The Brownback/Specter Debate

Today's debate on stem cells by Sam Brownback and Arlen Specter was interesting. Brownback went for the jugular, playing his seemingly strongest cards. He repetitively ask Specter to say when his life began and then played the God card by claiming that all embryos were "sacred." But fertility clinic embryos are one spot where the Christian god is really weak. It was a lot easier to imagine that a god creates babies in early cities like those of the ancient Hebrews than it is when a fertility clinics is arranging the fertilization of an embryo for profit or research. At that point, the situation is more like a human version of an Olympian pantheon where the clinic managers, technicians, sperm donors, and clients all combine to bring an embryo into being. Fertility technology makes the people into gods and muscles the monotheistic God of the Judeo-Christian tradition off the stage. Brownback's assertion that embryo's are sacred is a weak gesture to a God who's lost yet another one of his main functions. Human beings are the gods of embryo creation.

Brownback's question about where Specter's life began had weaknesses as well. From Specter's point of view (or mine), the question of when his life began had two components--"my" and "life." "Life" may have begun in a certain way when the sperm from Specter's father and egg of his mother combined, but when that life became Specter's life is a real problem for Brownback in two ways. First, there's the problem of identifying when that sort of living thing became Specter's. The one cell embryo that eventually became Specter had an existence, but Specter had no personality to claim that existence as his own. His life had not begun yet. Indeed, there wasn't anything about that existence that made it different from other types of cells in his mother's body--all of which were also living. You might argue that Specter's embryo had a different DNA than the mother's, but so did all the bacteria, fungi, and other foreign substances in the mother's body. Like those other foreign substances, "Specter" had none of the personality apparatus needed to claim his life as his own and wouldn't begin to articulate that separate personality until his body had been out of his mother's body for at least six months. This is where the other problem for Brownback comes in. Once Specter or anyone else in our society begins to recognize themselves as a separate person, they are on the road to playing God. Jesus stated in the Sermon on the Mount that we should have "no care" for ourselves and that we should rely on God for our food, clothing, and everything else. In a highly organized society like ours, we rely on ourselves as a group to create and maintain a set of technologically advanced organizations to create, maintain, and execute the provision of food, clothing, health, recreation, and military protection. Now, we've created a technological apparatus for creating embryos as well. As soon as a person recognizes themselves as a separate being in our society, they are on the road to becoming a part of the technical apparatus that makes us all into gods. This is where Brownback's argument falls apart for our society. As soon as my life becomes "my" life, I start moving toward the day when I am playing god by making decisions on issues like stem cells. At that point, I decide whether embryos are sacred or not and Brownback's god is reduced to cosmic thumb-twiddling.

Spiraling Ironies in Iraq

All American government employs theatrical techniques to promote its policies, but theatrical gesturing is the main point of the Bush administration. So, the Bush administration has made the Global War on Terror the top item in its self-promotion, but have not filled many of the top counter-terrorism slots in their administration. Because the main point of terrorism policy is dramatic footage of Condoleeza Rice in Iraq, counter-terrorism administrators are unnecessary. Besides, if you don't appoint people like Richard Clarke, they won't write critical books after they quit in disgust.

The new Iraqi government has put 40,000 troops out on the streets of Baghdad and they have a funky name for the initiative--"Operation Lightning." However, the Iraqi government expects insurgent violence to INCREASE rather than decrease during the operation. Why? Of course, they don't want bad publicity if the operation doesn't succeed. However, there is a logic by which the increased presence of police forces actually spurs the insurgency. The Iraqis and their American backers hope to prevent suicide bombers from driving to their targets, but forty-thousand troops manning checkpoints provides forty thousand new, stationary, and therefore very tempting targets for the insurgents. Insurgent violence will increase because the checkpoints will make their job easier.

