or that the media failed to properly handle the allegations.
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If journalists or commentators want to convince me that they're actually sorry to have not covered the story at an earlier time, or that they want to improve their profession, I suggest that they start covering some of the other "open secrets" about our business, entertainment and political figures and celebrities, rather than again waiting until they can safely and easily jump onto the bandwagon.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-42681960592406310362014-11-21T14:36:00.000-05:002014-11-21T14:36:50.640-05:00Before Charles Lane Accuses Others of Hypocrisy, Perhaps He Should Look Up the Definition<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
I've commented in the past about accusations of hypocrisy, and how they are often misplaced. It's not hypocritical for Warren Buffett to pay only the taxes required by current law, while simultaneously arguing that taxes on the wealthy should be raised. Even assuming that the material facts are identical, it's not necessarily hypocritical for somebody to take a different position than the one they took years or decades earlier, as sometimes people change their minds. It's not hypocritical to stop protesting an action or issue that once drew you out to the streets, every time that issue comes up -- you can continue to feel strongly about the issue while succumbing to issue fatigue, recognizing that your protests are not having any effect, or moving onto other issues or priorities that get in the way of organizing protests and rallies.
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Still, accusations of hypocrisy abound. Certainly there are times that they are warranted, but often they're the hallmark of a lazy columnist. Falling into that latter category, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-lane-liberals-are-violating-their-principles-on-keystone-xl/2014/11/19/86b1c642-7009-11e4-8808-afaa1e3a33ef_story.html?wprss=rss_opinions">Charles Lane is waving his finger at "liberals"</a>.
<blockquote>Building the Keystone XL pipeline, to speed the flow of crude from Canada’s oil sands to refineries in Texas, would be “game over for the climate,” says NASA-scientist-turned-climate-activist James E. Hansen. Heeding Hansen’s words, environmentalists have sworn to stop the project, which requires U.S. government approval.</blockquote>
Perhaps we should note, up front, that not all environmentalists are liberals, and not all liberals are environmentalists.
<blockquote>Yet large, bipartisan majorities of the House and Senate support Keystone XL, as does 60 percent of the American public, according to the latest USA Today poll.</blockquote>
And... that has <em>absolutely nothing</em> to do with whether the project is environmentally wise.
<blockquote>Today, it is still on hold, because Tuesday night 41 Senate Democrats voted against ending debate on a bill to green-light Keystone XL, thus thwarting what might have been a disastrous exercise of democracy.</blockquote>
Perhaps it escaped Lane's notice, but that is not the first-ever use of a filibuster in the Senate. As Lane himself noted <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-lane-progressives-are-learning-again-that-the-constitution-is-obstructionist/2014/07/23/6d6f6ec2-1281-11e4-8936-26932bcfd6ed_story.html">in a prior screed</a>,
<blockquote>Republican opposition to Obamacare may be hypocritical, irrational and opportunistic — especially GOP opposition to the exchanges, which the party previously favored in various forms. And, yes, the modern filibuster takes counter-majoritarianism to an extreme even the Framers probably didn’t contemplate.
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But the Constitution lets the Senate write its own rules.</blockquote>
The fact that Senators who are part of an institution that has created and upheld the filibuster actually <em>employ</em> a filibuster is <em>in no way</em> hypocritical. Even if we assume (in defiance of the facts) that each and every one of those Senators would vote for straight majority rule in the Senate, it would not be hypocritical of them to employ the actual rules of the Senate when voting on legislation.
<blockquote>In short, the filibuster may have just saved the planet, at least for now.
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Or so it must be believed by Keystone XL’s <a href="http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/sclefkowitz/senate_rejects_bid_to_force_ap.html">opponents</a> — even though they include some of the <a href="http://www.cambio.com/videos/cambio-on-aol/daily-kos-founder-markos-moulitsas-on-changing-senate-filibuster--516897919/">same</a> people who decried the filibuster, not unreasonably, as an obstructionist, anti-majoritarian evil when Republicans employed it against President Obama’s health-care reform, cap-and-trade and other progressive legislation.</blockquote>
Here, through his link, Lane suggests that Markos Moulitsas is a hypocrite for opposing the filibuster and... he doesn't offer a link, but perhaps Moulitsas praised the Senate vote somewhere? As with Warren Buffett and his taxes, even if Moulitsas is overjoyed that the pipeline bill was filibustered, it's <em>not</em> hypocritical for him to advocate changing the Senate's rules while nonetheless encouraging Senators to use those rules to advance policy positions he favors. The concept isn't even slightly difficult to grasp -- it is possible to believe that something is bad <em>on the whole</em> such that it should be eliminated, even when recognizing that it has potential value under certain circumstances.
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When I saw the film, <em>Shattered Glass</em>, I had some sympathy for the Charles Lane played by Peter Sarsgaard, a well-meaning guy who got duped by one of his employees. But the Charles Lane who writes for the Washington Post seems to have a different problem -- he seems to be lazy and indifferent to the facts, the sort of approach to journalism that can allow somebody like Stephen Glass to get away with feeding him the most absurd fabrications as long as they don't conflict with his preconceptions. When you click through the link to the actual statement by Markos Moulitsas, Lane's exemplar of a hypocrite, you hear this:
<blockquote>There's a huge movement, and I think it's going to happen, to change the filibuster rules from requiring sixty votes to requiring forty "no" votes. Right now if you want to filibuster you don't even have to show up, you know, the onus is on the "pro" side to round up the sixty votes. So when you turn it to forty votes you gotta have those forty people there, and if one of them has to go to the bathroom, boom, you call cloture, and that's that.</blockquote>
Moulitsas was not calling for the elimination of the filibuster -- he was calling for the perpetuation of the filibuster, but with a change in how you vote for cloture. Given that Lane knows that forty-one Democrats voted to filibuster, and he <em>should</em> know that Moulitsas favors a filibuster rule that would <em>sustain</em> a filibuster based on those forty-one votes, his insinuation of hypocrisy has no basis in reality. It's instead an example of Lane getting his facts wrong. And with that example having been dredged up from September 10, 2010, either Lane couldn't find an actual example of a statement from a liberal that would support his thesis, or he got lazy.
<blockquote>Majority rule is not the only progressive principle some progressives seem ready to sacrifice on the anti-Keystone altar.</blockquote>
First, are we talking about "liberals", are we talking about "progressives", or does Lane view the term as interchangeable? Either way, I am not aware of any consensus among either group that we should eliminate representative democracy in favor of direct democracy.
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If we're simply talking about Senate rules, to put it mildly, there is no consensus among liberals or progressives that the filibuster should be abandoned. Some believe that it should be eliminated, but others (as with Lane's exemplar progressive, Markos Moulitsas) favor continuing the filibuster but changing the rules to make it less of a tool for obstruction, and still others would leave well enough alone. Meanwhile, it was not so many years ago that Republicans on the floor of the Senate made frequent calls for a "straight up or down vote" when confronted with the filibuster. Some of that opposition may have been opportunistic, but the fact is that the recognition that the filibuster is anti-democratic and could benefit from reform is not something that is unique to the political left.
