How to end the recession? Renewable energy

            This recession should have been the perfect excuse for our country to work towards mitigating climate change.  Granted, if carbon emissions were couched in purely environmentalist terms, most Americans would wonder why we should care about the polar bears and melting glaciers—have become the iconic face of global warming—when thousands of people are losing their jobs each month.  Instead, the Obama administration has tried to frame the debate in terms of economic opportunism: as globalization has exported U.S. jobs in manufacturing overseas, clean energy technology could prove to be a source of pride and growth for the United States.  In the coming decades, we could be known not just for our universities, our biomedical research, and our defense technology, but also for our renewable energy infrastructure.

            The president has made the correct decision to attend the Copenhagen climate change talks next month with a loose set of commitments that the United States is willing to make to mitigate climate change.  Although Obama’s target—a 17 percent reduction from 2005 greenhouse gas levels by 2020—is less than what the Europeans (and American environmentalists) desire, it is probably the number that is politically feasible at home.  Hopefully, the promises of China and India, two rapidly-developing economies, to curb their emissions will dim conservatives’ outcry that the U.S. cannot cap emissions unless our Asian competitors agree to do the same.

            In reality, though, Obama should have called early in his presidency for a new American challenge.  Similar to his desires to have every American attend college or technical school and to give back to their communities by volunteering, he should have called on the country to reduce their energy consumption, ask their power companies to generate electricity from renewable sources, and ask themselves how to lessen their impact on the planet.  Under different circumstances, the people of this country might have seen this entreaty as a way to save money, conserve natural resources, and support small-scale renewable energy projects in neighborhoods and cities.  Instead, it’s highly probable that this message would have gotten hijacked by Tea Partiers who believe that it would be a step toward rationing, raising the price of electricity, and harming middle-class families.

            But now is the time to make that call to action.  If Americans are worried about how high unemployment, a Middle Eastern quagmire, and the rise of China are destabilizing America’s power, this is an easy way to get back on top.  Right now, China is the world’s leader in solar cell production; France and the Netherlands are working with African countries to export wind technology.  The United States ought to divert some of our defense spending for research and development to making these technologies affordable to produce and install.  (After all, our energy supply is as much a national security issue as is fighting insurgents in Kandahar.)

            Just as Silicon Valley came to host a booming information and communications technology industry at the end of the twentieth century, there is no reason why the entrepreneurs and their capital cannot center their operations first and foremost in America.  If we do not jump at the opportunity to lure these business ventures to the United States, all of the intellectual and mechanical expertise on the renewable energy front will congregate overseas.  We may not have to worry about the military strength of any of our rivals, but it should be a serious embarrassment to the United States if their economic strength in the coming years is propelled by this new sector.

            In a sense, China has a huge incentive to push for worldwide greenhouse gas reductions: while renewable technology is not cheap for them domestically, all of the European nations and the United States seeking to fulfill their pledges on emissions reductions will be shopping on the Chinese solar market.  Unless we want to remain permanently indebted to China, the president ought to order a substantial retooling of our economy.  Let all the money that is wasted on failing American automakers—which can’t compete with the Japanese and German industries—and on Wall Street trading—which only serves to fatten the pockets of executives—be put toward something worthwhile: creating a worldwide market for our technology.

            If the United States takes the lead post-Copenhagen, Europe will see us as a partner in the climate change battle and Asia will see us as a competitor in the race to renewable energy production.  Unlike Afghanistan, this is a fight we can win—and the entire world will benefit.

Same-sex marriage and democracy

            For the past year or so, the District of Columbia’s city council has been engaged in a tug-of-war between factions as it has attempted to conduct the people’s business: first, it was a meddlesome Congress that tried to supersede all local direction of the city’s gun-control policy.  Then, an ongoing proxy battle with an arrogant mayor resulted in clashes related to education, recreation, and contracting policy.  Now, the Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to withdraw from its Catholic Charities partnership with the city—in which the Church provides social services to some 68,000 homeless and poor residents—if the council proceeds with its plan to legalize same-sex marriage next month.