The stated purpose of the invasion of Iraq was to undercut militant Islam in places like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Pakistan. The utopian idea was that the invasion of Iraq would create a secular democracy in Iraq and provide the U. S. with a jumping off point for pressuring the other Arab and Islamic countries into becoming secular democracies. Of course, the only part of this that worked out was the overthrow of the Saddam regime. Not only are the broader aims not going to be accomplished, but the American occupation is producing the opposite effect. Far from being a secular democracy, the Iraq government is dominated by the Shiite religious parties and will probably evolve into some kind of Iranian influenced theocracy. As one Iraqi government official noted a couple of weeks ago, Iraq is becoming a huge mosque. Likewise, far from pressuring the other Arab and Islamic countries in the region, American troops have been pinned down by the insurgency. Neo-cons dream of invading other countries, but what troops would we have to fight the subsequent insurgencies in Syria and Iran. Finally, the occupation of Iran is creating the conditions for the future expansion of global terrorism. After Abu Ghraib, the street sweeps of "men of military age," and bombing several weddings, the U. S. has lost what little credibility it ever had on the Arab street. Moreover, the Iraq insurgency has become a training ground for jihadis all over the Arab world and Europe. The Washington Post reports today that the re-circulation of Islamic fighters back from Iraq to their home countries will increase the dangers of terrorism everywhere.

Maybe the Bush administration should make those counter-terrorism appointments after all.

George W: America's First Prime Minister

The Washington Post published an article today on the centralization of political power in the Bush presidency. Where the Bush White House has focused authority among small circles of senior staff, the Republican leadership in Congress has turned committee chairs into little more than errand boys for the party agenda. The President, Dick Cheney, and Tom DeLay have increased their leverage because they and their allies control vast amounts of campaign money and have the support of grass roots right-wingers all over the country. As a result, the Republicans have achieved a concentration of power that Richard Nixon could only dream of. I suspect that the trend toward centralization will not last much longer than Bush's second term. Bush and Cheney will definitely be gone after 2008 and Tom DeLay will probably be cast aside as he becomes more of a liability. Nevertheless, it is important to understand the significance of the trend toward stronger centralization in the Bush administration. Essentially, Bush is changing the role of the American President. According to Richard Neustadt and every political scientist who followed Neustadt, the American presidency is an institution of persuasion. Employing their stature as the only nationally elected official, presidents are able to be effective because they "persuade" other institutions to go along with them. However, by undermining the independence of business lobbies (K Street Project), cabinet officers, civil service bureaucrats, committee chairs, and ultimately the courts, the Bush administration is trying to govern without having to "persuade" other institutions to accept his policies. What Bush wants instead is for the whole governing apparatus to be united in enacting the policy preferences of the activist right-wing minority in the Republican Party. In other words, Bush and his allies are transforming the American "presidential" system with its many independent power bases into a "parliamentary system" where elected governments are able to enact their programs relatively unopposed. Bush has stated that his "moment of accountability" was the election of 2004. Just so. In parliamentary systems, elections are the primary check on the performance of any government. If a government is popular and its programs are successful, it will be re-elected with a majority in parliament and will continue implementing its programs. If a government is defeated, then the other party gets to implement its programs through its majority. Of course, the President and Congress run separately in the United States, but the post-Gingrich Republicans have "nationalized" Congressional elections to such an extent that we can almost talk about members of the House and Senate running on the same "ticket" as a party's presidential candidates. There is a certain irony here. The Bush administration goes to great lengths to advertise their attachment to all things American, but is also eager to foment radical change in the political system. However, it should be evident that the Bush administration and its supporters are highly suspicious if not completely hostile to the American political system and the traditional conservatives, moderates, and liberals who make up the vast majority of the population. In order to pursue a right-wing agenda, Bush and his people have had to neutralize the political institutions through which the values of the majority have expressed themselves. And one has to admit that they've done an excellent job of neutralizing the Cabinet Departments, Congress, and the mainstream media. The only real source of institutional resistance to the Bush administration and their supporters is now the courts and Republican Congressional leaders are currently working on ways to put pressure on the judiciary.Although I oppose the Bush administration, I would like to see the next Democratic Administration pursue the same kind of centralization strategies. To do that though, the Democrats need to start becoming as innovative and forceful as the Republicans and they're a long way from that

