11.22.2004
A Minor Annoyance
At my job prior to coming to law school, I used Westlaw exclusively & was pretty happy with it. And based on my exposure to Lexis in our basic training sessions here at school, I decided I would continue using Westlaw. I like its interface better, although possibly that's just born of familiarity.
However, now that I've switched to the browsery goodness that is Firefox by Mozilla, I'm quite annoyed by Westlaw's current limitations supporting only Internet Explorer & Netscape--I just logged into Lexis using Firefox without a problem. If Westlaw fails to remedy this, I may just have to switch.
In any event, I emailed Westlaw (west.support@thomson.com) to express my displeasure--and if you're a law student or just hate Microsoft's stupid IE browser, shoot them an email & tell 'em they ought to support Firefox.
Update: I get results! I received an email back from their tech support folks this morning, telling me that, although the official statement on their front page still lists only IE & Netscape as supported, Firefox users have reportedly been able to use Westlaw just fine. The last time I tried using it a week or so ago, I couldn't seem to log in, but I just tried it again now & it works fine. In any event, they logged my email so their Tech decision-makers could see there is a demand for official Firefox compatibility.
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However, now that I've switched to the browsery goodness that is Firefox by Mozilla, I'm quite annoyed by Westlaw's current limitations supporting only Internet Explorer & Netscape--I just logged into Lexis using Firefox without a problem. If Westlaw fails to remedy this, I may just have to switch.
In any event, I emailed Westlaw (west.support@thomson.com) to express my displeasure--and if you're a law student or just hate Microsoft's stupid IE browser, shoot them an email & tell 'em they ought to support Firefox.
Update: I get results! I received an email back from their tech support folks this morning, telling me that, although the official statement on their front page still lists only IE & Netscape as supported, Firefox users have reportedly been able to use Westlaw just fine. The last time I tried using it a week or so ago, I couldn't seem to log in, but I just tried it again now & it works fine. In any event, they logged my email so their Tech decision-makers could see there is a demand for official Firefox compatibility.
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11.16.2004
Justice Scalia
Well, Justice Scalia is an entertaining speaker, I do have to give him that. He was probably the most animated & interesting questioner at the oral arguments I've attended as well.
Nonetheless, listening to his speech today explaining his Originalist method of Constitutional interpretation, I decided he must own stock in a straw-gathering operation, so numerous & pervasive were the rhetorical strawmen he presented & ripped apart. It was really rather disappointing to listen to the sneering, snide tone that crept into his voice every single time he outlined a counter argument to one of his views. It's one thing to be passionate & opinionated, & to be convinced of the rightness of one's beliefs, but that doesn't mean you have to treat all objections to your point of view as though they were facially incoherent & idiotic. This was particularly ironic given the emerging conventional wisdom these days, post-election, that this problem of arrogance & disregard for other's views (read, Red State America, particularly evangelical Christians) is unique to 'liberals.' Well, I advise y'all to listen to Justice Scalia for a little while & you'll see this utter disdain for opposing points of view is found on that side too.
Sadly, I forgot to bring a pen & pad, so I didn't take notes, but the following are a couple of the main points of interest & my general reactions:
--A fetus, according to Scalia, is NOT a person. Ever since 11/2, I've been wondering just what shape the decision reversing Roe would take--would it declare abortion unconstitutional, or would it throw the issue back to the states? I had pretty much figured Scalia, Thomas & Gonzales/Estrada/Ashcroft?/Federalist Hack X would wind up simply declaring abortion unconstitutional.
So I was rather surprised, and relieved, to hear Scalia say that, clearly, at the founding & at the adoption of the 14th Amendment, the fetus was not viewed as a "person," the term found both in the 14th Amendment & elsewhere the Constituation (the bits apportioning representation in the House). At no time did anybody ever contemplate counting pregnant women as "two persons" for purposes of apportioning the House, so clearly a fetus is not a person. Scalia's opposition to Roe stems from finding nothing in the Constitution that direcetly speaks to abortion, and therefore the issue should be in the province of the legislative branches. Publius, at Legal Fiction, asks & explores a very interesting question about how exactly that would all shake out, and I'll just point you there until I've at least taken Con Law.