<blockquote>Remember the corrupting influence of money on politics? Billionaire Tom Steyer has spent millions on TV ads backing environmentalist Democrats and trashing the pipeline itself, thus purchasing outsize influence in the White House and the Democratic Party.</blockquote>
Although this should go without saying, campaign finance reform has traditionally been a bipartisan issue, once championed by none other than John McCain. As should also go without saying, proponents of campaign finance reform have not proposed that no money be spent on political advertising. But beyond that, we're back to Warren Buffett and his taxes. You can believe that wealthy individuals and corporations gain an outsized voice in politics and government through their direct and indirect contributions, while nonetheless believing that you should take full advantage of the existing laws to advance your causes. There is no hypocrisy in advocating for a change in the law while operating under the existing laws, and it would be extraordinarily foolish to refuse adequate funding for your political goals out of principle when the likely consequence would be that your opponent would win. Heck, Steyer even spoon-fed that reality to those who are a bit slow on the uptake, and Lane <em>quotes</em> the explanation:
<blockquote>“On issues as critical as climate change, we will take action and work within the system that we’ve got until we can change it,” Steyer pragmatically told Forbes magazine.</blockquote>
How can Lane read that statement yet fail to understand that it's <em>not</em> an example of hypocrisy?
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Next up, infrastructure,
<blockquote>Most of the time, liberals tout the job-creating potential of critical infrastructure projects, based on the indirect “multiplier effect” that even short-term construction can have on economic growth.</blockquote>
Perhaps lane doesn't realize that with his opening qualifier, he hobbled his argument before it left the starting gate. There is a vast difference between supporting infrastructure projects <em>most</em> of the time, and supporting them <em>all</em> of the time. We should note, also, that many conservative voters recognize the need for and benefit of infrastructure projects -- but that doesn't mean that either side has to embrace <em>every</em> infrastructure project, that they cannot prioritize certain types of project over others, or that they cannot object to an infrastructure project that they deem wasteful or harmful.
<blockquote>For Keystone XL, though, different rules apply.</blockquote>
Apparently, to lane, "different rules" means roughly the same thing as "<em>the same</em> rules".
<blockquote>We are instructed, by <a href="http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Weiss-XL-testimony-PDF.pdf">Daniel Weiss</a> of the Center for American Progress, among others, that the <a href="http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Weiss-XL-testimony-PDF.pdf">$8 billion project</a> will create “only” 3,900 “direct” one-year construction jobs and a mere 50 permanent ones. Forget the 42,000 jobs that a State Department analysis said would be “supported” by the project.</blockquote>
Here, rather than pointing to <a href="http://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/finalseis/index.htm">the actual State Department report</a>, Lane links to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/31/four-takeaways-from-the-state-departments-review-of-the-keystone-xl-pipeline/">a post from the Washington Post's Wonkblog</a>. That blog post indicates that "About 3,900 of [the] jobs would be temporary construction jobs", and that once built, "the pipeline would support 50 jobs". In other words, Lane is complaining not that the one person he mentions got the facts wrong, but that he should have provided <em>additional</em> facts.
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When you go to the written statement of Daniel Weiss, you find that his reference to the number of jobs that would be created by the Keystone XL pipeline was specifically addressing the number of <em>permanent</em> jobs that would be created. While Lane can certainly argue that a greater discussion of <em>temporary</em> jobs would make the statement more complete, surely he can understand that temporary jobs are not of great significance to an assertion about permanent jobs. After all, if he cannot make that distinction, he is guilty of the same offense he attributes to Weiss -- Lane does not mention that either that the 42,000 indirect jobs would be temporary, continuing only during the construction of the pipeline.
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Lane is also engaged in a sleight of hand. The people -- liberal and conservative -- who favor infrastructure projects have done so in no small basis upon the position that although a typical infrastructure project is relatively short-term, we need to invest in our nation's decaying infrastructure and that the short-term boost in employment can help stimulate the economy. As previously stated, this was never an endorsement of any infrastructure project. In fact, the proposed focus has typically been on <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/05/24/investing-infrastructure-create-jobs-and-stimulate-economy">public infrastructure</a>.
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But as Lane knows, those commenting on the very small number of <em>permanent</em> jobs that will result from pipeline construction are addressing a different issue. They were attempting to rebut <a href="http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/globallaborinstitute/research/keystonexl.html">exaggerated claims by pipeline proponents</a> about the number of jobs the pipeline would generate, and to point out the indisputable fact that the pipeline will create an inconsequential number of long-term jobs. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the people making these observations about Keystone XL would not say exactly the same thing about other major infrastructure projects.
<blockquote>Construction unions understand that employment in their field is inherently temporary in the sense that it ends when the building is built. They strongly favor Keystone XL. Yet this reliably Democratic middle-class constituency is also being thrown under the anti-Keystone bus.</blockquote>
Wow... crocodile tears for union worker.
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It's even slightly surprising that unions whose members would benefit from construction jobs favor construction projects. I would not be surprised if there was significant union support to build "the bridge to nowhere". The question of whether a particular faction supports a project does not answer the question of whether the project is wise or appropriate. Further, given that only a few short paragraphs ago Lane was grousing that progressives have forgotten <em>their</em> principle of "majority rule", Lane wants to have it both ways. If it's hypocritical and an affront to progressive principles to not abide by the judgment of the minority, how can it be simultaneously an affront to progressive principles to not allow a vocal minority to impose its will on the majority? Does Lane not find it obvious that it's one or the other?
<blockquote>The least attractive violation of progressive values by Keystone XL opponents’ was their attempt to recast this joint project of Canada and the United States in xenophobic terms.</blockquote>
Oh, this should be good....
<blockquote>One Steyer-financed ad warned that China is “counting on the U.S. to approve TransCanada’s pipeline to ship oil through America’s heartland and out to foreign countries like theirs.”</blockquote>
So... based on one ad that virtually nobody in the nation has seen, Lane has concluded that progressives have embraced xenophobia.... (Has Lane ever noticed the Republican Party's treatment of issues like immigration?)
<blockquote>The only basis for this claim was that state-owned Chinese companies have a modest investment in Canada’s oil sands. The Post’s Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, awarded the ad four Pinocchios, noting that “it relies on speculation, not facts, to make insinuations and assertions not justified by the reality.”</blockquote>
That's it, then? One ad, financed by one individual, seen by virtually no one? It's difficult to imagine how Lane could build a stronger case.
<blockquote>Speaking of the planet, perhaps the only person on it who still hasn’t made up his mind about Keystone XL is President Obama, though his dithering has recently given way to expressions depressingly reminiscent of those in the Steyer ad.</blockquote>
In reality, President Obama has expressed that he is waiting for private lawsuits over the pipeline's proposed path to be resolved, and for the State Department to complete its analysis of how the pipeline will affect the environment, before taking a position on the pipeline. It's easy to understand why some might want the President to take a firm position, pro- or con-, before all of the facts are in. It's also easy to see why the President would instead choose to remain neutral pending either the outcome of litigation and studies that might prevent the pipeline's construction, or the presentment by Congress of legislation for his signature. Lane chooses the pejorative, "dither", but there is no reason to believe that the President is being even slightly indecisive on the question, as opposed to playing a careful political game on a hot button issue.
