Sick Transit

I try not to make me-too posts, but this is so important I just had to highlight it. From Publius:

Of course, that happens because it’s far easier to be tolerant of that which we don’t fear, and have not had to fight with. Liberal Muslims who grew up with the traditional religion are far less tolerant of it than most Western liberals; and in the U.S., the most militant atheists tend to be those who grew up with Christian Fundamentalism. The reason American progressives find conservative Christianity so hard to tolerate is that it actually has power in our country.

But that is only an explanation, not an excuse. Overcoming our fear and exercising tolerance is not just a matter of political necessity; it should also be a matter of principle.

The unthinkable seems to be finally happening: the US and the EU agreed as part of WTO negotiations to slash farm subsidies. (I would guess that the Reuters article was written by business reporters, not political journalists, because it’s pretty one-sidedly pro-free trade.) For now, only export subsidies will be eliminated, but there appears to be some agreement in principle to eventually touch domestic subsidies as well. In any case, any goring of the sacred cow of farm subsidies is welcome news.

I’m glad that Bush was able to do this; no politician who has to worry about an Iowa primary in his future would dare touch this. As it is, the Democrats will probably still make hay of it. I can only hope that they’ll be more sensible about it once they’re in power.

Let’s just imagine, for a moment, that your profession involves tabulating election results. One just might assume, if you’re a reasonable sort of person, that you probably would have been extra careful the last couple of years, after what happened in 2000. Especially if you happen to work in the State of Florida.

And yet now we find out that Miami-Dade put a touch-screen voting system into service in 2002, and didn’t start doing daily backups until December 2003, resulting in loss of historical data for entire elections.

Putting aside the fact that it is basic system administration practice, for any production system, to do daily backups, we are talking about an election here; the kind of thing that’s organized with review boards, recounts, and every procedural safeguard in the book.

If these systems were processing millions of dollars of transactions a day, is there any way that they wouldn’t have daily backups? Of course not. But all they’re processing is the essential units of our democracy. Obviously, that’s just not enough incentive to keep anyone on their toes.

Marci Hamilton, a noted opponent of religious exceptions in law, has a column in Writ defending the constitutionality of Utah’s ban on polygamy, which is currently being challenged. (All other states ban the practice as well, of course.)

While I agree with her legal conclusion, I feel the need to correct some mistaken arguments she makes in the process of arriving at it.

First of all, she claims that even though the anti-polygamy laws were originally enacted with clear discriminatory intent against the Mormon faith,

However, this plainly contradicts Lukumi Babalu v. Hialeah (508 U.S. 520 1993), decided three years after Smith, which states that:

It could be well argued–and I would agree–that the passaage of time, and the generality of laws against polygamy even in areas where Mormonism was never a political issue, make the law adequately netural. But for Hamilton to claim that facial neutrality in itself settles the issue is simply wrong.

Hamilton proceeds to muddy the waters of rational basis by arguing:

But of course, this has nothing to do with polygamy in the legal sense: licensed, consensual adult marriage. If anything, legalizing polygamy, by allowing the state to regulate plural marriages, would give us a better shot at ending such practices.

But Hamilton stretches that argument even further:

Hamilton addresses the first part of the strict scrutiny test, compelling interest; but she completely ignores the equally important second part: narrow tailoring. The notion that a law intended to protect minors can be extended to embrace the activities of adults and still pass strict scrutiny has been rejected by the Supreme Court over and over again.

Hamilton does finally reach the one reason why polygamy bans are still constitutional:

In its legal and practical effects, a 3-person or n-person relationship is very different from a 2-person one, which is why I still believe that it is constitutionally allowable to distinguish between them.

Just because it is constitutional, however, does not mean that we should do it. But that’s a subject for another post.

Interesting blogad on Yglesias: Kerry-Edwards magnetic bumper stickers.

Now this is a long overdue innovation, IMHO. Nothing’s more pathetic than a car that still has a bumper-sticker from two elections ago.

But it’s interesting that this is first being offered (as far as I’ve seen) for the Kerry campaign. All of us ABB’ers are holding our noses and supporting Kerry until November. But the day after he’s elected, the bumper stickers come off.

Why MTV is doomed to failure:

From a superb rant by Douglas Berman at Slate:

Publius comes out strongly against outing hypocritical anti-gay members of Congress:

Zippergate does provide a valuable lesson, but it’s not necessarily what Publiius suggests.

Henry Hyde was all set to be the next speaker of the House, until Larry Flynt publicized his adultery. Republicans learned a lesson: if you try to portray yourself as the party of morality, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

So “outing” can serve as a sort of nuclear deterrent: if you start poking in our private lives, be assured that we’ll start poking in yours.

I don’t think that the FMA is the sort of clear and present danger that justifies such action. But while I admire Publius’ principled position, I do think that we need to retain our “nuclear deterrent” for extreme cases.

Nixon on corruption, Ike and the little people, and other gems at the Museum of Moving Image’s online archive of political TV ads.

The dirtiest book title that the NYT can be prevailed upon to mention: “Horny Peeping Librarian”.

Too damn funny (note: flash with sound).

(Link via OxBlog, although I imagine this will be all across the ‘net pretty soon.)

I guess that sometimes it’s better not to quote English literature if it’s not your native tongue. From this AP article on the French reaction to Farenheit 9/11:

I’m not sure exactly what would make July identify Moore with Falstaff. Perhaps the fact that they’re both corpulent buffoons? Personally, if I wanted to praise someone for extraordinary achievement, I would probably try to compare them with someone other than the English-speaking world’s most famous lecherous, indolent sot.

Every time I see the grocery store label for Scala Rolls, I automatically read it as Scalia Rolls. I imagine that Scalia Bread would be old and crusty, but surprisingly tasty… which leads me irresistibly to a couple more:

Thomas Rolls: Dark and heavy, and generally not well liked.
O’Connor Rolls: An assortment of flours, you never know what you’re going to get.
Rehnquist Rolls: Yeasty and fluffy, full of hot air.

And of course,

Kerry Rolls: Much beloved by fans of French bread.

This story from The Register gives some interesting perspective on the state of free speech in Europe:

Funny that The Reg, which tends to be a pretty opinionated paper, doesn’t even see anything odd about this “zero tolerance policy”. Even the suspects’ attorney isn’t defending their right to free speech; instead, he’s claiming that the song was not meant to be published.

Many Europeans often view aspects of American politics–such as the death penalty and military interventionism–as uncivilized. They find it hard to understand how such things can even be matters of dispute in a civilized country. I can only express the same shock and puzzlement at this blatant institution of censorship in the Netherlands.

Of course, what we consider to be beyond dispute is just a function of what is accepted around us. Funny how even we allegedly cosmopolitan liberals are so culturally determined.

Andrew Sullivan returns to his old ranting conservative self in this post:

If your rent were equivalent to one week’s salary, would Andrew say that you were working for your landlord for one week a month?

It seems to have escaped Andrew’s notice that the government is actually providing services. Even the much despised “pork” and “entitlements” are funds that go to actual citizens; the biggest entitlements being, of course, Social Security and Medicare.

Now you can argue that some of these services are unnecessary, or could be provided more efficiently by the private sector. But to talk as if this money were simply thrown down a sinkhole is absurd. And unfortunately, this absurdity is one of the most embedded vestiges of Reagan conservatism.