--Part of me almost thinks Scalia wrote the opinion striking down the Anti-Flag Burning law just so he could forever wield it as a rhetorical weapon against those seeking to paint him as simply a conservative ideologue instead of the principled & rigorous Originalist he claims to be. But my girlfriend assures me that Scalia's first amendment speech jurisprudence is consistently of that bent & it probably was principled.
--Nonetheless, Scalia's defense of Originalism struck me as particularly weak, and not just because of the sneering contempt with which he described opposition viewpoints. Its weakness became especially apparent during the Q&A portion. Somebody asked him to reconcile his belief that the Constitution's text must be interpreted in light of the understanding at the time it was adopted with Brown v. Board--that is, segregation was clearly understood to be constitutional at the time of the post Civil War Amendments, so would he have voted against Brown & upheld segregation?
After some hemming & hawing, Scalia conceded this was an especially strong argument against his approach and that, basically, well, this was one area where he wouldn't necessarily follow it & he would have been with the majority in Brown, despite a rigorous application of Originalism pointing toward the opposite (i.e. saying, well, that's not how the Amendment was viewed at the time & if you want to change this, Amend the Constitution!--the latter three words being something of a mantra in his talk).
OK then, so Justice Scalia says some issues are important enough to abandon an outmoded decades/centuries old "that's how it was viewed then" method of interpretation.
But moments earlier, illustrating this "just-because-it's-wrong-doesn't-mean-we-should-stretch-the-Constitution-to-fix-it;-that's-what-Amendments-are-for!" logic, Scalia had pointed to the beauty of the Amendment giving women the right to vote. "If the courts earlier this century ruled as they do today," Scalia sneered (I'm paraphrasing), "they would simply have said, 'aha, yes, of course women have the right to vote via the 14th Amendment, even though that's explicitly contrary to the clear views & practices in place when it was adopted.' Instead," Scalia trumpeted, "things were done the proper way & the country amended the Constitution."
So, in other words:
Although earlier in my lecture, I said I'm principled & people always know what I'm going to be looking for--is this in the text of the Constitution, and if so, how was it viewed when adopted?--but, yeah, okay, I don't always follow that. Not when it's really important.
BUT,
Giving women the right to vote--not important enough to abandon original intent.
Ending Segregation--OK, nevermind that whole Originalist mumbo-jumbo. This is big enough.
Err, yeah. Part of me thinks if Scalia were shifted back in time & put on the Court in the 1950s, I'd place a sizable wager on him voting against Brown.
Secondly, um, reading the the text of the 14th Amendment & recognizing the general principles of democratic governance embodied in the Constitution, couldn't one make a pretty freakin' strong argument that women should have had the right to vote, simply under it? And if so, why in the world should the beliefs/practices/understandings of a 100+ years ago trump that strong argument based on the clear words of the text as contemporarily applied & understood?
--Which brings me to my final thought. In his sneering dismissal of the living Constitution & any other method of interpreting the Constitution, Scalia issued a challenge to his opponents to name their principled system of Constitutional interpretation.
So I'd like to try, even if I haven't actually taken Con Law yet (a few years back now, I did take an undergrad PoliSci course on the Supreme Court), and somewhat drawing on various things I've read over at Publius' blog. Echoing his terms, I'd say I roughly follow a system of Pragmatic
Textualism.
You've got to start with what's in the text--at this point, I think nobody is defending Roe as a masterpiece of judicial reasoning. It's not good to just willy-nilly read one's preferences into the Constitution. There has to be some kind of relatively firm textual basis to hang one's hat on. But from there, I see no reason why we should be limited to the understanding & practices of those who lived & died 200 years ago. I think the Founders wrote a beautiful document that is necessarily vague &, at root, a moral signpost; a document that expresses clear principles (liberty, freedom from undue governmental intrusion, etc), with the exact details & contours to be filled in as time & experience dictates but still in accord with those fundamental guiding principles.