            There are plenty of freedom-of-conscience provisions built into the bill: the Church would not be required to marry same-sex couples or allow them access to non-public spaces of their property.  They would, however, be required to follow non-discriminatory guidelines for entities receiving government money—e.g. extending health insurance to and facilitating adoptions for gay couples.  Since Catholic Charities would not, out of moral reservation, be able to meet those requirements, it would thus not be eligible to do business with the city.

            Reactions have been mixed: some council members say that the Church is not indispensible to the city and should not dictate its policy.  Other people are sure that more concessions could be made to satisfy Church tenets without subjecting gays to wholesale prejudice.  Still others have argued that the measure should be put on the ballot, as has been the case in dozens of states.  Mostly, this argument has come from gay marriage foes, confident that a law will be rejected if submitted to voters (a board of elections and ethics has twice denied a ballot initiative or referendum to go forward). 

            One recent opinion article in The Washington Post presented an alternative version of that argument: a gay man in D.C. who writes, “I yearn, too, to be married someday, but at what cost? To force same-sex marriage into law through the caprice of judges, the sympathies of a majority of various legislatures or even the fiat of a president can be viewed as a kind of tyranny.”  While it’s common for parties who are on the losing side of policy fights to rail against “activist” judges and legislators that don’t respect the “will of the people,” it is strange to see that sentiment from someone who is benefitting greatly from those two sources of legal redress.

            There are two main points to be made about this controversy: one, is that not all opinions are equal.  I can, at a basic level, understand why the Catholic church would deny religious services to gay couples: for the reason that spiritual beliefs cannot be legislated out of existence, nor are they something that the believer can choose to have.  To have faith or not is hardly a free and simple choice for most believers—although the same can be true about being homosexual.  (And yes, I realize that the religious community is not monolithic—there are undoubtedly Catholics who would gladly marry two homosexuals.)  However, governmental protection to practice one’s beliefs does not mean that discrimination is legal.  To say that the Church’s views on sexuality should be given equal consideration as should views on sexuality from a scientific, cultural, or human rights perspective is erroneous.

            Secondly, the will of the people is a fickle protector of civil rights.  Even though it is our duty to resist governmental encroachment on our liberties, the legislatures and the courts were never intended to be a reflection of popular opinion.  As dysfunctional as our Congress appears at times, the elected men and women always have to take a view of what the greater good to society is when they cast their vote, which sometimes entails offending their constituents.  The courts, to an even greater degree, do not merely affirm and clarify policy that the legislature has passed, but they sometimes must overturn it when it violates the Constitution.

            People (conservatives in particular) abhor the notion that one unelected judge can alter the course of history by deciding which laws are appropriate or inappropriate by the principles of our society.  Take these words of an ambivalent Supreme Court justice in the early 1950s: “how is it that the Constitution this morning forbids what for three-quarters of a century it has tolerated or approved?”  The case he was reviewing was Brown v. Board of Education.  The man was Robert Jackson, a liberal who was having doubts about overturning segregation laws (even though a decade earlier he was in the minority of justices who voted to uphold the rights of Japanese-American citizens who had been placed in internment camps).

         In the end, of course, he voted to end segregation.  But for him and others like him who have spurned the popular will to uphold the Constitution, I would hope that the people who are elected or appointed to run the government are chosen not just for their knowledge of policy, but for their ability to listen to all sides and create laws that demonstrate the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Healthcare passes—at the expense of women

            Healthcare reform is inching along and if the close vote in the House is any indication of the deep split between liberals, moderates, and conservatives, then the Senate—with a higher concentration of the latter two groups—will have to dilute the bill even more to surmount a filibuster.  Still, the House’s bill is not a resounding victory.  It takes two steps forward and one step backward—in that for all of the great features that will expand health coverage and crack down on insurance companies, this comes at the expense of women’s reproductive rights.

