There's a debate on Friday between Senators McCain and Obama. It's going to be on foreign policy, not the economy (which is the topic du jour).
The article "The Petraeus Doctrine" in this month's Atlantic provides an interesting, and I think important, subtext for this debate.
Put simply, does America's future hold more Iraqs or not?
If the world is a place where failed and rogue states will attempt to attack the US or its allies and interests, and we intend to defend ourselves, then we may end up trying to establish stability (the Petraeus Doctrine) to win hearts and minds in foreign countries. This worldview holds that Iraq is winnable and we are winning, and that perhaps even Vietnam was winnable. You just need enough force going in and enough subtlety (cultural and language training, etc) and patience to see it through. You can't bomb your way to security, but you can occupy and stabilize your way to security. In fact, you have to if you want to fight terrorism.
The other worldview holds that these kinds of fights cannot be won by the military, at least for an acceptable cost. Iraq's current stability should not be viewed as evidence of a repeatable strategy for successfully occupying conquered states. Rather, it is a result of a complex series of political calculations, including expected American withdrawal. The ability to successfully extract the America military without leaving a raging civil war, while to be welcomed, is not a blueprint for future military actions. In short, this is not a "win" we should look to repeat.
My sense is that John McCain takes the first view... you can win these things if you are patient and smart enough. It may require enormous sacrifice, but he has made enormous sacrifice and can marshal the country to do so. He sees a violent world where "there will be more wars", and you have to be smarter and more willing to fight than the other guy to win. If you're lucky, you may not have to fight. But you have to be willing to, and in an unstable world, the US's responsibility (with other countries) is to fight those fights.
A soldier's view.
My sense is that Barack Obama takes the latter view. That the military can tip the scales between two opposing power structures, but cannot nurture a power structure up from scratch. Or perhaps, that if such things can be done, the military is not the right arm of government to do so. And further, that with limited resources, the military should be used sparingly, and only when the objectives are more simply and conventionally defined. (In that sense, Obama is conservative while McCain is neoconserative.) The downside of this is, you have to both be willing to not fight some fights you could win (because they are too expensive) ... such as Iran or North Korea getting nukes, or more precisely you have to empower some bad guys (buying them off rather than fighting). Also, you have to believe that enough fights can be avoided.
This is where I suspect the worldview comes in. McCain has seen a world of conflict, was 3rd generation Navy with an Admiral father. His frame of reference has been conflict. He has seen cruelty up close. He knows sometimes you have to be willing to fight.
Obama has seen a world of diversity. He has preached understanding. He's never been in the military, and has based his campaign on overcoming traditional political infighting ("games" he calls them) to reach a common purpose.
In Obama's worldview, the Iraqs and Vietnams of the world can and must be avoided, and the military cannot fundamentally alter the reality on the ground. In McCain's worldview, the Iraqs and Vietnams of the world can't be avoided, only ignored as the cost grows, and a willingness to fight and persevere is required.
On the foreign policy side, that's the debate. The inital vote against Iraq is Obama's proxy for saying, "you have to be wise enough to see these things never go as well as you think and are a waste of precious resources." The success of the surge is McCain's proxy for saying "you have to be willing to have faith and persevere, and I have those traits."
What do you think?
Showing posts with label honest dialog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label honest dialog. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
The Financial Crisis, Pt 1
Quote
Unquote
Although I agree broadly with Hatzius, I quibble with his idea that the goal is to avoid a sharp contraction in lending. The US needs to wean itself of unsustainable overconsumption, and since consumption has come to depend on growth in indebtedness, a reversal, however painful, is necessary. Our excesses have been so great that there is no way out of this that does not lead to a general fall in living standards (note that the officialdom in the UK is willing to say that, but since perpetual prosperity is a God-given right in America, admitting we will be getting poorer is verboten). Thus, a sharp contraction in lending seems inevitable; the trick is to prevent it from crossing the tipping point into a vicious, accelerating downward spiral.
Unquote
Friday, August 08, 2008
Hubris - Part 2
On July 26 I wrote:
Two weeks later
Wish I were happier about it.
My prediction is that it will take two weeks tops for this to be in the headlines.
Two weeks later
Wish I were happier about it.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Hubris
In 2006 Democrats delighted at the scandal-ridden Republicans. Pedophilia, restroom solicitation, lobbying corruption, DoJ politicization. Gone were the days of House post office scandals, of Gary Hart and Bill Clinton. Democrats would clean things up.
With word that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid is engaging in Tom Delay-style K Street lobbying shakedowns, I suppose I also shouldn't be surprised that John Edwards (yes, that John Edwards) is keeping a low profile after being confronted by National Enquirer reporters in the wee hours of the morning in a hotel where the the woman the Enquirer called the mother of his "love child" was staying (with child).
The required caveat is that there may be an explanation, and Edwards may have a legitimate reason for not wanting to talk about it, and for giving non-denial denials. Thus, what follows may be unfair. If so, my apologies.
But really.
No, Really.
I too first dismissed this as tabloid trash. But let's remember this is the same tabloid that produced a photo of Donna Rice on Gary Hart's lap (in front the boat "Monkey Business"). Who surfaced the story of Jesse Jackson's love child, silencing the once-family-values preacher (who later went after Obama for criticizing absent fathers). Who managed to find THAT blue dress that nearly brought down the Clinton White House and probably cost Al Gore the White House.
The Enquirer had already set its sights on the Golden Boy from North Carolina last Fall. When they seemed close to pinning something on Edwards (who was then a candidate for President), the Edwards campaign produce the married-with-kids-campaign-staffer Andrew Young, who then claimed to be the father. Of the kid whose mother later came over for dinner with the whole family. Sure.
But fishy as it all sounded, there was no proof of anything. With Edwards out of the race, there was no real story.
Now the blogosphere is positively abuzz with whether the mainstream press should talk about this. My prediction is that it will take two weeks tops for this to be in the headlines. Like the much-predicted bird flu, no matter how carefully the borders are guarded, there are too many ways in and the material is too contagious to keep out.
Earlier this week, Barack Obama's written prayer deposited in the Wailing Wall in Israel was stolen and broadcast on international websites, despite its insignificant contents. Many conservative bloggers decried this, even while saying they did not support Obama.