And, when confronted with problems that the Founders couldn't possibly have anticipated--but problems that one can reasonably address & solve by applying the principles at the heart of the document--I don't think we should prize 200 year old understandings & practices designed to further that principle over clear evidence of how such principles are understood today.
For instance, Scalia repeatedly referenced the commonplace nature of the death penalty in 1790--every felony was then punishable by death, how could the death penalty possibly be cruel & unusual & thus unconstitutional? What is this evolving standard of decency garbage?
That's great Scalia--yes, undoubtedly capital punishment was not considered cruel & unusual in 1790. Super. But when an overwhelming majority of states currently prohibit the execution of juveniles, isn't that a pretty clear & firm statement of a contemporary consensus that this practice is, in fact, cruel & unusual? And shouldn't that overwhelming & firm statement made by the legislatures of a vast majority of states take precedence over the practices of 13 states in 1790? I think so. But surely Scalia will write an opinion this term in the case concerning the Constitutionality of executing people for crimes committed as juveniles that states otherwise & would continue to see the Texan practice of executing juveniles in the face of mighty strong evidence that a large majority of America views that practice as cruel & unusual. Yes, yes, he'll say if that said majority is so large, why not amend the Constitution & fix it that?
I suppose we could, perhaps should, do that. But, that seems like a relatively small & extremely focused reason to amend the Constitution, which is otherwise an expansive, broad document articulating general principles & I'd prefer not to make the practice of amending Constitution a commonplace solution to every last issue, especially when the Constitution provides clear text (Cruel & Unusual Punishment = BAD) & we have clear contemporary evidence that the America of 2004 views this practice as cruel & unusual.
Anyhow, these are just some general thoughts chucked out in the form of a rant. And I should repeat again that Con Law is on my schedule next semester, and if anything I've said seems particularly out of whack, that's why & I beg your forgiveness.
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Nonetheless, listening to his speech today explaining his Originalist method of Constitutional interpretation, I decided he must own stock in a straw-gathering operation, so numerous & pervasive were the rhetorical strawmen he presented & ripped apart. It was really rather disappointing to listen to the sneering, snide tone that crept into his voice every single time he outlined a counter argument to one of his views. It's one thing to be passionate & opinionated, & to be convinced of the rightness of one's beliefs, but that doesn't mean you have to treat all objections to your point of view as though they were facially incoherent & idiotic. This was particularly ironic given the emerging conventional wisdom these days, post-election, that this problem of arrogance & disregard for other's views (read, Red State America, particularly evangelical Christians) is unique to 'liberals.' Well, I advise y'all to listen to Justice Scalia for a little while & you'll see this utter disdain for opposing points of view is found on that side too.
Sadly, I forgot to bring a pen & pad, so I didn't take notes, but the following are a couple of the main points of interest & my general reactions:
--A fetus, according to Scalia, is NOT a person. Ever since 11/2, I've been wondering just what shape the decision reversing Roe would take--would it declare abortion unconstitutional, or would it throw the issue back to the states? I had pretty much figured Scalia, Thomas & Gonzales/Estrada/Ashcroft?/Federalist Hack X would wind up simply declaring abortion unconstitutional.
So I was rather surprised, and relieved, to hear Scalia say that, clearly, at the founding & at the adoption of the 14th Amendment, the fetus was not viewed as a "person," the term found both in the 14th Amendment & elsewhere the Constituation (the bits apportioning representation in the House). At no time did anybody ever contemplate counting pregnant women as "two persons" for purposes of apportioning the House, so clearly a fetus is not a person. Scalia's opposition to Roe stems from finding nothing in the Constitution that direcetly speaks to abortion, and therefore the issue should be in the province of the legislative branches. Publius, at Legal Fiction, asks & explores a very interesting question about how exactly that would all shake out, and I'll just point you there until I've at least taken Con Law.
