The American Conservative

Eve Tushnet writes:

I’m working on an article about how young adults are increasingly likely to call themselves pro-life, and increasingly likely to support gay marriage. There are a lot of narratives you could tell about how someone comes to hold either or both of these beliefs; I want to get some sense of which narratives people tell themselves. [ETA: Whoa, that phrasing is awful! "Which narratives people tell themselves" = how people explain, in their own words, how they came to hold their beliefs.]

So! If you are pro-life, pro-gay-marriage, and under 25, please email me at eve_tushnet@yahoo.com . If you know other people who fit the bill, please give them my information! And if you’re on any mailing lists which might truffle up some responses, I would be thrilled if you’d repost this request.

Being over 25 and having gotten considerably more skeptical of gay marriage since I first started writing about it, I am unable to help directly, but I suppose some of you all can oblige? I think the piece Eve is working on may be for TAC, actually.

P.S. Eve’s “Romoeroticism” essay that was published at Inside Catholic the other week is really excellent, and I can’t believe I haven’t linked to it yet! It might help to shed some more light on the idea that was at the core of my unpublished Culture11 essay.

P.P.S. Will Wilson asks marriage traditionalists some good questions, and the correct answers are “Yes” to “B” and “C”, and “Not so much” to “A”.

That’s Andrew Sullivan’s word for Robert Gibbs’s description of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the “elected leader” of Iran. Ooooookay. Because what we really need from the White House right now is a bunch of empty moralistic grandstanding that will play directly into the hands of the very people we’re trying to keep in line. Pointless interference in the domestic affairs of foreign nations where America is already viewed with hostility due to decades of colonialist meddling? Why, that’s what presidents do best!

In Slate, Jacob Weisberg argues that a proper misguided desire to avoid the foreign policy mistakes of the Bush years is at the root of Obama’s decision not to make loud but empty gestures that will do no good on matters where America has no interest or authority “stand up for the broader ideas of democracy promotion and humanitarian intervention” in Iran. Right. Because having an American president “identify with those risking their lives to free their country” was exactly what the protesters needed, and such actions would no doubt have led their government to, like, totally give up an repression and let the people go free.

The real story, of course, is exactly the opposite of the one Weisberg is telling, as the effect of the Bush administration’s wake on Obama’s approach to foreign affairs has been to make the latter more irresponsible and hawkish than it might otherwise have been, since any genuine break with the past would immediately be tagged by the chattering class as “weak” or – to use terms suggested by Weisberg – alarming and accommodationist. In a more perfect world, the disasters of the previous eight years would have led to exactly the sort of massive compensation whose imagined existence Weisberg laments, but in the world we’re in what we get instead is foot-dragging on negotiations and the very same sort of do-what-we-say-or-else posturing that realist observers of the Bush administration came to know and hate. Having a punditry that reacts to the Obama administration’s moments of realist sanity by complaining that they aren’t more like the errors of its predecessors is unfortunately unlikely to make the sane moments any more frequent.

Earlier: Jacob Weisberg couldn’t have gotten it more wrong on libertarianism, either.

Update: Daniel beat me to it.

by JL Wall

Normally David Goldman (“Spengler”) is astute, or at least astute enough to require serious thought in grappling with his arguments. But about this latest, I just don’t know where to begin. Courtesy of the opening anecdote, it appears to be an explanation of how, precisely, Rahm Emanuel is a “self-hating Jew” — not for still living in 1993 and believing in Oslo after its collapse (perhaps a subject worthy of critique without the petulant name-calling), but for “bashing Israel over settlements.”

To take issue with the present settlement policy, he says, requires “an ideological commitment to a secular sort of universalism that demands a fanatical sort of faith.” But there’s another reason to oppose the indefinite continuation of the present system, and it’s one that Goldman brushes up against with his sneering, over-confident final paragraph:

There simply isn’t any arguing with liberal Jews. The only solution is the Biblical one: in forty years, all of them will be dead, like the feckless generation of freedmen who left Egypt with Moses. Secular Jews have one child per family, Reform Jews 1.3, Conservative Jews 1.6, and modern Orthodox nearly 4. A new Jewish majority will form over the next forty years, and it will be religiously observant, close to Israeli thinking, and politically conservative.