In that spirit, though I support John Edwards' campaign to help alleviate poverty in America, I can't offer any defense for him. With sympathy to his wife Elizabeth, who is battling terminal cancer, I have to say Edwards (like Clinton before him) is looking more like the caricature conservatives always claimed him to be: a pious phony who calls others to sacrifice but isn't willing to sacrifice his own libido.
A word of warning to other Democratic politicians: when you tap into a powerful truth about the world, and hold it up to the world, it will attract others. They will often confuse the idea and the person. Their youth and inspiration can also attract you, and remind you of your youth. That idea can also be confused with a person. But trying to grab hold of inspiration or youth gets you neither. It gets you National Enquirer reporters chasing you into restrooms.
So for Eliot Spitzer, and that governor from New Jersey or wherever, and Hart and Jackson and Clinton and Edwards, do us a favor and find another line of work. Kennedy doesn't get Marilyn anymore. I know the family-values conservative crowd have their share of hypocrites, too. They can police their own.
I'm tired of making excuses.
Asshole.
(Oh, and to the liberal bloggers: cut out that "well at least they were women" bullshit. I mean, are you serious? Only two years back into power, a useless Congress, "Bros Before Hos" Obama voters and "Party Unity My Ass" PUMA Democrats who want to vote McCain, and now we're trying to out-gay-bash Republicans? Isn't anybody motivated by the issues any more?)
With word that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid is engaging in Tom Delay-style K Street lobbying shakedowns, I suppose I also shouldn't be surprised that John Edwards (yes, that John Edwards) is keeping a low profile after being confronted by National Enquirer reporters in the wee hours of the morning in a hotel where the the woman the Enquirer called the mother of his "love child" was staying (with child).
The required caveat is that there may be an explanation, and Edwards may have a legitimate reason for not wanting to talk about it, and for giving non-denial denials. Thus, what follows may be unfair. If so, my apologies.
But really.
No, Really.
I too first dismissed this as tabloid trash. But let's remember this is the same tabloid that produced a photo of Donna Rice on Gary Hart's lap (in front the boat "Monkey Business"). Who surfaced the story of Jesse Jackson's love child, silencing the once-family-values preacher (who later went after Obama for criticizing absent fathers). Who managed to find THAT blue dress that nearly brought down the Clinton White House and probably cost Al Gore the White House.
The Enquirer had already set its sights on the Golden Boy from North Carolina last Fall. When they seemed close to pinning something on Edwards (who was then a candidate for President), the Edwards campaign produce the married-with-kids-campaign-staffer Andrew Young, who then claimed to be the father. Of the kid whose mother later came over for dinner with the whole family. Sure.
But fishy as it all sounded, there was no proof of anything. With Edwards out of the race, there was no real story.
Now the blogosphere is positively abuzz with whether the mainstream press should talk about this. My prediction is that it will take two weeks tops for this to be in the headlines. Like the much-predicted bird flu, no matter how carefully the borders are guarded, there are too many ways in and the material is too contagious to keep out.
Earlier this week, Barack Obama's written prayer deposited in the Wailing Wall in Israel was stolen and broadcast on international websites, despite its insignificant contents. Many conservative bloggers decried this, even while saying they did not support Obama.
In that spirit, though I support John Edwards' campaign to help alleviate poverty in America, I can't offer any defense for him. With sympathy to his wife Elizabeth, who is battling terminal cancer, I have to say Edwards (like Clinton before him) is looking more like the caricature conservatives always claimed him to be: a pious phony who calls others to sacrifice but isn't willing to sacrifice his own libido.
A word of warning to other Democratic politicians: when you tap into a powerful truth about the world, and hold it up to the world, it will attract others. They will often confuse the idea and the person. Their youth and inspiration can also attract you, and remind you of your youth. That idea can also be confused with a person. But trying to grab hold of inspiration or youth gets you neither. It gets you National Enquirer reporters chasing you into restrooms.
So for Eliot Spitzer, and that governor from New Jersey or wherever, and Hart and Jackson and Clinton and Edwards, do us a favor and find another line of work. Kennedy doesn't get Marilyn anymore. I know the family-values conservative crowd have their share of hypocrites, too. They can police their own.
I'm tired of making excuses.
Asshole.
(Oh, and to the liberal bloggers: cut out that "well at least they were women" bullshit. I mean, are you serious? Only two years back into power, a useless Congress, "Bros Before Hos" Obama voters and "Party Unity My Ass" PUMA Democrats who want to vote McCain, and now we're trying to out-gay-bash Republicans? Isn't anybody motivated by the issues any more?)
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Energy Markets
These aren't my words, but are from an old article I clipped. Safer to keep it here, and rarely were truer words spoken.
"Fundamentally, the energy market isn't really a market -- it is rigged by nationally run oil monopolies that dictate the supply and prices of crude oil, individually within their own borders and globally through the OPEC cartel. In that system, private firms such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron are mere price-takers. But they are also willing free-riders who benefit handsomely from the price-fixing of others.
"Fundamentally, the energy market isn't really a market -- it is rigged by nationally run oil monopolies that dictate the supply and prices of crude oil, individually within their own borders and globally through the OPEC cartel. In that system, private firms such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron are mere price-takers. But they are also willing free-riders who benefit handsomely from the price-fixing of others.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Obama's speech on race (37 min)
I know it's a long speech. Get a drink and have a seat. But listen to it.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
First podcast attempt
First try. About 10 minutes of news from Friday, Dec 8.
Update: You can now subscribe to the podcast using the "Subscribe in iTunes" link on the right. This will launch iTunes and add the podcast to your "Podcasts" list. New episodes will be downloaded automatically, and you can put them on your iPods or other MP3 devices.
Alternative: Go to iTunes, Advanced menu, Subscribe to Podcast, enter:
Podcasts will be over on distractedaudio.blogspot.com, not here. If you subscribe, you won't need to check that site.
The podcast may show up in iTunes Music Store in a few days, search for "heyjebbo". You can subscribe using the method above now.
Enjoy!
Update: You can now subscribe to the podcast using the "Subscribe in iTunes" link on the right. This will launch iTunes and add the podcast to your "Podcasts" list. New episodes will be downloaded automatically, and you can put them on your iPods or other MP3 devices.