            While abortion coverage (along with illegal immigrant coverage) was always a contentious point of reform, the settlement over the weekend on the Stupak Amendment is not only against women’s rights, but is against working-class women’s rights.  The language of the amendment denies federal funding for abortion services (an already-established provision of the law), but also denies women who are receiving subsidies from the government to purchase public or private insurance in the new Exchange from getting an abortion even if they pay out-of-pocket into their monthly premiums.  A far more sensible amendment was offered by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) in which federal funds and private funds would be segregated in premium payments, and only the non-subsidized money would be used for the operation.  However, detractors called it an accounting gimmick that could not be enforced.

            The glaring irony is that small-government conservatives of both parties voted in favor of this amendment, even though it expands the reach of federal prerogative right into a woman’s physician’s office.  What’s more, the vast majority of those voting for the amendment would not have voted for the final bill even if the language was not approved.  But alas, the art of politics requires that a tiny fraction of lawmakers be appeased for the country as a whole to progress.

            While the language makes an exception for women whose life is endangered, or who have been the victims of rape and incest, that is little consolation.  A pregnancy is more than a medical condition.  It is an obligation to the woman, the child’s father, and the families of both parents.  But the weight of obligation is sometimes too much for women to bear.  The child might be unwanted or the woman might be physically, mentally, or financially unprepared to bear such a burden.  No one wants any abortion to happen, but when a woman needs more time before  entering into motherhood or when she must weigh the costs of rearing a child to whom she cannot dedicate herself or her material resources, it is unfair for a group of (primarily) men to stipulate that a woman must be dying or traumatized for her to have any choice in the matter.

            It makes little sense to me that this bill will bring opportunity for treatment to millions of working-class and young women—both of whom are most subject to false information and interest group tug-of-wars on the family planning front—so that if they accidentally get injured, they will be fine—but if they accidentally get pregnant, they are out of luck.  Would it not be more practical to simply regulate abortion providers to ensure that women who seek the procedure are not put in jeopardy by back-alley, unlicensed abortionists?  The last time I checked, the Constitution charged our government with promoting the “general welfare” of all its citizens, not simply the welfare of those who are wealthy and already have access to employer-based private coverage and who have an unbiased accounting of their options regarding reproductive rights.

            While the bill should not be sunk on the basis of this one anti-woman provision, it just goes to show that sex discrimination is still acceptable by the majority of elected representatives, even if it takes away a long-established legal right.

Virginia election analyses

Lowell over at Blue Virginia has written an excellent postmortem of last night’s election (from the Democratic perspective):

http://www.bluevirginia.us/2009/11/after-action-review-of-mcdonnells.html

Likewise, Ben Tribbett at Not Larry Sabato has an equally fascinating pre-mortem:

http://notlarrysabato.typepad.com/doh/2009/11/the-democratic-gilmore-repost-from-july-2008.html

McDonnell wins Virginia; blogger calls on Republican to release birth certificate

Governor-elect Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) is facing calls to verify the location and circumstances of his birth.

Charlottesville, VA—Less than four hours after Republican Robert F. McDonnell won the governorship of Virginia by a wide margin over his opponent, Democratic state senator R. Creigh Deeds, he faces calls from some prominent Democratic activists to provide proof of his citizenship.

            “I’m not saying that he’s not a citizen,” said Michael Karlik of The 28th Amendment, a liberal-leaning blog.  “I’m just saying that the allegations are out there—and the burden of proof should be on him” to disprove the rumors.  Karlik is calling on the governor-elect to produce his certificate of birth to show his qualifications to hold Virginia’s highest office.

            Although McDonnell, who was born in Philadelphia to American citizens, has held elected office for nearly two decades, this is the first time any concerns over his birth are receiving scrutiny.  The Virginia constitution requires governors to be citizens of the United States. 

            The outcry echoes the movement by some conservatives after the 2008 election in which President Obama, who was born in Hawaii, was accused of being Kenyan by birth and thus not eligible to hold the presidency.  Neither the McDonnell nor Deeds campaign had any immediate comment on this issue.

            Still, Karlik is not giving up.  “I think it’s completely rational to assume that Bob McDonnell is not a citizen of this country until it is proven otherwise.  As the former attorney general, he should know that one is presumed guilty of a charge until able to provide proof of his innocence.”  Karlik added, “I mean, McDonnell?  What kind of name is that?  Sounds Congolese to me.”