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Friday, January 31, 2003

Posted 1:28 PM by Austin
I propose that the U.N. be moved to Las Vegas, or placed on a cruise ship, so that delegates could exhaust their energies in Lucullan dissipations. That way, their power could be neutered much like that of nobility at Versailles. (Perhaps they could even indulge in witchcraft, much like the Marquise de Montespan, mistress of Louis XiV.)

Posted 12:30 PM by Patrick
For a brief moment of levity: Always be careful when passing the time during a meeting by playing games on a palm pilot. A Norweigan Conservative MP was caught playing a "war game" on his Palm during a Parliament meeting about the Iraq war. Isn't it too bad we can't just pass out palms to the entire UN, and just leave prosecution of world peace up to more responsible organizations like NATO?

Thursday, January 30, 2003

Posted 7:19 PM by Austin
I have to confess that I found Red Dawn disappointing; a case can be made that the film finds moral equivalence between the Americans and the revolutionaries. Perhaps next time we can watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which is not only anticommunist but pro-McCarthy, or even Dr. Strangelove, wrongly interpreted as an indictment of American policy during the Cold War. Why, who could disagree that, at least metaphorically speaking, there has been a conspiracy afoot to "sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids"? (Quite apart from the metaphor, here is an interesting article on the politics of fluoridation.)

Posted 6:54 PM by Austin
Ahem, Patrick, but a king, by definition, cannot by a dictator. A dictator seizes control in the name of the people; a king, by contrast, serves the interests of the monarchy. Was Queen Victoria, after all, a "dictator"?

Posted 6:29 PM by Jonathan
Adam White has a fairly thorough discussion of the near-universal support of America's unilateral action.

Posted 6:29 PM by Jonathan
Speaking of criticisms uttered of Bush, at last night's Shooting Club/Federalist Society showing of Red Dawn (fear not, it was properly licensed) I could not help but whoop when a Russian soldier castigated "American imperialists and cowboys." This Communist propaganda is identical to the rhetoric we hear today from France. A fellow Federalist Society member suggested that the rhetoric is identical because the French "are f!!!ing Communists."

Posted 6:21 PM by Patrick
It's important to point out that the group Austin describes advocates a constitutional monarchy, which does not invest the monarch with absolute power. Most of Arabia is ruled by kings and other dictatorial regimes.

I just wonder how you convince all the rival ethnic groups to accept the legitimacy of the monarch.

Posted 6:12 PM by Christine
America unilateralist? Pshaw.
I've grown so tired of the word "unilateralism" that I cringe each time I hear it. It's ceaselessly uttered by critics of the Bush Administration (along with "cowboy", "imperialist" and "bully"). But no longer. This letter by the prime ministers of Spain, Portugal, Italy, the U.K., Hungary, Poland, and Denmark, along with the President of the Czech Republic, roundly affirms international support of the United States in the event of war with Iraq. Hooray for these sane and sober words issued from the pens of European leaders, who understand that U.N. credibility hangs in the balance if the Security Council shies away from enforcing its resolutions.

Posted 2:16 PM by Austin
Here's a group that advocates restoration of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq. What could be a more sound proposal? History shows that those Arabian nations with a tradition of monarchy are also the most friendly to the West, most capable of unity, and most moderate in their domestic policies.

Posted 2:15 PM by Avigael
Although this year's State of the Union address did not have the same rhetorical punches of last year's speech, I think the best line came right after Bush described Iraq's policy of torture, mutilation, and rape: "If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning." A great, clear response to the postmodern sophisticates who sneered at Bush's "simplistic" invocation of the "Axis of Evil."
Additional clear rhetoric came today from the leaders of Spain, Portugal, Italy, the U.K., Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and the Czech Republic in the form of this letter in support of unity with the U.S., urging the U.N. Security Council to face up to its responsibilities or go the way of the League of Nations and fade into irrelevance.

Posted 1:23 PM by Patrick
Some results on Gallup polling of support for an invasion of Iraq (prior to the State of the Union): The title of the report, Blacks, Postgraduates Among Groups Most Likely to Oppose Iraq Invasion is quite telling. Most curious to me is the postgraduate angle: the percentage of postgraduates opposing the war in Iraq is almost a 100% parallel to the percentage of liberals and Democrats opposed to the war. Just more evidence of the shocking anti-conservative bias in higher education...

Another interesting side-note: hispanics surveyed are almost a perfect parallel to whites w/r/t their support of the war, and indeed support it at a slightly higher rate than do whites.

Posted 12:46 PM by Avigael
As Rod Drehrer notes, changing behaviors by promoting a combination of abstinence, fidelity, and condom use seems to have had an effect in combating AIDS in Uganda, and should be looked at as a model for the rest of Africa. I don't think that, in this case, advocating both abstinence and safe(r) sex are antithetical -- given the severity of the crisis, it probably makes sense to take a multi-pronged approach.

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Posted 11:18 PM by G
Dan, I do think changing behavior is responsible for the decline in new HIV infections. My point was that these changes occurred without a national crusade for fidelity and abstinence, which Austin suggested is necessary to combat AIDS in Africa. And yes, AIDS has everything to do with being ""desperately poor", "barely educated", "having little or not medical care", "no indoor plumbing or electricity" and being "chronically undernourished." A healthy American adult will probably not get the virus if exposed to it, for instance, by engaging in a single act of heterosexual intercourse with someone infected, because our immune systems and general constitutions are usually strong enough to fight the initial infection. That can't be said of your average African.

Regarding Norplant, it does have side effects, but for an African woman who already has many children she can't feed, they are a small price to pay. Pregnancy has "side effects" too in very poor countries, one of the more common of which is the death during childbirth.

Anyway, the lawsuit and worries of the perennially worried class of "public health groups and women's advocates" that you cite are entirely irrelevant, because I am not calling for using it as instrument of social control or giving to to people without informing them of the risks. I am simply calling for a network of clinics to be set up to make it available for any woman who wants it.

And AIDS often does not involve a choice, especially for the millions of women and their children who get it because their husbands had unprotected sex with an infected prostitute.

Posted 10:49 PM by G
Christine: They should be arrested of course. What they are doing is sabotaging a military operation, the fact that they are doing so openly makes it no less treasonous.

Posted 10:47 PM by G
Jonathan, every conservative judge confirmed by the Senate is like a poke in the eye of the small-minded know-it-all Manhattan leftists who run that increasingly disreputable newspaper. The level of preening moralistic condescension somehow reached war-protester levels in that editorial. I was left wondering just which of Estrada's beliefs are "extreme."

Then I thought of a fun exercise, namely to list all the views shared by 50% or more of the American public that the NYT would consider "extreme." Here's my start:

1. Execution of murderers and terrorists
2. A ban on late-term abortion
3. A flag-burning amendment to the Constitution
4. A large reduction in legal immigration
5. An immediate invasion of Iraq
6. Making English the official language of the United States

Now I don't necessarily agree with everything on the list, but the point is I don't think I am the center of the universe, or that I am so important that my positions define the mainstream, or that if I disagree with the vast majority of the public that it is the public whose views are extreme and not mine. This cannot be said of the editors of the Times.

Fortunately preen and condescend are all those editors can do. Nobody important cares what they think anymore, and Estrada will be confirmed and make an able judge for the few years he'll be on the DC Circuit en route to the Supreme Court. I wish him the best of luck, and commend him for being willing to give up his lucrative practice to serve his country.

Posted 8:11 PM by Adam
Christine: Call in the French, for their own brand of "unilateral" action.

Posted 8:00 PM by Christine
What can be done to these people?

Posted 7:55 PM by Christine
"Under the influence of post-Kantian philosophy, 20th century physicists have rejected all of the above ideas" (those ideas being causality, rationality, and objectivity). A bit of an overstatement. And inaccurate--Hume made a devastating critique of causality long before Kant came along.

Though there are aspects of Randian Objectivism I admire, I've always thought the philosophy was about fifty years behind its time.

Posted 7:48 PM by Christine
Interesting characterization of "Old Europe."
Responding to the analogy that France and Germany are like spoiled teenagers, James Taranto proposes a more fitting analogy:

In truth, old Europe is more like America's battle-axe mother-in-law--shrill, imperious, meddling, hypercritical. Once a vibrant and attractive young woman, today she is embittered by the ravages of old age. As unpleasant as she may be, the burden falls on America to maintain a degree of civility; after all, we married into this family. But as the head of our own household, we can't afford to take the old lady's dotty advice. Ideally we'd have the forbearance to pretend to listen respectfully to her every word, then go about our business ignoring what she says. But we're only human; if we occasionally lose patience, that's entirely understandable.

