Wait, They Can Do That?

Mother Jones' Mac McClelland, who has been on top of the oil spill story from Day One, tweeted about this article detailing the possibility that BP might refuse to pay damage claims beyond $75 million. Apparently this is due to something called the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which limits damages that can be awarded due to an oil spill to that amount plus cleanup costs.

This law is an obviously hideous idea - why anyone would want to protect someone who spilled shit-tons of oil from having to pay people whose property they fucked up is beyond me. It's like passing a law saying that if I burn down your house, I only have to pay you $50 plus whatever it costs to shovel the ashes off your lot. You say you lost $800,000 worth of assets in that fire? Sorry, dude, you get $50. Good luck with that other $799,950, though.

But beyond the stupidity and cravenness required to pass such a law in the first place, I'd just like to ask this question: how the hell can such a law possibly be constitutional?

Think about it this way. Say BP has been found liable for damage that results from the oil spill (not a horrible assumption here). The first ten people to sue each have $7.5 million of damage to their property. You're the 11th. Surprise - now you have no right to sue BP for destroying your property! No money left under the cap, see.

The right to a lawsuit is never enumerated - were I a judge I would presume it to exist under the Ninth Amendment, but there lies shaky ground - but thanks to the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause, you can't grant some group of wronged property owners the right to sue BP and not grant another group of wronged property owners the right to sue BP. If you're going to let some people collect damages from BP, you can't disallow others with legitimate claims from doing the same. So restricting the 11th person from suing when you let the first 10 sue strikes me as a violation of equal protection, and I see no compelling state interest (or rational basis even, though y'all know how I feel about that standard) in protecting a private corporation from their full liability under the common law.

So, legal eagles, how is that law justified under the Constitution?

A Question on Judicial Elections

Here's an interesting nugget for you. The Iowa Supreme Court is appointed, but Iowans vote every two years on whether or not they should remain in their seats. In the wake of its groundbreaking decision that the ban on same-sex marriage in that state violated its Constitution, several judges are in danger of losing that vote, which has basically never happened before.

That's interesting to me because I grew up in a state (Virginia) where judges are appointed (and never voted on) and currently live in a state where all judges are voted on (and never appointed). The process of electing/voting on judges really strikes me as bizarre, for reasons apparent in the Iowa vote - difficult, unpopular decisions to uphold the Constitution are often disadvantaged in favor of politically expedient decisions that may not follow the Constitution as faithfully. But appointments have their drawbacks too - it's remarkably difficult to get a runaway judge off the bench.

I mention this because there's a difficult appellate court election here in NC this year. Incumbent judge Ann Marie Calabria has done nothing particularly wrong - she's competent, reasonable, and not corrupt - but she's also a strident conservative and a judicial passivist. She is running against Jane Gray, who would make an good judge as well but whose judicial philosophy seems more in line with mine. In a sense, it's the mirror image of the choice facing Iowa voters.

So I have a question for you, dear readers. When is it appropriate for voters to fire an incumbent judge? When they make a decision you don't agree with? When they have a judicial philosophy you don't agree with? Or only in the case of misconduct or corruption? Or is there another standard?

Have at it.

Another Failed Anti-Gay Marriage Argument

Out of all the controversial and difficult political issues out there, there's only one position I am absolutely unable to understand: opposition to gay marriage. I've mentioned before that I have yet to hear an argument that makes sense to me. Matt Novak has come closest, but his argument - that male-female relationships are different because they can produce children, and thus deserve special recognition - is still incomplete (there's a "why" missing there). But I'm open to reading new arguments. You're up, Katherine Kersten from Minneapolis, MN:

On Nov. 2, the family -- and marriage as we know it -- will be on the ballot in Minnesota.

Aw, Christ. Two sentences in and the rhetoric's already so overheated it could fry an egg.

Next year, Democrats will likely try to steamroll same-sex marriage through. If Dayton or Horner is elected, the governor will be on board -- perhaps even leading the charge.

Tom Emmer takes a different stance. He's the only gubernatorial candidate who supports marriage as the union of one man and one woman, as it has existed in Western civilization for 2,000 years.

Still overheated, but at least her facts aren't as specious as the "never before in human history" crap. Of course, marriage as an institution today would be all but unrecognizable to people from 2000 years ago.

But that's kinda ticky-tack, so I'll let it go. Continue:

Notice: Neither Dayton nor Horner mentions the stakeholders who have the most to win or lose in the marriage battle -- children.

Oh, this isn't gonna be pretty.

Though Dayton and Horner may be loath to admit it, marriage has been a male/female institution -- across the globe and throughout history -- for a simple reason, rooted in biology. Sex between men and women creates babies. It's the only kind of sex that does.

OK, wait. You're gonna get us all panicked about the demise of Western civilization and the certain torture of children just to make Novak's argument? Granted, she's the only person other than Novak that I've heard make this argument. Maybe it's a Minnesota thing.

Anyway, seems like a waste of a good outrage to get all worked up and then make a rather mundane argument. At least it's not crazy or idiotic, though.

Oh, hey, wait, there's another page:

Marriage is a "conjugal" concept, based on the sexual complementarity of men and women. It channels the powerful male/female sex drive to positive ends, to ensure that children will -- whenever possible -- have the love, support and guidance of both their mother and father. By linking fathers to their children, marriage strengthens an otherwise tenuous bond that is vital for both children's and society's well-being.

Aaaaaaand we're off the rails.

Hey, yo, Katherine. Single dad here. There's not a goddamn thing "tenuous" about the bond between me and my kid. I give my kid love, support, and guidance because I love her, not because of my marital status vis-a-vis her mom. And guess what? Her mother feels the same way. And there are parents of both genders who are married who could care less about their kids. The idea that the only reason men take care of kids is because they get to fuck the kids' mommy is colossally, unbelievably, and incredibly stupid.

Oh, and do you really think it's better for a kid to have a father who doesn't love them tied to the family by marriage? Seems to me that'd create a lot more problems than it'd solve.

But continue. Let's see how deep this rabbit hole runs.

First, they portray the purpose of marriage as being simply to encourage, and publicly affirm, adults' "love and commitment" -- Dayton's words. If we grant this premise, it becomes a denial of "equal rights" to withhold marriage from two men or two women who care for each other. "How will my same-sex marriage hurt your marriage?" gay-marriage supporters ask. They expect the answer to be "not at all."

But marriage is not primarily about affirming "love and commitment." Otherwise, government would regulate friendships as well as marriages. At its core, marriage is a social institution, whose public purpose is to structure male/female sexual relationships in a way that maximizes the next generation's well-being.

Well, actually, marriage is about two people agreeing to certain property-sharing, child custody, and mutual care arrangements through a legally binding ceremony. The reasons two people get married range from "we're meant for each other" to "we want to have a family together" to "really, we're just young and impulsive." But yeah, you just go ahead and tell us what it's all about.

But most traditional-marriage supporters don't "fear" or "hate" homosexuals. On the contrary, they invite gays to live as they please. They simply believe that every child needs and deserves a mother and a father. And they suspect that the radical redefinition of marriage will have damaging, unpredictable long-term consequences for all of society.

