Firearms

A lot of people I know hold the (in my opinion, rather unnecessarily extreme) position that nobody needs to own guns, and that things would be better if nobody did. These people are usually the sorts of well-meaning leftists that I agree with on damn near everything else.

However.

Here are the facts: I don't need some middle-class, white, nominally-Christian straight man telling me that I am safe without a gun. What does he know? Does he live with a target on his back because he's a woman? Because I do. Does he live with a target on his back because he's an ethnic or religious minority? No? Because I do, at least in the latter case. Does he live with a target on his back because there are seriously people in this country arguing we should burn fags not flags? Does he live with a target on his back because he's poor and nobody cares what happens to poor people?

Then why in the world should I let him look me in the eye and tell me that I'll be okay without a knife in my pocket? Without a gun in my bedside table? He lives in a completely different universe than I do, a universe in which nothing about him screams, "If you brutalize me, nobody will care."

I don't want to hear from that guy that I don't need a gun. Let him live in a world where a glance, a word, or a gesture can be a threat, and then he can tell me when I should feel safe, and what I should need to make that happen.

After all, what could possibly be scarier to the gay-hating misogynist theocrats who want people like me to disappear than the idea of gays with guns? It's been suggested that this is the real reason why people are afraid to have gays serve openly in the military: the potential horror of a half dozen men with M16s turning around and asking, "Who you callin' a faggot?"

Newsflash to the TEA Party: Middle-class straight Christian white people aren't the ones under siege. It's us.

Gun rights for everybody means for me, even if it means I'm protecting myself against the racist paranoid conspiracy theorists in the NRA who fought hardest for those rights in the first place. Thanks, guys. Now stay off my goddamn lawn.

Anti-authoritarian musings...

I think I might be a libertarian-socialist.

Or:

When did capitalist right-wingers get so trusting, anyway?

Here's libertarian-socialism in a nutshell (at least as I understand it, and if someone can correct me in the comments, PLEASE DO, because I will consider your insight here to be a personal favor).

Libertarians don't want the government controlling their behavior, because having your freedom curtailed by people who are not accountable enough to you SUCKS, and shouldn't happen. Coercion is terrible, and you shouldn't feel coerced by your government. People like myself take this one step further.

I feel that corporations and powerful individuals have too much power to control my life and coerce me, and they're even less accountable to me than the government. At least the government I can vote in or out. Therefore, the answer seems to me that we should be as wary of companies or individuals with power as we are of governments.

We agree that being controlled is bad. But I am willing to point the finger at more entities than the federal or state government, and tell them they're too coercive. More than that, I'm willing to actually stand up and kick them down a notch.

I'm not a socialist because I want the government to control me. I'm a socialist because I'm tired of rich people and the companies they own controlling me, and if I have to use the government to get free, then so be it. I'll use that as long as it's pleasing me, and if the government upsets me, I'll turn that upside-down, too.

Libertarian-socialism (as I understand and practice it) means treating everybody who has power with the same distrust that Libertarians feel toward the government. If you don't want the government rationing your health care, you shouldn't let Blue Cross/Blue Shield do it, either ( so we need health reform). If you don't want the government telling you what you can think or read, you shouldn't let your internet service provider hide parts of the internet from you (so we need net neutrality). If you don't want the government treating you like a servant, you shouldn't let your employer treat you that way either (so we need worker collectivization).

To me this is the only consistent approach. The Libertarian approach, where we eliminate all regulation and accountability except for the right of each individual to spend his or her dollar where he or she pleases, actually curtails personal liberty in a lot of the same ways that state-socialism or state-communism does, because either way you're telling a certain class of people (whether that's a government or a corporation), "You can do whatever you want. We trust you."

Well, guess what. I'm not an obedient person, and I DON'T trust them. I don't trust the government, or my insurance provider, or my ISP. But at least the government has to maintain a pretense of accountability, and at least there is some power to influence it (though it's far more of a grind than it should be, it's more power than I have over Comcast).

Here's a super spiffy real-life example. You know how the state can lay highway through your property using eminent domain? This is something of a necessary evil that can be used right, but that we should always be wary and mistrustful of, and we should always make it a huge pain and potential public relations nightmare to do it. That way we put barriers up to make sure it's not abused.

There was a bill introduced in the Indiana state house which would have let utility companies declare a project a "public good" eligible for eminent domain. Seriously. There is legal precedent for this, and in many states it's legal for utilities to use the same power to use or sieze property that the government has.

Here's my problem with it: Huge energy and utility companies cause more than enough trouble for their ratepayers without the right to straight-up take their property. At least with the government using eminent domain you can hold them accountable and vote them out of office if you don't like the way they're acting. With a utility, you generally don't even have the ability to take your business elsewhere. You can't even stop giving them your money (unless you want to stop having electricity).