Posted 7:40 PM by Patrick
Greg: Overpopulation isn't the Achilles Heel of Africa, Greg. It's incompetent leadership on the part of their corrupt and largely communist regimes. Overpopulation is a polite myth propagated by Leftists who want to cover up the inferiority of their preferred political systems and racists who use the argument as "code" to simply get rid of people they don't like.

Posted 6:24 PM by Josh
Seats on the green monster? That's unpossible!

For those of you who missed the article (not to mention the Simpsons reference above), here is what the Red Sox are planning for this coming season.

Given this city's proclivity for underground pathways, I don't see why it can't just make Landsdowne Street a tunnel, and stick some seats above it.

Posted 3:10 PM by Austin
Absurdite du jour: Here is a Randian critique of modern physics purporting to debunk both Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics on the grounds that they partake too much of "post-Kantian philosophy" and ignore the laws of "Aristotelian logic." (Thanks to Greg for apprising me of the existence of this sort of literature.)

Posted 2:43 PM by G
Patrick, were I the leader of one of the those impoverished countries in Africa where 15-40% of the adult population is infected with HIV I certainly wouldn't hesitate to use the methods you describe as blackmail were the the only method to ensure AIDS drugs are widely available.

Austin, spending a lot of money on AIDS prevention that doesn't focus on abstinence and fidelity has worked well in the United States, where rates of infection and death have been steadily decreasing for more than 10 years. The $15 billion will do a lot of good in Africa, but in the long-run the situation is very bleak. Most people in southern Africa are desperately poor, are barely educated, have little or no medical care, no indoor plumbing or electricity, and are chronically undernourished. Such a population is always ripe for an epidemic, and were it not AIDS now it probably would be something else later. As many of these problems are caused by or exacerbated by overpopulation, every effort should be made to make contraception as available as possible. It would do so much good for relatively little money if we made sure Norplants were available and free to every woman in the third world who wanted one.

Posted 2:28 PM by Jonathan
Hey all. Two Estrada-related links for your consideration: first, the good: the RNC's glowing Miguel Estrada:American Success Story; then, the pathetic vitriol from the knee-jerk propagandists of small-minded pettiness. For a response to the latter, see the NoLeftTurns blog. Thanks as always to Bashman for the latter links.

Posted 1:49 PM by Patrick
Hi Josh,

We need to keep the middle east dependent on us financially. If we cut them loose, who knows what they would do. At least by maintaining some kind of control over them, we can keep (relatively) moderate dictators in power and keep the place stable. You can't just ignore the middle east.

Austin: I was discussing this AIDS initiative with Brett after IP today. THere's been a movement afoot for the past few years now to abandon intellectual property protections for AIDS drugs in the third world. Whether through a system of outright piracy or compulsory licensing (a regime where the patent holder is REQUIRED to grant the country (or one of its companies) a license to produce the drug), the third world has been threatening for a time to knock off our AIDS drugs. They allege they'll only use them to help their people, but basically everyone in the pharmaceutical business is convinced they're just going to export their knock-offs to Europe, Canada, and Asia. In short, it's blackmail, and Bush is likely to be trying to defuse this movement. It's better to pay them off than have tinpot despots undermine our pharmaceutical industry and destroy any chances we have of curing AIDS.

In general, though, the topic of public health in the third world is a very detailed and nuanced discussion that is probably off-topic for this list. Suffice to say, for a public health campaign to be effective, the government (or an NGO with the government's consent) must be well funded, possess the credibility of the people it is trying to serve, and have effective means of communicating with those people. In many of the AIDS-plagued areas of the world, those prerequisites are not met.

Posted 1:45 PM by Jonathan
Austin, Senator Santorum addressed your concerns about American efforts to halt the spread of AIDS and control its consequences in an August piece for NRO. In a more recent NRO article, Kathryn Jean Lopez discusses success stories in the battle against AIDS, in which abstinence and fidelity have been the most successful strategies.

Regardless of the outcome of our imminent war with Iraq, energy remains a vital national security issue. We are currently beholden to an unstable collection of petty thugs and torturers for our economic well-being. Even if we "conquer" Iraq, we will have to remain intimately involved with the Middle East to maintain some degree of stability and to deal with the consequences of allied (chortle) governments using the United States as a scapegoat for their own corrupt practices and thus unleashing waves of violent and disaffected zealots toward American targets. Our consumption is such that even with ANWR opened for drilling we will remain heavily dependent on foreign sources of oil. This is an unacceptable situation, and heavy investment in technology that could dramatically improve both our national security and our quality of life is a sound solution.

Posted 1:18 PM by Josh
Austin: would that your consideration of energy sources were met with even a modicum of your level of faith in the market.

If you want to talk about interferences, what about the hundreds of billions dollars we have spent, and the hundreds of billions more we will spend, exerting our influence over this wayward and backward segment of the world known as the Middle East? You believe that an enormously expensive incursion into Iraq is called for, yet you rule out from the beginning an expenditure which, had it been made earlier, would have saved us lots of hassle, and if made now, will undoubtedly save us from more hassle and expenditures in the future.

Posted 1:13 PM by Austin
Another embarrassing moment was Bush's call to devote American largesse to halting the AIDS epidemic in the third world. Until professional AIDS workers become open-minded enough to promote abstinence and fidelity, giving them more money will only make the problem worse.

Posted 1:04 PM by Austin
Re: "Alternative fuels." The only good reason for the government to interfere with the free market's allocation of resources is to protect national security. In this case, however, if we conquer Iraq, we won't have to worry any more about oil supplies from the Middle East (and, arguably, we never really did). In the meantime, the idea that alternative sources of energy are an exigent need remains pure flapdoodle.

Posted 12:07 PM by Jonathan
Greg, I initially thought that there was one feed, but according to friends who care far more about political communications minutiae, each network has access to all the cameras and can decide what shots to broadcast. I hope they're wrong; the world would be a better place if everyone saw the cut to Edwards. But I'm inclined to believe them until better evidence comes along. In the meantime, I'll sit around pining for a Cadillac Sixteen.

Posted 11:42 AM by Bill
Romney said that Massachusetts schools were not going to get the shaft even as state budgets are cut and no additional federal money is forthcoming. However, this report from the Center for Education Reform belies that claim:

Massachusetts: Local governments and schools in the Bay state are targeting
charters to soften the budget cuts that are inevitable across the board. A
Waltham elementary school principal "sent an email to families urging defeat of
a charter program. In Framingham, homeowners got a letter with their tax bill
reminding them of the fiscal impact of a charter school that opened last fall.
In North Adams and surrounding towns, some 400 people have signed a petition
against a charter school proposal," according to the Boston Globe.

Of course, this is not directly his fault. If we want things to be take care of at the state level, then they're going to have to have the money. Bush's education reform plan is largely an unfunded mandate.

Posted 1:49 AM by Patrick
Greg: Isn't that a bit bold of a statement? "I am extremely skeptical that...within our lifetimes...[there will be] a good alternative to the internal combustion engine?"

Besides, we desperately need better energy-storage and production devices. We've stretched the chemical battery about as far as it's going to go with the explosion of computer technology: anyone whose laptop or cellular phone battery has died at an inopportune time can attest to that. The person or evil corporation that revolutionizes energy storage (whether through fuel cells or some other technology) will be sitting on a gold mine and, perhaps, an alternative to the internal combustion engine.

Posted 1:36 AM by Josh
Greg, you may be right about hydrogen fuel; I don't know. I guess my excitement wasn't about hydogen per se, but about the thought that the administration is accepting the importance of developing alternate energy sources. I don't think everything will be just rosy if we can only tap ANWR and Iraq (not that I am necessarily opposed to either of them). Neither do I think that this great nation, if it made a serious attempt to develop such resources, would fail within our lifetimes.

Incidentally, on Cadillac's new concept car: would it kill those folks to make a car that's not horrendously ugly?

Posted 1:25 AM by G
Speaking of cars, I'm falling in love with Cadillac's new sixteen cylinder, 1000-horsepower concept car. I'll put it in my garage next to my Dodge Tomahawk. Being able to go 0-60 in 2.4 seconds I think would be very useful for all those times you have to merge onto busy highways. Now these are the real cars of the future, and I heartily congratulate the designers for their "bold faced slap against mediocrity."

Posted 12:59 AM by G
Josh, as the saying goes hydrogen fuel is the technology of the future, and always will be. I am extremely skeptical that there will ever, at least within our lifetimes, be a good alternative to the internal combustion engine. Even as the speed of computers doubles every 18 months, and gasoline-powered engines get cleaner and cleaner, all that there is to show for the countless billions that governments and automakers around the world have spent researching alternative fuel sources are some bulky $150,000 clunkers that don't go as fast or as far and are less roomy than a $15,000 Ford Focus. Sure, maybe there will be a totally unforeseen breakthrough, but once the oil starts flowing from the ANWR, all the untapped Caspian fields, and a democratic Iraq, our national dependence on it will seems a lot less worrisome.

