Should civil libertarians vote for Obama in 2012? Or is there a good GOP challenger in the offing?

Conor Friedersdorf:

Our last two presidents are unlike one another in most ways. It so happens that what they have in common is tremendously consequential. Both presidents needlessly undermined civil liberties, the separation of powers, and the rule of law in the course of fighting the War on Terror and the War on Drugs. Had President Obama merely lived up to his own pre-election rhetoric on civil liberties, I'd be here arguing for his second term. As it is, I'm very much hoping for a change of leadership.

So why haven't I pledged my support to his eventual opponent? The way I see it, my vote is the GOP's to lose, and they may well do it, because several contenders for the nomination would be even worse than President Obama. Put simply, I won't vote for any Republican who thinks that our current leadership is excessively solicitous of civil liberties in the war on terror, or whose main foreign policy critique is that our leaders are insufficiently bellicose. It isn't much to say that the current administration hasn't tortured anyone, or launched any unwinnable foreign wars, but one couldn't say it about its predecessor.

Let's hope that America doesn't suffer a terrorist attack between 2012 and 2016. But level with yourself. It's a possibility. It isn't unthinkable for it to be worse than 9/11. How will the man or woman in the White House respond? That's one question I'll be asking myself as I evaluate the candidates in the next election. In such a scenario, do I trust Barack Obama to avoid overreacting in a way that hurts America? To refrain from using an attack as a pretext to seize greater power for the executive branch? Or to launch an ill-advised war?

I trust him more than Bush/Cheney or McCain/Palin. I trust him less than Bush/Quayle or Clinton/Gore.

via andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

Deep thought

The weird military stencil font on the Pauline Kael book in the last post made me realize something: You can't judge a book by its cover. But you CAN judge a book's cover—and, probably, the publisher—designer by its cover.

 

Today's deliveries from Amazon

I'm going to (mostly) do my informational reading on the iPad and pleasure reading in the old way. Mostly. The updated McSweeney's app is pretty good.

Today's deliveries from Amazon

I'm going to (mostly) do my informational reading on the iPad and pleasure reading in the old way. Mostly. The updated McSweeney's app is pretty good.

Adam Serwer on Keith Ellison

The Islamophobic right's renewed focus on Ellison is reminder of how divorced from anything resembling a legitimate government interest their agenda is. As co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, Ellison's social liberal views are about as far from Taliban-style Sharia as possible. Ellison has also very publicly called on Muslims to do more to counter radicalism, saying at an appearance in July that "As American Muslims, we have to tackle the moral logic that some Muslims use to justify violence in the name of religion...To say glibly Islam is a religion of peace ignores the reality that there are some Muslims, to our horror, who distort Islam and advocate violence. We have to be at the forefront of correcting the record."

The Islamophobic right though, isn't so much interested in national security or even preserving the secular rule of law as it is about preventing American Muslims from having any role in American public and political life. So it doesn't matter how much of an antithesis to radicalism Ellison represents through is political views or the very fact of his participation in American democracy, because he identifies as a Muslim, he is an enemy. 

via prospect.org

Income inequality reading: The Onion

PARIS—At a press conference Tuesday, the World Heritage Committee officially recognized the Gap Between Rich and Poor as the "Eighth Wonder of the World," describing the global wealth divide as the "most colossal and enduring of mankind's creations."

"Of all the epic structures the human race has devised, none is more staggering or imposing than the Gap Between Rich and Poor," committee chairman Henri Jean-Baptiste said. "It is a tremendous, millennia-old expanse that fills us with both wonder and humility."

"And thanks to careful maintenance through the ages, this massive relic survives intact, instilling in each new generation a sense of awe," Jean- Baptiste added.

via theonion.com

Why I don't care that Keith Olbermann has left TV

Let me put it to you this way. You're talking to a recent immigrant at jury duty. He is telling you how determined he is to be a good citizen and civic role model for his kid. a) "So I've been trying to read Tocqueville in the evenings after work." b) "So I try to attend an occasional City Council meeting." c) "So I've been volunteering as a precinct captain during elections." d) "So I keep up with the Supreme Court by reading the most significant opinions each session. e) "So I keep up with what Congress is doing by reading The New York Times." f) "So I read the blogs of a few political scientists each day." e) "So I watch Keith Olbermann every night."

Is there any doubt that "e" is the worst option?

With very few exceptions, the retirement of a popular political talking head is great news: it's likely to result in fewer people watching political television.

via andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

Sounds right. Also, I don't have a television, so there's that. But most days, I'm not sure that the blogosphere is a vast improvement over the shouting heads on TV. In some ways it's worse: TV at least has to go to commercial every 15 minutes or so.

Mr. Mom Chronicles: My toddler is a smart-aleck

The scene: Boy is in his high chair. He has finished lunch and wants down:

BOY: Done. Done! DONE!