This is bad. I think this is bad because it just goes to show how much trust people have in these companies. People who flatly refuse to support the right of the government to chip away at people's property rights will nonetheless completely bend over for a company that wants to do it. CAC killed that bill, and now we're just watching to make sure they don't slip that language into something that they think will get past us.

But seriously. This is what happens when you talk a good line about questioning authority and being free from government control, but turn around and let private businesses do whatever they want. Someone is going to have the right to take your land. Would you rather vote that person into office and out of it, or would you rather it be someone who knows you can't even stop paying them no matter how pissed you are?

Yeah, that's what I thought. The fact that your property rights mean shit at all is because there are laws protecting you. That's right. Laws. Laws mean "government regulation." When you chip away at the government and let private businesses fill the gap, you get crap like power companies with the right to lay pipeline through your land.

I'm not satisfied with that, but then... I'm not a Libertarian-capitalist or a market-anarchist or whatever. I'm not required to be satisfied with it, because I'm not the one who created that situation by arguing that the "invisible hand" of the free market/God/Santa/etc. should be the only control placed on what a business or individual can or can't do. I'm not required to be satisfied by this situation, because I never argued that I would be.

Can't say the same for Libertarians.

Compassion and Choice

I'm going to be charitable and assume that the pro-life stance is not just primarily about protecting children, but is solely about protecting children. Let's take away all those debates about economic and social parity between men and women. Let's take away all the questioning of heteronormative gender roles and Christonormative social norms, and the adoption system that reinforces them.

Let's talk about protecting children.

Currently in America there are 500,000 children in foster care, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

On any given night in America, over a million children are homeless. Being homeless doesn't just mean no shelter, compromised hygeine, and no guarantee of safety. It also means a staggering rate of mental illness and compromised educational opportunity, according to the National Mental Health Association.

Every day, worldwide, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes according to The Lancet.

About 20 million children are homeless and over 2 million are dead because of armed conflicts worldwide in the last decade, this according to UNICEF.

This is why, if I ever raise children, I feel a strong moral imperative to adopt. This is why, if I ever call a young person my son or daughter I do not plan for them to be of my own blood.

This is why, if I become pregnant, I will do my damndest to have an abortion. Y'know why? Because if I'm going to pour resources into a child, I can think of children who need it a lot more than the one I'd be producing.

Stop telling me I hate children. That I'm a babykiller. That I'm a destroyer of families, a reaver of responsible moral values. I intend to have an abortion to stop the introduction of more children into a world that's got enough needy children already. You want to turn every single abortion discussion into an appeal to emotion? You really want to go that low?

I can play that game, too.

I think every single person who deliberately conceives children of their own instead of taking in a child in need (and they're all around us, guys) is being self-serving and short-sighted. I do. I think these people are allowing themselves to be complicit in a system where the only children that are recognized as needing safety, food, and love are one's own, where the children we value most are still aspirin-sized parasites, while real living, breathing, thinking, feeling, suffering children are left to their plights because millions of parents who could be doing something for them are creating more and more children instead.

Every time I'm slurred as a babyhating militant women's libber out to destroy families I have bitten my tongue when it comes to this particular argument because I didn't want to come out and say it. But now I will.

You say I'm devaluing the lives of children by planning to have an abortion should I become pregnant. I say that pro-lifers are devaluing the lives of children by sanctifying a fetus above a needy child who quite simply to them matters less.

I use two forms of protection and am still considering more permanent sterilization options (that, let's face it, are expensive and invasive for women). But you can bet that if I become pregnant despite that, I will have an abortion. Without hesitation. Without guilt. Without permission.

And I'll be thinking of you. I'll remind myself how glad I am that "pro-lifers" and their lust for forced birthing don't get to force me to make the wrong choice, to make a choice that I believe will be exacerbating a global child welfare disaster that could easily be fixed if more people cared for existing children as much as they cared for a smear of cells less distinct from my own body than the normal flora in my gut.

I'll be wondering why the hell more women aren't right here with me, putting live children first.

So don't rail at me about protecting children like it's never occurred to me that they need it. I am a thinking, discerning, moral human being, and thinking, discerning, moral human beings are able and obligated to decide for themselves how best to serve the world in their time here. We are able and obligated to choose. I choose contraception and abortion, as many times as I want them. I choose adoption, every time I want a child.

That's my choice. Why should you get a veto? Why should the moral choice of this woman be worth so little, and dismissed so easily? I'm pro-choice, and we believe in morality, too.

If given a choice (and I will demand one), there is a direct moral conflict for me between bearing a child of my own blood and caring for suffering children who are already here. When in conflict (and I've stated that it always will be), my obligation will be to these living children first. Why are all these living children less important to "pro-lifers" than the children I may abort? Why do they want women like me to be forced to bear children, when I know in my heart that children worldwide are better served if I avoid breeding at all costs?