Posted 12:42 AM by Josh
I was quite pleasantly surprised to see the President's proposal for $1.2 billion in hydrogen fuel research. Here is what the White House is saying about the initiative:

"President Bush announced a $1.2 billion Freedom Fuel initiative to reverse America’s growing dependence on foreign oil by developing the technology needed for commercially viable hydrogen-powered fuel cells – a way to power cars, trucks, homes and businesses that produces no pollution and no greenhouse gases. The Freedom Fuel initiative will include $720 million in new funding over the next five years to develop the technologies and infrastructure needed to produce, store, and distribute hydrogen fuel for use in fuel cell vehicles and electricity generation."

I was surprised because, although I thought it was time for a Republican to face the fact that our dependence on fossil fuels is quite detrimental to our national security, I didn't expect it to come from an administration with so many ties to oil as this one. (I say Republican because a Democrat, for better or worse, couldn't get away with it. Conservatives get so much mileage out of labeling liberals with ideas like this as economy-spoiling tree-huggers that it seems untouchable for a national Democratic candidate. Enter Al Gore.) As for why I perceive such a need, lately I've been more and more convinced of the wisdom of an "international Manhattan Project" to eliminate our dependence on a bunch of tyrants in the Middle East; a bit more on that project can be found in the article from last year from which I lifted the phrase:

"If Washington were to spend the approximately $106 billion that—according to Earl Ravenal, a former Pentagon analyst—it is devoting this year to defending the Persian Gulf region, and if Western Europe, Japan, China, and Russia were to kick in what they would otherwise spend on policing the region, it's hard to imagine that this goal couldn't be achieved."

Posted 12:29 AM by G
Jonathan, was it only Fox News that cut to Edwards? I think is there usually just one set of cameras that all the broadcasters share.

Posted 12:27 AM by G
Tonight I was very proud that I voted for our president, and I'm eager to do so again in 2004. In 2000 the various third party candidates spoke of how there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two major parties. That wasn't true then, and after watching Gary Locke's response to Bush's speech I don't know how anyone could think so now. It is sad really that the party of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson has become the party of Bill Clinton and Al Sharpton, of racial checkboxes and partial-birth abortions, of reactionary public employee unions and the blame-America-first crowd.

Locke's speech was so bad you really have to question the competency of the leaders of the party that chose him. He had a bizarre haircut, bopped his head up and down on every third word, and was overwhelmingly negative. He kept straying off into odd and pointless tangents, and his speech utterly lacked the seriousness and substantive content of Bush's speech. Was I the only one who noticed how excessively pleased with himself he was after uttering his "upside-down economics" line? I don't even think he believed the part where he said that allies in our upcoming war against Saddam Hussein's government are as important as they were in World War II. The American military is so vastly superior to Iraq's, it is hard to take Locke's position seriously. Most of our bombs have satellites and computers guiding them home while Saddam's dilapidated army of unhappy conscripts tools around in 50's vintage Soviet tanks. It took the US less than 100 hours to route a march larger and better funded Iraqi army in 1991. The only potential usefulness of the French or Germans in the war I can think of would be to help deal with the hordes of Iraqi troops as they all attempt to surrender at the same time.

Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Posted 10:59 PM by Jonathan
I just got back from the HLS GOP's State of the Union party. Spirits were high, especially when the President discussed the evils of malpractice lawsuits and Fox News cut to Senator Edwards. I thought the President did quite a good job, with some innovative and unexpected proposals leading up to a very compelling case against Iraq. Then the rebuttal provided plenty of amusement to wind down the evening.

Posted 2:00 PM by Jonathan
Forget rose-coloured, these people are looking at the world through opaque spectacles

I was getting my hourly dose of Bashman and found this interesting example of those of a particular ideological bent getting the facts wrong in their pursuit of "justice":

First, the blog TalkLeft cites a source "in the know" as saying:

The primary evidence in the case was a doctor who said that one time use of cocaine was known to cause death. His only support for this was popular press about the Len Bias case. Apparently that was enough for this court too as they stated: "Given the fact that it is public knowledge that usage of cocaine is potentially fatal, we find the fact that McKnight took cocaine knowing she was pregnant was sufficient evidence to submit to the jury on whether she acted with extreme indifference to her child’s life.

Now, here's the language on causation from the South Carolina State Supreme Court decision:

Dr. Proctor, who performed the autopsy and who was qualified as an expert in criminal pathology, testified that the only way for the infant to have benzoylecgonine present was through cocaine, and that the cocaine had to have come from the mother. Dr. Proctor determined the cause of death to be intrauterine fetal demise with mild chorioamnionitis, funisitis and cocaine consumption. Dr. Proctor ruled the death a homicide.

Another pathologist, Dr. Woodward, who was qualified as an expert in pediatric pathology testified that the gestational age of the infant was between 35-37 weeks, and that it was viable. He then described how one determines the cause of death of a viable fetus, by looking for abnormalities, placental defects, infections, and the chemical constituency of the child. He explained the effect that cocaine would have on both an adult and a child. He testified that the placenta was the major heart-lung machine while the baby was inutero and that cocaine usage can produce degeneration of the small blood vessels in the placenta. He stated that he found areas of pinkish red degeneration of the blood vessels which were consistent with cocaine exposure. He testified that he did not see any other indications of the cause of death, and found a lack of evidence of other infections, lack of other abnormalities, otherwise normal development of the child, it’s size, weight, and lung development. Although Dr. Woodward agreed with Dr. Proctor that chorioamnionitis and mild funisitis were present, he testified that to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, those conditions had not caused the death of the infant. He also opined that neither syphilis, nor placental abruption killed the infant. He concluded that, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, the cause of death was intrauterine cocaine exposure. Although Woodward could not say the exact mechanism by which the cocaine had killed the infant, he testified the “mechanisms through cardiac function, placental functions, are seen as most probable.” On cross-exam, Woodward testified that he believed the death was caused solely by the cocaine effect, and that the drugs could have caused the baby’s heart to stop, or to have caused the baby’s heart to rise precipitously putting the baby in congestive heart failure. He explained the lack of abnormalities in the heart found by Dr. Proctor’s autopsy, stating, “I wouldn’t expect to see specific indices in the heart if the heart just stopped or if the heart went into congestive heart failure.” Finally, Woodward testified he had seen both children and adults dead with less benzoylecgonine in their systems than McKnight’s baby.

Although McKnight’s expert, Dr. Conradi, would not testify that cocaine had caused the stillbirth, she did testify that cocaine had been in the baby at one point. She also ruled out the possibility of chorioamnionitis, funisitis or syphilis as the cause of death.

Viewing the expert testimony in the light most favorable to the state, we find sufficient evidence to withstand a directed verdict. McHoney, supra. Any defect in the expert testimony went to its weight, a defect McKnight was free to challenge with her own evidence.

You can find the complete text of the opinion here.

Posted 1:19 PM by Christine
ND received an e-mail about the Georgetown amicus brief a week or two ago. The brief argues that J. Powell's opinion in Bakke should be the governing rule, and that any discrimination based on race--including for college admissions--should be reviewed under strict scrutiny. The Georgetown brief essentially argues that diversity is the compelling interest needed to survive strict scrutiny, and the bulk of its paper is taken up with explaining why diversity is so lovely that adding an extra 20 points for being black, brown, or red (but not yellow or white) makes sense.

Posted 12:25 PM by Jonathan
I don't know if there's an opposing brief, Whitman, but if there is, I hope it's better than the law student brief in support. I'm not going to detail what's wrong with the brief here, since someone on the other side might see this and make corrections, but it is not something I would feel comfortable signing my name to and sending to the Supreme Court.

Posted 12:04 PM by Whitman
I recently got a copy of an e-mail asking law students around the U.S. to sign onto an Amicus brief supporting Affirmative-Action in the Grutter v. Bollinger case (U/Michigan AA issue). Does anyone know if there is any opposing brief (i.e. anti-AA) being generated by/for law students?

Posted 11:28 AM by Austin
Here's a salutary correction: Contrary to popular myth, Shakespeare's famous line "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" was uttered not in commonsense protest of byzantine legal rules, but in inordinate zeal to upend established authority. (In defense of Jack Cade's rebellion, however, it should be said that Cade's band was not a rabblehood, and Henry VI was an unusually derelict King.) Of course, whether Shakespeare would have defended the lawyers of today is another question altogether.