Alternative: Go to iTunes, Advanced menu, Subscribe to Podcast, enter:
- http://feeds.feedburner.com/distractedaudio
Podcasts will be over on distractedaudio.blogspot.com, not here. If you subscribe, you won't need to check that site.
The podcast may show up in iTunes Music Store in a few days, search for "heyjebbo". You can subscribe using the method above now.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Iraq again?
I remember my editor at Auburn saying "Bosnia again?" when I wrote the second or third Bosnia opinion column in three or four weeks. It wasn't really on the front pages yet; we hadn't sent troops or bombed yet. I certainly hadn't had the experience of trying to make the world better (as opposed to just killing the bad guys/commies etc) and making an utter disaster of it yet.
I thought that we could use our strength to make a better world. I think we did in Bosnia. Somalia should have been a warning.
Anyway, I want to talk about Iraq again. Sorry, Seth, wherever you are.
What I want to say is, we / the left (can I count myself among "we"? I guess that's another topic...) are on the chariot... we are riding high politically on anger at Iraq. But I don't know that we know what we want. Or, I think we have a coalition of people with different values who are having a party of convenience but don't realize how potentially deep their disagreements are.
Or maybe I'm just hoping for company in my internal conflicts.
I've always been embarrassed by how much I supported the aims of the war. I mean, not just that I hoped it worked - given the lives at stake I certainly hope everyone wanted it to work. But for some reason (Bosnia?) I thought it could. I missed the same things that the administration did. Yeah I was skeptical of the rosy scenarios. Of course I have excuses: I'm not an expert, the media was fed a line, etc. But at the end of the day, I thought Iraq would be better off. I thought we would be despised, but I thought Iraq would be better. No death squads. No sanctions starving babies.
I was wrong.
And so I question myself now when I look at my fears for what comes next.
The surge is not working. The country wants its troops home. Liberals/the left want an end to a foreign policy premised on launching preemptive wars, and a debacle in Iraq suits that well. I do not mean to suggest that the left hopes the war goes still worse; I fully believe they think the war is lost, and negative signs are just taken as a hopeful sign that others will see this and stop the madness.
But.
And this is where my conflict is.
What happens next? The hopeful scenario is that, with the Americans going, both sides size each other up properly, make the appropriate political compromises to reflect that power (im)balance (fairness be damned) and the fighting actually goes down. In this view, our presence acts as a fuel to the fire, an itch that is scratched with suicide bombings. Maybe. We certainly embolden the Shiite majority to not make deals, as they know we won't stand by and let their government fall. Maybe they'll cut a deal without us.
But I doubt it. I fear that is the same "hope over experience" thinking that got us and the Iraqis into this. More likely I think, the Shiites know our time is limited; they are using our presence to consolidate as much power as possible so that on our exit they are well positioned to "finish the job" and wage a more full-on civil war with the Sunnis. I believe the police and military are branches of the Shiite militia, and will be used as such the moment we leave. I also think the only leverage we have is offering to leave or stay based on the behavior of the Shiite government, but the Republican good cop ('we will stand down when they stand up') and the Democratic bad cop ('we will stand down, then maybe they will stand up') leave no allowance for different actions on our part. Let me say that more clearly. I think the Iraqis figure we are gonna do what we are gonna do (whether leave or stay), so they are best served by maxing their power while we are there and then starting the real war when we leave.
Here is my moral dilemma. For all the political energy on the left about ending the war, I don't think it ends when we leave. I pray it does, but I doubt it. I think we just change the channel now our kids are home, we say any loss of life is the Iraqis' fault (we gave them a chance), and while we are pressing the Sudanese to stop the genocide there, and threatening to send troops, a genocide may happen in Iraq with no credible threat of outside intervention. I think Iran and Saudi Arabia may play out a war in Iraq, and the loss of life will be terrible.
Let's say I'm right (while hoping otherwise).
#1 Maybe we should get out anyway. If the endgame is a political settlement, and too much has happened to get a settlement until a real fight balances the anger with sorrow, then maybe we have to get out of the way and let the sorrow begin. Maybe. But that is nothing to celebrate or be proud of. It's a cold, cold calculation.
#2 Or maybe, we face a question of whether, having broken Iraq, we have a moral duty to police it, and to spend our blood to try to protect all the innocents there who will otherwise die. That assumes our presence, say with another 50k troops and a commitment of 5-10 years, can allow peace to be reached without genocide. I don't know, but it's possible. If so, how do we weigh the moral obligations of our nation to defend life we've put at risk by our policies, with what we owe to our soldiers?
I guess where I am right now is, I think the public says, in effect, screw Iraq if they can't take care of themselves, and we have a bunch of folks on the left who don't like war, and want to see a black mark against the preemptive war policy, and that creates a marriage of convenience. But when we start pulling out because in Republicans are afraid of voters in 2008, if - if - we see blood really flowing in the streets, I wonder...
I wonder if the military guys who see the situation on the ground, who see that with more troops we can maintain a low-grade civil war, and that the alternative is worse from a humanitarian situation ... I wonder if they have it easy. They just have to do the job we give them. We have to ask whether it is worth sacrificing American lives to save Iraqi ones. I think we will choose not to, and I think that will be a winning political decision. Maybe it's morally necessary - who am I to ask someone to die for another, to die for mistakes those soldiers did not make? But if I see the left celebrating a pullout while a civil war we facilitated spins out of control, I will feel a sickness in my stomach.
Let me be clear: I think we probably have to leave, as I am not sure our sacrifices are lessening the chance of an eventual massacre. And if we are viewed as an occupying force, it makes the world - especially the middle east - a more dangerous place (regardless of our good intentions). But the moral core of what makes me a liberal is ashamed and saddened by this failure of power to make things better. It doesn't believe it is possible the "end" the war any more than it is possible to "win" it. It sees a 2009 with Americans being as obnoxious about the Iraqis as they were about the French, while Iraqi kids are blown up. And it expects to be ashamed at the pride with which the left holds itself for having achieved this tragic and morally dubious "end."
I thought that we could use our strength to make a better world. I think we did in Bosnia. Somalia should have been a warning.
Anyway, I want to talk about Iraq again. Sorry, Seth, wherever you are.
What I want to say is, we / the left (can I count myself among "we"? I guess that's another topic...) are on the chariot... we are riding high politically on anger at Iraq. But I don't know that we know what we want. Or, I think we have a coalition of people with different values who are having a party of convenience but don't realize how potentially deep their disagreements are.