Call it the Bob Barker school of child welfare. Spay and neuter yourselves. Adopt a child in need.

To clarify: I'm not demanding that all people have enforced abortions until there are no more needy children. I can understand people choosing personally that, when they get pregnant, they're not comfortable getting an abortion. Oopsie babies happen, and I know not everyone can be as cavalier about it as I am.

What I can't excuse morally even if I understand it emotionally is deliberately creating more children when you know that there are already kids out there who need you. Resources are limited, and you can't take care of every kid. But I believe it is wrong to deliberately create a new child instead of adopting. Not everyone has to make that choice, but it is a moral choice I have made, and not mere selfishness as it gets portrayed by anti-choicers.

If all we're going to talk about is compassion for children, I think it shows a lack of compassion for children to deliberately breed more instead of caring for the ones who need care.

Philosophy and Fact

So... if you had to choose between doing something that kept with your principles and doing something that had a better chance of achieving the end you're looking for, which would you choose?

Classic example, sex ed as a way to reduce teen pregnancy, STDs, etc. If you're a conservative Christian, you're faced with a choice. Will you advocate for your values as they were given to you (meaning, teach only abstinence)? Or will you compromise your values to do what the facts indicate will actually achieve the end you desire (teaching about contraceptives and even abortion)?

To me this highlights a common conflict between liberals and conservatives. In keeping with the sex ed example, conservative Christians are ostensibly trying to protect families and children. Since they believe that premarital sex is wrong, they would rather discourage that than compromise on their hardline stand to achieve the result they claim they care about most.

And this means one thing: to conservative Christians, the means are more important than the ends... to the point that they completely disconnect from the reality of the situation. This is why showing statistics about teen pregnancy and STDs and high school dropout rates to conservative Christians will not convince them that children should learn anything but "abstinence good, sex bad." It won't convince them because the end isn't the point. The result isn't the point. They don't care nearly as much about the actual fates of children as they do about their moral high ground.

This is why you see liberals advocating for practical sex education, even if it means allowing for the possibility that young people will have premarital sex. Sure, it'd be nice if they weren't, but if our end is really to reduce teen pregnancy and STD rates... we've gotta do what we've gotta do.

That practicality is completely lost on many conservatives. Even if they support their arguments with facts and predictions of results, in the end the results are secondary. 

You've heard this before.

"Teaching teens about contraceptives may reduce the rates of teen pregnancy and accompanying dropout rates (which would result in economic and social benefits for those teens who would otherwise have dropped out), but it's wrong! Teaching them how to have responsible sex is... well, it's teaching them to have sex!" Link.

"Some wealth redistribution may reduce our deficit and reduce the tax burden on poor and middle-class families to fund our whole economy. Sure. But it's wrong! Did you know Hitler was a socialist?!" Link.

"Sure, entering peace talks with countries hostile to us might help us handle global challenges. But damn it, we're America! We'll handle global problems ourselves, our way, and you'd better either help us or get the heck out of our way." Link.

So at this point you have to ask yourself. How dedicated are you to the principles behind your goals? Are you dedicated enough to the principle to sacrifice the goal?

This is one of the sticking points for me when talking to my very conservative friends (and yes, I do have them). It seems most of the time like they'll uphold all these great and noble goals, but they have little interest in achieving them or actually working toward them. They feel teen pregnancy is a tragedy, but they reject any practical means of reducing it. They moan about the economy, but cling to Bush's "principled" stance that there's nothing more important than protecting the wealth of the wealthy. They sigh that America's always having to pick up other people's messes and finish other people's fights, but they don't want to admit that we don't have all the answers, that other nations may have something to bring to the table.

At this rate, there is nothing I can do to convince them. I can't offer facts or expert opinions, because those are merely result-based. My "reality-based thinking" has no impact because we're not really talking about the same thing. This is why every discussion with conservatives I've ever had has become a philosophical debate and not a practical one.

Most conservatives I've spoken with (particularly conservative Christians) truly are interested in philosophy first and results second. If I can't somehow argue that my solution doesn't just work but also fits into a philosophical model of America as God's Chosen Blessed Land of Opportunity, they don't care. The fact that a plan could work for the goal we agree upon doesn't matter if it requires a shift away from a comfortable philosophical model.

I don't know if this helps anyone reading this, but here's my summary.

To conservatives: If you're talking to a liberal, be honest when you're upholding principle most highly, and when you're upholding results. It will muddle the discussion much less if you make your priorities clear.

To liberals: Conservatives are listening, honest. Odds are you're just not talking about what's really on their minds. When they reply to studies or statistics by reasserting their philosophy, they're trying to reiterate what matters to them in the debate. They may not intentionally be shifting the goalpost onto philosophical terrain; odds are that to some conservatives that's where it's been the whole time.

