Sago Boulevard

The subtitle to this Salon article about Hilary and Obama reads “In the Democratic presidential pack, the leading man is a woman and the leading woman is a man” (via Keith Burgess-Jackson). The article contrasts Obama’s appeal to female voters and Clinton’s perceived masculinity.

Clara Oleson, an Iowa Democrat and former labor lawyer, explained all these distinctions on a riverbank in Iowa City last week, while waiting to hear Clinton speak to a crowd of about 1,000. “Obama is the female candidate. Obama is the woman,” she said, after admitting that she was one of his supporters. “He is the warm candidate, self-deprecating, soft, tender, sad eyes, great smile.”

So what does that make Hillary Clinton? “She is the male candidate — in your face, authoritative, know-it-all.”

Articles like this make me doubt the merits of democracy. I can’t believe actually choosing a candidate based on who has “sad eyes.” What a pathetic reflection on our culture.

There’s something deeply troubling the the political conversation surrounding Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. When politicans and pundits lament the fact that Romney’s faith is a campaign issue, they insult and trivialize religious faith on a much deeper level.
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Gary Bass reviews Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies for this week’s NYT Magazine. Caplan argues that voters are not only ignorant but, worse, irrational - by which he means that they don’t think like economists. (more…)

David Klinghoffer asks whether God is a Republican (via Hirhurim). He begins the piece by describing the rituals surrounding tum’ah and taharah (ritual purity and impurity, respectively), as explained in Vayikra. There nothing particularly remarkable about his treatment of the subject. He correctly explains that “a key to cleansing out impurity is ritualized immersion in water.” He also points out a common gloss on ritual contamination - tum’ah resembles death and taharah, life. So far so good. Then Klinghoffer starts talking about the great 19th-century German Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Charles Darwin. It’s all downhill from there. (more…)

David Van Biema makes a compelling case for teaching the Bible as literature in public schools in last week’s Time Magazine. The article does a good job of going over arguments for and against, reviewing some of the constitutional issues involved, and the impact such classes may have on upcoming elections. It’s obviously a very thorny issue and I appreciate the sentiment that, in a largely Christian country, it would be difficult to maintain objectivity. But the Bible a simply too important to leave out of school curriculum completely. And I say this knowing full well that much of what’s discussed here is only applicable to the Christian Bible. The fact is that Christianity has played and continues to play a major role in shaping American culture and politics. I went to a Jewish high school and, in 10th grade, my English teacher spent a few classes going over some basic Christian themes so that we could identify them in our reading. I wrote a paper for that class on references to the Trinity in Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

[W]hen your seventh-grader reads The Old Man and the Sea, a teacher could tick off the references to Christ’s Passion–the bleeding of the old man’s palms, his stumbles while carrying his mast over his shoulder, his hat cutting his head–but wouldn’t the thrill of recognition have been more satisfying on their own?

If literature doesn’t interest you, you also need the Bible to make sense of the ideas and rhetoric that have helped drive U.S. history. “The shining city on the hill”? That’s Puritan leader John Winthrop quoting Matthew to describe his settlement’s convenantal standing with God. In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln noted sadly that both sides in the Civil War “read the same Bible” to bolster their opposing claims. When Martin Luther King Jr. talked of “Justice rolling down like waters” in his “I Have a Dream” speech, he was consciously enlisting the Old Testament prophet Amos, who first spoke those words. The Bible provided the argot–and theological underpinnings–of women’s suffrage and prison-reform movements.

And then there is today’s political rhetoric. For a while, secular liberals complained that when George W. Bush went all biblical, he was speaking in code. Recently, the Democratic Party seems to have come around to the realization that a lot of grass-roots Democrats welcome such use. Without the Bible and a few imposing secular sources, we face a numbing horizontality in our culture–blogs, political announcements, ads. The world is flat, sure. But Scripture is among our few means to make it deep.

