Of *course* China's economy is slowing down

Chinese Data Said to Be Manipulated, Understating Slowdown - NYTimes.com:

"Record-setting mountains of excess coal have accumulated at the country’s biggest storage areas because power plants are burning less coal in the face of tumbling electricity demand. But local and provincial government officials have forced plant managers not to report to Beijing the full extent of the slowdown, power sector executives said. 

Electricity production and consumption have been considered a telltale sign of a wide variety of economic activity. "

One quick, obvious thought: Of course China's economy is slowing down. It's an export-based manufacturing economy--and consumers in the rest of the world are either A) holding onto their cash, B) don't have any cash, or C) are paying down old credit cards. We're not buying as much stuff as we used to. That means China can't sell as much as it used to. China may be stronger than a lot of Western nations, but n a globalized economy, nobody gets out alive.

Mitt Romney and the crisis of capitalism

The New York Times reports that even when Mitt Romney lost, he won: "The private equity firm, co-founded and run by Mitt Romney, held a majority stake in more than 40 United States-based companies from its inception in 1984 to early 1999, when Mr. Romney left Bain to lead the Salt Lake City Olympics. Of those companies, at least seven eventually filed for bankruptcy while Bain remained involved, or shortly afterward, according to a review by The New York Times. In some instances, hundreds of employees lost their jobs. In most of those cases, however, records and interviews suggest that Bain and its executives still found a way to make money."

The Times adds: "Bain structured deals so that it was difficult for the firm and its executives to ever really lose, even if practically everyone else involved with the company that Bain owned did, including its employees, creditors and even, at times, investors in Bain’s funds."

If there's a crisis of capitalism these days, it's because it's very much a rigged game: The people at the top can't lose, even when their investments go to hell. The people below them can't really win--again, witness the stagnating middle-class wages of the last 30 years--but they can lose. It's not the old days where the shuttering of a factory meant the devastation of the local family that had owned it for 50 years, and so everybody lost together. These days, the Mitt Romneys of the world dust themselves off, count their piles of cash, and move onto the next town. Of course that's going to breed resentment. And if Romney is saying his business acumen is the reason he should be president, then it's absolutely fair game for criticism. 

More to the point: The other day I mentioned Bill Voegeli and his idea that capitalism might be revived if more people--workers--had skin in the game, in terms of compensation tied to the success or failure of their companies. I like that idea, but workers clearly do have skin in the game: When jobs go away, so does their ability to earn a living. Capitalism might also be improved if private equity firms like Bain also had real skin in the game, if they suffered instead of making profits even as the businesses they buy go under in a sea of Bain-generated debt.

Obama and immigration

Ben and I debate the president's DREAM Act order in this week's column for Scripps. My take:

Obama did a righteous thing. 

Yes, America has a right to defend its borders. And yes, it has the right to deport people who came and lived in our country illegally. 

But it would be morally wrong to deport young people who came to the country as children -- and who, having lived here most of their lives, genuinely understand themselves to be Americans. The sins of the father, after all, should not be visited upon the son. 

In a sane political culture, Congress would have passed a law -- the DREAM Act -- codifying such principles. We do not live in a sane political culture: The last attempt to pass the act, in 2010, won a majority of votes in the Senate, but could not clear a filibuster. (The filibuster is evil, but that's a discussion for another time.) 

So it's disingenuous of people like Rubio to suggest that the president's act made it "harder to find a balanced and responsible long-term solution" about how to let such young people legally live and work here. There has been little indication the Senate was headed toward such a solution, which is one reason why Obama acted. 

Without Congress' stamp of approval, however, Obama's action is imperfect. The next president can reverse it. (Presumed GOP nominee Mitt Romney has not said if he would do so.) So it only amounts to a temporary reprieve from the threat of deportation faced by young immigrants. And it does nothing to create a path to citizenship for them. At best, the Obama administration has only made limbo a bit more comfortable for such young folks. 

Congress can still act. It can still permanently resolve the status of young immigrants. Until that happens, the Obama administration's decision not to deport is the best of a bunch of bad options. Better than that: It's righteous.

Ben counters that Obama's act is an "usurpation of congressional authority. Congress makes the rules on immigration and naturalization. Not the president. On that point, the Constitution is clear." Ben is right, and I'm also not sure I care.

Congress also has the power to declare war and to make "make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;" but the last 12 years or so—under both Obama and his predecessor—have seen the executive branch essentially claim those powers as its own, ignoring many of the rules that Congress had already put in place. And Congress didn't really see fit to do anything about it.

So if that's the kind of government we've got—and I'm not really happy about that—then let's use that usurped power for good now and again, why don't we? What the president did was, to my mind, unambiguously good. I'd feel worse about the means of getting there if I thought that we'd get restraint in other important areas.

On being a stay-at-home dad

I wrote about it for The Philly Post. A taste:

"At times, I wonder if I’m ruining him. 

Why? Because writing takes sustained thought. And sustained thought is hard to come by when your kid needs clothes, needs to go outside, needs to go inside, needs something to eat, needs something to drink—”I’m so very hungry and firsty” are words he utters a dozen times a day—needs boo-boos kissed, needs a book read, needs a hug, needs to interrupt me when I’m on the phone, needs, needs, needs, needs everything but to take a goddamned nap once in awhile. 

Sometimes I give him my iPad and send him off to watch Thomas The Tank Engine for a couple of hours—just so I can get some work done. Great parenting, right?"

Dear Stu Bykofsky: Please never write about Asian women ever again

It's been less than a year after Stu Bykofsky creeped out Philadelphia with his wink-wink did-he-or-didn't-he? column about his trip to Thailand and the easy availability of sex with prostitutes there. Today, he's writing—again—about Asian women and sex. To be fair, the topic is at least newsworthy: Philadelphia Housing Authority director Michael Kelly resigned last week and admitted an affair with Audrey Lim, a Singapore native who also got the job of PHA's human resources director under Kelly. Bizarrely, though, Kelly—who comprised one-half of the affair and who was, after all, the person who apparently abused his authority in this case—gets only a passing mention in Byko's column. Instead, Stu weaves a tale in which Lim spins a web with her dragon lady wiles:

Her name is Audrey Lim and she is from Singapore. She did the right things to prepare herself for success. She earned a master's degree in occupational therapy, a master's in government administration and then a doctorate in industrial/organizational psychology (whatever that means). Like you, she worked hard. Unlike you, perhaps, she met her future boss — PHA Executive Director Carl Greene — in a bar, according to PHA sources. Where better to discuss Community Development Block Grants? Before you could say, "Fill it again, Joe," she was hired as a "senior adviser" for $95,000. See that, kids? You don't need to pound on doors or fire off resumes on the Internet. If you are shapely and well-spoken, just sip a Singapore Sling in a bar and let the PHA job offers come to you. This isn't exclusive to the PHA. Younger and prettier and thinner Americans get paid more, it has been shown many times. Instead of a postgraduate degree, I'd suggest you grads invest in cosmetic surgery or a stomach bypass. This is not to denigrate Dr. Lim, who resigned last month, reportedly to return to Singapore to minister to a sick relative. Greene hired her — no information about how much senior advice she gave him — and when he was sent packing for sexual improprieties, reform PHA Executive Director Michael Kelly hiked her salary to $125,000 and put her in charge of PHA's human resources, which is what she became. Nine months later they were doing the housing hoochie koochie. I don't have to say allegedly because the married Kelly admitted the affair.