ME: (Looking to teach him to be polite and say "please.") I'm sorry, but I didn't hear the word I needed to hear.

BOY: Done ... now!

The enemy of my enemy is ... what's that again?

President Obama’s decision to make GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt chair of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competiveness has come under attack from FreedomWorks and the Free Enterprise Project, which are calling for Immelt to be fired.

The groups, which have launched an online ad and a petition, say that Immelt’s leadership will lead to more “crony capitalism,” with the government helping a specific business or industry. They are also concerned that Immelt, who will remain CEO, will use his position to help GE specifically.

via nationalreview.com

I dunno. This is speculation on my part, but I'm going to guess that the real aim here is to keep Obama isolated with the "anti-business" tag. Rather than try to pull the president in the direction of their favored policies, groups like FreedomWorks aim to make it illegitimate for business figures to do, um, business with the president. This seems more about winning elections than trumped-up concerns about "crony capitalism."

The politics of the individual mandate

For the last year, Republicans have been arguing that the individual mandate is a threat to liberty so horrifying that it would make Stalin jealous of its diabolical power. Democrats shouldn't be afraid to invite them to come up with their own alternative to the mandate, then we could discuss it -- so long as they agree that any solution is in the service of universal coverage. Get them to agree to that, and the question of whether we should be moving toward universal coverage will be set aside. We should get to the point where any time a Republican criticizes the mandate, they will be asked how they would get everyone into the system. That would be a discussion on Democrats' terms.

via prospect.org

Glenn Beck in June: 'You're Gonna Have to Shoot Them in the Head'

"Tea parties believe in small government. We believe in returning to the principles of our Founding Fathers. We respect them. We revere them. Shoot me in the head before I stop talking about the Founders. Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government.

"I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don't. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep's clothing — change the pose. You will get the ends.

"You've been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You're going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you.

"They are dangerous because they believe. Karl Marx is their George Washington. You will never change their mind. And if they feel you have lied to them — they're revolutionaries. Nancy Pelosi, those are the people you should be worried about.

"Here is my advice when you're dealing with people who believe in something that strongly — you take them seriously. You listen to their words and you believe that they will follow up with what they say."

via bradblog.com

I don't pay a ton of attention to Glenn Beck. But a lot of people do. And that really depresses me.

The golden age of liberty is now

Jamelle Bouie writes at The American Prospect: Segregation was more than separate water fountains and terrible bus seats, and it was enforced -- frequently -- by horrible violence. Which is why I can't help but me miffed by things like Mark Steyn's essay on the gradual "erosion" of liberty into the United States. In this narrative -- held mostly, but not exclusively, by conservatives -- the United States was once a place of great freedom and choice, strangled by big government and the welfare state. Newsflash. For at least a tenth of the population, "freedom" was anything but. From the 1880s until the middle of the 20th century, African Americans lived in a virtual police state. Want to start your own farm? The county won't sell you land. Want to escape sharecropping and peonage? Good luck finding the white landowner who won't cheat you out of your earnings every year. Don't have your employer-issued work papers? The sheriff can arrest you for unlawfully leaving a job. Walking alone without permission from a white man? The sheriff can arrest you for vagrancy. Can't pay your inflated court fees? Well, this nice man from the coal mines/cotton fields/turpentine farms has offered to pay your $15 fine, provided you work 14 months of hard labor. And so on, and so on. Which is to say, if there is anything that infuriates me about conservative rhetoric, it's this refusal to acknowledge the profound illiberty that existed in the United States for most of its history. Okay, so you don't like universal health insurance and you don't want the government to give your money to the lazy or "less deserving." Fine, that's fair. But let's not pretend like today is somehow less free than the past. For blacks, and virtually everyone but white men of privilege, the golden age of freedom is now. http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=01&year=2011&base_nam...

The job-killing welfare state

US unemployment, on this measure, is in the double-digit range — significantly above the global average of 7%. Meanwhile, Germany, with a much stronger social safety net, has unemployment of less than 5%. (Remember, these aren’t official national statistics, they’re Gallup’s attempt to apply the same yardstick to all countries.)

via blogs.reuters.com

Isn't the tradeoff supposed to be that we get a more dynamic economy in exchange for the thinner safety net?

Slow blogging. But for how long?

Every now and again, I'm stunned when I start to think about how much I don't know.

It's a lot.

I enjoy writing. I really enjoy writing in a blog format. But on occasion I get the sense that I'm adding to the sum total of ignorance in the world. (Or, at least, adding to the pile of noise.) I'm not really an expert in anything. So why does my opinion on anything, really, need to be disseminated to the public?

No answer to that.

I know myself. I'll pick up the blogging pace again soon. Right now, though, I'm stopping to listen and read a little more. When I speak out, I'd like to know what I'm talking about.

