tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298806152024-03-07T19:29:19.688-05:00The Progressive Christian Guide to Public PolicyThis blog analyzes public policy issues of concern to progressive Christians such as climate change, labor, health, LGBT issues, economics and public and personal finance.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1578125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-83334738135574845752013-06-20T14:28:00.001-04:002013-06-20T14:28:28.287-04:00The Group That Sought to Change the LGBT Community Has Been Changed<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/head-of-group-that-had-aims-to-change-gays-issues-apology">Exodus International has issued an apology for its previous endorsements of conversion therapy and closed its doors.</a><br />
<br />
Alan Chambers has issued a detailed apology on his own website, which at the time of this writing has crashed. The apology is reposted in the Buzzfeed link above.<br />
<br />
Specifically, Chambers <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/06/lets-do-something-different-the-end-of-the-worlds-leading-ex-gay-ministry/277039/">has renounced his beliefs that sexual orientation can be changed, that LGBT people are not acceptable to God</a>, and he has renounced his opposition to same-sex marriage and other rights.<br />
<br />
He has not, he says, renounced his own belief that (I'm paraphrasing) same-sex marriage is God's best plan for humanity. He is still a theological conservative. But, in his own words,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23.1875px;">"I don't really know what to think, honestly, when it comes to gay marriage. But I also don't think anybody needs me to have a position. People have a right to live their lives as they see fit. If a friend or family member who is gay or lesbian invites me to be a part of their special day, I'm going to go and be a part of that because I love them. It doesn't matter if I endorse or condone something--that's not my right."</span></blockquote>
And elsewhere:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: ProximaNovaRegular, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 23px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: ProximaNovaRegular, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 23px;">“I cannot apologize for my deeply held biblical beliefs about the boundaries I see in scripture surrounding sex, but I will exercise my beliefs with great care and respect for those who do not share them. I cannot apologize for my beliefs about marriage. But I do not have any desire to fight you on your beliefs or the rights that you seek.”</span> </blockquote>
And that's all right. Folks on my side of the issue: please accept that he is where he is. I disagree with his theological position (i.e. I strongly support same-sex marriage and I think that it is God's will that same-sex couples should get marry when they are ready). But for religious folks, our relationship to God is also very, very important. He has said that he disagrees with same sex marriage, and that also he can no longer publicly oppose it. It is no longer clear that he thinks of homosexuality as a sin. It's clear that he has accepted the truth about homosexuality (that it's a normal variation and that it does not place people in jeopardy per se). This is what I would think if I were a theological conservative. He has also apologized publicly, and thus helped further undermine the position that sexual orientation can and should be changed. Thank God he did and thank God he is where he is.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-29806289915460884452012-12-20T11:45:00.001-05:002012-12-20T11:45:07.825-05:00On Banning Assault Rifles as a Class of Weapons<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">By now, readers will have heard of the shooting in Newtown, where a killer armed with an AR-15 rifle killed over 20 children and several adults.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Amidst the renewed debate on gun control, at least two commentators have said that there is no point banning assault weapons as an entire class of guns, as they are not that different from hunting rifles. Writing on Businessweek, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-20/after-newtown-gun-control-steps-we-can-take#p2">Paul Barrett</a> says that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><blockquote>
<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.399999618530273px;">Although they may have a tough military look, semiautomatic assault weapons, shot-for-shot, are no more lethal than Grandpa’s Remington wooden-stock deer-hunting rifle. Arguing about whether a particular rifle is an assault weapon makes no sense.</span></blockquote>
</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/17/there-s-little-we-can-do-to-prevent-another-massacre.html">Megan McArdle</a>, writing for the Daily Beast, says that</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.399999618530273px;"><blockquote>
</blockquote>
</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;">You don't need a special kind of gun to shoot civilians. You just need a gun. A handgun, a shotgun, and a rifle are all pretty deadly at close quarters, and Lanza went to the school with all three. (He </span><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/16/at-least-26-dead-in-shooting-at-connecticut-school/" style="cursor: pointer; line-height: 21px;" target="_blank">left the shotgun in the back of a car</a><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;">). You don't need a military style rifle, or a high-powered scope, or a pistol grip, or a detachable stock, because concealment is not a big issue, and you don't need much aim to put a bullet into someone at ten feet. Nor can you stop these shootings by restricting people to hunting rifles, which for some reason people seem to think are less deadly than regular guns. The truth is the opposite: it takes a lot more wallop to bring down an elk than a person, and a couple of rounds of buckshot or a .30-06 would have had the same, horrible results. Even a ban on semi-automatics is no panacea in a world full of powerful shotguns. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">These assertions are incorrect on some points:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">1. I don't hunt, but my understanding is that many hunting rifles are bolt action, which means you fire, you pull the lever to chamber another round, and then you fire again. You have to take your eyes off the target. Even for semi-automatic hunting rifles, their magazines would be a lot smaller than 30 rounds. An AR-15 can fire more rounds and it can fire faster.