In Byko's telling, the story of the PHA isn't one in which a series of men took advantage of their power to get their jollies—but rather one in which those powerful men found themselves helpless before a "shapely" woman sipping "Singapore Slings" in a bar. Given what we've learned about Byko over the last year, it's hard not to read this column as speaking to some of his increasingly weird hangups—particularly when it comes to Asian women. But the whole thing comes off creepy and slut-shaming, while essentially giving the boys a pass. The man has editors, doesn't he? Maybe they should encourage him not to write about Asian women and sex anymore. They'd be doing us all a favor.

How about we make the workers into shareholders?

At The Claremont Review of Books, William Voegeli--friend and occasional nemesis--acknowledges popular discontent with capitalism, and intriguingly suggests that can be fixed by making capitalism something people do--as opposed to something that happens to people. Most intriguingly, he suggests giving workers a stake in their companies by tying wages--in part or in whole--to the success of the enterprise. He suggests that labor unions have been the biggest obstacle to such an arrangement:

"The greatest monument to the illusion that employees can and should prosper regardless of the economic condition of their employer is the rusting ruin that's the American labor movement. In Which Side Are You On? (1991), labor attorney Thomas Geoghegan lamented that the failure to take the biggest equity position it could in the industries where it represented workers "was the longest-running mistake in the history of labor, the unwitting, almost Gandhi-like renunciation of power." Geoghegan's explanation is that unionists were so strongly committed to the idea that workers and employers' relationship had to be adversarial that they never accepted the possibility of it being collaborative. "The attitude in labor was: collective bargaining is for adults, stockholder meetings are for kids.""

Perhaps. And maybe I'm too cynical. But I think it might be difficult to persuade management and ownership of companies to share equity with their workforces--especially in the 21st century, when those workforces can be outsourced or replaced by high-tech robotics that can do the jobs of several humans, often faster and better. If there is popular discontent with capitalism, it's partly because workers perceive that they're not seen by management as collaborators--and perhaps not even quite human, but as balance-sheet entries that can all too easily be eliminated to fatten a company's margins. Maybe these issues can be resolved, however.

In any case, I'm also intrigued that Voegeli's capitalist response to the crisis of capitalism doesn't sound hugely different from that of actual self-described socialist Harold Meyerson, who regularly extols German-style industrial capitalism--in which workers are well-represented on governing boards, and thus have some skin in the game of the enterprise--as a solution to what ails us. There are some distinctions between their approaches, to be sure, but the underlying concept is sound: To restore capitalism, and confidence in capitalism, workers must be given a clear-cut stake in its success. After 30 years of watching the middle class stagnate while top incomes soared, that change in approach would be welcome indeed.

What does social science prove about gay marriage?

David French says that liberals are so committed to gay marriage that they'd be in favor even if it demonstrably harmed children of gay marriage:

"There could exist definitive social science that homosexual families produce — on average — worse outcomes for their children than heterosexual families, and the fervor of the gay-marriage advocates would be undimmed. After all (and like no-fault divorce), the case for gay marriage has never been about the welfare of children, but instead, the fulfillment of adults.  "

At risk of saying, "I know you are but what am I?": Does anybody really think that the mass of social conservatives would drop their opposition to gay marriage even if definitive proof existed that children did better in gay families? I think the mass of opposition to gay marriage is rooted in religious beliefs—people believe it to be morally wrong—and field research probably isn't going to persuade them otherwise. The emphasis on "the welfare of children" is the fighting ground mainly because it offers a secular reason to oppose gay marriage—though advocates undoubtedly believe it to be true, because they believe gay marriage is morally wrong. But if the child welfare argument weren't available to them, they'd find another objection. We all have our predispositions, but contra French, liberals aren't any more committed to theirs than conservatives are.

Let's raise taxes to pay for our wars

Walter Pincus makes a sensible suggestion:

"Given today’s situation, why doesn’t President Obama link his request to restore Clinton-level taxes on the wealthy to the $88.5 billion requested for fiscal 2013 to pay for continuing the war in Afghanistan and counterterrorism efforts worldwide? That Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account, the supplemental appropriation created to fund Iraq, Afghanistan and other military actions abroad, is expected to continue as long as the United States has troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere overseas confronting terrorists. 

For planning purposes, the Congressional Budget Office sees the OCO account running $44 billion a year through 2022. 

What about Obama, Romney or even hawkish members of Congress introducing a special excise tax on telephone calls or even Internet usage or ending some tax loopholes to pay that $44 billion a year. Taxes have been used to pay for America’s past wars going back to the War of 1812 — except for Iraq and Afghanistan."

There's an old saying: "If you want less of something, tax it." Since we have an all-volunteer military, the vast majority of Americans don't feel the effects of their country being at constant war around the globe--a situation that's persisted long enough now that most of us simply don't pay close attention anymore. Explicitly linking Americans' tax bills to those wars might give them some skin in the game--and force officials to justify their actions instead of relying on inertia to continue military operations. Which is why no such tax will be passed, probably. But it's galling to see some folks try to cut Social Security and Medicare while feeling little obligation to pay now for the wars we conduct.

The French bookselling model: Nice idea, but bad for readers

French Bookstores Are Still Prospering - NYTimes.com: 

"Since 1981 the “Lang law,” named after its promoter, Jack Lang, the culture minister at the time, has fixed prices for French-language books. Booksellers — even Amazon — may not discount books more than 5 percent below the publisher’s list price, although Amazon fought for and won the right to provide free delivery. 

Last year as French publishers watched in horror as e-books ate away at the printed book market in the United States, they successfully lobbied the government to fix prices for e-books too. Now publishers themselves decide the price of e-books; any other discounting is forbidden. 

There are also government-financed institutions that offer grants and interest-free loans to would-be bookstore owners."

Notice who wins in this scenario: Publishers and booksellers. Readers? Not so much. It's readers who benefit from price competition, after all.

Consider this: The list price of "Do Not Ask What Good We Do," Robert Draper's new book about the House of Representatives, is $28. If America had a French-style book law, nobody in the country could sell the new book for much less than that. Here, though, you can buy it from Amazon for $18.10--$13.50, if you buy new from one of the third-party sellers who operate on Amazon's site. I bought the book for $15, its Kindle price; in France, I'd perhaps have still paid $28, a printing press price for a cloud-based book.

What France's model does is price lower-class readers out of the market for new books; they have to wait until such books show up used. And that's not culturally crippling, I guess. But if you're somebody like me, with finite resources but a great desire to read current books, the French model would be a real hardship.

The alternative argument, I suppose, is that readers benefit when booksellers and publishers remain financially healthy to keep producing and selling books, and that's true enough. But that benefit is indirect--and keeps prices high enough that it's easy to speculate that France, for all its love of books, is actually selling fewer than it could or should because it keeps prices propped artificially high.

Today in Philadelphia Police corruption: Yes, *that* dumb

Philly cop charged with selling heroin: 

"THE IDEA to start selling heroin apparently wasn't dumb enough in the mind of young Philly cop Jonathan Garcia. 