I'll wait for all the sociologists and anthropologists to stop laughing.

Still waiting.

OK, I think we're good. Other cultures survive despite the fact that their concept of the family is radically different from just "mother, father, kids." Hell, that was only true in our culture starting about 1950 or so. Kids need a strong, loving support structure, and it really doesn't matter whether the people providing that donated a sperm or an ovum to the process or not. Two men and two women can provide just as much support to a child as an opposite-sex couple. So can a mother and grandmother, for that matter. Or a father and grandfather. Or a father and uncle. Or a mother and uncle. Or two friends.

And as for the "damaging, unpredictable long-term consequences"? Munroe's Law.

I've got questions for Dayton and Horner:

This'll be good.

If we abandon the conjugal idea of marriage -- and redefine marriage as appropriate for any two caring adults -- on what grounds can we continue to limit the institution to two people? If love and commitment are sufficient for two, why not three or more? "How does my polygamous marriage hurt your marriage?" Same-sex marriage supporters have no logical answer.

Because you're not discriminating against anyone if you just say "this legal contract deals with property sharing between two people." There's a difference between telling some people "you can't have this contract" and limiting the number of parties that can take part in a contract, and if you don't get that difference... I can't help you.

And how can we logically limit marriage to people in a sexual relationship? If marriage is simply about caring adults, why shouldn't a grandmother and daughter raising a child together have its benefits? Going forward, on what grounds can we discriminate against people simply because they don't have sex together?

We don't discriminate against couples who don't have sex together now. You do realize that that's, like, 20 percent of married couples already, right? What would you prefer, a system where couples had to report each time they had sex to the government, and if it wasn't enough, their marriage would be dissolved?

Kids, this is proof that when your teacher says there are no such things as stupid questions, they're lying.

OK, what's the next question?

...

Really? That's it? That's all you got? Kinda thought there'd be more there.

So sorry, Ms. Kersten, you fail at arguing. Try again later, I'm sure you have it in you.

The Real Connection Between Glenn Beck and Islam

Some weeks ago a nutter-butter right-winger named Byron Williams shot up a freeway in Oakland, California while ranting about wanting to destroy the ACLU and the nonprofit liberal-leaning Tides Foundation. He was likely influenced by conservative conspiracy theorists and had the altogether nutty idea that Obama and George Soros blew up the Deepwater Horizon oil rig intentionally so they could either make money or get cap-and-trade passed, or something. I dunno, it's tough to wade through that line of thought.

Sadly, the predictable attempts to turn this whole thing against Glenn Beck followed, most notably from Dana Milbank at the Washington Post. Milbank writes:

In August, I wrote that while it's not fair to blame Beck for violence committted by his fans, he would do well to stop encouraging extremists. Now, Williams has granted a pair of jailhouse interviews, one with the conservative Examiner.com and one to be published soon by the liberal group Media Matters. These recorded exchanges, which I have reviewed, show precisely why Beck is dangerous: because his is the one voice in the mass media that validates conspiracy theories held by the unstable.

Translation: I'm not blaming Beck, but really... I'm blaming Beck.

But something else occurs to me. Let's give Milbank's paragraph a little rewrite, eh?

In August, I wrote that while it's not fair to blame Islam for violence committed by its fans, Muslims would do well to stop encouraging extremists... These recorded exchanges, which I have reviewed, show precisely why Islam is dangerous: because it is the one religion in the mass culture that validates conspiracy theories held by the unstable.

I could have pulled that straight from Pam Geller's website.

Hey, this is fun! Let's see what Media Matters' Eric Boehlert has to say:

And thankfully, Williams wasn't able to take his place alongside a growing list of domestic, anti-government terrorists, such as the recent Pentagon shooter, the Holocaust Museum gunman, the kamikaze pilot who flew his plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, and the Pittsburgh cop-killer who set up an ambush because he was convinced Obama was going to take away his guns the Fort Hood shooter, the underpants bomber, and the Times Square bomber.

All the vigilante attacks appear to have been fueled by an almost pathological hatred for the U.S. government -- the same open hatred that right-wing bloggers, AM talk radio hosts, and Fox News' lineup of anti-government prophets Muslims have been frantically fueling for the last year, pushing doomsday warnings of America's democratic demise under President Obama attacks on Islam.

And the sad truth is we're going to see more like Byron Williams. We're going to see more attempts at vigilante violence during the Age of Obama simply because the right-wing media, lead by Beck,Muslims continue to gleefully (albeit irresponsibly) stoke dangerous fires with the kind of relentlessly incendiary rhetoric that has no match in terms of modern day, mainstream use in American politics or media.

Try it yourself, it's really quite entertaining.

And that is what I think we ought to remember. Blaming Beck and company (and by extension the entire populist right wing) for right-wing terrorism* is the same as blaming Islam or American Muslims for extremist Islamic terror attacks. In both cases, people seek to delegitimize an entire group because of the craziest actions of its craziest adherents. And both approaches are equally intellectually bankrupt.

My fellow lefties don't reach the same fever pitch as the conservatives do when they rant about Muslims - we're not going to be whining that Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina's campaign signs should be kept off that stretch of I-580 anytime soon, after all. But the line of reasoning is the same, and just as disgusting wherever it comes from or whoever it's aimed at.

*Let's be honest here, by any meaningful definition of the term Byron Williams is a terrorist, and a more successful one than either Faisal Shahzad or Captain Underpants since he actually did injure people.

Of Surveys and Religious Minorities

I'll get to the commentary, but first, a story.

A few years ago I was working for a state legislature campaign, and I was assigned to canvassing. My canvassing partner one day was a young woman from the Swift Creek neighborhood, which is a (proudly) unincorporated area just south of Raleigh. It was near one of the High Holidays, and so the fact came up that I was Jewish. The young woman was surprised - she had never actually met a Jew before, and knew absolutely nothing about my religion. She proceeded to ask a few questions ranging from simple theology (you don't believe in Jesus, right?) to the vaguely stereotypical (so are you all really tight with money?). But the point is: this young woman wasn't from East Bumblefuck - she had grown up in spitting distance of one of the most highly educated cities in America, and she knew nothing about Judaism.

Hold that thought.

Recently, the Pew Forum put out a survey of Americans' religious knowledge, and the result - that atheists and agnostics scored higher on it than anyone else - has led to predictable crowing from the atheist set. A sample, from Amanda Marcotte:

Turns out knowing more about the actual details of religion correlates more to rejecting. Religion reminds me of those insects that have showy, beautiful colorings. It seems really beautiful, but if you examine it up close, it’s actually a big, gross insect with hairy legs and overall creepy-crawliness.