Their Feelings > You

Fuck you Mike Leavitt.

I've commented on his blog before, on this whole "let's redefine nearly every form of contraception as abortion" clusterfuck going through DHHS right now. Because, y'see, this isn't about restricting women's health care (even though that's what'll happen). That's not even a relevant issue! Even though that's what'll happen. No, this is about FEELINGS.

The doctors' feelings, to be precise. Didn't you know? They're more important than the patient's health, or a contractual obligation to provide a service patients pay for. If a doctor doesn't believe in abortion, then they aren't going to provide them. This doesn't sound truly terrifying until you consider that DHHS thinks it should be allowed to define "abortion" however loosely they'd like. They want to change it to "life begins at fertilization, so anything that prevents the fertilized egg from sticking to the inside of your uterus is now an abortion." That way a doctor can deny you a whole list of things (most notably every birth control method I can think of that isn't a barrier method) because it is more important to DHHS that doctors provide care according to their consciences than for patiences to receive care according to their consciences.

Leavitt mocked the position of people like me who believe that doctors should provide the care they agreed to provide when they got licensed, stating, "Freedom of expression and action is surrendered with the issuance of a medical degree."

You lose the freedom to betray the standards of your profession, yeah. Doctors lose the freedom to deny care to people who come to them for it, psychologists lose the freedom to gossip about people who talk to them in a professional context, etc. I realize this loss of freedom of expression and action must be deeply traumatic for doctors. Being held to the same professional standards as all other doctors is just awful. If your argument is that doctors should be allowed to exempt themselves from their oaths just 'cuz they wanna... well, I'm with you! Professional standards and accountability are for those secularist babymurdering liberals.

Yes. That was sarcasm.

In all seriousness, though. If you are not ready to provide the services of a physician, don't become one. If it's against my religion to dance in public, I should not dream of Broadway. If I believe that rum is the devil's poison and that Prohibition should be re-established, I should not aspire to become a bartender. If it's against my conscience to provide medical advice or procedures to certain people or for certain reasons, I should not dream of a medical career.

Medicine is about service. You are doing a disservice to half the population of this country by codifying an appalling belief: that women's LIVES are not as important as the FEELINGS of doctors who should never have gone into practice in the first place.

One comment by "Michelle" got a chuckle out of me, and I wanted to share it.

I think I'm going to become a doctor. Of course, I'm morally opposed to inhaled steroids and albuterol--in my religion inhaling something other than the air we normally breathe is counter to God's will. I'm going to have a lot of asthma patients! When all those asthma patients drop dead on the floor of the ER during a massive asthma attack--Oh well, at least my god will be pleased. Whatever the patient needed/wanted to do with their body doesn't matter. And in fact, I'll work very hard to lobby against allowing asthma drugs to exist! I need to save those people who think they need the medication I don't like, even if it kills them. By denying them proper medical treatment, I'll be pleasing God and that's more important than what the patient thinks is right for his/her body! Go me, medical degree here I come!

I followed a particularly well-thought-out comment to the site linked, and was delighted to recognize the name of someone on my friends list. naamah_darling, you rock.

Here's one small piece of the glory she posted.

I think everyone should be free to act with conscience (though an argument could be made that someone who does not wish to perform their duty should not have taken the job to begin with). But what assurances, sir, do we have that you will see to it that women who need services will still be served? What are your plans for that? Or have you forgotten the entire point of the medical profession, which is to provide care for those who need it? I demand to know this, sir. I demand to know how you plan to make sure women are not further harmed by this policy of yours, as they are being harmed by existing laws and policy.

If you put into place a system or set of rules that dictated women MUST be promptly referred to another provider covered under her insurance plan, then and only then will I be able to "conscience" turning these incredibly important decisions over to anyone but the woman.

I have to say I am not very impressed with your responses so far. You don't seem to care much about patients at all, when arguably, you should care about them above all. That, sir, is disgusting.

That about says it as far as I'm concerned. If you want to preach, become a pastor. If you want to control women's lives, move to Saudi Arabia. If you want to become a doctor, treat the patients that come to you.

I encourage others to leave comments on Leavitt's blog. A pro-life group has encouraged its members to flood his blog with grateful comments, and I agree with NARAL Pro-Choice America. He needs to be hearing us, too.

Otherwise, it's gonna be a lot of this: "There IS NO financial reason not to have a child, if we trust in God's Providence."

Yeah. That's a comment on there, by Elizabeth Victory.

Please. Be the voice of reason, and be a loud one. Those of us females who want to control our childrearing don't want to be treated like cattle, breeding at the behest of someone with authority over us. Those of us females who want to be as free as a man to live independent lives would really appreciate the right to control our reproduction.

Don't let DHHS take it, and certainly don't let idiots like Elizabeth Victory encourage DHHS to take it.

