A major part of my political evolution these past few years has been a realization that, even as I still accept much of the conservative critique of the modern liberal establishment, I did not fit into the dominant model of conservatism as displayed on Fox news and right wing talk radio. This is not to say that I do not feel a strong affinity for John Stossel and Judge Andrew Napolitano, who both have shows on Fox. For then there are attack pieces like the following written by Kevin McCullough and posted on Fox. McCullough sees evidence of libertarians being "disrespectful" to the Republican party by "hijacking" the CPAC poll, leading to libertarian Ron Paul victory with Gary Johnson, also with strong libertarian credentials, coming in third. According to McCullough:
It has been the inclusion of the libertarian aspects of the past two years that has thrown the message of conservatism askew in a widely disproportional way.
It is the libertarian in attendance that produced the free pornographic calendar passed out to attendees in 2010. It is the libertarians in attendance who openly promote the inclusion of groups like GOProud, largely as an attempt to silence groups who would speak in strong support of traditional moral values. It is the libertarian in attendance who slandered President George Bush, by claiming his appreciation for the Constitution was best summed up as a "damn piece of paper." It is the libertarian in attendance that proclaimed the war to prevent terrorists from regathering strength and coming after our homeland as "illegal." And it is the libertarian in attendance that eschewed, booed, cajoled and screamed "war criminal" to Vice President Dick Cheney, a man who served his country with commitment and still attempts to help the world understand the threat of the radical Islamic element devising plans to eliminate us and our allies.
McCullough concludes by saying:
Libertarians and Conservatives are as different as Libertarians and Liberals. The truth is libertarians are the worst form of political affiliation in the nation. Combining the desire of economic greed, with the amoral desire to promote any behavior regardless of its cost to our culture is a stark departure from the intent of the Founding Fathers.
So what does it mean to be a libertarian? I am not sure about handing out pornographic calenders, but welcoming gays, questioning Bush's commitment to the Constitution, believing that throwing around the word "terrorism" is not a legal blank check and finding Dick Cheney to be an all round worthy target of ridicule seem like good places to begin. So if Fox conservatives decide that I am not a "good conservative," whose "greed" for money leads me to not use government to protect Christian culture I guess I can live with that.
Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Monday, May 3, 2010
Slouching Toward Bosnia
In many respects this sort of tit for tat conflict, I described earlier, where each side is going to push the boundaries as to what is acceptable and justify it as simply doing to the other what is already being done to them is behind the deepening divisions in this country. Republicans maligned President Clinton, Democrats maligned George W. Bush in revenge and now Republicans seek to do the same to Obama. Democrats filibustered judicial nominations and now the Republicans are doing the same. Conservatives decided that the mainstream was not playing fair with the news so they created Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Liberals responded in kind by creating Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. We are not shooting at each other yet. But we could all too easily, I fear, go from only accepting the media of our side as legitimate to following Michael Makovi and saying that we will only accept the legal authority of the people we support. This would mean that there would be Republican and Democrat police officers, judges and each side could have its own congress and president. At this point the best possible scenario would be secession as the country officially is broken up to accommodate all parties. If, as is likely the case, this is not practical in terms of territory and allotment of natural resources, we are left with war as each side attempts to subjugate the other to its will. (The Israelis and Palestinians are a good example of this. Neither side trusts the other to form a single country. There are no workable boundaries for two different States. Thus we are left with a state of war with both sides attempting to force a solution on the other.)
In British parliamentary culture there is what is known as a "shadow cabinet." The party out of power lists its leading members according to the positions they would have if they were in power. This speaks to one of my major objections to the parliamentary system and its lack of set elections; it creates a system where a large minority of the government is actively seeking to bring down the government and force new elections. As opposed to the American system where, in theory at least, Republicans, for example, are supposed to accept the fact that they were defeated by Barack Obama, that Obama is now the President and they are obliged to work with him for the next four years.
One of the virtues of the American two party system (and this maybe is what saves the British model as well) is that, regardless of what one might think of the many ideologically unsatisfying outcomes, it forces a certain level of moderation. Regardless of their party affiliation, I can count on the fact that elected officials on the one hand are not out to completely socialize the economy, but on the other support some sort of welfare state with at least some government health care. No one is going to support a religious theocracy, but on the other hand we retain a political rhetoric that acknowledges some sort of general divine providence. The military's dominating presence in the budget is not going to change anytime soon and neither is this country about to return to isolationism and stop interfering with other countries. I am not saying this is good or bad. Just that it provides a government that no one is going to feel pushed to such an extreme as launching an actual civil war.
In Orson Scott Card's two recent mediocre novels, Empire and Hidden Empire, he postulates a near future American civil war between the right and the left. (In truth it is more like secular leftist radicals, trying to destroy this country, going up against moderate patriotic Christians.) I can think of far more creative civil war scenarios. We can start with Evangelical Christians from rural Pennsylvania launching a tea-party with automatic weapons against Manhattan liberals. Manhattan liberals beg an Al Sharpton-like character to use his connections with black street gangs to save them. In a magnanimous gesture of tolerance, a Pat Robertson-like character visits a synagogue in the front lines of Brooklyn to meet with Israeli arms dealers and announces that Jews are not nearly as hated by God as Catholics. This causes a stir when it hits the internet, and the entrance of suburban New Jersey Catholics, armed with a papal indulgence for the sin of birth control for each slain Protestant. (I leave it to readers to continue the scenario.)
The point here is that government hangs on a very narrow thread as people decide whether to trust each other and whether their differences are not so large as to prevent their joining together in bounds of state-building. In many respects, functional governments are not the norm. Normal is Bosnia, Rwanda and Northern Ireland where neighbors kill each other over race, religion, culture or any other good excuse they can find on hand. The question we have to ask ourselves is why we are not in a Bosnia type situation now. There, if not by the grace of sensible moderates, go us.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
War and Peace: My First Conference Presentation and My Weekend at Purdue (Part II)
(Part I)
The second paper was “The Moral Significance of Recognizing Violence in Pogge’s Borrowing and Resource Privileges,” presented by Mark Balawender of Michigan State University. Thomas Pogge attacks borrowing and resource privileges, arguing that the developed world acts as an enabler to authoritarian governments as they borrow money and cause economic harm to their people. This process of borrowing money in exchange for resource privileges allows corrupt third world governments sell out their own countries. There is not normative standard to judge the legitimacy of governments. This allows authoritarian governments to seize power and gain money quickly even though this harms the population. How does one deal with this from the perspective of liberalism which allows economic transactions that only incidentally cause harm to other people?
A useful analogy is the case of two parallel paths one higher up than the other where the rocks from the higher path can cause harm to those on the lower half. Such a situation is okay where the population freely chooses which path to take. What happens when you have a case where the path one chooses is dependent on one’s social or economic status? This would create a different moral situation. Thus such instruments of global Capitalism as lending money to corrupt third world regimes in exchange for resources should be classified as forms of violence and should be viewed as wrong within the parameters of liberalism.
I found this presentation amusing mainly because it reminded me so much of Talmudic dialectics. As a good traditional liberal I oppose the aiding and abetting of authoritarian regimes. As a believer in free markets, though, I have the ultimate weapon against such regimes, Capitalism. Under free market conditions it is not in my interest to support authoritarian regimes even when control over their natural resources. Such regimes are likely to fall and the new regime is unlikely to respect its predecessor’s agreement, particularly if they are able to make the case to the world that this was a bargain made between thieves, designed to impoverish the country. I raised this issue with Balawender and he responded that Pogge had used a similar argument.