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">2. Rifles like the AR-15 are designed so that the firer can freely maneuver them in close quarters to engage multiple targets. Many hunting rifles may be more unwieldy (e.g. longer barrel). So, again, a shooter can engage more targets faster with an AR-15.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">3. As to shotguns, they are also lethal against human targets at close range, but many hunting shotguns have even more limited ammunition capacity. Many shotguns are pump action, where you must work the lever after firing to reload. Many are semi-automatic, of course, and they may have magazines up to 10 rounds.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In other words, there is an argument for banning rifles like the AR-15 as an entire class of weapons. They are sufficiently more lethal than other rifles to consider banning as a class, and people are incorrect to assert that they aren't. The previous assault weapons ban was full of holes, and it mainly focused on cosmetic features, so of course it didn't work as manufacturers just redesigned their rifles to comply with the cosmetic features (e.g. they removed bayonet mounts). One could define any semi-automatic rifle with the ability to accept military standard magazines as a class, and ban that entire class of weapons. I imagine one could work out something similar for shotguns.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As both Barrett and McArdle allude to, though, this may not be politically possible, and even if it were, you would somehow have to get the guns and magazines off the market. So, it could be more feasible to restrict magazine sizes, perhaps to 10 rounds for rifles, and lesser for handguns and shotguns.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And banning these weapons would only reduce the lethality of mass shootings, which are only a small minority of firearm deaths in the US. I think we might as well start somewhere, though.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-24661531696838769142012-11-08T18:40:00.000-05:002012-11-09T09:55:01.672-05:00Four More Years Of Socialism<span style="font-family: inherit;">Four years ago, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He made some attempt to be conciliatory to his opponents. He tried to include some Republicans in his Administration. In two of his signature legislative attempts, which were capping and trading carbon emissions and health reform, he based his proposals off ideas that conservatives had previously pioneered (health - Massachusetts under Romney and with the Heritage Foundation endorsing the idea) or been involved in (cap and trade - the EPA applied this to SO2 emissions under Reagan).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He was reviled as, variously, a socialist, a Kenyan anti-colonialist, un-American, non-American. Some insinuated that he only got into Harvard because of affirmative action, others that he was in over his head. Others insinuated that he had a plot to forcibly disarm the country and to destroy capitalism.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A few days ago, he was re-elected. His opponents' platform contained proposals that would have dismantled Medicaid, severely damaged Medicare, and destroyed most means-tested aid programs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Christians are supposed to urge conciliation. Christians are also called to resist evil with every fiber of their beings. So, let us work together. We are all Americans (most of us, anyway, as not everyone reading this may be in the US). But let us also remember that the Republicans in Congress would have signed on to a budget that an analyst I respect called "<a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3712">Robin Hood, in reverse - on steroids</a>". Matthew 7:16 says, "<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?" And t</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">he modern Republican Party exhibits no compassion for the poor, no regard for the future of our nation and the planet. Internationally, its policy would be belligerence and recklessness. Domestically, they've tried their best to suppress the votes of people of color and young people - people who tend to vote against them. The fruit of the modern Republican party is toxic.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: inherit; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I have neighbors and relatives who are conservatives. If they hadn't been fed a bunch of lies by the Republicans in Congress, they would probably still be more cautious about expanding health care to the entire population. They would be afraid that Medicare cuts would compromise the care they and their parents get. They would be worried that cutting carbon emissions might compromise their standards of living. That's fine. I'm not worried about those things, but we can deal. God made some of us conservative, some of us progressive, and some of us in between. God did this for a good reason, because not all changes are good, and caution can save your skin. Unfortunately, the national Republican party has fed my neighbors, relatives and friends a bunch of toxic lies. Conservatism is a movement and a philosophy that contains much wisdom and that progressives can deal with. But the national Republican party in the United States serves only Mammon. It deserves to die.</span><br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-79311085903009369462012-10-03T17:08:00.003-04:002012-10-03T17:08:39.883-04:00Today is Livestrong Day and Lance Armstrong Was Doped to the GillsToday is Livestrong Day, which commemorates the day that Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer. He came back from cancer, to re-enter the world of professional cycling. Helped by testosterone, EPO and blood transfusions, he won the Tour de France seven times. Lance, with his tainted winnings, established the Livestrong Foundation, which supports people with cancer.<br />
<br />
This is not a simple ad hominem attack against Armstrong.<br />
<br />
I am blunt because there are many who have bought into his claims that he has not really been convicted, that he is the victim of a witch hunt and a massive conspiracy, that he won seven Tours clean. He did not. All the second and third place finishers in all those Tours have been linked to doping cases. Many have confessed. Joseba Beloki, a second place finisher in 2002, was cleared by Spanish courts, although he was linked to a major doping case. Armstrong said he has passed hundreds of drug tests, but Marion Jones also passed hundreds of drug tests. They learned to evade the tests. Other cyclists learned too, but they were simply less meticulous than he.<br />
<br />
Armstrong's continued lies deserve condemnation. But he's not alone. Cycling, my sport, has a sordid history of doping, and a code of silence still reigns over the professionals. American Major League baseball has its problems with steroids and human growth hormone.<br />
