Honesty is the best policy
Sexual taboos lead the way to hypocrisy and tragedy
CNN reports that Bishop Eddie Long, Baptist church leader and staunch opponent of gay marriage, will defend himself from allegations of sexual assault on younger men. If the allegations prove true, then Bishop Long’s case will be the latest in a succession of gay sex scandals involving publicly anti-gay crusaders.
Of course, people who bill themselves as defenders of traditional sexual mores and values do not have any exclusive claim to scandalous sexual misconduct (although it is possible they have a slight edge). But when scandals involving those who profess such beliefs do arise, what really distinguishes their cases is less the severity of the transgressions and more the depths of their hypocrisy. They rightfully attract condemnation, for sexual hypocrisy, more than other kinds, ruins lives.
A pledge to (repeal) America
Is the Republican plan really a plan at all?
The House Republican Caucus will unveil its “A Pledge to America” this morning, a governing plan that echoes the “Contract with America” Newt Gingrich (and current minority leader John Boehner) used in 1994 to help sweep Republicans into the House majority. The final version of the pledge is already available, as is a video of the preamble narrated by someone who sounds like the “Frontline” guy.
There are at least two elements of “A Pledge to America” that should interest TPP readers. Read more
Ignore them. They’re insane.
The possible contradiction at the heart of Stewart and Colbert’s rallies.
Jon Stewart’s upcoming “Rally to Restore Sanity” and Stephen Colbert’s mock counter-rally, “March to Keep Fear Alive”—satirical (yet deeply seriously) responses to Glen Beck’s “Restore Honor” rally—are a rare form of politics, and not because comedians are leading the way.
There are, very generally, three types of political concerns or topics of political debate: the structure of the political system, which determines the formal process of creating of a law, and possibly some rights which no law can abridge (e.g. the Constitution); the content of laws (what we normally debate about); and, very rarely, how we should argue within the first two categories.
The latter involves what sort of conceptual and ideological stuff we should bring into the town hall or Congress, and what rules or customs of deliberation and reasoning we should employ when discussing these ideas. The notion, undoubtedly true, is that some such rules and customs will lead to better laws than others.
What’s interesting about Stewart and Colbert is their tacit claim to be involved with this third category of political concern (in addition to the second category). In theory, it is not just the content of the policies that they disagree with (e.g. Tea Party tax cuts), though they do disagree, but rather the deliberative process by which, say, the Tea Partiers have formed their political beliefs, and how they approach and understand those who disagree with them (e.g. moderate Republicans and Democrats).
Worlds apart –why an open society may be better after all
On Monday, Han wrote about Thomas Friedman’s Op-Ed in the New York Times on the
“green economy,” contrasting the technocratic approach of China’s authoritarian rulers with the haphazard and undirected approach of the American political system. Han suggested that technocratic and authoritarian governments may have an advantage for costly but necessary endeavors.
There is certainly an allure of decisiveness and efficiency under technocratic rule. Thomas Friedman quotes the chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy as saying that “There really is no debate about climate change in China.” But climate change is not the only issue on which public debate in China is absent.
In China, internet search terms such as “freedom,” “democracy,” and “demonstration” are blocked, as are some sites on health, education, news, entertainment, religion, pornography, Taiwan, and Tibet. Sometimes the bans extend to academic sites. In January of 2009, the Chinese government even censored Obama’s inauguration.
If technocrats are to monopolize decision-making, then they cannot be questioned or challenged meaningfully. This is worrisome, not only because the technocrats won’t get it right every time. John Stuart Mill once pointed out that the absence of debate leads to orthodoxy, rigidness, and most importantly stunted intellectual growth. Inertia and resistance to necessary change can plague authoritarian societies as much or more than democratic ones. Not only do liberty and political equality suffer, but so does the very development of societies and individuals.
