It has been interesting to see who has been closing ranks around the New Yorker. Jon Stewart, yes. Steven Colbert, not quite. Tom Tomorrow couldn’t quite see that his own brand of satire takes clearer aim at its intended target than did the New Yorker. Rubin Bolling, on the other hand, seemed to see the problems with the piece, which are well illustrated by Tom Toles.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srbX26vp57c[/youtube]
Recently the New York Times reported on the dismay some of us have felt at Obama’s change of position on FISA. The article is titled Obama Supporters on the Far Left Cry Foul. The question immediately arises: why is opposition to gutting the Fourth Amendment a “Far Left” position. And if it is, shouldn’t the Times Reporter have sought comment from whoever wrote the New York Times Editorial that urged the Senate to reject the FISA bill?
We of the “Far Left” welcome the New York Times Editorial staff to the fold.
My letter to the New Yorker:
I was shocked to see a reproduction of the cover to your July 21st issue on Americablog.
There is absolutely no excuse for publishing this canard. It is outrageous to suggest that Barack Obama and his wife are terrorists. I must assume, in charity, that your intent is to mock those who have spread rumors to that effect. If that is your intent, you have failed miserably, and have merely reinforced these racist lies. I realize that some of your covers have employed similar devices, but never regarding an issue as inflammatory as this, or one likely to have an impact beyond the people who are intelligent enough to “get” your intended meaning. Those of us who do not actually live in the upper reaches of New York society are painfully aware that there are a lot of stupid people in this country whose beliefs about Obama will be reinforced by your attempt at … humor?
My wife and I have subscribed to the New Yorker for years. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for us to see our way clear to continuing our subscription.
This appears to be the year of not funny under any circumstances political humor. Almost any joke by John McCain would do, but his “joke” about killing Iranians is the best case in point. There is no way you can joke about killing ordinary people who have done you no harm. It’s pretty hard with wife beating too.
On the other hand, if he told more jokes he might spend less time revealing his abysmal foreign policy ignorance (remember, that’s the stuff he claims he knows something about). Apparently, he just can’t let Czechoslovakia go.
Paul Choiniere has a column in the Day this morning about Sean Sullivan’s long shot candidacy in the Second District Congressional race. He summarizes Sean’s political philosophy:
He feels government has grown well beyond the means of the average taxpayer to support it, that the ever-larger budget deficits are a major cause for concern. He sees the role of the federal government as providing for those things that individuals cannot provide for themselves – a national defense, a social safety net for the most vulnerable, a reliable highway system. Sullivan predicts a national health insurance plan would be a disaster, and feels tax incentives can encourage a private-sector solution. (Emphasis added)
I wish Choiniere had followed up and asked Sean why he feels that a national health insurance plan would be a disaster. After all, Sean is someone who lived most of his adult life under the closest thing we have in this country to socialized medicine: the armed services health care system. Was it a disaster for him? By all accounts it functions well, as does Medicare, as does the VA system, as do most of the national health care plans in the civilized portion of the world. Why does Sean feel that the United States would be the exception?
Republicans have a strange detachment from reality. For many, their political philosophy is like a religion, based not on facts but on faith. They believe government cannot work and do all they can to prove it when they can take the levers of power. No amount of proof to the contrary can shake their faith. If a program works, they will either ignore that fact, work to subvert it (e.g., Medicare Advantage) or appoint people who oppose its purposes to run it. On the other hand, they retain faith in their own prescriptions despite overwhelming proof that they do not work. Consider supply side (a/k/a voodoo) economics, the claim that lowering taxes mainly on the rich leads to increased government revenue. Reagan tried it. It didn’t work. Clinton did the opposite. It worked. George Bush tried it. It didn’t work. Now McCain wants to do it again. The fact that it has been disproved in real life means nothing to these people. They believe and that is sufficient. (And besides, they’re all rich and it benefits them enormously)
By the way, I’m aware that Medicare has financial problems. If the system were expanded to cover everyone, those problems would largely disappear, since the more healthy people we bring into the system the sounder it would get. And it remains true that the Medicare Advantage program, which subsidizes more expensive private insurance, has increased the program’s financial woes.