The final presentation of the first session Nathan Stout of Western Michigan University, “The Torture Memo: A Philosophical Critique” Prof. John Yoo’s Torture Memo, on behalf of the Bush administration, allowed for extreme interrogation tactics. Yoo defines Al Qaida members both as enemy combatants and as unlawful combatants. He assumes that 9/11 was a declaration of war on the part of Al Qaida and therefore the United States entered a formal war with Al Qaida no different than a war with a established state. This makes what happens next to fall under the military; Al Qaida fighters are military combatants. On the flip side, since Al Qaida does not keep to the established protocols of war, they are unlawful combatants, no different than spies. Congress does not have the authority to interfere with the President’s handling of unlawful combatants and the President is free to do with them as he wishes. How does one go about defining combatants and unlawful combatants? We assume that enemy combatants lose their rights to life and liberty because they choose to participate in war. This is in keeping with Just War theory. An unlawful combatant wishes to fight while maintaining the protections of a non combatant; he therefore loses the rights of lawful combatants. Yoo’s model would require one to assume that Al Qaida soldiers had a right to fight to begin with. Yoo, though, rejects the notion that Al Qaida is in any way a legitimate political entity. This being the case one should not be able to say that the United States is at war with Al Qaida.
I have not studied Yoo’s arguments, though the argument he makes seems to be very similar to the one that I made in a debate on Atheist Ethicist. I argued that the Al Qaida fighters held on Guantanamo Bay get the worst of both situations. As out of uniform combatants they have no legal rights. As prisoners captured during combat they do not need to be tried. The challenge being raised against Yoo seems to have a very simple solution, accept that Al Qaida is a political entity and should be treated as a state. I raised the scenario with Stout where Al Qaida would have acted “legally.” Al Qaida issues a formal declaration of war on the morning of 9/11 before they hijacked the plans. Uniformed Al Qaida soldiers get past security and hijack civilian airliners. After somehow getting all civilians off the plans they then crashed the planes into military targets such as the Pentagon. America declares war against Al Qaida and invades Afghanistan. Uniformed Al Qaida fighters clash with American forces out in the open, away from civilians, and are captured. I would have no problem with saying that Al Qaida prisoners should, under such circumstances, be treated with full legal rights as if they were from England, France or Canada and protected from torture. Since this is not the case, I have no problem in stripping Al Qaida fighters of their legal rights and handing a blank check to our government to torture them.
(To be continued …)
The second paper was “The Moral Significance of Recognizing Violence in Pogge’s Borrowing and Resource Privileges,” presented by Mark Balawender of Michigan State University. Thomas Pogge attacks borrowing and resource privileges, arguing that the developed world acts as an enabler to authoritarian governments as they borrow money and cause economic harm to their people. This process of borrowing money in exchange for resource privileges allows corrupt third world governments sell out their own countries. There is not normative standard to judge the legitimacy of governments. This allows authoritarian governments to seize power and gain money quickly even though this harms the population. How does one deal with this from the perspective of liberalism which allows economic transactions that only incidentally cause harm to other people?
A useful analogy is the case of two parallel paths one higher up than the other where the rocks from the higher path can cause harm to those on the lower half. Such a situation is okay where the population freely chooses which path to take. What happens when you have a case where the path one chooses is dependent on one’s social or economic status? This would create a different moral situation. Thus such instruments of global Capitalism as lending money to corrupt third world regimes in exchange for resources should be classified as forms of violence and should be viewed as wrong within the parameters of liberalism.
I found this presentation amusing mainly because it reminded me so much of Talmudic dialectics. As a good traditional liberal I oppose the aiding and abetting of authoritarian regimes. As a believer in free markets, though, I have the ultimate weapon against such regimes, Capitalism. Under free market conditions it is not in my interest to support authoritarian regimes even when control over their natural resources. Such regimes are likely to fall and the new regime is unlikely to respect its predecessor’s agreement, particularly if they are able to make the case to the world that this was a bargain made between thieves, designed to impoverish the country. I raised this issue with Balawender and he responded that Pogge had used a similar argument.
The final presentation of the first session Nathan Stout of Western Michigan University, “The Torture Memo: A Philosophical Critique” Prof. John Yoo’s Torture Memo, on behalf of the Bush administration, allowed for extreme interrogation tactics. Yoo defines Al Qaida members both as enemy combatants and as unlawful combatants. He assumes that 9/11 was a declaration of war on the part of Al Qaida and therefore the United States entered a formal war with Al Qaida no different than a war with a established state. This makes what happens next to fall under the military; Al Qaida fighters are military combatants. On the flip side, since Al Qaida does not keep to the established protocols of war, they are unlawful combatants, no different than spies. Congress does not have the authority to interfere with the President’s handling of unlawful combatants and the President is free to do with them as he wishes. How does one go about defining combatants and unlawful combatants? We assume that enemy combatants lose their rights to life and liberty because they choose to participate in war. This is in keeping with Just War theory. An unlawful combatant wishes to fight while maintaining the protections of a non combatant; he therefore loses the rights of lawful combatants. Yoo’s model would require one to assume that Al Qaida soldiers had a right to fight to begin with. Yoo, though, rejects the notion that Al Qaida is in any way a legitimate political entity. This being the case one should not be able to say that the United States is at war with Al Qaida.
I have not studied Yoo’s arguments, though the argument he makes seems to be very similar to the one that I made in a debate on Atheist Ethicist. I argued that the Al Qaida fighters held on Guantanamo Bay get the worst of both situations. As out of uniform combatants they have no legal rights. As prisoners captured during combat they do not need to be tried. The challenge being raised against Yoo seems to have a very simple solution, accept that Al Qaida is a political entity and should be treated as a state. I raised the scenario with Stout where Al Qaida would have acted “legally.” Al Qaida issues a formal declaration of war on the morning of 9/11 before they hijacked the plans. Uniformed Al Qaida soldiers get past security and hijack civilian airliners. After somehow getting all civilians off the plans they then crashed the planes into military targets such as the Pentagon. America declares war against Al Qaida and invades Afghanistan. Uniformed Al Qaida fighters clash with American forces out in the open, away from civilians, and are captured. I would have no problem with saying that Al Qaida prisoners should, under such circumstances, be treated with full legal rights as if they were from England, France or Canada and protected from torture. Since this is not the case, I have no problem in stripping Al Qaida fighters of their legal rights and handing a blank check to our government to torture them.
(To be continued …)
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
History 112: Rise of Absolutism (Q&A)
1. In the text it mentions something about Louis XIV's second marriage and then bring up his marriage to Maria Teresa, the Spanish woman, so if I am not mistaken that would mean he had three wives. France was a Catholic nation, so how is it that he had three wives if Henry of England had to make England protestant before getting a divorce?
Louis XIV was married twice the first time, in 1660, to Marie Therese of Spain, who was the daughter of Philip IV. This becomes later on because Louis XIV is going to push the claim to the throne of Spain on behalf of his grandson, Philip V, which sets the War of Spanish Succession in motion. This was a marriage of convenience and, judging from the pictures we have of her, Marie was no beauty. Maria died in 1683. Louis XIV then went and married Mme de Maintenon. So there was nothing wrong with this marriage from the perspective of the Catholic Church. During the twenty three years that he was married to Marie, Louis XIV had a slew mistresses; the most famous of them being Louise de la Valliere and Mme de Montespan. This was, for all intents and purposes, viewed as perfectly acceptable. Imagine of Bill Clinton had gone on national television and told the American people: “This is Monica; she is my mistress and I am now going back to the oval office to have sex with this woman. I am the president and there are thousands of women who would gladly sleep with me. I work hard protecting this country so let me enjoy the perks of the office; as Mel Brooks might say: 'it is good to be the president.” Seventieth century France was a far less prudish society than modern America.