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And yes, obviously, his suggestion that the President is xenophobic is absurd.
<blockquote>“Understand what this project is,” he said at a news conference in Burma last week. “It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land down to the Gulf [Coast], where it will be sold everywhere else.” <em>Their</em> oil. <em>Our</em> land.</blockquote>
Does Lane disagree that the oil belongs to Canada? Does he disagree that a pipeline that will run across the United States is accurately described by the President as crossing "our land"? If Lane actually believes that the President's statement reflects xenophobia or anti-Canadian agitation, he should seek psychiatric help.
<blockquote>Yet his <a href="http://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/documents/organization/205654.pdf">own State Department’s exhaustive review of the project</a> found that <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/17/usa-keystone-exports-idUSL2N0T716A20141117">re-exports</a> of the oil, either as crude or in refined form, were unlikely. </blockquote>
This time around, Lane links to the actual State Department report. However, he is not being honest about the report's conclusion:
<blockquote>It is likely that increasing amounts of WCSB crudes will reach Gulf Coast refiners whether or not the proposed Project goes forward (products from this processing will be used in both domestic markets and for export). As a result, future refined product export trends are also unlikely to be significantly impacted by the proposed Project.</blockquote>
The report does not suggest that export won't occur. It suggests instead that enough Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) crude will reach the Gulf, with or without the pipeline, that net exports are unlikely to be affected.
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Lane's second link is to a Reuter's analysis of the President's statement, which it declares to "ring[] only half true".
<blockquote>"Some of it will stay in Gulf, some of it will leave," said Sarah Emerson, president of Energy Security Analysis, Inc. in Boston. "I don't think anyone would have built if they thought the oil was just going to stay in the Gulf Coast, that is like bringing coal to Newcastle."</blockquote>
It would be fair to accuse the President of overstatement. However, once again Lane is guilty of the very offense he attributes to others -- he is misrepresenting the State Department's report and is implying, in defiance of the facts and <em>his own sources</em>, that export is unlikely to occur.
<blockquote>Hypocrisy and rhetorical flimflam are standard in politics, and liberals are not the only guilty parties in the Keystone XL battle.</blockquote>
At this point, Lane has identified <em>zero</em> examples of hypocrisy. Not a one. It's not even clear that he understands the meaning of the word. As for "rhetorical flimflam", it's a colorful way of describing something that <em>is</em> inherent to politics. To observe, even with colorful language, that politicians are guilty of practicing politics seems somehow banal.
<blockquote>Keystone XL proponents have undoubtedly tapped corporate coffers to fund their share of exaggerations about the project’s benefits.</blockquote>
Lane speaks of this as if it's an assumption, not a fact. It's a fact.
<blockquote>And of course climate change is real and must be addressed.</blockquote>
Which doesn't mean that Lane isn't going to insist that the President state a firm opinion, or insult him for declining to do so, while we await the environmental impact report.
<blockquote>But in this case progressives are not only being intellectually dishonest and traducing their values, they’re doing so pointlessly: This end doesn’t justify these means.</blockquote>
Really, other than waving his hands a lot, all Lane has documented is that one wealthy person produced one TV ad, approved by nobody but himself and seen by virtually no one, that has an element of xenophobia; and that the President has implied that more of the WCSB crude will be exported than is likely to be the case. And in producing that tepid indictment of "liberals", he has misstated the facts, misrepresented the positions of people he has held up as hypocrites, and misunderstood the basic issues under debate.
<blockquote>Far from being “game over” for the planet, Keystone XL would not boost greenhouse gas emissions significantly, according to State Department experts. With or without Keystone XL, Canada’s oil sands will still be turned into crude oil and shipped, often by rail, to markets in the United States and elsewhere. The environmental movement’s energies — not to mention Steyer’s millions — would be far better spent elsewhere.</blockquote>
Lane's implication is that the crude is going to be extracted, shipped and used, so environmentalists may as well shut down and go home. Sometimes, even a fight for a losing cause can bring about results that benefit the losing side -- a better educated, more aware public, the exercise of greater caution when proposing and planning future projects with significant potential environmental impact, and the like. Also, while Lane writes off the possibility, perhaps those environmentalists don't intend to call it quits if the pipeline is not constructed. But, frankly, it's not his place to tell environmentalists how to expend their energies or to tell Steyer how to spend his own money.
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<blockquote>In their tendentious effort to deny these realities, progressives risk violating yet another cherished principle that, in their view, distinguishes them from the right: that of letting facts and science, not ideology, determine policy.</blockquote>
And here Lane is back to his earlier trick of conflating the terms "environmentalist" and "progressive" -- as if there are no conservative environmentalists nor any progressives who don't oppose the pipeline. And in relation to letting the facts and science dictate policy, what was it that Lane said only a few sentences ago?
<blockquote>And of course climate change is real and must be addressed.</blockquote>
So which is it -- is this a situation in which climate change is real and must be addressed, or a situation in which that science is already known and weighs in favor of the pipeline? If Lane's theory is that the oil will be extracted and used, rendering the existence of the pipeline irrelevant to the debate, he's missing the actual goal of the environmentalists opposed to this project -- they don't want that oil to be extracted or used <em>at all</em>. That's not because they are ignorant of science and climate change, or because they are refusing to consider the science when forming their positions on WCSB crude -- quite the opposite. Given that Lane is now endorsing making decisions based on science, it also seems odd that he wants the President to get ahead of the environmental impact analysis for the Keystone XL pipeline. It's almost as if Lane is privileging ideology over science.
<blockquote>Campaigning for a symbolic victory over the fossil-fuel industry, they may end up with a pyrrhic one — if any.</blockquote>
It goes without saying that the environmentalists could lose their fight against the pipeline. But it also goes without saying, even with due respect to Lane's accusations of imagined hypocrisy, if the environmentalists who oppose the pipeline prevail they will <em>not</em> view their victory as pyrrhic. More likely, they will be energized for their next battle.
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Do you know what would have made Lane's column better? If, rather than launching a poorly reasoned screed about "liberals", "progressives" and "environmentalists", that did little more than reveal his sloppy, lazy fact-checking, he had tried to lay out the case for why the pipeline is a good idea. He might have tried to explain how the pipeline compares to other possible infrastructure projects in terms of need, job creation and long-term benefit. He could have attempted to address environmental concerns, rather than brushing them off. Too much to ask?Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-68671314940069655112014-11-19T12:21:00.002-05:002014-11-19T12:22:28.014-05:00Executive Orders - What, Me Worry?<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
On the editorial pages of a newspaper that can scarcely pass up an opportunity to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-obama-needs-to-fix-his-flawed-islamic-state-strategy/2014/11/18/2c3f49e6-6e88-11e4-8808-afaa1e3a33ef_story.html?wprss=rss_opinions">beat the drums for war</a>, Ruth Marcus has taken up <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-a-slippery-slope-on-immigration/2014/11/18/501a11b0-6f5b-11e4-893f-86bd390a3340_story.html?wprss=rss_opinions">the horror of the executive order</a>. She's not employing in the over-the-top rhetoric of Ross Douthat, but she is concerned about the ever-present <em>slippery slope</em>,
<blockquote>Every Democrat should be nervous about President Obama’s plan for unilateral action on immigration reform.