Or maybe I'm just hoping for company in my internal conflicts.
I've always been embarrassed by how much I supported the aims of the war. I mean, not just that I hoped it worked - given the lives at stake I certainly hope everyone wanted it to work. But for some reason (Bosnia?) I thought it could. I missed the same things that the administration did. Yeah I was skeptical of the rosy scenarios. Of course I have excuses: I'm not an expert, the media was fed a line, etc. But at the end of the day, I thought Iraq would be better off. I thought we would be despised, but I thought Iraq would be better. No death squads. No sanctions starving babies.
I was wrong.
And so I question myself now when I look at my fears for what comes next.
The surge is not working. The country wants its troops home. Liberals/the left want an end to a foreign policy premised on launching preemptive wars, and a debacle in Iraq suits that well. I do not mean to suggest that the left hopes the war goes still worse; I fully believe they think the war is lost, and negative signs are just taken as a hopeful sign that others will see this and stop the madness.
But.
And this is where my conflict is.
What happens next? The hopeful scenario is that, with the Americans going, both sides size each other up properly, make the appropriate political compromises to reflect that power (im)balance (fairness be damned) and the fighting actually goes down. In this view, our presence acts as a fuel to the fire, an itch that is scratched with suicide bombings. Maybe. We certainly embolden the Shiite majority to not make deals, as they know we won't stand by and let their government fall. Maybe they'll cut a deal without us.
But I doubt it. I fear that is the same "hope over experience" thinking that got us and the Iraqis into this. More likely I think, the Shiites know our time is limited; they are using our presence to consolidate as much power as possible so that on our exit they are well positioned to "finish the job" and wage a more full-on civil war with the Sunnis. I believe the police and military are branches of the Shiite militia, and will be used as such the moment we leave. I also think the only leverage we have is offering to leave or stay based on the behavior of the Shiite government, but the Republican good cop ('we will stand down when they stand up') and the Democratic bad cop ('we will stand down, then maybe they will stand up') leave no allowance for different actions on our part. Let me say that more clearly. I think the Iraqis figure we are gonna do what we are gonna do (whether leave or stay), so they are best served by maxing their power while we are there and then starting the real war when we leave.
Here is my moral dilemma. For all the political energy on the left about ending the war, I don't think it ends when we leave. I pray it does, but I doubt it. I think we just change the channel now our kids are home, we say any loss of life is the Iraqis' fault (we gave them a chance), and while we are pressing the Sudanese to stop the genocide there, and threatening to send troops, a genocide may happen in Iraq with no credible threat of outside intervention. I think Iran and Saudi Arabia may play out a war in Iraq, and the loss of life will be terrible.
Let's say I'm right (while hoping otherwise).
#1 Maybe we should get out anyway. If the endgame is a political settlement, and too much has happened to get a settlement until a real fight balances the anger with sorrow, then maybe we have to get out of the way and let the sorrow begin. Maybe. But that is nothing to celebrate or be proud of. It's a cold, cold calculation.
#2 Or maybe, we face a question of whether, having broken Iraq, we have a moral duty to police it, and to spend our blood to try to protect all the innocents there who will otherwise die. That assumes our presence, say with another 50k troops and a commitment of 5-10 years, can allow peace to be reached without genocide. I don't know, but it's possible. If so, how do we weigh the moral obligations of our nation to defend life we've put at risk by our policies, with what we owe to our soldiers?
I guess where I am right now is, I think the public says, in effect, screw Iraq if they can't take care of themselves, and we have a bunch of folks on the left who don't like war, and want to see a black mark against the preemptive war policy, and that creates a marriage of convenience. But when we start pulling out because in Republicans are afraid of voters in 2008, if - if - we see blood really flowing in the streets, I wonder...
I wonder if the military guys who see the situation on the ground, who see that with more troops we can maintain a low-grade civil war, and that the alternative is worse from a humanitarian situation ... I wonder if they have it easy. They just have to do the job we give them. We have to ask whether it is worth sacrificing American lives to save Iraqi ones. I think we will choose not to, and I think that will be a winning political decision. Maybe it's morally necessary - who am I to ask someone to die for another, to die for mistakes those soldiers did not make? But if I see the left celebrating a pullout while a civil war we facilitated spins out of control, I will feel a sickness in my stomach.
Let me be clear: I think we probably have to leave, as I am not sure our sacrifices are lessening the chance of an eventual massacre. And if we are viewed as an occupying force, it makes the world - especially the middle east - a more dangerous place (regardless of our good intentions). But the moral core of what makes me a liberal is ashamed and saddened by this failure of power to make things better. It doesn't believe it is possible the "end" the war any more than it is possible to "win" it. It sees a 2009 with Americans being as obnoxious about the Iraqis as they were about the French, while Iraqi kids are blown up. And it expects to be ashamed at the pride with which the left holds itself for having achieved this tragic and morally dubious "end."
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
The abortion one
B from Tiny Cat Pants suggested I post this here as well. Here ya go.
============
This topic has come up repeatedly here (as other places) so I imagine some people are impatient having to explain what they feel is a basic right. Imagine having to explain to people over and over again why you should be able to have whatever religious beliefs you wanted, when others constantly said “but if we let you believe that you’ll go to hell!”… what I mean is that the position you are advocating is something that is very well understood by many of those (here at least) who disagree with it. Some are patient about it, others just very frustrated, especially given the current trend in abortion politics.
Having said all that, if you are sincerely interested in understanding the line of thinking (which I believe you are based on what you said), I’ll do my best to paraphrase it.
I guess the logic runs like this:
1) The analysis will make more sense if you start with and hold firm the following concern: throughout history women have been viewed as property; of their fathers, their husbands. Women were traded for family alliances. Women couldn’t vote. Women could be raped with impunity by their husbands. Even today is some cultures, besides the whole genital mutilation thing, if a woman is sexually active, even in some cases where she is raped, she may be killed by her “tribe” for bringing disgrace. Not the man (even the rapist). The woman. Who belongs, especially her body/sexuality, to the community.
