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Censorship, Blogging, and Commenting
As common readers here will know, this site has never censored comments because we disagree with them. In the (almost-)year that I’ve run this site, the only comment ever to be deleted, other than spam, was a disturbingly violent racist screed, about six months back. I don’t think anyone will fault me for that.
Blissfully, this seems to be the modus operandi of most liberal blogs and, I think, the only responsible approach to blogging. The internet has a stunning ability to expose, matched only by its ability to insulate: as Yahoo! dramatically demonstrated last week, the internet can allow users to select their own reality, accepting only facts that fit a predetermined worldview, entrenching biases and further splintering an already partisan public. We owe it ourselves to reject that temptation, and opt instead for open engagement with ideological friend and foe alike.
Unfortunately, the conservative community by and large tends to adopt the exclusionary approach. Take Conservapedia, the PUMAs (remember them?), or RedState, which not only bans liberal or moderate commenters, but uses a browser cookie to block banned users from even viewing the site (as I recently experienced). Given these less-than-enlightened approaches to the marketplace of ideas, is it any surprise that conservative blogs become more radical over time?
Is the Birth Certificate “Controversy” Over?
For quite some time now, we here have reported on the right wing-invented “controversy” over whether Barack Obama is, in fact, the President. Short recap: spurred on by WorldNetDaily, a sad, angry little cadre of far-right bloggers and correspondence school lawyers filed a number of lawsuits demanding to know whether Obama is a “natural born citizen” and therefore eligible for the office.
Due to various procedural bars, and the substantive ridiculousness of the complaints, these suits have uniformly failed. In fact, the impact of these 20+ lawsuits appears to be limited to (1) sanctions pending against one birther attorney, (2) a professional complaint filed against another (Orly Taitz — we called it!), and (3) a grievous waste of the precious resources of the federal judiciary. Tough luck.
Legislative attempts to kick Obama out of office have similarly failed. A birther-backed bill – which would’ve required President Obama to produce his birth certificate (again) upon running for re-election – has thus far received not even one co-sponsor (HR 1503, @THOMAS). Tough luck for sole sponsor Bill Posey (R-FL): you know you’re out there when not even Michele Bachmann (R-MN) will back you up.
Of course little things like “facts,” “law,” and “failure” rarely stand in the way of conspiracy theories. That’s why birther attorneys & boosters have seemed undaunted by their myriad & frequent setbacks. Until now. Yesterday, WorldNetDaily, the one “news” organization that’s consistently covered the birther scam favorably (and run a hilarious petition on their behalf), pulled its hitherto daily birther update from the front page (“Page 1″) in favor of a daily gay marriage update (insultingly titled “Queerly Beloved”). Chalk up Obama conspiracy theories as the first victims of “the gathering storm.”
Even as the slow slide towards birther irrelevance enters its final phase – in which Wonkette becomes the only large blog left covering the “controversy” – I have to admit, I will miss them. Not often is one blessed with such ridiculous enemies.
A Wretched Hive of Scum & Villainy
Good news, everyone! Bad news. Everyone’s favorite non-Wikipedia wiki, RationalWiki, will be down for most of today for server maintenance & upgrades. In the meantime, Trent, RationalWiki founder, was kind enough to ask me to host the official site maintenance open thread. So here you go!
While you’re here, be sure to read our award-winning coverage of creationism and people we don’t like. This site is growing rapidly!
Who’s Afraid of Foreign Law?
Phyllis Schlafly hates the federal judiciary. This is no surprise. In fact, it typifies the conservative approach to any institution that makes it harder to oppress non-complying minorities. What is surprising – to me at least – is the level of deceit to which she’s willing to stoop, just to demonize the institution.
In her latest column for WorldNetDaily, Schlafly attacks Justice Ginsburg (one of this author’s heroes) for her practice of citing favorably to foreign law. In Schlafly’s eyes, apparently, citing to foreign law is the same as implementing it. Any first-year law student will know this is not so.
When a judge cites to a legal authority, it means one of three things – either the jurist considers herself bound by it, influenced by it (or not), or compelled to repudiate it. Justice Ginsburg’s citations to foreign law have never, as Schlafly seems to think, taken the first form. No American lawyer would ever consider herself bound by foreign law (no – especially not Harold Koh, no matter what rumor you’ve heard).
But there is nothing wrong with taking foreign law under advisement. As the world’s most visible constitutional democracy since 1776 (and the sole remaining hegemon), American jurists have always written to a large external audience, modeling to our observers that democracy can, in fact, work. But now that the world is replete with healthy democracies, many premised on the American model of constitutionalism, the relationship is somewhat different – all of a sudden, the audience is talking back. What’s the harm in listening?