--Part of me almost thinks Scalia wrote the opinion striking down the Anti-Flag Burning law just so he could forever wield it as a rhetorical weapon against those seeking to paint him as simply a conservative ideologue instead of the principled & rigorous Originalist he claims to be. But my girlfriend assures me that Scalia's first amendment speech jurisprudence is consistently of that bent & it probably was principled.
--Nonetheless, Scalia's defense of Originalism struck me as particularly weak, and not just because of the sneering contempt with which he described opposition viewpoints. Its weakness became especially apparent during the Q&A portion. Somebody asked him to reconcile his belief that the Constitution's text must be interpreted in light of the understanding at the time it was adopted with Brown v. Board--that is, segregation was clearly understood to be constitutional at the time of the post Civil War Amendments, so would he have voted against Brown & upheld segregation?
After some hemming & hawing, Scalia conceded this was an especially strong argument against his approach and that, basically, well, this was one area where he wouldn't necessarily follow it & he would have been with the majority in Brown, despite a rigorous application of Originalism pointing toward the opposite (i.e. saying, well, that's not how the Amendment was viewed at the time & if you want to change this, Amend the Constitution!--the latter three words being something of a mantra in his talk).
OK then, so Justice Scalia says some issues are important enough to abandon an outmoded decades/centuries old "that's how it was viewed then" method of interpretation.
But moments earlier, illustrating this "just-because-it's-wrong-doesn't-mean-we-should-stretch-the-Constitution-to-fix-it;-that's-what-Amendments-are-for!" logic, Scalia had pointed to the beauty of the Amendment giving women the right to vote. "If the courts earlier this century ruled as they do today," Scalia sneered (I'm paraphrasing), "they would simply have said, 'aha, yes, of course women have the right to vote via the 14th Amendment, even though that's explicitly contrary to the clear views & practices in place when it was adopted.' Instead," Scalia trumpeted, "things were done the proper way & the country amended the Constitution."
So, in other words:
Although earlier in my lecture, I said I'm principled & people always know what I'm going to be looking for--is this in the text of the Constitution, and if so, how was it viewed when adopted?--but, yeah, okay, I don't always follow that. Not when it's really important.
BUT,
Giving women the right to vote--not important enough to abandon original intent.
Ending Segregation--OK, nevermind that whole Originalist mumbo-jumbo. This is big enough.
Err, yeah. Part of me thinks if Scalia were shifted back in time & put on the Court in the 1950s, I'd place a sizable wager on him voting against Brown.
Secondly, um, reading the the text of the 14th Amendment & recognizing the general principles of democratic governance embodied in the Constitution, couldn't one make a pretty freakin' strong argument that women should have had the right to vote, simply under it? And if so, why in the world should the beliefs/practices/understandings of a 100+ years ago trump that strong argument based on the clear words of the text as contemporarily applied & understood?
--Which brings me to my final thought. In his sneering dismissal of the living Constitution & any other method of interpreting the Constitution, Scalia issued a challenge to his opponents to name their principled system of Constitutional interpretation.
So I'd like to try, even if I haven't actually taken Con Law yet (a few years back now, I did take an undergrad PoliSci course on the Supreme Court), and somewhat drawing on various things I've read over at Publius' blog. Echoing his terms, I'd say I roughly follow a system of Pragmatic
Textualism.
You've got to start with what's in the text--at this point, I think nobody is defending Roe as a masterpiece of judicial reasoning. It's not good to just willy-nilly read one's preferences into the Constitution. There has to be some kind of relatively firm textual basis to hang one's hat on. But from there, I see no reason why we should be limited to the understanding & practices of those who lived & died 200 years ago. I think the Founders wrote a beautiful document that is necessarily vague &, at root, a moral signpost; a document that expresses clear principles (liberty, freedom from undue governmental intrusion, etc), with the exact details & contours to be filled in as time & experience dictates but still in accord with those fundamental guiding principles.