<br />
Part of the problem lies with us, the viewers of sports.<br />
<br />
We laud sporting heroes. We demand a spectacle. We pour billions of dollars in. Well, when there's money and fame at stake, people have an incentive to behave badly ... but then we sweep things under the rug. We say, OK, these are just rumors. This guy was found guilty, but he served his time. And he did raise substantial doubts about the testing methods - I did this with Tyler Hamilton, a colleague of Armstrong, who wrote and published a detailed confession. We all do this.<br />
<br />
It's not practical to say that we should boycott professional sports, that we should take the all money out of them. It might well be an appropriate Christian response. But it won't happen in this world. Here are three things we can do.<br />
<br />
1. If politics among cycling's governing bodies permit, is to have a truth and reconciliation commission. Confess fully. Tell us when, where, how. Who sold you the dope, who else you know did it. Do this and you're forgiven. But the sport has to be clean from now on, and if you're caught, or if you don't confess, then you're punished. Preferably heavily.<br />
<br />
Pros: it's a very Christian thing to do.<br />
<br />
Cons: it's going to be hard. Frankly, the doctors and others who enable the doping will stand to lose money, so they'll threaten riders. Riders will stand to be shamed, so they'll threaten their colleagues. But if we don't do this, there's little hope for actual transparency.<br />
<br />
2. Continue refining test methods. Cycling now collects longitudinal blood data, multiple times a year, on all cyclists.<br />
<br />
Pros: It's intrusive but it can help detect doping, and experts contend that it's really made things better.<br />
<br />
Cons: It doesn't eliminate doping completely. People will always be ahead of the tests.<br />
<br />
<b>3. These idiots are just the sideshow. Get off your fat ass - you being the reader. Exercise. Take up a sport. You don't have to be good. Just get moving.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Pros: Sports are supposed to teach discipline and perseverance as well as keeping people entertained. You cannot learn discipline and perseverance from your couch.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Cons: None.</b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-46509582192692950032012-07-26T17:25:00.001-04:002012-07-26T17:25:33.010-04:00A NY Times Op-Ed by a Retired Police Officer on GunsMichael Black wrote <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/opinion/armed-but-not-so-safe.html?ref=opinion">an op-ed</a> for the New York Times that reinforces some of the points I made in my last post.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
<blockquote>
The last shooting incident I was involved in happened at 3 in the morning on Dec. 26, 2010, my last Christmas before I retired. We responded to a report of two men arguing, one threatening to shoot the other. My radio blared, “Shots fired! Man with a gun.” When I reached one man, running in the darkness between two houses, he had already been shot by another officer. When the officer had ordered the man to stop and identify himself, the man had pointed a pistol at him. The officer ducked behind his car door and fired half the bullets in his Glock 21 before finally hitting the offender once in the left buttock. We eventually found the shooter’s silver semiautomatic deep in a snowdrift.<br />
<br />
The suddenness and confusion of that moment points out the folly of the politician’s belief that an armed civilian could have easily taken out James Holmes. Imagine the scene: speakers blasting, larger-than-life heroes and villains on the screen, and suddenly real gunshots, a man in a gas mask firing one of three weapons — a shotgun, handgun and rifle, with extended magazines for extra ammo capacity — into the panicking crowd. Even a highly trained, armed police officer would have been caught off guard. Try adding a bunch of untrained, armed civilians into the mix — this type of intervention could have made things much worse.<span style="background-color: white;"></span></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<br />
"The politician" he refers to in the second paragraph above is Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who made similar points to the firearms instructor I referenced. Black makes the point that even experienced law enforcement or military personnel will probably be caught by surprise in a scenario where someone opens fire. They may respond inappropriately. The officer's response in the first paragraph above was probably appropriate - but it was of a higher level than ultimately necessary, precisely because confrontations tend to be confusing, a point I mentioned earlier but didn't emphasize enough. This gives lie to Black's confidence that he could easily and quickly taken Holmes down. It gives lie to the stance that we can expect armed civilians to quickly and easily dispatch armed criminals with no collateral damage.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Black also speaks of the heavy responsibility that attaches to owning a weapon. "Despite what many people think, it’s not something to be taken lightly," he says. He is to my right on gun control, but he talks favorably of weapon registries and tracking of purchases:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;">Illinois is routinely called the “most repressive state” by gun rights groups. It requires everyone to obtain a firearm owner’s identification card before purchasing firearms and ammunition. This gives the police another tool to work with if an armed crook is caught without a card. It also creates a paper trail for repeated, in-state purchases. Perhaps if some kind of effective tracking safeguard had existed in Colorado, James Holmes’s purchases — all of which were legal — might have been flagged.</span><br />
<br />
The pro- and anti-gun groups need to sit down and let common sense rule. We register automobiles and require proof of driving proficiency before granting driving licenses. Is it so unreasonable to consider a national or state-by-state registry for firearms? While I’m not totally opposed to concealed carry laws, why not require comprehensive background checks, psychological screening and training? And while it might be considered un-American to prevent an ordinary citizen from owning an assault rifle, would it be too much to ask why he needs to have a specially modified 100-round magazine?<span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