Unless one is wedded to an eighteenth century conception of morality, the answer is, none. I reject utterly the idea that the Constitution froze American values, and their relationship to the law, in 1789. Without a doubt, the Constitution ossified a framework for determining and implementing legal values, and a skeleton of basic principles, but any document of precommitment necessarily reserves to future generations the task of defining what, specifically, our values and therefore our law mean. In an increasingly fluid world, those values, the kind we hope inform our judges, can hardly be said to exist in a vacuum. As our citizens shape the world, and are in turn shaped by it, our law should be, too – subject to certain vital limits. This needn’t be scary, so long as we trust ourselves.
Does Bill Kristol Have Some Great Tuna Casserole Recipe?
What's funnier than Kristol himself? (Click to enlarge.)
Because I am trying to figure out how he continues to be rewarded and celebrated. It certainly isn’t because Kristol has some lock on intellectual rigor. The man is smug, careless, and — frankly — stupid when it comes to discussion of socioeconomics, geopolitics, political strategy, cultural identity … essentially any topic related to the human condition. (We’ve covered Kristol here, here, here and … here.)
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Bill Kristol would be an idiot savant … if he had any “savant.”
Yet he moves effortlessly among and between high-power centers in Washington, D.C., and New York, floats from one columnist gig to another, and yesterday, conservative bastion, the Bradley Foundation, announced Kristol will be awarded its 2009 Bradley Foundation Award.
The Bradley Foundation selected William Kristol for his outstanding achievements in a wide range of activities affecting the development of public policy from national and international perspectives.
In truth, Kristol’s Neocon inanity has resulted in some “outstanding achievements … affecting the development of public policy from national and international perspectives” that we, as a nation, are now having to figure out how to clean the $&%# up.
The award includes a $250,000 stipend, which means Kristol will be paid $250K to do nothing. Rich conservatives do take care of their own.
On Monday — two days before the Bradley Foundation press release — the 2009 Pulitzer Prizes were awarded. One recipient was a reporter for the East Valley Tribune in the Phoenix area, where he and a cowriter conducted an award-winning investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff Department’s policies towards undocumented immigrants. I use “was” because Paul Giblin was laid off three months ago, one of 140 staffers the paper cut in a mass lay-off.
The Pulitzer Prize includes a $10,000 award.
Torture: Bush Apologists Answer the Wrong Question
President Obama’s decision to publish another round of “torture memos” – documents justifying and authorizing the use of torture against assorted War on Terror detainees – seems to have had the unanticipated effect of flushing out right-wing justifications for the practice. Apparently, Dick Cheney will happily dump as many state secrets as possible, if they help him.
Some of the right’s new talking points deserve new response. Let’s take the allegation, pushed by Thiessen and Cheney, that in fact, torture did produce actionable information that helped foil terrorist plots & save American lives.
While this sounds compelling, it doesn’t answer the right question. The question to ask when evaluating the risks and benefits of torture isn’t, “does torture produce information?” The right question to ask is, “is torture the only way to obtain the information necessary to foil imminent, grave threats to American citizens or assets?” Torture isn’t justified if it’s a means to an end. It’s only justified if it’s the only means to a necessary end.
On this question, and reduced to this issue, Cheney, Gonzales et al remain silent. But their casual failure to grasp the grave moral dilemma of torture speaks volumes. I’m prepared to give the President and any American officials full license to torture, provided they know, to a reasonable level of certainty, that:
- The subject has information…
- …that is necessary…
- …to counteract a grave…
- …and imminent threat to American assets…
- …and will give the information…
- …only if tortured.
All Cheney & company have offered is #1, and maybe #3. I’m not impressed.
Go Ahead, Tell me Intelligent Design Isn’t Religious. I Dare You.
Ben Stein, ID “luminary,” will speak at Liberty University’s 2009 graduation exercises:
“He has served as a college professor, attorney, author, speechwriter, and even an actor but the most compelling reason for Liberty University’s choice this year is this man’s work in exposing the evils and dangers of Darwinism through the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” Falwell said. “This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and a fitting time to have Mr. Ben Stein bring our commencement address.”
Stein has publicly denounced the theory of evolution, which he and other intelligent design advocates term “Darwinism.”
Stein co-wrote and stars in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a film that is powerful in persuading viewers that the theory of evolution is partially responsible for the eugenics movement, the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust and portrays advocates of intelligent design as victims of religious discrimination by the scientific community.
During Monday’s convocation students cheered during a promotional video clip from Stein’s documentary film, Expelled, featuring an LU student.