You may be saying “yes yes I know, but what in the world does this have to do with the life of the baby?” But if you neglect this past you’ll never grasp the context in which abortion rights are seen. Simply put, it’s this: When it comes to women, especially women’s sexual and reproductive rights, men have throughout history and across cultures presumed that they needed to control it, in part because they were wiser protectors better qualified than the women themselves to make decisions. And thus, a woman’s body never belongs to herself as fully as a man’s belongs to himself. And not feeling secure in your own body makes you respond to even well-intentioned concern with a “make all the suggestions you want but keep your hands off my body.”
Okay, now to your points, because they are valid, they just need context to address:
2) Life. Yes, a fetus/undelivered baby is alive. But lots of things are - butterflies, sunflowers. I expect you’d ask, “well sure but they aren’t alive AND human” … that’s more to the point. The question is a fetus/undelivered baby alive AND human. This is what some of the responses above were addressing. There are two answers, each of which are consistent with a pro-choice position, but get there different ways.
A) The fetus/unborn is alive, and human, but not fully so. Either it’s not fully alive (not viable, etc) or not fully human (a small clump of cells, not implanted, shrimplike, etc). The line of this thinking is that, to the extent that the fetus/unborn is less than a full born human baby, any conflict of rights between it and the woman carrying it will benefit the woman. I imagine you can fill in the blanks in this line of argument. I’d only point out the strength and the weakness of this position. The strength is that if at the moment of conception a fetus/unborn is fully alive and human (with all rights etc) then it raises tricky issues - for example, fertilized eggs for IVF that are not implanted can be viewed as murder (full human life stopped), etc. So the strength is that, for most people, there is some qualitative difference between an eggs 2 seconds after fertilization and a toddler. The weakness though is that a fetus/unborn baby 2 seconds before birth seems for all intents and purposes to be just as alive and human as it is 4 seconds later. So there seems very little qualitative difference between fetus/unborn and toddler as pregnancy approaches 9 months.
I think for most people, strengths of the “it’s a mass of cells” and the “it’s a baby” arguments lead to the compromise we have in law: that at first it’s almost all the woman, and by the end it’s almost 50/50 woman and baby, and so as the pregnancy progresses, the fetus/unborn gets more rights relative to the woman.
B) The second argument (which I find persuasive) avoids the whole cells/full human argument, and brings in the history of women as property. It goes like this: Even if for argument you assume a fetus is 100% alive full human with all rights from the moment of conception, the question remains whether that human has the *legal* right to take from a woman’s body. As in, if the child had already been born, and needed a bone marrow transplant to survive, could the government compel the mother (or father) to undergo a bone marrow donation to save the child’s life? I may not be able to express the point I want here, but it is something like this: we say “it’s a child’s life”, and even if in many circumstances that is debatable (as described above), there is a huge step from saying that a woman saves a child’s life by carrying a pregnancy to delivery, and saying that the government can compel a woman against her will to give her body to save someone else, at risk to her own health (which pregnancy always is).
Here’s where the history recap at the top comes in: a woman is perfectly capable of making a moral decision about life and death, and women tend to be just about as anti-abortion as men are. They are stereotyped as having a greater emotional connection to the baby; they carry it inside them. She would seem to be well positioned to understand what is at stake. But if a woman decides she wants her body to be free of the demands of another life (whether fully human, fully alive, or not), do men allow her to have that freedom that men always have, or do they say that the woman’s body belongs to the fetus/unborn, or to the husband, or society, etc? Or does the woman’s body belong to herself, and thus the moral question about whether to risk her health to keep the fetus/unborn alive rests with her?
I think there is a sense that as some feel that the government needs to step in to make the decision (as the last Supreme Court ruling effectively said ‘to save women from making mistakes they might later regret’), that again men are assuming that women are not capable of being responsible with their bodies, and thus someone else needs to step in and take ownership of their bodies and choices. This may also explain the “hey you’re a man, butt out” responses you will often get; it can be interpreted rather like a man who looks over the shoulder of a woman doing household repairs - implying she isn’t capable of taking care of these things without your help.
And this discussion about miscarriages is a case of that; women just trying to live their lives, but finding that men/society are saying that women owe them an accounting of how their bodies are working: the women do not own their bodies, but are allowed to have them by society, on the condition they report back on their use.
Some of that is of course hyperbole, but if you are really interested in understanding where people are coming from, I think that is where people are coming from. Of course most parents would give bone marrow to save their children, and most expectant mothers and fathers think of their unborn babies as babies, and would not want to lose that life. It’s more often the men who run off and leave single mothers. Given how disproportionately the burden of children falls on women, I understand why many feel that they don’t owe anyone else an explanation or obedience for how they use their bodies, and why if they feel they cannot or do not want to carry a pregnancy to delivery, other people should trust them with that difficult decision.
This is where bridgett’s point comes in, and I think it is a key one: that people (and men especially) who feel that they wish women would make different decisions, could best put that energy to use making the burdens of children less. For example, making it easier for women to have children and keep their jobs, better health care (especially prenatal care), etc etc. Point being, that if it is about valuing life and not bossing women around, then trust women, ask them what they need to carry life, and try to give it to them.
That’s what I believe, and I think many (not all) people here believe. Wanted to give you a real chance to understand. And thanks for asking and reading.
============
This topic has come up repeatedly here (as other places) so I imagine some people are impatient having to explain what they feel is a basic right. Imagine having to explain to people over and over again why you should be able to have whatever religious beliefs you wanted, when others constantly said “but if we let you believe that you’ll go to hell!”… what I mean is that the position you are advocating is something that is very well understood by many of those (here at least) who disagree with it. Some are patient about it, others just very frustrated, especially given the current trend in abortion politics.
Having said all that, if you are sincerely interested in understanding the line of thinking (which I believe you are based on what you said), I’ll do my best to paraphrase it.
I guess the logic runs like this:
1) The analysis will make more sense if you start with and hold firm the following concern: throughout history women have been viewed as property; of their fathers, their husbands. Women were traded for family alliances. Women couldn’t vote. Women could be raped with impunity by their husbands. Even today is some cultures, besides the whole genital mutilation thing, if a woman is sexually active, even in some cases where she is raped, she may be killed by her “tribe” for bringing disgrace. Not the man (even the rapist). The woman. Who belongs, especially her body/sexuality, to the community.
