Echoes of Republicanism Past…..

This morning’s Star reports that Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller has conceded the unconstitutionality of the anti-immigration bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Delph and passed by the General Assembly.

For those of you who do not follow such things, Indiana had passed its own version of Arizona’s mean-spirited and deeply flawed immigration law; a couple of months ago, the Supreme Court found virtually all of the Arizona law unconstitutional. That decision operated to doom most of the Indiana statute as well. And rather than use the Court’s decision as an occasion for grandstanding or ideological posturing, Zoeller did what a good lawyer in that office should do–he agreed that Indiana should follow the law.

The article also quotes an observation by former Marion County GOP Chair Mike Murphy to the effect that much of the current anti-immigration fervor on display is a response to tough economic times; in such times, he points out, people look for someone to blame.

An elected official doing his job properly, and a political operative conceding to the nature of reality might not seem newsworthy, but it is a small, heartening reminder of the GOP to which I used to belong–the party that produced Bill Hudnut , Dick Lugar and John Mutz.

Now we have Mike Delph, Mike Pence and Richard Mourdock. It’s enough to make you cry.

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Defining Our Terms

On Mondays, I receive an emailed essay called Sightings from Martin Marty, the eminent University of Chicago religion scholar who distributes his observations and those of others studying or teaching at the University’s Divinity School. This morning, he wrote about a recent article from the Economist on Jews and Israel.

The general discussion was interesting, but the following paragraph struck me:

The editors see reactionary Orthdoxies still winning over moderate movements. No surprise here. In the six-year five-fat-volume study of militant fundamentalisms I co-directed (with R. Scott Appleby) for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,we found everywhere, in all religions, that it was not conservatism that was growing but extremism based less in history-based traditions but in fear, reaction, and aggression. As I read the Economist and other such literature I think of an observation by Harold Isaacs which we paraphrased as we looked at Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Christian and other militancies: “Around the world there is a massive convulsive ingathering of peoples into their separatenesses and over-againstnesses to protect their pride and power and place from the real or presumed threat of others who are doing the same.

I think that’s a perceptive observation, and it applies to more than religious identity.

In America, in our zeal to label rather than understand, we have seen contemporary radicalism confused with genuine conservatism. We have failed to distinguish between patriotism and nationalism. And we have seen “We the People” redefined to exclude “others”–immigrants, GLBT folks, Muslims, “elitists,” even Southerners.  We seem to be growing a variety of fundamentalisms.

Fear, reaction and aggression, leading to extremism and an “us versus them” worldview. Sort of sums up contemporary politics, doesn’t it?

This impulse to label and reject those who do not share our identity may be understandable, but it is deeply corrosive, and it distracts us from the discussions we need to conduct. Distinguishing between mainstream conservatism and liberalism and their extremist manifestations–accurately defining our terms–might be a first step back toward sanity.

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The People Around Him…

We’ve been on the road, stopping at a couple of charming Bed and Breakfasts in the North Carolina mountains, so I haven’t been blogging with my usual frequency. I also haven’t been glued to my usual sources of political news.

Even so, I have seen the British press’s less-than-admiring coverage of Romney’s visit to England–ranging from a big headline “Mitt the Twit” to “worse than Sarah Palin” to “Do we have another Dubya on our hands?” One columnist described Romney as “devoid of charm, warmth and sincerity.”

Since this visit was initially intended as an extended photo-op–former Olympic savior visits England to cheer on this year’s games–it has been something of a PR disaster.

The most troubling observation by the notoriously sarcastic Brits, however, was the comparison to Dubya. And it is troubling not because Mitt, like George W, constantly displays these “not ready for prime time” moments. Let’s face it, no one is ready to lead the free world. Obama wasn’t, Clinton wasn’t, Reagan wasn’t. (Granted, most of them managed to hide that fact more adroitly.) Even the shared arrogance that leads to these “what were you thinking” moments isn’t the most disturbing characteristic they share.

It’s the people with whom they surround themselves. And actually, on that score, Dubya was better.

When candidates demonstrate that they come up short on knowing, for example, the intricacies of the capital markets, or–in Herman Cain’s memorable formulation–the name of the President of “Ubeki-beki-stan”–most of us understand. The Presidency requires expertise in more subjects than it is fair to expect any candidate to master. So we look to the advisors the candidate has chosen to rely upon. Who is he listening to? How sound are the people around him?

Dubya had some good people (Colin Powell, the early Condoleeza Rice) whose counsel he simply ignored. Their nuanced approach was overpowered by the Dick Cheney/John Bolton/neocon contingent–the purveyors of a Manichean worldview where good and evil were clearly labelled and all the answers were easy ones. (The questions, unfortunately, were generally the wrong ones.)

Romney has chosen to surround himself with the absolute worst of these. Most knowledgable foreign policy experts–Republican and Democrat alike–consider John Bolton crazy. But there he is, at the center of Mitt’s foreign policy team. Most legal scholars will readily admit that Robert Bork is brilliant–but consider his approach to the constitution far out of the mainstream of legal thought (at best) and twisted/dangerous at worst. Bork is advising Mitt on potential Supreme Court nominees.