The 23-year-old had to go and do it on duty. 

In uniform. 

Across the street from the district headquarters where he was assigned in Point Breeze."

In fairness: There is no John McNesby quote defending the guy.

Death of football watch: Why 'Friday Night Lights' isn't quite as much fun

A New York Times feature on how even professional football players are saying they won't let their kids play, for fear of long-term health problems:

"Jay Coakley, a sports sociologist at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, said: “Football is really on the verge of a turning point here. We may see it in 15 years in pretty much the same place as boxing or ultimate fighting.” 

In other words, less a lucrative American colossus and more a niche sport beloved for its brutality."

On a related note, I (finally!) watched the pilot episode of "Friday Night Lights" last night, after years of hearing worshipful hubub from my friends. I was particularly struck by an early scene in which Taylor Kitsch's character--having shown up to practice half-drunk--is put at the center of a circle of teammates and tackled by each of them, taking turns, while the coach yells at him for his transgression.

The coach in the series is supposed to be a good guy. And the scene is meant to be a tough scene. But something has changed in the six years or so since it first aired: The scene felt cruel. Like I was watching "Hostel" or "Saw" or some other movie in the torture porn genre.

Granted, this is the same episode that (spoilers!) sees the star quarterback paralyzed with an in-game neck injury: "Friday Night Lights" doesn't shy away from the idea that the game is inherently violent. What's striking, though, is that after the kid is carted off the field, the game resumes, and we're treated to an underdog-comes-back story designed to give us goosebumps. And through the first two episodes, at least, nobody questions whether the game is worth the sacrifice of a young man's life and health. It's a tragedy, yes, but...tragedies happen?

Hey, it's just a TV show. And I intend to keep watching, for now: I'm told it's a good show that isn't about football, but which is set in a football milieu. OK. But the culture has shifted ever-so-minutely since these episodes first aired. Given what we know now about brain injuries and the number of football players who have committed suicide, it's initially hard to see "Friday Night Lights" as anything but the gasp of a dying era, and a dying sport.

Nash Keune's misleading numbers on the food stamp program

At NRO, Nash Keune asks why the food stamp program is still growing if unemployment is coming down:

"In 2000, only 17.3 million people were on food stamps. That number has ballooned to 46.6 million. Of course, it makes sense that participation in a countercyclical program would increase during a recession. But the number of people using food stamps has grown much more than the participation in other similar programs. For example, Medicaid spending increased 27 percent during the recession, while food-stamp spending has jumped 110 percent. 

Conversely, as the unemployment rate has come down in the last couple of years, the participation rates have actually jumped. From FY 2009 to FY 2011 the number of people receiving food stamps increased by 11.2 million even while the unemployment rate declined modestly. Even according to the rosy economic predictions of the Congressional Budget Office, the number of people on food stamps is projected to drop back only to 33.7 million by 2022, a time in which the unemployment rate is expected to fall to 5.3 percent. This projection of 33.7 million recipients is still slightly higher than the number of people on food stamps in the heart of the recession in 2009, and it’s almost twice the number of recipients in 2000."

It's true that the unemployment rate has declined somewhat, though it's still more than double the 4 percent unemployment rate that existed in 2000.  And even that number is misleadingly optimistic, since the workforce participation rate is incredibly low right now—lots of unemployed Americans have simply given up trying to find a job, since they aren't finding a job.

What's more, even as the unemployment rate has declined slightly, America's poverty rate has continued to climb: 2009's 14.3 percent poverty rate was the highest since 1965. Then it went up to 15.1 percent in 2010. That was about 46.2 million people living in poverty—a number that corresponds pretty closely to Keune's 46.6 million on food stamps, no? 


Yes, but Medicaid spending has increased at only a quarter the rate of food stamp spending! Well, sure. And the explanation for that is easy: Except when emergencies strike, people can and will put off medical spending when they're poor. But you gotta eat.

The unemployment rate on its own is an insufficient indicator of whether people need the food stamp program; just because you have a job doesn't mean it pays well. The poverty rate is probably a better indication of our national need.

In any case, it's telling that Keune cites a "declining unemployment rate" while never specifying the size of that decline. Maybe it's because the jobs situation is still much worse than it was in 2000; it's clear the need for food assistance remains high as well.

Would Obama attack Iran to beat Romney?

I'm not sure what to make of this assertion from Victor Davis Hanson at NRO:

"Suddenly around October the world will become absolutely unsafe. In these dangerous times, Americans must forget their differences, come together, and embrace a bipartisan unity — given that it may be necessary, after all, to hit the Iranian nuclear facilities, since we’ll have learned that the bomb may be a reality by, say, mid-November. Just as we have been reminded that Barack Obama has saved us by his brave decisions to use double agents in Yemen, computer viruses in Iran, Seal Team Six in Pakistan, and philosophically guided Predator assassination hits, so too a strike against Iran may suddenly be of vital national-security interest, though keenly lamented by a Nobel laureate nose-deep in Thomas Aquinas. "

Emphasis added. There is a double-standard at work over the last 30 years or so: When Republican presidents go to war, they're righteously defending the country. When Democratic presidents go to war—and I'm also thinking here of impeachment-era Bill Clinton—it's wag-the-dog pandering designed to distract the country from the president's weaknesses.

It makes you wonder if the Republicans are, well, projecting a bit. Even if not, it's interesting: When Democrats are "tough" by Republican standards, it's additional proof of how weak they really are.

Me? I think we can probably ultimately live with a nuclear Iran, though I'd rather not have to. And I think President Obama—for all his many faults on the topics of war and civil liberties—understands that attacking Iran, no matter the timing, would be hugely destabilizing around the world. He seems to understand (in a way his predecessor didn't) that wars aren't just opportunities to look awesome—they can also create awful unintended consequences. I'm cynical, but I have a hard time envisioning him unleashing death and widespread misery merely for the sake of getting 270 electoral votes.

As for Victor Davis Hanson: He's basically asserting the president is willing to kill to win an election. If November comes without military action, I wonder if he'll apologize for his fact-free speculation of evil on the president's part. I doubt it.

One way to fight the recession: Communal living

Census Bureau: "In spring 2007, there were 19.7 million shared households — defined as a household with at least one “additional” adult. An additional adult is a person 18 or older who is not enrolled in school and is neither the householder, the spouse nor the cohabiting partner of the householder. By spring 2010, the number of shared households had increased to 22.0 million while all households increased by only 1.3 percent."

Mitt Romney learned the wrong lesson from Sarah Palin

Something I think many rank-and-file conservatives have misunderstood about the left's emphasis on diversity is that it's not just about getting women and minorities at the table for the sake of getting women and minorities at the table—it's often an attempt to tap and develop the talents of people who have traditionally been blocked from fully practicing those talents. Republicans tend to cast diversity efforts almost exclusively in terms of pandering—which may be why, when they get around to trying to promote diversity in their own ranks, they often do it in the worst, most pandering way possible.

Which brings us to Sarah Palin.