You may be saying “yes yes I know, but what in the world does this have to do with the life of the baby?” But if you neglect this past you’ll never grasp the context in which abortion rights are seen. Simply put, it’s this: When it comes to women, especially women’s sexual and reproductive rights, men have throughout history and across cultures presumed that they needed to control it, in part because they were wiser protectors better qualified than the women themselves to make decisions. And thus, a woman’s body never belongs to herself as fully as a man’s belongs to himself. And not feeling secure in your own body makes you respond to even well-intentioned concern with a “make all the suggestions you want but keep your hands off my body.”
Okay, now to your points, because they are valid, they just need context to address:
2) Life. Yes, a fetus/undelivered baby is alive. But lots of things are - butterflies, sunflowers. I expect you’d ask, “well sure but they aren’t alive AND human” … that’s more to the point. The question is a fetus/undelivered baby alive AND human. This is what some of the responses above were addressing. There are two answers, each of which are consistent with a pro-choice position, but get there different ways.
A) The fetus/unborn is alive, and human, but not fully so. Either it’s not fully alive (not viable, etc) or not fully human (a small clump of cells, not implanted, shrimplike, etc). The line of this thinking is that, to the extent that the fetus/unborn is less than a full born human baby, any conflict of rights between it and the woman carrying it will benefit the woman. I imagine you can fill in the blanks in this line of argument. I’d only point out the strength and the weakness of this position. The strength is that if at the moment of conception a fetus/unborn is fully alive and human (with all rights etc) then it raises tricky issues - for example, fertilized eggs for IVF that are not implanted can be viewed as murder (full human life stopped), etc. So the strength is that, for most people, there is some qualitative difference between an eggs 2 seconds after fertilization and a toddler. The weakness though is that a fetus/unborn baby 2 seconds before birth seems for all intents and purposes to be just as alive and human as it is 4 seconds later. So there seems very little qualitative difference between fetus/unborn and toddler as pregnancy approaches 9 months.
I think for most people, strengths of the “it’s a mass of cells” and the “it’s a baby” arguments lead to the compromise we have in law: that at first it’s almost all the woman, and by the end it’s almost 50/50 woman and baby, and so as the pregnancy progresses, the fetus/unborn gets more rights relative to the woman.
B) The second argument (which I find persuasive) avoids the whole cells/full human argument, and brings in the history of women as property. It goes like this: Even if for argument you assume a fetus is 100% alive full human with all rights from the moment of conception, the question remains whether that human has the *legal* right to take from a woman’s body. As in, if the child had already been born, and needed a bone marrow transplant to survive, could the government compel the mother (or father) to undergo a bone marrow donation to save the child’s life? I may not be able to express the point I want here, but it is something like this: we say “it’s a child’s life”, and even if in many circumstances that is debatable (as described above), there is a huge step from saying that a woman saves a child’s life by carrying a pregnancy to delivery, and saying that the government can compel a woman against her will to give her body to save someone else, at risk to her own health (which pregnancy always is).
Here’s where the history recap at the top comes in: a woman is perfectly capable of making a moral decision about life and death, and women tend to be just about as anti-abortion as men are. They are stereotyped as having a greater emotional connection to the baby; they carry it inside them. She would seem to be well positioned to understand what is at stake. But if a woman decides she wants her body to be free of the demands of another life (whether fully human, fully alive, or not), do men allow her to have that freedom that men always have, or do they say that the woman’s body belongs to the fetus/unborn, or to the husband, or society, etc? Or does the woman’s body belong to herself, and thus the moral question about whether to risk her health to keep the fetus/unborn alive rests with her?
I think there is a sense that as some feel that the government needs to step in to make the decision (as the last Supreme Court ruling effectively said ‘to save women from making mistakes they might later regret’), that again men are assuming that women are not capable of being responsible with their bodies, and thus someone else needs to step in and take ownership of their bodies and choices. This may also explain the “hey you’re a man, butt out” responses you will often get; it can be interpreted rather like a man who looks over the shoulder of a woman doing household repairs - implying she isn’t capable of taking care of these things without your help.
And this discussion about miscarriages is a case of that; women just trying to live their lives, but finding that men/society are saying that women owe them an accounting of how their bodies are working: the women do not own their bodies, but are allowed to have them by society, on the condition they report back on their use.
Some of that is of course hyperbole, but if you are really interested in understanding where people are coming from, I think that is where people are coming from. Of course most parents would give bone marrow to save their children, and most expectant mothers and fathers think of their unborn babies as babies, and would not want to lose that life. It’s more often the men who run off and leave single mothers. Given how disproportionately the burden of children falls on women, I understand why many feel that they don’t owe anyone else an explanation or obedience for how they use their bodies, and why if they feel they cannot or do not want to carry a pregnancy to delivery, other people should trust them with that difficult decision.
This is where bridgett’s point comes in, and I think it is a key one: that people (and men especially) who feel that they wish women would make different decisions, could best put that energy to use making the burdens of children less. For example, making it easier for women to have children and keep their jobs, better health care (especially prenatal care), etc etc. Point being, that if it is about valuing life and not bossing women around, then trust women, ask them what they need to carry life, and try to give it to them.
That’s what I believe, and I think many (not all) people here believe. Wanted to give you a real chance to understand. And thanks for asking and reading.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Citizen Democracy
Prescription for what ails ya... one a day , repeat as necessary.
================================
Dear Senator/Congress(wo)man _________,
My name is _____________, and I live in Houston, TX. I'm a 34 years old political moderate who has been actively involved in politics since age 16. I have voted, worked and campaigned for, and donated to candidates of both the Democratic and Republican party. I sympathize with liberal concerns about the condition of those less well off, and share conservative skepticism about where government involvement can have a positive effect.
No action of the US government has troubled me more than those of the White House and the Attorney General's office to politicize the Department of Justice.
I remember the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, just after Easter 1995. That was my first exposure to Americans who thought their own government was their enemy. After September 11, 2001, I heard more people claim government conspiracies to seize greater power. They said the government could not be trusted. I now watch with great sadness how our attempts to build a legitimate government in Iraq have been undermined, perhaps fatally, by the deep lack of trust and civility between Iraqi citizens of different factions. It occurs to me that while we as Americans often disagree with our government, we still fundamentally believe in it and consider ourselves Americans first.