As Anita Monical stated:

Well, I for one am happy to know that soooo many doctors view their right to deny women access to and information regarding contraception as a matter of personal integrity, and not a matter of women's health.

I certainly would have all kinds of faith in physicians who put unshared moral values above the health and wellbeing of women. No really.

I never thought of medical professionals as an enemy of my own physical health, mental wellbeing and yes, my financial security. I do now.

That should scare you. It scares me.

All you have to do is post a comment. It'll take you thirty seconds.

DHHS wants to say that physicians have the right to refuse you care if they decide it hurts their feelings to give you what you need. DHHS wants to say that physicians have the right to hinder women's access to legal and safe contraception and abortion. DHHS wants to say that the consciences of female patients are less important and valid than the doctors who would deny them the care that the patients have chosen to seek out.

Say no.

The Persecution Complex

To all those people who lament the impression that colleges and universities are biased against them?

To all those people who lament the impression that human rights groups are biased against them?

To all those people who lament the impression that foreign countries are biased against them?

To all those people who lament the impression that the media is biased against them?

Have you ever considered the possibility that all or some of these people might actually be right and you're the one who's wrong?

1. If educated people are often liberal, is it simpler to assume a broad-sweeping brainwashing conspiracy, or to assume that upon exposure to other views and the facts behind them people don't seem to remain conservative? If liberals claimed that universities had a conservative bias, you know that conservatives would be claiming that it's not their fault educated people lean right. Why do you let them get away with the anti-intellectual bullshit when you would never allow it from liberals?

2. If human rights groups tend to be liberal, is this a sign that they're all secretly members of the anti-conservative conspiracy bent on eradicating an entire school of thought from the face of the earth? Or is it simpler to assume that the liberal philosophy places a higher emphasis on the well-being of individuals, from which it follows naturally they'd care more about human rights?

3. Maybe the fact that everyone thinks you're acting like an imperialist dick means that imperialism makes you a dick. Calling you a dick and treating you like you're a dick when you're being a dick isn't biased. It's called "self-preservation."

4. Media coverage of the election doesn't have a liberal bias... it has a bias in favor of McCain. Conservatives loved the guy doing this study when it said the opposite, but now that they're the bad guys, suddenly the methodology must be wrong. See, you gotta be skeptical about the media if you're a conservative. A good unbiased source will agree with you. Never trust a source that doesn't agree with you. It's just that damned liberal conspiracy acting up again, but thankfully they're easy to detect. They say crazy things like "pissing off other countries makes them hate us," and "voodoo economics doesn't work" or "abstinence-only sex ed doesn't work." They're always pushing this ideological bias, so it makes them easy to detect and ignore.

All in all, I'm getting tired of the "I hate your evidence! You elitist liberals are always pickin' on us simple salt o'the earth conservatives. Just because I don't have any credentials in the field we're talking about doesn't mean that my opinion isn't just as valid as yours!"

Well, I'm an elitist bastard and let me tell you something. If I hear one more time about how educated people can't be trusted (because too much exposure to the diversity and complexity of reality brainwashes you liberal, see), or about how educated people are out of touch with reality (at least compared to people who've only ever exposed themselves to their own way of life), or some other bullshit excuse to cover the bitterness and resentment of uneducated people that educated people always abandon their cause... I'm going to have some kind of episode.

I don't know how to say it more simply than this. If education is a danger to your worldview, that is hard proof that your worldview needs examining. If entertaining other worldviews turns out to be a danger to your own, your worldview is a hell of a lot more fragile than you want to admit. If studying other cultures is some kind of threat to your own, your own culture isn't worth your slavish loyalty. If exposure to people who believe they can make the world better somehow erodes your reinforced sense of self-serving exploitative entitlement and privilege, perhaps that's a clue that you need to abandon that sense of entitlement.

There are too many people who resent educated people for learning a few new things and suddenly changing their minds. I didn't think I was a liberal. Sure, I thought that gays were human beings and so were women. Sure I thought that it'd sure be nice if college weren't a way to transform wealth into privilege so that the super-rich could claim they'd earned what they've got. Sure I'd love to have the first, last, and final say over when I carry a child. But I didn't think that made me liberal. I thought liberals were these frothing man-hating Communists out to create a man-free, gun-free Marxist paradise off the cost of California on a human-made island of singed bras.

I didn't realize what would happen to me. I didn't realize that once I left my town of 8,000 people I might really have a chance to learn how other cultures lived and what made them that way. I didn't realize that this would cause me to take a good hard look at my own culture. I didn't realize this was all part of the grand liberal mafia brainwashing conspiracy.

In short, reality turned out to have a liberal bias. Once exposed, I fell.

For all you conservatives out there... it could happen to you. I suggest you do what the Amish do. Drop out after eighth grade. Wouldn't want to start getting ideas and putting on airs. Wouldn't want to change your mind. Wouldn't want to become liberal or anything.

