GOP senator speaks of a “classical” Constitution

         A nominee for the Supreme Court is anticipated from the White House any day now, and the timing of gay marriage legalizations in the Northeast and Iowa will probably make that issue the first order of business for conservatives on the Judiciary Committee.  No problem, I am sure that whomever Obama picks, she will be able to convey her beliefs with allusions to “equal rights,” “adherence to precedents,” “states’ prerogatives,” and “social norms.”

            But Sen. Jeff Sessions from Alabama, himself a failed judicial nominee from the 1980s and now the ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee, gave a somewhat coded answer as to why a judge’s view on gay marriage even matters in the first place.  He said that such attitudes “may reflect the degree to which they think that they’re not bound by the classical meaning of the Constitution, and that they may want to let a personal agenda go beyond what the law said”.

             Classical meaning of the Constitution?  What does that even mean?  He could have mentioned the “original intent” doctrine, but that would have sounded even sillier considering that the Founding Fathers could not have imagined that their plan for government would ever be scrutinized for clues regarding same-sex marriage.  Indeed, marriage is not a constitutional right, but a civil right, meaning it can be taken away by unscrupulous majorities.  Interracial marriage was not legalized by the Court until 1967, unanimously; can you imagine those conservatives screaming about interracial marriage destroying “traditional family values”?

            Which brings us to the word “classical” (or “traditional,” I assume they are interchangeable): he means, essentially, that we should be doing things as they have always been done, without respect to changing social customs or ways of thinking.  But that is the frightening part of conservatism—where would these people like us to stop the clock?  1950, before “activist courts” forced integration on the states?  1910, before women were given the right to vote and before factory workers were protected from grueling workdays?  1800, when life expectancy was forty years, university education was reserved for elites, and there was no high speed Internet?  Does anyone seriously want to go back to the “classical” American days?

            The problem with original intent is that a.) the Founders could only provide, at best, a rough outline of how we should be expected to deal with changes one hundred or two hundred years in the future; and b.) two hundred years of changes have indeed taken place.  Technology, mobility, industry, and education have made us a more tolerant people.  That is why so-called activist courts have broken down barriers (I call it “democratization”) to participation in government and have moved to protect individuals’ liberties.

            Conservatives use the word “traditional” to exclude groups of people who do not fit in their utopian vision of churchgoing, small town, breadwinner-homemaker styles families.  In fact, it was not too far back in our history where “traditional” meant ensuring that white men held power at the expense of everyone else.  Obviously both of these models are breaking down, and with good reason.  “Traditionalism” involves a superiority complex—those who call for it think that their way of life should be forced on everyone else because they think change could be unhealthy.  It is that kind of mindset that gives rise to traditions that we (should) find abhorrent—such as the “separate but equal” doctrine (Plessy v. Ferguson) or that women receive less pay than men (Ledbetter v. Goodyear).

            I hope that Obama’s nominee is respectful of the Constitution, as she will be, and even of “tradition” (whatever that means); but I by no means want today’s bigotry to be codified in a way that restricts tomorrow’s Americans.

Partnership or partisanship?

            Each of our three branches of government has a different guiding principle.  For the judiciary, it is deliberation.  Judges are philosophers of the law, pondering the meanings and implications of statutes; they then privately reach an interpretation that is most beneficial and most just when applied to the general public.  For the executive, it is decisiveness.  With the ability to use the media and the sprawling bureaucracy to set the tone for policy, the executive is expected to listen to input from competing factions; but at the end of the day, he or she alone provides the face of success or failure for a wide array of ceremonial and political duties.

            The legislature is characterized alternately by competition and compromise.  Legislators represent different demographic interests and in order to receive benefits for their constituents they sometimes must strike bargains on issues that would be unpalatable on their own merits.  At the same time, the myriad interests being represented also ensure that the coalitions behind different issues are not always the same.  A friend on matters of the environment today might be an enemy on discussions of infrastructure improvements tomorrow.  The underlying assumption is that while each representative tries to get the most for his or her constituents while caring less about the situation of everyone else, enough similarity among interests exists to form consensus on the important issues.

            What gums up the works for this system is a little factor called ideology: the more rabid the liberal or the more rigid the conservative, the less opportunity there is for consensus and the more we lament “do-nothing” legislatures.  Exhibit A is the near-stalemate that occurred in early February over the stimulus legislation, when only three Republican senators worked to compromise on the massive spending bill.  Immediately, they were castigated for not marching in-step with the white, southern, evangelical elements of their party, and were called liberals and RINOs (Republicans In Name Only).  It seems that Republicans don’t recognize moderates because there are so few of them left in their party.

            Exhibit B is the budget catastrophe that recently ended in California.  Three Republican state senators needed to join all of the Democrats in order to reach the two-thirds majority needed to pass a spending bill.  The anti-tax Senate Republicans ousted the minority leader after he supported legislation that would increase taxes.  Virginia faces a similar ideological—in addition to a regional—split between the conservative, anti-tax, anti-gun control, pro-tobacco, pro-death penalty faction and their progressive counterparts.  Like California, Virginia draws district boundaries through the party leadership after each census, which the entire legislature subsequently approves.  The result is that convoluted, non-competitive, “landslide” districts are drawn that are either reliably-Republican or reliably-Democratic.

