Pulchritude on the right–and left (PC alert: non-PC discussion ensues)

The New Neo Posted on by

Blogger Pamela of Atlas Shrugs has been profiled at Pajamas Media, to an unusual amount of–err–highly cerebral commentary (well, commentary, anyway).

Some of the comments have featured an observation I’ve heard before, to wit:

Pamela is one hot gal. Nice to confirm that politicallly conservative women are better looking and smarter then liberal hags!

Much heated discussion of this weighty issue ensues.

I’d like to proffer, in defense of liberal women everywhere (after all, I used to be one!–liberal that is–and no wisecracks, please, about the function of the strategically-placed apple), the observation that there are most definitely some very attractive liberal women–quite a few, in fact.

Take, for example, 99.9% of Hollywood. Are they not attractive? And are they not liberal?

Also, as much as I cannot abide her columns, no one can say that MoDo is not an attractive woman (well, someone can say it–but it would be wrong!). Exhibit A:

And, despite her abominable views, Ms. Fonda, especially in her youth (my extreme youth, that is), was no slouch in that department, either. Exhibit B:

It’s true, of course, that the protean Jane had many faces–perhaps not a thousand, but close, as you’ll see from the photos of her that come up if you Google her name in “Images.” But in nearly all of those images she is attractive, including this (somewhat Photoshopped, I believe) one from her Hanoi Jane phase:

And now, I have a question for those who agree with the original assertion: do you think that becoming more conservative is the equivalent of getting some free plastic surgery? If so, the neocon movement might gain quite a few adherants.

Voting day in Iraq: so far, so good

The New Neo Posted on by

Fortunately, things have been peaceful. Whether the high turnout in Sunni areas will bode poorly for the fledgling constitution remains to be seen.

Iraq the Model has an interesting reminiscence on elections past:

I am so excited but a flashback from Saddam’s referendum three years ago still hurts; he wanted a 100% as the 99.96% of the previous one shocked the dictator. I was depressed that way and I decided not to go to the voting office and so did the rest of the family but my father was afraid that not going could be dangerous. He said that maybe one member of the family could go alone and cast votes for the rest of us. We looked at each other thinking who’s going to volunteer to do this ugly job to protect the family. At that moment my father said “it was my generation that caused the misery we’re living in so I’m the one who should do this”.

I couldn’t stop him and I couldn’t utter a word but I felt sad for him; his sacrifice was big and I had teary eyes when I watched him taking our papers and heading out.

It is different this time father, no more 100% and a ”˜no’ would make me happy just like a ’yes’ would do and no one ever will force us to do something against our will anymore…

God bless you my people and all the freedom lovers who keep sacrificing to make this world a better place.

Well, so, why can’t they?

The New Neo Posted on by

This little teaser at the NY Times tempted me for a moment to become a subscriber to TimesSelect, their pay-for-view columnist service:

Why Righties Can’t Teach
By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: October 15, 2005

Liberals on campus have become so used to hearing their opinions reinforced that they have a hard time imagining there are intelligent people with different views.

Sounds intriguing, especially for the NY Times. But I managed to resist.

Then again, it’s a sentence that actually does quite well standing alone, a succinct explanation for a common phenomenon.

Next year I suppose he’ll get the Peace Prize: Pinter wins Nobel for literature

The New Neo Posted on by

First off, I must confess that I like his early plays–or at least I did when I saw them, many moons ago. “The Birthday Party” was especially fine, as I recall, and I enjoyed the original Broadway production of “The Homecoming” as a teenager.

So, even though Pinter has turned into a raving leftist political hater of formidable intensity and moonbattery, his Nobel prize for literature doesn’t seem beyond the pale, although I suspect he wouldn’t have gotten it if his politics hadn’t dovetailed so very nicely with the Nobel committee’s mission of sticking it to Bush, Blair, and Company.

I’m not the only one who suspects that this is the case; Pinter, to his credit, admits as much:

In an interview with Reuters Television yesterday, Pinter wondered whether his increased visibility on the political front may have played a part in the choice: ”I’ve been writing plays for about 50 years. But I am also very politically engaged and I am not at all sure to what extent that factor had anything to do with this award.”