I can’t believe Santorum actually came out against “The Pursuit of Happiness” (via Tacitean). And that was only a minute or so after talking about “the kind of freedom our founders’ envisioned”.

I’d love to go through Santorum’s (seriously flawed) theory of freedom and liberty point-by-point, but alas, it’s already 10 and I haven’t done nearly enough reading. You’ll just have to watch and decide for yourself.

Jonathan Adler, at VC, quotes from Nelson Lund’s article in the Albany Law Review on why conservatives ought to oppose racial profiling. Here’s the excerpt: (more…)

The phrase “pro-Israel” appears five times in this Foward article. Yet, interestingly, those described as “pro-Israel” have very little praise for it.

“Staunchly pro-Israel conservatives… say that Jerusalem is hindering America’s global war.” “Top Israeli officials… have been subject to unusually harsh criticism from the pro-Israel right…” Charles Krauthammer, who’s characterized as a “pro-Israel” neoconservative, “wrote a column insisting that Olmert’s ‘unsteady and uncertain leadership’ is threatening the Bush administration’s confidence in Israel as a dependable and strategic ally.”

What exactly does “pro-Israel” mean in this article? It clearly doesn’t mean “supportive of Israeli policy”, although it probably should. I suppose it might refer to well-intentioned criticism, as opposed to criticism which seeks to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish State. But if that’s the case, there’s an obvious double-standard. Well-intentioned left-wing or moderate political writers and pundits who criticize Israeli policy aren’t called “pro-Israel”. Besides the double-standard, a news reporter shouldn’t be responsible for deciphering the intentions of the critics it cites.

I think we can put our politics aside for the moment and recognize this article for the irresponsible journalism that it is. By characterizing the neoconservative position as “pro-Israel” in an article entitled “Conservatives Slam Israeli War Strategy”, the Forward is making a clear political statement. Neoconservatism, says the Foward, is somehow intrinsically pro-Israel. It may be, but I thought I was reading a news article.

Ben Caspit proposes a speech for PM Ehud Olmert to “explain to the world exactly what we’re fighting for”.

Law professor Geoffrey R. Stone makes the following observation in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune:

Perhaps you noticed an interesting confluence of events on July 19. On that day, President Bush vetoed legislation that would have authorized the expanded use of federal funds for stem-cell research, the House of Representatives voted to enact legislation depriving the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear any case challenging the constitutionality of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, and the House voted to purchase a municipal park in San Diego on which a 29-foot-high cross stands.

What these three acts have in common is a reckless disregard for the fundamental American aspiration to keep church and state separate

To be sure, I’m all for keeping church and state far away from each other but one of the three examples Stone points to doesn’t belong. The phrase “under God” has, at least, religious connotations, as does a giant cross standing in a state-owned park. But the ethics of stem-cell research? (more…)

Jon Stewart does a great job of putting the respective Republican stances on stem cell research and Iraq in proper perspective (via MF).

After giving the standard platitudes about Israel’s right to defend itself (”No self-respecting state would stand idly by while rockets fall on its cities”), LA Times opinion writer, David Myers, gets to what he really thinks (via Jill):

Of course, Israel is not solely to blame for the escalating violence. But as a sovereign state with a major army, it has to be the most responsible party. What, after all, can we expect from Hamas or Hezbollah?

Silly me. I expect Hamas and Hezbollah to respect the dignity of human life and to not endanger civilians by using them as human shields. I expect them to realize the danger of a multi-front war at a time when Iran is developing nuclear weapons and to release the captured soldiers before the situation escalates even further.

But Myers, lacing his words with vile racism, thinks that’s too much to ask. We can’t possibly expect them to, you know, actually do the right thing. We just demand that of Israel. Those dumb Arabs just don’t know any better. And I thought the right was supposed to be “anti-Arab”.