            A redistricting bill was proposed in the Virginia Senate to establish a non-partisan panel to redraw boundaries, with the Republican-controlled House of Delegates appointing half the commissioners, the Democratic-controlled Senate appointing the other half, and then those people would pick a chairperson.  The Senate unanimously approved of this measure; a House committee voted along party lines to reject it.

            If most districts are controlled by a single party, that means the party primary is the determinant of who gets elected.  When that happens, each candidate tries to out-liberal or out-conservative his or her opponent, resulting in cookie-cutter ideologues on both sides.

            As the national GOP decides whether to soften its ideology on God, gays, and guns in order to invite moderates into their ranks and start winning elections again, the states need to make sure that the people can elect representatives with more nuance.  Moderates, centrists, and pragmatists are hot commodities in politics because they owe allegiance to nothing but their own sensibilities.  Neither side can have all the solutions all of the time, which is why there needs to be a select group of people who can get past the talking points and the name calling to be productive.

            Ironically, people might not be inclined to vote if two moderate candidates are seen to be too similar to make a difference.  But it is usually better to have small movement around the center than to be frozen on the fringe.  Our country’s system lets citizen vote for which candidates represent them, rather than voting only for which party.  That is because we highly value the character traits and personal accomplishments of the individual—someone who can be a catalyst for change, not an impediment.  Virginia has one more year to change the way it draws districts in order to ensure geographic continuity and competitive elections between candidates who seek to form coalitions across party lines.

Obama’s team of not-so-liberals

        With more than two weeks to go before Barack Obama is sworn in—and three weeks until he fixes everything on the planet which ails humanity—there are some Americans who are already expressing anxiety about his administration.  Conservatives?  Well, yes, but they are also being joined by a few liberals, surprisingly.  The main beef of those to the left is that Obama’s Cabinet choices don’t adequately fill the mandate on liberalism granted by the voters.  The chosen ones, such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Ken Salazar for the Interior, are being billed as more pragmatic and centrist—a team of moderates.  At this point, that is probably a useful designation (as opposed to a team of mavericks).

            Yes, there are elements of the liberal doctrine that need be and will be adopted over the next four years: expanded use of renewable energy, regulation of carbon emissions, disengagement from Iraq, and closure of our Guantanamo Bay prison, to name a few.  But should we be disappointed that these people aren’t likely to push for legalized gay marriage, the unquestioned right to abortions, and other longstanding left-wing agenda items?  No, because there are bigger fish to fry.  And besides, wasn’t rigid adherence to ideology the source of many a scandal over the past eight years?

            It was conservative ideology among political appointees that kept the Environmental Protection Agency from labeling carbon dioxide as being harmful to public health and welfare, despite knowledgeable lower-level department officials begging the case.  Centrism took a blow when it was revealed that the assistant to Alberto Gonzales was making conservative ideology a requirement for any career at the Justice Department.  And remember when Surgeon General Richard Carmona was denied the right to help with the Special Olympics because the Kennedy family supports the organization?  Or the reports during this past week that the first Bush-appointed director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration told employees that their primary concern was to serve companies, not their workers?

            No, it’s pragmatism that will put us on the right course.  One might ask, though, how can the course be determined without an ideology?  Obviously, the ideology is bent towards progress, and involves looking at an issue from all sides for solutions, whether they be neo-conservative (such as drilling for oil) or neo-liberal (such as installing solar panels).  We need a government that will put long term necessity before short-term victories in partisan battles or money matters.  Liberals cannot have all the solutions, but with a healthcare system and physical infrastructure that should have been modernized decades ago, Obama is right to focus on practical issues of economy and sustainability rather than social crusades.

            There is hope, though.  For example, despite the selection of Rick Warren to give the inaugural prayer and Joe Biden’s admission during the vice-presidential debate that neither he nor Obama believes in legalizing same-sex marriage, expanded Democratic majorities in Congress and/or a Supreme Court decision will in all likelihood attempt to grant that right in Obama’s first term.  But Obama knows that he cannot stray too far from the center and still remain an effective leader, or else he will just reinvigorate the ultra-conservative base for the midterm elections.  Besides, most of the people he is bringing into his administration (with token exceptions) are knowledgeable in their field and should be given all the resources needed to conduct data-based reform.  The new administration, unlike the old one, should not try to mislead the public because of their ideological convictions, but try to win public support based on proof of their thoughtfulness and ability to manage multiple crises.