Does Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — the Guantánamo detainee who claims he personally beheaded the reporter Daniel Pearl — deserve the rights he denied Mr. Pearl? Which ones? A painless execution? Exemption from capital punishment? Decent prison conditions? Habeas corpus?
Such apparently unrelated questions arise in the aftermath of the vote of the environment committee of the Spanish Parliament last month to grant limited rights to our closest biological relatives, the great apes — chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans.
(New York Times, When Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans)
I’m not sure exactly why extending “rights” to apes raises all these questions, but I would submit that, at least in part, the quote above illustrates a problem with the way we Americans frame these issues, at least as they apply to humans.
It isn’t only whether Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (who, as Frank Rich points out today, may not be guilty of the crime to which he’s confessed) has a right to a painless death, but whether a civilized society should inflict any other kind, assuming in the first place that the death penalty should ever be used. That issue can’t be resolved solely by considering his rights.
The question is not, or not alone, whether individuals possess certain rights, but whether any society should demean and degrade itself by inflicting painful deaths, engaging in torture or setting up kangaroo courts, to name just a few of the crimes against humanity in which this country has engaged in the past seven years. Putting aside the practical objections to at least some of these activities (that they don’t work), we have proven in our own recent history that engaging in such practices destroys not only our claim to moral leadership, but our moral center itself. We became a compromised country when we chose to abandon the ideals we have espoused, and largely lived by, since George Washington opted to treat captive Hessian soldiers humanely, not as they deserved (they had been ordered to take no prisoners), but in accordance with our principles, not in accordance with theirs. Washington was not concerned with the Hessian’s rights, but with American principles and American honour.
As Hamlet told Polonius, “Use every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity-the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.”
Addendum: I have received an extended comment to this post. I haven’t read all of it yet, but it is essentially a defense of the death penalty, grounded in Catholic theology. You can, of course, prove anything by a resort to theology, a philosophical system grounded in fantasy. Though I should add, to give it its due, that the Catholic Church is now against the death penalty, except, apparently, in extreme cases.
Every week it gets harder to dig into the old memory hole to come up with a different group. Luckily, I grew up in the 60’s and the supply of great music seems endless. Nonetheless, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rjMB0JotHM[/youtube]
Jason Rosenbaum at the Seminal reports that our own Chris Dodd is under consideration for the VP slot. I don’t know if the interest is real, or if Obama is just engaging in feel good politics. Sadly, I must protest against this choice. Nothing would make me happier than to see Chris Dodd a hearbeat away from the presidency, but we’ve worked too hard to take back the Congress. We can’t hand the Republicans a Senate seat, which is precisely what a Dodd vice presidency would do. We are going to need every Democratic vote we can get, if we’re going to get Harry Reid to shut down the Republican filibuster machine.
My wife suspects the undeserving future Senator would be Rob Simmons, which would make us Eastern Connecticut Democrats feel doubly burned. We worked our butts off to get rid of him, an dwe don’t want him coming back through the back door, particularly to the Senate. Simmons is just the sort of pseudo moderate that the Republican leadership loves. He talks a good game at home, but is totally tractable, like Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Rob in his congressional days, one of the catch and release crowd.
Dodd is a true hero in my book. Back in January his stand against FISA might have been dismissed as campaign posturing, but he had nothing to gain by continuing the fight. Unfortunately, we can’t afford to lose him.
Let’s not forget that we are in this position because the Democrats in the State House, while they had their veto proof majority, lacked the presence of mind to change Connecticut law to allow the people to fill a Senate vacancy, rather than the keep the present system, which allows the lady with the vacant head to do so.
This is an issue about which my wife has always been justifiably steamed. Many health plans cover Viagra, but will not cover birth control. Watch John McCain squirm as he ducks the issue, which was raised by his own advisor:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6IlGXhCUHo[/youtube]
Only John McCain could get away with refusing to talk about an issue because he has to go back and see how he voted. Note that he says he doesn’t usually duck an issue. Maybe he doesn’t, if you don’t count lying about your record in order to avoid answering a question:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGvxK660oFo[/youtube]
This guy can’t be worse than Bush, can he? Can he? I didn’t think it was possible, and I always figured Bush would hold the worst president in history record for a long time. But then, I once thought no one could be worse then Nixon, who now seems like a man of the Enlightenment.