It's a fascinating narrative, but it's not supported by the actual facts. First, the numbers - Pew reports that while atheists do have the highest score overall, at 20.9 out of 32 questions correct, Jews and Mormons are right there within statistical significance at 20.5 and 20.3, respectively. Non-LDS Christians all come in between 17.6 and 11.6, depending on the branch. Furthermore, Pew - in an epic example of "burying the lede," reports later that

[d]ata from the survey indicate that educational attainment – how much schooling an individual has completed – is the single best predictor of religious knowledge. College graduates get nearly eight more questions right on average than do people with a high school education or less. Having taken a religion course in college is also strongly associated with higher religious knowledge.

The more educated you are, the more knowledge you have about religions. That's so obvious that it's damn near tautological.

But I think there's something else at work here that separates atheists, Jews, and Mormons from the mainstream Christians. The three groups listed are the only three religious minorities surveyed by Pew (they missed Muslims for some reason). Out of 26 questions that Pew classified, 12 were on Christianity and the Bible, 11 were on other religions, and 4 were on religion's role in government. A test set up thus is going to be easier for minorities to succeed on, and here's why.

Recall my story. It's possible for a Christian in a fairly urbane area of the country to know absolutely nothing about Judaism, which is the "world religion" most known among Americans. But if you're Jewish and growing up in Raleigh, do you think there's any chance you'd grow up ignorant of the basic tenets of Christianity? Of course not. We live in a relatively Christianized culture (regardless of what blowhards like Bill O'Reilly would have you believe) where basic Christian beliefs are referenced almost daily. We basically learn about the belief in Jesus as the son of God, the story of his crucifixion, and the meaning of Christmas and Easter by osmosis by the time we reach adulthood. There's no way anyone living in America and participating fully in society would not know the basics of Christianity. Furthermore, being a religious minority makes you acutely aware of your religious identity. While most Christians have the luxury of not really thinking about religion as a differentiating tool (in the same way as white people can avoid thinking about race), Jews and atheists - and to some extent Mormons, who are Christian but often looked upon suspiciously by mainstream Christians - do not have that luxury. We're reminded that we're religious minorities every single day. As such, we're generally more keen to learn about religion since religious identity is such a huge part of the way other Americans see us.

The numbers demonstrate both of these trends. Pew reports that of the Christian questions, Mormons and white Evangelicals performed best (7.9 and 7.3 out of 11, respectively), but Jews and atheists knew as much as the average Christian. Jews got 6.3 and atheists got 6.7, and the average among all Christians was 6.2. However, on the world religion section, Jews and atheists outperformed everyone by a landslide - 7.9 and 7.5 out of 11, respectively, compared to a Christian average of 4.7. Ouch. Mormons lagged a bit, but were still the third-highest scorers on that section - they answered 5.6 correct. That's well enough to put them in the upper echelon when combined with their superior knowledge of Christianity.

In sum: Jews and atheists, forced every day to think about religions not their own, do better on questions about other religions. They do just as well as Christians on questions about Christianity because our culture is Christian and they learn it by default. Meanwhile, Christians, who have the luxury of being members of the dominant culture, don't do well when asked questions about religions they never have to think about unless they so desire. And this is surprising... how?

More Scalia "Originalist" Hackery

Ben's old law school buddy Ian Millhiser reports on a special new piece of insanity from "Justice" Antonin Scalia:

Scalia also said he doesn't believe the Constitution bans sex discrimination.

The 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War in 1868, guarantees due process and equal protection and in recent years has been interpreted by courts to prohibit sex discrimination as well as racial discrimination.

But Scalia said he believes the amendment doesn't apply to discrimination against women because that use of the measure was not intended in 1868.

Hmm. Let's check the 14th Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Nope, nothing about "this doesn't apply to women" in there. I call hackery.

To his credit, Scalia said this in the context of saying that "a lot of stupid stuff is constitutional," so we can't say he's pro-sex discrimination. Rather, I think he's using his "originalism" doctrine - which says that the Constitution's meaning should be filtered through the opinions of those who approved it - to basically make stuff up in order to avoid having to address the 14th Amendment implications of a case that will likely be coming before him soon: Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the gay marriage case.

I've written this a million times on this blog in the past few months, but you can't make the Constitution say shit it doesn't say. If the people writing the 14th Amendment wanted to exclude women, they should have written that in there. They didn't. We have to follow the plain meaning of the Amendment as written.

Not that Scalia's the only hack who ignores the full implications of equal protection. It seems like a fairly sizable chunk of the legal profession does as well. The rational basis test is basically an excuse used by jurists to avoid having to address the fact that "equal protection" and "due process" might actually mean "equal protection" and "due process." I'm looking at the text I just quoted, and there's nothing in there that says "this shit doesn't apply if the government can come up with a good reason for why it shouldn't apply."

But Scalia's hackery is more reprehensible. At least the "rational basis" hackery is something of a neutral legal tradition and occasionally works to protect people's due process/equal protection rights. Scalia can basically interpret the Constitution however he wants by imagining that he's in the head of some dead guy 150 years ago. This reasoning has its place, especially when there's some ambiguity in the wording of the document, but one can't directly contradict the plain meaning of the text by invoking the imagined opinions of the text's writers. That's a right that Scalia is claiming for himself here, and that's why he's a genuine problem on the Court.

Speaking of hacks:

The Military's Precious Little Snowflakes

There was a fascinatingly stupid article on FanHouse last week about Kiss Cams at baseball games - you know, the annoying mid-inning JumboTron stunt where ballpark operators show people they suspect to be couples on the big screen and expect them to kiss, which they do most of the time - and how gay people shouldn't be on them. His rationale wasn't that we should stigmatize gay relationships, just that he didn't want to have to deal with explaining same-sex relationships to his kid. Jon Bois over at SB Nation gives this article the epic beatdown it deserves, and I won't rehash it here except to cite a line towards the end:

Anyway, I have this thing about spiders. They creep me out. When I have a kid, I'm going to make sure that my kid never learns that spiders exist until he or she is, say, twelve. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to pull this off.

The point being, of course, that gay people exist, seeing them is part of life in 21st-century America, and parents need to deal with it. In short, we can't infantilize our children by shielding them from things that might make us or them uncomfortable.

Ironic, then, that I should read Bois' article on the same day that the Senate rejected a bid to end the military's inexcusable "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that prevents gay and lesbian soldiers from serving openly in the military. Ironic because a Web-based sportswriter just demonstrated that he is more mature than 42* U.S. Senators.

There are, of course, the hardcore bigots who will oppose allowing gays to go anywhere, and there's only one real response to them. But the majority of the Senators that voted against this bill aren't haters. They're nervous little nellies, eager to infantilize our troops because they, like our FanHouse friend, don't want to confront the uncomfortable-for-them reality that homosexuality exists.

News flash: our troops aren't fragile little snowflakes who need to be protected from anything that might disturb them. Our troops are adults who are perfectly capable of doing their job and serving their country next to someone whose personal conduct meets with their disapproval. Teetotaler Baptists serve next to people who drink like fish. The pious serve next to those who curse God's name every day. If Bois' points against avoiding difficult topics make sense for our children, they absolutely make sense for people we're preparing to send into the most uncomfortable and disturbing environment imaginable: warfare.

