Gingrich Supports Death Penalty for Drug Importation

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

Or at least he did back in 1996, when he introduced the "Drug Importer Death Penalty Act." I'm surprised this hasn't gotten more play in the media than it has. (H/T Jonathan Adler). The full text of the bill is here.

Now I see why South Carolina loves this guy.

UPDATE: Paul Horwitz raises a good point.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that Gingrich meant it then, that he means it today, or that he will mean it tomorrow.  True, there is also no reason to think that he wouldn't denounce such a law today, champion it tomorrow, and go back to denouncing it on Wednesday.  But I hardly think we can blame Gingrich for his views on any particular occasion, or at least not for long.  That would be like blaming the wind for blowing in an easterly direction in the morning, when you know perfectly well it will blow in three other directions by sunset.  Let's be fair.

Misleading Graphs

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

I've commented before on the misleading "debt graphs," but they seem to be a new liberal meme. So here we go again.

The graph at right popped up on my Facebook feed today. It purports to show that Democrats add a lot less to the debt than Republicans do. It seems to be making a pretty radical argument. Republicans say Obama's been fiscally irresponsible. But he's been the most fiscally responsible, by far. WOW.


Yeah, no. Let's run quickly through the problems. The first one is egregious, and it's the same error I pointed out in the last graph I criticized: it makes no attempt to control for the number of years a President served in office. Three of the Presidents on the chart served for 8 years. One served for 4. The other, as of the data displayed on the chart, had served for 2 years and 3 months. You can see that if you read the fine print. But that doesn't stop it from being idiotic and misleading.

One way to correct this first error is to break the two-term Presidents into two entries each, and extrapolate the data for Obama. If you do that, the graph looks like the second one at right.

The second error is in the data presented: percentage of debt increase. Why is that a problem? Well why would we care at all about the percentage of debt increase? Doing it that way rewards later presidents, who inherited a larger debt, and punishes earlier presidents, who inherited a smaller debt. That is, a 100% increase in debt under Reagan means a very different thing than a 100% increase in debt under Obama.

So what happens if we look at the absolute increase in the debt in US Dollars, broken up by term and extrapolating the Obama data to a full four years? The final graph. (I apologize that the y-axis isn't labelled, and that neither graph has a title. I'm using crappy free graphing software.)

While I suspect ideologues will keep posting misleading graphs and making silly arguments, I'll try one more time: just stop. It makes everyone look bad. There are legitimate counters to the argument that Obama is fiscally irresponsible. The first graph above is not one of them.

Note on data: due to limitations in the data I was able to find (here and here), debt amounts were taken on September 30th in the year the President took office. I.e., Bush Jr.'s "first term" is 9/30/2001-9/30/2005. I don't think it's a big deal, especially since spending immediately after a President takes office is arguably influenced by policies of the previous President. But if anyone finds better data, let me know and I'll redo the graphs.


Second note: Obama data was calculated by taking the increase in debt from 9/30/2009 - 9/30/2011, and then multiplying by two. Mostly because I was lazy, and didn't want to figure out a more complicated extrapolation factor. If anyone wants to check if a more detailed calculation has a significant effect, feel free to do so and let me know the results.

State-Sponsored Catholicism

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

The most convincing modern justification for the two religious freedom clauses in the US Constitution is twofold: they restrict bad government and allow good religion.

Governments are better, the argument goes, when their citizens are free to commit to a wide range of beliefs. And they are better when they don't become the battleground for the (at times excessive) doctrinal battles waged between religious adherents.

Religions are better when they convert through persuasion rather than force. They are better – purer – when the temptation of state power is outside of their grasp.

Unfortunately, modern political discourse tends to focus almost entirely on the relationship between religious freedom and governments. "The government can't do that," we say, "because it will restrict religious freedom." But we're seeing a resurgence of "big-government religionists," who aren't paying enough attention to the second justification for religious freedom.

Granted, we aren't seeing the establishment of state churches. There are no (sane) individuals calling for religious qualifications for office, or suggesting that the state should settle doctrinal disputes. The "quasi-establishments" that are being sought may even be constitutional. But that doesn't mean they're not dangerous.

Take the marriage debate. The argument that allowing marriage equality will "damage the institution of marriage" should be familiar to everyone. But the real nature of that argument was made more clear by Rob Vischer a few days ago. He asks whether civil unions could be "bad for marriage" because people who might otherwise have chosen to enter the quasi-religious institution of marriage instead opt for a civil union. It's a numbers game against a religious background: if less people get married, then marriage is weaker, and if marriage is weaker then society is becoming dangerously less religious and abandoning important religious normative structures that have been worked into the institution of marriage.

But even if that sounds plausible to you, dig a little deeper. The problem that is being pointed to isn't one of an external force "attacking" a religion, where the state might have a legitimate role in intervening. Instead, it's the people – the constituents of a religion, if you will – opting for a different set of norms. And the proposed remedy is to limit their options: to force them down one "correct" path rather than another.

That kind of coercion would be a recipe for weaker institutions. It's how we make bad religion.

Religion in Culture

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

Jacques Berlinerblau has an interesting post at Brainstorm about what he calls "Tebowmania" and more generally the role that religion plays in American culture. I don't agree with everything he has to say, but the post does prompt some good questions. I found myself wondering, after reading it, how those who say "I have no problems with homosexuality, just keep it private" would react to someone who said "I have no problem with Christianity, just keep it private."