Technocratic societies in the past have sometimes been able to make remarkable achievements in a brief time span. The Soviet Union not only launched Sputnik and led the world in rocketry but also aggressively promoted literacy and women’s rights. But these achievements did not last. Russia today is hardly a bastion of progressivism, prosperity, and innovation. Without intellectual diversity and debate, the promise of progress cannot be realized in the long run.
-Charles
Image by Flickr user sofafort used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
God Save the Queen (or President?)
Politics, religion, and “public reason”
Writing for The Washington Post, Damon Linker proposes a norm of questioning politicians about their religious beliefs.
Every religion is radically particular, with its own distinctive beliefs about God, human history and the world. These are specific, concrete claims — about the status of the religious community in relation to other groups and to the nation as a whole, about the character of political and divine authority, about the place of prophecy in religious and political life, about the scope of human knowledge, about the providential role of God in human history, and about the moral and legal status of sex. Depending on where believers come down on such issues, their faith may or may not clash with the requirements of democratic politics.
This is an interesting point I will not tackle directly. Instead, I want to examine a related question: if candidates are asked these questions, how should they respond? Or put another way, how can a religious candidate fail to pass this proposed religious test? Read more
Worlds apart
An Op-Ed in The New York Times contrasts China’s efforts to combat global warming and create a “green” economy with America’s current failures in that area. Because China is an economically modern nation with an undemocratic regime, such a piece leads naturally into some interesting questions about American style democracy and its efficacy.
First:
There is really no debate about climate change in China,” said Peggy Liu, chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, a nonprofit group working to accelerate the greening of China. “China’s leaders are mostly engineers and scientists, so they don’t waste time questioning scientific data.” The push for green in China, she added, “is a practical discussion on health and wealth. There is no need to emphasize future consequences when people already see, eat and breathe pollution every day.
Presumably, America’s government has substantially less scientists and engineers because such experts cannot compete with lawyers and businessmen when it comes to campaigning and politicking. Moreover, such experts often have an “elitist” sheen on them, making them unelectable in the modern political climate. Oftentimes, the election of the politicians who are “like us” is seen as a positive consequence of democracy, but perhaps it can also have a dark underbelly.
Second:
China is changing from the factory of the world to the clean-tech laboratory of the world,” said Liu. “It has the unique ability to pit low-cost capital with large-scale experiments to find models that work.” China has designated and invested in pilot cities for electric vehicles, smart grids, LED lighting, rural biomass and low-carbon communities. “They’re able to quickly throw spaghetti on the wall to see what clean-tech models stick, and then have the political will to scale them quickly across the country,” Liu added. “This allows China to create jobs and learn quickly.
The idea is that because of China’s authoritarian nature, large-scale projects that require much effort and sacrifice can be put into effect with political ease. In a democracy, where politicians rely on public sentiment, such projects that will make a substantial part of the population unhappy are difficult to undertake. This is again seen as a positive consequence of a democratic system – but sometimes it can also engender inertia and resistance to necessary change.
When thinking about these two questions, we should ask whether solving these problems requires changing the democratic system or the American political culture – or maybe both. Alternatively, perhaps these are problems inherent with democracy and can’t be solved without sacrificing liberty and political equality.
-Han
Photo by Flickr user futureatlas.com used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
I know not for whom I vote
Disavowing Democrats
According to the New York Times, many vulnerable Democratic candidates have been conspicuously quiet about, well, their own party:
Two years after arriving in Washington on a message of hope and change, Democratic candidates are not extolling their party’s accomplishments, but rather distancing themselves from their party’s agenda.
The midterm elections may revolve around a series of big issues, particularly with control of Congress at stake. But a look at the advertising themes and images being employed by Democrats shows all the ways they are trying to personalize their contests and avoid being defined as ideological partners of President Obama’s or as part of the Washington establishment.
(A nifty graphic compiled by the Times lays out a bit of the political advertising strategies employed by the two parties.)