2. The text seems to be conflicting to some degree about Louis XIV by placing him as a great king for France on one hand while on the other listing many shortcomings of his reign. It seemed to me as if it is trying to say that he was great, but that he could have done more given better resources and more sincere conviction over the term of his reign (this referencing the fact that the text mentions several points where he initially reacted one way and years later changed his mind and did the opposite). Is this a matter of the three portions of his reign they outline being not well outlined within the text and these changes occurring in distinct stages of his reign, or was this something that was continuous throughout his rule?
In practice, when studying history there are no good or bad people. People do things for different reasons; some of them succeed at some of the things they try and others are not so successful. Louis XIV was tremendously successful at, domestically, forming a strong centralized government and curbing the power of the nobility and, in terms of foreign policy, in making France the supreme power in Europe. That being said, as it should be clear from the reading, Louis XIV was hardly some ubermensch. He had his flaws and was not as successful as he could have been.
3. I can't help but notice some similarities between Louis XIV and Bush's policy. 1. Frequent and petty wars which often have no beneficial outcome for the countries involved 2. An increasing national debt - increased spending by the nation and decreased product. Do you think that these similarities are coincidence or a result of some common political agenda? What would it imply about the future state of the United States? I thought maybe because ppl today are tending to want more unified power through government, that could be the cause of the similarity...What do you think?
Unless one is looking for analogies, one should avoid making comparisons between historical and present day figures. Remember history has no pedagogic value, there are no lessons that can be learned. Personally I suspect that Louis XIV and the people surrounding him were significantly more talented than those in the Bush administration.
4. After reading about Thomas Hobbes' philosophy in which the people "lose their individual authority, but gain stability and authority," I was wondering if any of the people had problems with this? It seems in those times, there was no real sense of individualism. Were there any common people who expressed their uniqueness?
Worrying about one’s individuality is a luxury that few people outside of modern western cultures had the chance to engage in. Most people throughout history had far more pressing concerns like what were they going to eat and how were they not going to get raped and murdered before the day is out. Hobbes is concerned with how do we solve these issues so we can actually be in a position to start concerning ourselves with such ethereal issues such as "individuality." I find Hobbes to be very useful because of how forcefully he puts forth the issue of government coercion. All governments, even our liberal democratic government, are instruments of coercion. The Federal government has the power to force you to pay taxes, they can throw you in jail, they can even hand you a gun and tell you to go die for your country. If you were really so committed to “individuality” you would be an anarchist. The fact that you are not an anarchist shows that you have compromised you “individuality” and made a Hobbesian bargain.
Hobbes actually was quite controversial. Mainly because people, during the time, thought, probably correctly, that Hobbes was an atheist. Hobbes’ very cynical worldview, that you find so distasteful, comes out of his materialism where everyone acts simply based on their material self interest.
5. Most modern philosophy requires a serious body of evidence to be considered for a theory on human nature. Hobbes just speculates and theory-crafts. How did a skeptic critique such an argument when no evidence is presented in the first place?
Hobbes was a materialist, who believed that everything was physical matter. In his defense one could argue that the burden of proof lies with anyone who would wish to argue against his materialism. Hobbes’ politics comes out of this materialist world view. If there is no supernatural than all that remains is selfish material interest. In the Hobbesian world everyone is acting based on crude self interest. The question then becomes how do we fashion a state out of this mass of people who are only interested in their material welfare and would kill their own mothers if it would benefit them. There is no God to punish me nor is there any heaven or hell awaiting me after I die. So what, besides for a Hobbesian police state, is stopping me from breaking into your house raping you and stealing your jewelry before cutting your throat and proceeding to your wife and kids?
6. What was parliament's response to Charles I's defiance? Did the church support the "divine right of kings" since its justification came from scripture? What caused the shift away from the thought that kings possessed God-given power over their kingdoms and when did it occur?
Well Charles I had William Laud, the archbishop of Canterbury to support his claims. What is interesting about Charles I and his father, James I, is that even they are not simply arguing for the divine right of kings. For them it is almost a side issue in the face of tradition, natural law and the public self interest.
I would see the essential question of the revolution in sixteenth century political thought as, now that the myth of religious homogeny has been forever destroyed by the Reformation, what is the basis of government authority. Charles I is trying to rule two three countries, England, Scotland and Ireland. In these countries there are Calvinists and Catholics, who oppose the Anglican Church. Even the Anglican Church itself is divided; you have all of these Puritans who oppose how he is running the Anglican Church. So why should people not simply rebel against him and chop his head off? And they did rebel and chop his head off. Much of the Enlightenment is devoted to finding a solution to this very problem that Charles I failed to answer.
Louis XIV was married twice the first time, in 1660, to Marie Therese of Spain, who was the daughter of Philip IV. This becomes later on because Louis XIV is going to push the claim to the throne of Spain on behalf of his grandson, Philip V, which sets the War of Spanish Succession in motion. This was a marriage of convenience and, judging from the pictures we have of her, Marie was no beauty. Maria died in 1683. Louis XIV then went and married Mme de Maintenon. So there was nothing wrong with this marriage from the perspective of the Catholic Church. During the twenty three years that he was married to Marie, Louis XIV had a slew mistresses; the most famous of them being Louise de la Valliere and Mme de Montespan. This was, for all intents and purposes, viewed as perfectly acceptable. Imagine of Bill Clinton had gone on national television and told the American people: “This is Monica; she is my mistress and I am now going back to the oval office to have sex with this woman. I am the president and there are thousands of women who would gladly sleep with me. I work hard protecting this country so let me enjoy the perks of the office; as Mel Brooks might say: 'it is good to be the president.” Seventieth century France was a far less prudish society than modern America.
2. The text seems to be conflicting to some degree about Louis XIV by placing him as a great king for France on one hand while on the other listing many shortcomings of his reign. It seemed to me as if it is trying to say that he was great, but that he could have done more given better resources and more sincere conviction over the term of his reign (this referencing the fact that the text mentions several points where he initially reacted one way and years later changed his mind and did the opposite). Is this a matter of the three portions of his reign they outline being not well outlined within the text and these changes occurring in distinct stages of his reign, or was this something that was continuous throughout his rule?
In practice, when studying history there are no good or bad people. People do things for different reasons; some of them succeed at some of the things they try and others are not so successful. Louis XIV was tremendously successful at, domestically, forming a strong centralized government and curbing the power of the nobility and, in terms of foreign policy, in making France the supreme power in Europe. That being said, as it should be clear from the reading, Louis XIV was hardly some ubermensch. He had his flaws and was not as successful as he could have been.
3. I can't help but notice some similarities between Louis XIV and Bush's policy. 1. Frequent and petty wars which often have no beneficial outcome for the countries involved 2. An increasing national debt - increased spending by the nation and decreased product. Do you think that these similarities are coincidence or a result of some common political agenda? What would it imply about the future state of the United States? I thought maybe because ppl today are tending to want more unified power through government, that could be the cause of the similarity...What do you think?
Unless one is looking for analogies, one should avoid making comparisons between historical and present day figures. Remember history has no pedagogic value, there are no lessons that can be learned. Personally I suspect that Louis XIV and the people surrounding him were significantly more talented than those in the Bush administration.