*43 senators voted against the bill, but Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), a supporter of the effort to repeal the policy, voted no for procedural reasons.

L'shana tovah.

May 5771 be your year.

A Nasty "Do While" Loop

There is a cycle in politics. It goes something like this.

1. People get really, REALLY upset over something, often at the urging of power-hungry politicians but often rightfully so.

2. Politicians talk about the Urgent Need to Do Something about this Horrible Problem.

3. Politicians find a symbolic scapegoat, and tell the people that they alone are responsible for Everything You're Worried About.

4. After the thing politicians have fingered as being To Blame gets theirs, they congratulate themselves on a Job Well Done, since they've Struck a Blow against Evil.

5. Three years later, people realize that the symbolic scapegoating didn't, actually, get rid of the problem, and may have in fact made it worse.

6. Repeat.

There are so many examples of this cycle it could fill books, but the one that jumps out at me most is the recent censorship-by-threat of Craigslist's "adult services" section. So let's break it down in terms of the cycle.

People got - rightfully - upset about sex trafficking and exploitation that occur under the guise of prostitution. The solution to this problem, of course, is extremely complex, and may involve some counterintuitive measures (more on that later). But when politicians get talking about how we have to Do Something, it's easy to overlook sober analysis of facts and screw up royally.

Enter Craigslist, our scapegoat of the day. They've played this role before, of course, so that makes them an easy target. Politicians took aim, as we can see with the letter above, blaming Craigslist for the exploitation and victimization taking place on their site. Even non-profits such as the normally good Polaris Project got into the act. Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal, who is running for Chris Dodd's old Senate seat, congratulated himself on the results, calling it a "good first step."

Of course, the fly in all this ointment is Step 5, where we come to the slower-than-necessary realization that all this grandstanding against Craigslist actually made enforcement of human trafficking laws more difficult. Anti-trafficking and violence activist Danah Boyd explains it all:

It makes me scream when I think of how many resources have been used attempting to censor Craigslist instead of leveraging it as a space for effective law enforcement. During the height of the moral panic over sexual predators on MySpace, I had the fortune of spending a lot of time with a few FBI folks and talking to a whole lot of local law enforcement. I learned a scary reality about criminal activity online. Folks in law enforcement know about a lot more criminal activity than they have the time to pursue. Sure, they focus on the Big players, going after the massive collectors of child pornography who are most likely to be sex offenders than spending time on the small-time abusers. But it was the medium-time criminals that gnawed at them. They were desperate for more resources so that they could train more law enforcers, pursue more cases, and help more victims. The Internet had made it a lot easier for them to find criminals, but that didn’t make their jobs any easier because they were now aware of how many more victims they were unable to help. Most law enforcement in this area are really there because they want to help people and it kills them when they can’t help everyone.

Oops.

Boyd discusses the importance of visibility in fighting human trafficking, and that's something that I think a lot of politicians would just as soon avoid. If you increase the visibility of human trafficking, it does a lot of real-world good, because now law enforcement can find it and stop it a lot more easily. But that also lays bare to a lot of people the reality of human trafficking that's already there. But the emotional reaction to visibility is something along the lines of "GAAAAH GET RID OF IT!!!!" So politicians react by suppressing visibility - after all, that makes the problem appear to go away immediately. As a result, they successfully shut down an arena that could have been used by law enforcement to help trafficked and abused women in the sex trade. It's a sweeping-the-dust-under-the-rug solution, instead of the real solution Boyd proposes:

Censoring Craigslist will do absolutely nothing to help those being victimized, but it will do a lot to help those profiting off of victimization. Censoring Craigslist will also create new jobs for pimps and other corrupt intermediaries, since it’ll temporarily make it a whole lot harder for individual scumbags to find clients. This will be particularly devastating for the low-end prostitutes who were using Craigslist to escape violent pimps. Keep in mind that occasionally getting beaten up by a scary john is often a whole lot more desirable for many than the regular physical, psychological, and economic abuse they receive from their pimps. So while it’ll make it temporarily harder for clients to get access to abusive services, nothing good will come out of it in the long run.

If you want to end human trafficking, if you want to combat nonconsensual prostitution, if you care about the victims of the sex-power industry, don’t cheer Craigslist’s censorship. This did nothing to combat the cycle of abuse. What we desperately need are more resources for law enforcement to leverage the visibility of the Internet to go after the scumbags who abuse. What we desperately need are for sites like Craigslist to be encouraged to work with law enforcement and help create channels to actually help victims. What we need are innovative citizens who leverage new opportunities to devise new ways of countering abusive industries. We need to take this moment of visibility and embrace it, leverage it to create change, leverage it to help those who are victimized and lack the infrastructure to get help. What you see online should haunt you. But it should drive you to address the core problem by finding and helping victims, not looking for new ways to blindfold yourself. Please, I beg you, don’t close your eyes. We need you.

I can't say it any better than that.

There's a saying that talks about how emotion is the engine for politics, and rationality is the steering wheel. The political solution to this issue was all engine and no steering wheel, and now our fight against human trafficking is wrapped around a tree and needs a tow truck.

The sad part of all this is that our political process was set up expressly to value rationality over emotionality in decision-making. The slowness of our legislative process and our justice system serve the purpose of allowing people to inspect their initial emotional response for its actual meaning, and act rationally to solve the problem that created that response. It appears, though, that we routinely elect people without the political will to act rationally. Which means, of course, that unless we listen to sober voices like Boyd's, a couple of years from now we'll be reading another story about how there's so much human trafficking online and we have to shut down so-and-so platform in order to stop it.

Also read: Lori at Feministing's take.

OK, A Soccer Post

When former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue was realigning the divisions in 2002 to accommodate the new team in Houston and to make the divisions make geographic sense (until that point, Atlanta was in the NFC West and Arizona in the NFC East), he made one decision that, from a geographical standpoint, was a little questionable. See, Dallas has no business being in the NFC East from a geographical standpoint. Look at a map - it's nowhere near Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. Carolina, located in Charlotte, would have been the logical choice here, and Dallas would have been moved to the new NFC South in its stead. So why didn't this happen?

Well, could you imagine the size of the riots that Dallas and Washington fans would have staged if they had separated those two teams? I'm a lifelong Redskins fan, and the best part of being a Redskins fan is the two times a year we get to play our arch-rival Cowboys. The entire fan base goes nuts, players on both sides get pumped, and as a result, those two games are some of the most relentlessly entertaining sporting events you'll ever be a part of if you're a fan of one of the teams. If Dallas and Washington had been split up, they would have played each other about once every three years. Tagliabue would have been a moron if he had tried to pull that. So despite the geographical incongruity, Dallas remained in the East, and both fan bases got to continue their rivalry.

Why do I bring this up? Because CONCACAF, the federation that manages World Cup qualifying for North America and the Caribbean, is about to do what Tagliabue was wise enough to avoid doing - break up its two biggest rivals by instituting a new qualifying format.