In this week’s Jewish Week (via Hirhurim), Marc Shapiro addresses the so-called “Jewish approach” to the immigration debate:

[T]he liberal Jewish establishment has weighed in with strong opposition to any real cracking down on illegal immigration. This pro-immigration stance is not, in and of itself, a “liberal” position. For example, The Wall Street Journal has long advocated abolishing all immigration restrictions. What is significant with regard to many in the Jewish community, however, is that as with a number of other issues its leaders lobby for, they have sought to portray their stand as the “Jewish approach,” the one in line with Jewish tradition and values.

Shapiro is skeptical and he notes a number of sources supporting restrictions on immigration to Jewish communities; in particular, the herem ha-yishuv (“ban on settlement”) that he describes as follows:

In medieval times, an era of real Jewish communal authority, Jewish communities were forced to deal with the issue of wanderers who wished to settle among them. It is understandable that many of the Jewish townspeople endeavored to ban entry to those of their co-religionists who could have provided economic competition. What is relevant today is not the economic wisdom of this step, but rather the response of the leading Jewish scholars who also served as the communal legal authorities.

Throughout virtually all of Europe, these scholars granted communities the right to control settlement. By doing so they established an important principle, namely, that local residents alone should determine who should live with them. This system became known as herem ha-yishuv (“ban on settlement”), and the standard practice in most Jewish communities was a closed-door policy. Strangers could usually stay for a short while, but were not permitted to settle permanently. Generally, the only people given settlement rights were rabbis, students, wealthy people and refugees, the latter two on the proviso that they not engage in business.

Thus, supporting immigration restrictions today would hardly qualify as an un-Jewish position.

Extrapolating to contemporary times, one would certainly be within the realm of Jewish tradition if one instituted a herem ha-yishuv in order to ensure that a nation’s language or culture not be diluted through indiscriminate immigration. (Whether this is smart economic or social policy is another matter irrelevant to this discussion.) What is relevant is that a modern herem ha-yishuv would fall squarely within the Jewish tradition that residents of a place have the right to determine their own self-interest, including who should be allowed in and who should be kept out.

I think Shapiro’s parenthetical statement is the key to unlocking this debate. That residents of a given place have a right to determine who is settles there is a basic principle of self-government. That Jewish communities regulated immigration, presumably with rabbinic permission, merely confirms this. The question facing Americans right now isn’t whether or not we have a right to restrict immigration, but rather whether it’s really in our self-interest to exercise that right.

In response to David Klinghoffer’s call for Mexican immigrants to assimilate, Charlie Hall correctly notes the double standard on display. Klinghoffer, who not only identifies as an Orthodox Jew but also tries to ground his argument in the biblical story of Ruth, would never suggest that religious Jews abandon their traditional customs in order to be good Americans. I would go further and say that Klinghoffer’s comparison of the current immigration dilemna with the religious conversion of Ruth stems from a deep misunderstanding of both citizenship and religious identity.
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Gary Becker has an excellent post on American immigration policy. It’s refreshing to see a discussion on immigration that doesn’t focus exclusively on illegal immigration. Becker correctly notes that the United States should increase the number of legal immigrants accepted and that employers who exploit illegals should bear the brunt of the punishment, not the immigrants who, for the most part, came here to feed their families. America is a nation of immigrants and our policy ought to reflect that.
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The Seattle Public Schools’ website lists and defines various kinds of racism (via VC). “Cultural racism” is defined as follows:

Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “other”, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.

Up until the list of examples, the definition seems fairly reasonable: attributing normality to whites, devaluing non-whites, etc. The first example - “defining white skin tones as… flesh colored” - is also pretty straightforward. After that, I’m confused. First of all, what the heck is “a future time orientation”? Some of the commenters at VC say that it might refer to certain capitalistic attitutudes towards career-planning and higher education. I fail to see how that has anything to do with race, though. Planning well for the future seems like a plainly good thing to do. Is there any argument against this? Are there cultural or religious groups who ideologically oppose “future time orientation”?