4. After reading about Thomas Hobbes' philosophy in which the people "lose their individual authority, but gain stability and authority," I was wondering if any of the people had problems with this? It seems in those times, there was no real sense of individualism. Were there any common people who expressed their uniqueness?
Worrying about one’s individuality is a luxury that few people outside of modern western cultures had the chance to engage in. Most people throughout history had far more pressing concerns like what were they going to eat and how were they not going to get raped and murdered before the day is out. Hobbes is concerned with how do we solve these issues so we can actually be in a position to start concerning ourselves with such ethereal issues such as "individuality." I find Hobbes to be very useful because of how forcefully he puts forth the issue of government coercion. All governments, even our liberal democratic government, are instruments of coercion. The Federal government has the power to force you to pay taxes, they can throw you in jail, they can even hand you a gun and tell you to go die for your country. If you were really so committed to “individuality” you would be an anarchist. The fact that you are not an anarchist shows that you have compromised you “individuality” and made a Hobbesian bargain.
Hobbes actually was quite controversial. Mainly because people, during the time, thought, probably correctly, that Hobbes was an atheist. Hobbes’ very cynical worldview, that you find so distasteful, comes out of his materialism where everyone acts simply based on their material self interest.
5. Most modern philosophy requires a serious body of evidence to be considered for a theory on human nature. Hobbes just speculates and theory-crafts. How did a skeptic critique such an argument when no evidence is presented in the first place?
Hobbes was a materialist, who believed that everything was physical matter. In his defense one could argue that the burden of proof lies with anyone who would wish to argue against his materialism. Hobbes’ politics comes out of this materialist world view. If there is no supernatural than all that remains is selfish material interest. In the Hobbesian world everyone is acting based on crude self interest. The question then becomes how do we fashion a state out of this mass of people who are only interested in their material welfare and would kill their own mothers if it would benefit them. There is no God to punish me nor is there any heaven or hell awaiting me after I die. So what, besides for a Hobbesian police state, is stopping me from breaking into your house raping you and stealing your jewelry before cutting your throat and proceeding to your wife and kids?
6. What was parliament's response to Charles I's defiance? Did the church support the "divine right of kings" since its justification came from scripture? What caused the shift away from the thought that kings possessed God-given power over their kingdoms and when did it occur?
Well Charles I had William Laud, the archbishop of Canterbury to support his claims. What is interesting about Charles I and his father, James I, is that even they are not simply arguing for the divine right of kings. For them it is almost a side issue in the face of tradition, natural law and the public self interest.
I would see the essential question of the revolution in sixteenth century political thought as, now that the myth of religious homogeny has been forever destroyed by the Reformation, what is the basis of government authority. Charles I is trying to rule two three countries, England, Scotland and Ireland. In these countries there are Calvinists and Catholics, who oppose the Anglican Church. Even the Anglican Church itself is divided; you have all of these Puritans who oppose how he is running the Anglican Church. So why should people not simply rebel against him and chop his head off? And they did rebel and chop his head off. Much of the Enlightenment is devoted to finding a solution to this very problem that Charles I failed to answer.
Monday, April 13, 2009
War and Peace: My First Conference Presentation and My Weekend at Purdue University (Part I)
For the weekend of April 3-4 I was in Lafayette IN for a conference at Purdue University, titled War and Peace: Discourse, Poetics, and Other Representations. This was my first conference presentation and I presented my paper on David Reubeni. The conference was for graduate students so this was certainly a minor league affair, but I am glad that I was able to attend as this summer I will be presenting at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds England, a major league affair. As one might expect from the title, this conference was pretty top heavy in terms of post modernism. Of the presentations I attended Cory Driver’s and mine were the only ones that were not open exercises in post modernism. There was also the issue of liberal politics; as one might expect there was a fair amount not so subtle Bush bashing with some shots at Israel thrown into the mix. All in all it was a wonderful conference, though, and I really would like to thank the people who helped put it together particularly John White and also Jessica Raffelson, who chaired my session.
I was in a bit of quandary in trying to find accommodations for Shabbos. I was in luck and was put in contact with the Aldrich family and was able to spend Shabbos with them. Dr. Daniel Aldrich is a professor in the political science department at Purdue. He and his wife are now on my list (somewhere near the Klappers) of things that are right with Orthodox Judaism. They are one of the few Orthodox people in Lafayette and Dr. Aldrich’s wife home schools their three adorable children. They have also lived in Japan for a number of years, during which time Dr. Aldrich wrote articles, on the side, for the Haredi newspaper Hamodia about living as a Jew in the Far East. I presented on Friday but was thinking of walking back to Purdue on Shabbos to sit in on at least some of the day’s presentations. In the end I did not; I was having too much fun at the Aldrich’s. I had a great discussion with Dr. Aldrich about my favorite polemical topic, Haredim. I was on the offensive, he was on the defensive. This ended up branching out into post modernism; it turns out that he is even more hostile to post modernism than I am. I had to defend my willingness to use such terms as “Imperial Haredism” or “Haredi creation of the Other.” I do recognize the value of certain post modern terms, questions, and concepts as long as they do not become ends in of themselves.
As to the conference itself. The first panel was on Theorizing War and was chaired by Sol Neely. Ethan Sproat of Purdue University spoke on “War and Its Purification.” It was an examination of Kenneth Burke’s views on war within the context of Friederich Nietzsche. According to Burke, war is an object of communication and as a means of communications. This is Burke’s attempt to look at the symbolism of war as a means of getting around the act of war itself. Burke was influenced by Nietzsche. Nietzsche viewed war as the actions of people who already lived condemned lives. Actual war is a disease; it is built around a cult of empire and relies on dissipation and fanaticism. This is a type of reasoning that desires to eliminate all forms of opposition; Nietzsche refers to this as a “diseased form of reasoning.” Burke notes that all organisms live by killing. Move from the hand to the fist. Nietzsche also recognized this need for violence.
Nietzsche felt comfortable only with Heraclitus who said that “things become through war.” Strife is required for cooperation; there is a value in having enemies. Nietzsche self consciously used “war” instead of “strife.” War is a onetime event instead of something continuous. He believed in attacking ideas that have been victorious where one stands alone in opposition. One attacks ideas and not people. To attack is proof of good will. One can only wage war against equals. Nietzsche believed that it was important in preserving the enemy even the Church so in a sense Nietzsche’s attack on Christianity was, from his perspective, a true act of love.
Burke employs Nietzsche’s use of war as a way of establishing community. There is an element of competition; we engage in communion through competition. A pure act is always symbolic. As applied to war this would mean war without actual war, just the symbols of war. Pure war preempts actual war and reverses the relationship between symbols and actions.
Sproat ended his presentation with a nod to those in attendance. This conference is an act of pure war. We engage and challenge others. Despite our differences we still see engagement as something of inherent value. The questions becomes how do we bring these values of pure war to those already engaged in actual war.
Despite the underlying liberal polemic and post modern discourse of this presentation I did enjoy this one. Particularly since I love Nietzsche and it was wonderful to see someone embrace Nietzsche whole heartedly without any concern for being labeled a racist a Nazi or, even worse, a sexist.
(To be continued …)
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Ann Coulter Versus Historians
Ann Coulter takes a swipe at historians with her latest piece, “Why We Don’t Celebrate ‘Historians Day.” Her complaint is that a recent poll of historians ranked George W. Bush the seventh worst president in American history. According to Coulter:
Being ranked one of the worst presidents by "historians" is like being called "anti-American" by the Nation magazine. And by "historian," I mean a former member of the Weather Underground, who is subsidized by the taxpayer to engage in left-wing political activism in a cushy university job.
