A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

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Katherine Harris: Non-Christians will legislate sin

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Katherine Harris, a Florida member of the House of Representatives and former Republican Secretary of State for Florida who was instrumental in securing the State of Florida for George Bush’s 2000 election effort is the Republican nominee to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate.

In the course of her Senate campaign, she has released a few statements that are pure, unadulterated wingnuttery:

U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris (news, bio, voting record) told a religious journal that separation of church and state is “a lie” and God and the nation’s founding fathers did not intend the country be “a nation of secular laws.” The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will “legislate sin,” including abortion and gay marriage.

. . .

Separation of church and state is “a lie we have been told,” Harris said in the interview, published Thursday, saying separating religion and politics is “wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.”

“If you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin,” Harris said.

Thankfully, some of her fellow Republicans are trying to distance themselves from this kind of position. However, Harris is not some fringe member of the party. She was front and center in the effort to give Florida’s electoral votes to George Bush in 2000. She is a member of Congress. And she’s the party’s nominee in Florida’s Senate race. I’d be a lot more comfortable with the Republican Party if this kind of Dominionist nonsense was anathema to mainstream candidates.

Fear Itself

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Courtesy of Kung Fu Monkey:

FDR: Oh, I’m sorry, was wiping out our entire Pacific fleet supposed to intimidate us? We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and right now we’re coming to kick your ass with brand new destroyers riveted by waitresses. How’s that going to feel?

CHURCHILL: Yeah, you keep bombing us. We’ll be in the pub, flipping you off. I’m slapping Rolls-Royce engines into untested flying coffins to knock you out of the skies, and then I’m sending angry Welshmen to burn your country from the Rhine to the Polish border.

U.S. NOW: BE AFRAID!! Oh God, the Brown Bad people could strike any moment! They could strike … NOW!! AHHHH. Okay, how about .. NOW!! AAGAGAHAHAHHAG! Quick, do whatever we tell you, and believe whatever we tell you, or YOU WILL BE KILLED BY BROWN PEOPLE!! PUT DOWN THAT SIPPY CUP!!

U.S. rushed Britain to make recent terror bust

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The impression I got watching the Fox News Terror Porn coverage of the recent British terrorism bust at the gym, admittedly not paying full attention, was that they swept up the suspects as they were at the airport. That this wasn’t the case goes not to the propriety of the arrests, but rather to the emphasis in the way the story was reported: lead with the quotes about  “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” rather than with the fact that the threat was forming rather than imminent.

Now I see that NBC News is reporting that U.S. and British authorities had a “significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.” The U.S. pressed for an immediate bust. The British wanted to run surveillance for at least another week to gather more evidence. A “senior British official knowledgeable about the case said:

The suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.

It looks like this was some good policework by the British coupled with a lot of hype about the severity of the threat coming from political sources and the cable news networks whose advertiser thrive when sensational stories are breaking.

The message I get from the Bush administration and the cable news networks: Be afraid.

If people are scared enough, it becomes easier to say all kinds of things about people who question the wisdom of the War in Iraq or the competence of the Bush administration to prosecute the War in Iraq or the even more complicated War on Terror(ism/ists). You can call them extremists. You can call them traitors. You can say that if folks with such questions win, then America loses. You can even say that rejecting Joe Lieberman in favor of Ned Lamont helps “break the will of the American people” to fight terrorists.

But that kind of nonsense, conflating the war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with al-Qaeda terrorism among other things, only works if people are scared.

Lamont, Lieberman, Indiana Blogosphere

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So Joe Lieberman lost to Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary. Ned’s a businessman in the telecommunications industry and has served as a selectman in the town of Greenwich Connecticut. Joe, obviously, is currently a Senator from Connecticut and was formerly Al Gore’s vice-presidential running mate.

Advance Indiana put up a post along the lines of “If Lamont wins, America loses” on account of his opposition to the war in Iraq means he’s weak on terrorism or something. I may be paraphrasing AI unfairly, go read that post for the full argument. Suffice it to say that I agree with AI on a lot of issues, but not this one. stAllio! puts up a counter-post with which I’m more sympathetic.