I understand that at some level, politics is a game. There is a certain amount of holding on the offensive line, hand-checking in the paint, that goes on. One campaign steals the others' signs. It's not pretty but it doesn't fundamentally hurt anything. The referees aren't going to call every foul. And when you are the away team, you usually have to play with the home team's refs. And sure, the home refs may have a little bias, even if they try to be fair.
And when I first heard of the firings of the eight U.S. Attorneys, I assumed this was the equivalent of one team whining about a questionable call. When you are the away team, you have to expect some questionable calls to go against you. But as details of the activities of the Attorney General's office and the White House have come out, this doesn't look like a case of a bad call or two, or even a biased ref.
This looks like one team pressuring the refs, threatening them, and replacing them based on how they call the game. It also looks like the neutral referees, the civil service, were being selected based on their loyalty to one team.
The reason we play this game of politics is that in the competition of ideas, the best ideas win and the country wins with them. I root like hell for my team, and I usually disagree with close calls that go against them. But if my team tried to fix the game, it would be game over for them and rightly so. The problem here is there are only two teams, so if one cheats, it's not just them that loses, it's the whole sport. American democracy.
The sports metaphor seems apt but it understates the seriousness of the situation we're in. We have soldiers dying every day in Iraq, willing to give their lives to help build a government that represents all Iraqi citizens, out of a society that doesn't trust its government or other factions. Meanwhile, we have an administration that seems bent not on winning a battle of ideas, but in sacrificing Americans' trust in their government in order to increase the power of its own political faction. The irony is heartbreaking.
If Americans cannot trust the impartiality of the government officials who have the responsibility to protect their rights and the power to imprison them, I fear for the health of our country. I fear more conspiracy theorists. I fear greater polarization. I fear more Oklahoma City bombings.
My hope in writing you is to challenge you to take risks, just like our soldiers do, to help ensure that our government, especially the Department of Justice, re-establishes the trust of the American people. Conservatives fought the cold war to defeat an ideology of government political intrusion into every aspect of citizen's lives. We can't tolerate politicization of our legal system. Please help the Republican party prove itself worthy of being trusted with power, ensuring the continuing dialog of ideas our country depends on to prosper.
Thank you for spending time with me in reading this. God bless you, and give you strength, courage and wisdom for our country and our children.
All the Best Regards,
___________
================================
Dear Senator/Congress(wo)man _________,
My name is _____________, and I live in Houston, TX. I'm a 34 years old political moderate who has been actively involved in politics since age 16. I have voted, worked and campaigned for, and donated to candidates of both the Democratic and Republican party. I sympathize with liberal concerns about the condition of those less well off, and share conservative skepticism about where government involvement can have a positive effect.
No action of the US government has troubled me more than those of the White House and the Attorney General's office to politicize the Department of Justice.
I remember the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, just after Easter 1995. That was my first exposure to Americans who thought their own government was their enemy. After September 11, 2001, I heard more people claim government conspiracies to seize greater power. They said the government could not be trusted. I now watch with great sadness how our attempts to build a legitimate government in Iraq have been undermined, perhaps fatally, by the deep lack of trust and civility between Iraqi citizens of different factions. It occurs to me that while we as Americans often disagree with our government, we still fundamentally believe in it and consider ourselves Americans first.
I understand that at some level, politics is a game. There is a certain amount of holding on the offensive line, hand-checking in the paint, that goes on. One campaign steals the others' signs. It's not pretty but it doesn't fundamentally hurt anything. The referees aren't going to call every foul. And when you are the away team, you usually have to play with the home team's refs. And sure, the home refs may have a little bias, even if they try to be fair.
And when I first heard of the firings of the eight U.S. Attorneys, I assumed this was the equivalent of one team whining about a questionable call. When you are the away team, you have to expect some questionable calls to go against you. But as details of the activities of the Attorney General's office and the White House have come out, this doesn't look like a case of a bad call or two, or even a biased ref.
This looks like one team pressuring the refs, threatening them, and replacing them based on how they call the game. It also looks like the neutral referees, the civil service, were being selected based on their loyalty to one team.
The reason we play this game of politics is that in the competition of ideas, the best ideas win and the country wins with them. I root like hell for my team, and I usually disagree with close calls that go against them. But if my team tried to fix the game, it would be game over for them and rightly so. The problem here is there are only two teams, so if one cheats, it's not just them that loses, it's the whole sport. American democracy.
The sports metaphor seems apt but it understates the seriousness of the situation we're in. We have soldiers dying every day in Iraq, willing to give their lives to help build a government that represents all Iraqi citizens, out of a society that doesn't trust its government or other factions. Meanwhile, we have an administration that seems bent not on winning a battle of ideas, but in sacrificing Americans' trust in their government in order to increase the power of its own political faction. The irony is heartbreaking.
If Americans cannot trust the impartiality of the government officials who have the responsibility to protect their rights and the power to imprison them, I fear for the health of our country. I fear more conspiracy theorists. I fear greater polarization. I fear more Oklahoma City bombings.
My hope in writing you is to challenge you to take risks, just like our soldiers do, to help ensure that our government, especially the Department of Justice, re-establishes the trust of the American people. Conservatives fought the cold war to defeat an ideology of government political intrusion into every aspect of citizen's lives. We can't tolerate politicization of our legal system. Please help the Republican party prove itself worthy of being trusted with power, ensuring the continuing dialog of ideas our country depends on to prosper.
Thank you for spending time with me in reading this. God bless you, and give you strength, courage and wisdom for our country and our children.
All the Best Regards,
___________
Thursday, April 19, 2007
The fetus is dead
In retrospect the Supreme Court decision yesterday should not have been a surprise.
The political left prides itself on being the protector of the less-well-off. They fought slavery with religious zeal. When nobody thought a Catholic could be elected president, the Democrats nominated one. They're likely to nominate a white woman or a black man next. The left is for sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry, taking in the immigrant, for good pay and safe jobs.
In many ways the political left can be summed up as being opposed to the abuse of the powerless by the powerful.
This is why the abortion issue has hurt the left. Over the last 30 years the left has sought to sanctify the birth canal, claiming for it the moral power of granting entitlement to life. On one side, tissue. Pass through, be blessed, and be worthy of protection.
And comes the inevitable rejoinder: "what if this tissue is passed through the birth canal before an abortion, is it not annointed? If life begins at birth, does not a partial birth result in at least a partial life?"