The birthrate for Israeli Jews isn’t quite as low as that of American non-Orthodox, but it hovers, overall, right around 2 children per family; the overall Palestinian birthrate is, by most estimates, between 3 and 4. Even if those numbers are somewhat too high, as some claim, it doesn’t change the reality already present, as Michael Oren pointed out this May in Commentary:

Even if the minimalist interpretation is largely correct, it cannot alter a situation in which Israeli Arabs currently constitute one-fifth of the country’s population — one-quarter of the population under age 19 — and in which the West Bank now contains at least 2 million Arabs.

Israel, the Jewish State, is predicated on a decisive and stable Jewish majority of at least 70 percent. Any lower than that and Israel will have to decide between being a Jewish state and a democratic state. If it chooses democracy, then Israel as a Jewish state will cease to exist. If it remains officially Jewish, then the state will face an unprecedented level of international isolation, including sanctions, that might prove fatal. [Emphasis mine -- JLW]

Does this mean that there’s no room for leeway because of natural growth in Israeli settlements? Not necessarily. But I still cannot grasp the mindset of those who ignore the demographic reality. At which point, the only case for the continued existence of a Jewish Israel in the face of those eventual numbers is that of the Israeli religious right: G-d gave it to us, all of it to us.

But to make that argument means that one agrees to place the case for Israel in strictly religious terms. So while we’re there, still speaking from a strictly Jewish perspective, it’s high time someone pointed out the other side to that argument, the more dangerous side: while there is a right to dwell in the land, there is no inviolable right to dwell in the land at a specific time before the Moshiach. There have been expulsions before.

We (American and Israeli Jews alike) would do well to recall that the G-d who spoke to Isaiah and Jeremiah, laying the case, essentially, for the Babylonian Exile, is far more concerned with widows, beggars, and orphans than with the precision of Temple sacrifices. The latter without the former is not enough to fulfill the Covenant.  It’s why it makes me sick to see “Orthodox” rabbis making the case that their “orthodoxy” is more than enough to compensate for their own disregard for human life.

*     *     *

Perhaps I should add here, at the end of this, that I have a more or less constantly growing fear that I will outlive the State of Israel. In which case, it will be the response to that event, not the Shoah, which shapes the future of Judaism and Jewish life.  These two thoughts (“fears”?) color more or less all of my thinking on the politics of Israel.

The central themes of this chapter are the nature of gift and gratuitousness, and what it means to have a market economy – whether domestic or global – built on love and ordered toward integral human development. A helpful way to think about this challenge is in terms of the distinction drawn in sec. 36 between “commercial logic”, which is to say the spirit of a market geared strictly toward the creation of wealth, and the pursuit of common good and redistributive justice; Benedict’s claim is that understanding the latter goals as strictly “political” and so extrinsic to economic activity leads to grave social injustices.

It is important to emphasize – as I’ve seen remarked before; I just can’t recall where – that the central argument of this chapter is not that healthy markets require robust regulatory states and political systems that ensure a just distribution of wealth; this is certainly among its claims (see e.g. the second paragraph of sec. 41), but it clearly is not the primary one. Rather, as suggested just above, the point Benedict makes most often is that since economic activity has a “human significance, prior to its professional one” (sec. 41), markets themselves must therefore be geared toward social justice and informed by the logic of gift; and so it is not enough for government to step in and impose these values simply as a corrective. As he puts it in sec. 39 (though note that one could pull a similar quotation from almost any paragraph in this chapter):

When both the logic of the market and the logic of the State come to an agreement that each will continue to exercise a monopoly over its respective area of influence, in the long term much is lost: solidarity in relations between citizens, participation and adherence, actions of gratuitousness, all of which stand in contrast with giving in order to acquire (the logic of exchange) and giving through duty (the logic of public obligation, imposed by State law). In order to defeat underdevelopment, action is required not only on improving exchange-based transactions and implanting public welfare structures, but above all on gradually increasing openness, in a world context, to forms of economic activity marked by quotas of gratuitousness and communion. The exclusively binary model of market-plus-State is corrosive of society, while economic forms based on solidarity, which find their natural home in civil society without being restricted to it, build up society.