Shortly after she was picked for the GOP vice presidential nomination four years ago, I wrote—in a blog post that appears to be lost to the ages—that if it failed, Republicans would learn learn the wrong lesson from that failure—and see the problem more in Palin's gender than in her obvious deficiencies as a national-level candidate. Via Jonathan Chait, we see that's precisely what happened: 

"I think, unfortunately, Palin poisoned the well on that," said one informal Romney adviser, fretting that any woman selected as VP would draw inevitable comparisons to the former Alaska governor. "I would guess if I were inside the Romney mind that they're worried that any woman chosen will be subjected to a higher level of scrutiny. "

It's true that some of the attacks on Palin were sexist. However: Palin was subjected to a fair amount of scrutiny for a couple of reasons: A) She was largely unknown at the national level when John McCain selected her as his running mate. B) She avoided interactions with the press, making it appear she had something to hide. C) When she did sit down for in-depth interviews, it sure looked as though she wasn't adequately prepared for federal governance. She invited scrutiny precisely because she had never before been scrutinized.

If McCain had selected Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson—which wouldn't have happened for other political reasons—the dynamic would've been different. Yes, there would've been scrutiny on her as the first national female GOP candidate, but she was also a known quantity who would've been prepared to discuss federal issues.

But the lesson Republicans have learned from Palin's candidacy isn't: "Unprepared candidates are bad candidates," or "Polarizing candidates are polarizing" but "women are bad candidates." That's kind of sexist, but mostly it's dumb—and, if true, will deprive the party of some of its best and most energetic talent. Which is even dumber.

'Religious freedom' is just another word for 'nothing left to lose'

I think we're entering the phase where invocations of "religious freedom" are increasingly losing their meaning. The latest example is in Harrisburg, where the Catholic Church is backing a bill to eliminate Department of Public Welfare oversight of church-based day cares and give it to the state's Department of Education—which, incidentally, has no power or infrastructure to actually regulate those day cares:

"The committee chairman, Sen. Jeffrey Piccola (R., Dauphin), said the bill was needed because of "continuing encroachment that impacts the religious mission of schools and day-care facilities." 

When pressed by other lawmakers, neither Piccola nor a lobbyist for the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, which supports the measure, could cite an instance where there had been an attempt by state officials to interfere with any religious curriculum."

We have enough battles over the appropriate spheres of public and private responsibility that I'd hate to see the term "religious freedom" turn into some Orwellian phrase that disguises more than it illuminates. Seems to me that if you're going to allege that the state is trampling such freedom, you ought to have at least an anecdote available to make the case. As it stands, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference looks plenty cynical.

Alexander Aan: 'God does not exist'

Press release in my inbox just now:

Atheist Alliance International (AAI) has launched the 'God Does Not Exist' campaign to draw attention to the case of Alexander Aan, the Indonesian atheist attacked and arrested in January 2012 after posting 'God does not exist' and articles and cartoons about Islam on Facebook. Aan was convicted by an Indonesian court on 14 June 2012, sentenced to two years and six months jail and fined Rp100 million (c.US$10,600). 

AAI urges people to exercise their freedom of expression by tweeting messages of support for Aan with the hashtag #goddoesnotexist and posting 'God Does Not Exist' on their Facebook page.

Here's more on the case from the New York Daily News.

I mention this, because in similar cases in which people have been persecuted or prosecuted for making drawings of Mohammed, lots of folks on the "clash of the civilizations right" have been eager to show solidarity—and, not incidentally, insult Islam—by also drawing Mohammed. I understand the urge to blasphemy, but decided awhile back that it was mostly wrongheaded. The glee suggested to me that the intent of many Mohammed depicters was to blaspheme somebody else's faith more than to defend free speech. Their right, of course, but one that struck me ... distasteful.

I somehow doubt most folks who draw Mohammed will be moved to show solidarity with Aan this time by posting a statement—'God Does Not Exist'—that is general enough to implicate religions beyond Islam, to offend religious believers of a wider variety.

Alexander Aan shouldn't be in jail, period, for his expressions of unfaith. Are we willing to be just as vigorous—and offensive—in defending him as we are in other situations? I'm skeptical, but willing to be proved wrong.

Why Pennsylvania's liquor business should be privatized

Top LCB officials said to take gifts, favors from vendors:

"The report names LCB chief executive officer Joe Conti, board member Patrick J. "P.J." Stapleton III, and marketing director James Short as having accepted gifts and favors, including wine and tickets to sporting events and golf tournaments. 

It says one LCB vendor secured a round of golf with a pro for Stapleton during a tournament at Aronimink - and sent two employees to serve as Stapleton's caddies."

It seems to me that this is the kind of back-scratching behavior that goes on all the time among private business executives—maybe slightly unseemly, if that, but never rising to the level of outright bribery. What makes this report newsworthy is that it's not private business executives taking the gifts: It's state officials. And that's something different.

Saving liquor execs from charges of graft isn't really a reason to privatize Pennsylvania's system of state liquor stores—it's not even in the Top 10 reasons, really. But having the state dabble in what really should be a private business is going to create problems like this from time to time. Especially in a state like ours, where corruption isn't exactly uncommon.

Stay-at-home dads on the upswing

I'm a trend-setter: "Nationwide, the number of stay-at-home dads has more than doubled in the past decade, as more families are redefining what it means to be a breadwinner. There were only about 81,000 Mr. Moms in 2001, or about 1.6 percent of all stay-at-home parents. By last year, the number had climbed to 176,000, or 3.4 percent of stay-at-home parents, according to U.S. Census data."

Of course, that's still a very small trend.

Mayor Nutter hates home cooking

Me today at The Philly Post, writing a letter urging President Obama to hire Mayor Nutter away from us:

"You can probably sympathize with the mayor because he, like you, has found his time in office derailed by a cratering economy and the desperate, flailing need just to keep the ship afloat. Neither of you get the credit you probably deserve for the fact that our city and nation simply haven’t burned down in the last four years.

Still, Mr. President, you at least got a version of health care reform enacted. You ended Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. You ended the war in Iraq. These have been mostly good things, substantive stuff that improves lives.

Mayor Nutter’s had a harder time coming up with a signature achievement. The AVI failure is most recent, but it’s not been so long since he failed in his attempt to impose a tax on sugary drinks. Has any Philadelphia mayor so routinely failed to get City Council backing for his initiatives?"

Head over to PhillyMag to read the whole thing.

Billy Eger writes in

I hadn't heard from my most-loyal correspondent in quite some time. Never fear, he's still tracking me:

Hey joel,thats the first time in 3yrs you kinda told the truth.whats wrong giving up on your marxist ideas?that hope an change not working out like you thought?ps. Its been 3yrs he had to work on it NOT 27 months.your a joke

As is often the case: I have no idea what he's talking about. But it pleases me to receive Billy's emails. It really does.

Turns out Republicans don't want campaign-finance transparency, after all

Back when Citizens United was decided, I suggested that we'd soon see a movement toward keeping campaign donors secret: "The effects of corporate money flooding campaigns can be somewhat counteracted by know who is spending the money and where it’s going to. Soon, though, we might not even have that. And what we’ll have is millions upon millions of dollars being spent to sway voters without those voters having any understanding of how the system is really working. That’ll be good for corporations and the candidates they support. But it won’t be so good for the rest of us — or for our democracy." And I said it because that was the clear aim of the big-money advocates.