Teaching My Daughters

How do you teach your children to be Americans. Well, tonight was a big teaching night for me. I can't say which was most important, helping my younger daugher learn to ride a bike or watching "Gettysburg: Three Days of Battle." Tess just turned eight last Friday, but still hasn't learned how to ride a two-wheeler. In general, Tess has been reluctant to grow up from her glory days as a kindergartener. But now, she had a friend visiting from West Virginia on Friday and Tess knew that her friend would know how to ride a twowheeler. So this was it. Tess must take this next step on the road to womanhood or she would be shamed before her friend Rysa. And I can report some success. Tess was able to keep the bike going for two or three turns of the wheels by the time we got home. Another signpost on the way to adulthood. But education doesn't stop. Now I'm watching the Gettysburg movie with my older daughter Katy. Most of Katy's education in American nationalism has come from learning about the Union side of the Civil War. The United States that I want her to be a part of is the triumph over the Confederacy and the overcoming of slavery and racism. Gettysburg is one of the key moments in the history of this America and we've spent a lot of time going to Gettysburg, watching Gettysburg movies, and reading Gettysburg books. Time to go. The brave Union troops are getting ready to turn back Pickett's charge again.

Empty Accusations of Hypocrisy

This is a revised version of my comment on Will Saletan's article on the filibuster fight in the Senate in Slate. As he's done dozens if not hundreds of times before, Will Saletan sets up his frame game to nail politicians as hypocrite. Here the Republicans are "framing" the battle over judicial nominations in terms of "principles" of majority rule only to hypocritically use majority stalling tactics to block legislation they don't like such as Mike Castle's legislation on stem cell research. La De Da! Needless to say, Saletan thinks the Democrats are being just as hypocritical in their own way. Luckily for us, Saletan didn't feel the need to pull that particular rabbit out of the hat. Saletan's method actually gives the Republican leadership in the Senate much more credit than they deserve. Nothing could be farther from the case. First, it's not the Republican Senate leadership that's framing the issue. Conservative talk shows, web sites, activist groups, and consultants had been framing the fight over Bush's right wing appointments in terms of "obstructionist democrats," "majority rule" and an "up and down vote" since before the 2004 elections. The Bush administration picked up on the grass-roots ferment and renominated the worst of Bush's right-wing judicial nominees after Bush was re-elected. The Republican Senate leadership neither set the agenda or defined the terms of debate for judicial nominations. That's why Frist and Santorum are using a lot of talk radio language about tyranny, Nazi's and "destroying" nominees. They're speaking to an audience of the conservative activists who originally framed the issue in right-wing terms. As one of the most "stuck in the Beltway" journalists in the country, Saletan completely misses the role of activist initiative in setting up the current debate.Second, who really believes that the Bush people, the Senate Republican leadership, or conservative activists care about majority rule or up and down votes? Nobody!!! What they care about is is appointing right-wing judges who won't accomodate judicial precedent on abortion, prayer in schools, public displays of religion, homosexuality, and environmental issues. The right-wing of the Republican Party has been disappointed time and again by the "appeasement" of traditional conservatives like Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor. They want to start filling up the federal judiciary with its own people on the bench and are fervently calling for changes in Senate procedure to overcome Democratic opposition. Here's where Saletan does Republicans a favor. By focusing on majority rule, Saletan ignores the ugly history of right-wing objections to "judicial tyranny" going back to Brown v Board of Education, Griswold v Connecticut, and other decisions that have made life a lot better for most Americans. Few things have been better for this country than "judicial activism" and conservative activists would like us to forget that in the debate over "majority rule."Third, Saletan's sterile emphasis on hypocrisy does nothing to capture the particular blend of authenticity and deceptiveness that characterizes conservative activists. There's few things that are less hypocritical than the conservative approach to the judiciary. They want the judiciary to overturn Roe v Wade on abortion, Griswold v Connecticut on contraception, Miranda v Arizona on the rights of criminal defendants, the whole range of public religion decisions, and the recent Texas case on sodomy. They want a judiciary that makes conservative values the basis for judicial interpretation. No hypocrisy there. What's deceptive about conservatives is that they are not willing to specifically argue that Bush's judicial selections should be nominated because they're going to pursue a right-wing agenda. Instead, they have created a rhetorical mirage about "majority rule," and "up or down votes" as a way to appeal to majority values and induce the majority to acquiesce to the conservative agenda even if they completely disagree. By focusing on the rhetoric of majority rule while ignoring right-wing values, Saletan completely misses the underlying dishonesty of the Republican leadership and therefore makes zero contribution to the debate.