Monday, January 27, 2003

Posted 11:41 PM by Jonathan
Civilian casualties in times of war are tragic and if we should go to war with Iraq we should take extraordinary steps to limit civilian casualties, which will be difficult given Saddam Hussein's predilection for placing military targets in densely populated civilian areas. However, people who intentionally use themselves as human shields deserve no such treatment. They know what they've gotten themselves in for, and if a target needs to be destroyed to further the war effort, people stupid enough to put themselves in harm's way there know exactly what's coming and deserves what they get. I think those people should be tried for treason if hostilities begin, they continue their efforts, and they survive. Still, perhaps their presence will deter in some small way Saddam's use of other civilians as human shields (though I doubt it). Does everybody remember the footage of Saddam with the blonde British kid during the first Gulf War?

Posted 11:36 PM by Jonathan
Another thing: BAMN is very eager to start the new civil rights movement. Those who struggled in the original civil rights movement actually fought for civil rights: the right to be treated equally regardless of race. BAMN is pushing for unequal treatment based on race - in the past, this sort of thing was called apartheid and generally frowned upon. Now I guess it's unfair of me to judge someone based on the content of their character; the new civil rights movement demands that I judge people on the color of their skin.

Posted 11:10 PM by Avigael
The "human shields" in the article linked to by Patrick below seem to have a similarly bizarre fixation on race--they seem to believe that while Americans will tolerate the deaths of Iraqis in the war as they are (apparently) non-white, Americans have such racial solidarity with the white man that if any white Westerners are killed by American bombs in the war in Iraq it will suddenly become a political catastrophe for Bush and Blair. Although I support a possible war on Iraq, I will feel regret at the inevitable casualties among Iraqi civilians, who are basically under imprisonment; however, I will have next to no sympathy for Americans or Europeans who are placing themselves in harm's way to deliberately prop up a totalitarian dictator who has caused the deaths of approximately 1 million people.

Posted 10:43 PM by Jonathan
By Any Means Necessary is an organization that should simply not be taken seriously. Unfortunately, they are being taken seriously, at least in some circles. Here is their fundamental belief:

The bigoted lie that differences in human biology have produced our social order is at the base of the attack on affirmative action. The fundamental, if often unspoken, logic of the attacks on the gains of the Civil Rights Movement derives from the claims of the pseudoscientific theory of biological determinism that says that the inequality that pervades our society and structures the social order is “natural” and therefore both immutable and just, and that no social policy either can or ought to remedy this inequality.

To reiterate, BAMN believes that anyone opposed to affirmative action takes the position because they adhere to a theory of biological determinism that tells them that certain races are inferior. It's funny; I always thought the whole idea behind the attack on affirmative was that our social order ought not recognize superficial differences in human biology. BAMN is a group that dwells on differences in skin color (biologically determined differences) ad nauseum, while the vast majority of Americans opposed to affirmative action tend to think that such differences should not lead to disparate treatment.

Of course my inability to see that I and others who oppose disparate treatment based on race as rooted in a pseudoscientific theory of biological determinism is just my white privilege blinding me to the truth. This must be the case because BAMN's eighth organizational principle includes the prescription that they will tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

Until BAMN starts taking on real arguments against affirmative action and countering them, and stops setting up straw men with Klan hoods to knock down so they can congratulate themselves on their new civils rights movement, I doubt they'll say anything worth listening to.

Posted 8:41 PM by Christine
It all comes down to me? Oh dear. I've got some work ahead of me.

From the pages of BAMN.
This is hilarious. By Any Means Necessary asserts that a "defeat for affirmative action in these two cases [Bollinger] will resegregate higher education and make Brown v. Board of Education a dead letter." Talk about hyperbole. Some other questionable statements on their website:

Experience hones social-assessment skills, enabling black and other minority students to relate to people from a variety of different backgrounds often at a higher level of understanding than their white peers.

The defeat of affirmative action in the University of California system led to a decrease in Filipino, Pacific Islander, Chinese, Indian and Pakistani enrollment at UC Berkeley graduate programs and also led to a dramatic increase in racist hate-crimes against APAs in the city of Berkeley.(emphasis added)

Posted 7:19 PM by Patrick
Kevin: Hmm, I was a bit too hasty on that second article, in retrospect. Mea culpa. But, your point does raise an interesting question: how can anyone politically challenge affirmative action under the Left's regime? Whites can't challenge it because to do so is to be racist (and might cause you to get slapped by NYC councilman Charles Barron); blacks and latinos can't challenge it because there is the stigma that they benefitted from it, and therefore are hypocritical for biting the hand that fed them. Christine, I think it all comes down to you. ;-) (just teasing)

Posted 6:31 PM by Kevin
Patrick: I didn't read the second article in the same manner that you did. It seemed to me to be far more tongue in cheek. In fact, the author makes the point, or at least infers, that he succeeded based on his own merits (top of his high school class) rather than due to affirmative action, and that he is more disappointed in the belief, by either conservatives or now liberals, that he only succeeded based on affirmative action. The white affirmative action crack was merely to show the hypocracy that "where you are today" may not be based upon a government program. I don't think that he is in favor of affirmative action, rather he is opposed to others assuming that affirmative action is the reason that successful minorities have succeeded. Considering that he probably advanced due to his merit and ability rather than by government handout, this opposition seems pretty understandable.

Posted 6:14 PM by Jonathan
Former Felicity star (and lucky husband of Jennifer Garner) Scott Foley is starring in a New NBC show, A.U.S.A. It is, not surprisingly given the title, a show about an assistant U..S. attorney. While one would expect the show would focus on the criminal side of the job, the Entertainment Weekly synopsis suggests that it may involve civil practice as well. I am a big fan of federal prosecution, but I as skeptical as to whether the American public is ready for six week tax fraud trials, federal tort claims cases, and the Sentencing Guidelines. I suspect the only way the show will succeed is if, like The Practice, it is wildly inauthentic.

Posted 5:21 PM by Patrick
Christine: check out the By Any Means Necessary coalition's website and this article about affirmative action (from a latino) - I think they illustrate my point about Marxist power structures very well. Notice how both pieces undermine the concept of merit-based admissions (the former through specious claims about the lack of reliability of standardized testing, the latter through references to "white affirmative action" getting whites to where they are) and classify the debate as one of groups struggling against oppression. Ultimately, Christine, I think these groups see "points" (whether SAT points, grade points, or racial bonus points) as all being arbitrary and unrelated to their merit. Instead, it's cast in terms of minority classes struggling against white oppression: from that vantage point, the 20 points are seen as an entitlement because they're seen as the "least" the white oppressors can do to cancel out the effects of their oppression.

The second article, incidentally, is also interesting because it attacks a comment Lieberman made where he suggested that Condi Rice's career is owed to affirmative action and not to merit. I only include it because it seems generally to support racial bonus points and attacks anyone (whether a Republican or Democrat) for drawing the inference that admission based on bonus points translates to lesser merit for the points' recipient.

Posted 3:32 PM by Christine
Patrick: Thanks for the info. I understand the reasons why Asians aren't given preferential treatment in admissions, and I should clarify strongly that I do not advocate such for Asians. Quite the opposite. My question goes to the reasons why any minority would feel proud of or entitled to extra points based merely on skin color. I would very much like to hear answers from African-Americans, Hispanics, or Native Americans who support affirmative action.

Dan: I have always felt that people who support abortion in the abstract would, nine times out of ten, change their minds if they were to see the end product. Feminists have complained of pro-lifers' practice of displaying pictures of mangled bodies of aborted fetuses, but Naomi Wolf, longtime abortion advocate, criticizes such feminists for their lack of honesty:

The pro-choice movement often treats with contempt the pro-lifers' practice of holding up to our faces their disturbing graphics. [But] how can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy. Besides, if these images are often the facts of the matter, and if we then claim that it is offensive for pro-choice women to be confronted with them, then we are making the judgment that women are too inherently weak to face a truth about which they have to make a grave decision. This view is unworthy of feminism.

Sunday, January 26, 2003

Posted 10:27 PM by Patrick
Is it just me, or should these American and British "Human Shields" who are volunteering to chain themselves to various places in Iraq to make it "politically impossible" for Bush and Blair to carry out a war be arrested and put on trial for treason if they ever return?

Christine: Until recently, there hasn't been much organization within the APA (Asian & Pacific American) community to demand affirmative action. It's beginning to change, as this document from UCLA evidences. This report, titled Beyond Self Interest: APAs toward a community of justice, advocates that APAs demand affirmative action. It justifies the claim by structuring the question to imply conflict between the white and Asian communities (for example, the very first section of the document starts off by referencing white supremacism). That isn't accidental: affirmative action is based on Marxist/Gramscian racial power structures. That you, as a class, "suffer" is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to receive government largesse. The suffering must be caused by the bourgeois, oppressive white class -- then, redistribution of wealth and power between the two groups through affirmative action and racial setasides becomes appropriate.