Drop out. Delete every news channel from your cable but Fox News. In fact, delete every channel but the televangelists. Burn every nonfiction book you own. Save yourselves before it's too late! Above all remember!

The liberals are sly. The liberals are stealthy. The liberals will find you.

YOU MAY ALREADY BE ONE.

The Race Card! D:

Obama Has No 'Race Card' To Play; McCain Does

Earlier this week, presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Barack Obama was "playing the race card," when the Illinois senator warned an audience that his Republican rivals would try to scare Americans against voting for him.

Mark Q. Sawyer heard that charge and offers this piece, titled "Barack Obama Has No 'Race Card' to Play, But John McCain Sure Does."

Sawyer is director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics and the author of Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba.

What is "the race card" anyway? It appeared in the context of the O.J. Simpson trial when Robert Shapiro, O.J.'s lawyer, worried that by doing his job as O.J. Simpson's attorney had lost his whiteness card.

Shapiro said, "'Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.'" That phrase was echoed as a defense by McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis, in justifying the McCain's campaign likening Barack Obama -- a former state senator, editor of the Harvard Law Review, community organizer and sitting U.S. Senator -- to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. The two, of course, are most known for partying, sex tapes, eschewing underwear, and flights of fancy with drunk driving, drug use, jail and child neglect.

The New York Times has accurately pointed out the connection with the Simpson trial and the irony of McCain's use of it. Now we have pundits arguing whether the "race card" was played or not, without anyone have a clear idea of what a "race card" is -- if it exists at all. But I think I can help here.

Ostensibly "the race card" is some proverbial "get out of jail free card" in the context of O.J. -- or in the minds of some whites now -- extended to the point of any charge of racism, which places African Americans, or in this case an African-American candidate, beyond reproach, outside of legitimate criticism. It is like the Joker in a game of Joker's Wild or a trump card that solves all black problems and blunts legitimate criticism. It is supposedly a cross and garlic that Obama, and perhaps all African Americans, carry to ward of not evil white vampires but reasonable white people and criticism.

The fact is there is no such thing as a race card in the sense mentioned above in political campaigns. Whenever race is a topic of debate in the campaign it is almost always a net negative for Obama, no matter how gracefully he handles it. His statement was, in fact, carefully worded to try to inoculate himself from being pounded by coded racial language and not so coded racial language on Fox News and the Internet (we have all seen the Obama family tree e-mails, etc.).

Obama said, "Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. ... You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

Obama, in this statement, is gingerly trying to point out that his different appearance and the fact he is "different" in terms of his name and his racial background may make some uneasy and they may trade on it. But political scientists who follow black politicians have long talked about what some call a "de-racialized campaign." The idea is simply this: If black candidates need to get white voters, explicitly appealing to race is a losing strategy for a black candidate period, full stop.

Even talking about race in the campaign is generally a net negative for the black candidate. We saw this with Clinton. But how can we understand McCain's strategy?

Well, there is some research by political scientist Tali Mendelberg in her book titled, The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages and the Norm of Equality.

Mendelberg reveals that when white candidates explicitly refer to race in campaigns and make explicit appeals they lose support because there is ostensibly a norm of following some notion of racial equality.

However, Mendelberg also shows that implicit messages have a real effect. Using subtle language that cues race in the minds voters can be quite effective. Pictures of black criminals, Clinton's 3AM commercial advertisement, the arrogance attack, questioning patriotism, and from Karl Rover 'trash talking,' followed by fears of miscegenation (Paris and Britney) are all implicit appeals.

They conjure images of either African-American stereotypes or fears about African Americans. This week, McCain also came out against affirmative action, an issue which though it has substantial gender content is entirely understood as a race issue and generally in black/white terms.

Thus, the "race card" reference is also a way to sneak an explicit appeal and to also suggest and implicit appeal. It reminds voters of O.J. Simpson, racism, and the fact that Barack Obama is black. It also suggests that McCain is somehow the unfair victim of an "explicit" racial appeal by Barack Obama. It is a completely dishonest but a master pivot.

Barack Obama has difficulty defending himself from racial attacks because as long as they are either subtle or come from the nether reaches of the Internet or from Fox News but far from McCain himself, McCain pays no price for these attacks. McCain himself becomes the "victim" of the race card and simultaneously injects race into the campaign without ostensibly having to pay the cost of doing so.

Thus, the fact is, if there is a race card, and it in the context of political campaigns works against black candidates and John McCain's campaign is playing it -- affirmative action, "Pop-tarts," arrogant, unpatriotic (code for un-American) and then the 'race card' accusation. Everyone knows that part of both Barack Obama's handicap and appeal is that he is the first African American candidate. He has to address that gingerly and defend from all manner of attacks, which allows for a skillful distraction by the McCain campaign.