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Not because of the impact on an already gridlocked Congress, or because it risks inflaming an increasingly hostile public. Democrats should be nervous about the implications for presidential power, and the ability of a future Republican president to act on his or her own.</blockquote>
Perhaps Democrats have short memories, because it seems to me that we saw ample evidence of what a Republican president can accomplish through executive orders when G.W. Bush signed a huge stack of them while on his way out of the White House. Leaving that aside for the moment, we're speaking specifically of executive orders that are being proposed because Congress cannot or will not do its job. I'm not particularly concerned about setting a precedent, as there's nothing particularly unique or special about what President Obama is proposing. For that matter, were the President to refrain from acting, I have no reason to believe that a future Republican president would exercise similar restraint.
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The very first concern Marcus raises is interesting, but not in the way she imagines,
<blockquote>First, is there a limiting principle that would constrain the president’s authority to effectively legalize everyone in the country?</blockquote>
Obviously, when we're speaking of this type of executive action, we're speaking of a context in which the White House wants to address an issue on which Congress refuses to speak. Executive orders <em>must</em> be consistent with existing law, and if Congress is willing to pass legislation it can either avoid the need for an executive order or preempt the president's plan.
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Marcus's slippery slope rests on the idea that, in the face of Congressional dysfunction, a President may stake out the most extreme position he can arguably take under existing law. That's possible -- but I'm not sure that it would be a bad thing -- not because I want Presidents to sidestep Congress, but because that type of action may be the only thing that is sufficient to light a fire under Congress's posterior such that it actually <em>does its job</em>. If Congress won't act when faced with the most extreme interpretations of existing law, it's a fair inference that the demagoguery of its members doesn't amount to much and that they find that interpretation to be acceptable. Would it be a bigger threat to democracy for the President to stake out extreme positions, presenting the loudest possible "put up or shut up" to Congress, or for the President to tiptoe up to the edges of what might inspire Congressional action while taking advantage of that institution's unwillingness to do its job?
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Marcus also argues,
<blockquote>Second, is there a limiting principle that would constrain future presidents inclined against enforcing other laws with which they don’t agree — and on which they’ve been unable to convince Congress to act accordingly?</blockquote>
As previously noted, we're speaking of executive action taken in the face of congressional inaction. Although it is conceivable that a future president might refuse to enforce the laws favored by his own party, it's far more likely that such a president would be in a position to simply ask his party to amend the law.
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If a President refuses to uphold the laws of the United States in a manner that Congress finds unacceptable, Congress has a well-known constitutional remedy: impeachment. If Congress chooses not to pursue a legislative remedy, and chooses not to initiate impeachment proceedings, it again becomes difficult to regard any table-thumping condemnations of a president as anything but noise.
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The situation in which Marcus's concern might have some weight would be one in which the White House and one chamber of Congress is controlled by one party, and the other chamber of Congress is controlled by another. In such a scenario, the chamber aligned with the White House would have to be sufficiently supportive of the President's actions that it would refuse to support impeachment and conviction, but be unwilling or unable to pass legislation addressing the issue due to the divided government. But legislators have easy access to the media, to make their case against a president. The House of Representatives can slow down or shut down the government, or vote to impeach even if it expects that the Senate will acquit the president. The Senate can similarly slow down the government, not only by impeding the progress of legislation but also by putting the brakes on executive appointments, and can also shut down the government. The tools may not be as precise as would be ideal for the theoretical task at hand, but Congress is anything but powerless.
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The fact that I'm not particularly impressed with Marcus's arguments should not be interpreted as my supporting the idea of the executive forming policy through executive orders on matters that are best addressed through legislation. My concern is less about the slippery slope -- a form of argument that can be applied to any action, no matter how trivial -- and is much more about what happens when Congress won't or can't perform its duties. Unlike Marcus or the various members of her employer's editorial board, I find the issue of greater concern to be the fact that we are involved in a new war in the Middle East predicated upon an authorization that cannot reasonably be said to apply to the present circumstances, yet Congress is content to let the war wage on while refusing to pass a new authorization bill that could define its goals or limit its scope. There's not even a hint of concern from the editorial board that we should have congressional authorization for war <em>before</em> we get into yet another armed conflict in the Middle East.
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The Washington Post editorial board wants the President to commit ground forces, in the form of special forces, to the front lines of the war with ISIS. It is chomping at the bit for the President to declare direct war on what remains of the Assad regime, without any apparent concern for what would follow the collapse of that regime. But one thing about which the editorial board is conspicuously unconcerned? The absence of Congressional authorization for the present war, let alone the escalated, potentially disastrous war that they propose.
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To put it mildly, I'm not thrilled that the President is proposing unilateral action in the face of congressional gridlock. It would be better if Congress would do its job. But at least in the context of executive orders we're speaking not of Marcus's slippery slope, but of the President's following precedents set by prior administrations, and proposing lawful orders that are consistent with existing law. When it comes to war, the Constitution attempts to create a clear framework for the separation of powers, with wars to be initiated by Congress. If you're going to pretend concern about a possible constitutional crisis, can't you give <em>that</em> one more than a shrug and a yawn?Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-10566049445512768312014-11-18T12:25:00.001-05:002014-11-18T12:25:33.269-05:00Congress Needs to Do Its Job<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
Daniel Larison is writing about one of his pet peeves:
<blockquote>Virginia Sen. Tim] Kaine’s point [on Congressional abdication and presidential overreach] is well-taken, and this is one more reason why the war against ISIS needs to be debated and voted on in spite of the president’s pretense that he doesn’t need Congressional approval. It <em>is</em> profoundly wrong to commit the U.S. to military action without having first considered the merits of the operation publicly and deliberately, but there is something even worse. It is even worse to commit the U.S. to a war that isn’t necessary for American security whether Congress has gone through the motions of a debate or not.... [Kaine is correct that Congress mustn’t be permitted to keep dodging its responsibilities on matters of war, and presidents mustn’t be allowed to wage wars without Congressional approval, but it’s even more important that members of Congress break the habit of signing off on the latest elective war. It is Congress’ habitual deference to bad presidential judgment on matters of war that is even more appalling than its refusal to debate and vote on the wars presidents choose to start. That can’t be fixed without first reviving Congress’ role in the process, but simply getting Congress to debate and vote on these wars is also woefully insufficient.</blockquote>
When I read Larison's complaint about a Congress that refuses to debate war, or that is excessively deferential to requests for the authorization to start or continue a war, I couldn't help but think of <a href="http://thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/2014/11/democracy-will-be-ruined-if-obama-acts.html">Ross Douthat's</a> complaint that the constitution will be ruined if a Democratic president follows the lead of past Republican presidents and achieves by executive order what Congress has failed to accomplish through legislation. The sort of, "Wars, drones, security state, black hole prisons, torture, whatever.... immigration is <em>serious</em> argument that, to me, represents the worst form of missing the forest for the trees. Congress can pass legislation in response to an executive order, often long before the order takes effect. Congress can't <em>unstart</em> a war.