“Mr. Stein has also been a champion of the pro-life movement, but his work as the nation’s most prominent advocate for bringing integrity and academic freedom back to the American scientific community has been legendary,” Falwell said.
At least the Trojan horse has been wheeled back outside the city walls.
College Board Gets Political for All the Right Reasons
College Board — owner of everyone’s favorite standardized test (the SAT) and, for those so inclined, the Advanced Placement (AP) Exams – announced its support yesterday for the “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors [DREAM] Act of 2009″ [H.R. 1751 and S. 729], which allows for states to determine residency status for long-time undocumented immigrants so that they might be able to legally attend college and qualify for financial aid. Essentially, undocumented immigrants who live in the U.S. for at least five years, were under age 16 when they first arrived, and who graduate from high school or receive GEDs may be awarded permanent residency if they move directly from high school/GED to college or to enlistment into the military.
This legislation has been floating around in similar forms since 2001 but, although bipartisan, never got very far in the legislative process. It is meant to address a simple and blinding reality: Undocumented children are completing or partially completing K-12 education and then reaching a dead end, which is resulting in the creation of a permanently undereducated — and subsequently underemployed — social class. Permanently undereducated and underemployed populations have a funny way of also being permanently impoverished.
What motivated the College Board’s decision? The organization conducts a lot of its own research, if for no other reason than to validate the predictive value of its products, and much of this research has yielded interesting findings related to social stratification issues and educational inequalities. Over the years, the College Board has expanded their research interests beyond simply defending their exams. The organization’s support of the DREAM Act comes with the publication of the Board’s report: Young Lives on Hold: The College Dreams of Undocumented Students (PDF). The report’s major findings:
- Children make up 1.8 million (15%) of undocumented immigrants to the U.S.
- 65,000 undocumented immigrants graduating from high school each year have lived in the U.S. for at least five years.
- If passed, the DREAM Act would provide residency opportunity to 360,000 high school graduates, giving them the opportunity to legally attend college and would open the door to over 700,000 more K-12 students.
Of course, College Board’s advocacy is also economically motivated. Sure, the Board is interested in the common good. Aren’t we all? But the economic motivation I am talking about hits closer to College Board’s home. The single largest consumer of College Board products is the state of California. With the largest state college and university systems in the nation, both of which require at least the completion of the SAT or ACT to meet minimum eligibility for admission, California has quite a bit of sway when it comes to College Board policy.
California also has a huge immigrant population — documented or not. Educational attainment and opportunity for minorities is a firebrand of a political issue with ramifications for higher education nationwide. When, for instance, the University of California [UC] President speaks, state university systems in Texas, and Florida, and Wisconsin, and New York listen.
So, too, does the College Board. In February 2001, then-president of the UC, Richard Atkinson, delivered a speech saying he wanted the UC to stop requiring the SAT for admission “because it does not have a demonstrable relationship with the student’s course of study and often leads to a preoccupation with improving test-taking skills at the expense of mastering high school subject matter.” In June 2002, the College Board voted unanimously to revamp the SAT. Of course, College Board spun the changes as improvements on an already good thing, and the UC spun it as a “foundation … that will better serve our students and schools.” The fact is UC barked and College Board jumped, lest it lose its biggest consumer.
I suspect something similar happened with respect to College Board’s public support of the DREAM Act, but I don’t want to impart the same level cynicism. Sure, links between California legislators, higher-education administrators, and College Board leaders likely helped inform the policy position, but while, yes, the College Board stays in California’s good graces, their advocacy in this instance is absolutely correct.
Pallin’ Around with Dictators: the Right’s Selective Outrage
After eight years of defending the most embarassing, gaffe-prone commander-in-chief in American history, the American right has decided to finally care about America’s diplomatic presence, printing screed after screed of faux-outrage over President Obama’s decision to – gasp! – shake hands with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.
Yawn. The incident is remarkable only for its banality. American Presidents have a history of setting aside macro-level differences to conduct themselves politely in the company of even the worst of the worst. That’s the way diplomacy goes: it didn’t become “cool” to insult your enemies to their faces until the White House’s previous tenant. Just ask these guys.
Chill out, GOP. It’s not like Obama offered the guy a neckrub.
Ask “Yahoo! Ideological Search”: Is Barack Obama a Muslim?
If you watch Digg, you’ve probably noticed that Yahoo! just released a search engine that lets you view the internet through ideological blinders. Oh good, says I: America definitely wasn’t partisan enough already, and factual relativism is the paradigm of responsible democracy. Anyways, let’s see how well this “ideological search” works, with one simple question: Is Barack Obama a Muslim?