I encountered his politics about a year ago through one of those ubiquitous forwards a relative had approvingly sent. The content was hateful and mindless; I have no interest in reproducing it here or linking to it, but Pinter has a website that’s easy enough to locate, if you care to browse there.

Pinter says he’s now given up writing plays (quit while you’re ahead?):

”I think the world has had enough of my plays.” He plans, instead, to concentrate on poetry.

Curious, I took a look at his poetry and found that it is mindbogglingly and stupendously bad; only a moment of reading it and I’d had more than enough of his poetry. Since his unique poetry cannot be adequately described and can only be experienced, I’ve changed my mind and this time I will provide a link, just to let you see what this Literature Nobel prizewinner and winner of the Wilfred Owen prize for poetry (a sad reflection of the current state of poetry in the world) is up to these days.

But back, mercifully, to his plays. If Pinter can be said to have had a mastery, it certainly was not of plot, but of language and dialogue of a peculiar and haunting kind, with its own strange and mysterious humor. Pinter elevated the pause to a fine art:

I think we all learned the power of the pause from Harold,” said Tina Packer, artistic director of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox. ”They’re almost more important than the words because they focus your attention that you’re in a theatrical space.”

In ”The Life and Work of Harold Pinter,” drama critic Michael Billington relates a story in which he asked Pinter when he first became aware of the power of the pause. ”He told me, with a slight twinkle, that it was from seeing Jack Benny . . . at the London Palladium in 1952.”

Ah, Jack Benny! I wish I’d known that when I was attending Pinter’s plays all those years ago; I don’t think they’ll ever seem the same again.

The one bright spot on the Nobel horizon, for me, is contained in the following Nobelian homage to geographic literary diversity. Can you locate it?

Nine of the last dozen winners of the literature prize have been from Europe, and a writer from the Arab or Asian world was expected to win this year. Along with Pamuk and Oz, writers rumored to be under consideration were the Syrian poet Adonis, Algerian writer Assia Djebar, and South Korean poet Ko Un. Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare, Swedish poet Tomhas Transtromer, American novelists Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, and Don DeLillo, Czech novelist Milan Kundera, and Belgian writer Hugh Claus have also been mentioned as possible Nobelists.

Milan Kundera. Now, there would be a Nobelist worthy of the honor. Well, a neocon can dream, can’t she?

The varieties of pacifism: (Part IIB)–responses to 9/11

The New Neo Posted on by

[See previous posts in the series: Part I (Gandhi); and Part IIA (Quaker history).]

For some reason, this post was much harder to write—and far longer!—than I ever expected it to be. So I apologize, especially for the length. I hope I haven’t bitten off more than I could comfortably chew, or expect readers to chew. In it, I’ve tried to summarize the belief system of pacifists as a whole, and then to describe the varied Quaker responses to 9/11 in terms of that belief system.

BACKGROUND

Pacifism sometimes seems illogical and naive to those who don’t espouse it. But the key to the logic of pacifism—and it definitely has its own logic—is that it is a belief system. As such, it’s based on certain premises which are accepted as articles of faith and that, to pacifists, can stand outside the realm of proof.

Certain broad Quaker pacifist beliefs underlie their responses to 9/11. These beliefs are by no means limited to Quakers, so this essay should be relevant to the reactions of many other types of pacifists as well.

There are two main strains of modern-day Quaker belief about how pacifism would actually work in practice. The first approach (which I’ll call the “love” approach) is both individual and transcendent: the pacifist refuses to fight, but understands that others will. The pacifist sees him/herself as serving as an example of another way of being in the world, an alternative and spiritual way. This is the sort of pacifist who might refuse to bear arms but would volunteer to serve as an ambulance driver in the theater of war. This first strain of pacifism also contains the hope that, by meeting hatred with love, and also acting as an example, the pacifist will effect a spiritual and emotional change in the hard heart of the violent person, a turning towards peace (this is also the Gandhian view). Often, as with Gandhi, this pacifist approach assumes that if a large group of individuals could make the decision to meet hatred with love in this manner, the whole enterprise would take on a different aspect and effect a very real change in the conduct of a war, including the possibility of ending that war.