<blockquote>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">The only true disagreement I have with what he said is that he implies that both pro- and anti-gun groups have not let common sense rule - when in fact it is mainly the pro-gun groups' fault.</span></blockquote>
</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-65871871676884260472012-07-25T17:42:00.000-04:002012-07-25T21:23:51.039-04:00I could have stopped the Colorado massacre if I had a concealed weapon, BUT...David Weigel, <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/07/20/could_a_brave_citizen_with_a_concealed_weapon_have_prevented_the_aurora_shootings_.html?wpisrc=slate_river">writing for Slate</a>, asks if a brave citizen with a concealed weapon could have stopped the Colorado massacre, where 12 people died and 59 were injured. Wiegel is skeptical. However, he also interviewed a firearms instructor and NRA member, Greg Block, who says that yes, <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/07/20/could_an_armed_person_have_stopped_the_aurora_shooting_a_second_opinion_.html">he could have stopped James Holmes</a>.<br />
<br />
Block says that if he were armed, he could have drawn and returned fire in just over a second. He would have ducked between the chairs for concealment. Holmes was armored, but Block would have gone for a head shot or the pelvic girdle. Of course, Block points out that the theater policy was to forbid concealed weapons - a vulnerability in his view. In his view, people should be armed, so that they can defend themselves.<br />
<br />
It's true that being armed will improve my safety in any single encounter. Like Block, I have some military training. His proposed tactics are sound. But they miss the big picture.<br />
<br />
Let's specify a simple equation: in considering firearms control policy, we want to think about<br />
<br />
<b>Deaths from mass shootings + deaths from individual confrontations + deaths from suicide or accident</b><br />
<br />
<b>Deaths from mass shootings</b>
<br />
In a world where carrying weapons for self-defense is as common as the NRA wants it, there is likely to be more than one friendly responder at the scene of a shooting. In Colorado, it turns out that Holmes had his back to the screen, so no risk of a crossfire. However, consider the Gabrielle Giffords et al shooting, where Jared Loughner fired from within a crowd. A responder could have other civilians in his or her sights when sighting on Loughner. And if there were multiple responders, there would have been an instant crossfire. Other responders might be confused as to who was a friendly and who was the shooter. Very bad.<br />
<br />
It's not just about being able to shoot straight. It's about knowing how to respond under fire - how to identify a target, how to remain calm under incoming fire, how to discriminate between enemy and friendly. The last bit is very hard. Even elite counterterrorism units don't always manage to save all the hostages. Less trained individuals will have even poorer performance in confused situations like a sudden firefight. They might hit friendlies.<br />
<br />
And in this case, Block frankly sounds overconfident. His <a href="http://www.firearmstraining.com/cred.html">resume</a> doesn't appear to indicate he has any actual combat experience. Neither do I. Even if you were an experienced combatant, though, you do not know for sure that you would have stopped Holmes. You'd have a good chance. But it's not a sure thing. Consider, Holmes had a vest. You return fire to his torso, knocking him back. You notice he is not being incapacitated, and you switch to the head, but heads are small. There is gas. People may be running. Holmes has no restrictions on returning your fire. And what if you were in the back of the theater, out of easy range of a pistol? Is the solution that everyone carries AR-15s around?<br />
<br />
Furthermore, in a world where firearms are more common, then leakages from legal channels are more common. It is easier for criminals and people with mental illnesses* to acquire firearms. The number of total mass shootings increases. Even if you assume that friendly mortality per single mass shooting decreases, there are more mass shootings. Total mortality could well increase.<br />
<br />
<b>Deaths from individual confrontations</b>
<br />
In a world where firearms are common, there will be more individual confrontations as well. These could be domestic disputes. These could be bar fights. These incidents would have been settled with fists or knives prior to this. In the NRA's world, it will be a lot more common to have these incidents settled with firearms. And firearms are more lethal than knives or fists.<br />
<br />
If the accusations that George Zimmerman stalked and killed Trayvon Martin out of a sense of vigilantism are correct, then this is one example. But I don't think we need the accusations to be right: "justifiable homicides" are generally up significantly since the advent of the infamous "stand your ground" laws in several states. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/stand-your-ground-laws-coincide-with-jump-in-justifiable-homicide-cases/2012/04/07/gIQAS2v51S_story.html">In a number of cases</a>, the police have been unable to investigate the incidents since one of the witnesses is dead. The living witness - the person who shot first - may well have had reason to fear for his or her life. But the threat may not have been lethal. The incident may have been a mere accident, as in the drunk person who showed up by accident at Gregory Stewart's door and got shot (first paragraph of the last link). Or, frankly, it may have been a homicide but now there's no real way to know. Police are trained in proportionate use of force - your responsibility is to protect the peace, and lethal force is a last resort, and you respond proportionately. By the way, police are not always to good at proportionate use of force. They, too, misidentify threats or use disproportionate force.<br />
<br />
Or, the individual incidents could be bona fide incidents of self-defense. An intruder breaks into your house. He or she has a knife or a gun. In that situation the first thought would be, if I had a firearm, I could defend myself better. And again, that's probably true for each individual incident. But in the NRA's world, it's probably a lot easier for those criminals to get guns. So, more criminals would be armed. And perhaps individual criminals or gangs of them would be more careful about going in armed, since anyone they find is more likely to be armed. You have an arms race. As with the mass shooting scenario, it may make you safer per individual incident, but it probably makes society less safe in aggregate.<br />
<br />
In other words, in the NRA's world, there are likely to be more individual confrontations, and the mortality rate per incident is very likely to increase. Some of these will be entirely justifiable, like self-defense. But some of these will be escalations of a situation that should not have been escalated. And some of these will be entirely unjustifiable.<br />