As for individualism, it’s true that it refers to a mentality associated with America and Western Europe. Believing that everyone ought to follow the norms of your culture, first of all, isn’t racism; it’s cultural elitism. But in this context, “individualism” is far too vague. Can school emphasize the value of individual rights, individual freedoms, individual responsibility, individual choices? Without some very specific qualifiers, using individualism as an example of racism is a little ridiculous. (It might be ridiculous with the qualifiers too, depending on what they are.)

The issue of standard English is a little more complicated. The problem is that it’s pretty much unavoidable. How do you teach rules of grammar and syntax without assuming one standard English? If schools do in fact teach the English of the educated elite (which they do), it’s disingenuous to talk about the equal legitimacy of other dialects. Incidentally, the website is written in very clear standard English.

Ruchira Paul believes that George W. Bush claims direct personal communication with God. This, of course, cannot be tolerated because

Those who claim direct communication with other worldly forces for their earthly actions are either lying or deluding themselves. In both cases, it is dangerous to vest extraordinary powers in such unreliable hands.

Paul finds evidence for her claim in remarks Bush made “to a business group in Irvine, Ca.”:

“I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true,” he said. “One, I believe there’s an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody’s soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free.

“I believe liberty is universal. I believe people want to be free. And I know that democracies do not war with each other.”

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Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the Darfur rally on Sunday and I’m a little embarassed to admit that I only started following the situation there recently. The more I read about it, the sicker I feel. We really have no excuse not to raise our voices in protest.

This past week was a particularly appropriate time to show support for the victims of genocide as April 25th was Holocaust Memorial Day. I’m proud that Jewish groups were well-represented. Our national history demands that we not turn our backs while others are slaughtered. In his 1986 acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, Elie Wiesel said:

Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

We need to pay attention to Darfur right now. We need to do what we wish others had done for the Jews of Europe.

In today’s NYTimes Magazine, Peter Beinart analyzes the key differences between liberal and conservative approaches to foreign policy since the Cold War. He does a good job of articulating some of the underlying values that motivate these political differences. One point, in particular, I think really hits the nail on the head. Many conservatives would have us believe that our greatness as a nation stems from our ability to distinguish between good and evil and our willingess to fight that evil at all costs. If we lose that moral clarity, they argue, we will fall prey to the very evil we fail to recognize. For a while, I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly about that argument irritates me. I do believe that America should be a moral role-model for the world. I believe that, despite our shortcomings, the values espoused by American democracy are in fact superior to those of our enemies (and even most of our allies). What bothers me, though, about the conservative mantra is its failure to recognize that we can easily fall from our pedestal if we don’t constantly take measures to safeguard the liberty that makes us great. Beinart says it well:

Americans may fight evil… but that does not make us inherently good. And paradoxically, that very recognition makes national greatness possible. Knowing that we, too, can be corrupted by power, we seek the constraints that empires refuse. And knowing that democracy is something we pursue rather than something we embody, we advance it not merely by exhorting others but by battling the evil in ourselves. The irony of American exceptionalism is that by acknowledging our common fallibility, we inspire the world.

Richard Posner argues that income inequality is a likely byproduct of a competitive and meritocratic society because of a more basic inequality among people “that is due to differences in IQ, energy, health, social skills, character, ambition, physical attractiveness, talent, and luck”. Yet government programs that seek to limit this inequality often have the effect of reducing total wealth by discouraging work. Posner then weighs the social advantages of greater total wealth against greater income equality. The major assumption at work here is that if wealth distribution is justified, then it is justified because it has a social advantage. Posner seems to associate “social advantage” with “political stability” and lack of “envy or social unrest”.