Pacifists of this first variety fervently hope (and believe) that meeting violence with love will cause the tyrannical to have a change of heart. But what if it’s tried, and the approach fails to work as planned? Then those who are nonviolent could easily end up being slaughtered by the violent. Most pacifists don’t look on that prospect with anything like Gandhi’s chilling equanimity.

So, if fighting in a war isn’t allowed, what’s to prevent a slaughter of the innocents? How can the problem of defending against tyranny be solved? What does the pacifist propose as a replacement for a muscular and violent defense to prevent this slaughter from happening?

As we found in Part IIA, many Quakers would answer that at that point, in a clearly defensive situation, it may be time to fight, even for Quakers. They would say that each person needs to make an individual decision about this after some intensive soul-searching.

But many pacifists have trouble with that approach. Absolute pacifists would say instead, as we saw with Gandhi in Part I, that it would be better to allow oneself to be slaughtered and meet death with exemplary courage than to fight and live another day.

Both alternatives can be problematic for pacifists, of course: the choice is between a bang or a whimper. So there is a second pacifist approach (which I’ll call the “law” approach), one that emphasizes prevention and/or alternative resolution of conflict, and can either exist independently of the first approach or complement it. This second approach is both institutional and legalistic: the belief in the structures and rules of international law as the alternative to war. It constitutes a sort of safety net for pacifists: if it works, the pacifist doesn’t need to make the hard decisions to either fight or be slaughtered, because the situation for that choice won’t arise.

EXAMPLES

If you’ve read my history of Quaker pacifism in Part IIA, you may recall that the first approach has its roots in the views of Fox and Penington, the second in those of William Penn.

Here’s an excellent and representative example of the Quaker “love” approach, a document entitled “Speak Truth to Power,” published by the American Friends Service Committee in 1955. It fully captures the flavor of this approach—individual, idealistic, faith-based:

Our truth is an ancient one; that love endures and overcomes; that hatred destroys; that what is obtained by love is retained, but what is obtained by hatred proves a burden. This truth, fundamental to the position which rejects reliance on the method of war, is ultimately a religious perception, a belief that stands outside of history.

As “a belief that stands outside of history,” the faith that love conquers all cannot be challenged or disproven by facts. That’s what makes it a religious—or quasi-religious—belief rather than a proven approach, although I don’t think pacifists would be adverse to proof if it were offered. But such proof is not required.

Here is more in the same vein, in which “reason” is explicitly rejected:

If ever truth reaches power, if ever it speaks to the individual citizen, it will not be the argument that convinces. Rather it will be his own inner sense of integrity that impels him to say, “Here I stand. Regardless of relevance or consequence, I can do no other.” This is not “reasonable”: the politics of eternity is not ruled by reason alone, but by reason ennobled by right…

The early Friends realized only too clearly that the Kingdom of God had not come, but they had an inward sense that it would never come until somebody believed in its principles enough to try them in actual operation. They resolved to go forward then, and make the experimental trial, and take the consequences. So we believe and so we advise.

So the “love” approach is a leap of faith into the unknown, an experiment based on a belief system. This message is considered to be a timeless one. Although the document was written in 1955 and intended in the fight against Communism, the website on which it appears specifically recommends it as still being relevant and timely in the post-9/11 fight against terrorism.

As for the “law” approach, here’s a good post-9/11 example. It was issued by several Quaker groups around the time of the invasion of Afghanistan:

We regret the decision by our nation’s leaders to launch military strikes against Afghanistan, and we call upon them to halt the bombing and other military attacks.

We recognize the responsibility of the international community to apprehend and try, under international law, those responsible for the recent terrorist attacks… History teaches us that violence leads to more violence. We expect that these massive military strikes by missiles and bombers against this already devastated, starving country will almost certainly make it easier for the leaders of this terrorist struggle to recruit more people to their cause. We must break the cycle of escalating violence.

