(Originally posted at Attackerman)

In the midst of going gangbusters on the Democratic leadership for sacrificing women’s reproductive health to political expediency, Katha Pollitt makes a point that I wish were made more often:

President Obama, too, worries about the deficit. Maybe you could help him out by sacrificing your denomination’s tax exemption. The Catholic Church would be aa good place to start, and it wouldn’t even be unfair, since the blatant politicking of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on abortion violates the spirit of the ban on electoral meddling by tax-exempt religious institutions. Why should antichoicers be the only people who get to refuse to let their taxes support something they dislike? You don’t want your tax dollars to pay, even in the most notional way, for women’s abortion care, a legal medical procedure that one in three American women will have in her lifetime? I don’t want to pay for your misogynist fairy tales and sour-old-man hierarchies.

This is easily one of the most frustrating things about the abortion debate. In a debate about whether or not the federal government should fund abortion services, abortion opponents almost always point to the substantial, trenchant opposition to abortion as a point in their favor. “X number of Americans oppose abortion, and so it’s not fair that their tax dollars should have to go to a procedure that they oppose.”

Tough shit.

A key part of living in a democratic society is accepting the fact that a majority of your fellow-citizens might favor a policy that you’re opposed to, morally or otherwise. Hell, a key part of living in a democratic society is accepting the fact that the government will grant certain rights – like reproductive freedom inclusive of abortion – that you find deeply immoral. Now, as a full person within said society, you can work and lobby to restrict the extent to which that right can be exercised. But what you can’t do is force the government to abandon rights or responsibilities that you find distasteful. For instance, I’m not a huge fan of bloated defense budgets or open-ended imperial adventures, and ideally, I would not want my tax dollars to support said projects. As a society however, we’ve agreed that I am not allowed to not pay taxes because I don’t like a particular action. Instead, I have to convince my fellow citizens that my stance is the correct one, and watch it go from there.

The simple fact is that there exists a right to abortion (a legal medical procedure, mind you) that a large percentage of American women aren’t actually able to exercise. And since we’ve generally accepted that we can use the force of government to promote certain rights, it stands to reason that we use federal funds to give women the choice of obtaining an abortion. Unless we – as a society – agree that abortion ought to be outlawed, or unless we’re prepared to say that any moral objection is grounds for federal restriction, then I think it’s fair to say that we should put an end to this ridiculous “pro-lifers don’t have to pay for things they don’t like” double-standard.

*And as a note to the more theory inclined readers, I know there’s a deeper point that could be made, I just don’t have the time or inclination to make it.

(Originally posted at Attackerman)

In the wake of last week’s elections and the flurry of “conventional wisdom” (read: warmed-over bullshit) declaring that the Democrats are “in trouble,” the White House is worried about its political prospects and has taken to debating whether or not it will pursue deficit reduction as a political strategy:

On the political side, Obama can help moderate Democrats avoid some tough votes in an election year and, perhaps more importantly, calm the nerves of independent voters who are voicing big concerns with the big spending and deficits. Even if Obama succeeds – and that’s a big if – it will be tough for many Democrats to sell themselves as deeply concerned about spending after voting for the stimulus, the bailouts, the health care legislation and a plan to address global warming, four enormous government programs.

“Democrats have to reassure voters we are not being reckless,” said a Democratic official involved in the planning. “The White House knows this and that’s why we’ll be hearing a lot about reducing the deficit early next year. Democrats owned this issue for the past four years and cannot afford to cede it to Republicans now.”

Last week, I pointed out that it isn’t really helpful for Democrats to try to draw any broader lessons from the elections in Virginia and New Jersey (other than turnout is key).  In Virginia, the voters who sent Bob McDonnell to Richmond had little in common with the voters who sent Barack Obama to Washington.  51 percent of voters in last week’s election voted for John McCain in 2008, and 37 percent of all voters self-identified as Republicans (compared to the 33 percent who identified as Democrats).

Still, even if you could take something useful away from last week’s elections, it’s still the case that that “something” has almost nothing to do with deficits and everything to do with the poor economy and a general sense that the government isn’t actually doing anything about it.  A recent Pew survey found that there is simply a generalized anti-incumbent sentiment among the electorate driven by a sense that nothing is improving.  Cutting spending and focusing on deficit reduction would ensure that nothing improves.  In the absence of government-driven demand, the economy could take an even further dip, which would almost certainly cost Democrats at least one chamber of Congress.

