Nationalism

One of the objections to affirmative-action programs or special treatment for minorities in general is that it punishes modern-day white people for the sins of those long dead. I recently spoke with a woman who felt as though some Native- and African-Americans expected her, as a white woman, to atone for the land-stealing, slave-owning whites of the 19th Century. Since she had never taken anyone's land nor enslaved anyone she felt this was a lot to ask.

This brings up a larger point about nationalism in general. Most of us are quick to tout the great things in our country's history. We wave the flag, we sing the national anthem, and if challenged, we can usually recite a number of our countrymen's achievements, of which we are duly proud. In short we are quick to jump on the successes of people who happened to be born within the same geographic area as us.

As my new friend's comments indicate, however, when the less boastworthy aspects of our nation's history emerge, we are equally quick to distance ourselves from those acts. Moreover, if one brings up these events in rebuttal to some self-congratulatory nationalism, one is accused of hating one's country and told to either 'love it or leave it'.

Is it too much to suggest that if we are to bask vicariously in the glow of past success that we cannot then disassociate ourselves from our less proud moments. We have to take the good with the bad, and if you can't accept the bad then don't brag about the good.

Frankly I'm with George Bernard Shaw:
'Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it'

Stem-Cell Veto

The President had a slice of good luck with his first veto - that of the stem-cell research funding bill. Who knew that his decision to resist the will of the populace and hamper efforts to bring possible medical treatment to millions of people would coincide with the ongoing hostilities in the Middle East? As a consequence, this serious attack on medical science by the forces of Christian Conservatism has been only lightly touched upon by the media.

Let's not allow the right-wing to discuss the issue on their terms.

The history of the last century has in large part been the story of the struggle by society to free itself from the control of those who claim to know God's will - Martin Luther, The Reformation, the exodus to the American colonies, the Bill of Rights, democracy itself! Religious conservatives accused Copernicus of heresy for suggesting that the earth orbits the sun and may not be the center of the universe. Religious conservatives fought for monarchical control at one time or another in every European country. Religious conservatives put their heads in the sand and continue to deny the plain facts of evolution.

Now, yet again, even in a democracy like America, where the majority support stem-cell research, religious conservatives succeed in forcing their agenda on the rest of us.

These extremists want to ensure that this debate (like the abortion debate) is conducted in the language of 'protecting life'. We should not be drawn into debating this issue on those terms because it is beside the point. The hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos will never 'become' people. If they are not used for research, they will become medical waste.

Bush has not 'saved' any lives with this veto. Instead, by hindering honest efforts to cure disease, he may have done the exact opposite.

Right to Privacy

An interesting story in the news today about a 16-year-old kid who has Hodgkin's Disease - a treatable form of cancer. After undergoing an unsuccessful course of chemotherapy he has found a herbal/dietary 'cure' in a Mexican clinic and has abandonded the 'conventional' treatment.

Read about it here.

The boy's parents are being taken to court for negligence for not forcing him to continue with chemotherapy. As a legal precedent this is not unusual; Jehovah's Witnesses who deny transfusions for their children are treated similarly. This case is somewhat unique because the boy is not a young child and has clearly made an informed decision after trying the chemotherapy.

The outrage among many at this 'intrusion' of the courts into the lives of an individual and his medical treatments is also neither new nor unexpected. It does, however, present an interesting parallel with the reproductive-rights debate. Conservatives are calling this 'liberal wrong-doing', and blaming the left for trampling on this family's individual rights.

Ironic don't you think? Conservatives defending a person's right to privacy concerning their personal health issues from unwelcome legal interference?

More about marriage

Following the previous post about justifications for prohibiting same-sex marriage a couple of quotes from Loving v. Virginia (the case that finally ended bans on inter-racial marriage) are in order:

"Over the years, this court has consistently repudiated 'distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry' as being 'odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.' At the very least, the Equal Protection Clause demands that racial classifications...be subjected to the 'most rigid scrutiny', and if they are ever to be upheld they must be shown to be necessary to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective, independent of the racial discrimination which it was the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate'

"To deny this fundamental freedom [marriage] on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

I cannot think of a single plausible way to exclude discrimination based on sexual orientation from the above reasoning.