The struggle against terrorism will indeed be long. To succeed, it will have to undermine the ability of those who would use terrorism to recruit new people to carry out such attacks. This requires ending, or greatly diminishing, the tremendous anger and hatred toward the United States and its allies felt, in particular, by many in the Muslim and Arab world. This can only be done with prolonged, nonviolent efforts for reconciliation, justice, and long-term economic development. It cannot be done through massive bombing and military attacks.

Here’s another Quaker post-9/11 “law” response; this one quite divorced from reality, I’m afraid, since it calls for the UN to settle things in Iraq:

…the troop presence in Iraq has lost the support of the Iraqi people and, by most accounts, the U.S. public. All of these events confirm our long-held belief that violence can only beget further violence. The U.S. must give way, so that the UN and other agencies, working with the Iraqi interim government, can bring peace and stability. The AFSC believes that the United States has lost the moral standing to achieve the necessary healing, but remains responsible to support financially those institutions and agencies which can do so.

Here we have another example of the legalistic point of view, written by a Quaker named Mary Lord after 9/11. It calls for international tribunals, special courts, weapons trade limitations, stopping the financing of terrorists, and a host of other peaceful international cooperative approaches (curiously, Ms. Lord maintains that most of these things have not been done, although in fact many have been performed in tandem with the military approaches).

Here is Ms. Lord explaining the pacifist belief system:

Pacifism has been called naé¯ve and unpatriotic. But I ask you, which is the greater naiveté””to believe that the frustrating but productive path of using and strengthening international law is the path of safety, or to believe that a never-ending worldwide war against loosely defined terrorism fought with weapons of mass destruction will make us safe and secure in our gated communities?

The path of war is always, as history proves, the more naé¯ve. War almost never works. Even when it seems to, for a short time, or after a long struggle, it is with a horrific cost of life, and property, and treasure, and the fouling of the earth, and the killing if its creatures. Almost always, similar ends could have been achieved through negotiation or international law and peacekeeping, with far less cost.

This last sentence, which I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting in bold, I find extraordinary in its assertion of facts without any even an attempt to marshall evidence. But, as with the “love” approach, facts are not the issue here; belief is, including the oft-stated belief that war “doesn’t work.”

What is meant by this statement that war doesn’t work—or, as sometimes put, that it never solves anything? On reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that what is really meant is that war doesn’t solve everything. In other words, no war eliminates all problems, or even eliminates every aspect of a single problem. For example, the Civil War eliminated slavery, but was followed by the anguish of Reconstruction and inequality. But the fact that a war hasn’t solved all problems, or hasn’t even solved a single problem (discrimination against blacks, for example) in its entirety, does not mean that the war didn’t solve some problems, at least partially or in whole. Slavery is no longer with us. The concentration camps are gone. The pacifist belief that war doesn’t solve things not only ignores evidence that it sometimes does (at least partially), but it also fails to take into account how much worse things might be if appeasement had been the order of the day.

As I’ve said, though, pacifism is a belief system, not requiring proof in the eyes of its adherents. But not all Quakers are uninterested in facts or proof. Some pursue them, no matter how upsetting the results. For example, Swarthmore Quaker historian J. William Frost undertook a lengthy study a few years ago:

…aimed at finding an answer to the question, “has religion ever prevented or stopped a war?” Or as he put it more pointedly, “is there historical evidence that religious leaders have stopped wars from beginning or shortened their duration?” His sobering answer, in sum, is: No. There is very little such evidence.

The record of western history, as Frost reviewed it, shows that a church “cannot prevent war, because it has neither theology, mission, nor the leverage in society to do so.” Even the largest, most “established” denominations have lacked real leverage, he found….

I could find no similar studies of whether international law had ever stopped a war. Perhaps the answer would be too depressing for pacifists to even contemplate. The results of Frost’s study certainly must have been.

But pacifism has other benefits beyond the practical, at least to its believers. There is the wonderful feeling that comes from a sense of oneself as being spiritual, moral, kind, and loving; and of being part of a group of like-minded individuals engaged in working for a worthy and noble cause (see this previous post for a further explanation of this feeling of “circle dancing,” especially the Milan Kundera quote on the subject.)

