Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics,Religion | Tags: Equality, Fundamentalism, Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly, Sexism, Islam, Shar'ia law
In a speech today, Newt Gingrich will come up with all manner of reasons that America is under attack by her Muslim citizens. ThinkProgress has already demonstrated the falsity of some of the incidents he’s pledged to mention; let’s take a closer look at one.
Gingrich decries an American court’s apparent decision to exonerate a man of raping his wife because, under shar’ia, marital sex can never be rape:
In June 2009, a New Jersey state judge rejected an allegation that a Muslim man who punished his wife with pain for hours and then raped her repeatedly was guilty of criminal sexual assault, citing his religious beliefs as proof that he did not believe he was acting in a criminal matter. “This court believes that he was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited.“
Yeah, the court messed up, and got quickly reversed. Accordingly, it’s not really an example of American courts “deferring” to shar’ia, in that it demonstrates an error, not conformity with a trend. The rapist, though, finds an unlikely ally in Phyllis Schlafly, who, according to her own religious principles, agrees that there is no such thing as spousal rape:
I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That’s what marriage is all about, I don’t know if maybe these girls missed sex ed.
Sadly, this isn’t an isolated claim. She’s maintained this position consistently for some time, citing family values, religious tradition, and the dangers of “feminism” in its support. Meanwhile, her son Andy waxes poetic defending the legal concept of coverture, under which a married woman has no rights, no property, and no legal status. Ahhhh, romance!
Fundamentalist Islam is entirely incompatible with American values. Nothing could be clearer. But so is fundamentalist Christianity, or any fundamentalism, no matter the faith. This is the lesson we should’ve learned on 9/11 but somehow, we continue to apologize for homegrown extremism.
Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics | Tags: Democracy, Racism, Immigration, Election law, Rule of law, Constitutionalism, Arizona, National Popular Vote, SB 1070
Politico, and everyone else, come late to the story that states are starting to look past the Electoral College, by directing their electors to vote not for the state’s favorite, but for the winner of the national popular vote.
This plan has actually been in the works for a while. Under the initiative, led by National Popular Vote and seconded by all the right election law groups (the Brennan Center & FairVote), once states comprising a majority of the Electoral College votes (270) pass enabling legislation, all states so bound will give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, without regard to the winner of their state’s popular vote. It’s a clever way to work around the Twelfth Amendment, by working within the Amendment’s structure. Since the amendment specifically references state procedures, NPV is a violation of neither the letter of the law, nor its spirit. It’s just creative.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, conservatives don’t like it (see supra RedState). Their arguments, however, demonstrate two things. First, conservative respect for states’ rights ends precisely where their self-interest begins. Second, more than us, and thus contrary to the narrative continually leveled against us, the modern far-right seems to regularly confuse emotion and politics with law, and constitutionalism. Take the common argument against government spending: that it’s unconstitutional, by which the speaker means “unwise,” or possibly, “novel.” Maybe. But those aren’t the same, are they? Or RedState’s preface to what passes for its anti-NPV originalist/legal argument: “[NPV] is well within the boundaries of what the Constitution envisioned. I just disagree.”
Oh? Well, that’s not how the system works. The presence of the federal Constitution does not elevate all arguments to the constitutional level. The Constitution creates discretion, and a set of possible outcomes. Most debates center around the selection of one such outcome over another. The assertion that one outcome lies outside of the permissible range therefore carries real meaning, expands the consequences of the debate, and ought not to be made casually, lest we confuse the limits of the rule of law with the limits of wisdom. By design, the two are not coextensive.
Sophisticated players should realize this, because your average political debate ought to be had on the narrowest ground possible, to encourage cooperation, and avoid the needless gridlock that occurs when ego and ideology come into play. That’s simply not possible if one player tacks a frivolous “constitutional” claim onto every issue.
Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics,Religion | Tags: Democracy, Religious politics, Fundamentalism, Religious history, Islam, Theocracy, Religious freedom
Riding the crest of a new tide of Islamophobia, NRO’s The Corner and Tennessee’s Lieutenant Governor, Ron Ramsey, have settled on the theory that Islam isn’t a religion — it’s a cult, or a way of life, or some other construct of lesser dignity, therefore not entitled to First Amendment protection. This is a cutesy way of translating subjective disapproval and hatred into an objective-sounding argument.
I need hardly add, too, that it doesn’t hold together, legally: the First Amendment definition of “religion” is almost intolerably broad (Scientology qualifies. Ugh.). The Supreme Court’s first succinct statement of religious freedom in America defined the concept’s reach quite broadly, as reaching all matters “of opinion”:
[T]o suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty.
Reynolds v. U.S., 98 U.S. 145, 163 (1878) (quoting early, pre-independence Virginia lawmakers); see also id. at 164 (summarizing) (“Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.”).
By trying to erode the definition of religious freedom to exclude disfavored sects on that basis alone, the new right is attempting something truly unprecedented: the rolling-back of a concept that is definitional to the American experience, and our shared history. We might term this as something broader: the law should vest no individual with an advantage, or privilege, merely due to the fortune of his birth. There is no greater distinction between republicanism and pre-Enlightenment theocracy than the application of this principle to religious liberty. How strange to see that line blurred.
Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics | Tags: Democracy, War, Fundamentalism, Fear, Islam, American exceptionalism
What is the nature of the war on terror? A police action on a massive scale, or a global war? A counterinsurgency writ large, or a retaliatory invasion? None of these labels fit comfortably, but the American right, at least thus far, seems to have settled on one dominant narrative. Beecause it furthers their domestic agenda, and meshes with the coalition’s theocratic elements, 9/11 was the first scene in a Huntington-style “clash of civilizations,” and the war on terror a New Crusade against a threat of true annihilation. Unless we meet it head-on, by preemptively striking even tenuously related actors, and suspending such niceties of the law of war and due process, we will lose. Take Gingrich:
[In an upcoming speech to the AEI,] Gingrich “will warn,” according to a synopsis of the event, “that now is the time to awaken from self-deception about the nature of our enemies and rebuild a bipartisan commitment, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, to defend America.”
Never one to shy away from his somewhat professorial reputation, Gingrich plans to draw on “the lessons of Camus and Orwell” to explain “the dangers of a wartime government that uses language and misleading labels to obscure reality.”
This refrain — predicated on the assumption that Osama bin Laden could wipe America from the map — is a curious one to hear from the same party that continually upbraids the left, and the President, for their perceived lack of faith in American exceptionalism. Whatever they mean by the term, it should probably include some confidence that Al Qaeda won’t succeed where England, France, Germany, and the Soviet Union failed.
We need to remind ourselves that, ultimately, fundamentalist Islam isn’t an existential threat to America as a country. Just because an enemy can wound us doesn’t mean they are peers. If we “lose” the war on terror, we stand to suffer a dilution of our global influence, and run a risk of sustained criminal acts of violence against our citizens and our city centers. Both are best avoided, and deadly serious (I don’t mean to imply otherwise), but neither, separately or together, constitute dangers grave enough to question who we are as a country, and whether we need to fundamentally change our nature to survive. When we start asking those questions — or, by listening to the Republican Party, continue asking them — we become the instruments of our own downfall.
To be a hegemon is to suffer terrorism. This is the price of our success, but one we’re definitionally capable of paying. In the meantime, our greatest challenge is not to let the enemy win through fear what they can’t win through arms. True belief in American exceptionalism includes confidence in the courage of our convictions:
From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step o’er the earth, and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia… could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or set a track on the Blue Ridge, though the trial last a thousand years. No: if destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we will live forever or die by suicide.
Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics | Tags: Democracy, War, Free speech, First Amendment, Pentagon Papers
Politico buries the most important lead, from a political perspective, to come out of the WikiLeads document dump:
Obama’s not fighting it.
Gibbs has said the disclosure has the “potential to be very harmful.” But he’s engaging on the merits, not trying to bury them. Compare this with the certain reaction of the Bush administration, had this dump happened on their watch. Bottom line: this is an administration with a more basic respect for what democracy means.
Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics,Religion | Tags: Religious politics, Culture wars, Fundamentalism, Islam, Religious freedom, Ground Zero Mosque
With apologies to Fred Tipson.
The National Review displays a worrying bit of candor in its latest discussion of the “Ground Zero Mosque.” It’s not about location, it’s not about 9/11, and it’s not about national honor. It’s about Islam:
The Ground Zero mosque project is not about religious tolerance. We permit thousands of mosques in our country, and Islam is not a religion. Islam is an ideology that has some spiritual elements, but strives for authoritarian control of every aspect of human life — social, political, and economic. The Ground Zero mosque project is a stealth step in the ” Grand Jihad,” the term used by the Muslim Brotherhood and its confederates for what they describe as a “civilizational” battle to destroy the U.S. and the West from within, by sabotage.
The choice of the word “permit” speaks volumes, for how thoroughly it misunderstands the basic concept of “religious liberty.” Medieval Islam, under the Caliphate, “permitted” hundreds of Christian temples and Jewish synagogues within the dar al-Islam, so long as non-Muslims (dhimmi) paid the religious tax (the jizra). Similarly, fundamentalist ideologues like The Corner would “permit” Muslims to live and worship freely, so long as they keep to themselves, and avoid any interaction with the community that surrounds them. That’s not freedom, and that’s not tolerance. The point of a free country like ours is that the minority doesn’t have to ask the majority’s permission before worshiping as they see fit.
As to the rest, we should decline the invitation — also offered by Gingrich — to treat isolated offenses, perpetrated in the name of Islam, as a causus belli justifying some new crusade against the entire religion. Surely Osama bin Laden agrees with his Christian fundamentalist counterparts that America and Islam are locked in existential conflict, to be resolved only by the utter annihilation of one or both. But we as a country needn’t engage in their shared delusion, and shouldn’t, at the risk of legitimizing him.
Curious, too, to hear The Corner complaining about a religion that “strives for authoritarian control over every aspect of human life,” when some of its authors seem to understand America only as an outgrowth of, and a vehicle for Christianity.
Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics | Tags: Republican Party, Fundamentalism, Tea parties, Tea party, England, Parliament, David Cameron
Ross Douthat appears to have discovered — admittedly, somewhat late — that America’s culture war, and the Republican Party’s twenty-year-long obsession with rolling back social progress, might somehow be distracting them from the work of forging a smaller, more financially responsible federal government (gasp!). This, at least, for Douthat, is the import of David Cameron’s success at cutting the size of the British government, where all American “conservatives” including Gingrich and Reagan, political orthodoxy notwithstanding, have failed.
It’s nice to think that this model could work here. But Cameron’s coalition government isn’t just ignoring social issues — it’s entrenching a continental consensus that’s “far left” by American standards. The Tory side of the coalition is, from all I see, surrendering any attempt to push social issues rightwards, to instead focus on building the broad base and political will necessary to do important reform work. This is a selflessness that the American right has never displayed, and which its base’s rightward move likely forecloses. For confirmation we need look no farther than Republican rhetoric on the health care bill. When you can’t debate fiscal responsibility except with socially-loaded rhetoric (“socialism!” “death panels!”), something’s gone wrong, and some principle’s been swallowed by another.
Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics | Tags: Law, Securities reform, Free markets, Financial markets, Securities litigation, Financial reform, Financial regulation, Securities
Like the healthcare bill before it, regardless of its dilution to earn Republican votes, the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill is a BFD.
It’s also one that’s continued the trend towards shunting enforcement of the Securities and Exchange Acts away from private litigators, and to the SEC. The bill preserves the rule that private citizens can’t litigate securities fraud premised on “aiding and abetting” liability, but makes it easier for the SEC to do just that; and it restores to the SEC the ability to regulate “foreign-cubed” (foreign-centered) securities fraud, an ability private plaintiffs lost early last month when the Supreme Court decided Morrison v. Nat’l Australia Bank.
There’s cause to doubt whether this is the most efficient solution. Securities enforcement is an area of law particularly susceptible to the Republican argument that, given the right tools, private actors motivated by self-interest might better control industry excess than overburdened government agencies. The SEC, after all, has limited resources; the private market has no such limitation. Thanks the class action device, and rules permitting attorneys to earn large contingency fees, an individual with a plausible claim, even one with very modest means, can attract skilled counsel and take down even top firms. This privateering model is uniquely American, and remarkably effective. If we’re worried about securities fraud, why not “unleash the free market”?
Because, for one, it’s probably too effective. Securities litigation is so lucrative for the plaintiff’s bar that Clinton’s Congress passed laws, over the President’s well-informed veto, to make it harder for plaintiffs to sue in the first instance. Rules designed to weed out meritless claims save firms from costly litigation over petty breaches, and thus preserve the attractiveness of American markets to foreign investors, but permit private redress of real fraud.
Could we successfully “re-privatize” securities enforcement, and guard against frivolous litigation by instituting still stricter threshold requirements? Yes. Would this system better control fraud, without destroying valuable market incentives? Maybe. That’s a question for law professors with both the time and the inclination to make a full study. The argument, though, is at least plausible, more so than many (any?) of the right’s anti-reform arguments. Why haven’t they made it, then?
Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics,Religion | Tags: Ground Zero Mosque, Islam, Radicalization
Again on Facebook (where else?), Palin notes that one of the backers of the “Ground Zero Mosque” blamed America for inspiring Islamic radicalism. Let’s re-watch an ad put out by Republican Trust PAC, a Palin ally:
You know, Imam Rauf has a point. We can query his tact in making it, when he chose to, but at the point that we’re calling all Muslims terrorists, explicitly, we’re really not helping things. If we don’t let groups integrate into our society, when they ask to do so peacefully and on our terms, we can’t be surprised when radicals start to draw from their ranks.
Filed under: Author - ACG,Culture,Politics | Tags: Racism, Sarah Palin, Journalism, Jeremiah Wright
I think, no; but because Sarah Palin’s dredging up this bit of ancient history, in light of recently discovered emails from top journalists hoping to bury the story before it broke, let’s examine.
Off the bat, note that it’s not like “liberals” and “media elites” were the only ones who wanted to move past Wright, and fight the election on ground that actually had some bearing on matters of policy. Palin’s boss did, too. On his say-so, the following ad never ran:
Consider, too, the only theory under which Wright becomes relevant. Despite Obama’s extensive public record on matters racial and political, Wright represented Obama’s only linkage to the more controversial elements of America’s black community, elements which, in all other respects, Mr. Obama had conspicuously avoided, for his entire life.
Wright was a weak way to make a weaker argument, one likely to inflame passions out of proportion with its merit, and otherwise distract the American populace from matters of grave importance — like the collapsing economy. If we conceive of journalism as a way to mediate the flow of information and the cultivation of an educated populace, and not as a campaign adjunct with a discrete agenda, then the journalist’s job is precisely to avoid these kinds of stories. Politicians may fire as they bear (and reap the consequences), but journalists should function as gatekeepers. Someone has to.