Coulter goes on to note that this is shocking as “most liberals can't even name seven U.S. presidents.”
I know many very liberal historians and yes they can name more than seven U.S. presidents. Speaking as a historian who has never been a member of the Weather Underground and has never used a cushy university job to engage in left wing political activism, if historians really wanted to go after Bush they would have placed him last. Regardless of what one thinks of his policies, and I am probably more sympathetic to them than most in my profession, it is very difficult to give Bush high marks as a president. Was he effective in rallying his party and a clear cut majority of the electorate around his policies? With the exception of the weeks after September 11, no. Was he a masterful orator? No. Maybe he was like Eisenhower and subtly controlled his advisors without anyone knowing? Time will tell, but as far we could see, this was a president controlled by his staff as few in history have been. I cannot think of one positive way that Bush affected the office of the presidency. While none of this means that Bush was a completely horrible president, he should be viewed as mediocre to well below average. Seventh worst may be a bit tough, but it is not unreasonable. If I were voting I would probably have Bush ranked somewhere between twenty-five and thirty spots from the top. But then again I am biased, I voted for the man.
Personally I do not think whe can properly evaluate and rank recent presidents. One needs some distance for that. I would say fifty years. So we are just about ready to evaluate and rank Kennedy.
Being ranked one of the worst presidents by "historians" is like being called "anti-American" by the Nation magazine. And by "historian," I mean a former member of the Weather Underground, who is subsidized by the taxpayer to engage in left-wing political activism in a cushy university job.
Coulter goes on to note that this is shocking as “most liberals can't even name seven U.S. presidents.”
I know many very liberal historians and yes they can name more than seven U.S. presidents. Speaking as a historian who has never been a member of the Weather Underground and has never used a cushy university job to engage in left wing political activism, if historians really wanted to go after Bush they would have placed him last. Regardless of what one thinks of his policies, and I am probably more sympathetic to them than most in my profession, it is very difficult to give Bush high marks as a president. Was he effective in rallying his party and a clear cut majority of the electorate around his policies? With the exception of the weeks after September 11, no. Was he a masterful orator? No. Maybe he was like Eisenhower and subtly controlled his advisors without anyone knowing? Time will tell, but as far we could see, this was a president controlled by his staff as few in history have been. I cannot think of one positive way that Bush affected the office of the presidency. While none of this means that Bush was a completely horrible president, he should be viewed as mediocre to well below average. Seventh worst may be a bit tough, but it is not unreasonable. If I were voting I would probably have Bush ranked somewhere between twenty-five and thirty spots from the top. But then again I am biased, I voted for the man.
Personally I do not think whe can properly evaluate and rank recent presidents. One needs some distance for that. I would say fifty years. So we are just about ready to evaluate and rank Kennedy.
Friday, January 16, 2009
History 112: The Challenge of Political Authority in the Seventeenth Century
The second most interesting question in political theory is why government authority fails. Yesterday we looked at the English Civil. The Monarchy of Charles I collapsed and he lost his head. This sort of collapse has happened many times in history. Think of France in 1789, the Bastille, or Berlin in 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Throughout much of the world, particularly in Africa, the collapse of a political system is a regular occurrence. This is an interesting question, one that I do not have an answer for; I cannot predict which regimes will be overthrown or when it will happen. The most interesting question, though, is why governments manage to stay up in the first place. There is a man by the name of George W. Bush. He says that he is my president and that I should pay taxes. Next week there is going to be a man named Barack Obama claiming to be my president and he also will also want me to pay taxes. Why should I care? Why do we take it as a given that, come next week, George W. Bush will peacefully step down from power and assume life as a private citizen? Maybe he will retreat to his ranch down in Crawford TX and declare himself King George W. Bush. Maybe the state of Texas will break away from the union and form their own country under Bush’s most Christian rule. Alternatively, why should Obama allow Bush to peacefully step down? It is dangerous to allow one’s leading opponent to stay alive; much safer to eliminate them. There are millions of Republicans out there who do not support Obama. Maybe Obama should send his Gestapo police knocking on doors and ship outspoken Republicans to concentration camps to be reeducated. The state capital of Ohio is only a few miles down High St. and does not appear to be well guarded. Why not, instead of sitting around in class, grab some assault weapons, storm the capitol building so I can make myself the new governor of Ohio. Keep in mind that all of these things do happen around the world on a regular basis. Law and order functional governments are hardly the norm.
For people in England in the seventeenth-century, these issues were very real. We have all the religion wars in Europe. England itself is going to have its own civil war and numerous revolutions. What authority can government claim that people should obey it? In your reading, you have seen a number of possible answers from James I, Charles I, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.
James I claimed that he ruled by divine right and used the Bible, but he also showed recourse to rational arguments. He compared himself to the father of a family. He saw the state as a single organism made up off all of his subjects, with him as the head. Charles I, in making his case in front of parliament, sounds downright liberal. He argued that it was his duty to protect the liberty of his subjects and that if he would submit to parliament there would be no legitimate government authority left. Everything would therefore collapse and chaos would reign. These are perfectly plausible arguments that even an atheist could accept.
Thomas Hobbes most likely was an atheist. He was clearly not someone who accepted the authority of religion or the Bible. If we were to accept the Whig narrative than we would expect that someone like Hobbes, the one secular person we are dealing with here, would be a supporter of Liberty and Democracy. Hobbes, though, supported absolutist monarchy. John Locke, on the other hand, is our supporter of constitutionalism. While Locke was an Englishman, for all intents and purposes, he is one of our founding fathers. Much of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution comes straight out of Locke. Locke was also one of the premier advocates for religious toleration of his time. We might think this was due to his secularism. On the contrary, Locke was trying to build a Christian state. He believed that by tolerating even non-Christians such as Jews, they would come to see how wonderful Christianity was and convert, hardly a secularist agenda.
As with religion, absolutism is also part of the modern story. James I, Charles I, and Hobbes were not simply relics of the Middle Ages to be defeated by John Locke. The absolutist state, with its absolute monarch backed by a well developed bureaucracy, was a major innovation that did not exist in the Middle Ages. Those who defended absolutism were also reacting to the changes of the early modern period just as the supporters of constitutionalism were. Everyone was affected by the Reformation. There is now no one Christendom. One cannot simply appeal to God and the Bible; which God, the Catholic, the Lutheran, the Anglican or the Reformist one? In such a situation, everyone is looking for an alternative. Much of what goes on in the modern story is precisely this search for an alternative. Our liberal Democracy was simply one of the possible solutions. We should not assume that the victory of liberal Democracy was inevitable or that it was obviously the best solution.
For people in England in the seventeenth-century, these issues were very real. We have all the religion wars in Europe. England itself is going to have its own civil war and numerous revolutions. What authority can government claim that people should obey it? In your reading, you have seen a number of possible answers from James I, Charles I, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.
James I claimed that he ruled by divine right and used the Bible, but he also showed recourse to rational arguments. He compared himself to the father of a family. He saw the state as a single organism made up off all of his subjects, with him as the head. Charles I, in making his case in front of parliament, sounds downright liberal. He argued that it was his duty to protect the liberty of his subjects and that if he would submit to parliament there would be no legitimate government authority left. Everything would therefore collapse and chaos would reign. These are perfectly plausible arguments that even an atheist could accept.