Here’s a good example of this genre, in which the feelings of the pacifist about him/herself within the small group of loving Quakers, and the exaltation of the mission, give the author (who became a Quaker post-9/11) hope that such peacefulness is a possibility for all humankind:

I don’t know how it happened. It could have been the anthrax that closed the Princeton Post Office that fall that made each mail day seem like our last. Or maybe it was simply that I liked the architecture of the Meetinghouse. It could have been how Irene, the woman who led the Young Friends Meeting, spoke in a quiet voice and the children listened. Whatever it was, I took to this place. I liked meditating in the creaky-benched silence of the meetinghouse, and how the people I met seemed to have light in their faces, despite the building’s lack of wattage.

By spring, I felt that I’d found a spiritual home. I was so moved by a feeling of at-oneness, that on Easter Sunday, I peeled myself off my bench to stand up and thank everyone for being there…”Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me,” is a song I probably sang too much as a child. I feel it happening, though, as I participate in Meeting. This spring, as with the Gulf War, I am writing letters to the government and joining protests. But it’s different. This time around, it’s not just my voice and that of a few friends. It’s a whole community I’ve chosen to be part of. This time around, I actually feel the peace I want for the world, and because I feel it, I actually believe it can be possible for others.

Of course, the world is not composed of a circle of peaceful Quakers, a fact of which many Quakers are well aware. And of course, as we’ve learned, not even all Quakers are dancing in the same circle; Quaker belief and tradition allows for an individual response.

So I close with the words of another post-9/11 Quaker statement, this one by a Quaker who challenges pacifism and casts his lot on the other side of it for this conflict. NPR broadcaster Scott Simon says:

One of the unforeseen effects of being in journalism is that your first-hand exposure to the issues of the world sometimes has the consequence of shaking your deepest personal convictions. I happen to be a Quaker; this is known, I have written about this…I covered conflicts in Central America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and Africa. None of them shook my belief that pacifism offers the world a way to foment change without the violence that has pained and poisoned our history…

And then, in the 1990’s, I covered the Balkans. And I had to confront, in flesh and blood, the real life flaw””I am inclined to say literally fatal flaw””of pacifism: all the best people could be killed by all the worst ones…

So I speak as a Quaker of not particularly good standing. I am still willing to give first consideration to peaceful alternatives. But I am not willing to lose lives for the sake of ideological consistency. As Mahatma Gandhi himself once said””and, like Lincoln, the Mahatma is wonderful for providing quotations that permit you to prove almost any point you choose”””I would rather be inconsistent than wrong.” It seems to me that in confronting the forces that attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States has no sane alternative but to wage war; and wage it with unflinching resolution…

We are living in a time when we must remind ourselves of the imperfections of analogies. But let me press ahead with one that has recently been on my mind.

In 1933, the Oxford Student Union conducted a famous debate over whether it was moral for Britons to fight for king and country. The leading objective minds of that university reviewed the many ways in which British colonialism exploited and oppressed the world. They cited the ways in which vengeful demands made of Germany in the wake of the end of World War I had helped encourage the kind of nationalism that may have kindled the rise of fascism. They saw no moral difference between western colonialism and world fascism. The Oxford Union ended that debate with this famous proclamation: “Resolved, that we will in no circumstances fight for king and country.”

Von Ribbentrop sent back the good news to Germany’s new chancellor, Adolph Hitler: the West will not fight for its own survival. Its finest minds will justify a silent surrender.

The most intelligent young people of their time could not tell the difference between the deficiencies of their own nation, in which liberty and democracy occupied cornerstones, and dictatorship founded on racism, tyranny, and fear…

When George Orwell returned to England after fighting against Fascism in the Spanish civil war, he felt uneasy over finding his country so comfortable””so close to Fascism. His country, he said, with its fat Sunday newspapers and thick orange jam.

“”¦All sleeping the deep, deep sleep,” he wrote, “from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs.”

“The deep, deep sleep.” Sometimes, in sleep, we dream beautiful dreams of peace. And then we wake.