<br />
<b>Deaths from suicide or accident</b><br />
<a href="http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/more-guns-more-suicides">Many suicidal crises are short-term and self-limiting</a>. Between 30 and 80 percent of suicides are impulsive. Most suicide attempts do not succeed. But in a world with firearms readily available, there will be more successful suicides.<br />
<br />
Firearm accidents will also be more common.<br />
<br />
<b>Conclusion</b><br />
Being armed would improve my chances of survival, and the chances of those around me, in each single encounter with a gunman bent on a mass shooting. But I am not on SEAL Team Six. I am not on a SWAT team. I am not stupid enough to think that I would necessarily stop a shooter within the first few seconds, and if one or more other people started to return fire, things would get bad. And if many people armed themselves, thinking that they would be safer as a result, the effects on society would be completely unacceptable.<br />
<br />
Mass shootings are fortunately not that common. The United States <a href="http://is%20becoming%20safer/">is becoming safer</a>, in terms of violent crimes. We do not generally need to be armed to protect ourselves. The other option is that we don't carry firearms, we rely on the police and we carry non-lethal products like Mace. The alternative to the NRA's world is what they do in Singapore and Japan: it's impossible or nearly so to acquire firearms, so there are very few shooting deaths (and Singapore has the death penalty if you so much as discharge one, outside of police or military duty).<br />
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Or, given that individuals in the U.S. have the Constitutional right to have firearms, we restrict assault weapons, body armor and high capacity magazines. We impose stricter licensing, like we require background checks and regular testing. Fewer citizens will be armed. But so will fewer criminals. The mass shootings will at least be someone with a .22 caliber pistol and an 8-round magazine - .22 caliber pistols are significantly less lethal, and when the shooter is reloading he or she can be jumped by a bystander, or people can run, or something. Shooters will be less likely to have body armor. There will be fewer ancillary deaths. And, by the way, there are the police. We've put centuries of toil into building a civilization that can stand the test of time, one that has a functioning democracy and functioning institutions of public safety. We should trust them. We are not on the frontier.<br />
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Whether individually or societally, guns do not make you safer.<br />
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* Most people with mental illnesses are <b>not dangerous</b>. The issue is what happens when the ones who are dangerous get firearms, especially ones with high capacity magazines.<br />
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PS: A blogger <a href="http://www.grumpypundit.com/index.php/2012/07/22/we-wont-be-fooled-again-oh-hell-yes-we-will/">critiques some responses to the shooting</a>, saying that AR-15s are not as dangerous as hunting rifles in that while they can fire more rapidly, the bullets are individually less powerful. This blogger states that AR-15s are not military weapons. The latter point is true as far as it goes, in that AR-15s are semi-automatic (one trigger pull, one bullet, whereas the M-16, which is basically the AR-15 for the army, can fire fully automatic, albeit the rounds will hit the ceiling as the rifle kicks up with recoil).<br />
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However, contrary to what this guy implies, the AR-15 is demonstrably more dangerous than a hunting weapon. In an infantry engagement, especially one at the ranges we are talking about, what matters is how many bullets you can put on the target in the shortest time. Many hunting rifles are bolt action, where you have to reload the rifle by working the action before firing again. Further, the .22 caliber bullets from the AR-15 tend to tumble inside a human body when they hit. They can be very lethal. A .458 Winchester Magnum round has more muzzle energy as this guy states, but rifles firing that round will fire a LOT more slowly. Such rifles could, I suppose, legitimately be used for hunting (albeit this is a big game round, and a lot of big game is endangered). One could make the case that there is no legitimate need for law-abiding civilians to have AR-15s. They can be used to kill multiple people within a short span. If you are a law-abiding civilian and you expect to be caught in a gang fight, get out of dodge and call the police.<br />
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I mentioned in the last paragraph that a .22 caliber pistol is relatively non-dangerous. One might ask why, if the rounds are the same caliber as the AR-15. The answer is that AR-15s shoot bullets at 975 m/s. That's almost three times the speed of sound. .22 caliber pistols have muzzle velocities under the speed of sound, or about 330m/s.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-36046500995452613472012-05-10T11:22:00.003-04:002012-05-11T10:01:05.579-04:00President Obama was evolving two days ago, and he finished yesterdayPresident Obama hedged his bets on same-sex marriage while campaigning in 2008, saying that he favored civil unions only, but that his views on the subject were still evolving. Not long ago, the famously blunt Vice President Biden said that he was comfortable with same-sex marriage. The President's press secretary dissembled at a press conference, and got figuratively disassembled by the press.<br />
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This put the President in a quandary. Yesterday, he endorsed same sex marriage.<br />
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So, Mr. Obama was evolving two days ago (his press secretary, Jay Carney, reiterated that the President's views were evolving at that conference). By inference, Mr. Obama finished evolving yesterday.<br />
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North Carolina voted on an amendment to ban same sex marriage, which unfortunately passed. The amendment would likely prohibit civil unions and like arrangements, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/north-carolina-gay-marriage-ban-how-does-affect-the-social-and-political-future-of-the-state/2012/05/09/gIQARWNRDU_blog.html">for same-sex and opposite-sex couples</a>, and there is evidence that voters were not aware of that. Now, the President said that he would like to leave the issue up to the states. However, there's another contradiction he needs to address: leaving the issue to the states would have some states taking sweeping steps to ban same-sex marriage so as to "protect" the institution of marriage, while some states would allow it. This is a bit like him saying he's all for interracial marriage himself but it should be left up to the states - and then idiots like North Carolina and Virginia go and ban it.<br />