CONCACAF is a unique region in qualifying for two reasons. One, it is dominated almost exclusively by two teams - the USA and Mexico - who have a fierce rivalry. Two, its final qualifying round was a single-group affair that placed six teams in a round-robin for three World Cup places. This meant that the US and Mexico got to face each other twice (home and away) each cycle. Which leads to pumped fan bases, players pushing themselves, and an atmosphere so special and intense that there's nothing like it almost anywhere. Read this Simmons column for an idea of how intense this rivalry is in Mexico.

What CONCACAF wants to do is to split this final qualifying round up into two groups of four. Now everywhere else in the world, where qualifying is done by groups, the teams are seeded. Europe doesn't want Italy, France, and England all being in the same group with only one team advancing, so they separate their big powers out into different groups. There's no reason to believe CONCACAF wouldn't do the same.

Which means Mexico and the US are all but guaranteed to be in different groups.

Which means Mexico and the US have virtually no chance of playing each other during qualifying.

Which really, really, really sucks for the fans.

The CONCACAF qualifying process may have been quirky and idiosyncratic, but it was a barrel of fun for the fans. We got two games to showcase our hate against our biggest rival in an extremely meaningful game. Think Dallas-Washington in the NFC Championship - only multiply it by 10. The only place we'll get that kind of atmosphere now is in the Gold Cup, and that's only if both teams make the final of the first post-World Cup tournament. (You'll remember no one cared about the 2009 Gold Cup, since it didn't carry a berth to the Confederations Cup with it.) We didn't get that in 2007 - Panama took out Mexico in the semifinals.

Now? We have to play a bunch of the second-tier teams, and then... that's it. No chance for glory in Azteca. No defending our home turf in Columbus. I'm sorry, but I just can't get that worked up about Costa Rica.

What's more, rivalry games have a way of making both teams better. The effort and training that we put into big games against Mexico have been a huge boon to us as a soccer power - we've been forced to raise our game far beyond where just playing Costa Rica and Honduras could take us. That's not something you can replicate in the inevitable friendlies between the two teams.

Is there hope? Of course. We could play Mexico in the finals of the Gold Cup next year. We could play friendlies, except add a trophy or something to make it a little more meaningful, and hope that that tradition catches on the way, say, Paul Bunyan's Axe caught on for Minnesota and Wisconsin college football fans. But it just won't be the same.

Our soccer world just became a little bit darker, thanks to CONCACAF. Cheer us on to our rivals, indeed.

A Little Subtle Anti-Semitism For Your Wednesday

One of the most obnoxious habits adopted by the Christian right is the use of the term "Judeo-Christian values." It's a shout-out to the social unacceptability of Christian supremacism, at least with respect to the Jews. It's often obnoxiously linked to the blather about how the US is a "Christian nation," which by definition excludes us Jews - it's as if they're saying "it's okay, you can come too, as long as you hew to the imagined form of Jewish morals that we have laid out for you." The fact that Jewish morality and Christian morality are starkly different once you inspect them is unimportant to them - what's important is the veneer of tolerance. And occasionally, that veneer slips.

Let's go to Hawaii, then, and check in on the culture-war shenanigans occurring in their race for Governor. Their current governor, the insanely popular Republican Linda Lingle, is term-limited. The lieutenant governor, Duke Aiona, and Democrat Mufi Hannemann are running to replace her. The head of the Republican GOP recently sent out an e-mail encouraging pastors to block Hannemann from campaigning in their churches. That's odd enough, but what's really revealing is this little tidbit:

Aiona's campaign is "Christ's opportunity," and his election would give Hawaii the first "righteous leader" since Queen Liliuokalani, who died in 1917," Kaauwai wrote.

That long string of "unrighteous leaders" would presumably include his own partisan Lingle. While she's nominally pro-choice, she supports a whole host of restrictions on abortion that are generally favored by pro-lifers, and since the illegality of abortion isn't going to come before a legislature anytime soon, she's functionally with the conservatives on that one. And Lingle recently vetoed a bill that would have given Hawaiian same-sex couples civil unions - not even marriage equality, mind you, but civil unions, a position so moderate that even the former governor of Utah supports it. You'd think that'd put her in the religious Right's good graces, yes? What, exactly, makes her an "unrighteous" leader?

I'm sure you, dear astute readers, have figured out the punchline by now: Lingle is Jewish.

It doesn't matter how much a Jew sides with conservative Christians on the issues. Jewish Republicans and conservatives will still be lumped in with the enemy when the Christian right folks talk amongst themselves. When it comes right down to it, they could give two shits about Jews. We're not "righteous," no matter how hard we try. So let's not be fooled. No matter how loudly they proclaim "Judeo-Christian" values, deep down they still don't like us. Folks like Eric Cantor and Norm Coleman would be wise to take note.

In Which I Prove Glenn Beck Is Satan

I have proof, ladies and gentlemen. (Dramatic pause, wiping tear from eye) Proof that head Tea Partier Glenn Beck is, in fact, the Devil Himself!

"What proof could you possibly have," you ask? Well, check THIS out. Here are some important numbers:

912, 828 - numbers pertaining to his most famous events, both rallies in Washington, D.C.
46 - Beck's age
12 - the number of letters in Glenn Lee Beck, his full name
10 - the number of books Wikipedia says he has written, in part or in full
1 - the number of divorces he's been through.

And (912+828)*46/(12*10) - 1 = 666!

Presumably, this means Beck will stop being Satan when he reaches his 47th birthday, since then this will add up to 679.5. But maybe that's what Satan Beck WANTS us to think.

What? I was bored while Selah was napping. Sue me.

"Feel" This

Everything that can been written about the Park51 community center controversy has already been written, so I'll keep this short. I'm most interested not in the empty shouts of offense by the right - I've dealt with that in this space before and will not do so again. What's interesting to me is how otherwise reasonable people like Howard Dean could oppose the community center, as Greenwald notes. Greenwald received a letter from Dean in which he says the following:

My argument is simple. This Center may be intended as a bridge or a healing gesture but it will not be perceived that way unless a dialogue with a real attempt to understand each other happens. That means the builders have to be willing to go beyond what is their right and be willing to talk about feelings whether the feelings are "justified" or not.

And my response is this - why should we give a damn about someone's feelings if their feelings are wrong? Or as the more eloquent Greenwald puts it:

The central question raised by this controversy is the same one raised by countless similar controversies throughout American history: whether the irrational fears and prejudices of the majority should be honored and validated or emphatically confronted.

I described the bigotry of Park51's opponents as understandable in my previous column on the subject, but understandable bigotry is still bigotry and still wrong.

It's time that we stopped worshipping at the altar of "feelings," as if the fact that someone feels something makes their point of view legitimate. I don't care what people feel - if their feelings are not backed up by rational observations and conclusions, they're meaningless. When the feeling in question is based on a premise that is patently untrue - in this case, the idea that Muslims, as a group, attacked the U.S. on 9/11 - I see no reason why I should respect those feelings. Mosque opponents are wrong, and they should get over it on their own damn time and not make the rest of the sane world bow to their almighty "feelings."