Gray Lady sings the blues

The New Neo Posted on by

It occurred to me today that the folks at the NY Times may in fact be suffering from depression, and I mean that in the clinical sense.

Why the sudden diagnosis? Well, Captain’s Quarters alerted me to this editorial about the Iraqi constitutional compromise in today’s NY Times (for contrast, compare the Times’s take on the matter with the elation of Iraqi blogger Mohammed at Iraq the Model).

As Captain Ed points out, with only a little hyperbole:

Each paragraph [of the editorial] starts out with some gloomy statement on what the Times sees as reality. Each statement relates back to American efforts to create this democratic environment, either directly or indirectly…

The torturous process of actually saying something meaningful about the Iraqi agreement on a new constitution in the days ahead of the vote grinds on through eight paragraphs written in this stultifying prose, as like a bad pop song with an unrelenting, unchanging bass line. It takes that long for the Times to admit that the developments this week give greater hope for unity after the plebescite and for greater Sunni participation in democracy thereafter. The editorial approaches masterpiece status for sour grapes and for burying the lede. Even its title, “A Flicker Of Hope In Iraq”, makes this major step forward seem little more than a mere footnote in an encyclopedia of misery.

“A footnote in an encyclopedia of misery.” Reading this, I had one of those sudden insights that seem to make what was formerly murky as clear as day: the entire editorial staff of the Times is clinically depressed. For here is exactly the sort of behavior one would expect from a depressed person: the inability to take pleasure in even good news, the constant “yes-butting” that negates anything positive before it can sink in or be savored. One can almost see the sad, heavy eyes of the writer, and hear the droning voice with its flat affect.

And now I also see the Times’s constant ignoring of the good news from Iraq in a different light. It’s another symptom of depression.

Oh, I know what those of you who still like the Gray Lady will say: they’re just being judicious and cautious, and rightly so. And indeed caution is in order. But I think the Times has a track record of going way beyond caution, into a gloom that can hardly be dispelled by facts.

It seems that lately I’ve been prescribing meds without a license. But I have yet another suggestion along those lines for those at the Times: perhaps a trial of SSRIs might be in order.

It could make that hope become a tad more than a flicker. Just a thought.

And now for some real news

The New Neo Posted on by

I am extremely heartened by the recently-announced compromise on Iraq’s constitution.

But rather than comment further myself, I’ll leave that honor to one of the many valiant citizens of Iraq, a man who was among the first to give us a window on that troubled and long-suffering country and its courageous people–Mohammed, of Iraq the Model:

At this moment, the National Assembly is holding a ceremony celebrating the new breakthrough agreement on the constitution which President Talbani described as the “Day of National Accord”.

What happened today is a historic event that will isolate the enemies of Iraq and freedom and will pave the way for a clear future for Iraq after important Sunni groups decided to actively join the political process in Iraq.

There’s a visible feeling of relief on the streets and I think the constitution is on the way to be ratified”¦the process has come out of the emergency room and recovery will follow.

Fire-breathing bloggers

The New Neo Posted on by

In my last post I suggested the blogosphere take a chill pill. Too much heat, not enough light right now. Does this mean I’m disillusioned with the blogosphere? Not a bit.

Blogs are a naturally “hot” medium, although each blog has its own signature temperature. Mine tends to be a bit cooler than most, by design; I try to reflect before I write, and not shoot from the hip. But for some bloggers and pundits, shooting from the hip is their stock in trade, their raison d-etre, and a good part of their considerable appeal.

One thing I never realized before I became a blogger was the extent to which the medium itself encourages outrageousness. How does one get attention in all the blooming buzzing confusion? One way is by being louder and tougher and more clever and hard-hitting than the rest. As one blogs more and more, there’s also a tendency to become more confident about what one says–and a lot of bloggers don’t start out too timid about their opinions to begin with, else why would they blog? So there’s a sort of ever-escalating feedback loop that encourages more and more hyperventilation in the blogosphere.