(Originally posted at Attackerman)

Apparently, the Catholic Church cares more about spiting gay people than it does about fulfilling the biblical command to serve the needy:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

I’m not surprised when conservative evangelicals ignore the needy in favor of fighting hopeless culture war battles. Conservative evangelicals have been thoroughly politicized for nearly three decades and the focus of their rage hasalways been the nation’s “moral decline,” in the form of reproductive freedom and gay rights. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has always been a bit more measured in its approach.  This might be my naivety talking, but I expected a bit more of the Catholic leadership. Sure, the Catholic Church isn’t particularly enamored of gays, but as an institution (and at least in the United States) it’s always seemed much more concerned with fighting the war on poverty than the war on gays.  What’s more, unlike evangelicals – who are overwhelmingly Southern and conservative – Catholics represent a wider geographic and ideological cross-section of America, which had a moderating influence on the church’s leadership.

But things changed, and in the past decade or so, Catholic leadership has become more and more committed to a socially conservative political agenda.   If given the choice between saving the needy and sticking it to the gays, these Church “elders” would rather let 68,000 of the most vulnerable Washingtonians suffer in the dead of winter than have to extend basic legal protections to gay people.

What’s the saying? Hate the sin not the sinner? Right.

(Originally posted at PostBourgie)

(Austin is very nice though!)

Rick Perry doesn’t seem to like his fellow Texans (via Politico):

Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry accused President Barack Obama on Wednesday of “punishing” Texas and being “hell-bent” on turning the United States into a socialist country.

Speaking at a luncheon for a Midland County Republican Women’s group, Perry said that “this is an administration hell-bent toward taking American towards a socialist country. And we all don’t need to be afraid to say that because that’s what it is.”

Perry praised the tea party movement to the Republican activists in attendance, crediting the grassroots groups with discouraging some Democrats in Washington from pushing for a public option in the health care bill.

Under Gov. Perry’s wise leadership, Texas has consistently won the coveted title of “nation’s least-insured state.”  Texas leads the nation in uninsured adults and children; a staggering 25 percent of Texans – or 6 million people – live and work without health insurance, and that includes nearly 1.4 million children.  What’s more, Texas is ranked near the bottom when it comes to health care utilization, especially among children: overall, Texas is ranked 43 in terms of prevention and treatment, and among children Texas is ranked 40, with only 67.3 percent of Texas children receiving a preventative medical and dental visit in the past year.

Those of us without a sociopathic disregard for our fellow citizens recognizes that absent some serious intervention in the health care system, this trend is sure to continue, with more and more Texans losing their health insurance, and more and more Texans dying because of it.  I’d like to think that Gov. Perry knows this and is working diligently to find a solution to his state’s health care catastrophe.  But judging from his comments and his steadfast opposition to health care reform, I think it’s safe to say that Rick Perry is mostly unconcerned with the growing humanitarian crisis in his state.  Which makes sense.  The large majority of the uninsured are located in the South and the West, which also happen to be the last remaining Republican strongholds.  And as such, Rick Perry’s casual disregard for the uninsured puts him in close company with most of his ideological fellow-travelers.

To jump on Matt Yglesias’ point from this past weekend, if we operated with a slightly less absurd set of political institutions, a minority of legislators from sparsely populated states – or even larger states – wouldn’t be able to obstruct efforts to provide millions of people with potentially life-saving insurance.  Moreover, if we had a more responsible media, obstructionist legislators and leaders would be treated with disdain and opprobrium, not regularly trotted out as respectable members of the political elite.

(Originally posted at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen)

This Gallup poll has gotten a bunch of attention, and I figure it’s worth posting here:

Yesterday, Ruth Marcus (or rather, whoever writes her subheadline) called the House debate over the health care bill a “GOP blizzard of untrue statements.”  And for good reason. The Republican argument against the bill amounted to a series of incoherent tirades denouncing the health care bill as an apocalyptic threat to everything good and decent about America.  Hell, I half-expected someone in the Republican caucus to describe Speaker Pelosi as the “beast from the sea” and an “abomination of desolation.”