Thomas Hobbes most likely was an atheist. He was clearly not someone who accepted the authority of religion or the Bible. If we were to accept the Whig narrative than we would expect that someone like Hobbes, the one secular person we are dealing with here, would be a supporter of Liberty and Democracy. Hobbes, though, supported absolutist monarchy. John Locke, on the other hand, is our supporter of constitutionalism. While Locke was an Englishman, for all intents and purposes, he is one of our founding fathers. Much of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution comes straight out of Locke. Locke was also one of the premier advocates for religious toleration of his time. We might think this was due to his secularism. On the contrary, Locke was trying to build a Christian state. He believed that by tolerating even non-Christians such as Jews, they would come to see how wonderful Christianity was and convert, hardly a secularist agenda.
As with religion, absolutism is also part of the modern story. James I, Charles I, and Hobbes were not simply relics of the Middle Ages to be defeated by John Locke. The absolutist state, with its absolute monarch backed by a well developed bureaucracy, was a major innovation that did not exist in the Middle Ages. Those who defended absolutism were also reacting to the changes of the early modern period just as the supporters of constitutionalism were. Everyone was affected by the Reformation. There is now no one Christendom. One cannot simply appeal to God and the Bible; which God, the Catholic, the Lutheran, the Anglican or the Reformist one? In such a situation, everyone is looking for an alternative. Much of what goes on in the modern story is precisely this search for an alternative. Our liberal Democracy was simply one of the possible solutions. We should not assume that the victory of liberal Democracy was inevitable or that it was obviously the best solution.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
History 112: Who are these Folks? (How Religious People are Part of the Modern Narrative) Part II
Part I
Let us move this to the Christian context. Haredi Jews do not have the numbers to really affect American society. There are millions of fundamentalist Christians on the other hand. One of the things that I find very interesting about religious Christians is that unlike Haredim they do not dress differently and, from the outside, are completely indistinguishable from ordinary Americans. The person you meet on the street wearing a tie-die shirt, cut-off jeans and shoulder-length hair might very well be a very religious Christian. Fundamentalist Christians have also developed their own counter-culture. For example, the Left Behind Series was a mega-bestseller a few years ago. Over the past few decades, it has been the Evangelical churches that have been really successful and not the mainline or even liberal churches. How can this be; in our modern liberal age shouldn’t people be running to join liberal churches? Why would someone bother to join a church that accepts LGBTs and preaches that there are other means to salvation besides Jesus Christ? If you do not have to accept Jesus as your personal savior then why bother going to church? Evangelical Christianity preaches a doctrine that is worth caring about; there is heaven and hell, sin and sinners, such as gays. The very salvation of your soul rests on you coming to church and accepting Jesus as your personal savior. The moral “decline” in our society also helps their cause. It creates an easy target to polemicize against. It is hard to justify taking an adversarial relationship with the general society when the general society holds similar values. If I am in 1950s America and there is school prayer and officially society is opposed to pre-marital sex then I do not need the Christian right.
In What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank makes the argument that there are many poor white Christians in this country who would benefit from government welfare programs and should really be voting Democrat. The Republicans, though, keep them focused on issues such as guns, gays, and abortion and get them to vote against their economic interests. What Frank does not consider is how government welfare strengthens religious fundamentalists. We are used to thinking of big government advancing the cause of secular liberalism; it also, though, allows dissident groups, like fundamentalist Christians, to stand outside of mainstream America.
To reverse Frank’s question, there are a lot of fairly conservative blacks voting Democrat. For example, 70% of blacks voted for Proposition 8, against gay marriage. Why are blacks who oppose things like gay marriage still voting Democrat, against their own ideological beliefs? It would seem that the two main reasons for this are that blacks associate Republicans with segregation and that they see the Democrats as the ones who will give them the government aid they require.
If you remember, back in 2000, when George W. Bush first ran for president, he ran under the banner of “Compassionate Conservatism." Compassionate Conservatism was the belief that government should be engaging in welfare programs, though in a more socially conservative-friendly fashion. For example, through faith-based initiatives, government dollars would be channeled through religious organizations as a means to help those in need. This can be seen both as an attempt to protect Republicans against the sort of vulnerability outlined by Frank and to reach out to conservative minorities, particularly blacks. Poor white Christians would get the government aid they need in a manner they could feel comfortable with and would have no need to turn to the Democrats. As for conservative blacks, they would finally have a Republican party they could feel comfortable with, one that took their concerns seriously and offered government aid, likewise, in a way that would be consistent with their conservative beliefs. This had the potential to create a political alliance that would have kept the Republicans in power for the next generation. History, though, caught up with George W. Bush, after only a few months in office, on September 11. This radically changed his presidency and, for the most part, placed Compassionate Conservatism on the political backburner.
One can see Barack Obama as trying to put together his own version of the proposed Compassionate Conservatism coalition. When I first heard Obama speak, back in 2004, what struck me about him was that he was a Democrat who could talk intelligently and believably about faith. This man was clearly a sincere and believing Christian. I had a flash of him running for president, canvassing Evangelical churches and talking about how he came to accept Jesus as his personal savior, bringing over white Evangelicals to the Democratic party; clearly, this was a man who would be a dangerous candidate in a general election. As it turns out Obama did not run on his faith; he had no need to as the Republicans fell apart. That being said, Obama has not abandoned this potential alliance with white Evangelicals. He has invited Rick Warren to speak at the inauguration. Rick Warren is an Evangelical pastor known for his interest in social welfare issues such as AIDS and the environment. As such, Warren is precisely the sort of Evangelical Obama would wish to ally with and he can serve as a bridge to the larger Evangelical community. It may be possible to get many white Evangelicals to go along with such socially liberal notions as gay marriage and abortion if these things are sold the right way. As we can see, religious voters are important to American culture and to American politics and not simply as the dark forces of superstition waiting to overturn modernity.
Why have I been spending all of this time talking about this topic? We are used to thinking of modernity in terms of liberalism and secularism. In the Prop 8 piece we saw at the beginning of class, the good guys of modernity are liberal. Then there are these dark scary buffoonish religious characters lurking in the background trying to ruin everything; seeming to be outside of modernity. In truth, these religious characters are also part of the modern story. Much of what goes on in modernity plays into their hands and benefits them as well. If you do not understand the role of religion, even fundamentalist religion, then you have failed to understand the modern story. This goes for dealing with the sixteenth-century and the twenty-first century as well.
Let us move this to the Christian context. Haredi Jews do not have the numbers to really affect American society. There are millions of fundamentalist Christians on the other hand. One of the things that I find very interesting about religious Christians is that unlike Haredim they do not dress differently and, from the outside, are completely indistinguishable from ordinary Americans. The person you meet on the street wearing a tie-die shirt, cut-off jeans and shoulder-length hair might very well be a very religious Christian. Fundamentalist Christians have also developed their own counter-culture. For example, the Left Behind Series was a mega-bestseller a few years ago. Over the past few decades, it has been the Evangelical churches that have been really successful and not the mainline or even liberal churches. How can this be; in our modern liberal age shouldn’t people be running to join liberal churches? Why would someone bother to join a church that accepts LGBTs and preaches that there are other means to salvation besides Jesus Christ? If you do not have to accept Jesus as your personal savior then why bother going to church? Evangelical Christianity preaches a doctrine that is worth caring about; there is heaven and hell, sin and sinners, such as gays. The very salvation of your soul rests on you coming to church and accepting Jesus as your personal savior. The moral “decline” in our society also helps their cause. It creates an easy target to polemicize against. It is hard to justify taking an adversarial relationship with the general society when the general society holds similar values. If I am in 1950s America and there is school prayer and officially society is opposed to pre-marital sex then I do not need the Christian right.