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So, maybe Mr. Obama's evolution is not complete.<br />
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North Carolina is a Southern state, and in many ways is more conservative than other states (although it is one of the more moderate Southern states). It is perhaps unsurprising that this amendment passed. It is also unfortunate: the Republican legislators who introduced it and the people who voted for it have put themselves on the wrong side of both God and history. By the way, <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/thinkprogress/status/200039734813270016/photo/1">the last time North Carolina amended their Constitution was to ban interracial marriage</a>.<br />
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If you are conservative, consider that the LGBT community, having been excluded from the institution of marriage, has arguably had a higher prevalence of less-monogamous relationships than the heterosexual community. There has been no demonstrated harm to heterosexuals from allowing same-sex marriages. If you think monogamy is good, open the institution of marriage up.<br />
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Your other option: stigmatize LGBT folks in the hopes that they will all go back into the closet and marry people of the opposite sex. The problem with this option: people in the closet will do stupid, destructive things. Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Haggard">Ted Haggard</a> and like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Craig">Hon. Larry Craig</a>. This disrupts marriage. It also drives HIV infection rates - consider that the disproportionately high HIV rate in the African American community is mainly <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/aa/">driven by men who have sex with men</a> - men in the closet. <b>Folks in both the closet and in traditional marriages are the real threat to marriage. To save marriage, we should get them out of the closet.</b><br />
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And if you are conservative, consider that on this issue, the long-term trends are not in your favor.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-16538496850962492042012-03-21T14:48:00.001-04:002012-03-21T16:34:17.565-04:00You cannot serve God and Ayn Rand - and Christians should decry Mr. Ryan's budgetRep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Chair of the House Budget Committee, released a budget yesterday.<br />
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Budgets reflect the publisher's values. I don't specialize in budget analysis, but President Obama's first budget was one of the best I've followed (in overview, at least). It expanded assistance for the poor. It curtailed tax breaks that disproportionately benefited higher-income folks. That budget reflected good values. One could criticize its technical or political practicality. But it reflected good values. It reflected values that Christians can generally agree on.<br />
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Paul Ryan's budget does not reflect good values. I do not typically vet people for how compatible their budgets are with Christian values. But Mr. Ryan's budget does not, in my opinion, reflect values that are compatible with Jesus'.<br />
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<b>The Budget</b><br />
Mr. Ryan's budget would make large and severe cuts to most areas of government. Lay readers may think that there's a lot of waste in government - and they'd be right, just as there is waste in any large organization. But the U.S. government is essentially <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/02/the_us_government_an_insurance.html">a large insurance conglomerate, protected by a large standing army</a>. Its main insurance lines are health (Medicare, Medicaid) and income annuities (Social Security). It has a charitable foundation (Food Stamps, Temporary Aid to Needy Families, Earned Income Tax Credit - these all are subsets of 'other' below). And it runs miscellaneous stuff - unlike an insurance conglomerate, it tries to do things like make sure your houses are up to code (HUD), regulate the environment (EPA), other things like that. Hat tip to <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/02/the_us_government_an_insurance.html">Ezra Klein</a> for the chart below, and for the description.<br />
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<a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/Budget%20graphinsurance.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/Budget%20graphinsurance.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Mr. Ryan's budget makes large and indiscriminate cuts to most government programs. He exempts the military. He lowers taxes on the wealthy. By a lot.<br />
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The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected how much the nation would spend on Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and insurance subsidies for workers under health reform under present law, and under Mr. Ryan's proposal. Medicaid and CHIP insure low-income folks.<br />
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<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/ezra-klein/StandingArt/ryan%20health%20graph.jpg?uuid=orosknKdEeG3R-5kJlrmxg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/ezra-klein/StandingArt/ryan%20health%20graph.jpg?uuid=orosknKdEeG3R-5kJlrmxg" /></a></div>
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Basically, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/paul-ryans-budget-should-the-poor-pay-for-deficit-reduction/2011/08/25/gIQAxawWPS_blog.html">Mr. Ryan's budget says that he would have the poor pay for his tax cuts and to maintain military spending.</a> He would cap the Federal subsidies for Medicaid and CHIP at inflation - but medical costs have grown at 2 percentage points above GDP growth in the past, and GDP typically grows faster than inflation. It's likely that medical cost growth will slow a little in the future, but most likely not below GDP + 1.5 percent without additional government action. Mr. Ryan's actions on Medicare are less troubling than last year's budget. However, his proposal <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3704">would likely weaken</a> the program.