Phunny Fotos

The Voiceless Majority

In an opinion piece to The Washington Post, Andrew Klavan, a Hollywood writer, asks why conservative ideology never wins out on the big screen.  He claims that in most programming, “American might is sinister, soldiers are criminalized by war, Christians are intolerant and hypocritical, housewives are desperate, corporations are evil, the environment is in mortal danger from wicked man and, in general, something is terribly wrong with mainstream society.” Furthermore, anyone can be blacklisted for downplaying the reality of racism and sexism.  I could not agree more: it is shameful how conservatives have been completely shut into the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court for at least the past decade.  In a country dominated by conservative politicians, conservative religious leaders, and conservative business executives, our culture has somehow marginalized conservative entertainers—when was the last time you saw a movie about two corporations founded by emotionally sensitive soldiers who find love by shitting on the environment together?  (By the way, since conservatives champion the free market, I find it incongruous that he doesn’t accept how the market thrives on the types of shows that supposedly advocate liberal values.)   In that vein, Mr. Klavan’s next movie project admittedly seems  to have all the elements of an ideologically-pure box office smash:

Don’t C*ckblock the Vote

            Nearly every day I check this blog to see a.) how many people come to visit our cozy little corner of cyberspace and b.) by what means they came to click here.  Lately, I have been somewhat bemused at the large quantity of people who were linked to the site after searching on the web for “28th amendment.”  There are, in my mind, three reasons why such high traffic exists: people want to read this website (not likely); people are checking to see if there is an actual 28th Amendment in our Constitution (until I can get ¾ of state conventions to ratify this site [keep writing to your congressmen, people! I know we can do it someday], there is no such article); or, there is some porn/gay porn/bestiality site of the same name (probably the case) whereby people are mistakenly led here.  My apologies to the many horny visitors for that misunderstanding.

            That having been said, consider this formula: if young people are the future, and young people compose the Democratic Party, is the Democratic Party our future?  California Republicans seem to fear so, because they are blocking two bills in the State Assembly that would allow sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds to preregister to vote, as well as allow seventeen-year-olds to vote in primaries if they will be eighteen by the general election.  Naturally, since young people tend to be more liberal—and since eighteen- to 29-year-olds prefer Barack Obama to John McCain by roughly two-to-one (with party identification mirroring that margin)—and liberals tend to cling to the Democratic party, Republicans are unsupportive of these measures.  One representative, Anthony Adams, said that “I’m a pretty conservative guy now, but when I was seventeen I was a raging liberal….You start to see problems as you get older. As you get older, you get wiser.”

Those remarks translate to: young, dumb liberals grow into old, wise conservatives.  Of course, liberalism is not exclusively the domain of the young—half the wrinkled heads on the Supreme Court at any given time are bound to bend liberal, as is currently about half of Congress, not to mention the elderly Jewish community in Florida who mistakenly voted for Buchanan in the 2000 election.  Nor is liberalism a sort of naiveté or recklessness with the country’s values: from the liberal civil rights agenda of the sixties to the liberal gay rights agenda of today; from the liberal cause of Medicare to liberal national health care; young people in America expect to be prosperous, healthful, and to respect the color and gender barriers that will continue to be knocked down throughout their generation.  Young people, in supporting these points, are merely looking out for their generation just as every generation has done.  Some of them may agree with the Republican agenda, but all of them have a right to be suspicious of the political party of rich, white men who are trying to block their ability to vote.  Maybe the best measure to supplement voting rights for new registrants is to abolish the requirement to register with one party or the other.

The Republicans’ argument seems to be that young people are not mature enough to pick their representatives, rather than being unknowledgeable about politics.  But the people who are elected are knowledgeable—the voters’ job is to pick the candidate whose agenda on the issues is preferable.  Besides, is the middle-aged conservative who believes that Barack Obama is a racist Muslim less dangerous to the political process than a college student who knows otherwise?  Is it fair that young Barack Obama should be left to resolve the Iraqi war, whereas wise old Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were unable to do so?  And really, what has youthful liberalism ever brought America?  There was 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson’s anarchist scheme that all men are entitled to “life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness”; 25-year-old James Madison’s idea that the freedom to practice any religion or no religion should not be infringed upon; seventeen-year-old Benjamin Franklin’s anonymous observation that an honest atheist is superior to a hypocritical holy man.  Thank goodness none of those indiscreet radicals were able to hold positions of power in the American republic.

Certainly older conservatives have more experience with the socioeconomic forces at work in this country, but does that mean that young, idealistic liberals should not have a say in current affairs (which is also the theme of the 2008 campaign)?  As for “seeing problems” when they get older, are issues such as providing the opportunity to marry for gay couples, welcoming immigrants, and supporting health coverage for each American really going to ruin the country when all is said and done?  Young people are living in a country with more freedoms, more people who are of different colors and lifestyles, with better medicine, and with the ability to receive and dispense information faster than any other generation, so it only makes sense to want to improve on that standard of living and to see results quickly.  I suppose most governmental creations do run awry sooner or later: civil rights reform now has to contend with affirmative action lawsuits; Social Security is a broken system; but those reforms were necessary at the time and continue to be necessary.  It is up to the young people to adapt new solutions to the old problems of social and economic injustice.

 

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