The truth is, of course, race still matters for some voters and in different and complicated ways. The even sadder truth is, that following the Clinton campaign, McCain is turning Obama's need to craft a defense against racial attacks into an offense.

McCain has to keep the discussion in the campaign on issues that are "wins" for him -- national security, terrorism, and of course, race. Following Obama's attempt to inoculate himself from the national security charge during his trip abroad and pivot toward his winning issue, the economy, McCain has used race to distract attention and make the debate one he may not be able to win morally but that he will win the deep recesses in the minds of many voters.

Obama was spot on, and if he had not tried to defend himself in this fashion they would have used some other means of injecting it. The question is will the voters facing a flagging economy be distracted by these appeals to the deep and dark mostly unconscious fears as Obama said? Or will McCain have to find answers for real problems Americans face?

-- Mark Q. Sawyer

I definitely advise checking out the comments on this entry. That's not just because I want NPR to get some traffic for having a repost-worthy article, but because it's sometimes nice to see that there are still reasonable people in the universe (even if some are still, as one commenter put it, "living in Fox spin land"). Reading what passes for debate in the minds of guys like this "Jon" is... enlightening, if a bit disappointing. He seems to hop back and forth a bit on his points, which confused me until I got to the end.

I'm being dead serious here. He's intelligent, immensely articulate, and although I've never met him, he seems like a fun guy. His response to the Rev. Wright fiasco was one of the most thoughtful, honest expressions on this topic I have ever heard.

Unfortunately he is also, as Jon states, a "ruthless baby killer." And that's the "objective truth." I don't think I even have to say what I think of that one.

But then, I guess I'm just one of those "white liberals who, in their patronizing and condescending manner are more than willing to give blacks a free pass." I'll do anything to vote for a black person, and against white people. I hate my own kind! "Down with whitey," that's what they teach us women's libbers in college.

Conservatism: A Few Basics (Not as Boring as You Fear!)

Conservatism: A Few Basics

One of the characteristics of left-wing parochialism on campus is the casting of other outlooks through their popular, and not always accurate, manifestations in public life. For many campus dwellers, the word “conservatism” evokes images of Iraq and Cheney, or people in megachurches waving their hands, or judges in Salem in 1692. That’s what happens when an education system downplays conservative ideas, texts, and figures. Only the most extreme or oppositional versions of it stand out.

Academics should take conservatism more seriously. Here is a list of basic conservative canons as outlined by Russell Kirk in The Conservative Mind. They derive from the lineage Kirk drew in that book, a roster that includes Edmund Burke, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Coleridge, Tocqueville, Hawthorne, Henry Adams, and Irving Babbitt.

1. Belief in a transcendent order or body of natural law.

2. Acceptance of the variety and mystery of human existence.

3. Conviction that civilization requires hierarchy and order.

4. The connection of freedom and private property.

5. A trust in local customs and traditions over the visions of social engineers.

6. A preference for gradual change over revolutionary change.

Clearly, each one violates a reigning dogma or value in the humanities. No. 1 goes against social constructionism. No. 2 goes against the love of theory. No. 3 goes against egalitarianism. No. 4 goes against the reliance on government action. No. 5 goes against the faith in innovation and reform. And No. 6 goes against the cachet different kinds of radicalism possess in the field (“this book is a radical rethinking of . . .”).

So, when people contest the assertion of liberal bias in the humanities curriculum, they shouldn’t ask if conservatives are demanding affirmative action for themselves or Intelligent Design in the classroom. They should ask how often tradition, transcendence, hierarchy, capitalism, and gradualism are hailed as values in the classroom and quarterlies.

Posted at 11:43:01 AM on June 19, 2008 | All postings by Mark Bauerlein

Just Passing Through replied in the comments:

With Prof. Bauerlein finally—prodded by my comments, obviously—delivering a little essay instead of just cutting-and-pasting another stat summary, I wasn’t going to get in on this. Leave well enough alone, etc. Besides, I figured the dirty, hippy, half-witted commie pinko bed-wetters “a tired rambler,” “Anti-hypocrisy advocate,” “Roger,” and others would immediately check in to do battle with the smaller roster of righties, e.g., “CU Prof,” “S. Britchky.” So far, not really the fireworks I anticipated.

Therefore, I must, in the interest of a clearer debate, provide a colloquial translation of Prof. Bauerlein’s conservative canon:

1. Belief in a transcendent order or body of natural law. As the bumpersticker says, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.”

2. Acceptance of the variety and mystery of human existence. They do all them drugs and shoot each other ‘cause that’s just the way they are. Nothin’ we can do about it.

3. Conviction that civilization requires hierarchy and order. You can’t go around demonstratin’ in the street. Especially when there’s a war on.

