Category: Politics

Here is a roughly sketched beginning for a constitutional reform. It is a sequel to the post California: Time for a bugfix?

Goals:

• Increase representation: By adding representatives and shrinking district sizes, we can bring California’s government closer to the people.
• Increase viewpoint diversity: By pooling statewide votes to support multiple candidates/lists, we can ensure that more than the single most popular viewpoint is represented.
• Decrease roadblocks: By eliminating the requirement for every bill to pass both chambers, each chamber can build their own coalitions and get legislation passed. By giving each chamber their own focus, each chamber can industriously work on their own tasks, coming together as necessary for specific purposes.

Below the fold is my first stab at a solution.

While she writes about the black sites we illegally operated in Poland and Romania, Hilzoy steps aside and answers the important question of why we don’t allow torture in our name. There are two reasons, and sympathy is only the first… and most tenuous. More than sympathy stays our hand: Hilzoy eloquently writes why.

There are some things we, as individuals, should not do to other people. Often, we will also sympathize with those people, and that sympathy might prevent us from, say, torturing or raping them. Sometimes we feel no sympathy, however — the other person might be a person only a saint could sympathize with, like Jeffrey Dahmer. If our only reason for not torturing or raping people was sympathy, then when faced with such a person, we might have no reason not to do whatever we liked to him or her. But sympathy is not our only reason for not torturing and raping people. There’s also self-respect: the thought that whatever someone else might choose to be like, and even if that person has chosen to be Jeffrey Dahmer, there are certain things that I will not choose to do, because I do not want to be the sort of person who does them.

If someone saw me not torturing Jeffrey Dahmer and said: Gosh, there’s hilzoy, all undone by the thought that such a horrible person might suffer even a teensy bit of pain, I would think: sorry, but you do not understand why I am doing this at all. And if someone thinks that the reason I do not want my country to abduct children, to disappear people without charges and without trial, to waterboard them, or to keep them in isolation for months on end, is nothing but concern for them, they are making a similar mistake. I feel terrible about what we have done to a lot of people — the Uighurs, for instance. I do not have a lot of sympathy for Osama bin Laden. But that fact has precisely nothing to do with my thinking that there are certain things I simply do not want my country to do, even to him.

Only tangentially related: Some nuts and bolts of CRSTs and other Guantanamo related legal decisions. Very interesting.

Linked by Brutal Women, Virushead’s warning:
May She Be the New Jesus (so to speak)

I have something to say about the recent Supreme Court decision that upheld the ban on late-term abortions, whether or not the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life.

I’m a pragmatic contextual ethicist with a spiritual sensibility, and I cannot be silent. I cannot pretend that I don’t understand the next step in this game. If you stop for a moment to think about it, what will be required next is blindingly obvious.

A dead woman.

The post goes on to explain, that much like runaway teens, it’ll matter who the dead woman is. Pretty, white, and probably a mom– it’ll take at least that to get people to understand that this affects everyone, even their own tribe. Abortion isn’t all welfare moms, you’re not just punishing sluts– this will affect everyone, even the most faithful and hopeful families.

One Female Canuck, a funny site.

From a great post by Hilzoy about war and hubris:

“Violence is not a way of getting where you want to go, only more quickly. Its existence changes your destination. If you use it, you had better be prepared to find yourself in the kind of place it takes you to.”

This is Hilzoy on Peter’s previous piece.

Can’t fire teachers easily? Studies show that leads to better outcomes for students.

On Obsidian Wings, there was a good debate about introducing an Iran invasion Litmus Test.

It began with Publius’s It’s Time for a Litmus Test on Iran and Von responded with Profoundly Unwise. Hilzoy looked at Iran and Litmus Tests, Von responded with The Long View, and Publius answered with When Keeping It Credible Goes Wrong.

All in all, an excellent debate with points made from all sides.

Current Habeas status update from Katherine, commenting at Obsidian Wings.

Legal immigrants who the gov’t deems to be “enemy combatants” do not have any right to habeas corpus, because they are not U.S. citizens. The fact that they are detained in South Carolina is irrelevant.

U.S. citizens detained in Iraq do not have any right to habeas corpus because they are being detained by a “multinational force” (although that force is commanded by a U.S. general and is directly subordinate to the U.S. Central Command, the Secretary of Defense, and the President). The fact that they are U.S. citizens is irrelevant.

Glenn Greenwald comments.

It’s kind of a shit hunt, where you’re looking for the flaws under the pretty picture they paint about their amendments. There’s some prestige for political junkies tonight; we’ve heard the arguments and can cut to the chase.

A discussion with Dad:
“I’m undecided on 90– what do you think?” (Flip, flip through the voter information guide.)

“Oh, that’s the trojan horse. The first half of it does a good thing– it restricts the crazy eminent domain stuff that came from the Kelo decision. Unfortunately, they got ambitious and included the second part, which is going to screw land use and zoning. It lets you sue for any property restriction– can you imagine if it’d been passed before the air district limited fireplace use, or if someone wanted to sell his farm for a subdivision and was zoned Ag?”

“What’s going on with 1A?” (Flip, flip through the voter information guide.)

“Mmm, remember how a couple of years ago we voted to restrict the state gas tax for transportation? Well, now they want the sales tax on gas sales too.”

It’s strange– it feels good to discuss the problems and the loopholes. We’re engaged, the way a citizen should be.

Of course, that wasn’t the official title of the bill. It’s just what the bill actually does.

• CharleyCarp’s What To Do?, a eye level view of what we’ve done, and that we must go on.
• Hilzoy Struggles and finds resolve, concluding
  

  Besides, as my grandmother always said: it is not worthy of humanity to give up. To which I would add: not that there aren’t times when it’s really, really tempting.

• Katherine’s Juxtaposition reminds us about specific prisoners, the supposed “worst of the worst”.
• Katherine is also participating in the Guantanamo Bay Teach in (schedule).
• Jim Henley’s: We Knocked Em All Dead, Babe, Then We Brought It All Back Home is about his belief that the Democrats have signed their death warrant, doomed themselves to “Republican Lite” charges forevermore.
• Glenn Greenwald’s analysis is bleak but honest. There is no point in trying to glorify the conduct of Democrats, but another two years of absolute power would worsen the country in every way. How the sausage was made.
• Lawyers, Guns, and Money return with Responsibility Where It Belongs and The Torture Party: A Summary
• Kameron Hurley points out that heresay is enough to convict you, with no possible judicial review, under this statute.

Charles and Hilzoy have a dialogue about Islam:
Charles begins with a post; Hilzoy responds, and later then she expands her point. Thereafter, Charles writes a post grappling with Hilzoy’s inclusion of cultural humiliation as a factor. Hilzoy explains why cultural humiliation is important to understand, then she continues to explain how technological progress does and doesn’t relate to the concept.