To Continue My Rant…

I know I’m harping on this, but yesterday a commenter suggested that religious liberty should trump other social goods. (Not his phrasing, but the consequence of his demands.)

That isn’t the law, but more importantly, it isn’t good philosophy either.

Back before so many libertarians made common cause with social conservatives on culture-war issues, and others turned a small-government philosophy into an anti-tax, anti-government cult, I identified as libertarian. The libertarian principle is (deceptively) simple: we each have the right to “do our own thing”– to live our lives as we see fit, free of government interference– so long as we do not harm the person or property of a non-consenting other, and so long as we are willing to extend an equal liberty to others. 

The caveats that follow the “so long as” phrase are important. And they have a critical bearing on the so-called “religious liberty” bills like the one I posted about yesterday– measures to “protect” businesspeople who who defend discrimination against LGBT employees or customers by citing their “deeply-held and sincere religious beliefs.”

As I noted yesterday, similar efforts followed the 1964 Civil Rights Act; then it was a “sincere religious belief” that God wanted to keep the races separate. The courts didn’t buy that argument then, and they are unlikely to buy it now.

As I have written previously, there is a reciprocal relationship–a social contract– between government and its citizens. Government collects taxes from all of us, no matter our race, religion or sexual orientation, and uses those tax dollars to provide public services. The services we taxpayers finance provide an essential infrastructure for American commercial activity.

Businesses ship their goods to market over roads we paid for. They are protected by police and fire departments supported by our tax dollars. Public transportation and sidewalks bring workers and customers to their premises. The deal is, businesses get the benefit of the infrastructure supplied by our taxes, and in return, agree not to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion and other markers of group identity.

We can and should argue about the nature and scope of the services government provides, but few people really want to revoke the social contract, dispense with government and return to a Hobbesian state of nature.

Religious liberty is capacious. It allows you to hold any beliefs you want. It allows you to preach those beliefs in the streets, and to refuse to socialize with people of whom you disapprove. It gives you the right to observe the rules of your particular religion in your home and church and social circle without government interference. It gives you a broad right to “do your own religious thing” until you harm someone else, and so long as you respect the right of other people to do their “own thing.” Which “thing” may be different from yours.

Religious liberty doesn’t include the right to disadvantage people who should be entitled to equal treatment, or to use the power of the state to impose some people’s beliefs on everyone else.

Neither the libertarian principle nor the social contract defines “religious liberty” as a right to pick and choose which parts of the social contract you will honor and which ones you will disregard.

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Mike Delph and “Religious Freedom”

It’s deja vu all over again.

Mike Delph–whose hysterical (in both senses of the word) tweets in the wake of the failure of HR3 left no room for doubt about his feverish homophobia–has introduced a bill to protect “religious” folks from having to recognize the civil rights of LGBT citizens. [Update: Evidently that other “religious warrior,” Scott Schneider, authored this particular bill. Given Delph’s legislative history, you can understand how I made the mistake…]

(I’m sure Schneider is equally anxious to protect good Christians from being forced to do business with unwed fornicators, bearers of false witness, adulterers and other sinful folks. That bill will undoubtedly be introduced any day now. Not.)

My friend Bill Groth, a highly respected lawyer who frequently litigates constitutional issues, reminded me via a Facebook post that we’ve seen this movie before. In Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc. the Court wrote:

” The free exercise of one’s beliefs…is subject to regulation when religious acts require accommodation to society. Undoubtedly Bessinger has a constitutional right to espouse the religious beliefs of his own choosing, however, he does not have the absolute right to exercise and practice such beliefs in utter disregard of the clear constitutional rights of other citizens. This court refuses to lend credence or support to his position that he has a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of the Negro race in his business establishments upon the ground that to do so would violate his sacred religious beliefs.” 

Newman was decided in 1968.

The identity of the people who we are being asked to classify as second-class citizens may have changed, but the desire to justify bigotry in the name of religion sure hasn’t.

Fortunately, on this issue, that pesky Constitution this proposal ignores hasn’t changed either.

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Socializing Risk, Privatizing Profit and Evading Referenda

Let’s talk about the proposed Criminal Justice Center, shall we?

First: I think the project itself makes all kinds of sense.

Second: The way it is being planned, financed and constructed makes no sense at all–if by “making sense” we mean serving the public interest and creating a long-term public asset.

It’s the parking meter fiasco redux. The city could have upgraded the meters for a relatively reasonable sum, raised the rates as the vendor did, and retained additional millions of dollars to be used for public purposes. Instead, we enriched a private contractor and ceded control of our parking infrastructure for fifty years.