(Whatever translator came up with “world context” should never be allowed near the English language again.) Hence our questions should be: In practice, what does it mean for everyday economic activity to incorporate such relationships? Beyond obvious demands like those of fair pay and honest disclosure, what does market ethics (if we might coin a term) consist in?

One suggestion that comes up repeatedly as an answer to the first of these questions is that the market must have room  for the economic activity of those “who freely choose to act according to principles other than those of pure profit, without sacrificing the production of economic value in the process” (sec. 37); hence for “commercial entities based on mutualist principles and pursuing social ends” (sec. 38) that exist alongside enterprises that are public or more narrowly profit-oriented. Benedict calls this a way of “civilizing the economy” (ibid.), and it can be seen as a counterpart to the call for dispersed, multi-leveled, and cooperative political authority that comes in the second paragraph of sec. 41. Similarly, in sec. 40 there is an articulation of the more familiar demand for corporate managers to be attentive to more than just the demands of their shareholders: workers, clients, suppliers, producers, and the broader “community of reference” all have a stake in the life of the business, and so a long-term and appropriately wide-ranging view of the ends of economic activity is consequently is an inescapable demand.

Ultimately, then, it seems best to read this chapter as directed toward business leaders even more than political ones, since as Benedict puts it “attitudes of gratuitousness cannot be established by law”, while markets and political institutions alike “need individuals who are open to reciprocal gift” (sec. 39). It certainly seems right to regard a widespread failure to embody such openness as among the chief causes of social injustice.

Thoughts?

P.S. Here is the text of the encyclical, and here are the previous entries for this reading group. Next weekend, we’ll discuss chapter four.

Via Andrew, here is Joe Klein:

"Something called health-reform legislation will pass," a prominent Democrat told me. "The political consequences of not passing anything would be too great." A bare-bones bill that reforms the health-insurance industry — insurers would have to accept all comers, including those with pre-existing conditions, at the same rates — is a distinct possibility. Expanded coverage, perhaps including the parents of children eligible for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), is also probable. Most important for long-term reform, a system of health-care superstores — the wonks call them "exchanges" or "co-ops" — where individuals and small businesses can go to buy a plan, could be included.

I feel like I’ve heard this one a few times before, so it seems a likely scenario. And while I can think of worse possibilities, the fact is that I can think of better ones, too: for if the Democrats get the chance to claim success without doing something more substantial, then one possible outcome is that the current momentum behind the “reform” cause dies out before achieving the sorts of changes that are necessary, and so resulting in a reform that truly deserves the title. But as things stand the Republicans have no incentive whatsoever to compromise, as any bill that passes will forever be credited to the majority party; hence the most politically attractive strategy for the minority is simply to resist such passage at every juncture possible. How likely is it, though, that in the unlikely event that such a strategy pays off the GOP of the future will get its legislative act together, and put the work into developing and promoting reform proposals of their own? Signs point to “Not Very”.

Read Alex Massie, James Surowiecki, and Reihan. I think Surowiecki’s worries about balanced budgets and procyclical vs. countercyclical fiscal policies raise some real problems for an all-out federalist approach along the lines of what Alex is suggesting, but Reihan’s compromise strikes me as spot on: have the feds sign the checks, and let each state figure out what to do with it. Then let the people vote with their feet.

UPDATE: Reason’s Tim Cavanaugh thinks Surowiecki is full of it.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops  has published some guidelines (pdf) for health care reform that it seems to me should be accepted as a basic framework by all people of good will. They argue that health care reform should:

⇒ Include health care coverage for all people from conception until natural death;
⇒ Continue the federal ban on funding for abortions and reject any mandate for abortion coverage or access to abortion;
⇒ Include access for all with a special concern for the poor and vulnerable and support inclusion for legal immigrants;
⇒ Preserve pluralism, including freedom of conscience for providers, health care workers and patients; and
⇒ Restrain costs and apply costs equitably among payers.