If the affirmative action people are successful in breeding more anti-white sentiment in the APA community, you will start to see the tide shift to grant affirmative action to APAs. How? The race baiters will change the story of the Asian diaspora from one of escaping oppressive communist regimes to find freedom and prosperity in America to one of a people suffering under the yoke of white racial oppression. Once that change is complete, you will see Asians earning bonus points at Michigan.

Posted 1:07 PM by Jonathan
The Boston Globe is reporting that Chief Justice Margaret Marshall has taken herself out of the running for the position of Dean of Harvard Law School. (Thanks to Howard Bashman for the link.)

Posted 3:04 AM by Christine
Interesting numbers. Undergraduate applicants at the University of Michigan are ranked on a scale of 150 points, with 100 being the minimum number of points needed to guarantee admission.

20 … the number of points an applicant receives for being African-American, Hispanic, or Native American

20 … the increase or decrease in the number of points earned for a full letter of grade point average (e.g., 80 points for a 4.0 (A) average, 60 points for a 3.0 (B) average, 40 points for a 2.0 (C) average, and so on)

12 … the total amount of points that can be earned for a perfect standardized test score (e.g., 1600 on the SAT)

8 … the maximum number of points that can be earned for taking a difficult high school curriculum

3 … the number of points that can be earned for an outstanding personal essay

0 … the number of points an applicant receives for being Arab, Asian, or Caucasian

90% or better … the 1996 acceptance rate of African-American, Hispanic, and Native American applicants with grade point averages of at least 2.8 (B-) and SAT scores of 830 (about the 20th percentile nationally)

also 90 % or better … the 1996 acceptance rate of Asian and Caucasian applicants with grade point averages of at least 3.8 (A-) and SAT scores of 1200 (about the 80th percentile nationally).

Saturday, January 25, 2003

Posted 5:09 PM by Kevin
Actually, I think he would be oppossed just by the American League senators, while the National League senators would complain about the "DH" litmus test that their colleagues have.

Posted 1:10 PM by Jonathan
Howard Bashman has a great interview with Judge Jerry Smith up on his blog. Judge Smith was the speaker at the joint Harvard Law School Federalist Society/Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy banquet last year; he's a very open and honest man, especially about his opposition to the designated hitter rule, and that is reflected in the interview. Many HLS Federalist Society and JLPP alums have clerked for Judge Smith. Check out the interview.

Incidentally, I can just imagine if Judge Smith had to go through confirmation hearings these days: People for the American Way would insinuate that his opposition to the designated hitter rule was some sly form of racism, designated hitters past and present would be wheeled out for the committee to give sob stories about how they can't field and the judge would take away their livelihood, and Democrats would accuse him of trying to roll back the clock on the designated hitter rule, then argue that the judge is a judicial activist since he wants to change the rule. Then Pete Rose would come out and accuse the judge of sexual harassment, and the whole thing would turn into a media circus.

Posted 7:20 AM by Patrick
CNN is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Kinsey's "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" (1953). The article is a very interested read: the book made the claim that 50% of men and 25% of women had committed adultery, for example.

Ah well. Now that my evidence class is over, I'm gone for the weekend. Be back Tuesday!

Friday, January 24, 2003

Posted 4:23 PM by Austin
Btw, while I still have a chance to discuss the pill, I should add that it has converted adolescence from a transitional phase the normal state of humanity. That is to say, as children mature earlier, adults marry later, with the result that the years in between become nothing but a prolonged adolescence. But, then again, what is liberalism, with its gay visions of every individual choosing his own paths to self-fulfillment, other than a preference for adolescence over adulthood?

Posted 4:17 PM by Avigael
I've heard about rampant grade inflation, but this is ridiculous. If only the U.N. were grading 1L exams!

Posted 4:16 PM by Austin
Josh: Charlie Glenn is speaking for ACS? I suppose he'll play the role of right-wing gadfly. Here he is questioning the merits of the "bloodless secular faith" imposed by government schools.

Posted 4:07 PM by Jonathan
Relationships have consequences.

Exam's done; I wish I had a faster printer - I had to cancel the 1200 dpi print job to ensure I got it in on time. Hopefully that won't have a substantial grade impact.

Posted 12:09 PM by Patrick
I think Skrmetti has belied the truth of the matter - he is seeking a consequence-free short-term relationship, and feels disadvantaged by his more refined appearance. I can picture him saying, 'if only I was an underpaid construction worker and not a law student, Fox would be airing Jonathan Millionaire right now!"
</sarcasm>

Posted 10:44 AM by Jonathan
Kevin, a darned good point. My pretext for opposing pill use is not very persuasive. I'll think up something better, but not until I finish my take-home exam.

Posted 10:11 AM by Kevin
Actually, Jonathan, wouldn't this be a good thing, thinking only from the genetic inheritance point of view, for less "rugged" men? Those on the pill are, while on the pill, less likely to have children. From pure genetic inheritance, you should be happy that, of all women, only those far more likely to give birth are attracted to you.

Posted 1:56 AM by Jonathan
Based on Patrick's recent post, I have decided that "the pill" is a moral evil and must be eradicated from the earth. Its potentially devastating effect on the genetic inheritance of the human race poses a grave risk. For anything that prevents women from being attracted to me is surely an affront to all that is right in the world, and while I am many things, "rugged looking" is not one of them.

Posted 12:34 AM by Patrick
An article I ran across that relates to contraception use:

New research from St. Andrews indicates that women's preferences for men physically change depending on whether the woman is on the "birth control pill." Apparently women on the pill seek more "Rugged" looking men, whereas women not on the pill seek men who are less rugged. The authors suggest a number of reasons for this. It apparently discredits a previous notion that women's "mate preferences" changed depending upon what point along her menstrual cycle she was at the time. (Yes, this is real)

Dan: 70% of America may indeed oppose the rationale behind 90% of abortions, but the vast majority still see no issues with first-trimester abortions (which is when the highest volume of abortions occurs). It's become a rights issue. We may "dislike" a lot of things in society, whether convenience abortions or the KKK. Because this is seen by pro-choicers as a rights issue (regardless of their support for "convenience abortions"), most folks will object on principle to command and control regulation or proscription of abortion. It's the same as how a majority of Americans also dislike the KKK, but think they should have the right to hold protests. I'm telling you, this comes down to first-principles and must be confronted on that basis. The abortion battle isn't about Gallup polls and compromises - the battle is squarely about answering the question: whose right is it? The mother's right to choose, or the fetus's right to life?

That is why I stick to my claim that the pro-life position is still out of the mainstream, at least until I see the percentages opposed to first trimester abortions drop far lower than they are. Until then, arguing pro-life is about the same as arguing that we should take away the First Amendment to ban the KKK. (or, at HLS, pass the speech code and send conservatives for a little re-education, Soviet-style. ;p)

Jonathan: The fact I have an Evidence exam in 013:45 and am posting on here is more confirming evidence of your inviolate principle regarding blogging and exams. ;)

Thursday, January 23, 2003

Posted 10:58 PM by Josh
While the cats are away...

Bashman also points out that the ACS is hosting some interesting events -- including the following at Harvard: 'Conference on "What is Liberalism?" featuring Judge Guido Calabresi, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Professors Janet Halley and Gary Orfield, Harvard, William Eskridge, Yale, and Charles Glenn, Boston University, and others. The program will include panels on school choice, sexual politics, voting rights, and poverty.'

Too bad it will be held February 21-22, while the HLS Fed. Soc. faithful will be elsewhere.

Posted 10:50 PM by Jonathan
Kill Whitey . . . or at least read his blog

Adam White has weighed in on our judicial nomination discussion:

While some may argue that the Democrats would cave before garnering too much negative reaction to their "obstructionist" tactics, that surely will not happen when abortion is the one issue tying the Democratic Party together.

I'm not sure Adam's quite true; we could probably get a pro-life Justice to fill the next spot, but not someone with Garza's prominent paper trail of opposition to Roe.

Incidentally, look down a fews posts on Adam's blog and note his statement that "With my Securities Regulation exam tomorrow, I won't be blogging again until at least Friday night." It's an inviolate law of nature: as finals approach, blog activity skyrockets.

And with that, I have to prepare for my terrorism exam tomorrow.