I mention this because, in a rare bit of vindication for my political prediction abilities, that's precisely what has come to pass. Fred Hiatt gives the overview today:

Republicans always dangled this apple in the most alluring way. Political money will find a path, they would insist. Give up! Give in! We will post every donation on the Web, instantly! We will give you transparency! Sunshine! Accountability!

What could be more democratic?

I never strayed, though, and now I thank the gods of McCain-Feingold that I did not, because the temptation turns out to have been nothing but a trick. The Republicans, apparently, never meant it. Now that they have Unlimited Donations, or something pretty close, they don’t want Unlimited Disclosure after all.

They want unlimited contributions, in secret.

Read the whole thing, as they say. It was all rather drearily predictable.

John McNesby hates accountability for Philadelphia Police, continued

In Philadelphia, a homicide detective falsifies his time sheets and gets fired—and his supervisors are reprimanded. FOP President John McNesby is on the scene:

"The murder rates in Philadelphia are through the roof, and guys like Kenny Rossiter clear the murder rates," McNesby said. "If I had a relative who had been murdered, I would want somebody like Kenny Rossiter on the case, whether he's home, whether he's at the office, or whether he's in North Wildwood."

We all love movies featuring hard-bitten detectives who have deep, compromising flaws. In real life, Kenny Rossiter effectively (and, perhaps I should say, allegedly) robbed Philadelphia taxpayers of money. And that's a problem: We can't find any homicide detectives who don't cheat their employers?

I sometimes wonder if I give McNesby too hard a time: He very often shows up in the paper when some bit of police malfeasance in the news, and it's his job to provide a defense to members of the union. And yet: The cumulative effect of his defenses is to suggest that the police alone are allowed to be lawless in this city. McNesby is breeding cynicism. Maybe he cares. Maybe he doesn't.

The ACLU: Not just a bunch of liberal hacks

Via Radley Balko, we see that the ACLU is defending (PDF) a student who wore an anti-gay-marriage shirt to school

Read the whole thing. And as always, I ask: Would the righty American Center for Law and Justice take similar action on behalf of a gay student? No. No it wouldn't.

Marco Rubio's bad reason to oppose President Obama's immigration policy

NYTimes.com: "Congressional Republicans were more pointed in their criticism, but they too were careful not to oppose some kind of solution to the problem of young people who are in the country illegally but who are productive, otherwise law-abiding residents. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, denounced it as “possibly illegal” for essentially bypassing lawmakers. Mr. Rubio said the announcement would be “welcome news for many of these kids desperate for an answer,” but that by going around Congress, the president had made it “harder to find a balanced and responsible long-term” solution." (Emphasis added.)

Poppycock. The reason the president took action is that a "balanced and responsible long-term solution" has been impossible to come by in Congress. President George W. Bush tried and failed to achieve sane immigration reform when his party had control of Congress—but his party also has too many nativists who take a hard line against any path to citizenship for immigrants who are already here. President Obama, in the waning weeks of the Democratic majority in Congress in 2010, failed to secure passage of the DREAM Act that would give young immigrants a path to citizenship.

There's no reason—none—to believe that Congress is going to ever take a balanced and responsible action to resolve the situation. President Obama is walking up to the edge of his power in saying he affirmatively won't deport young illegal immigrants, but the idea that he's keeping Congress from doing the right thing is demonstrably ridiculous.

John Yoo doesn't like President Obama's immigration decision

Torture advocate John Yoo—who believes that the president has the legal power to order the testicle-crushing of a suspected terrorist's child and maybe even to suspend the First Amendment—believes that President Obama exceeded his power by saying he won't deport the children of illegal immigrants: "So what we have here is a president who is refusing to carry out federal law simply because he disagrees with Congress’s policy choices. That is an exercise of executive power that even the most stalwart defenders of an energetic executive — not to mention the Framers — cannot support."

This is actually completely consistent of Yoo, for one reason: President Obama didn't use "war" as the justification for the policy. But Yoo's history indicates there are virtually no limits on a president's powers if war-making is the justification. So Yoo would be conceivably be helpless—unless, of course, he's merely an opportunistic hack—if President Obama could justify his immigration decision in national security terms.

Let me offer one.

There is a national security concern that deporting young people—who, though they may not be actual citizens, have only known America as their home—to unfamiliar lands may radicalize them against the American government, a radicalization that, combined with their knowledge of the country and its customs, make them particularly useful allies to any terrorist organizations that wish to strike against us. 

Now, I don't think there's much of a chance that would happen. But what's the old Dick Cheney standard? The One Percent Doctrine? This seems to fit that doctrine. And under Yoo's view of executive power, it's all the justification needed for President Obama's action. "War"—real or not—means never having to say you're sorry.

Why can't Obama work with Congress?

A conservative friend recently told me that President Obama needs to be replaced with someone "who can work with Congress." But it's not entirely Obama's fault that Congress has been so unworkable. Michael Tomasky explains: 

"On the night of Obama's inauguration, Draper writes, about 15 GOP legislators from both houses--along with Newt Gingrich, journalist Fred Barnes, and pollster Frank Luntz, who arranged the evening--got together at a Washington restaurant. 

They were not necessarily the party's official leaders, but they were the emotional leaders of the new breed--Jim DeMint, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy--which is to say, the cohort to whom many others were looking for leadership; indeed, if you know anything about Mitch McConnell, to whom the leadership was looking for leadership. They talked for four hours about what their posture should be. 

They agreed that night: oppose everything in completely unity. Show, Draper writes, "united and unyielding opposition to the president's economic policies." 

So, before President Obama had proposed a single idea, the Republicans had already decided that they would oppose everything he did. Didn't matter what it was. "

Emphasis added. And hey, there's nothing requiring Republicans to work with an opposite-party president. But Republicans have essentially broken the president's legs, then complained very loudly about how he doesn't run fast enough. It's not an honest criticism.

Is the private sector doing fine?

Maybe a little late, Ben and I discuss President Obama's comments in our Scripps Howard column. My take:

Obama was wrong: The private sector isn't doing fine. It's doing astoundingly great -- better than ever, in fact.

No, really.

How do we know this? Because corporate profits now comprise more than 10 percent of America's gross domestic product. As Reuters' Felix Salmon noted, that number has never been that big, ever. For comparison's sake, corporate profits topped out at just under 5 percent of the GDP at the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency.

Instead of investing those profits and creating new jobs, which has been the usual pattern after previous recessions, corporations are sitting on the cash and hoarding the money. That's their right, but nobody should think that the private sector is doing poorly, and it belies the notion that Obama is running an anti-business administration.

It's the rest of us who aren't doing so well.

Corporate cash hoarding is one reason why. The other reason? Because government is slimming down.

No, really.

You wouldn't know that from Republican rhetoric that suggests the president has grown government bureaucracy to create a socialist kingdom. But the Washington Post's Ezra Klein ran the numbers, and the public sector -- including federal, state, and local governments -- has lost 600,000 jobs under Obama. Replace those lost teachers and social workers, and the federal unemployment rate declines to 7.8 percent -- still too high, but also a dramatic improvement.