Predictably, the Vox Nova commenters take this as an indication that the bishops are “backing the President” on this issue, but of course that isn’t true at all: the plan currently moving through the House of Representatives fails to meet the second criterion and seems likely to be a middling success at best on the first conjunct of the final one; and these criteria could in principle be met by any of a range of reform options, from single-payer or mandates or the public plan on one end to something like the Wyden-Bennett bill in the middle to Arnold Kling’s libertarian dream on the other. Obviously there are questions to be answered as to which sort of plan would best, say, restrain costs or ensure universal access to health care, but the fact that reform is necessary does not mean that the Democrats’ plan du jour needs to be passed simply because it’s reform.

It’s certainly true, though, that most folks on the right have been doing a piss-poor job of making themselves seem like anything more than apologists for the status quo. As Reihan recently put it, the fact that a disciplined and devoted minority party can invigorate itself and defeat the agenda of a popular President isn’t the only or even the most important lesson to take from 1994: the consequent failure of conservatives to stand behind a genuine alternative has left progressives solidly occupying the moral high ground on this issue, and while fretting about budget deficits and the threat of federal rationing is certain an effective strategy for opposition, it’s essential not to overlook the fact that people do want reform. Hence until the GOP starts coming forward with serious and far-reaching reform proposals of its own – and note that there is a wide range of policy options that voters seem quite receptive to – the “r” word is going to remain the sole property of the Democrats, and it seems likely that they’re going to get something passed simply by force of inertia. Knee-jerk opposition may be a beneficial stance to take in the short term, but the long-term future of American political conservatism is going to require more than that. Dropping the language of budget deficits and “socialism” in favor of the morally weighty terms drawn on by the bishops might be a good place to start, and an effective way to show people that conservatism does have something to offer to voters who are understandably looking to Washington to fix our broken health-care system.

by JL Wall

One other aspect to the release of that British organic food nutrition study: one of the most maddening ways for conversations to descend to hell involves others accusing me of, essentially, wanting to bankrupt/lower the quality of life for everyone who makes less than $X thousand dollars a year.  This doesn’t come about because I’m talking about organic food so much as it does when I make the argument that Americans simply need to eat healthier, organic or conventional.  The assumption my interlocutors greet me with is that anyone making the case for eating healthier really just making a vaguely concealed case for buying organic and banning pesticides, if not outright Mad Farmer Revolution.

There are a list of reasons that I prefer buying organic to buying conventional (though I by no means only buy organic — especially if/when the conventional option is local and the organic option is imported from another country).  But the choice of tossing pasta in olive oil rather than buying the bottle of heavy cream sauce every time, or a baked potato (with minimal butter) over fries, or fruit over Cheetos — those are the choices that have a greater effect on nutrition.  And those are the choices that need to be presented when making the case for greater nutrition.

Making the case for organic food based on land and animal husbandry, pesticides, antibiotics, and so forth should certainly continue.  I’ll certainly continue making it.  But the case for simply eating healthier can’t afford to be presented in a way that gives the easy out of, “Well, I just can’t afford to buy that way!”  It’s a cultural matter far more than a regulatory one.  It starts with simple individual choices: fruit over junk food; making it oneself over buying it prepared.  And it starts with matters of self-control: more reasonable portions, a little less sugar, a little more green.  We can either lead ourselves and others by example (and the occasional schpiel), or we can shove the responsibility off on others — namely, government — to tell us what to do and how.  The former’s preferable, for multiple reasons.

That said, I see no problem with schools and school districts (and maybe even state governments!) getting rid of vending machines in schools.  I mean, they put them there in the first place; it ain’t tyranny to take them out after a change of heart.

(H/t Rod Dreher)

There is still a need for people to contact their representatives concerning HR 2749.