Month: June 2013

Obama Admin Accounts for 70% of Espionage Act Indictments

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2013-06-22 Blessed_are_the_Peacemakers
Political cartoon protesting the Espionage Act of 1917 way back in 1917.

So the Obama Administration has filed a criminal complaint against Edward Snowden, and some of the counts fall under the Espionage Act of 1917. According to the WaPo’s article:

There was never any doubt that the Justice Department would seek to prosecute Snowden for one of the most significant national security leaks in the country’s history. The Obama administration has shown a particular propensity to go after leakers and has launched more investigations than any previous administration. This White House is responsible for bringing six of the nine total indictments ever brought under the 1917 Espionage Act. Snowden will be the seventh individual when he is formally indicted.

I find it interesting that an espionage law that is almost 100 years old will end up having 70% of its indictments come from the current administration. That’s just a really stark example of the “particular propensity to go after leakers” the article mentions. I also think that having Snowden successfully extradited might be the worst thing that could happen to the Obama administration politically, but I guess we may have a chance to find out soon. (Also, the complaint against Snowden was initially sealed. Figures.)

More Problems With Marriage

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2013-06-21 Bridezilla

So “sanctity of marriage” is a phrase that almost always means “we’re talking about gay marriage”. But it shouldn’t. There are other fish to fry, and the The Daily Beast has a feature article called The ‘Me, Me, Me’ Wedding serving up a big one:  the superficiality and selfishness of America’s bridezilla culture. From the article:

In many pockets of 21st-century America, the idea of the wedding as something communal is anathema—a relic from a bygone era or the realm of the devoutly religious. Nuptials today are defined by your Pinterest board, of which there are a multiplying number of wedding-related ones, three-day destination extravaganzas, and $200 spoons from Michael C. Fina. So, many American weddings have evolved into a fixation with material details, trials of abject devotion by members of the wedding party, and resigned acceptance of bridal crusades for perfection that threaten to crush all in their path. Because, well, you deserve it—it’s your day.

The article also points out that this wedding culture is just a a toxic spawn of conspicuous consumption more generally with this memorable line:

Peggy Olson or Don Draper couldn’t have conceived a better marketing slogan than “This is your day”—the kind of tagline that so deeply, and reliably, influences consumer behavior.

The whole thing is worth reading, both on its own merit and as a reminder that the institution of marriage in the United States has many, many problems.

If You Really Care: Take Risks but Speak Carefully

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When it comes to politics, ignorance really is bliss. I didn’t really know very much at all about politics until I felt obligated by civic duty to start paying attention around 2006. One of the things that I chose to do was expose myself to different voices, so I started listening to conservative radio (starting with Rush Limbaugh) as well as looking for liberal radio (which was harder to find, but I found some). It definitely degraded the happiness level of my life, but I learned a lot. I learned, for example, that the mainstream media frequently misquotes Rush Limbaugh and that, for his part, Rush Limbaugh frequently says misquotable things. It’s a co-dependency: each relying on the perceived injustice of the other to rally their own side (and drive advertising dollars, of course).

Rush Limbaugh: Pretending to care since 1984.
Rush Limbaugh: Pretending to care since 1984.

I also learned that when Rush Limbaugh has to pick between his principles and his ratings, he picks his ratings every time. The most vivid demonstration of this comes every four years during the GOP primary

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Famous Statues Dressed as Hipsters

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2013-06-24 Hipster Statues

So this is pretty amazing: if you dress up famous statues in hipster clothing (even those in seemingly ridiculous poses like the one above), you transform them into relatable characters. It’s amazing. I sort of think that it might actually be the closest we can come to seeing these statues the way they were originally perceived by their historical audiences. We tend to think of people from the distant past as being much different, but I figure folks are mostly just folks, and a lot of the same things we care about (e.g. being cool) are pretty constant through society. In any case, these are cool images. Check them out.

Exodus Closure Shows Progress in Social Conservatism

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2013-06-21 exodus internationalAlthough I am a social conservative, I believe that social liberals have played and continue to play a vital and important role in challenging the reasons for socially conservative positions. Quite frequently the position you take is less important than the reason you have for holding that position, but this fact has often been lost to both sides of controversial political issues. I feel it acutely because I’m often annoyed or ashamed by the rhetoric or actions of people who are (technically) on the same side of issues as I am. For example, I am pro-life but I cannot abide those who aggressively promote the idea that abortion is equivalent to murder.