For comparison's sake, President George W. Bush had grown public-sector employment by 3.7 percent at this point in his tenure, a number that, if duplicated today, would further reduce the unemployment rate to 7.3 percent. If Obama really was a big-government socialist, we might all be better off.

So Obama has produced huge profits and smaller government.

The private sector is doing fine, and it's clearly not enough. But ask yourself: What would Mitt Romney do differently?

Something I didn't address in the 300 words is what, if anything, federal policy can do to get big businesses to start investing in the economy again. But I'm not sure I have a good answer to that, in all  honesty.

John McNesby really, really hates accountability for Philadelphia police

Philadelphia Police are going to experiment with a new system that attaches cameras to cops and lets them record incidents from their point of view. John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, is naturally outraged: ""We're 500 cops below where we should be, so I'd be totally against it until they hired those officers, repaired every police station and put decent cars on the street," McNesby said. "When they finished that, I'd be more than willing to discuss putting cameras on officers.""

In other words: Never. You can have your accountability never.

Now: We all want police to have the best possible working conditions. But "best possible working conditions" shouldn't be necessary to ask police for some accountability. In any case, it's pretty obvious that  even if City Hall met McNesby's named conditions, he'd just move the goalposts a bit. The goal here to let police act as they will without interference from the public they supposedly serve.

On the bright side, though, McNesby's response reminded me of this:

About Gays and Mennonites

Back in 2001, I attended a national gathering of Mennonites in Nashville that brought two strands of the church together into the new Mennonite Church USA. It was a weird week—one that both made me thrilled to be a Mennonite, but also helped set my path out of the church.

The official gathering was on the grounds of the Opryland Hotel. But across the street from that, there was a second gathering—of gay and lesbian Mennonites. While individuals were allowed into the main gathering of Mennonites, the group itself wasn't allowed to put up a booth or display in the convention hall. So they met separately, sharing stories and worshiping together.

I made the trip across the street, and doing so permanently transformed my feelings about the church and its treatment of gays. It was meeting two gay middle-aged Mennonite men—one of whom had nursed the other through a heart attack—that I found compelling. They shared a real love, one that allowed them to serve each other in a real and genuine way.

And in that moment I thought: "Surely God can't condemn this. And if God does condemn this ... maybe I don't care. Maybe that's not a God worth worshipping."

A year later, I was out of the church.

I mention all of this because my friend Joanna, who is now the pastor of Peace Mennonite Church where I last attended, is under fire within the broader church denomination for officiating at a gay wedding. And today, she shares some thoughts about why she wants to be able to do that and (unlike me) remain a Mennonite.

Here’s the thing, though–I am not United Church of Christ or Presbyterian or Episcopalian. I am Mennonite. Anabaptist to the core. I will not baptize babies. I will not put a flag in a place of worship. I value simplicity and discipleship and community. And if I get to sing a few hymns in four-part harmony every week, that’s a bonus! I want my life to mirror the life of Christ, and I cannot find any other group of Christians that encourages me in this pursuit as well as the Mennonites. 

And here’s the thing–there are so many GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered) people who also want to follow Jesus in this way. They want–they need–a Mennonite community as much as I do. It breaks my heart to know of sexual minorities who cannot find a faith home because the churches that most resonate with their souls will not welcome them in the fullness of who they are. 

And here’s the thing–the Mennonite church needs the graces and gifts of GLBT folks as well. It breaks my heart to think of the wonderful leadership, music, art, ministry that the church is missing out on because we do not fully include GLBT people. (I wish you all could know Randy Spaulding and Sarah Klaassen.) At a recent preaching conference I met a young woman pastor from United Church of Canada. When I told her I was Mennonite she said, “Oh, I have a lot of lesbian friends who used to be Mennonite.” 

And here’s the thing–from my perspective, according to my reading of the Gospel, anything less than full inclusion for gays and lesbians in our churches is an injustice. More than that, our failure to embrace and support sexual minorities is a rejection of Jesus’ way of love. It is to side with the religious powers that be–some of whom make good money off of their tirades against gay people–over and against the radical message of Jesus.

Read the whole thing.

As for me, my faith is still a broken thing. I do know that I won't worship a God who supposedly hates love—real and wonderful love. But I've also tried very hard to make sure I leave the door open to a return to the faith. And Joanna—her bravery and strength under fire—is one very big reason why.

Using yourself as collateral for a college loan

There are a few problematic things about Luigi Zingales's proposal to privately finance the college education of bright young students—starting with the fact that if you have to pre-emptively explain to readers that "this is not indentured servitude," it's probably indentured servitude.

But what really bothers me about the proposal is the assumption underlying this entire statement from Zingales: "This is not a modern form of indentured servitude, but a voluntary form of taxation, one that would make only the beneficiaries of a college education — not all taxpayers — pay for the costs of it."

This presumes that only the recipient of a college education is the beneficiary, and that's not even close to true. One reason the feds underwrite student loans—and why states still pay for public universities, even if that commitment is diminshing—is that the country benefits hugely from having a better-educated workforce. Those trained minds help create innovation and streamline processes, which—in theory anyway—has numerous positive ripple effects throughout the economy. The beneficiaries of a college education, then, include the taxpayers.

Deep Thought

Hmmm. Looking at my posts today, I wonder if people will think I'm turning conservative. I'm not. I just believe in a liberalism that meets the world as it exists--and that world has lots of people who aren't liberals. It's tough to get much done without securing their assent—or, at least, the assent of enough of them.

Are gay rights and religious freedom in conflict?

I don't think they have to be, but it appears they are in New Mexico:

"In 2008, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission found Elane Photography, an Albuquerque photography studio co-owned by Elaine Huguenin and her husband, Jonathan, guilty of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation for refusing to photograph Vanessa Willock’s same-sex “commit ment ceremony.” The court ordered the business to pay $6,600 in attorney’s fees.

If it was little surprise that the commission found in favor of Willock, it was a shock when, last month, the New Mexico Court of Appeals upheld the ruling. The three-judge panel rejected Elane Photography’s claim that forcing the business to photograph the same-sex ceremony against its conscientious objections constituted “compelled speech” in violation of the owners’ federal and state rights. It also rejected the Huguenins’ claims to protection under the First Amendment’s “free exercise” clause and the New Mexico Religious Freedom Restoration Act."

I believe in gay marriage. And I also believe in a First Amendment that lets conservative Christians complain about gay marriage—which is why I suspect that this ruling will be struck down, although somebody more familiar with the law on "public accommodations" might be able to educate me further on that. Is there a good reason to require Elane Photography to take these photos?

One reason that some Christians vociferously oppose gay civil marriage is because they don't think they'll be left alone—they suspect that they'll be forced in some fashion to endorse those marriages against their conscience. Mostly, I think that's wrong: No law is going to require a Catholic priest perform gay commitment ceremonies, now or ever. But stuff like this is going to make it harder for gays and their allies to win and secure that right to civil marriage. If rights are treated as a zero-sum affair, then somebody has to lose something. And in that case, it seems unlikely the losers will be heterosexual conservative Christians.