Which is a nice way of segueing into this point: although the formal term for what happened on Saturday is “debate,” you’d be hard-pressed to describe anything that happened on Saturday as an actual debate.  A debate – as far as I understand it – is supposed to involve reasoned arguments and shared facts.  If I were in a debate about Darkwing Duck’s crimefighting ability, for instance, then my opponent and I would have to agree on certain basic facts; that there is indeed a superhero called Darkwing Duck and that he is St. Canard’s resident caped crusader.  If my opponent dismisses those easily verifiable facts, and instead insists that Darkwing Duck is a masked beaver, then well, we can’t really get anywhere.

This is basically where the country has been since the health care “debate” began.  Democrats and liberals have offered proposals and ideas, and Republicans have responded with either outlandish misrepresentations or outright lies.  Contramost of the mainstream pundit world, there hasn’t actually been much of a debate, and consequently the American people really don’t know much about what’s going on.  Which is why I’m skeptical about surveys like the one above; in a rational political culture, where debates were open and constructive, that poll might actually mean something.  As it stands however, that Gallup poll only shows two things: Americans are still anxious about health care reform and Republican demagoguery is depressingly effective.

• Who Are the Blue Dogs? – The New York Review of Books
  But for the vast majority of members of Congress, once you've been elected and reelected once or twice, it takes either a pretty big scandal or a rare historical tidal wave (as in 1994) to produce defeat. Members know this—in fact, they typically know exactly how many percentage points a certain vote might cost them at the polls. One begins to suspect that some Blue Dogs don't really fear losing as much as they fear facing a semicredible opponent and actually having to campaign hard for a change.
  (tags: politics)

Note: This was a shitty movie.

So, if Memeorandum is any indication, a few conservative bloggers have taken to mining fourth-rate dialogue from third-rate science fiction movies in order to make an absurd point about how a modest package of insurance reforms amounts to an attack on liberty itself.

I asked something along these lines on Facebook yesterday and in light of the apoplectic conservative reaction to Saturday’s vote, it’s worth posing these questions to the linked bloggers (if they are paying attention, of course). In what way does the health care bill constitute “socialism” or an attack on our “liberty”? How does the contents of the bill limit your freedom of action or restrict your ability to pursue your own comprehensive conception of the good? And, assuming you’re not similarly opposed to Medicare and Social Security, how is the health care bill categorically different from either of those programs? Finally, I also think it’s worth asking if you have a solution. If agree that there are serious systemic problems with our health care system, then are there any reforms you think would address – or at least mitigate – the problems of overconsumption, high cost, and inadequate coverage?

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that neither blogger has a real answer to any of those questions. For all of their bleating about how Saturday’s vote dealt a Mortal Kombat-esque fatal blow to “liberty,” I doubt either blogger even has a reasonably well-thought idea of what liberty is. Indeed, I think it’s entirely fair to say that “liberty” for these folks is anything they really like and tyranny, by contrast, is anything that makes them feel sad and/or knocks them off of their (poorly) self-constructed pedestal.

Also, what John Cole said.

I agree with conservatives like David Horowitz and John Hinderacker; in light of the shooting at Ft. Hood, we need to reassert and protect our values. The question of course, is the who we’re protecting our values from. Hint: it’s not Muslims. But first, a few quick points about Muslim-American attitudes:

1. Muslim-American are overwhelmingly happy with their place in the United States:

Back in 2007, the Pew Research Center released the first comprehensive survey of Muslim-American attitudes. According to the survey, nearly eight out of ten Muslim-Americans say that they are happy with their lives in the United States. To break that down a bit, 24 percent of Muslim Americans would say that they are “very happy” with their lives, 54 percent would say that they are “pretty happy,” and only 18 percent would say “not too happy.” Among the general public, those numbers are 36 percent, 51 percent and 12 percent respectively. Which brings me to my next point…

2. Most Muslim-Americans see no conflict between religious commitment and living in a modern society:

63 percent of Muslim-Americans say that they see no conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society. What’s more, a strong plurality of Muslims (43 percent) say that Muslims coming to America today should adopt American customs. By contrast, only 26 percent say that they should remain distinct, and 16 percent say that they should try both. Indeed, reading through the report, the vast majority of data suggests that on the whole, Muslims are glad to be in the United States and happy with the opportunities the country provides them.

Unfortunately, a good majority of Muslims are also worried about various forms of discrimination, racism, prejudice and stereotyping. 19 percent of Muslims say that they are worried about discrimination/racism/prejudice, 15 percent are worried about being viewed as terrorists, 14 percent are worried about ignorance of Islam, and 12 percent are worried about stereotyping.