When I think about it, the absence of editors–formal or informal–is a large part of the phenomenon. Please don’t think that, by pointing this out, I’m calling for blog editors; I’m not. But the blogger is ordinarily alone with his/her thoughts–sometimes even in the wee hours of the morning, and usually in a hurry to get something finished and get on with “real life”–but almost always alone. Nothing between the blogger, the computer screen, and that “publish” button. And once the moving finger writes, it can’t be undone–not without someone noticing and raising a stink, anyway.

For the other writing I do in my life, I ordinarily will take far longer to compose something, edit it, mull it over, edit it again, and finally decide it’s more or less finished. Somewhere along the way I usually show it to at least one friend or family member. For years I’ve belonged to a wonderful writing group, at which I meet regularly with fellow-writers to offer and receive comments, criticisms, and suggestions on works-in-progress. Needless to say, I never bring my blog writing to those meetings–and not only because they are heartily sick of anything political, and mostly disagree with me on that score rather intensely–but because there’s simply no time. The medium doesn’t allow it.

“Taking a chill pill” requires standing back, reflecting, taking time. And taking time is something the blogosphere definitely does not encourage. But the blogosphere’s strength lies in the aggregate: even without much time, corrections tend to happen, because some other blogger will object. In a way, other bloggers–and commenters–act as ex-post-facto editors.

You might say we’re all members of a very large writing group.

It depends on what the meaning of “possible” is

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, now there’s a firestorm around Laura Bush, heretofore the most inoffensive woman on the face of the planet.

And just what is Ms. Bush alleged to have said? I’m not going to go into every detail. I’ll just link to this post at Big Lizards (via Instapundit), for your perusal.

So, did Laura Bush in fact declare that critics of the Miers nomination were motivated by sexism? Read the transcript; you be the judge (unlike the unfortunate Ms. Miers). Did Ms. Bush indeed, as Reuters alleges, make the nefarious claim that, “it was possible some critics were being sexist in their opposition to Harriet Miers”?

Well, if so, I would just like to point out that, last time I checked, the word “possible” meant “within the realm of possibility.” It does not mean “certain,” nor even “likely;” in fact, it doesn’t even mean “probable.” It simply means “not able to be absolutely excluded as impossible.”

If Laura Bush had answered the question Lauer posed as to whether “[s]ome are suggesting there’s a little possible sexism in the criticism of Judge [sic] Miers,” with the words, “No, absolutely not; it is categorically impossible,” she would have been criticized for being stark raving mad.

Of course it’s “possible” that somewhere, somehow, there are “some” critics who are indeed a little sexist in their criticism.

I think the entire blogosphere needs to take a chill pill.

Originalism: be careful what you wish for

The New Neo Posted on by

I have some questions for those who are clamoring for a strict originalist to be appointed to the Supreme Court.

A little background: in 1973, the Supreme Court famously ruled in Roe v. Wade that states could not outlaw abortion because the Constitution contains a right to privacy that would be violated by such laws. But repealing Roe v. Wade would not automatically outlaw abortion again. It would simply leave that option open to the states.

So here’s my first hypothetical for everyone who is a strict originalist: let’s say that Roe v. Wade is repealed, and although every state is now free to outlaw abortion, all states defeat proposed laws against it, and actually end up continuing to allow abortion. Would you be satisfied with such a result, since a strict originalist ruling was followed, even though abortion would remain every bit as legal as it is today?

Griswold v Connecticut, the 1965 case that established the right to privacy on which the Roe decision relied, concerned the right of married couples to have access to contraception in the state of Connecticut, which had banned contraceptives even for the married. So my next question is this: If an originalist court overruled the right to privacy which had been established in Griswold, and as a result some states passed laws prohibiting access to contraceptives for married couples and actually enforced those laws, what you be satisfied with the result, because a strict originalist ruling had been followed?

These hypotheticals may indeed be exaggerations, but they are certainly not impossibilities. I think they illustrate two things: (a) whether a person really is a champion of originalism or whether that person actually just wants a certain result from application of the doctrine, and (b) some of the possible problems inherent in strict originalism (at least, as I read it).