I am also deeply skeptical of the arguments for same-sex marriage, but I cannot contest that the argument over the issue has exposed deep, ugly, and un-Christian attitudes within the community of social conservatives. Much of the reaction against the gay rights movement has been born out of fear, pure and simple. I heard once as a kid that there are ultimately only two human motivations: fear and love. Either we act for something we desire, or we react against something we fear. There’s room for caution and prudence in this paradigm, but fear is almost invariably a symptom that something is wrong. In acting out of fear, social conservatives have been too slow to denounce indefensible treatment of homosexuals or–in the worst cases–have even employed bigotry as a political weapon. They have failed to live up to the example and teachings of Christ and, in the long run, nothing has done more to damage their cause then this alliance with hatred.

And so I’m extremely impressed with what I have read coming from Exodus International today.

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Michael Hastings’ Last Report

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2013-06-20 Obama

BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith has a moving remembrance of BuzzFeed reporter Michael Hastings, who died at 33 in an unusual car accident two days ago. Hastings’ last report for Buzzfeed was published about a week and  a half before his death with the headline Why Democrats Love to Spy on Americans. Given the provocative title and tone (e.g. “Unsurprisingly, the White House has dug in, calling their North Korea-esque tools “essential” to stop terrorism…”) and the surprising nature of his death, it’s not hard to see why conspiracy theories are already popping up, just as they did in the wake of Andrew Breitbart’s untimely passing.

When you look at those two examples, it’s not hard to see why some people develop a real paranoia, but it helps your sanity to put it in context. This past week has seen the deaths of Ian M. Banks, James Gandolfini, and Vince Flynn, all at relatively young ages. All of those folks are famous to some degree or other, and all of them meant something to me. In other words: death happens.

So I’m not going to contribute to the conspiracy-mongering, but I do think Hastings’ last article is worth reading on it’s own merits. He did a good job exploding the myth of Democratic superiority on civil liberties issues, and his voice would have been invaluable in the coming years.

2013-06-20 Michael Hastings

 

The Dangers of Puritanism in the Pro-Life Movement

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Although I am strongly pro-life, I don’t follow the movement closely, so I’ve been puzzled by a barrage of emails, Tweets and Facebook posts that I’ve been paying semi-attention to over the past week about an internal furor over HR 1797: The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. According to the executive summary of the bill:

H.R. 1797 generally prohibits the abortion of unborn children at twenty weeks after fertilization or later, the stage during which a substantial body of medical evidence indicates that they are capable of feeling pain.  The bill provides exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape, or from incest against a minor, as long as such incidents are reported to the appropriate law enforcement or government agency prior to the abortion.  H.R. 1797 also provides an exception when the life of the mother is in danger.  The termination of a pregnancy under the exceptions generally must be done in manner that provides the best opportunity for the unborn child’s survival.

A person who performs or attempts to perform an abortion prohibited under H.R. 1797 will be fined, imprisoned for less than five years, or both.  However, H.R. 1797 prohibits the prosecution of a woman who receives an abortion in violation of the bill.

2013-06-20 Dan Becker
Note to Dan Becker: Ostracizing 80% of the pro-life community probably won’t help anyone’s definition of the pro-life movement.

This seems like a no-brainer pro-life position to me, so I couldn’t tell what all the fuss was about from inside the pro-life movement. Today, however, noted pro-life activist Rebecca Kiessling linked to an open letter by Dan Becker to the pro-life community. I read it, and discovered that the anger comes from a perceived schism within the pro-life movement.

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The Economist on True Progressivism

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2013-06-18 True Progressivism

I’m not with this article from The Economist 100%, but I feel like they are identifying the issues precisely:

Modern politics needs to undergo a similar reinvention—to come up with ways of mitigating inequality without hurting economic growth. That dilemma is already at the centre of political debate, but it mostly produces heat, not light. Thus, on America’s campaign trail, the left attacks Mitt Romney as a robber baron and the right derides Barack Obama as a class warrior. In some European countries politicians have simply given in to the mob: witness François Hollande’s proposed 75% income-tax rate. In much of the emerging world leaders would rather sweep the issue of inequality under the carpet: witness China’s nervous embarrassment about the excesses of Ferrari-driving princelings, or India’s refusal to tackle corruption.

At the core, there is a failure of ideas. The right is still not convinced that inequality matters. The left’s default position is to raise income-tax rates for the wealthy and to increase spending still further—unwise when sluggish economies need to attract entrepreneurs and when governments, already far bigger than Roosevelt or Lloyd George could have imagined, are overburdened with promises of future largesse. A far more dramatic rethink is needed: call it True Progressivism.

My chief skepticism, as someone coming from the right, is the idea that answers come from the top. This is partly because of my own peculiar brand of anti-authoritarianism. It’s a theme in my religious commentary (I think Mormons depend on their leaders too much) and also my political outlook. It’s also a belief that searching for solutions from the top because the problem itself, and more attempts to solve inequality through top-down policies are just going to dig the hole deeper. I think that poverty and inequality are primarily social and not economic phenomena, and what we need are indirect policies that lay the groundwork for a healthy society. Simple example: no-fault divorce leads to higher divorce leads to weakening marriages leads to more kids without a father which is probably the single-greatest detriment in our society. Would repealing no-fault divorce improve GDP this year? Of course not, but it’s the kind of quiet, indirect policy that I believe would–over time–have a huge impact.