This is a really important point. Contra the Hinderaker’s and Horowitz’s, we have absolutely nothing to fear from the 2.5 million Muslims who call the United States home. It’s to our credit as Americans that we have built a society where people of different religious beliefs and cultural traditions can live and work in peace without fear of harassment. Insofar that we should worry about anything, it’s those who would ostracize Muslims and use the weight of the federal government to isolate them. Anger and hostility breed hatred and extremism, and if we want to remain a society committed to tolerance and mutual respect, then we should work our hardest to marginalize anti-Muslim voices.

New York Times:

The nation’s top military officer said Wednesday that he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though President Obama has pledged to end the Bush administration practice of paying for the conflicts with so-called supplemental funds that are outside the normal Defense Department budget.

The financing would be on top of the $130 billion that Congress authorized for the wars just last month.

What if? Well, this year, that would mean devoting $680 billion to investments in infrastructure. That’s more than $200 billion more than Oberstar’s entire proposed transportation reauthorization bill, which was itself a large increase over the previous transportation law. There’s probably no way we could spend all that money at once, but it would nicely capitalize an infrastructure bank, and the promise of a steady flow of funds would get states thinking about real, long-term investments.

With that kind of money you could entirely build out a national network of true high-speed rail. One year’s worth of defense spending gets you that. Which makes one wonder: where are all the economists, wringing their hands over cost-benefit analyses of these defense expenditures? Does anyone doubt that the net benefit of $100 billion spent on high-speed rail is easily higher than that for the last $100 billion spent on defense? Have a look at this if you’re unsure.

And while the gains to new investments in infrastructure (and not just in transportation) would be large, it isn’t as though we lack critical needs. What was the cost, human and economic, of the I-35 bridge collapse? Of the Metro crash and resulting limitations on service? Of the Bay Bridge shutdown? And of course, investments in infrastructure constitute positive contributions to the economy, which ultimately strengthen our ability to direct resources toward defense. Aimless defense spending, on the other hand, may well make us poorer and less secure.

I would also add that we could probably have a rational conversation about national priorities if we talked about defense spending in the same way that we talked about health care spending. That is, if all defense projects were scored according to their ten year cost, or if economists scrutinized the distortionary impact of massive defense spending, or if new defense spending had to be accounted for through tax increases or cuts in other spending, then we probably wouldn’t be so quick to perpetuate these out of control budgets. As it stands however, defense spending is magical spending, and as such, doesn’t actually have any impact on anything ever.

• Title IX Dad | The American Prospect
  If we were transported back to 1972, some of us might worry that schoolchildren and their parents weren't ready for such an abrupt transformation as Title IX. Most people "accepted baseball as a male prerogative of some sort," complained a Little League vice president in 1974.

  But as I watch my daughter do something that would have been unlikely for a girl of my generation, and see all that goes with it, I'm endlessly thankful to those litigators and legislators of the early 1970s who weren't at all afraid to give the culture and its assumptions a shove in the name of fairness. And so should my daughter be. Although for now, it's more exciting that last spring her coach declared her the team's Most Valuable Catcher.

  (tags: politics feminism)
• David Leonhardt – What if the Economy Actually is Getting Better?
  As a congenital optimist, I tend to see things this way too. But one has to admit there's an element of faith involved. Plus, Mr. Micawber spent an awful lot of time in debtor's prison, and things didn't really turn up for him until he moved to Australia.

  Also, even if you buy the Leonhardt/Micawber/Fox forecast, we still have to make it to 2011. I get the feeling there will be so many economic crosscurrents and counterforces as to make the recovery seem awfully dubious for most of 2010. Still, something will turn up. Just can't tell you when.

  (tags: economy)
• How Gay Marriage Lost In Maine | Pine Tree Politics
  "Mainers, and national observers, have woken up this morning asking how the Yes on 1 coalition won this fight. Through most of the lead up to this vote, observers (including myself) felt that it would be extremely close, potentially to a recount, and that the No on 1 folks had the early advantage.

  True, most of us were careful to couch our predictions with additional analysis that left the door open for a Yes on 1 victory, but I don’t think anyone really saw a more than 30,000 vote victory for the proponents of the veto. And make no mistake – this was a decisive, and unquestionable win for the Yes on 1 campaign. It wasn’t really very close."

  (tags: maine marriage election)