In What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank makes the argument that there are many poor white Christians in this country who would benefit from government welfare programs and should really be voting Democrat. The Republicans, though, keep them focused on issues such as guns, gays, and abortion and get them to vote against their economic interests. What Frank does not consider is how government welfare strengthens religious fundamentalists. We are used to thinking of big government advancing the cause of secular liberalism; it also, though, allows dissident groups, like fundamentalist Christians, to stand outside of mainstream America.
To reverse Frank’s question, there are a lot of fairly conservative blacks voting Democrat. For example, 70% of blacks voted for Proposition 8, against gay marriage. Why are blacks who oppose things like gay marriage still voting Democrat, against their own ideological beliefs? It would seem that the two main reasons for this are that blacks associate Republicans with segregation and that they see the Democrats as the ones who will give them the government aid they require.
If you remember, back in 2000, when George W. Bush first ran for president, he ran under the banner of “Compassionate Conservatism." Compassionate Conservatism was the belief that government should be engaging in welfare programs, though in a more socially conservative-friendly fashion. For example, through faith-based initiatives, government dollars would be channeled through religious organizations as a means to help those in need. This can be seen both as an attempt to protect Republicans against the sort of vulnerability outlined by Frank and to reach out to conservative minorities, particularly blacks. Poor white Christians would get the government aid they need in a manner they could feel comfortable with and would have no need to turn to the Democrats. As for conservative blacks, they would finally have a Republican party they could feel comfortable with, one that took their concerns seriously and offered government aid, likewise, in a way that would be consistent with their conservative beliefs. This had the potential to create a political alliance that would have kept the Republicans in power for the next generation. History, though, caught up with George W. Bush, after only a few months in office, on September 11. This radically changed his presidency and, for the most part, placed Compassionate Conservatism on the political backburner.
One can see Barack Obama as trying to put together his own version of the proposed Compassionate Conservatism coalition. When I first heard Obama speak, back in 2004, what struck me about him was that he was a Democrat who could talk intelligently and believably about faith. This man was clearly a sincere and believing Christian. I had a flash of him running for president, canvassing Evangelical churches and talking about how he came to accept Jesus as his personal savior, bringing over white Evangelicals to the Democratic party; clearly, this was a man who would be a dangerous candidate in a general election. As it turns out Obama did not run on his faith; he had no need to as the Republicans fell apart. That being said, Obama has not abandoned this potential alliance with white Evangelicals. He has invited Rick Warren to speak at the inauguration. Rick Warren is an Evangelical pastor known for his interest in social welfare issues such as AIDS and the environment. As such, Warren is precisely the sort of Evangelical Obama would wish to ally with and he can serve as a bridge to the larger Evangelical community. It may be possible to get many white Evangelicals to go along with such socially liberal notions as gay marriage and abortion if these things are sold the right way. As we can see, religious voters are important to American culture and to American politics and not simply as the dark forces of superstition waiting to overturn modernity.
Why have I been spending all of this time talking about this topic? We are used to thinking of modernity in terms of liberalism and secularism. In the Prop 8 piece we saw at the beginning of class, the good guys of modernity are liberal. Then there are these dark scary buffoonish religious characters lurking in the background trying to ruin everything; seeming to be outside of modernity. In truth, these religious characters are also part of the modern story. Much of what goes on in modernity plays into their hands and benefits them as well. If you do not understand the role of religion, even fundamentalist religion, then you have failed to understand the modern story. This goes for dealing with the sixteenth-century and the twenty-first century as well.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
My Optimistic Scenario for the Next Four Years
So the election has come and gone and as expected John McCain lost and Barack Obama won. I supported McCain and continue to have serious reservations about Obama, both in terms of the American economy and in terms of Israel. The Democrats now control the presidency and have greatly strengthened their hold over Congress and the Senate. The radical left is triumphant and no doubt they will push their advantage for all it is worth. That being said I am willing to be cautiously optimistic. For one thing, despite my disagreements with Obama, I respect the man; he has always struck me as a highly intelligent individual who, despite his personal liberalism, honestly desires to reach out and cut across the traditional ideological lines. Here is my optimistic scenario for the coming four years.
I do not believe that Obama is going to turn tail and run neither in the War in Iraq, specifically, or in the War on Terror, in general. Obama has nothing to lose and everything to gain from pursuing an aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East. If he fails it will be blamed on the Bush administration and if he succeeds he will be able to take the credit for himself. I suspect that the Left in this country and the European Union will be far more willing to support an aggressive foreign policy now that it is no longer the Bush administration taking the lead. Obama may, in fact, be better suited than George W. Bush to pursue an aggressive foreign policy because he will not be caught up in the us versus them in the liberal establishment trap; Obama will have no need because the establishment will be on his side. Just as it took Richard Nixon to go to China so to it might very well require an Obama to fight the War on Terror.
Personally, my number one reason for supporting Republicans is in order to make sure that strict constructionist judges are appointed and to stop Liberals from appointing activist judges who will reinterpret the Constitution to give Liberals everything they fail to get through the democratic process and call it a "civil right." The two best things President Bush did in his eight years in office was to appoint John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Obama defiantly will try to appoint activist judges. I do not think he will be able to too much damage. The only justice who is likely to step down over the next four years is John Paul Stevens, one of the courts most liberal members. We can assume that, one way or another, we will still have our four conservative judges (Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito) and one judge (Kennedy) who usually can be relied upon.
Hopefully, Obama can be relied upon to do something stupid that will not do too much damage but will help bring about a Republican comeback in 2010 and even allow them to take back the White House in 2012. I am thinking along the lines of him going back on his campaign pledge not to raise the taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. I am really keen for him to fulfill his campaign promises to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which will enshrine Roe vs. Wade into Federal law, and support equal pay laws for women. These things should be enough to alienate the American center over the next few years, particularly as their anger toward Republicans cools.
Meanwhile, the Republicans can take the opportunity of this well-deserved defeat to take stock of their situation. This defeat may serve as a badly needed intervention to save them from themselves and maybe get them back to things like small government. I think there is little chance that the Republicans could ever have changed on their own without some disaster of Obama proportions. Of all the disasters that may have struck the Republican Party, I could imagine worse than an Obama presidency.
Hopefully over the next few years we can put together a Republican Party that we can be proud of.
I do not believe that Obama is going to turn tail and run neither in the War in Iraq, specifically, or in the War on Terror, in general. Obama has nothing to lose and everything to gain from pursuing an aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East. If he fails it will be blamed on the Bush administration and if he succeeds he will be able to take the credit for himself. I suspect that the Left in this country and the European Union will be far more willing to support an aggressive foreign policy now that it is no longer the Bush administration taking the lead. Obama may, in fact, be better suited than George W. Bush to pursue an aggressive foreign policy because he will not be caught up in the us versus them in the liberal establishment trap; Obama will have no need because the establishment will be on his side. Just as it took Richard Nixon to go to China so to it might very well require an Obama to fight the War on Terror.
Personally, my number one reason for supporting Republicans is in order to make sure that strict constructionist judges are appointed and to stop Liberals from appointing activist judges who will reinterpret the Constitution to give Liberals everything they fail to get through the democratic process and call it a "civil right." The two best things President Bush did in his eight years in office was to appoint John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Obama defiantly will try to appoint activist judges. I do not think he will be able to too much damage. The only justice who is likely to step down over the next four years is John Paul Stevens, one of the courts most liberal members. We can assume that, one way or another, we will still have our four conservative judges (Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito) and one judge (Kennedy) who usually can be relied upon.