Netflix Instant is one of the finest inventions of the 21st century

What I love about Netflix Instant: You can, given the right conditions, give yourself a quick education in cinema history and cinema trends. This week I've been watching the Hong Kong gangster movies of director Johnnie To. They make me happy. And Netflix is only $9 a month! What a century!

Dear Mayor Nutter: Sometimes your efforts to look 'tough' end up backfiring

Mayor Nutter just told us that the person of interest in the Kensington Strangler case in now in police custody.

"We got the mother------," said Nutter.

Nutter did not have any details about how the police caught the guy, but a police press conference is underway.

via philly.com

If this really is the guy, I'm glad. But c'mon Mayor Nutter. You don't have to play dress-up tough guy for us.

Still a bad, impossible idea

I don't like this trend:

New York arrived from google.com on "Cup O' Joel: Why Don't We Just Invade North Korea?" by searching for why dont we invade north korea.

Palu, Sulawesi Tengah arrived from google.co.id on "Cup O' Joel: Why Don't We Just Invade North Korea?" by searching for invade north korea.

Raleigh, North Carolina arrived from google.com on "Cup O' Joel: Why Don't We Just Invade North Korea?" by searching for why don't we just invade north korea.

Not sure why the searches for justifications for war with North Korea are picking up. But I don't like it.

Federalist 41-44: The limits of enumerated powers vs. the limits of the written word

Uh-oh.
 
Through the first 40 chapters or so of “The Federalist Papers,” it’s been pretty easy to read the words of Hamilton, Madison and Jay with a liberal’s eyes. In the battle between those who want an energetic government capable of acting for the common good and those who want a national government shackled into near-inefficacy, these guys seemed pretty clearly to be on the former side. The Constitution was a strengthening and centralizing of the powers of national government, after all; to the extent we’ve talked about limits so far, it’s usually been an eye-rolling bone thrown in the direction of the Antifederalists. The limits were (nearly) incidental. The power was the thing.

Until now.

It’s not so much that Federalists 41-43 are about the limits of the government’s power as they are a fairly sharp delineation of what the government can actually do. And, well, it’s not much.

James Madison opens 41 with a clear eye on the Antifederalists, and he frames the question of the next few chapters fairly succinctly: “Is the aggregate power of the general government greater than ought to have been vested in it?”

To answer that question, he considers what the general government is supposed to do, and his answer -- it least initially -- is also pretty succinct:

That we may form a correct judgment on this subject, it will be proper to review the several powers conferred on the government of the Union; and that this may be the more conveniently done they may be reduced into different classes as they relate to the following different objects: 1. Security against foreign danger; 2. Regulation of the intercourse with foreign nations; 3. Maintenance of harmony and proper intercourse among the States; 4. Certain miscellaneous objects of general utility; 5. Restraint of the States from certain injurious acts; 6. Provisions for giving due efficacy to all these powers.

Item No. 4 caught my eye -- “miscellaneous” can cover a lot of territory -- but it turned out that’s Madison’s way of providing an overview of some of Congress’ more, er, miscellaenous powers: of copyright, over treason, that kind of thing.  There’s no Social Security. No Medicare. No national parks. Not much, in fact, of the stuff that I’m really glad that modern government does. Madison doesn’t say the federal government can’t or shouldn’t do these things. He just kind of sets the parameters.

What am I to make of this? What is anybody who is looking for a firmly grounded Constitutional liberalism to make of this? Do we have to choose between the Constitution and Social Security? Because, in all honesty, one is tempted to look at those two choices and say “The hell with the Constitution.”

But wait. Maybe there’s a sliver of hope here. And it comes in Federalist 44, when Madison attempts to defend Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution—to this day, perhaps, the section that arouses the most controversy in fights between activist government liberals and limited government conservatives.  The clause in question gives Congress the power

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

This was already a controversial clause in the 18th century. Antifederalists apparently saw in it the possibility that Congress would overstep its bounds. And by their lights, it probably has been used that way.

Madison answers the charge that the clause is too vague by saying, in essence, that getting more specific -- either by listing more limits to Congress’ power or by providing a specific list of powers Congress could claim to execute the laws of the land -- would inevitably become problematic in the not-too-distant future.

But he runs out of steam, and finally reminds his readers that, ultimately, questions of what to do if the government exceeds its Constitutional power ultimately reside with the people of the United States.

In the first instance, the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in the last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people who can, by the election of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers. The truth is, that this ultimate redress may be more confided in against unconstitutional acts of the federal than of the State legislatures, for this plain reason, that as every such act of the former will be an invasion of the rights of the latter, these will be ever ready to mark the innovation, to sound the alarm to the people, and to exert their local influence in effecting a change of federal representatives.

In other words, the final arbiter of the Constitution’s meaning isn’t the president or the Supreme Court or Congress -- it’s us.