I’m not against short-term programs, but I’m dubious they amount to much more than bailing out a ship with hole in it.

The Institution of Marriage: Gay, Lesbian, and Straight

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2013-06-18 gay marriage

So I said a while ago that I was going to write a long post about gay marriage. This is not that post, but it’s related to that post.

Two of the most common arguments in favor of gay marriage I see are:

  1. If Britney Spears can get married for 55 hours and that’s just fine, then obviously heterosexual marriage isn’t so sacred after all.
  2. Allowing same-sex marriage will have no impact on your specific heterosexual marriage.

The problem with these arguments is that they appear to be responding to concerns of those who oppose gay marriage, but they do not. First of all: I don’t know of anyone who is concerned about gay marriage who thinks that it would be the first attack on an otherwise perfect institution. As a society, the traditional family is already in serious trouble from two factors: divorce and absent fathers. I will say that that gay marriage debate has certainly put a renewed focus on what families mean to society, and that’s been the most positive aspect of the debate. I don’t think it’s politically viable just yet, but I’ve seen an increasing number of those who oppose gay marriage also start to question prior “reforms” like no-fault divorce. No-fault divorce was heralded as a way to end domestic abuse and unhappy marriages by making it easier for couples to divorce. It succeeded in making divorce easier–so divorce rates skyrocketed, taking a terrible toll on the innocence of childhood–but it completely failed to increase marital happiness or reduce domestic abuse rates. This is because the appearance of an “easy out” puts additional strain on even healthy marriages in times of stress. It’s one of those initially counter-intuitive findings that actually make a lot of sense once you see the evidence and think through the logic carefully.

As for the second: the idea has never been that if the gay couple down the street is allowed to get married it will somehow have a direct causal impact on my relationship with my wife. That is, of course, absurd. The idea is rather that what marriage means to society as an institution is heavily influenced by how we define it. Traditional marriage proponents have long believed that homosexual relationships are not really interchangeable with heterosexual ones, and it’s vital to note that this doesn’t necessarily imply any judgment of superiority.

I’m not going to pretend that traditional marriage proponents don’t add judgment in quite frequently, but it’s not necessitated by the logic at all. In fact, one reason that I’m skeptical of gay marriage arguments is that they seem to assume that what’s good for straight couples is automatically good for gay couples, and that doesn’t seem like a fair assumption to gay couples. Marriage is an institution that has evolved in a straight world where homosexuality was largely repressed and persecuted. Why does it make sense to assume that such an institution would serve the interests of gays and lesbians? I’m afraid that in an interest to seek dignity and equality for homosexuals (very important goals), same-sex marriage has been swept up in the movement without really thinking it through.

But is this just speculation, or do we have solid, hard sociological evidence to suggest that gay relationships are different than straight relationships? It turns out, we do. Mark Regnerus, writing for the Witherspoon Institute, outlines some of the findings: 

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Anyone Else Worried About Syria?

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Syrian rebels waving an Al Qaeda flag over a government helicopter at a captured airbase.
Syrian rebels waving an Al Qaeda flag over a government helicopter at a captured airbase.

The usual caveat about foreign policy applies: this is not my field. But I find two stories disconcerting:

  1. Iran to send 4,000 troops to aid President Assad forces in Syria
  2. US troops on Syria border as Obama arms rebels

So, President Obama issued a red-line warning some time ago against Syrian forces using chemical weapons. Which they’ve done. Now that the we either hurt our credibility by revealing that we were bluffing, or we react. The problem is that reacting seems tricky given that not only Iran but also Russia support the Assad regime. To say nothing of the fact that the opponents of the Assad regime (e.g. “freedom fighters”) seem to have an unfortunate tendency to swear loyalty to Al Qaeda (which, you know, has boots on the ground assisting them).

I don’t mean to sound callous to the unspeakable horror and loss of innocent life this war has caused, but what are our good options here? This feels like Vietnam 2.0, but worse. And yes: much worse than Iraq or Afghanistan. Afghanistan was at least plausibly a legitimate target and had no major allies or entanglements. Iraq was probably not a legitimate military target (no WMD), but was another isolated regime with no real allies. But the Syrian civil war is an ethnic, religious, and geopolitical quagmire.

I’m not saying an intervention would be impossible, but it looks like the US is getting dragged in against our will without a real plan, and I’m starting to wonder if there’s even going to be an end to the deployment of our young men and women to fight unwinnable wars in the Middle East.