Personally, I agree with those who think judicial activism and “legislation from the bench” can sometimes represent an overreaching, and that less is often more. But, as with many things, it’s a balancing act; sometimes a bit of judicial stretching can be a way to protect our rights from legislative and/or executive overreaching. Would you feel comfortable if states were free to make laws such as the banning of contraceptive devices for married couples? And, if there were no constitutional right to privacy, what would be the legal principle on which such laws might be overruled, if passed? I wonder in particular what the stance of libertarians might be on this?

One further question: do you know that one of the bases for Roe was what could arguably be called an “originalist” interpretation of the word “person” in the US Constitution? The Court found in Roe that fetuses should not be considered “persons” protected with the full rights as such under the Constitution, because at the time of that document’s writing, abortion was legal and fetuses were not considered to be persons.

Be careful what you wish for.

[NOTE: I know I said yesterday I was planning to declare a Miers moratorium. Well, this post is close to being about Miers–but it’s not. Look, I didn’t even mention her name!–until now, anyway.]

The turning point

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s always a tough moment, and it’s getting tougher all the time as fuel prices skyrocket. But there comes a point when the bone-chilling wet cold gets to me, and shuffling around the house in multiple sweats and sweaters, or huddling in the bathroom near the space heater, just doesn’t cut it any more. That’s when I break down and perform the act I’ve been putting off for weeks: the turning on of the furnace.

I hate it. Hate it. Like most New Englanders, I delay it as long as possible. It’s a point of honor, a sort of competition for who’s managed to hold off the longest. Hint: it’s not me. I know people who stonewall well into November.

But it can be in the thirties here at night, even in September, and during the day there’s just not enough warmth to dispel the feeling of being in a meat locker when I’m in my home. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and so down I go to the basement, flip that little switch, hear the satisfying “pop” of the gas being lit, and return upstairs to that wonderful sensation of slowly spreading warmth.

Looking at the big picture: a question for conservatives

The New Neo Posted on by

The fallout from the radioactive Miers nomination has revealed a rift on the right that was always there but was never quite so clear before (at least to me): a gap between those whose overriding focus is the war on terror/Islamofascism, and those who would throw it all over in a heartbeat for a chance to fight for a strict constructionist majority on the Supreme Court and other aspects of the conservative domestic agenda. And all this before the latter group even knows for sure whether Miers wouldn’t in fact be pretty closely aligned with them in fighting for that conservative domestic agenda.

Weigh the two against each other and see which is more important. Remember, we’re not talking about a gaggle of Chomskyite far-leftists who think the war on terror is a crock anyway, and who see Al Qaeda members as persecuted victims of the West. No, we’re talking about people who, just a few short days ago, thought the war was of paramount importance and that Democrats could not be trusted to run it.

But, surprise, surprise; it turns out that, at least to a certain segment of conservatives, having the Supreme Court populated by an originalist is far more important, important enough to concede the next four years to the Democrats.

I don’t know what percentage of conservatives feel this way. But here’s one of them, a commenter at the Anchoress:

I admit that this nomination may well fracture the right for an election cycle. I’m perfectly happy to do that if it means that the right returns stronger and more resolved to integrity and the core principles the right has championed for decades. I’m more than willing to cede the Presidency to the Democrats for four years if it means that we spend that time remembering what it is we really stand for on the right.

“What it is we really stand for on the right.” So okay folks, what is that? Is it the domestic conservative agenda above all? I understand that you feel that Bush’s nomination of Miers has betrayed this aim, and that in his presidency he’s betrayed other basic conservative principles, such as limitations on government spending.

But is all that really more important to you than the war against Islamofascism? That’s a real question, not just a rhetorical one, by the way. And yes, of course Bush has made mistakes in the conduct of the war. The important issue is whether you think the Democrats would do better.

So, do you prefer to stick it to Bush and allow the Democrats to handle that, and let the chips fall where they may?

[Note: after this post I just may declare a Miers moratorium for a while.]

[ADDENDUM: Dr. Sanity, whose conservative bona fides are strong whereas mine are nonexistent, asks the same question. And the good doctor doesn’t pull her punches.]