Today Advance Indiana puts up another post discussing the Lamont primary victory and Lieberman’s plans to take a second bite at the apple by running as an independent. Along the way, AI characterizes Lamont as an “extremist.” I don’t know much about Lamont, but what I’ve heard doesn’t amount to extremism. So I asked which views of Lamont were “extreme.” The response I got from AI boiled down to, essentially, Lamont’s view that we should get our troops out of Iraq and the fact that he was supported by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who are, I am told, anti-Semites. I fail to find this convincing evidence of “extremism,” since I think desiring to bring the troops home is fairly mainstream, and I’d need more than just guilt by association to brand Lamont as an anti-Semite. (Incidentally, anti-Semitism seems to be a big political issue in the blogosphere lately; check out this thoughtful post on the subject at the Whiskey Bar.) No big story here – I respect AI generally, disagree with on this issue particularly, I asked a question, got a response, and it’s about a Connecticut political race anyway. No big deal, time to move on.

I wouldn’t have bothered with a blog post, except for an anonymous comment responding to my question that amused me by capturing succingtly a lot of what I dislike about what passes for political discourse these days:

Anonymous said…

If you have to ask what’s extreme about Ned Lamond, you might just be a little extreme yourself…

Unless that’s just someone having a little fun by pretending to be a caricature, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the person enjoys the fair and balanced reporting of Fox News.

Yet another political quiz

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Political Compass Questionnaire

Economic Left/Right: -1.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92

That puts me pretty close to the center, but a bit to the left, on the economic left/right axis and a bit farther into the libertarian side of the libertarian/authoritarian axis. In the list they give, I seem to be economically lined up with Pope John Paul II (though he was much more authoritarian) and about as libertarian as Nelson Mandela (though he was quite a bit more economically to the left of me.)

Tippecanoe Politics on Buyer and the Merchant Marines

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There is a good discussion over at Tippecanoe Politics on the issue of Rep. Buyer and the Merchant Marines.

Go to Tippecanoe Politics and the Lafayette J&C story for more detail, but basically the issue is this: Merchant Mariners of World War II engaged in hazardous duty as part of the military effort — they transported bombs, gasoline, shells, ammunition, food, guns, and more and an estimated 9,497 died during the war —  but were not recognized as veterans until 1988. Because of the delay, they were not able to take advantage of such benefits as the G.I. Bill.

House Resolution 23, entitled “Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act of 2005,” currently has 258 sponsors and would provide to a merchant marine or surviving spouse a monthly benefit of $1,000. To qualify for the benefit, the merchant marine must have served 1) between December 7, 1941 and December 31, 1946; 2) on a vessel operated by the War Shipping Administration or the Office of Defense Transportation (or its agent); 3) in waters other than inland waters, the Great Lakes, or lakes, bays, or harbors of the U.S.; and 4) was a licensed crewmember of the vessel.

Presuming the 258 sponsors all voted for the Act, it would have enough votes for passage if the resolution was allowed to be taken to a vote. Unfortunately for the merchant marines, Rep. Steve Buyer, a former military lawyer, is the head of the House Veterans Affairs Committee where the resolution has been languishing since January 4, 2005.

By way of explanation (sort of), Buyer’s office had this to say:

A spokeswoman for Buyer praised the merchant mariners and acknowledged their service “played a fundamental part in the successes” of the Allies in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

But, said Buyer’s deputy chief of staff Laura J. Zuckerman, “These men were volunteers working for shipping companies, who could choose their voyage with the knowledge of potential risks and could end their service at any time.”

To me, this supports the case for the merchant marines rather than diminishing it. These guys criss-crossed a North Atlantic full of German subs and other dangers to keep our war machine functioning. They volunteered to do it. And they kept doing it even though they were free to leave.

Virginity or Death

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My wife was kind enough to call my attention to a 2005 column in the Nation by Katha Pollit entitled “Virginity or Death.” She makes a compelling argument that what many conservative Christians are interested in is, not so much preventing abortion, but in keeping sex tied to reproduction and disease to make women afraid of sex.

A primary exhibit in this argument is the baffling opposition to the HPV vaccine. Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have developed vaccines that protect against the human papilloma virus, generally recognized as a sexually transmitted disease resulting in genital warts. However, its more serious consequences is as a leading cause of cervical cancer which is diagnosed in 10,000 women per year and kills 4,000.

So, vaccinate girls and get rid of cervical cancer. A no brainer, right? Well, not according to the Family Research Council:

“Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV,” says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.

“Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex,” Maher claims, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus.

While HPV might not be a reason that girls are avoiding sex, it provides a pretext for the New Puritans to oppose condom education in schools since HPV is not preventable by condoms. “Why bother, you could just get HPV anyway.”