Atrios is wrong about California's HSR and liberal spending priorities

I think Atrios is right to keep pounding away at the idea that our elites love to bail out banks and leave austerity to the poor masses. But I think he's wrong that liberals should love California's High-Speed Rail project, even though there are massive cost overruns and questions about its utility: "My point is, on the rare occasion that the government is considering giving us some nice things, we should probably just stand up and applaud, even if we can imagine even nicer things that the government should give us but won't. The choice isn't between HSR in California and What Atrios Wants To Spend Money On, the choice is between HSR and, you know, more high tech killing machines, money for war contractors, and tax cuts for rich people."

Not really. There will always be money for high-tech killing machines, war contractors, and tax cuts for the rich. So liberals really need to prioritize what they want to do with a not-limitless pot of resources—particularly if we want to have credibility with that taxpayers providing those resources. "Spending lots of money is awesome!" isn't going to win many political campaigns. Unfair? Maybe, but also reality.

'Mad Men' and the infantilization of America, continued

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner kinda-sorta confirms my theorizing about how Depression-era generation helped create the never-grow-up culture that followed it: "One of my things is that human behavior doesn't change, but certainly the manners change, and what you're watching is the manners changing.

And I use it in every aspect of the storytelling. And it's a very fine gradation, and it's hard to do, but I think the audience felt that there was this kind of precipice, and Don feels it, too. It's not just about people saying exactly what they want. When Megan's going to follow her dreams, because that's what she wants to do, and Roger says, "My father told me what to do," and Don says, "I grew up in the '30s; my dream was indoor plumbing." We take it for granted that you can choose what you want to do. That's all part of a new generation, and very soon there's going to be a generation doing whatever it wants, and they're completely supported by the generation before them. In the Rolling Stones episode, when Don's backstage with that girl, she says, "You don't want us to have fun because none of you did." It's actually the opposite: a lot of parents really indulged their kids because of that very thing, because they grew up in the Depression."

Emphasis added. I meant to mention Don's line about "indoor plumbing" in my previous post—it's a thought that stuck with me through the rest of the season.

Death of Football Watch: Pop Warner makes changes

The kiddie football league limits full-speed collisions—but only in practice. In games, it'll still be legal to watch your child get his block knocked off: "Dr. Matt Grady, a pediatric sports medicine specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said the new rules, while a good start, did not go far enough, and that the emphasis in football for players who have not yet reached high school should be on developing skill and technique, not learning how to tackle. “Playing tackle football at 10 years old doesn’t translate to being a pro athlete,” he said. “I think the ability to catch and run and throw translates to being a pro athlete. Players should develop these skills, and then we can add in the collisions later.”"

As I think I've said before, it's going to be increasingly untenable for most parents to let their kids play tackle football as it becomes more and more clear that the game takes a huge toll on their bodies. That'll dry up the supply of players over time. Football is going into decline.

Archbishop Chaput pleads for a state bailout

The leader of Philadelphia Catholics urges Harrisburg to pass vouchers, or he'll have to close schools: "What I noted in February is even more pressing today: Without new scholarship tax credits and school vouchers to relieve costs, more archdiocesan schools will close soon, and more of the financial burden of educating young people will fall on the public."

But even under Chaput's solution, more of the financial burden of educating young people will fall on the public. Students whose education isn't currently publicly subsidized would be for the first time, a likely hit to taxpayer wallets over time.

Conservatives who balk at auto industry bailouts will be amenable to Chaput's proposal. But it's worth considering the idea that Catholic schools are failing of their own accord: Philadelphia church pews aren't as full as they used to be, certainly, so it makes sense that the population of students for church schools would also be in decline. Chaput is blaming the closure of schools on financial challenges, but it might also be true that market forces are working as they do—and that Philadelphia families are voting with their feet.

Hey, I think he's talking about me!

At least he managed to get the link right.

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.)

Do Philadelphia cops hate Philadelphia?

That's what I said last week in a column at The Philly Post—a column that, coincidentally, published the same day I started a weeklong out-of-state vacation. In the meantime, the column was picked up at Reason.com's blog—they shared my interest in FOP president John McNesby's letter to the Police Advisory Commission, and I received a few letters. I'll excerpt three of them: One correspondent took issue with my contention that police officers are wrong to want to live outside the city they serve:

Most of my career was spent in shift rotations of six days of 4X12, followed by six days of 8X4 and then a big one day off and the next evening you had to report for six days of 12amX8am. Included in this mess was last minute court notices and the average sleep was about two hours a day on that midnight to eight shift. Most officers were in a constant state of sleep deprivation, sometimes reporting for court at 10am and spending all day there until 5PM and were expected back for work in the evening at around 11PM. Sleep? Apparently the city did not account for it. Much work was spent by our union to adjust this situation and eventually a compromise schedule was implemented. During my entire career, I was a captive of the city. The reason the city wanted to keep you localized was to contact you when they wanted.(To the point of sending a patrol car to your door with a note to come in to work) Even when you are on vacation, if there is a perceived “emergency” they call you back from where you are. Only overseas vacations were exempt. I lived in a typical NE row, kept a low profile, acted in several off duty arrests, etc. I had two desires. One was to return to school to acquire the B.A. that I should have had but never had a chance to complete. (I had an old Associate Degree, so two years were left). The other was the idea of moving out of the city to a suburban area just like the Philadelphia TEACHERS were allotted in their contract since the time of Wilson Goode (who rewarded the teacher’s union liberally, and was employed by them as a “consultant” after his terms as Mayor). The Degree could not be worked out despite several attempts, until I was retired. The other was never realized either, until I retired. I should have had the same rights back then as the teacher’s union, why was there discrimination in this capacity? The reason they now have the ability to leave is because a majority of the higher ranking personnel live on the extreme edge of the city. In order to prevent experienced officers from a mass exodus, they needed to have this right to live outside the city or they would lose most of their experienced personnel. That is the real reason why it was granted in the contract.

Another responded to my suggestion that Philadelphia police have "palpable" contempt for the residents they serve:

really? can you blame them? head into any area other than center city (where i happily and safely reside) and see what the hell the cops have to deal with every single day.... not many cats stuck up in trees or crossing little old ladies... just nonstop violence, no witnesses, zero cooperation, NO stop to the cycle of reproducing generations of criminals.....so, should they be dropping "stay in school" to the kids or try to dodge the bullets so one of those kids doesn't get shot? or better yet, run over by an ATV doing 90mph wheelies down allegheny ave? so, the parenting and coddling is up to the po-po, not the mom with the neck tattoos who is on her 5th kid with 5th babydaddy before her 26th birthday? c'mon, cuz..... the problem is DEEP but it ain't the cops fault.... also - so, the people shooting - they're not the fatherless kids (now 18) OF the women in the same neighborhoods that they're shooting up???")... you want to write a cutting piece, expose that saga.....