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There is no hypocrisy in Larison's criticism of President Obama. Larison has consistently argued against the type of overreach he describes in Obama's actions. He is an established opponent of military adventurism and wars of choice. He's correct, in my opinion, that the nation would be well-served by Congress doing its job, by not turning a blind eye to unilateral military action by the President or granting its blessing after-the-fact. Larison is unimpressed with past Congressional debates over war authorization, and understandably so, but I'm not sure what the remedy would be short of electing different representatives.
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My first reacton to Douthat's over-the-top rhetoric on how immigration reform could destroy our way of life (I exaggerate slightly) was that it was another example of Douthat writing about something that he doesn't understand. The blog posts that follow his editorials sometimes suggest to me that he encounters the basic facts and competing interpretations for the first time only after he publishes an editorial, with his making a strong, subsequent effort to reconcile the facts with his already-established opinion. In relation to unilateral war action, I found this complaint about the President's decision to go to Congress before waging war on Syria:
<blockquote>It would be a good thing for the country if the older constitutional norms regained some force – if we declared war in cases where we now issue so-called authorizations for the use of military force, and issued authorizations in situations where presidents of both parties claim the power to act with no congressional blessing whatsoever. But when a constitutional power atrophies, it’s extremely unlikely to be restored through the kind of last-minute, poorly-thought-out, and self-undermining approach that the White House has taken in this case.</blockquote>
You see, in Douthat's mind the President should have spent months reminding Congress that it has a role in debating the wisdom of involving a nation in a war, and should not have <em>surprised</em> them at the last minute by suggesting that they fulfill their constitutionally defined role. Douthat carries on at some length about legality and morality, bou don't have to spend much time reading between the lines to see what Douthat is actually thinking: He supported intervention in Syria, Congress voted against it, and it was thus wrong for the President to have gone to Congress.
<blockquote>Going to Congress is entirely optional, and it’s what presidents do when they’re pitching wars that they themselves don’t fully believe in, and need to rebuild credibility squandered by their own fumbling and failed alliance management. What future White House would look at that example and see a path worth following?</blockquote>
You see, where the Congress specifically addresses and issue and dictates how wars are to be declared, it is nothing short of weakness for a President to give anything more than lip service to those requirements. That's certainly <em>not</em> what Douthat would want a future president to do. You only destroy the constitution by acting in a legal manner, consistent with its terms, in the face of Congressional inaction, and in a context in which Congress is free to legislate on the issue, not by ignoring its explicit terms and launching wars that cannot be undone.
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Douthat also complains,
<blockquote><em>Ah</em>, you might say, <em>but if Congress actually votes the Syria authorization down, then future presidents will feel constrained by the threat of a similar congressional veto whether they want to emulate Obama or not</em>. Except that it’s actually more likely that future presidents will look at a congressional rejection in the case of Syria and see a case for going to Congress even <em>less</em> frequently than recent chief executives have done.</blockquote>
The problem with that conceit should be obvious: Congress does not have to wait for an invitation before it takes up the issue. Congress can look at a crisis in a nation like Syria and, on its own initiative, take up the question of whether military intervention is appropriate. It can pass resolutions urging the President to act. It can pass authorizations giving the President the power to Act. Or it can do the opposite, using its power of the purse to withhold funding for military action that it deems unwise. The question of whether or not Congress acts is not one that is controlled by the President -- it's controlled by Congress itself.
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Douthat closes with the same sort of trademark silliness that he used in his immigration editorial,
<blockquote>It is just possible, I suppose, that if Congress votes “no” on this resolution and then the president unwisely goes ahead with strikes anyway and then the House impeaches the president for violating his oath of office... and then the whole thing spirals out into a wild constitutional crisis that leaves this administration permanently crippled, the end result of that crisis could conceivably reshape the White House/Congress balance of power on foreign policy, and leave future administrations more constrained.</blockquote>
Turning briefly to the Constitution, Article I, Section 8,
<blockquote>The Congress shall have Power... To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;</blockquote>
Congress does not need to wait for a president to invite it to participate in a decision to start a war, or to sit on its hands until a president ignores its refusal to authorize war. It can initiate impeachment proceedings <em>any time</em> a president launches a war without its authorization. Congress has done its best to avoid having to take up its constitutional duties, from passing the War Powers Resolution, an ostensible check on presidential power that is effectively treated as a delegation of constitutional responsibility, to allowing the President to declare that pretty much any military action taken by the United States -- even an action explicitly targets a single country for invasion with the purpose of removing and replacing its leadership -- as a "police action".
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Whatever temptation might exist to suggest that what we're looking at is a political debate, with Larison supporting a framework that limits international adventurism and Douthat embracing a President's right to unilaterally engage in that sort of adventurism in the role of "world policeman", the text of the Constitution plainly favors Larison. At the same time, it's difficult to avoid seeing Douthat's positions as being driven by anything <em>other than</em> politics. When it comes to war, he doesn't seem to care what the Constitution says, and if anything he is concerned that a president's respect for the Constitution would be too constraining. When it comes to the issuance of executive orders that are consistent with both the law and Constitution, at least when he opposes the outcome, taking action by executive order usurps the authority of Congress and threatens our system of government (never mind that, at all times, Congress remains free to act).
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At the end of the debate, though, it boils down to the same fundamental issue: If Congress cannot or will not do its job, the President is likely to look for ways to act unilaterally. In my opinion it's worse in a context like war powers, where Congress has a clear, constitutionally defined role and, instead of fulfilling that role, effectively encourages the President to act unilaterally. Congressional deference to the President on matters that arguably should have required a formal declaration of war did not begin in the 20th Century -- it's a long-standing problem that became particularly glaring when Congress allowed presidents to launch the Korean and Vietnam wars as "police actions". Larison can complain that the President is operating under a <em>pretense</em> that he does not need Congressional approval for military action in Syria, but it's only a pretense if Congress is willing to act. If Congress won't call for a vote, and won't impose any consequence on unilateral action by a President, then (constitutionally or not) Congress has effectively delegated its war-making power to the President. Douthat can whinge that the President should not engage in perfectly lawful action to bypass Congressional gridlock, but again it's only an issue if Congress refuses to act.