For all the fear-mongering on Fox, ours is still a very Christian culture, and (as Berlinerblau points out) even our supposedly "liberal" media has no qualms about heaping praise on the ostentatiously religious parts of popular culture.

South Carolina Republican Debate

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

I caught part of the three hundredth 2012 Republican debate tonight (Fox News, South Carolina). Just a few quick thoughts:

Santorum's falling over himself to run further and further to the right. In one notable moment, when asked a question about foreign policy related to Syria, he answered almost completely from the "what's best for Israel" perspective. There seemed to be absolutely no consideration of the fact that sometime in the next five years Israeli interests could diverge from American interests. Either that, or he's trying to become President of the United States of America and Protector of Israel. I understand the commitment that many on the right have to defending Israel – they're a strong ally and most of the time our interests align. But blind, naive commitment in foreign policy does no one any good. Santorum also said that the federal government should be able to detain Americans indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism, subject only to a mere preponderance of the evidence standard. In other words, Santorum supports doing away with the meaningful rule of law.

Of course, Romney supports doing away with the rule of law entirely. According to him, anyone arrested on suspicion of being a member of al-Qaeda – American citizen or no – should have no due process rights. Because apparently, alleged treason is the same as treason. Romney also thought that there are too many laws regulating election finance. Screw Citizens United – corporations and the super-wealthy should be able to give unlimited amounts directly to candidates.

Rick Perry, meanwhile, defended the marines who urinated on corpses. Well, he didn't quite defend them. "They should be punished." But don't call their acts "despicable." That might hurt their feelings.

Ron Paul had some decent substance – for instance, suggesting that we should apply a Golden Rule to foreign policy (that got quite a negative reaction from a supposedly moralistic, Christian party) – but bad performance. It took him forever to stumble through a relatively simple explanation of what was wrong with the Obama approach to capturing bin Laden (we should have tried legitimate methods first before invading another country's sovereignty), and he sounded far too defensive.

All in all: nothing impressive; nothing new.

Florida Cops Torture and Murder a Restrained Man...

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

...who was also mentally ill. If you haven't read this story, you should. It's too easy to write things like this off as the doings of evil people. It's much harder to recognize them for what they are: the product of a system that corrupts people who aren't especially evil and turns them into monsters.

Professor George: The Culture Warrior

(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

In a series of recent posts at Mirror of Justice, Robert George has declared his full entrance into the culture wars. He's apparently come to the conclusion that there is no longer any hope of compromise or discourse between Catholics and supporters of equality, and so the only way for Catholics to proceed is to "win" by successfully imposing their own restricted sexual morality on the rest of the country.

Paul Horwitz wrote a post at Prawfs bemoaning the fact that moderates are put in a hard place when trying to deal with opposing groups who have no interest on discourse. I think he raises some good points, but here I want to focus instead on the distortions that the "culture warrior" stance can cause, even to an ostensibly well-educated, thoughtful academic.

Throughout his recent posts, George often seems to be fighting shadows and not understanding even basic distinctions. That's because he's gone beyond being unwilling to work with the "other side", and gotten all the way to willful or negligent misrepresentation of what they say.

Take the post that started the recent series, in which George complains about the fact that the demand for civil equality includes, well, demands for civil equality. But he begins by making a misleading reference to past arguments:

It was only yesterday, was it not, that proponents of sexual liberalism were telling us that the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex partnerships would have no impact at all on the lives of those persons and religious and other institutions that hold to the traditional conception of marriage as a conjugal union?

The characterization sounds plausible, because we take it as a reference to an old and obviously true argument: "my right to marry will not affect your marriage." The argument was then and now obviously true: the right of two men to have their marriage recognized by the state will in no way affect the marriage between two straight people.

But George seems to have conflated that argument with one that I, at least, never once heard: that somehow civil equality would not be accompanied by...well...civil equality: that powerful institutions would remain free to discriminate against couples based on their gender. Or, in his words:

The fundamental error made by some, I believe, was to imagine that a grand bargain could be struck: "We will accept the legal redefinition of marriage; you will respect our right to act on our consciences without penalty, discrimination, or civil disabilities of any type. Same-sex partners will get marriage licenses, but no one will be forced for any reason to recognize those marriages or suffer discrimination or disabilities for declining to recognize them."

I was surprised when I read that: I didn't remember ever hearing about that bargain. And I doubt anyone even really suggested it, because what George is talking about would be an empty marriage right. You can get married, but those with the power don't need to recognize it. If that's marriage equality, then we already have it.

So why is George conflating this real argument with his imagined straw man? I imagine part of it is that he would like to forget that there were (and, to a certain extent, still are) people who would seriously advance the "argument" that "gay marriage just ruins marriage for the rest of us." He'd like to explain his memory of arguments that marriage equality wouldn't have an "impact" on straight people in a way that paints his fellow travelers in a better light.

But more of it, I suspect, has to do with the conscious and subconscious effects of the "culture warrior" viewpoint. He sees this struggle as life-and-death: if not for him, then for the cultural values that he holds dear. And, with that in mind, he's willing to distort the truth and caricature his opponents in order to rally the faithful to fight off the infidels. It's a culture war, but it's also a holy war. And when God is "on your side," all bets are off.