Author: Lee M.

“What’s really killed the Republican Party isn’t spending, it’s Iraq. As it happens, I was opposed to going into Iraq from the beginning. I think it was a mistake, for the simple reason that I do not believe the United States of America ought to be involved in aggression.” – Milton Friedman

Very funny (and well done!), via Mrs. VI.

This is interesting – Maryland’s independent Senate candidate Kevin Zeese has been endorsed by the state’s Green, Populist, and Libertarian parties, essentially creating a left-right fusion ticket. Zeese is emphasizing a populist-based opposition to the Iraq war, ending the war on drugs, cutting corporate welfare, defense of civil liberties, election reform, and shoring up Social Security by lifting the ceiling on income that is subject to Social Security taxes.

This strikes me as a smart move for those who are interested in challenging the two-party status quo. By themselves, Greens and Libertarians rarely attract more than a tiny minority of voters, but by emphasizing what they have in common (which is actually more than most people might think) and downplaying ideological purity tests, they stand a chance of connecting with the real concerns of many voters.

“Hot and Bothered: Facing up to Global Warming” by Bill McKibbon. Now that global warming denial seems to be crumbling – even former skeptics are coming around – what will we do about it? And what kind of role should churches play?

“Theocracy! Theocracy! Theocracy!” at First Things. Ross Douthat reviews the recent spate of books announcing an impending Christo-facist takeover of America.

“Confessions of a ‘Genetic Outlaw’” by University of St. Thomas Law School prof Elizabeth R. Schiltz. Will improved genetic screening make parents who refuse to terminate pregnancies with genetic abnormalities like Down Syndrome feel like criminals? Via Mirror of Justice.

“Reality Bites Back” by Alan Bock on the latest Mideast mess.

P.S. One more: “It’s a Local Battle, not WWIII” by Leon Hadar.

This is an interesting argument from the Catholic legal blog Mirror of Justice to the effect that destroying embryos for research is worse than abortion.

Of course, the argument won’t cut any ice with you if you don’t think that the embryo has some kind of moral standing, but I’m not particularly interested in revisiting that argument since I suspect most of us know where we stand on that. But leaving that aside, I think the author makes a powerful case.

As Kim discussed the other day, abortion often involves tragic conflicts and it’s difficult to see any legal arrangement that doesn’t involve an injustice toward someone. But ESCR involves intentionally turning nascent human life into a commodity, instrumentalizing it for use by others.

Duke ethicist Amy Laura Hall has pointed out that ESCR promises to be big business, and it’s far from clear that, even if we accept the utilitarian argument for ESCR to treat serious chronic and/or life-threatening diseases, there’s no guarantee that it won’t be extended to more trivial uses:

A multimillion-dollar medical industry surrounds the supposedly simple “which of these two entities matters more?” approach. Endorsing ESCR means endorsing an elaborate, systematic, routine industry of embryo production and destruction, an industry not likely to limit itself to therapies for chronic disease. To suggest that we will not also see the emergence of more generally applicable, and more widely lucrative, products defies common sense.

To those who aren’t moved by appeals to the intrinsic value of the embryo, Hall offers a feminist-inspired argument:

With other feminists, I believe that we must consider the likelihood a) that countries with less stringent guidelines for ova donation will proceed more efficiently with research; b) that countries in the one-third world will likely benefit from research using ill-gotten gametes; and c) that advocates for ESCR will argue that, for the sake of justice, the U.S. needs to implement more liberal guidelines for gamete procurement so as to avoid the injustice inherent in situation b).

The guidelines by which research groups in the U.S. have had to proceed were developed to protect vulnerable populations in the U.S. from one of the most intimate forms of exploitation. Relatively privileged Christians in the U.S. must consider the likelihood that the procurement of requisite ova will follow the predictable patterns of women’s labor in an exploitative global market. A moral analysis of ESCR, as it is likely to proceed, therefore requires reckoning not only with the lives of those who suffer from juvenile diabetes or Parkinson’s, but also with the specter of women sacrificing their bodily integrity for our sakes.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think you need to ascribe full moral personhood to the embryo to find ESCR objectionable, and, thus the “appeal to mourning” objection misses the mark. I think the question can be posed in terms of respect for creation. Is creation, including life, simply raw material to be used any way we see fit? Or does it have its own integrity and (dare I say it?) mystery such that we need to step back and think twice before exploiting it for our purposes?

There’s been quite a bit of discussion about appropriate church attire among the blogs I read (see here, here and here) stemming from a pastoral letter from a Catholic bishop in Texas urging modest dress in church (though most of the disputants in the above linked posts are not Catholic).

Personally, I’ve learned through long experience to dress modestly at church lest I drive the ladies wild, but as a public service here is the official VI visual guide to proper churchly attire:

Appropriate:

Inappropriate:

Appropriate:

Inappropriate:

Appropriate (but only if you’re the Archbishop):

Very inappropriate:

Appropriate:

Not so much:

Okay, I hope we’ve got that all cleared up.

I’ve made no secret of my disgruntlement with many aspects of the Bush administration’s policy (foreign and domestic), but it seems to me that I should praise the President when he does something I agree with.

At the risk of seeming too positive, I can think of about a half-dozen occasions before this off the top of my head when I think the President should have used his veto power.

Oh, and this (which accompanied a recent SojoMail) is hysterical (in both senses). The idea that the federal government’s failure to fund something erodes the distinction between church and state is a stretch to put it mildly. If anything, it seems truer to the spirit of separating church and state not to have people’s tax money fund things which offend their religious scruples.

Catholic law professor Stephen Bainbridge has more on just war and proportionality.

Prof. Bainbridge is making a slightly different point than the one I was trying to get at. He’s more concerned about how the targeting of civilian infrastructure violates the criterion of proportionality. I was assuming, for the sake of argument, a case where all the targets were legitimate military targets, but was trying to figure out how we determine the acceptable amount of “collateral damage.”

Matthew Yglesias has a really good article at the American Prospect on what he calls the “Green Lantern” theory of politics. This is the idea that the only thing standing between us and achieving our objectives is a lack of will power. Just like Green Lantern’s power ring can do pretty much anything if the wearer uses sufficient willpower, American power is conceived to be, for all practical purposes, unlimited, if only we would “take off the gloves” and show sufficient resolve (insert Churchill analogy here).

Tim Cavanaugh tries to puzzle it out.

I’m as clueless about this situation as everyone else. Despite the sight of many bloggers, pundits, etc. treating us to their iron-clad certainty over the past week.

P.S. Fred Kaplan has a helpful article up at Slate.