What's truly odd is that conservatives are usually the ones making that argument. They're the ones usually saying, for example, that someone who "feels" racism is wrong because the statements in question are not intended as racist. (It's a misuse of the argument because the feeling in question is based on a real premise - that is, minorities are subjected to some pretty racist shit. And there are frequently some elements of ostensibly "non-racist" statements that have been used as racist statements in the past. So it's usually a lot more reasonable. But this is all beside the point, thus the parentheses.) Since when did conservatives start believing that people's feelings are sacrosanct and that we should all fall over backwards not to hurt anyone else's?

Oh, that's right - when they can tell someone else to inconvenience themselves at the service of their own feelings.

Truth is, feelings don't matter. The facts matter. We've been reversing this for too long.

In other news:

- The last combat troops pulled out of Iraq today. Not sure if that really changes a whole lot, but it's a milestone to be happy about.

- Interesting church-state case out of the 10th Circuit today - memorial crosses along the side of the road are unconstitutional if erected by the government, in this case the Utah State Highway Patrol. I'm usually a die-hard separationist, but I'm not sure I agree with the court here. Seems to me like a memorial cross serves a legitimate secular purpose as required by the Lemon test - that purpose being memorializing a passed trooper. If there was a trooper who wasn't Christian who was memorialized in such a manner, those challenging the crosses might have a point though - at that point, the cross becomes primarily a religious symbol since it'd be a ridiculously inappropriate memorial.

- In case you haven't heard, Pakistan is drowning. Here are some ways to help the victims. Though some Pakistanis aren't donating because the government sucks and is corrupt. Oh, and shame on the URJ for not having any links on its site. They did well for the Haiti disaster - why go silent now?Update: The URJ spokesperson sent me a nice e-mail today - they replied promptly - and noted that they weren't doing direct aid because they didn't have the resources to get directly involved in Pakistan. They are, however, collecting money for distribution to aid orgs that they trust. That's for the best - no sense in wasting money creating infrastructure when you could use someone else's existing infrastructure to spend that money helping people. It's more efficient that way.

- There are so many reasons to love this TMBG appearance on Letterman from 1990. Is it how Letterman refers to their album as "The" Flood? Or how gloriously nerdy Flansburgh looks next to the relatively hip Linnell? Or... well, it's awesome either way.

The Constitution's There For A Reason

OK, let me clear something up for y'all in the wake of the smackdown Judge Vaughn Walker dealt to California's Proposition 8 restricting gay marriage. Walker based his ruling on the obvious 14th Amendment grounds - the denial of marriage rights to gay couples was a violation of both equal protection and due process. The equal protection argument seems so blindingly obvious to me that I'm surprised a judge hasn't used that one yet against gay marriage bans (though it was used against the federal DOMA by a MA judge last month, though that ruling also - awesomely - referenced the conservatives' favorite amendment, Number 10). But hold this thought for a second.

Across the country, Virginia AG/demagogue Ken Cuccinelli is clearing hurdles for his lawsuit against the individual mandate to purchase health care that was a centerpiece of the recent health care system reform bill passed back in March. I don't know about whether this case will succeed or not - my gut tells me it won't, mainly because the courts have had an insanely expansive view of the Commerce Clause over the last few decades - but the judge's ruling allowing the suit to proceed is consistent with the unique nature of a federal law requiring individuals to participate in interstate commerce.

The point I'm trying to make is this: critics of both rulings, while hailing from opposite political poles, will make essentially the same argument. You shouldn't overturn legislative acts, they'll say. A majority of citizens or their duly elected representatives voted for it, they'll say. They'll whine about activist judges and say runaway courts are trying to ruin America.

And they'll all be wrong.

See, it doesn't matter if 52% of a state's citizens voted for a law. It doesn't matter if 221 Representatives and 56 Senators approved it. It doesn't matter how well it polls or how much good it does. If it violates the Constitution, it is a judge's solemn duty to invalidate the law. And this applies equally to the gay marriage bans, the federal DOMA, and the individual health care mandate.

Whining about "activist judges" ignores one important principle - we don't live in a pure democracy. We live in a constitutional democracy, and in a constitutional democracy the majority doesn't always get its way. Those words in that constitution have to mean something. It doesn't matter how popular censorship is, say: the Constitution says you can't do it. It doesn't matter how popular gay marriage bans are, and it doesn't matter how much good can be done by an individual health care mandate. If it's unconstitutional, you can't do it.

And guess what? Judges are better positioned to make those calls than we are. That's why we have a system that gives knowledgeable, sharp legal minds the power to compare laws to the Constitution. And if we disagree with the results of a ruling - whether it's the gay marriage ruling, the health care ruling, Citizens United, whatever - we can't be so quick to dismiss it as illegitimate. Judicial review - unfriendly folks call it "activism" - is a well-respected and perfectly legitimate power granted to judges. Rather, let's debate these rulings on the grounds they ought to be debated on - is the judge's interpretation of the Constitution correct?

In the case of gay marriage, I think the judge is correct. You're free to disagree in the comments. But if anyone whines about "activist judges," or thinks that the outcome is less legitimate because it came from a judge instead of a vote, I'm ignoring them and so should you.

Immune Me, Please

One of the best things about America is that absolutely anybody - and I mean anybody - can run for office. Including this dude. Hot Air posted a video of this guy's promo clip which sounds like someone fed a TelePrompTer word salad. But the website is even more awesome, for gems like:

VOTE FOR ME AND IF I WIN I WILL IMMUNE YOU FROM ALL STATE CRIMES FOR THE REST OF YOU LIFE!

And:

Using the Civil Right Act of 1966 for the first time in history to find out two things:

1. why Democracy invaded the U.S. State on July 16 1866

2stop Constitutional Right violations in our state at all cost I will tell you all this

And:

I would like to update the monitory car insurance to match the federal insurance act where they say if you do not know the name and address of the person who will get the check when you pay you money to your agent it is gaming and we can not gamble in Tenn, right now we are gaming

There's only one thing to say after reading this website... God bless America.

Wait For It... Wait For It...

I've been in Arkansas for the weekend, so I've been in kind of a news bubble. Instead of doing the work to find out what's actually going on, I figured I'd just barf up some stuff on Shirley Sherrod and call it a post.

I'm of two minds about this whole thing. Part of me wants to blame this whole thing on Breitbart and his fact-free smear on a low-level USDA employee, but that feels strangely insufficient. Because I also feel like this whole incident is mainly the fault of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the Obama administration lackeys who took Breitbart at his word and fired her.

And you know what? The more I think about it, the less I blame Breitbart. After all, why should we blame him? Because he's a sensationalist with an agenda? I hate to tell you this, you innocent reader you, but that's part of a proud journalistic tradition going back to Pulitzer and Hearst. And it's continued today not just by Breitbart but by Olbermann and O'Reilly, Hannity and Maddow. Should we blame him because he got the facts wrong? Well, even the best journalists do that - 30 years of faithful news reporting didn't prevent Dan Rather from botching a report on George W. Bush's national guard service. Viewed in isolation, this incident is little different from that one from a journalistic perspective.