Hopefully, Obama can be relied upon to do something stupid that will not do too much damage but will help bring about a Republican comeback in 2010 and even allow them to take back the White House in 2012. I am thinking along the lines of him going back on his campaign pledge not to raise the taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. I am really keen for him to fulfill his campaign promises to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which will enshrine Roe vs. Wade into Federal law, and support equal pay laws for women. These things should be enough to alienate the American center over the next few years, particularly as their anger toward Republicans cools.
Meanwhile, the Republicans can take the opportunity of this well-deserved defeat to take stock of their situation. This defeat may serve as a badly needed intervention to save them from themselves and maybe get them back to things like small government. I think there is little chance that the Republicans could ever have changed on their own without some disaster of Obama proportions. Of all the disasters that may have struck the Republican Party, I could imagine worse than an Obama presidency.
Hopefully over the next few years we can put together a Republican Party that we can be proud of.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Senator John McCain in Columbus
Back in the fall of 1999 and the winter of 2000, when I was sixteen and still too young to vote, I cheered on Senator John McCain in his forlorn primary run against than Governor George W. Bush. I had read McCain’s memoir, Faith of My Fathers, and found it utterly moving. It sounds funny now but my thinking back then was that, if Arab terrorists were to carry out a major attack on American soil, there would be nobody better to rally this country than John McCain.
McCain in 2000 was not to be and we got President George W. Bush instead, a decent human being but a mediocre candidate, who proved unqualified for the job of office. As Conservatives, we cannot allow ourselves to be classified as intellectual lightweights. I hope the damage done by the Bush presidency will not prove too great for us to overcome.
Last night I went downtown to the Renaissance Hotel to a McCain rally. We were standing around for about two hours, time I am sure Dr. Goldish would say I could have better spent studying, but it was worth it. We got to see McCain in person and hear him speak. After McCain finished speaking and was leaving the podium I managed to get myself to the front. The person next to me got to shake McCain’s hand.
I feel like we have been given a chance to go back to 2000 and do things right this time. We can elect a genuine American hero as our next president the likes of which the Oval Office has never seen.
McCain in 2000 was not to be and we got President George W. Bush instead, a decent human being but a mediocre candidate, who proved unqualified for the job of office. As Conservatives, we cannot allow ourselves to be classified as intellectual lightweights. I hope the damage done by the Bush presidency will not prove too great for us to overcome.
Last night I went downtown to the Renaissance Hotel to a McCain rally. We were standing around for about two hours, time I am sure Dr. Goldish would say I could have better spent studying, but it was worth it. We got to see McCain in person and hear him speak. After McCain finished speaking and was leaving the podium I managed to get myself to the front. The person next to me got to shake McCain’s hand.
I feel like we have been given a chance to go back to 2000 and do things right this time. We can elect a genuine American hero as our next president the likes of which the Oval Office has never seen.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Why I Reject the Whole Notion of International Law
One of the main charges against the Israeli settlements is that they violate international law and are hence illegal. This raises the question of what is international law and what is the basis of its authority. In this matter, I must admit to being rather perplexed. I understand the notion of sovereign states making laws, that individuals who violate the laws of the nation in which they reside have done something illegal. I understand the concept that countries themselves and in particular their leaders, are said to have done something illegal when they violate their own laws. Even laws themselves can be illegal if they violate the constitution of the State. If President Bush would tomorrow declare himself President for Life and make Methodism the official religion of the United States then he would stop being the president and would have to be viewed as a criminal and a traitor to this country.
What does it mean when we say that countries have violated international law? Why should countries even be bound by international law? It would seem to me that every country should have the right to make its own laws within its own borders and be able to live by them without any outside interference particularly when this outside interference does not have any firm basis as to justify its own authority. Who makes international law? The United Nations, what legal power does it have over any given nation. The same thing goes for the Haig court. Besides for the fact that it is simply a political tool, why should any country have to give it any heed, particularly a country like the United States, which never agreed to accept such a court in the first place? To make matters worse, what people usually mean when they appeal to the notion of international law is simply their own personal moral judgment. Not that I have anything against people having moral values or acting upon them as long as they are willing to acknowledge that they are acting according to their values and that other people may have different ones.
The only sort of international law that I would recognize as having some sort of meaningful authority would be formal treaties and agreements signed by a country and the informal codes of conduct, such as how to treat prisoners of war, that countries operate under. Both of these things are very different from international law as we usually think of it. A country is bound to keep the agreements it signs not because of any international law but simply in terms of its own laws. A treaty signed by a government could be viewed as a law which it signs. A government that violates a treaty would be in the same category as a government that violates its own laws. In both cases, these are internal affairs outside of the jurisdiction of any world community. Codes of conduct need not be regulated by any formal laws but simply through the threat of retaliation. If a country does not keep to generally accepted norms of behavior then other countries will react in kind. For example, if a country at war decides to start executing captured enemy soldiers then the other side will also start executing captured soldiers. This is not in a country’s best interests so countries can be counted on to treat prisoners with a basic level of humanity.
There are two possible objections that people might wish to challenge me with. I supported the invasion of Iraq, which was done in the name of international law and I continue to support the use of armed force against regimes that systematically violate the human rights of its own citizens. Another possible challenge is how would someone like me, who rejects the concept of international law, justify the Nuremberg trials. As a Jew and as someone who has grandparents who are Holocaust survivors clearly I should support the prosecution of Nazi war criminals.
One of the major problems with President Bush’s approach to Iraq from the very beginning was that he framed the issue in terms of Iraq’s violation of UN sanctions and of international law. By appealing to the authority of international law, the UN and the world community, Bush left himself open to the charge that he himself was going against international law, the UN, and the world community. The left pounced and with mind-boggling efficiency labeled Bush the World’s Greatest War Criminal. This could have all been easily avoided if Bush from the very beginning had been willing to justify his actions solely in terms of national authority. America as a sovereign nation has the right to go to war against its enemies. America has the right to go after what it sees as its own self-interest. It also has the right to act according to its own moral values even to the extent of invading countries that act against them. It is the old scenario of the Indians burning widows. Yes, they have the right to engage in their traditional customs, but the British have the right to retaliate by practicing their own traditional custom of hanging people who commit murder.
This may sound strange to some people, but Nuremberg was a complete legal farce, which violated some of the most basic rules legal jurisprudence. The defendants at Nuremberg were being prosecuted by countries that they were not citizens of, by a court that had no jurisdiction over them and for the violation of laws that were not on the books when their actions were committed. Furthermore, the laws, which they were accused of violating, conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, conspiracy to commit war crimes, crimes against peace and war crimes, were written to the best of my knowledge, with the sole intention of having something to charge them with.
As a trial, Nuremberg was completely illegal. That being said, I believe that it was the right thing to do. The Allies had every right to simply execute the leaders of Nazi Germany, without charging them or putting them on trial, simply as part of the war effort. More importantly, the Nuremberg court served to create a historical record of Nazi atrocities. The Allies had a moral responsibility to put things down for the record and in this they did an admirable job. Instead of calling it a trial, though, they should have called it a fact-finding commission. It would have made things much easier for us.
By tolerating the legal fiction of international law, we created a monster for ourselves. Anyone can lay claim to it and use it as they will. The same logic that allows one to go after Saddam Husain or Nazi war criminals allows Arabs to go after Israeli generals and politicians. In the end, international law becomes a weapon to protect those who seek to violate human rights.
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