4. The connection of freedom and private property. If I want to build it, I’ll build it. It’s my land. And if the county says I can’t, just let ‘em try and stop me.

5. A trust in local customs and traditions over the visions of social engineers. You ain’t from around here, are you? Well, around these parts, people like you just can’t come in here and live like you want. We’ve got our ways.

6. A preference for gradual change over revolutionary change. It’s always been done that way. May not be fair, but that’s only for a few folks. Maybe their grandkids’ll have it a little better, but for now, it’s just too bad for them.

Oh, one little cavil: Even the ardent lefties I know don’t “hail” their tenets in the classroom. Insinuate, maybe. “Hail” is a blurb verb, as in “Critics hail Broadway’s newest…,” etc. It’s crap writing and Prof. Bauerlein teaches English.

diogenes replied:

Both “Just Pissing Through” (#11) and “a tired rambler” (#3) illustrate beautifully the point that Mark made in his first paragraph. I know of no conservatives who sound like JPT’s “colloquial translations.” Rather, those sound like stereotypical lines from bad movies about brutish and reptilian people from the backwoods who resist the intrusion of more enlightened Yankees from the Ivy League. (“Deliverance,” anyone?)

In the interest of balance, let me suggest the Liberal counterpart to each of the six points from Kirk:

1. Belief in a transcendent order or body of natural law. —-“We Liberals, being the most-evolved form of life, are the final authority on things. Don’t try to tell us how the universe works; we’ll make it work the way that fits our current theories and wishes.”

2. Acceptance of the variety and mystery of human existence. —-We’re all exactly alike—physically, mentally, emotionally. Especially you little people. But we’ll make you all just like Us, only obedient to your betters.

3. Conviction that civilization requires hierarchy and order. —-The only hierarchy is that We Who Know make the rules for you little people. Within that framework, party down!

4. The connection of freedom and private property. —-Conservatives don’t understand the vocabulary. ‘Freedom’ means the right to do what We permit, not what you want to do. Remember that ‘Freedom is Slavery;” We’ll make you happier this way; trust me.
‘Private property’ means you can use it until We want it for something else. In the meantime, We’ll tell you what we think is the best use of the property.

5. A trust in local customs and traditions over the visions of social engineers. —-How quaint. As though you people who live in fly-over country could know how to do things in your own town, your own schools, your little “states.” We in New Haven and Cambridge and Manhattan THINK about things and thus KNOW what’s best for you. All you little people want to do is cling to your guns and your religion. But you WILL conform. We have Ways.

6. A preference for gradual change over revolutionary change. —-There’s no need to make the changes gradually, because we know what the world ought to be like, and the sooner the better. Delays simply run the risk of diluting our vision for your future. Moreover, We will not be secure in our power until the revolution.

The appalling arrogance of these two (and some other liberals among these responses) illustrates why it’s almost impossible to have an intelligent conversation with a liberal. “We (Liberals) THINK about things until we see that liberalism is correct, while you (conservatives) blindly accept what your traditions tell you. It’s perfectly obvious and beyond cavil that logic, tolerance, science, and virtue are the exclusive province of liberalism.” Moreover, the irritating fact that not all conservative think alike becomes the basis for charging Bauerlein and others of inconsistency and misuse of sources.
In “The Idiot,” Dostoyevski has a character say, “I have never known a liberal who would allow anone to have an opinion of his own, without immediately overwhelming him with abuse or something worse.”

He was right.

Joe Erwin added later:

Both “conservatives” and “liberals” have more complicated positions than those for which they are given credit. I think again of the statement once made my my post-doc advisor: “There are only two kinds of people; those who believe there are only two kinds of people, and those who don’t.” This series of comments includes abundant stereotyping of the “left” and “right” and the “liberal” and “conservative” perspectives. How can intelligent people be so small minded as to lump people into such groups? There may something that could be characterized as a “liberal syndrome” and a “conservative syndrome” in which those suffering from these respective maladies each hold a set of dogmatically defended values or beliefs (that in each case include stereotypes about the other).

Isn’t it all far more interesting and complex than this sort of polarized perspective on the world and its peoples? Left, right, up, down, north, south, east, west, and all shades and grades of n-dimensional hyperspace are in play. And within that matrix, one of the most powerful concepts is that at every level of function, variation occurs, and some things work better than others. Processes and mechanisms that do not work at all, that is, fail to function or are fatally flawed, do not survive. Ideas and techologies and systems and organisms that work well some or most of the time, at some level of organization, tend to persist. The classic psychological defense mechanisms, like stereotyping, overgeneralization, tearing down others to elevate ones own position, etc., all are effective enough of the time that they survive in the discourse of people like those who post here. As indicated in comment #48, the level at which most of this discourse has been conducted, with ad hominem attacks and unwarranted stereotyping, is not helpful.