Archive for March 5, 2009

Will Someone Please Give David Brooks a Hug?

Our Mr. Brooks is wringing his hands to the bone. This self-appointed defender of moderate policy is verklempt that “transformational change” looms on the horizon and seemingly is going to be paid for, exclusively, by taxes on the rich. Brooks’ last three columns feature an almost hysterical nervous-nellyness, much greater than his usual timid acquiescence to the status quo.

On societal change in general (February 24, 2009):

Liberals are more optimistic about the capacity of individual reason and the government’s ability to execute transformational change. They have more faith in the power of social science, macroeconomic models and 10-point programs.

The people in the administration are surrounded by a galaxy of unknowns, and yet they see this economic crisis as an opportunity to expand their reach, to take bigger risks and, as Obama said on Saturday, to tackle every major problem at once.

….

If ever this kind of domestic revolution were possible, this is the time and these are the people to do it. The crisis demands a large response. The people around Obama are smart and sober. Their plans are bold but seem supple and chastened by a realistic sensibility.

Yet they set off my Burkean alarm bells. I fear that in trying to do everything at once, they will do nothing well.

On Obama’s budget (February 27, 2009):

Obama’s budget is far more honest than the ones that preceded it. It imposes real pay-as-you-go rules on future outlays. Intellectually serious efforts are made to pay for at least half of the cost of health care reform.

But the ingrained habits are still there, and the rot is not expunged. Obama enthusiastically perpetuates the myth that the American people can have everything they want without a dose of shared sacrifice. They can have health care, education reform, even a cure for cancer, and 98 percent of them need pay nothing. The burdens of progress will be borne by the rich while everyone else can enjoy their tax cuts and go shopping.

On, again, Obama’s budget and persecution of the rich (March 3, 2009):

But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once.

….

[T]he Obama budget is predicated on a class divide. The president issued a read-my-lips pledge that no new burdens will fall on 95 percent of the American people. All the costs will be borne by the rich and all benefits redistributed downward.

I will give Brooks this: Liberals do believe effective policy can arise from macro- and microlevel social research. (Full admission: My graduate-school studies were in sociology and utilized quantitative methods.) Are there many unknowns in this time of crisis? Yes. Can examination that is at once rigorous and “supple and chastened by a realistic sensibility” enable policy makers to respond to circumstances as they arise or as they change? Yes! Yes!

As to the terrible burden the rich must bear to fill government coffers … We’ve written on progressive taxation and the regressive plan McCain offered in his campaign, a plan that gratuitously continued to favor the richest of the rich. I doubt the majority of “moderates” are indignant that the top marginal tax brackets are returning to where they were through the ’90s. Further, the idea that the rest of us po’ folk are going on a spending spree with the hard-earned-and-subsequently-stolen money of the rich is ridiculous. Expanded health coverage for a single mother with two kids and two part-time jobs? She might as well have won the lottery!

Sadly, David Brooks is about all the side of center-to-right has to offer in terms of reasonable, intelligent discourse. I’m not sure he is up to the challenge. It seems Brooks is always most comfortable watching from the sidelines, delivering the sophomoric metaphor here and there, biting his nails and warning how scary change is.

Of course, you don’t have to be a liberal to know that incremental change, relying on some nebulous idea of “tried and true” (which Brooks favors) is just another way of effecting zero change. Granted, Brooks has called out the Republican Party for clinging to its “small government” fantasy, but that’s about as transformative as he can get. So I suggest someone give him a big hug, guide him to a comfy chair, hand him a cup of cocoa with lots of little marshmallows, and allow him some time to chillax.

The Trojan Horse is Empty

As a legal gambit, a means of masking creationism in reasonable, scientific-sounding discourse, “intelligent design” has long since failed. Despite the best efforts of organizations like the Discovery Institute, who first settled on the idea of “stealth creationism,” public relations disasters like Ben Stein have insisted on making a “religious” case for intelligent design, spoiling ID advocates’ one hope for subverting American science – deception.

For its part, the Discovery Institute has done its best to push back, desperately struggling to keep ID’s creationist core out of the public eye (“Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No.”). But late last year, cracks started to develop, and on Monday (as PZ Myers acknowledges), the Discovery Institute’s Michael Egnor finally let the truth slip. In a long screed railing against “Darwininsts” and their ilk, Egnor mentioned creationism six times – and “intelligent design” not at all. It’s official, folks, and straight from the DI’s mouth: intelligent design is creationism. Creationism’s Trojan horse is empty.

Why does it matter, you ask, that the Discovery Institute finally fessed up to its animating ideology? From a PR standpoint, it may not matter at all. But legally, it makes all the difference in the world. When a policy is challenged as an “establishment” of religion, the legal question to ask is whether the policy would appear religious to an “objective, reasonable observer.” This is what killed intelligent design in Kitzmiller (from an earlier article of mine):

The Lemon test, as applied by Judge Jones, asked whether an objective, reasonable observer would perceive that a religious message was conveyed by the teaching of intelligent design. Id. at 714-16. Judge Jones found in the affirmative. Id. at 714-730. However, the test is very record-sensitive. If the record does not disclose mentions of religion in the area and time surrounding the adoption of intelligent design as government policy, the Lemon test may result in the conclusion that religious motivations were not in play. Thus, the plaintiff’s job in a suit to enjoin the teaching of intelligent design is to find a “smoking gun,” where religion/creationism and ID are mentioned as inextricable.

By acknowledging its affinity with creationism, Michael Egnor ensures that any lawsuit the Discovery Institute touches will immediately turn to dust. With Egnor’s words on the record, the DI’s involvement becomes instant proof of a “religious motivation” to any challenged policy.

So long, Discovery Institute, and here’s a tip for next time: if you need intelligence and subtlety to make your message work, don’t count on fundamentalist Christians. [bpsdb]

Sandra Day O’Connor on “Activist Judges”

I do not presume to defend the federal judiciary better than Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Please make sure to watch her interview with Jon Stewart, and visit her website (ourcourts.org – 21st Century Civics).