Posted 10:37 PM by Jonathan
Dan, first of all, a Bashman quote is always a good thing. Second, I think there's just no question that Garza would not be confirmed if he was nominated - he has been explicit in his opposition to Roe. Why throw a nominee to the wolves when there's no chance he'd make it? I think it would be better to wait on Garza until his confirmation is at least plausible. A rough confirmation fight now could ruin his chances for later appointment to the Court. The case against someone like Estrada is much, much harder to make, and would highlight for America how political Democratic obstructionism has become.

If there is a chance Garza could be confirmed, I would be all for his nomination. But I think that putting him up just to be smacked down, no matter how politically advantageous, would be unfair to Garza and a waste of time for the Senate.

Posted 9:43 PM by Brooks
In vitro fertilization is just great (and morally unobjectionable in my opinion) for that one embryo that gets implanted. However, in my exceedingly limited understanding--that means feel free to correct me anyone--the overall proceedure usually, if not always, involves the conscious creation of extra embryos that are either discarded or shoved in the fridge for a very uncertain ultimate fate. Most people who oppose abortion, at least the it=murder types like me, would find this part of the procedure, rather than the somewhat untraditional production of a healthy living infant, the most disturbing.

Posted 8:41 PM by Patrick
Jonathan: I'm sure Hanson will have a field day ripping that opinion next year in his Torts class. The judge dismissed it on personal responsibility grounds:

If consumers know (or reasonably should know) the potential ill health effects of eating at McDonald's, they cannot blame McDonald's if they, nonetheless, choose to satiate their appetite with a surfeit of supersized McDonald's products," U.S. District Court Judge Robert Sweet said in a 65-page ruling.


Heaven forbid. I bet his clerks had fun writing this.

Posted 8:09 PM by Jonathan
Alina, let's just count our blessings that the suit was dismissed. Around HLS there are quite a few people who view this as a tremendous loss and an example of evil corporate influence corrupting our legal system.

Posted 7:56 PM by alina
Guys, I know the abortion debate still matters, but when there are cases as crucial as this one being dismissed, maybe it's time to change the subject of discussion to super-size issues. (I'm trying to keep a straight face about the state of the nation, but it gets more difficult every day.)

Posted 7:14 PM by Jonathan
Patrick, the pro-life movement is becoming increasingly mainstream. If you look at poll numbers, the radical left is beign marginalized and the American public is buying into more and more of the pro-life position. While the public may not yet be ready to overturn Roe (however you do that - thank you, Burger Court, for removing the issue from the province of the legislature and turning it into a constitutional issue), being pro-life no longer carries the social stigma it once did.

Posted 7:09 PM by Jonathan
Dan, it may play well for the Republicans in the long run, but in the short run it would lead to a Democratic filibuster and a vacant seat on the Court. Garza may be nominated, but he would not be confirmed.

Posted 5:15 PM by Avigael
Austin: I'm not sure why you consider in vitro fertilization per se to be either a social evil or a consequence of contraception; in vitro fertilization can be used to assist infertile couples who otherwise would not be able to have families. Simply because you disfavor certain outcomes or potential outcomes of in vitro fertilization does not mean that the procedure is in and of itself immoral. Here's an interesting article addressing comparative religious and secular approaches to the issue on JLaw.com.

Posted 5:04 PM by Patrick
Dan: I don't think Republicans have the political traction to play a race card. Democrats still enjoy the presumption of being racially harmonious, such that people would not tie opposition to any latino candidate to race. Latino voters would say "they oppose Garza because he's pro-life," not "they oppose Garza because he's latino, and they're using pro-life as an excuse." I still think abortion is a third-rail for Republicans and it ought to be avoided until the pro-lifers can put their position back into the mainstream.

Don't get me wrong: I want to see Roe overturned as much as the next conservative. My own view is probably moderate compared to some -- I see abortion as being an area that involves so many first-principles such that reasonable minds will always disagree on its morality. As such, I don't think either side has a slam-dunk civil rights argument to justify a constitutional mandate legalizing (or banning) the practice. This is really a "right" that needs to be created by state legislative mandate. However, we should have plenty of opportunities in the future to fix Roe. Trying to stack the court now would be disasterous to Bush.

Posted 4:12 PM by Jonathan
Susan Konig has a great piece on abortion in today's NRO (which also features an ad for Season One of The Shield on DVD, which everybody should buy and watch and watch again). Konig discusses the difficulty in explaining abortion to children, who find it difficult to recognize any difference in kind between a baby inside her mommy's tummy and a baby outside her mommy's tummy. Eight year old children have a much clearer vision of right and wrong than those taught in later years to equivocate. Anybody who's an older sibling, for instance, who watched as his or her mother grow as the baby inside her grew, must have a difficult time rationalizing support for abortion. To take a more extreme example, I can't imagine how families that have seen a pregnancy end in miscarriage can ever view the intentional termination of a pregnancy with anything but deep sadness. This is a far cry from the big smiles on display yesterday at the Roe v. Wade birthday party at the Hark.

The goal of pro-life activistis should be to encourage people to remember the joy and wonder with which as children they experienced a mother's, or aunt's, or sibling's pregnancy. Once that's done, it's not a very big step to push them toward applying those memories to their understanding of abortion.

Posted 3:44 PM by Jonathan
Dan, bad news for you and other Domers: it seems like the gossip mongers are only willing to keep one Hispanic alternative to Gonzales in mind at any given time, and right now that spot is occupied by Gibson, Dunn superstar and D.C. Circuit nominee Miguel Estrada. In addition, Garza's outspoken opposition to Roe v. Wade probably renders him unconfirmable for the time being, despite his efforts to couch that strong opposition in rhetoric that is fairly palatable to the left.

Posted 3:27 PM by Austin
Greg: I can't say whether better nutrition has quickened our libidos, but I can say that contraception has made in (apparently) more convenient for young people to put off marriage until later in life. Were this not so, premarital sex would be much less prevalent, despite that boys and girls reach adolescence earlier (which, btw, is itself a quite a shame).

Posted 10:15 AM by Kevin
And, if you scroll down a bit in Mickey Kaus's blog, there is an interesting look at Hillary Clinton and her potential vote on Michael Chertoff. In fact, you should read the whole blog because there is some other good stuff in there as well. Anybody who takes Paul Krugman to task is good enough for me.

Posted 10:10 AM by Kevin
Jonathan: Regarding Al Gonzalez, Robert Novak is right there with you. According to him, Mr. Gonzalez watered down the University of Michigan brief as well.

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Posted 11:15 PM by Jonathan
In more nominations news, Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff is apparently in line for the Third Circuit. Chertoff has been a key figure in the war on terror and a good AAG absent his historic role. Mr. Chertoff would by all accounts make a terrific judge, and I am always in favor of adding more former prosecutors to the bench. Hopefully Mr. Chertoff's exceptional and distinguished service in a time of national crisis will forestall a Democrat ambush. And even if it doesn't, hey, Republicans are in the majority now.

Posted 11:05 PM by Jonathan
Souter Redux?

Volokh conspirator Philippe DeCroy suggests that White House Counsel and former Texas Supreme Court Judge Al Gonzales will be tapped to replace a retiring Chief this summer. Such an appointment would be disastrous. Gonzales is a very capable jurist, but his apparently minimal commitment to conservative principles makes him an inappropriate replacement for one of the Court's four conservative Justices. The balance of power in the Court would swing leftward far enough to allow a repeat of the excesses of the Warren, Burger, and early Rehnquist Courts, something that America must avoid at all costs. Were Mr. Gonzales to replace Justice O'Connor or one of the Court's four liberal justices, particularly if a solid conservative were to replace another of those Justices and secure a majority, that would be fine. Mr. Gonzales would no doubt distinguish himself over a long career. But tipping the balance of the Court in favor of judicial legislators at the height of Republican triumph is folly of the most destructive kind.

Of course, we could always be pleasantly surprised by a rightward shift were Justice Gonzales to sit on the Court, but history, both personal and institutional, suggests that such a happy metamorphosis would be unlikely. In the absence of evidence that Mr. Gonzales will stand firmly for conservative principles, conservative activists must exert as much pressure as we can possibly bring to bear on the President to ensure continued conservative control of the judiciary. And were we to fail in such a task, America would be in for decades of judicial lawmaking. No matter how many brilliant dissents this would give Justice Scalia the opportunity to write, such a situation would be unacceptable.