And, when confronted with problems that the Founders couldn't possibly have anticipated--but problems that one can reasonably address & solve by applying the principles at the heart of the document--I don't think we should prize 200 year old understandings & practices designed to further that principle over clear evidence of how such principles are understood today.
For instance, Scalia repeatedly referenced the commonplace nature of the death penalty in 1790--every felony was then punishable by death, how could the death penalty possibly be cruel & unusual & thus unconstitutional? What is this evolving standard of decency garbage?
That's great Scalia--yes, undoubtedly capital punishment was not considered cruel & unusual in 1790. Super. But when an overwhelming majority of states currently prohibit the execution of juveniles, isn't that a pretty clear & firm statement of a contemporary consensus that this practice is, in fact, cruel & unusual? And shouldn't that overwhelming & firm statement made by the legislatures of a vast majority of states take precedence over the practices of 13 states in 1790? I think so. But surely Scalia will write an opinion this term in the case concerning the Constitutionality of executing people for crimes committed as juveniles that states otherwise & would continue to see the Texan practice of executing juveniles in the face of mighty strong evidence that a large majority of America views that practice as cruel & unusual. Yes, yes, he'll say if that said majority is so large, why not amend the Constitution & fix it that?
I suppose we could, perhaps should, do that. But, that seems like a relatively small & extremely focused reason to amend the Constitution, which is otherwise an expansive, broad document articulating general principles & I'd prefer not to make the practice of amending Constitution a commonplace solution to every last issue, especially when the Constitution provides clear text (Cruel & Unusual Punishment = BAD) & we have clear contemporary evidence that the America of 2004 views this practice as cruel & unusual.
Anyhow, these are just some general thoughts chucked out in the form of a rant. And I should repeat again that Con Law is on my schedule next semester, and if anything I've said seems particularly out of whack, that's why & I beg your forgiveness.
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11.04.2004
How Fitting
In the last two days I've seen a ton of small square Bush-Cheney04 stickers plastered up around & inside the Law School. Today I noticed somebody had stuck one above every single urinal in the downstairs men's restroom, with some even on the urinals themselves. I also noticed over half of the urinals had not been flushed.
I'm sure the implication of this juxtaposition was unintentional (or perhaps even done by Bush foes), but I did highly appreciate seeing depositories of piss decorated with his name.
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I'm sure the implication of this juxtaposition was unintentional (or perhaps even done by Bush foes), but I did highly appreciate seeing depositories of piss decorated with his name.
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11.03.2004
Some Random Observations Occasioned By Our Drift Toward Theocracy
How to explain George Bush's astonishing success? Some folks I've talked to point to Gay Marriage.
Yes, it was brilliant of the GOP to put that on so many state ballots. But I think the gay marriage issue was only part of it, in Ohio & elsewhere. Gay marriage provided that last ounce of adrenaline firing up George's base & getting them to the polls, but the primary engine behind his electoral success is the evangelicals. And yes, gay marriage is big with them--but their true animating issue has to be, I believe, abortion.
Gay marriage helped, sure, but I actually believe that even without it they may have taken Ohio & the country. They sense Roe being overturned. Bush promised he would in the debate when he referenced Dred Scott. They can taste it, and the Promised Land is clearly in sight. Their pastors & preachers have been drilling it into them for years now--No More Souters. Never again. Stevens is old; we're within reach. Get out there & George will appoint the right folks & we'll eliminate abortion.
That leads to something else I've been thinking about, that helped make the evangelicals so powerful & influential this time. They go to church every Sunday. They have a community, and it's built around discipline. And their Sunday church attendance provides them enormous practical & organizational advantages. Howard Dean had people finding one another & supporting one another & energizing one another through Meet-Ups on the internet--and blogs helped do the same.