I think, though, that it’s far more promising to justify wealth distribution along moral lines. (The Torah is pretty clear that tzedakah is a moral, not merely a socio-political, issue but that’s a topic for another post.) (more…)

I was formally introducted to Leo Strauss as a sophomore, in a class entitled “Trends in Modern Jewish Philosophy”. I remember appreciating Strauss’ willingness to question the value-neutral approach of his fellow social scientists, in this case, as it related to studying religion. His political thought, though, is both more popular and more controversial. Neoconservatives look to him as their ideological father while liberals paint him as a subversive fascist. In the most recent issue of Prospect, Edward Skidelsky offers some context for this debate and Strauss’ thought in general. It’s long but worth the read.

I’m not a Straussian by any means, especically when it comes to reading Plato and Rambam. But such couragiously independent thinkers are rare in academic circles and I can admire Strauss as one of the few genuine philosophers of his day.

Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, had this to say about Zarqawi:

“I believe the most dangerous thing we confront is the so-called Zarqawi phenomenon… This is a creed of killing without any responsibility — to kill women, children, to attack mosques, churches, schools, restaurants.”

Even Hezbollah has it’s limits.

I had assumed that Likud Party leader Bibi Netanyahu was avoiding the spotlight so as not to seem eager to replace Sharon. He seems to be resurfacing now, laying out positions on key issues at a conference in Herzliya (via Nephtuli).

Speaking at the Herzliya Conference, the former prime minister also said he favors immediate steps to reduce friction with the Palestinian population, including decreasing the number of checkpoints and increasing freedom of movement along roads.

Netanyahu aides called it a defining speech that sets out the Likud’s updated platform and positions it on the center-right side of the political map.
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Netanyahu said: “I say once again: obviously peace negotiations will involve concessions by both sides, that is also by the Israeli side. Before any peace agreement involving concessions, there will be a referendum to allow the Israeli public to decide directly on territorial determinations.”

With Netanyahu trying to appeal to Israel’s center, he’s not sounding that different from Sharon (although what he’d actually do in office is another story). The only explicit difference in policy seems to be opposition to unilateral withdrawals.

Professor Volokh writes about his article Deterring Speech: When Is It “McCarthyism”? When Is It Proper? dealing with when economic retaliation against unpopular speech is justified. When the Dixie Chicks announced they were ashamed that President Bush is from Texas some music stations stopped playing their music. MCI stopped using Danny Glover in its commercials apparently because he opposed the Iraq war and defended Fidel Castro. Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, and Sean Penn all experieced backlashes for similar unpopluar positions.

While I think it’s inappropriate (and possibly illegal) in general for employers to discriminate on a political basis, entertainment warrants an exception. As Volokh explains:

Entertainers are valued speakers because people like them. Danny Glover makes a good pitchman for MCI because people feel good about him: If MCI simply wanted someone who could act well in its commercials, it could have hired a nameless actor for much less. Susan Sarandon was invited to speak to the United Way because people want to hear the well-liked movie star Susan Sarandon, not because Sarandon is a national expert on women in volunteerism. People go to movies largely because they like the stars’ work, but also because they like the stars or at least like the image that the stars project; the same is true for musicians. That’s a big part of why entertainers have publicists.

When people stop liking you, whether because they think that you’re rude, vulgar, or foolish, your value as a speaker or pitchman falls. People are less likely to want to hear you or buy products that you promote. Those who hire you, invite you, or play your music might understandably switch to someone who alienates fewer audience members. What you gain from your sex appeal, coolness, or association with worthy causes, you lose from what people see as your rudeness, folly, hostility to projects they support, or association with causes they dislike. Tolerance demands that people neither beat you up for your views nor throw you in jail for them. But it doesn’t demand that people continue to like you—and if they don’t like you, then you won’t be as effective a promoter.

Here’s a new one. A Black police bodyguard for British royalty sues Scotland Yard for “over-promoting” him in the name of political correctness. (hat tip: Dean)

His representatives argued he landed the prestigious job as Camilla’s bodyguard only because he was black.

It was claimed that as a result of being over-promoted and not receiving proper training and support, Sgt Turner made mistakes which led to him being re-assigned.

Turner was awarded $70,000 in compensation.