Bubbling on the Surface

I started the blog with a comment on the right, but my purpose is only partly to make political comments even though I'm a political science professor. Instead, my idea is to help my book writing by using this space to keep my emotions on the surface. One of the things I need to do is to be more confrontational with my emotions. So, I'm going to do it here. I've been more angry lately--angry at my wife for continuing to expand her projects, angry at my niece for identifying with the corrupt crap at the university, angry at this, angry at that. All the anger is okay, and in fact, necessary as long as I realize that my rage is always overshooting the mark. There's always a rage under my surface and I spend a lot of energy distracting myself from that anger, energy I should be spending on writing my book. So I want to find ways to let theenergy bubble up to the surface and stay there for a while so I'm not so burdened.

Communion Day

Today, my younger daughter Tess went through first communion at the local Catholic Church. I didn't go. As a matter of fact, I got up and drove sixty miles to Lexington, KY. So, why did I do that? First, I'm an atheist and view my attending any church as a kind of desecration. But I also view Christianity as a very bizarre and implausible religion that only seems plausible to those who have been socialized into it from early childhood. In the local Catholic Church, they start kids in Sunday Schools (CCD) from an extremely early age and do their best to bind people to Catholicism by making the Catholic Church a big part of family life. More than anything else, the cycle of life is defined for Catholics by baptism, first communion, confirmation, weddings, and funerals. Catholics mark time by these events and by the passage of the Fathers Ed, Steve, Bill, and Jay. By the time children actually start thinking about their theological beliefs, the Catholic Church has so engrained itself into their family lives that rejecting Catholicism becomes tantamount to rejecting their family. In my wife's Irish Catholicism, rejecting Catholicism also becomes a way of rejecting Irish ethicity. So, I didn't go to Tess' first communion because I didn't want it to be a "family event." It's a small gesture, but the only way I can think of to fight the socializing power of Christianity in my family.

Time and Again

On Friday, I thought of a title for a paper when I woke up--Psychoanalysis and Time. What I wanted to explore was the concept of a present as both a powerful fragmenting and a pulling together of the fragments.

Today, I made some subtle progress on my Hideous Monsters paper while in Lexington. I figured out some places to put anecdotes about mania a potu. But a toothache pretty scotched the progress. Then I had a flat tire on the way home. I suspect the tire was sabotaged at the gas station off the 113 exit of Rt. 64 in KY.

I want to record some of my dreams here. I hope I have some luck doing it.

NRA Nation

I want to start out this blog with a simple point about the Republican right-wing. What the right-wing wants is an NRA nation, a country where an activist 10-20% can dominate the government as a result of their intense commitment to remaining in power. The activist right is not even a majority of the Republican party, but is able to dominate the Republicans. The right is better organized, more committed to their cause, and better connected to the media and business than their moderate or traditional conservative opposition in the Republican Party. As a result, the right-wingers win most of the intramural fights within the Republican caucus. At the same time, the Republican right is also able to drive the Republican party to victory over the Democrats in national elections. Now what the right wing is trying to do is to overcome the inertia of the checks and balances system in order to get their policies adapted and their judges in place. Then, the right-wing will seek to wrap themselves in checks and balances to keep those policies in place. It's just the NRA. Eighty percent of the population has supported gun control for decades, but the U. S. does not have effective gun control because the NRA is able to keep the other 20% fully mobilized. In the same way, the Republican right only has support from 10 to 20% of the voting public. But they want to be able to use the American political process to dominate the vast majority of the population.