Same-Sex Marriage

The Supreme Courts of New York and Georgia yesterday ruled that it was appropriate for the legislatures to confine marriage to its traditional one-man/one-woman pairing. The court in NY claimed that the legislators could reasonably believe that this would benefit 'the children'.

The Court's refusal to challenge the spurious reasoning that children are better off with heterosexual parents is at best negligent, but this is not the main problem with this decision. The legislature has clearly extended the reach of the government beyond that which is acceptable, and it is this expansion of power that the Court should have restricted.

It seems fairly clear that any law is by definition a limitation on the actions of anybody who would otherwise seek to undertake the proscribed act. Legislators must balance the benefits to society of making the law, against the hardship of those who would be adversely affected. If the hardship is too egregious or the benefit too minor, the law should not be tolerated.

The same-sex-marriage ban fails on both aspects.

The hardship, both financial to those denied equal treatment for their partnerships and emotional as targets of discrimination, is very real and clearly egregious. These people are citizens of both state and country regardless of their sexuality and the government represents them as much as it does evangelicals.

The only benefit, on the other hand, is that certain heterosexual people get to have society more closely resemble what they think it should look like. In short, other than within these people's mental appraisal of the 'right kind of society' there is no benefit in prohibiting same-sex marriage.

With no tangible benefit and a clear and egregious cost to many millions of Americans, these laws have no moral justification.

Creationism

I recently had the unfortunate luck to witness a conversation between two family members about human creation. Family Member 1 argued that God created the universe and that humans are not the product of evolution. This is what she believes. FM 2 agreed that the human body could not have evolved to its present level of complexity, but rather than God creating humans, a master alien race 'seeded' us here.

The resurgence of creationism over recent decades seems to have had the unfortunate (though not unexpected) effect of legitimizing stupidity, by telling people that their beliefs, whatever they may be, should be considered equal to, or often more valid than, empirical, scientific knowledge.

The development of scientific methodology over the past 500 years is what accounts for the technological and medical advances from which we all benefit. When this period is compared to the preceding 500 years, the difference is clear. Superstition, church law, and conjecture were gradually replaced by rigorous experimentation, testable hypotheses, and dispassionate analysis. Unsubstantiated belief is not on a par with knowledge gained through scientific, data-driven investigation.

We cannot deny what is before our eyes by glibly saying 'well those are my beliefs'. When fact challenges belief we do not deny fact, we re-examine belief. It is what proved that the earth is round and that it orbits the sun. Could I deny these facts and simply say that this is what I believe? Yes I could. Should I expect to be taken seriously? Absolutely not.

The 'I Told You So' Argument

While watching a documentary about the anti-Vietnam protests it became clear to me that those who opposed the war have been at least somewhat vindicated. They argued that the war would fail and that it was a waste of human life and material resouces, and we can now look back and conclude that they were largely correct.

How well, then, do the arguments of those who opposed the current war in Iraq hold up?

As I remember, there were four main thrusts of the opposition argument.

1. The WMDs were not the threat that Bush/Blair et al claimed they were.
2. The coalition forces would not be welcomed as liberators but imperialists.
3. In response we could expect more terrorist acts against the 'ringleaders'.
4. The claims that the 'job' would be done quickly and easily were hopelessly naive and in fact it was almost certain that the troops would still be there fighting a resistance movement for years to come.

Unless my math is off that's 4-0 to the peaceniks.

Maybe if the advocates of militarism listened occasionally they might avoid getting themselves into these pickles!

Conservative Myth

I have recently discovered the excellent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the numerous reports they publish on their website.

One that I read the other day finally put to bed the myth that Bush's 'supply side' tax cuts would actually grow the economy better than the previous arrangement.

Read the report here:

http://www.cbpp.org/3-8-06tax.htm

Ultimately it suggests what common sense tells us is true: that cutting the money supply to the government does not bring in more money by stimulating economic growth. In fact, the report finds evidence that it may actually retard growth.

Clearly fiscal conservatives won't let anything as flimsy as empirical evidence prevent them from continuing to propagate this myth, I'm sure.

And I'm sure that it's only a coincidence that the economic plan that they feel is best for the country is also the one that cuts their own taxes.