A similar response from a man identifying himself as a retired police officer:

In the past 20 plus years, respect for any authority, be it the Police, the Clergy, or even Parents and Grand Parents has all but eroded… the mentality is that you can do whatever you want, to whomever you want, with complete impunity. We I grew up if an Officer told you to get off of a corner, you did! If an Officer ever brought me home to my parents, no matter what, I was in trouble. We were taught to respect our elders, now all you ever hear is “not my Johnny, or not my little angel… Parents don’t want to take responsibility for their children’s actions, for the most part, all they want the kids to do is go out and bother ANYONE ELSE but them. Are Police Officers perfect, no, but then again, no one else is perfect; we all make mistakes, But just because you wear a Blue Uniform, and agree to be a target for anyone who wants to strike out at authority, and just because you give up most of your family life to work long hours in all weather, doesn’t automatically make you a bad guy. My challenge to you would be to put on that same Blue Uniform, and go out and drive a police car on Philly’s streets, and see if your attitude changes. But I’ve made that challenge before, and so far, not one journalist has had the stones to take up my challenge. And for the record, all during the time I was a Philadelphia Police Officer, I served as a Boy Scout Leader in my neighborhood for 15 years, served on two Civic Groups, and served in my Church as a member of our Parish’s Music Ministry and on the Parish Council… but then, according to you, I must have hated Philadelphia.

For what it's worth, I have some sympathy for some of what I find in these letters. Philadelphia Police could do everything right, and this town would still be an incredible, and often-dangerous, challenge to those officers.

On the other hand, I think plenty of officers—led by FOP president John McNesby—use those challenges as a shield to deflect criticism and avoid introspection about how they might do better, much less examine their own (partial) culpability in creating the culture they despise. "It's tough out there! You can't possibly understand!" I can acknowledge those challenges are considerable, but still expect better from my police department. And I do.

Kansas and sharia law

In this week's column, Ben and I tackle Kansas' new law banning sharia law. My take:

Sam Brownback and Kansas Republicans are hypocrites, through and through. In 2008, then-U.S. Sen. Brownback introduced a resolution in the Senate that designated the first weekend of May as "Ten Commandments Weekend." A few years before that, Brownback was out front urging that the Pledge of Allegiance retain its mention of "one nation under God," saying: "There is nothing more American than the Pledge of Allegiance and an acknowledgement of God is at the heart of our founding principles and is our nation's motto." The examples don't end there. Along with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Brownback has been one of America's most aggressive and unapologetic politicians in advocating for religion's role in America's public and governmental life. Islam is the exception to this rule. Brownback and Kansas Republicans are vigorous defenders of the separation of church and state only when non-Christians are involved. Supporters of the law point to places like Europe, where "hate speech" codes can make it illegal -- or, at least, inadvisable -- to criticize Islam. "That could happen here!" they cry, but no, it probably couldn't: Europe doesn't have America's First Amendment traditions or law that vigorously defend freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The bill's supporters never showed that Islamic law actually was distorting or affecting Kansas jurisprudence. They never had evidence on their side, only demagoguery and fear. So the law is a solution in search of a problem -- the kind of thing conservatives disdain, unless Muslims are involved. All the law really does, then, is signal to the state's Muslims that they are second-class citizens. Kansas has a proud civil rights history. It fought to be a free state before the Civil War; it was where the Brown v. Board of Education ruling delivered the first stunning blow against desegregation. The new law betrays that heritage. But it does highlight Sam Brownback's hypocrisy.

Ben, on the other hand, warns of the dangers of "creeping sharia":

Examples of "creeping Shariah" abound. A few years ago, Muslim cabbies in Minneapolis refused to pick up passengers carrying alcohol or dogs, even service dogs for the disabled. Islamic law says dogs and booze are unclean and forbidden, anti-discrimination laws notwithstanding. A judge in New Jersey in 2010 accepted a Muslim man's defense against sexual assault, saying his supposed religious beliefs mitigated his crime. (That ruling was later overturned.)

The second example shows how weak the "threat" is: A bad court decision was overturned, after all. And the former example is very interesting. Conservatives fight all the time for pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control in the name of "religious freedom." I'm not sure how it's different from cabbies refusing to carry alcohol, except for simple chauvinism. Which is, really, what the Kansas' new law is all about.

The debate over the Bush tax cuts is over. The tax cuts won.

Today's New York Times:

It is a maxim in Congress these days: If high-profile legislation affecting millions of Americans is about to expire, deal with it at the last possible second, preferably with rancor. 

But a major exception is in the offing with the Bush-era tax cuts, which are set to lapse on Jan 1. Both parties in the House and the Senate are eager, perhaps even giddy, at the prospect of voting for their respective versions of an extension of the cuts this summer, well before the due date.

Now, the piece goes on to say that the Democratic package would drop the cuts for high earners and keep them for the middle class. But with a divided Congress and this president in charge, does anybody expect the Democratic preference will become law? Anybody?

(Crickets.)

Right. We've already seen this movie before. So maybe it's time to end the debate, make the tax rates permanent rather than dickering with them every two years, and start planning for a budget within those revenue limits. Politicians of every stripe and party should be clear with the public: You're going to keep your current tax rates, but you're not going to keep your current services. Something has to give.

The debate over the revenue side is over, and Democrats have lost. The sooner they and their allies admit it, the sooner they can prepare to shape the government that results from the revenue limitations. And the sooner they can decide what, exactly, they can live without.

Michael Barone's cocoon: Just for liberals?

Michael Barone says that liberals only listen to liberal arguments, but conservatives have a more varied diet of ideas because they're forced to be exposed to liberal media culture. The result is that liberals only know how to preach to the choir.

Liberals can protect themselves better against assaults from outside their cocoon. They can stay out of megachurches and make sure their remote controls never click on Fox News. They can stay off the AM radio dial so they will never hear Rush Limbaugh. 

The problem is that this leaves them unprepared to make the best case for their side in public debate. They are too often not aware of holes in arguments that sound plausible when bandied between confreres entirely disposed to agree.

I'm not sure that liberals are uniquely vulnerable to the malady of ideological isolation. Conor Friedersdorf notes the topics that dominate conservative media these days:

In addition to taxes and spending, the rank and file currently spends a lot of time obsessing over trivial nonsense: for example, an imaginary race war against white people; The New Black Panther Party; and a liberal schoolteacher abusing her position somewhere in America. Those are but three stories in conservative news right now, alongside the constant obsessions with liberal media bias, anything involving "God, guns, and gays," statements by Janeane Garofalo-style celebrities, and ginned-up kerfuffles we can't even presently imagine.

 I'm not sure this really helps conservatives make better arguments than liberals, but if Barone wants to think so, perhaps he's indulging in a little cocooning himself.

Politics makes hypocrites of us all

In this week's Scripps column, I argue that Mitt Romney's religious beliefs have some bearing on the presidential campaign—and Ben argues that the issues are more important. Four years ago, we staked out almost precisely the opposite territory:

Ben then:

Yet Obama still insists that what he heard from Wright this week was unlike anything he heard over the past two decades. That simply defies belief. Obama chose Wright. His choice was unwise. His choice should tell voters something important about Obama that his position papers on the Iraq war and health care cannot.

Me then:

But the job of the next president will not be to pick a national clergyman. Instead, the president will have to decide what to do about Iraq, health care and the economy, among other issues. Barack Obama has an argument to make that he'll end the war, extend care to more Americans and save a few of their homes from foreclosure. Given the mood of Americans these days, that could well be a winning argument.

I'm not entirely sure what to do with this; I'm really not interested in being a hack—but there's some evidence here that maybe I am. The only way I can mitigate it is to acknowledge it.