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Either way, nothing is going to change until Congress decides to start doing its job.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-9475384077906210422014-11-18T01:24:00.000-05:002014-11-18T01:24:07.346-05:00Democracy Will be Ruined if Obama Acts Like... Ronald Reagan<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
Poor Ross Douthat is in a tizzy over the possibility that President Obama may act through executive order, to address some of the immigration issues that the Republicans refuse to address through legislation. No, of course, Douthat makes no mention of the fact that <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/immigration-bill-2013-senate-passes-93530.html">the Senate passed an immigration reform bill</a> that died in the Republican-controlled House. He instead sees the inevitable death of democracy in the President's <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/15/reagan-bush-immigration-deportation_n_6164068.html">following in the footsteps</a> of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
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Douthat's first resort is to the slippery slope, the idea that if the President is willing to shield some groups from deportation in a manner consistent with his constitutional authority and existing law, he could exempt pretty much every person unlawfully in the U.S. from being subject to deportation. He fantasizes,
<blockquote>So the president could “temporarily” legalize 99.9 percent of illegal immigrants and direct the Border Patrol to hand out work visas to every subsequent border crosser, so long as a few thousand aliens were deported for felonies every year.</blockquote>
Even if we assume that to be the case, as Douthat's fantasy has no chance of actually becoming reality, it makes for a weak argument against the exercise of executive prerogative. If anything, though, Douthat's hyperbolic scare tactics reveal the weakness of the Republican position. Perhaps it is only in the face of such a fantasy scenario that House Republicans could be inspired to <em>do their job</em> and actually <em>pass legislation</em>.
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Douthat makes an extraordinarily weak attempt to distinguish the President's proposal from past executive actions, revealing his essential ignorance of the facts.
<blockquote>In past cases, presidents used the powers he’s invoking to grant work permits to modest, clearly defined populations facing some obvious impediment (war, persecution, natural disaster) to returning home.</blockquote>
Obviously, the amnesty that Bush and Reagan granted to the wives and children of prior beneficiaries of legislative amnesty do not even slightly resemble what Douthat describes. Douthat also suggests that the number of potential beneficiaries somehow makes the Obama proposal different from what has come before. However, what the numbers truly reflect is the extent to which Congress has neglected this issue -- immigration reform was supposed to be a priority for George W. Bush, but he was never able to get a bill past his own party. As the previously linked article indicates,
<blockquote>"Bush Sr. went big at the time. He protected about 40 percent of the unauthorized population. Back then that was up to 1.5 million. Today that would be about 5 million."</blockquote>
The same article quotes a former Republican aide to then-Senator Alan Simpson that a difference at that time was that Congress indicated that it was going to pass legislation addressing the issue. That's really a distinction without a difference. Nothing is stopping Congress from passing immigration reform legislation, or a narrowly tailored bill directly addressing the issues on which Obama has proposed executive orders. Instead they talk about trying to tie anti-immigration provisions onto "must pass" legislation, potentially triggering a government shut-down. A mature Congress would debate and legislate. We don't have a mature Congress.
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From there, it's back to the slippery slope. A President, Douthat argues, could "rewrite" vast areas of public policy through executive order. Again, Douthat ignores the fact that executive orders <em>must be</em> consistent with the law, and thus that Congress has an easy and obvious remedy to overreach -- namely, doing its job. Douthat adds one of his near-inevitable whinges about how Democrats are supposedly hypocritical,
<blockquote>No liberal has persuasively explained how, after spending the last Republican administration complaining about presidential “signing statements,” it makes sense for the left to begin applying Cheneyite theories of executive power on domestic policy debates.</blockquote>
Perhaps Douthat spent years complaining about executive overreach by Bush and Cheney; I can't say that I've followed him closely enough to know, and can say that I don't care enough about his past writings to try to find out. I could point out the obvious, that executive orders are not the same thing as signing statements. A signing statement declares, in effect, "I don't think that this law (or some provision of this law) is constitutional, so I won't be bound by it". Congress can't do much about a signing statement -- it has already legislated on the issue, so passing another bill saying "We really mean it" isn't going to have an impact.
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As Douthat <em>should</em> know, an executive order must be <em>consistent with</em> federal law. With an executive order, Congress is free to express its will, and nothing is stopping Congress from passing an immigration law addressing these issues. A better analogy would be to the objections raised to the stack of executive orders that George W. Bush signed on his way out of the White House, but perhaps Douthat doesn't know that history -- or perhaps he doesn't want to allude to facts that betray how pathetic his argument truly is.
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It's also interesting that Douthat floats from accusing "liberals" of being hypocrites to <a href="http://www.tipponline.com/immigration/news/immigration/63-oppose-obama-executive-order-on-immigration-ibd-tipp-poll">relying on a poll</a> that documents that most Democrats oppose unilateral action.
<blockquote>According to the latest IBD/TIPP poll, 73% of the public say Obama should work with Congress on reforms. Just 22% say he should "sidestep Congress and act on his own using executive orders" — something the president has repeatedly pledged to do.
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Among independents, 78% say Obama should work with Congress, with only 19% saying he should go it alone. Even among Democrats, only 39% say Obama should act unilaterally, while 54% say he should work with Congress.</blockquote>
Were Douthat more interested in facts and less interested in attacking "liberals" and the President, he might concede that the President's willingness to act by executive action flows from his own party's refusal to legislate on a wide range of important issues, including immigration. He could even call on his party to preempt the President or to make immigration reform a priority in January. Odds are it will take a year from the time any executive order is finalized to when agencies have new regulations and procedures in place to carry out the new policy -- Douthat should note that if the Republicans who will be in control of both chambers of Congress <em>choose</em> not to pass an immigration law during that year, they have nobody to blame but themselves. If they pass a clean bill and it is vetoed by the President, they will be in a strong position to complain -- but they have no apparent intention of being that responsible.
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Douthat next resorts to the notion that the midterm election stands as some sort of <em>informal</em> referendum on the President's agenda, I guess signifying that he's supposed to abandon his agenda in favor of whatever the Republicans want. By now, Douthat <em>should</em> be aware that his depiction of a midterm election as a plebiscite is not, in fact, its role, nor is it how legislators treat the outcome of an election. What the election does do, however, is give the Republican Party control in both chambers of Congress, and tremendous latitude to pass an immigration reform bill of their own design come January 1 -- or, if the House Republicans choose to do so, even during the lame duck session.
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Douthat <a href="http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/whos-afraid-of-executive-action/">follows up</a> by describing his column as "shrill-but-accurae", which shows, I guess, that he can be half-right. After reiterating his position that the number of people who might benefit from the executive orders is larger that with similar prior actions, percentages apparently being beside the point, Douthat expresses the belief that President Obama hopes that his executive orders create "facts on the ground" that a future President won't easily be able to reverse. Wow, now <em>that's</em> the sort of brilliant insight that makes clear why he got his NYTimes gig. Next column, "I just looked in a mirror and realized that there's a nose on my face."
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Douthat believes that the executive orders might not be reversed because a "moral obligation" could arise; it's not clear why Douthat believes that such a "moral obligation" would sway a Republican president or legislators. He argues that the "moral obligation" would result in "a form of political pressure", with its supposedly being harder for government "to retract a benefit than to grant it in the first place". Again, no explanation as to why he believes the Republicans -- their party being dedicated to rolling back Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other aspects of the social safety net -- would not give it a college try. Oh, but then he gets to the real issue -- that we're talking about "a Republican establishment that’s fearful of doing anything to alienate Latinos in a presidential year".