Posted 6:44 PM by G
Austin, sex can be both a means to gratification, and an expression of love, or both. But the rise of premarital sex, while certainly it can be partially "blamed" on contraceptives, also has to do with the fact that better nutrition is leading to earlier and earlier sexual maturities. The average age of menarche in developed counties has gone from around 17 in 1900 to 12.5 today. Better nutrition, more leisure time, and improved general health have also increased the strength of our libidos over those of our more sickly ancestors. At the same time adolescents are sexually maturing at earlier ages, the age when they end their education, become financially independent, and contemplate marriage is increasing. It is one thing to expect women to refrain from sex if they sexually mature at age 17 and will probably be married by age 19, it is another thing to expect them to wait from age 12 to their mid or late 20's before having sex.

Patrick, have another look at the paper. You say "it appears very likely that the percentage of women having had an abortion is at least close to 44%." Actually the 43.3% figure wasn't the percentage of woman who have had an abortion, but the percentage of women who have had one or will in the future according to the study. As I mentioned before, the 43.3% figure was already wrong the day it was calculated, because the number of future abortions turned out to be much lower than the authors thought. The study said that the percentage of women aged 15-44 who actually ever had an abortion is 29.9%, nowhere close to 44%. And again, that was based on 1992 data, the figures are definitely lower now.

One more thing to mention about the statistics, which is because the most dramatic decline in abortion occurred among the younger cohorts, we can infer that the number of first abortions declined even more dramatically than the number of abortions overall since the older the woman is getting an abortion the more likely it wasn't her first. And since the statistic in dispute is the percentage of women who will ever have one abortion, that too should have declined even more than the abortion rate in general.

As to why this decline happened, I agree that abortion protesters blocking clinics had something to do with it. But don't forget that also single teenagers and young adults are also less sexually active than they used to be, and are more likely to use contraceptives than in the past.

Posted 5:26 PM by Austin
Btw, the locus classicus warning of the woes attendant on the contraceptive ethic is, of course, the Bishop of Rome's Humanae Vitae. For a very commonsensical treatment of the issue, I recommend the works of Janet E. Smith.

Posted 5:21 PM by Austin
Josh: You are right that different people oppose or support abortion and contraception for different reasons, if not different principles. Nevertheless, if we assume that the intellect is influenced by the passions (which is not to say that the intellect is the slave of the passions), we can expect that when restraints on our more peremptory passions are removed, the intellect will tend to rationalize their exercise. Consequently, the intellectual principle that justifies a maximum of self-indulgence will become increasingly influential.

Consider what has happend since the advent of effective and sociall acceptable contraception: premarital sex became normal, abortion a right, divorce widespread, homosexuality tolerated, pornography ubiquitous, "bastard child" a slur, in vitro fertilization common, the nuclear family obsolescent. The principle that justifies all of these developments is in fact twofold: 1) sex is properly no more than a means to gratification rather than, say, an expression of eternal love, and 2) childrearing is properly a personal choice and a means to self-expression rather than, say, a sacred gift and holy obligation. As these principles advance, I predict that cloning will remain legal, genetically-enhanced "designer babies" will be born, and the definition of marriage will become so attenuated as to lose its meaning entirely.

If you dread these trends in any way, you must arrest them at the beginning--with contraception. Otherwise, we will continue to be increasingly alienated from one another, and uncertain of our ties to others; we will become either vastly more unhappy human beings, or else, through therapeutic means, satisified but soulless animals.

Posted 5:02 PM by Patrick
Avigael: this story (linked from the Lopez NR article you linked to) contains a comment I can expand upon based on personal experience:

ABC's "20/20" interviewed Dr. Brian Finkel in 1999. Although Dr. Finkel himself performed abortions, he admitted that the majority of abortions are done by doctors who have "as marginal a facility as possible to maximize profit."

Later, Finkel himself was charged with 67 sex crimes against his patients.


In a prior life, I was helping my employer research various pieces of commercial real estate for an expansion. Among those we visited was a former abortion clinic: for whatever reason, the abortion people split almost overnight, leaving a lot of their equipment behind. (Nothing nasty, I swear). The place had a very eerie feel to it. It was laid out in almost an assembly line fashion (front waiting room, surgical suites, recovery suites, rear waiting room). Plus, the place looked dingy (the wallpaper was sort of faded, etc. etc.). I know I left with the definite sense that I would feel very uncomfortable dropping a girl off at one of these places for an abortion, or for any medical treatment, really.

Does anyone have any statistics as to how often these guys get sued? Since most OB's seem to get sued daily, it would be interesting to see how frequently these little "mishaps" ever get attentions called to them. The article seemed to suggest those statistics were not readily available, but I have a hard time believing that. This "abortion malpractice specialist" attorney whose site I found claims that there are complications in 10% of abortions. If so, that is not particularly high.

Posted 2:47 PM by Avigael
At least according to the proponents of the sexual revolution, abortion and birth control are almost one in the same in that they allow women to share in consequence-free sexual activity. So those who oppose abortion on the grounds that it has corrupted traditional sexual mores would likewise share concerns that contraception has had the same effect; at least, that's what I'm assuming Austin is alluding to. Additionally, both abortion and contraception would contradict the biblical duty to "be fruitful and multiply" and thus some religious traditions oppose both on those grounds. However, those who oppose abortion, or at least favor reducing the number of abortions because 1) abortions are not as consequence free for women as we've been led to believe or 2) because they think that abortion is murder (or if not murder, a devaluation of potential human life) might not think that contraception is similarly problematic.

Posted 2:28 PM by Patrick
Greg: In fact, as I read the JAMA article that you cite, it appears very likely that the percentage of women having had an abortion is at least close to 44%. They're basing it on surveys; the 433 prevalence figure does include a bit of an extrapolation, but looking at the raw data in Table 3, I'd say anywhere beteeen 35-40% is probably accurate.

One of the reasons for the decline in the number of abortions has been the effect of the abortion protestors in reducing access to clinics. That is why you see the feminists acting with such alarm, seeking to lock them up with RICO and getting special laws passed by Congress to forbid protestors from doing just about anything. Do not assume that the dropoff you see with abortion rates is the result of any kind of preference change among women. Also remember that you need to look at this as a survival function, in a way; as age increases, the percentage of women who have never had an abortion decreases. So it isn't surprising that 40% of women aged 35-39 have had one, compared to 7.0 for women 15-19.

Point is, pro-lifers should not become complacent in light of the decrease in the abortion rate that was reported in this article and elsewhere. I know a few women who have had an abortion and shared that fun-fact with me; the only reason given was, "it wasn't the right time for me." Funny how life has a way of deciding when the time is right and when it's not. Then again, I guess if you're a pro-choicer, you can just ignore life and go about your day.

Posted 2:12 PM by Josh
Perhaps this column on abortion in Sunday's Boston Glob shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. How does she go from saying that physical attacks on doctors who perform abortions have given way to political attacks on the procedure, and then imply that the reason one cannot get an abortion in 86% of this nation's counties is that doctors fear attacks? Could she come up with no other explanation for that statistic?

Austin: your trademark inflammatory "aside" has reeled me in. I'm not so sure the principle behind the two positions really is the same. First, I think it's a bit simplistic to assume that there is just one principle binding those opposed to the legalization of abortion. Person X might want to ban it for completely different reasons than person Y. Also, if you're going to assert the existence of such a principle, then, let's have it. The only one I can come up with right now is: families should be as large as possible. Surely, that's a bit simplistic as well, but can you do better in finding one principle that covers both positions?

Posted 2:10 PM by Patrick
More from the "fair and balanced" Time about how Bush is, in fact, an affirmative action baby. I'm having an argument about this merit-in-college-admissions topic on another forum. Except, my understanding is that Bush did well in school. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Posted 2:03 PM by Jonathan
The vigor of the pro-abortion movement comes in large part from their religious belief in a world without consequences. People really want to have sex; all those nasty consequences of sex are nuisances against which we should direct the full power of the government. Pregnancy is just an unnecessary obstacle between Americans and their hedonism, and the law ought to do everything it can to overcome God's inconvenient design. Hopefully the decrease in abortion rates indicates that Americans are beginning to return to reality and to understand that dreams of free lunches should not be allowed to guide policymaking.

Posted 1:19 PM by Austin
I'm surprised that the pro-abortion crowd would ever want to inflate the numbers of women who are having abortions. Part of the pro-abortion mythos is that abortion is used only by women in dire circumstances (hence all the tales about "back alley" abortions); if 45% of all women are having abortions, however, it would suggest that abortion is being used primarily as a contraceptive pis aller. The wantonness towards the value of life this betrays is quite striking.
As an aside, I can't understand how anyone opposed to abortion could at the same time not at least be ambivalent towards contraception. The principle behind the two is really quite the same.

Posted 12:40 PM by Adam
I stopped by the Roe v. Wade "birthday party" en route to the library. They're having a bake sale. They didn't serve "angel" food cake. No party hats, either..