So what's the problem with Breitbart? Two things, both related:

1) He's really, really, really bad at his job.

2) Decision-makers and news consumers give him far more trust than he deserves.

See, I have no problem with journalism that has an agenda. That's frequently the best kind of reporting, because it's not constrained by some imagined duty to be "even-handed." But dammit, if you're gonna be a sensationalist with an agenda, at least get your facts straight! Breitbart is now 0 for 2 on his big stories. The ACORN videos he posted have been demonstrated to be falsified by everyone from the GAO to the CA attorney general's office, and the Sherrod video was demonstrated - within hours - to be edited to give a false impression. The thing is, a talented agenda journalist would never have stooped to that level. There were plenty of skeletons in ACORN's closet that begged to be excavated, especially regarding their inner financial dealings. You didn't need the frat party pimps-'n'-hoes routine to do a good hatchet job on them. And if you're trying to make the point that the NAACP hates white people, there's gotta be a better way to do it than to smear a low-level functionary, right?

That's what differentiates Breitbart from the people I listed earlier. They at least understand how to present existing facts in such a way that it tells the story the journalist wants to tell. Breitbart's so damn lazy that he just makes up his own facts. Which leads me to the really dangerous part, which is #2.

Folks, Breitbart is what he is. He's not going to change. So why should anyone give him more credit than they give other sources? In this Sherrod incident, the point isn't that Breitbart falsely edited a video. He's gonna do that. The point is that otherwise respectable journalists fell all over themselves reporting this story, and otherwise respectable leaders fell all over themselves reacting to it, without bothering to consider the source of the story and giving it the double-checking it deserves. Fortunately for us, some enterprising journalists remembered the ACORN debacle and stopped the story before it got too out of hand, but by then the damage was done.

Which is why the biggest blame has to fall on the NAACP and Vilsack for their reactions to this whole thing. Expecting Breitbart to be honest and competent is foolish. Expecting Fox News to not run with something that makes liberals look bad is also foolish. That's why the best thing to do when faced with a story as sensational as the Sherrod story is to wait on it. Withhold judgment until the story has played itself out. Had the NAACP waited twelve hours to make its statement, this whole thing wouldn't have happened.

So the next time Breitbart says something, we should all just take a deep breath, digest the whole thing, search for context, and keep an eye out for double-checking to come in from the other side - or do it ourselves, if we have the resources. And really, the same should go for any news reports, whether they're from an incompetent like Breitbart, a respected agenda journalist like Maddow or O'Reilly, or a mainstream source like the Washington Post. (Did we learn nothing from the "Gee Dead" incident, people?)

Good journalism starts a conversation. And who makes a decision on an issue when the conversation on it is just starting?

Couldn't find the Blues Traveler song I wanted to post, so here's an awesome live version of my favorite song of theirs.

Mixed Bag on Free Speech

A federal appeals court for the New York-based Second Circuit ruled that the FCC's fleeting expletive rules are unconstitutional and should be struck down. Any time the FCC takes it on the chin, I celebrate, and so I love this decision. In the words of Bono, it's fucking brilliant. What's weird, though, is that the Supreme Court upheld those very same rules in a case decided just a year ago. I don't know whether the Second Circuit has the ability to challenge the Supreme Court so soon after the latter's decision, but that's highly unusual, right? The explanation I can think of is that the Supremes upheld the FCC's right to censor expletives but that the Second Circuit found that the specific way in which they were doing so was unconstitutional. I'll be looking forward to seeing how this all ends, though considering the free-speech inclination of this Court I'm not optimistic.

Speaking of things I'm not optimistic about, there's a huge danger to free speech percolating in the federal courts: The feds are trying Buttman. (Thanks to Jacob for the link.) Buttman is an extraordinarily successful pornographer whose oeuvre apparently includes milk enemas. (I'll take Amanda Hess' word for that one.) Now while I do think Buttman - real name John Stagliano - should face a lifetime in prison for improper wasting of delicious, delicious chocolate milk, the decision to put him - or anyone, for that matter - on trial for obscenity is extremely worrisome.

Let's pause for a second while we read Martin Sheen making my argument for me because I can't find the damn video:

John Van Dyke: If our children can buy pornography on any street corner for five dollars, isn't that too high a price to pay for free speech?
President Josiah Bartlet: No.
John Van Dyke: Really?
President Josiah Bartlet: On the other hand, I think that five dollars is too high a price to pay for pornography.

Folks, when the First Amendment says "no law," it damn well means it. No "oh but maybe it'll offend my delicate sensibilities" exceptions allowed. And no "think of the children!" exceptions either. FCC chair Julius Genachowski opines in that first link:

We’re reviewing the court’s decision in light of our commitment to protect children, empower parents, and uphold the First Amendment.

First thing. If you think kids are going to be sheltered from expletives by the FCC, you're a fucking idiot. My two-year-old doesn't watch TV outside of the Backyardigans and some sporting events, and she'll still learn to cuss. You know why? Because she's around me half the time, and occasionally, Daddy has to put something together while she watches, and that leads to some expletives that are frequently more than fleeting. You think giving Bono a fine for dropping an F-bomb is gonna stop your kids from swearing? Fuck no. Guess what? Even if you're Mr./Ms. Perfect Daddy or Mommy who never swears, your kid's gonna have friends and they're gonna be able to swear. Chances are your kid will know four cuss words before they even know who Bono is.

Second, it's not a big deal. What do you think happens when a kid learns a cuss word? An angel's wings shrivel up? Part of her soul dies? Fuck that. I fail to see what the big deal around cuss words is. A kid who yells "fuck" because he stubbed his toe isn't hurting anyone. And a kid can be plenty hurtful while speaking the Queen's perfect English - just ask anyone who went through elementary and middle school. You want to protect kids? Teach them not to be bullying assholes.

Third, if obscenity in porn is "damaging" to kids, I have to ask... exactly how are kids getting a hold of explicit pornography anyway? Do you just leave your Buttman videos on the goddamn coffee table? Oh, sorry honey, I thought I was showing you "Thomas and the Really Brave Engine" but instead you're watching "Anal Angels 18: Junk in the Trunk." My bad. It really doesn't seem like it's that hard to keep from showing your kids porn, and by the time they're old enough to take the initiative to find porn themselves it's probably not so "damaging" or whatever, now is it? It's not the government's fucking job to raise your kids. It's yours. Hide your porn stash, turn the TV off anything you find objectionable, and buy one of those channel blockers if you must. For example, I don't let my kid watch "The 700 Club," because fuck that shit. That's obscenity right there. But you can choose your own path. If you don't want your kid exposed to awards shows where THERE MIGHT BE CUSSING, don't let your kid watch them. Don't try to take it away from those of us mature adults who are perfectly capable of enjoying (or not enjoying) porn and cussing for what it is.

And finally, which would you rather have your kid learn?

1) Adults say some funny sounding words and do some really freaky disgusting stuff naked.