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A reasonable interpretation of that last point is that the rest is window dressing. Douthat knows that the problem is not so much an issue of executive overreach as it is an example of Republican Party dysfunction. The faction that wants to pass immigration reform can't get a bill past the party's anti-immigration factions, but if you have some form of immigration reform in place the party as a whole won't want to touch the issue for fear of alienating an important voter bloc.
<blockquote>[Recognition of Republican reluctance to alienate Latino voters] is, of course, part of the political calculation here … that claiming more presidential authority won’t just accomplish a basic liberal policy goal, but could also effectively widen the G.O.P.’s internal fissures on immigration, exploiting the divergence of interests between the congressional party and its would-be presidential nominees.)</blockquote>
It's not the President's fault that Douthat's party is dysfunctional on this issue. It's the fault of its elected representatives.
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Douthat makes a rather incredible statement,
<blockquote>Then finally, even setting all of the foregoing aside, even allowing that this move <em>could</em> be theoretically reversed, pointing to the potential actions of the next president is still a very strange way to rebut complaints about executive overreach.</blockquote>
It's as if Douthat has never before heard of an executive order. Could he be so ignorant of the U.S. system that he's unaware of the thousands upon thousands of executive orders that have been signed by past administrations, or that there's absolutely nothing unique or special about how Congress or a future President would respond to Obama's proposed administrations as compared to any other executive order?
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And this....
<blockquote>But that reality doesn’t really tell us much of anything about whether a particular moves claims too much power for <em>the executive branch itself</em>. Even in the fairly unlikely event that Chris Christie or Marco Rubio cancels an Obama amnesty, that is, the power itself will still have been claimed and exercised, the line rubbed out and crossed; the move will still exist as a precedent, a model, a case study in how a president can push the envelope when Congress doesn’t act as he deems fit.</blockquote>
Given his prior concessions, Douthat knows that's a specious argument. When you're talking about actions that literally track the footsteps of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, you're not talking about a new line being set. Perhaps Douthat means to indict Reagan and Bush for moving the line that Obama is treating as a fair limit? No, of course not. We're dealing with a standard Republican argument that boils down to, "Whatever may have happened under a past Republican president, it's <em>different</em> when a Democrat does it."
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Douthat could have offered a reasoned explanation for why immigration reform is a bad idea, or why his political party is correct to oppose it. He could have offered a balanced argument -- yes, it follows precedent; yes, it follows <em>Republican</em> precedent; yes, it flows from Republican obstruction in Congress; but it's still a bad way to implement policy. He could have implored his party to finally pass an immigration reform bill and render the issue moot. But any of that would be far too surprising. Instead, predictably, Douthat makes what is at its heart an appeal to fear, built on the weak foundation of the slippery slope.
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Me? As this whole issue could be preempted if Congress simply does its job, I call on Congress to do its job. If Congress can't do that much, even as Douthat bleats about executive overreach, presidents will be effectively forced to rely on executive orders to circumvent Congressional gridlock. That's bad for the country, but in most cases it will likely be worse for nothing to get done.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-15553467527070839542014-11-17T15:28:00.002-05:002014-11-17T15:30:31.558-05:00"If Only Muslims Would Speak Out Against ISIS...."<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
A common refrain about Islamic extremists is that not enough ordinary Muslims speak out against it. To me, this raises three essential questions:
<ol>
<li><p>Do ordinary Muslims have any responsibility to speak out against extremists?</p></li>
<li><p>If so, what form should that responsibility take?</p></li>
<li><p>If so, what impact would their statements have?</p></li>
</ol>
I find myself sympathetic to the idea that Muslims should separate themselves from extremists for two basic reasons, while at the same time recognizing that my reasons are not particularly fair to ordinary Muslims -- that it's a form of emotional reasoning, not logic. First, by a large measure, at present Muslim extremism is a more significant problem in the world than any other form of religious extremism. Second, there's a popular perception that not speaking out means that you're on the side of the extremists. The unfairness of the expectation comes from the fact that we really don't expect similar denunciations from any other group, and that ordinary people should not be burdened with the requirement that they periodically search out a public platform to denounce extremism lest they be conflated with the extremists.
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Even if we assume that such a platform were readily available, it's fair to ask, who would listen? The extremists and their supporters don't care if they're being denounced. Those suffering under their oppression aren't helped or empowered by a denunciation. Those calling for the denunciations are likely to either ignore the expression, assuming it even comes to their attention, or regard it as inadequate because it doesn't actually change anything.
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Ordinary people are not ordinarily tasked with separating their own beliefs from those of extremists. Even in high profile contexts, we don't expect people to distinguish their mainstream religious beliefs from those of extremists within their faith. For example, Mitt Romney was not asked to denounce the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-Day_Saints">FLDS</a> based upon its claim that it represents the true face of Mormonism. But what if he had been asked to do so, or had voluntarily condemned the FLDS? For those in FLDS communities, not one thing would have changed. For any who might to point to the FLDS as representing the truth about Mormonism, the statement would mean nothing.
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At the end of the day, the calls for denunciation seem to come primarily from two corners. First, from people who are using the absence of public condemnations, real or imagined, as a basis to perpetuate their own prejudices, and second, from commentators and demagogues who benefit -- who seek fame, attention, and profit -- from engaging in anti-Islamic rhetoric.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-7954924748522562772014-11-17T13:50:00.000-05:002014-11-17T13:50:01.238-05:00What "I Voted" Stickers Actually Do<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
On Bill Maher's latest show, while lamenting that more people in our society don't vote, he lampooned the idea of the "I voted" sticker as bragging about performing a relatively minor civic duty. I see it differently. When you wear an "I voted" sticker in a culture with low voter turnout, the sticker serves as a reminder to others that it's election day. The stickers also have some potential to create social or peer pressure to vote.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-51190584542570472682014-11-12T15:22:00.001-05:002014-11-12T15:22:49.527-05:00Perhaps Kathleen Parker's Problem is That She Doesn't Understand Honesty<div style="float:right;"><a href="http://www.thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://www.expertlaw.com/images/blog/watch.gif" width="85" height="91"></a></div>
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-obamas-spiteful-legacy/2014/11/11/99c084d4-69f2-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html?wprss=rss_opinions">At least if you're a Republican</a>. Penning yet another childish screed about President Obama, Parker whines,
<blockquote>Moreover, people don’t like being insulted and misled, as many feel they have been by this administration. This is not just a feeling but a demonstrable fact, especially vis-a-vis the Affordable Care Act. And it’s not just the far-right fringe who object to the strategic misrepresentations along the way.</blockquote>
If Parker thought you had even a smidgen of intelligence, her next paragraph might cover some of the most outrageous lies about the PPACA. You know... like <em>death panels</em>. Or even some of the lesser Republican lies, like arguing that Obamacare would cover illegal immigrants, cause massive budget deficits, cause massive increases in insurance premiums, or involved the government taking over the insurance industry. Heck -- she, herself, is lying even as she writes about public sentiments toward the PPACA -- she knows that the key elements of the law, save for the mandate, are in fact supported by clear majorities of Americans, that it's the label that drags the law down. She probably giggles about the voters in Kentucky who praise Kynect and express their gratitude that it's not Obamacare, even though... it's simply the name Kentucky gives the exchange through which its residents can enroll in Obamacare.