But they do it EVERY WEEK at church, and they have a speaker rail at them about the evils of liberals every week at church. MoveOn & ACT had to spend millions to register our new voters, paying folks to walk all over & sign 'em up, and then even more to get them all out to the polls. The evangelicals? One or two hardcore partisans in their congregations sets up a folding table after the service & signs 'em up. And if these folks can get to church 'religiously' every Sunday, they can get out to the polls on a random Tuesday every couple of years without needing any help.
This makes me think that we seriously need to look at "re-branding" our party, at changing our language & talking the talk of values enough that it becomes more difficult for them to rally their side up.
Or, we just have to hope that they drive the country into a ditch (tho, not 1929 deep or anything) so that the rest of non-crazy christian America wakes up.
In the future I'd like to talk more about the re-branding. I'm very tired tonight, however. But I would like to suggest something that is sacrilege for me, coming from Nebraska.
I think the Democrats should fight The Food Tax. Farm subsidies must end. Daschle's gone, and aside fromCondrad, Dorgan & Baucus, the Plains state Dem is dead (or an endangered species--Ben Nelson, from Nebraska, will lose in 06, I all but guarantee it). So it doesn't hurt us tactically.
But even better, The Food Tax doesn't make economic sense. It's inefficient & hugely expensive, and the rest of America pays The Food Tax every time we go the grocery store checkout counter. We could obtain food of identical quality from the poor countries of the world, who can provide it more cheaply thanks to the wonders of comparative advantage & cheap labor.
Plus, this would directly attack a portion of the GOP's base--it wouldn't really affect Texas or New Mexico, Arizona or Colorado (and if we exclude Sugar, Florida). If it weren't for farm subsidies, the quality of life in those big boxy red states would be comparable to third world countries. Maybe that would be enough to convince them that a life in Blue State America is pretty damn nice, even if we do have a little too much skin on the tee-vee & a few too many irresponsible teens getting the occasional & rare abortion.
Anyhow, just a thought. Hopefully I'll have more in the days & weeks to come.
PS Also, I recognize we have to stop making jibes like the title of this post if we're ever going to convince any of these people to switch sides--although, of course, I think evangelicals are probably just simply out of reach. They're near cult-like, and reason & facts don't seem to penetrate their veil of faith. But we need to end our condenscion, and use language & frames better suited to attracting the sorts of people who know & may be friendly with some evangelicals, but aren't. Or people who are just plain old regular church goers (and actually read the New Testament, say) but think they have more in common with the evangelicals than they do with we secular hedonist 'liberals.'
Damn, even in this PS I can't stop using this tone. It's something we have to work on.
PPS Oh yeah, I realized I forgot to say that while I think it's clear Bush won thanks largely to his feverish evangelical support& that he owes them big in the form a great big IOU stamped with "Roe MUST Go," I'm not necessarily sure he'll be able to see it overturned. First, the Justices could all hang out & last another election. Second, the Senate Dems could heroically block them. Third, despite Rove's best efforts, their pick could be a Souter Jr. & not a Thomas Jr. Fourth, maybe they won't declare a fetus a person & that abortion everywhere is illegal, but maybe instead they'll just say the right to an abortion is not a right found & guaranteed in the federal constitution & that states should decide whether they allow abortions. Fifth, if they do succeed & flatly make abortion illegal, I think the firestorm they'd kick up might well backfire, and Sixth if they merely let states decide, that might still enrage non-right-wing-Christian America while simulanteously demoralizing the evangelicals, especially those who'd like to see condoms or birth control eliminated.
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Yes, it was brilliant of the GOP to put that on so many state ballots. But I think the gay marriage issue was only part of it, in Ohio & elsewhere. Gay marriage provided that last ounce of adrenaline firing up George's base & getting them to the polls, but the primary engine behind his electoral success is the evangelicals. And yes, gay marriage is big with them--but their true animating issue has to be, I believe, abortion.