Posted 11:48 AM by G
After I bit of research I think I found the source of the statistic, and I was correct that it was pure balderdash. It comes from an article in JAMA's Family Planning Perspectives Volume 30, No. 1, January/February 1998. It is an extrapolation from 1980-1992 numbers, which concludes that 43.3% of women will get abortions in their lifetimes. So the article not only rounded 43.3% up to 44% instead of down to 43%, but did so with very old numbers.

Abortion rates since 1992 have plunged, down 23% in the US between 1992-2002. So a more reasonable estimate for 2003 is something like 43.3% * (1 -.23) = 33.3%. The largest decline in abortions was among girls aged 15-17, whose abortion rate declined by 39% between 1994 and 2000. More recent statistics are not available, but there are a lot of reasons to think the trend will continue. Abortionists are retiring at a rapid clip and not being replaced, and the generational group that has been most likely to get abortions, the baby-boomers, are rapidly exiting their child-bearing years and being replaced by a younger, more conservative generation of women, who even if they weren't more conservative still have access to gradually improving contraceptive technology. If the trend continues as I suspect even my 33.3% estimate is way too high.

One more thing to emphasize, which is the figures from 1992 were wrong even as the study was published because they were partially forward-looking and did not contemplate the large drop in abortion rates that occurred in the 1990's. So the Post used statistics that were already wrong when they were published (but innocently so), and are vastly wrong now.

Never doubt the mendacity of a leftist with an agenda.

Posted 10:39 AM by G
About abortion, I can't say I have a strong opinion one way or another on the question of its legality, the procedure is awful, but banning it represents a large increase in the size and power of government, and wouldn't be very effective anyway. For me that argument is not conclusive, but creates a very strong presumption against outlawing the procedure. I share however an absolute disgust for pro-abortion radicals. The flyer Adam posted was bad, perhaps even worse were all the revolting comments in this WP story. The highlight had to have been the paragraph that mentions the group called "Medical Students for Choice ... is lobbying for mandatory abortion education in medical schools and in residency programs."

There was plenty of good news in the article, the number of both abortions and abortionists are rapidly declining. One other thing in it caught my eye, which was "Abortion rights advocates, however, said that in a nation in which 44 percent of women will have at least one abortion, the dwindling number of trained providers is tantamount to a denial of basic health services."

That statistic had my junk-science detector buzzing off the hook. I really don't see how 44% of 140 million women could get an abortion if there are between 1.2-1.5 million a year, especially considering many of those abortions are second, third, or fourth abortions. It also jibes poorly with my own experience, as I don't know anyone who has ever gotten an abortion, though admittedly I come from a Catholic family, and many women keep their abortions secret. I'll look into the statistic more later.

Posted 1:30 AM by G
Adam, here's another political reporter better than Drudge, Charlie Cook.

His excellent column is at http://nationaljournal.com/members/buzz/2003/races/ but I've discovered that I can't access it from outside Harvard for some reason, perhaps only .edu domains can enter for free.

Posted 1:27 AM by G
Austin, I am no expert on Victorian literature, perhaps evidenced by my previous misspelling of Jane Austen's name. In fact, avoiding having to read all the bad literature considered classic is one of the many, many reasons I got one of these instead of going to high school, something I'd encourage any young person trapped in a bad government school to do. But by my taste literature was better both before and after that era. If you want an example of awful Victorian literature that's widely and wrongly considered good, here's the first few paragraphs of David Copperfield:.

I am Born

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.

I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified by the result. On the second branch of the question, I will only remark, that unless I ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still a baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all complain of having been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be in the present enjoyment of it, he is heartily welcome to keep it.

I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and preferred cork jackets, I don’t know; all I know is, that there was but one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead loss—for as to sherry, my poor dear mother’s own sherry was in the market then—and ten years afterwards the caul was put up in a raffle down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused at a part of myself being disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny short—as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic to endeavour without any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on the water in her life, except upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to which she was extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption to go “meandering” about the world. It was in vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice. She always returned, with greater emphasis and with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, “Let us have no meandering.”

---

This, to my ears at least, is absolutely awful writing. By volume it's mostly meaningless asides, the passive voice is used constantly, and if there's anything meaningful or interesting in all this verbosity I couldn't find it. Of course I might be wrong and the narrator's afterbirth might actually be the part of a key plot twist, but I don't have much desire to find out. Now contrast that with the opening to one of Tom Wolfe's books:

That's good thinking there, Cool Breeze. Cool Breeze is a kid with three or four days beard sitting next to me on the stamped metal bottom of the open back part of a pickup truck. Bouncing along. Dipping and rising and rolling on these rotten springs like boat. out of the back of the truck the city of San Francisco is bouncing down the hill, all those endless staggers of bay windows, slums with a view, bouncing and streaming down the hill. On after another, electric signs with neon martini glasses lit up on them, the San Francisco symbol of "bar" - thousands of neon-magenta martini glasses bounching and streaming down the hill, and beneath them hundreds, thousands of people wheeling around the look at this freaking crazed truck we're in, their white faces erupting from their lapels like marshmallows - streaming and bouncing down the hill - and god knows they've got plenty to look at.

---

In less than half the words than the awful Charles Dickens takes to bore you with the details of the birth and afterbirth of his character Wolfe practically transports you to his setting. I've never been to San Francisco but from this one paragraph I have a good idea of what it was like to ride in the back of an old pickup truck through that city in 1967.

Since I said writing was better before the Victorian era here is how Samuel Johnson begins one of his stories:

Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty emperour, in whose dominions the Father of waters begins his course; whose bounty pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over half the world the harvests of Egypt. According to the custom which has descended from age to age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was confined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abissinian royalty, till the order of succession should call him to the throne.

The place, which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had destined for the residence of the Abissinian princes, was a spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every side by mountains, of which the summits overhang the middle part. The only passage, by which it could be entered, was a cavern that passed under a rock, of which it has long been disputed whether it was the work of nature or of human industry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth which opened into the valley was closed with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, so massy that no man could, without the help of engines, open or shut them.

From the mountains on every side, rivulets descended that filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a lake in the middle inhabited by fish of every species, and frequented by every fowl whom nature has taught to dip the wing in water. This lake discharged its superfluities by a stream which entered a dark cleft of the mountain on the northern side, and fell with dreadful noise from precipice to precipice till it was heard no more.

The sides of the mountains were covered with trees, the banks of the brooks were diversified with flowers; every blast shook spices from the rocks, and every month dropped fruits upon the ground. All animals that bite the grass, or brouse the shrub, whether wild or tame, wandered in this extensive circuit, secured from beasts of prey by the mountains which confined them. On one part were flocks and herds feeding in the pastures, on another all the beasts of chase frisking in the lawns; the sprightly kid was bounding on the rocks, the subtle monkey frolicking in the trees, and the solemn elephant reposing in the shade. All the diversities of the world were brought together, the blessings of nature were collected, and its evils extracted and excluded.

---

Again in contrast to Dickens, Johnson is direct yet beatiful in his phrasing. He'd never waste his ink with wordy drivel like "An aunt of my father’s, and consequently a great-aunt of mine" when he could just say "My great-aunt." That's not to say a good writer can never be wordy, but Dickens is always so, which again is one of the reasons he's so bad.

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Posted 11:20 PM by Jonathan
Two things: first, not surprisingly, a friend tells me that the HLS Democrats are co-sponsoring the Roe birthday party. Second, I just returned from a caffeine/carb run to Harvard House of Pizza (my section of a group outline is due tomorrow morning), and on the local news the pro-life movement was described as "the fight against the right to choose." Gotta love that unbiased journalism.

Posted 9:38 PM by Avigael
Patrick: That website is so sexist. Where is the Rich Lowry pinup?

Posted 9:17 PM by Patrick
For all the single conseratives out there. :-)

Posted 9:10 PM by Adam
I scanned the notice, to keep a copy of this bizarre bit of propaganda.

Posted 6:23 PM by Jonathan
Adam White, currently of White Noize and once and future anchor poster of Ex Parte, has an interesting observation about HLS.

[edit: Curses! That sneaky blog retiree beat me to it; pardon the redundancy of this post.]

Posted 6:21 PM by Adam
Although I intended to go into "retirement" from Ex Parte, please pardon one last post. I just put this up on my blog, but I wanted to make sure that a chunk of the HLS community saw this. I think I've found my first RECORD column topic of the spring, even if it's weeks from now. This is sick.

CRUEL IRONY: On my way back from dinner in the student cafeteria, I found a flyer in my student mailbox. See if you can spot the irony:

"Celebrate Roe v. Wade's Thirtieth Birthday!"

Thirty years after Roe v. Wade, women's repro