Medicare costs too much, it is true. But that is solely because medical care in the U.S. costs too much. Seniors and the disabled, who are Medicare's beneficiaries, have very high medical utilization. This should not be mistaken for waste, because commercial insurers too must deal with waste, fraud and abuse. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-paul-ryans-budget-actually-cuts--and-by-how-much/2012/03/20/gIQAL43vPS_blog.html">Mr. Ryan's would also harm many other important government programs</a>, like education, social services and infrastructure spending.<br />
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He says that his budget will strengthen the safety net. Mathematically, this doesn't hold - the government would be forced to cut the money going to the safety net. That will weaken it.</div>
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I can specifically critique the aspects of his budget that deal with Medicaid. Mr. Ryan claims that allowing the states to run Medicaid will make it more efficient. In his world, Federal restrictions prevent states from organizing their systems more efficiently. He is completely and totally wrong. Medicaid covers poor women and children, it covers the disabled, and it covers seniors. For the latter two, it pays for long-term care services, which are personal care services like having someone come to help bathe and dress you, or paying for assisted living or a nursing home stay. In all cases, Medicaid covers health care services, unless the beneficiary is already covered by Medicare, in which case Medicaid will merely cover the copays and deductibles. The women and kids are actually fairly cheap to begin with. The seniors and disabled folks are very, very expensive. Even if they're eligible for Medicare, they're expensive to Medicaid because they need long-term care and sometimes mental health services that Medicare doesn't cover.</div>
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Long-term care services in nursing homes cost an average of about $60,000 a year to Medicaid, and probably a quarter of that for home-based care. Assertive Community Treatment, for mental illness, probably costs $9,000 to $12,000. Medical care would average upwards of $10,000 for disabled beneficiaries. All those numbers are per person. The numbers for medical care and institutions go up faster than inflation. In contrast, the average cost of medical care for an average family of four, two working adults and two kids, <a href="http://insight.milliman.com/article.php?cntid=7628&utm_source=milliman&utm_medium=web&utm_content=MMI-mktg&utm_campaign=Healthcare&utm_terms=Milliman+Medical+Index">was about $19,400 in 2011</a>. That's a bit less than $5,000 a person. </div>
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There is no magic bullet that will make the cost of care for Medicaid beneficiaries go down. And yet if you ask Mr. Ryan, if you ask the people at the conservative Heritage Foundation or the National Center for Policy Analysis, or any of the conservative politicians, states and/or the private sector could somehow magically make do with less. A lot less. If you ask these so-called thinkers how exactly they would reform Medicaid, exactly how they would change the delivery and financing systems, they won't tell you because they can't, and they can't tell you because either they are lying or they have no clue about how health care works on the ground.</div>
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Mr. Ryan has cited the deficit as a national threat. In the long run, it certainly is. And yet, one could make the argument that his budget will force the poor to pay to reduce the deficit. </div>
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I say, 'one could make the argument', because it is not clear how much his plan will actually reduce the deficit. Right now, Federal taxes are about 15 percent of our Gross Domestic Product, which is all that our economy produces. Because our population is aging, taxes will have to rise to maintain Medicare, probably to 22 to 23 percent of GDP. Mr. Ryan asked the CBO to assume that his plan would raise taxes to 19 percent of GDP. However, a tax plan with the outlines he proposed <a href="http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2012/03/20/ryans-mystery-meat-budget/">would collect around 16 percent of GDP in taxes.</a> He still has a big hole to fill, then. He'd have to find $700 billion in 2012 revenues to fill the gap, and while he's said he'd close tax loopholes, he's not said which ones. Now, I would argue that we should gradually close the tax preferences for employer sponsored health insurance, for 401(k) retirement plans, and for mortgages. Closing them all tonight would probably do it for his plan. But he does not propose to do so, and closing those preferences immediately would be very disruptive to the economy. Mr. Ryan's budget assumptions, then, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-unrealistic-assumptions-behind-paul-ryans-budget-numbers/2011/08/25/gIQAEZrePS_blog.html">are unrealistic</a>.</div>
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<b>The Values</b></div>
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Mr. Ryan is not an overt Christian. Nonetheless, some conservative Christians who have flocked to him. Like <a href="http://www.torenewamerica.com/exploiting-lent-to-protect-big-government">this guy</a>. And <a href="http://www.cc.org/">these guys</a>.</div>
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Mr. Ryan is a devout disciple of Ayn Rand (pronounced Ann). Rand's seminal work, Atlas Shrugged, exalts selfishness. It exhorts the rich, allegedly the creative class, to take their money and run, and let society suffer. Rand herself scorned the poor as parasites, and she scorned compassion for the poor as weakness.</div>
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Ms. Rand also scorned Christianity and Christians. I actually don't care what Mr. Ryan and Ms. Rand think or thought of Christians. But the fact is that Mr. Ryan's Rand-inspired budget would cause significant harm to the most vulnerable among us. It would even cause significant harm to the middle class, who rely on Medicare to protect them from medical expenses and on Social Security as a significant part of their retirement benefits. I don't like to cast things in Manichean terms, but time and time again, Mr. Ryan has written budgets that would harm the poor, and he has advocated for policies that would harm them. He has advocated for budgets and policies that would direct wealth towards those who are already wealthy.</div>
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Mr. Ryan's budget, which the Republicans in the U.S. Congress have rallied around, is completely inconsistent with Christian values. Christians should oppose his budget unconditionally. Many of the Republicans above consider themselves to be devout Christians. They should be advised: fiscal prudence is a virtue, but so is care for the poor. It's not actually all that certain how fiscally prudent Mr. Ryan's budget is, and it is certain that it will harm the poor. Support Mr. Ryan and Ms. Rand, or call yourself a Christian - but not both.</div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-71797633011730908512012-03-20T11:26:00.003-04:002012-03-20T11:26:33.061-04:00God have mercy on Robert Bales' victims, and on Bales himselfThis post discusses the shootings in Afghanistan that left 16 Afghans dead. I would like to make three points.<div>
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First, the Western media hasn't named the victims. When we pray for them, God surely knows their names, but it's a bit less personal. Now, the Afghan government might not have released their names. But journalists would do well to find out. It's harder for us to muster compassion for an abstract class of people. But, may God have mercy on the victims and on Bales himself.</div>