Gay marriage helped, sure, but I actually believe that even without it they may have taken Ohio & the country. They sense Roe being overturned. Bush promised he would in the debate when he referenced Dred Scott. They can taste it, and the Promised Land is clearly in sight. Their pastors & preachers have been drilling it into them for years now--No More Souters. Never again. Stevens is old; we're within reach. Get out there & George will appoint the right folks & we'll eliminate abortion.
That leads to something else I've been thinking about, that helped make the evangelicals so powerful & influential this time. They go to church every Sunday. They have a community, and it's built around discipline. And their Sunday church attendance provides them enormous practical & organizational advantages. Howard Dean had people finding one another & supporting one another & energizing one another through Meet-Ups on the internet--and blogs helped do the same.
But they do it EVERY WEEK at church, and they have a speaker rail at them about the evils of liberals every week at church. MoveOn & ACT had to spend millions to register our new voters, paying folks to walk all over & sign 'em up, and then even more to get them all out to the polls. The evangelicals? One or two hardcore partisans in their congregations sets up a folding table after the service & signs 'em up. And if these folks can get to church 'religiously' every Sunday, they can get out to the polls on a random Tuesday every couple of years without needing any help.
This makes me think that we seriously need to look at "re-branding" our party, at changing our language & talking the talk of values enough that it becomes more difficult for them to rally their side up.
Or, we just have to hope that they drive the country into a ditch (tho, not 1929 deep or anything) so that the rest of non-crazy christian America wakes up.
In the future I'd like to talk more about the re-branding. I'm very tired tonight, however. But I would like to suggest something that is sacrilege for me, coming from Nebraska.
I think the Democrats should fight The Food Tax. Farm subsidies must end. Daschle's gone, and aside fromCondrad, Dorgan & Baucus, the Plains state Dem is dead (or an endangered species--Ben Nelson, from Nebraska, will lose in 06, I all but guarantee it). So it doesn't hurt us tactically.
But even better, The Food Tax doesn't make economic sense. It's inefficient & hugely expensive, and the rest of America pays The Food Tax every time we go the grocery store checkout counter. We could obtain food of identical quality from the poor countries of the world, who can provide it more cheaply thanks to the wonders of comparative advantage & cheap labor.
Plus, this would directly attack a portion of the GOP's base--it wouldn't really affect Texas or New Mexico, Arizona or Colorado (and if we exclude Sugar, Florida). If it weren't for farm subsidies, the quality of life in those big boxy red states would be comparable to third world countries. Maybe that would be enough to convince them that a life in Blue State America is pretty damn nice, even if we do have a little too much skin on the tee-vee & a few too many irresponsible teens getting the occasional & rare abortion.
Anyhow, just a thought. Hopefully I'll have more in the days & weeks to come.
PS Also, I recognize we have to stop making jibes like the title of this post if we're ever going to convince any of these people to switch sides--although, of course, I think evangelicals are probably just simply out of reach. They're near cult-like, and reason & facts don't seem to penetrate their veil of faith. But we need to end our condenscion, and use language & frames better suited to attracting the sorts of people who know & may be friendly with some evangelicals, but aren't. Or people who are just plain old regular church goers (and actually read the New Testament, say) but think they have more in common with the evangelicals than they do with we secular hedonist 'liberals.'
Damn, even in this PS I can't stop using this tone. It's something we have to work on.