Most people treat how candidates campaign largely as a matter of strategy, rather than a question of right and wrong. It’s what you stand for, people say, not how you stand for it. While some forms of personal attack and slandering have often been treated as out of bounds, many modern campaigns have used all manner of negative attacks–including criticism targeted at an opponent’s personal life.
Yet the hesitancy of some Democratic candidates to even discuss their own party ties raises some troubling questions for representative democracy as a form of government. Read more
Polls: they told me to do it
When should we hear what the public thinks?
Parties and politicians often oppose the other side’s position, whether on gay marriage, Afghanistan, or anything else, by arguing that it’s at odds with the people’s wishes, as revealed by opinion polls. When is such an appeal to polls appropriate? It’s more complicated then it appears.
On all the but the crudest definitions of a good elected representative, Congressmen do not exist merely to tally their constituents’ views on a given policy question and then vote accordingly.
Surely, fighting for their bosses’ opinions forms a big part of their obligation as a democratic representative, but they have a distinct duty to deliberate and debate publicly, so that they can join and lead the national conversation by which they and the people fashion their views. More than aggregating the people’s opinions, they have an obligation to ensure that such opinions are right.
With this in mind, we can discern where an appeal to polls should have the greatest (or least) amount of impact in the course of political debate.
First off, when an issue is fresh and unexamined, the power of polls ought to be at its lowest ebb. For an official to say at such a point that the debate is over because the public feels one way shirks his duty to lead the deliberative process. Neither he nor the people have considered this issue for long, and their first instinct, like that of any individual when first presented with a problem, may be wrong.
Feminist polygamy…and other dangerous thoughts
The website Big Think devoted each day last month to a “dangerous idea” from experts in various fields. A number of them relate to public philosophy.
Among the relevant posts, Richard Pildes, NYU constitutional law professor, argues for the abolition of primary elections. (A topic I discussed here). Peter Singer, Princeton utilitarian philosopher, argues we should allow infant euthanasia. Julian Savulescu, Director of the Uehiro Center for Practical Ethics at Oxford, makes the case for bringing back eugenics, in order to breed a more moral human. Dr. Barry Popkin, Director of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Interdisciplinary Center for Obesity, calls for a tax on the overweight. And Marina Adshade, economics professor at Dalhousie University, argues that polygamy is feminist, since it benefits women economically.
There’s a lot of provocative stuff on the site worth checking out.
-Jake
Image by Flickr user BrunkFordBruan used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Are you a demand-sider or a supply-sider?
The BBC reports that the Obama administration has designated $50 billion dollars for infrastructure improvements as part of efforts to jump-start the US economy. The claim that the project will help jump-start the economy is contestable, but difficult to prove either way.
Broadly speaking, there are two influential schools of macroeconomic thought. One is the Keynesian or demand-side school, which blames the collapse of demand for economic malaise. During economic downturns, it is the government’s job to make up for the shortfall by employing people, purchasing things, and inducing private actors to do the same. This is the principle behind public works projects, temporary tax cuts, and programs like “cash-for-clunkers.”
By contrast, the neoclassical or supply-side school argues that prolonged economic problems are the result of the economy’s inability to produce an adequate level of goods and services. The government’s response to economic downturn ought to consist of making it easier for individuals to supply labor and firms to supply goods and services. This is the rationale behind permanent tax cuts for all (including corporations and the rich), deregulation, and a reluctance to extend unemployment benefits.
Though economic in nature, these two claims tend to accompany differing assumptions and values about human nature. Put crudely, the Keynesian approach favors the consumer, in hopes that the producers will follow. The neoclassical one favors the producer, in hopes that the consumers will follow.
Of course, all humans are both consumers and producers. But which role is more important? In a crisis, should we try to induce people to buy things, or to induce them to work? Should workers and consumers be favored over entrepreneurs and companies?
There is of course some middle ground between the two extremes. Maybe the answer lies in a bit of both.
-Charles
Image by Flickr user Cain and Todd Benson used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
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