It is a fair point, one that must be acknowledged. From a moral, philosophical, and scientific standpoint there is nothing fundamentally different about the fetus inside the mother's womb at nine months and the infant emerging minutes later at birth.
They are morally equivalent.
There is, slowly developing, a person whose life depends on a myriad of sacrifices made and risks taken by the woman carrying it. To choose not to carry those responsibilities and let that nascent life end, is a tragic choice - though perhaps the least tragic remaining.
The public understands this.
But in the desire to protect women from being treated as second class citizens, the left has employed the callous language and ideology of the fetus as tissue, displaying an intentional moral blindness that they themselves so often criticize in their opposition (as when we hear that Jesus would have favored a cut in the capital gains tax).
How many prospective parents talk about how their "fetus" is doing?
All the while, medical technology advances, and with it the viability and visibility of the life inside a pregnant woman. By not acknowledging this life, the pain of its loss, and the gruesome similarity of some procedures to infanticide, the political left undermines its credibility and claims to moral superiority.
The same happened when President Bush watched an unfolding tragedy in Iraq and claimed everything was fine. The public stops listening until the obvious ugliness was addressed and the requests for support made in light of it. People understand hardship, but the don't tolerate being patronized (just ask Al Gore).
Yesterday, through their elected and appointed officials, the American people said that if society's right to care for the life of a fetus stops at the birth canal, then it starts there, too. The myth cuts both ways.
So why do we object? Not because we feel a fetus has been granted "human" status and rights.
No, we object because the government is exerting its control over a woman's body in the name of another. Just as when women were the property of their fathers and their husbands. Once men could rape their wives with impunity; her body belonged to him. That history is why we object so bitterly to the court's ruling. The court is effectively saying that there is a legal right to injure a woman, granted to the government on behalf of a child. If the child had been born, and needed a kidney or bone-marrow transplant from the mother to stay alive, many people would feel the mother is morally obliged to risk her health for the life of the child, but very few people would be comfortable with the government compelling the woman to undergo a risky medical procedure. Yet pregnancies are risky.
I believe this is the essence of the more-honest dialog we need to begin with America. Acknowledging the moral imperative of protecting those in need, acknowledging the increasing moral standing of the life growing, the deep sadness that any person feels when they cannot choose to carry a life and must let it end, the great moral questions this raises, but emphasizing that freedom means freedom to make mistakes, even tragic ones, that we are a nation of free people, that when a government can force you to put your health at risk against your will, you are not free. That even when we deeply disagree with the morality of another's actions, when those actions fundamentally affect their own health and future, we must be humble enough to leave the judging to the individual, her doctor, and her God.
And that to the extent that we want to take action to avoid the tragedy of unwanted pregnancy and abortion, we should focus on making the situation rare and the alternatives better, without adding extra burdens or coercions to an already heavy decision.
The political left prides itself on being the protector of the less-well-off. They fought slavery with religious zeal. When nobody thought a Catholic could be elected president, the Democrats nominated one. They're likely to nominate a white woman or a black man next. The left is for sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry, taking in the immigrant, for good pay and safe jobs.
In many ways the political left can be summed up as being opposed to the abuse of the powerless by the powerful.
This is why the abortion issue has hurt the left. Over the last 30 years the left has sought to sanctify the birth canal, claiming for it the moral power of granting entitlement to life. On one side, tissue. Pass through, be blessed, and be worthy of protection.
And comes the inevitable rejoinder: "what if this tissue is passed through the birth canal before an abortion, is it not annointed? If life begins at birth, does not a partial birth result in at least a partial life?"
It is a fair point, one that must be acknowledged. From a moral, philosophical, and scientific standpoint there is nothing fundamentally different about the fetus inside the mother's womb at nine months and the infant emerging minutes later at birth.
They are morally equivalent.
There is, slowly developing, a person whose life depends on a myriad of sacrifices made and risks taken by the woman carrying it. To choose not to carry those responsibilities and let that nascent life end, is a tragic choice - though perhaps the least tragic remaining.
The public understands this.
But in the desire to protect women from being treated as second class citizens, the left has employed the callous language and ideology of the fetus as tissue, displaying an intentional moral blindness that they themselves so often criticize in their opposition (as when we hear that Jesus would have favored a cut in the capital gains tax).
How many prospective parents talk about how their "fetus" is doing?
All the while, medical technology advances, and with it the viability and visibility of the life inside a pregnant woman. By not acknowledging this life, the pain of its loss, and the gruesome similarity of some procedures to infanticide, the political left undermines its credibility and claims to moral superiority.
The same happened when President Bush watched an unfolding tragedy in Iraq and claimed everything was fine. The public stops listening until the obvious ugliness was addressed and the requests for support made in light of it. People understand hardship, but the don't tolerate being patronized (just ask Al Gore).
Yesterday, through their elected and appointed officials, the American people said that if society's right to care for the life of a fetus stops at the birth canal, then it starts there, too. The myth cuts both ways.
So why do we object? Not because we feel a fetus has been granted "human" status and rights.
No, we object because the government is exerting its control over a woman's body in the name of another. Just as when women were the property of their fathers and their husbands. Once men could rape their wives with impunity; her body belonged to him. That history is why we object so bitterly to the court's ruling. The court is effectively saying that there is a legal right to injure a woman, granted to the government on behalf of a child. If the child had been born, and needed a kidney or bone-marrow transplant from the mother to stay alive, many people would feel the mother is morally obliged to risk her health for the life of the child, but very few people would be comfortable with the government compelling the woman to undergo a risky medical procedure. Yet pregnancies are risky.
I believe this is the essence of the more-honest dialog we need to begin with America. Acknowledging the moral imperative of protecting those in need, acknowledging the increasing moral standing of the life growing, the deep sadness that any person feels when they cannot choose to carry a life and must let it end, the great moral questions this raises, but emphasizing that freedom means freedom to make mistakes, even tragic ones, that we are a nation of free people, that when a government can force you to put your health at risk against your will, you are not free. That even when we deeply disagree with the morality of another's actions, when those actions fundamentally affect their own health and future, we must be humble enough to leave the judging to the individual, her doctor, and her God.
And that to the extent that we want to take action to avoid the tragedy of unwanted pregnancy and abortion, we should focus on making the situation rare and the alternatives better, without adding extra burdens or coercions to an already heavy decision.
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