PPS Oh yeah, I realized I forgot to say that while I think it's clear Bush won thanks largely to his feverish evangelical support& that he owes them big in the form a great big IOU stamped with "Roe MUST Go," I'm not necessarily sure he'll be able to see it overturned. First, the Justices could all hang out & last another election. Second, the Senate Dems could heroically block them. Third, despite Rove's best efforts, their pick could be a Souter Jr. & not a Thomas Jr. Fourth, maybe they won't declare a fetus a person & that abortion everywhere is illegal, but maybe instead they'll just say the right to an abortion is not a right found & guaranteed in the federal constitution & that states should decide whether they allow abortions. Fifth, if they do succeed & flatly make abortion illegal, I think the firestorm they'd kick up might well backfire, and Sixth if they merely let states decide, that might still enrage non-right-wing-Christian America while simulanteously demoralizing the evangelicals, especially those who'd like to see condoms or birth control eliminated.
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And So We're Left With The Pottery Barn Rule
(Note, this post now appears in lieu of what seems now was a prematurely celebratory post about today's effort here in Ohio).
Well, I think we're now left with that infamous (but, I understand incorrect) formulation of the Pottery Barn Rule where "if you break it, you own it." Or whatever. Bush & the GOP are now going to have to endure four years of dealing with the enormous fiscal mess Bush made of things so far. Likewise, should, God forbid, something sneak into the country through our inadequately secured ports/we experience another terrorist attack, the consequences will inescapably fall on this bunch of clowns. The "I Didn't Do It Boy" administration will finally have to accept responsibility, at some point. No more Clinton to blame. Kerry's administration was always going to have a very tough time, given the GOP Congress & the mess he'd inherit. And whatever would have happened the GOP would have tried its hardest to absolve Bush of his due responsibility & pin it all on Kerry. And may have been successful in doing so. Now, it looks like Bush will have to deal with the consequences of his first term. And I'm hopeful that (along with the maturing of our younger, more socially liberal generation) will destroy the modern Christian-right Republican party.
My great fear is that one or two more Scalias or Clarences will really, really change our country's legal landscape (adios abortion, hello establishment clause that doesn't apply to the states).
What a nightmare. Maybe it'll look better in the morning.
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Well, I think we're now left with that infamous (but, I understand incorrect) formulation of the Pottery Barn Rule where "if you break it, you own it." Or whatever. Bush & the GOP are now going to have to endure four years of dealing with the enormous fiscal mess Bush made of things so far. Likewise, should, God forbid, something sneak into the country through our inadequately secured ports/we experience another terrorist attack, the consequences will inescapably fall on this bunch of clowns. The "I Didn't Do It Boy" administration will finally have to accept responsibility, at some point. No more Clinton to blame. Kerry's administration was always going to have a very tough time, given the GOP Congress & the mess he'd inherit. And whatever would have happened the GOP would have tried its hardest to absolve Bush of his due responsibility & pin it all on Kerry. And may have been successful in doing so. Now, it looks like Bush will have to deal with the consequences of his first term. And I'm hopeful that (along with the maturing of our younger, more socially liberal generation) will destroy the modern Christian-right Republican party.
My great fear is that one or two more Scalias or Clarences will really, really change our country's legal landscape (adios abortion, hello establishment clause that doesn't apply to the states).
What a nightmare. Maybe it'll look better in the morning.
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11.01.2004
Tomorrow
I'll be in Cleveland, volunteering for the Kerry-Edwards campaign--initially I signed up to do poll monitoring/voter protection but given the rulings this morning from Federal District Courts in Ohio, I'm not entirely sure how that's all going to shake out. It's possible the Sixth Circuit will have a say yet, and in any event I think there's still a green light on monitoring what goes on outside (ahem, GOP harassment of voters)--which is where I was going to be anyway (my understanding was only Ohio registered voters were allowed inside the precincts).
It'll be nice to put some of this fancy schmancy lawyering skills stuff to work. And hopefully by the time I return to Ann Arbor Wednesday morning we'll (a) know the outcome & (b) be celebrating the election of our 44th President.
*knock on wood*
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It'll be nice to put some of this fancy schmancy lawyering skills stuff to work. And hopefully by the time I return to Ann Arbor Wednesday morning we'll (a) know the outcome & (b) be celebrating the election of our 44th President.
*knock on wood*
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