Madison frames this in negative terms: We voters will set the limits for Congress, and if Congress exceeds those limits, we’ll punish Congress by electing new representatives. But it seems to me it’s possible to frame it in positive terms, as well: If We The People want government to provide Social Security and we’re not willing to punish representatives who give it to us -- in fact, we’ll punish those who threaten to take it away -- well, who is to say we’re wrong?

This is very seductive. And maybe not so different, practically, from the way we run things now. Our politics these last few years haven’t just been about how much we want government to spend or not spend, but about what’s Constitutional or not. That’s involved a lot of push-and-pull, and it’s been very frustrating at times, but one could make the case that citizens really do push back when they feel the government has overstepped its powers. Isn’t that what the Tea Party has been about? Sure, this ends up being messy and frustrating -- but it really does make the Constitution a living document, in the best sense: a constantly renewed guide that is the product of an ongoing conversation between the governed and the government, instead of 10 Commandments handed down from slave-owning demigods who lived hundreds of years ago. (Ones who, incidentally, didn’t always adhere to strict readings of the rules they were given.) I don’t always get the outcome I want, but I feel better if our government is a product of both wise  tradition and modern norms and democratic guidance from the citizenry.

There’s also a danger here, and it gives me pause. Because while I do want the government to provide a social safety need to the poorest and most vulnerable among us, I don’t want it (say) to make torturing people legal through a reading of the Constitution that allows a president to disregard laws and treaties that are the law of the land. I want there to be limits, and those limits are hard to maintain once you start treating the written Constitution as the beginning of the conversation instead of the end. Most Americans, it seems, were fine with a president whose reading of the Constitution let him break laws in wartime. I don’t agree with that. It gets harder to make the case against him if the Constitution is a somewhat fuzzy thing.

On the other other hand: It would appear that the rules for interpreting the Constitution are already fuzzy enough that our previous president got away with his interpretation. And if that’s the case, why the heck shouldn’t I get my safety net in the bargain?

In truth, with the exception of Ron Paul and other hardline libertarians, the rest of us spend so much of our time arguing about what the Constitution allows and what it doesn’t because we have implicilty agreed to let there be a certain fuzziness to the whole project. This isn’t very satisfying, and there’s a real possibility that we end up with the Constitution being whatever I say it is today. But it isn’t. It’s what we say it is today. And that’s the way it probably always has been.

There's a whisper in my ear, though. It's telling me I'm a hack, interpreting the Constitution the way I want against the evidence of my reading. But I'm only halfway through the Federalist Papers. I need to press on before making any final conclusions.

Ummm.... no

Austin, Texas arrived from google.com on "Cup O' Joel: Dennis Prager: Liberals hate conservatives" by searching for why do liberals hate conservatives more than conservatives hate liberals?.

via live.feedjit.com

Netflix Queue: "Election/Triad Election"

Three thoughts about Johnnie To's Hong Kong gangster duology, "Election" and "Triad Election," coming up after the trailer...

* If you have ever been a lover of American ganger movies of the last 40 years — the "Godfather" movies and/or the work of Martin Scorcese — you will find much to admire here. Certainly To, a director whose work goes back to the Shaw Brothers days, is a fan of those movies. You can spot homages throughout these two flicks: A fishing trip that ends in murder, Moe Greene-style broken glasses, a "Casino"-style burial in a field, as well as lots and lots of ritual. But these movies take place in a very Hong Kong-China context, and some of the themes that To wrestles with are an ocean away from what you're used to.

* These movies are also very different from each other. Both concern the war for leadership in a Hong Kong "triad," but each is show differently. In the first, the war becomes a race to see who can first get their hands on the Dragon Head baton -- signifying leadership of the triad -- turning "Election" into a kind of "Ronin"-style chase movie. The characters don't matter so much as the action, which is muted but intense. The winner of the war, Lok, only begins to reveal his the character beneath his calm at this end of the first flick. "Triad Election" reveals how power-hungry he has become -- but like "Godfather III" concerns itself primarily with the character of Jimmy Lee, who wants to go legit, but can't.

* The key to a gangster movie, of course, is violence. What's remarkable about these movies, though, is how ugly the violence is. We're not presented with the grand opera and beautiful assassinations of American gangster movies. Death is blunt, tactile and messy in these films. One scene in "Triad Election" -- one of the most memorable in all of cinema since the woodchipper scene in "Fargo" -- features Jimmy Lee literally doing his own butchery. (Literally.) If there is a moment of beauty mixed with violence here, it comes when a doomed gangster watches his son literally flee from him and the violence he has brought into their lives: I got a bit verklempt there. 

These movies deserve to be watched back-to-back. America hasn't been graced with a truly great gangster film, probably, since "Goodfellas." Taken together, "Election" and "Triad Election" are probably the first great mob movies of the new milennium.