The proposed approach to the construction of the Justice Center promises to be far, far worse, because all of the incentives are perverse. The current plan (to the extent the Administration has shared any information, which it has been largely unwilling to do) has private developers designing, constructing and financing the center, then leasing it to the city.

The “virtue” of this approach is simple: the Administration has devised a clever financing mechanism that allows it to avoid the pesky requirement of a public referendum and the level of public scrutiny such a referendum would require. (Any project that would result in taxes exceeding the now-constitutional tax cap must be submitted to public vote.)

The defects of this approach are numerous.

  • It will cost more. Cities with excellent credit ratings (Indy’s is triple A) can borrow money at lower rates than private entities.  I’m told the interest rate spread is at least 2%; on 500 million dollars, that’s a chunk of change. Furthermore, private entities must include a profit (and usually cover taxes) in the quoted price.
  • That need to build in a profit margin is a powerful incentive to cut corners on design and construction–decisions will be based on return on investment considerations rather than quality and/or the long-term value of what will eventually be a public asset. (As my husband says, public financing gives us buildings like the old Federal Courthouse; leasebacks give us buildings like the post office on South Street.)
  • Public projects of this size and scale provide lots of opportunities for crony capitalism–for spreading the goodies among one’s political donors and friends.

And there remain important unanswered questions.

For example, what happens if the City defaults, or finds future revenues insufficient to make lease payments high enough to cover those higher costs? The Administration’s estimate of available revenues includes some highly problematic “savings” it anticipates by reason of the new construction. Which City services will be sacrificed to ensure that the required payments are made? Will our already underfunded public safety budget be cut? Will even more roads go uncleared or unrepaired? Will our public parks be even more neglected?

The problem with “deals” like this one– delivered to the City Council as “take it or leave it” propositions with no meaningful opportunity to ask tough questions or consider potentially superior approaches–is that we taxpayers get stuck with decades-long liabilities agreed to in the dark by people who will be long gone when the bills come due.

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Alternate Realities

Monday, I posted about the seeming (destructive) human need to distinguish between “us and them.” It bears noting that those categories aren’t confined to nationality, ethnicity and religion;  back in October, I commented on the tendency of the “haves” to dehumanize the “have-nots”–

If there is a staple of human politics, it is the tendency to demonize the “other.” Gays, Jews, African-Americans, Muslims, non-Ayrans– the identity of the marginalized may change, but the political and psychological need to draw a distinction between those who are righteous and “deserving” and those who are not seemingly remains constant.

These days, demonizing racial or religious minority groups is publicly frowned upon (although privately indulged), but blaming the poor for their poverty is seen as analysis rather than bigotry.

A recent Pew poll confirms that observation.

Fifty-four percent of the survey respondents categorized as ‘most financially secure’ said “poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.”

If anything confirms the ability of the well-to-do to live in a reality of their own construction, the belief that poor people “have it easy” should do it. These respondents have never met Alice or encountered my students who are working two jobs and going into debt in order to get an education that they hope will help them earn their way out of poverty.

To make matters worse,

Financial security is strongly correlated with nearly every measure of political engagement. For example, in 2014, almost all of the most financially secure Americans (94%) said they were registered to vote, while only about half (54%) of the least financially secure were registered. And although 2014 voting records are not yet available, pre-election estimates suggest that 63% of the most financially secure were “likely voters” last year, compared with just 20% of the least financially secure.

The people who are least acquainted with reality are choosing our lawmakers. Explains a lot.

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JK Rowling is AWESOME

In the wake of the horrific events in Paris, Rupert Murdock tweeted that all Muslims should be held responsible. JK Rowling’s response was wonderful:

“I was born Christian. If that makes Rupert Murdoch my responsibility, I’ll auto-excommunicate.”

If 10 Americans traveled abroad to commit mayhem and murder, would Murdock and his ilk blame all Americans? Should we blame all White Christians for the KKK?

Raw Story has an interesting article listing the worst terrorist attacks in the U.S.–virtually all of which were perpetrated by home-grown, Christian Americans. Think Timothy McVeigh, the murder of Dr. George Tiller,  the bombing of a Colorado NAACP office just this month, and the three militia members from Georgia arrested last February for planning attacks on government agencies and the metro Atlanta police, and many more.

When white males of the far right carry out violent attacks, neocons and Republicans typically describe them as lone-wolf extremists rather than people who are part of terrorist networks or well-organized terrorist movements. Yet many of the terrorist attacks in the United States have been carried out by people who had long histories of networking with other terrorists. In fact, most of the terrorist activity occurring in the United States in recent years has not come from Muslims, but from a combination of radical Christianists, white supremacists and far-right militia groups.

Evidently, when members of “our” tribe misbehave, it doesn’t reflect on “us.”

But those Muslims….

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