2) Words written on a page 220 years ago are utterly meaningless.

Think about your priorities, people. I'm okay with my daughter accidentally learning 1) as long as she never, ever, thinks 2) is okay.

Yeah, I said it. A kid learning about weird sex isn't a big deal. Proper parenting can put that into context for kids. Chances are if you talk openly and honestly about what they've seen accidentally then they'll be okay - just don't overreact. A kid learning that the right to free speech can be violated at will, however, is a tragedy. And by prosecuting pornographers and punishing swearers on TV, that's exactly what we're teaching them. Munroe's Law applies here - consenting adults selling videos of their weird sex to other consenting adults isn't a danger to society. Kids accidentally seeing those videos isn't a danger to our society. Rendering the Constitution meaningless because we find the actions of other consenting adults "icky" and because we need to Protect Our Children? That's fuckin' danger.

Your Daily Timesuck

This site is a good way to procrastinate for a little while. It theoretically analyzes your writing to see what famous author you write like, but I think it just spits out random names. My last few posts got Dan Brown (really? I suck that much?), Chuck Palahniuk, James Fenimore Cooper, Douglas Adams (seriously the highlight of my day), Stephen King, P.G. Wodehouse, H.P. Lovecraft, and Kurt Vonnegut.

I had some fun feeding this thing actual quotes from authors. Adams came back as Adams, but Palahniuk consistently came back as King, and Asimov came back as Jane Austen.

Culture wars and "forced liberation"

So. The Burqopocalypse is upon us in France. Their lower house, the National Assembly, passed a sweeping ban on Muslim face veils by the absurd margin of 335 to 1. Considering how rarely 335 French people ever agree on anything, I'd say this shows how popular the ban on such clothing is in France.

And not just in France either; Egyptian Mona Eltahawy loves the idea:

I support banning the burqa because I believe it equates piety with the disappearance of women. The closer you are to God, the less I see of you -- and I find that idea extremely dangerous. It comes from an ideology that basically wants to hide women away. What really strikes me is that a lot of people say that they support a woman's right to choose to wear a burqa because it's her natural right. But I often tell them that what they're doing is supporting an ideology that does not believe in a woman's right to do anything. We're talking about women who cannot travel alone, cannot drive, cannot even go into a hospital without a man with them. And yet there is basically one right that we are fighting for these women to have, and that is the right to cover their faces.

But this law is only incidentally a positive blow for women's rights. It's really a more sinister campaign against Muslims and for "French values," as Eltahawy herself admits:

But what really disturbs me about the European context is that the ban is driven almost solely by xenophobic right wingers who I know very well don't give a toss about women's rights. What they're doing is they're hijacking an issue that they know is very emotive and very easy to sell to Europeans who are scared about immigration, Europeans who are scared about the economy, Europeans who don't understand people who look and sound different than them.

First, let's be honest about the burqa. It's a misogynistic tradition that is only tangentially related to Islam. The Qur'an's dress code says nothing about forcing women to cover themselves head to toe - hell, the traditional headscarf (hijab) isn't even required by the Qur'an! The burqa is an imposition of the unsavory heavily woman-hating aspects of Arab culture and not of Islam itself. Which brings us to culture, the real reason for the burqa ban, as voiced by the parliamentary report that led to it:

"The wearing of the full veil is a challenge to our republic. This is unacceptable," the report on Tuesday said. "We must condemn this excess."

The law is not about women's rights per se - it's about defining what is and is not "French." Living your life in a certain approved way is important to the health of the republic. And here you see a couple of things: first, why this CNN article reports that majorities in Western Europe favor a burqa ban while two-thirds of Americans do not, and second, the similarities Eurosnobs have with right-wing Americans.

We Americans, by and large, view our country less as a culture and more as a collection of high-minded ideals - free speech, freedom of religion, equality before the law, etc. The only people who talk about "culture" as a requirement to be American are right-wing windbags who prattle on about what it means to be a "real American," and how that usually involves not living like a liberal. This is because American culture is far from static - we've been spending 230 years being influenced by everyone from the native Americans and the English colonists to the Irish and Italians to the Mexicans and Indians. We eat eggs and sausage for breakfast, tacos for lunch, and chicken tikka masala for dinner and think absolutely nothing of it. By contrast, Western Europe has a lot narrower range of influences and is thus a lot more culturally homogeneous. (So what's interesting is that our right-wing culture warriors have more in common with Western Europeans than they'd care to admit - you listen to Sarkozy or any other French politician talk about the burqa ban, and you could just as easily be listening to Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, or Mitt Romney.)

And that, in a nutshell, is why I prefer America to its European allies and would even if I hadn't been born here. In America, our natural inclination is to provide everyone with the freedom to define their own lives, to accept or reject elements of our culture on their own terms. Instead of forcing women to drop the burqa, which smacks of the cultural imperialism of a colonial power exerted upon foreigners at home, we present a burqa-free life as an option to be accepted or rejected on an individual basis. The liberation that comes from dumping misogyny on your own terms is more difficult to reach, yes, but far more valuable than the forced liberation the French offer.

Forced liberation is, after all, a paradox, one that will be seen in Muslim immigrants' minds as more forced and less liberation. The French, by attempting to enforce "culture," have managed to make equality seem like oppression, while simply allowing women to wear the burqa if they choose but confronting them with options would make equality seem like an appealing, liberating choice (to the women, at least). And that's the tragedy of the European model... and the beauty of the American one.

Beware the AVOCADO OF DOOM.

I'll post on the French Burqopocalypse tomorrow once I've had time to digest it. But for now, the Wall Street Journal wants you to know that your favorite Mexican-inspired dips MIGHT BE OUT TO KILL YOU DEAD:

Hot or mild, the salsa and guacamole Americans love to order in restaurants may be packing an unexpected kick, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The dishes were blamed for one in 25 identified outbreaks of food poisoning at restaurants between 1998 and 2008—more than twice the rate of the previous decade, the CDC said. Often, the outbreaks were traced to raw hot peppers, tomatoes and cilantro—common ingredients in salsa and guacamole.

Uncooked foods, such as salsa and guacamole, are risky because there is no heat to wipe out bad bacteria, says Lisa McBeth, who supervises food safety for the Qdoba Mexican Grill chain, based in Wheat Ridge, Colo.

Nothing like a little scare journalism to liven up a slow July news day, eh?

So how long do you think it'll take before some dumbshit elected official reads this article and decides he/she has to Do Something, and proposes a stupid law? I'm thinking that it'll either a) require that all salsa and guacamole be pasteurized, which really doesn't make any sense but that never stopped someone who wanted to Do Something before; b) require all salsa and guac be spiked with penicillin; c) outlaw the free salsa given out at Mexican restaurants because THEY'RE FEEDING YOU POISON; or d) outlaw Mexican food altogether (though I hear Arizona's trying that one for completely different reasons). I'm setting the over/under at three weeks.

And oh yeah. Funny how salsa and guac get called out for being uncooked foods but good ol' American salads don't. Just sayin'.