Richard Arenberg is wrong about the filibuster

A scholar writes in defense of filibusters: "But those seeking to end the filibuster would rue the day. We need only recall how overzealous majorities in the Wisconsin legislature attacked collective bargaining, or in Virginia sought to impose mandatory vaginal probes on women seeking abortions. We can easily imagine efforts to overturn health reform, repeal financial reforms, cripple environmental regulation, scale back Medicare, privatize Social Security, or drill for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. If Mitt Romney is elected with a Republican Congress, without the historic protections in the Senate rules, where could a Democratic minority turn?"

I'm fine with rewriting the rules, as Arenberg suggests—my own suggestion would be that filibusters actually be filibusters, and to make Mitch McConnell stand in the Senate well for 50 hours at a stretch if he really wants to block President Obama's appointments to the judiciary. It might simply be easier, though, just to scrap the filibuster entirely.

Yes, that means that legislative minorities might be brushed aside in crafting legislation. But it also means that legislative minorities could scrap that legislation once they became the majority again. (There is no such thing as a permanent majority in American politics.) Wise senators would hopefully take that into consideration and craft legislation that would be politically difficult to undo at the next change in power. Right now, the filibuster isn't used to protect Social Security—it's often used for no better reason than to make the president's life a living hell. I can't get misty-eyed about that. Scrap the filibuster and let the chips fall where they may.

Are scoops the entirety of journalism?

Stephen Silver seems to think so: "In the end, I don’t see the Inquirer‘s Banner scoop as a reason to see salvation in newspapers, but rather, I view the very rarity of such an event as an indication of the medium’s doom."

Only if "the medium" is composed entirely of scoops. Of course print can't compete on that basis—and, of course, it keeps trying to compete on that basis. Look at today's front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer at right: All but two stories are recaps of events that happened yesterday—events that anybody with a decent RSS or Twitter feed already knew about.

Print is going to be diminished. It will be a very long time before it goes away, I think. To the extent that it can thrive in a downsized state, it will do so because it offers depth, analysis, and thoughtfulness. It can't be about the business of scoops—and the longer we keep measuring its impact by scoops, as Silver does, the harder and faster the fall will be.

Kansas' anti-Sharia law is an assault on religious liberty

A tremendous takedown of Kansas' new anti-Sharia law in (wait for it) National Review: "It is particularly disappointing to see Sam Brownback — a committed Catholic with deep ties to the evangelical-Protestant community and a strong record on religious-liberty matters — signing an anti-Sharia bill. Addressing the 2006 Religious Liberty Dinner in Washington, D.C., Brownback said that people denied religious liberty “deserve our efforts” to vindicate their rights. He cited the Epistle to the Hebrews in calling on those who possess liberty to remember “those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” Brownback’s point is as true today as ever: American Christians must stand for the religious liberty of Muslims if they are to argue persuasively for their own."

Emphasis added. This isn't nice to say, but I'll say it: There are a fair number of folks who regularly sound the alarm about "religious liberty," but really only mean "religious liberty for Christians." They're chauvinists, and nobody should think they're particularly principled.

Philadelphia workers who live out of town

Maybe it's illegal for Philadelphia's City Hall to require workers to live in town, but it's kind of a bad idea if they do so—and it's bad for them. I've got some thoughts about public unions I'll be noodling over the next few weeks—I'm for 'em, but they're not without flaws, and those flaws must be addressed—but civic workers who make their money off the taxes of Philadelphia but don't want to live among Philadelphians probably shouldn't expect much sympathy with the politicians come after their pensions.

'Mad Men' and the infantilization of American culture

A perfect image.

When 'Mad Men' premiered a few years back, one of the things that its fans celebrated was the show's old-fashioned sense of adulthood: Don Draper smoked, drank, dressed well, and only occasionally seemed to notice that his children existed. "Remember when men were men!" we barked, and if nobody actually said those words, well, that's what a lot of people seemed to mean.

We've all expected the show to depict the rise of youth culture as the '60s wore on, and that theme was indeed explicit in the just-finished Season Five. We witness Don being out of his element at a Rolling Stones concert, befuddled by a Beatles record, chafing at his wife's out-of-office ambitions. It's in his marriage to Meagan, though, that we see something that doesn't get talked about a lot: Yes, the older generation hated the Peter Pan frivolousness of the Baby Boomers. But that older generation really helped create and nurture that frivolousness, as well.

Don's job, after all, is to create fantasies. And fantasies are often, in the end, the realm of childhood—a way of dreaming about "someday" and "what could be" instead of what actually is. (In some ways, too, Draper is a fantasy, dreamed up by a guy named Dick Whitman.) And the younger generation finds itself increasingly unable to tear itself away from those fantasies.

Take Meagan. When we saw her at the end of Season Four she was young, yes, but clearly a woman, even maternal with Don's kids. That's why he asked her to marry him. But as Season Five progressed, Meagan seemed to regress—from an adult who worked and dressed like an adult, back into a teen whose fashion choices were barely discernible from that of Don's adolescent daughter, till finally she ended up dressed like a princess, playing make-believe in her final scene of the season. This, after she pouted at her mother for not getting everything she wants.

And Meagan was playing princess, incidentally, in a commercial—a fantasy—constructed by Don Draper.

It was, in some ways, the saddest and most melancholy scene of the season—ranking right up there with Lane Pryce's suicide. (Er, spoiler.) Contrast that with one of the most joyful and fun scenes of the season: Don and Joan's trip to a local bar. (Giving us the near-perfect pop-cultural image above.)

Yes, there's an element of fantasy there, too. But what makes the scene satisfying is not that two incredibly sexy people flirt. It's that they don't do anything about it. They have responsibilities, to their business, to their loved ones, and they behave—ultimately—like self-possessed adults.

Maybe that's the fantasy these days, that we can all act like grownups. God knows, I'm about Don Draper's age, yet I feel adolescent next to him. But if Don's generation is grumpy with the immaturity of the kids who came after, they shouldn't feel too self-righteous. They created the fantasies, and made the promises they couldn't keep.

I love Rod Dreher. I am terrified of Rod Dreher.

Dreher celebrates a Texas father who beat his child's molester to death: "[Insert pro forma regret that the alleged molester was not captured and handed over to the proper authorities.] It’s at times like this that I’m glad we have Texas, where he needed killin’ is an affirmative defense against homicide charges."

I follow Dreher because I think he's mostly thoughtful, even if I don't agree with him in his vociferous opposition to gay marriage. But sometimes his instincts elude my understanding. Don't get me wrong: I'm not shedding any tears over a dead sex offender. Reacting gleefully, though, disturbs me a little bit: It suggests that civilization is little more than a game, to be abandoned when it feels good. I don't think Dreher actually thinks that, but his joy at vigilantism creates some doubts. It's just kind of ugly.

Michael Kinsley's 'full disclosure' paragraph is my favorite in the history of the genre

He writes about Mayor Bloomberg's proposed soda rules:

The basic case in favor of Bloomberg’s proposal is in some ways even more compelling: Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News’s parent, Bloomberg LP, and therefore my boss. In all likelihood, therefore, he is right about soft drinks and sugar, just as he is right about almost everything. (And even that “almost” is only there as a sop to my dignity.)