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What are the horrible lies that Parker attributes to Obama?
<blockquote>These obfuscations include telling the American people that they could keep the insurance they had if they liked it and also writing the law in such a way that the ACA’s mandate to purchase government-approved insurance was not a “tax,” despite the Internal Revenue Service’s role in policing its compliance.</blockquote>
Oh, the horror. An overstatement that was made in good faith, and run-of-the-mill machinations designed to get a better CBO rating. Politifact, the "fact-checking" outfit that made the declaration upon which the "lie" accusation is premised initially rated the statement as "true", making me wonder if they're producing a reliable analysis or if they're <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111503/">channeling an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie</a>. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/the-obama-pledge-on-keepi_b_4257519.html">Dean Baker has capably responded to</a> those who want to hang their hats on the third (yes, in between declaring the statement "true" and "false", Politifact <em>also</em> rated it as <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jun/29/barack-obama/barack-obama-says-under-his-health-care-law-those-/">half-true</a>) analysis of the statement.
<blockquote>If Obama's pledge was understood as ensuring that every plan that was in existence in 2010 would remain in existence, then it would imply a complete federal takeover of the insurance industry. This would require the government to tell insurers that they must continue to offer plans even if they are losing money on them and even if the plans had lost most of their customers. This would at the least be a strange policy. It would be surprising if many people thought this was the meaning of President Obama's pledge....
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On closer inspection, the claim that President Obama lied in saying that people could keep their insurance looks like another Fox News special. In the only way that the pledge could be interpreted as being meaningful, the pledge is true. The ACA does not eliminate plans that were in existence at the time the bill was approved.</blockquote>
Parker, of course, knows all of this, but anticipates that her intended audience does not.
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Similarly, anybody who was following the debate over the PPACA knows that there was an absurd insistence that the law be revenue-neutral. They know that many compromises were built into the law, including significant delays in its implementation, to keep the books nominally balanced. Parker knows that the Republicans she serves would have shrieked like banshees had the mandate been explicitly enforced through a tax, as opposed to a penalty. Parker knows that the penalty is based on income and enforced by, you guessed it, the IRS. Within that context, her feigned surprise that the penalty could be characterized as a tax is quite revealing.
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But wait -- there's more. Parker knows that her party and its supporters spent two years and spent vast sums of money litigating against the PPACA, and insisting through that litigation that the penalty was <em>not</em> a tax. If it was so obvious to everybody that the penalty was a tax, why spend years litigation the case, causing taxpayers to pour millions of dollars into its defense, only to reach the inevitable conclusion that it is a proper exercise of Congress's power to levy taxes? Why did the political right attack and vilify Chief Justice Roberts for joining the majority on that issue? What are we supposed to make of the refusal of Scalia, Alito, Kennedy and Thomas to join what Parker tells us was, at all times, a known and obvious fact? Parker later lectures,
<blockquote>This ruling, indeed, was the reason the ACA was able to go forward, which is why so many Republicans were apoplectic with Roberts’ siding with the liberals in a 5 to 4 ruling. In other words, Obama’s obfuscation was simultaneously revealed and rewarded by the court. And the American people were smacked with a health-system overhaul many more would have rejected had they known the truth.</blockquote>
If it is so blindingly obvious that the penalty is a tax, and if Parker truly believes that lying by politicians is a bad thing, why does she implicitly applaud the Republicans for lying about the mandate in order to perpetuate costly and divisive litigation? Why does she implicitly defend attacks on Roberts for accepting what she tells is is an obvious truth, rather than embracing a partisan lie in order to take down the law?
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What inspired Parker's attack on the President? If you've been following the headlines, you already know. An economist who worked with the Obama Administration in developing the PPACA <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/11/11/obamacare-consultant-under-fire-for-stupidity-of-the-american-voter-comment/">made an off-the-cuff comment</a> that has been demagogued into the suggestion that the Obama Administration thinks voters are stupid. As a reference, Parker links to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/11/10/aca-architect-the-stupidity-of-the-american-voter-led-us-to-hide-obamacares-tax-hikes-and-subsidies-from-the-public/" rel=nofollow">an idiotic screed</a> against the PPACA, but fastidiously avoids introducing the facts -- that the statement she wants to attribute to "the White House" was made in an off-the-cuff manner by economist Jonathan Gruber, a non-politician who is long out of the Obama administration, and who most people wouldn't know from Adam.
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Parker follows that absurd attribution with a sentence that starts, "Punditry aside...." It would appear that Parker believes that "punditry" and "demagoguery" are synonyms. Incredibly, after having linked to a diatribe that relies upon Gruber to suggest "", Parker then explicitly <em>invokes</em> Gruber,
<blockquote>Those who feel defrauded by their own government got third-party confirmation recently when remarks by one of the ACA’s chief architects, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber — invoking the stupidity of voters and lauding the political advantage of a lack of transparency in government — went viral.</blockquote>
Parker appears to believe that her readers are too stupid to click the links and find out that there's only one story.
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Now, it is no surprise that Parker and her ilk feign deep offense at the most trivial impropriety, real or imagined, by a Democratic President. But really?
<blockquote>We also know that once trust is gone, it’s very hard to restore. Over time, and not just during this administration, we have lost trust in one institution after another. But when we have lost faith in our government, we have lost faith in ourselves.
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At their core, the midterms were really about restoring that trust.</blockquote>
To Parker, it seems, having somebody once associated with the Obama Administration suggest that, as many voters aren't always informed on the issues and are inclined to latch onto labels instead of substance (you know, like "death panels"), it can be necessary to construct legislation that avoids certain "trigger words", is on par with Watergate. Parker, it seems, has no problem with such robust <em>honesty</em> as proposing something as a Social Security privatization plan, then objecting to any use of the term "privatization" as an unfair distortion. Or proposing a Medicare voucher plan then objectin to any use of the term "voucher" as an unfair distortion. Because, you know... that's <em>her</em> party. Let's ignore the $millions earned by Frank Luntz, coaching Republicans on how to mislead voters on issues ranging from the "death tax" to "climate change". When it comes to healthcare reform, <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/">Luntz kind of takes us full circle</a>:
<blockquote>In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a "government takeover."...
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PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen "government takeover of health care" as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats' shellacking in the November elections.</blockquote>
Yeah, that Kathleen Parker is <em>horrified</em> by dishonest politicians, and does nothing <em>but</em> overestimate the intelligence of her readers.....Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com0