Ms. Pollit puts it this way:

Christian conservatives have a special reason to be less than thrilled about the HPV vaccine. Although not as famous as chlamydia or herpes, HPV has the distinction of not being preventable by condoms. It’s Exhibit A in those gory high school slide shows that try to scare kids away from sex, and it is also useful for undermining the case for rubbers generally–why bother when you could get HPV anyway? In 2000, Congressman (now Senator) Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who used to give gruesome lectures on HPV for young Congressional aides, even used HPV to propose warning labels on condoms. With HPV potentially eliminated, the antisex brigade will lose a card it has regarded as a trump unless it can persuade parents that vaccinating their daughters will turn them into tramps, and that sex today is worse than cancer tomorrow.

Ms. Pollit goes on to argue that this mentality goes along with the right wing opposition to reducing abortions by making birth control more widely available; they want to make it less available and to make abstinence the only viable option for avoiding pregnancy or disease.

While I’m sure actual reasons vary for the various stances of politically active New Puritans on restricting availability of birth control and medicines to prevent STDs, as a whole the stances seem to make the most sense if one views sex as evil and views disease and pregnancy as God’s punishment for promiscuity.

William Safire – dead on

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William Safire knocks this one out of the ball park in a Meet the Press discussion about the latest right wing talking point that the New York Times should be prosecuted for treason for running a story on the U.S. Government sifting through bank records. Bill Bennett got on his high horse, saying, among other things, the Bush administration was elected and “the media” was not:

MR. SAFIRE: Let me respond to what Bill, to the point he’s making, that who elected the media to determine what should be secret and what should not?

MS. MITCHELL: Which is the fundamental point.

MR. SAFIRE: Right. And the answer to that is, the founding fathers did. They came up with this Bill of Rights beyond which the constitutional convention would not move unless there were a First Amendment to challenge the government…

MR. BENNETT: Right.

MR. SAFIRE: …just as the American founding fathers challenged the British government. Now it’s not treasonable, it’s not even wrong for the press to say we’re going to find out what we can and we’ll act as a check and balance on the government. Sometimes we’ll make mistakes. Sometimes the government will mistake.

These threats to stifle the free press are part and parcel of an administration that wants to be able to incarcerate people indefinitely without charges and wants to be able to eavesdrop on its citizens without warrants.

Agricultural welfare

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The Indiana Law Blog posted on a a Washington Post story on agricultural welfare.

The money is substantial: $172 billion over the past ten years. The controls are weak: you don’t actually have to grow the crops that are subsidized. The protections are wasteful: The system pays farmers a subsidy to protect against low prices even when they sell crops at high prices, and it makes “emergency disaster payments” for crops that fail even as it provides subsidized insurance to protect against those failures. And, it disproportionately benefits those who are already wealthy.

The ILB pointed out an interactive map that the Washington Post provides. But if you really want to get to know your farming neighbors, I’d recommend the Environmental Working Group’s farm subsidy database.

The Washington Post provides this amazing statistic:

In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare.

From an electoral standpoint, agricultural welfare makes a great deal of sense. Citizens in agricultural areas have a lot more electoral influence per capita than do urban areas. Because each state gets two senators, regardless of the population of the state, citizens of more sparsely populated states get more bang for their ballot than citizens of more densely populated states.

But, if the Washington Post’s story is accurate, those who are concerned about bloated government programs and wasted tax dollars should concentrate on the agricultural welfare system before social welfare programs for the poor.

Can’t burn the books? Close the libraries

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Apparently the Bush administration doesn’t like the environmental data that has been coming out lately, so they’ve decided to take decisive action: by shutting down Environmental Protection Agency libraries.

In an extraordinary letter of protest, representatives for 10,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists are asking Congress to stop the Bush administration from closing the agency’s network of technical research libraries. The EPA scientists, representing more than half of the total agency workforce, contend thousands of scientific studies are being put out of reach, hindering emergency preparedness, anti-pollution enforcement and long-term research, according to the letter released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

In his proposed budget for FY 2007, President Bush deleted $2 million of support for EPA’s libraries, amounting to 80% of the agency’s total budget for libraries. Without waiting for Congress to act, EPA has begun shuttering libraries, closing access to collections and reassigning staff. The letter notes that “EPA library services are [now] greatly reduced or no longer available to the general public” in agency regional offices serving 19 states.