I could go on, but the bottom line is that for whatever reason–perhaps an effort to solidify the support of the extremist GOP base, perhaps because he actually agrees with them, perhaps because he really doesn’t know better–Romney has surrounded himself with the worst of the Bush Administration’s leftovers. He is listening (presumably) to the people who took us to the edge of depression, who blithely led us into a war of choice in the most unstable and dangerous part of the world, and who still haven’t learned from their mistakes.

A lot of pundits, focused on the horse race, have noted Romney’s frequent gaffes, and attributed them to the absence of good staff work. Fewer have asked the question: if Romney’s campaign people are inept, what can we expect of the people he’d depend upon in the White House? And if the answer to that question is “the worst of Bush’s advisors”–we’d better hope that the Koch brothers and their ilk don’t manage to buy this election.

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Chik-fil-A

Let me be clear about my personal reaction to Chik-fil-A’s corporate homophobia–expressed by its financial support for anti-gay organizations and most recently by the “guilty as charged” statement of its President. I do not patronize Chik-fil-A, and I encourage my friends and family to spend their money elsewhere. When the occasion arises, I communicate my disapproval of the corporation’s message and my hope that consumers who agree with me will communicate theirs by eating elsewhere.

But I do not applaud efforts by elected officials to treat the chain differently than any other business because of its message and beliefs.

When I was at the ACLU, the Klan was denied the right to hold a rally on the Statehouse steps. Other organizations routinely were granted permission to do so. We represented the KKK– the Jewish Executive Director (me), our African-American legal secretary, and a gay co-operating (volunteer) attorney. It certainly wasn’t because any of us agreed with the Klan’s odious message. It was because we knew that the government that could deny equal rights to the Klan today could just as easily deny equal rights to us tomorrow.

In our system–a system far too many of us don’t understand–the government has an obligation to remain neutral about ideas, even–as Justice Holmes memorably wrote–about “the idea we hate.” If Chik-fil-A, or the Klan, or the ACLU wants to open a store or office somewhere, and are otherwise following the rules, their views should not be part of the decision-making process.

The gay community, especially, should understand the importance of government neutrality. Until very recently, government officials could be counted on to exercise their powers to suppress, rather than support, GLBT folks. The social change we rightly celebrate–where a Chik-fil-A is roundly condemned for anti-gay bias–would have been impossible but for the free marketplace of ideas that the First Amendment protects.

In our system, government stays neutral so that individuals don’t have to. That means we each have an obligation to be active citizens and intentional consumers. Moral bullies want government to fight their ideological battles for them; free citizens fight their own.

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Health and the Market

Well, I see that the Congressional GOP is threatening to shut down the government in October if the Democrats block repeal of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, and the partisan rhetoric is predictably flying.

A Democratic friend sent me an email listing the multiple sins of the Bush Administration, from wars of choice to decimation of the economy to the massive increase in the national debt; the message was something like “You didn’t get mad about any of these things, but now a black guy wants to provide healthcare to Americans who don’t have it, and that makes you mad!?” A Republican friend sent me a similarly incendiary message insisting that Obama is a “socialist” who hates capitalism and wants to destroy the market “that made American health care the best in the world.”

Let’s stipulate that not everyone who opposes Obamacare is a racist, and that American healthcare before the ACA was not only not the best in the world, but actually ranks around 37th. Other than that, my purpose is not to engage these arguments, but to point to a perfect example of the way “the market” works in areas like healthcare, where buyers and sellers are not on equal footing, and do not possess the sort of equivalent information that is necessary for markets to work.

I have previously referred to a book written my cousin, Morton Tavel, in which he takes on the “snake oil” aspects of the healthcare industry. He has now created a blog devoted to the subject, and his first post is a perfect example of “the market” in medicine–a discussion of all the ads about “low T”–testosterone deficiency. I encourage you to click through and read the whole post, but the bottom line is that  “low T” is extremely rare. The numbers the manufacturers are hyping are misleading at best and fraudulent at worst, and the “remedy” they are promoting is expensive, unnecessary and unlikely to restore the virility of the aging men who miss their morning erections.

Markets are wonderful where they work. And they work more often than they don’t. But in those areas where they don’t work, they enable the snake oil salesmen who prey on the unwary and drive up costs for everyone.

As with so many policy debates, this isn’t an “either-or” debate between all market all the time and socializing every aspect of the economy. We “socialize” functions that markets cannot efficiently provide–police and fire protection, infrastructure provision, national defense, public education. We leave to the market those economic areas where markets have proven their effectiveness.

The decision whether to leave an activity to the market or provide it through government should be based on evidence, not ideology. And as every other western industrialized country has long recognized, the evidence for government’s role in healthcare is overwhelming, just as the evidence for the market in consumer goods and manufacturing is overwhelming.

The evidence also tells us a lot about elected representatives who–having lost the argument–are willing to shut down the American government in order to protect the profits of health insurers and drug companies.

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