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Second, America has started to reflect on what may have driven Bales. This is good. But perhaps we should also <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/when-america-reflects-on-why-a-us-soldier-killed-16-afghan-civilians/254312/#.T14yzfk-mb0.twitter">reflect on what drives Afghans, and others, to kill</a> in acts of terrorism. It is wrong to kill civilians deliberately, and Christians and Muslims have established criteria for just wars that al-Queda most emphatically did not meet. But we are occupying Afghan soil. We have killed civilians inadvertently - but that inflicts very real costs on Afghans. People lose their children. People are orphaned. Do we think it matters to them that the deaths were accidental? Would we like heavily armed men and women patrolling our streets, enforcing curfews and searching houses? To empathize with Afghans, and Iraqis, does not mean condoning acts of terrorism. But Christ would demand empathy. It would help us understand why some hate us. It would maybe get us to put more effort into non-military efforts in Afghanistan - not that that's a panacea.</div>
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Third, I do not believe that God can bless any wars. Even wars that are potentially justifiable. People die. People break, and they kill civilians. People are left broken, physically, mentally and spiritually by warfare. The sixteen dead Afghans should be playing in the fields, or caring for their children, or whatever - except that they were massacred. Bales should be able to go home and raise his own children - except that he killed wantonly, and will most likely face the death penalty (or maybe life in prison, and in the military that's probably going to be even harsher than in the civilian world). Bales still committed murder, responsibility falls on him personally, and he must pay for it. But political leaders who send their troops lightly into combat also bear responsibility. </div>
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Too many politicians in the US make loose talk of war. They act as if belligerence is their core doctrine. They act as if God has given this country the right to do so, and they act as if God is sanctioning war. I don't mean to turn this into a partisan screed, but I think one can objectively say that a lot of those politicians in the US are Republicans, and that they are wrong.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-14240556790787082332011-10-20T15:28:00.000-04:002011-10-20T15:59:30.590-04:00Moammar Gaddafi is also deadGod have mercy on him, as well.<br />
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While I am not a peace Christian, I only support the use of military force as a last resort. Gaddafi's case would appear to be a last resort. However, military victory is absolutely worthless - or it can have a negative value! - without winning the peace.<br />
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So, prayers to the Libyan people for rebuilding their country, and for citizens of other Arab nations who seek democracy. They must win the peace, and we must help them where we can and where we are asked to.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-5168527725299622802011-10-04T10:43:00.002-04:002011-10-04T20:55:08.336-04:00As a follow up to the comparative analysis of criminal justice systems, I wanted to reiterate to Americans who criticized the Italian system's flaws that the U.S. has its share of crazy prosecutors.<br />
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For example, Cristian, a 12 year old boy got into an altercation with his 2 year old brother, David. David sustained a head injury - his mother's delay in seeking treatment compounded the injury and he died. Cristian is being <b>charged as an adult with first degree murder</b>. Cristian appears to have lived in an abusive household, and it's quite possible that he's abused his brother (although there's no discussion of that in the papers, and there's a gag order on the case). However, first degree murder requires intent and premeditation. It's hard to see how this could reasonably be true, and it's hard to see how this will benefit a child who could be rehabilitated.<br />
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Not to mention that this kid is a kid. At 12, he's 6 years short of the generally accepted definition of an adult.<br />
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There's a petition to the District Attorney below:<br />
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<a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/reverse-decision-to-try-12-yo-cristian-fernandez-as-an-adult?utm_medium=email&utm_source=action_alert&utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&alert_id=EUajlIhDIm_aBaBeJpZFK">http://www.change.org/petitions/reverse-decision-to-try-12-yo-cristian-fernandez-as-an-adult?utm_medium=email&utm_source=action_alert&utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&alert_id=EUajlIhDIm_aBaBeJpZFK</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-14563550713106896462011-10-03T14:44:00.000-04:002011-10-03T22:31:22.811-04:00A Comparative Analysis of Criminal Justice Systems: Italy Versus the United StatesRecently, the U.S. state of Georgia <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/the-death-of-troy-davis/245446/">executed Troy Davis</a>. While Davis had been initially convicted of murder of a police officer, the majority of the eyewitnesses who implicated him recanted their testimonies, indicating that they had been coerced by police officers. Davis managed to secure an unusual re-hearing of his case. However, in the U.S., appeals (i.e. anything after the first trial) generally center on narrow, procedural grounds. At his re-hearing, Davis' lawyers had to prove that no reasonable juror would convict him, which was a nearly impossible bar to clear - in contrast, at a criminal trial, the prosecution is supposed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt to all the members of the jury. It is very difficult to challenge evidence at appeals trials in the U.S.<br />
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Several years ago, Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito were convicted in Italy of murder and sentenced to 26 years in prison. Since then, though, experts have argued that the investigation and the prosecution were flawed. In particular, forensic expert witnesses for the defense refuted the DNA evidence that Knox's DNA was on the murder weapon and that Sollecito's DNA was on the murder victim's clothing. It appears that the appeals trial did consider this new evidence - in contrast, Cameron Todd Willingham, who was most likely convicted of murder on the grounds of evidence of arson that was later disproven by experts, could not challenge the evidence at trial and had to resort to a direct appeal to the governor of Texas, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann">who set up a commission</a> (Gov. Perry later <a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/rick-perry-death-penalty-documentary">appears to have sabotaged this commission</a> when they seemed to be leaning in favor of recommending a pardon. This commission was outside the regular judicial system, so they could not have overturned his conviction, whereas the Italian appeals court could, indeed, overturn Knox's and Sollecito's convictions.<br />
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Some U.S. commenters have cast aspersions on the Italian justice system. However, I would urge U.S. analysts of legal systems to note an interesting structural difference between Italy's system and the American one: flawed evidence can be more easily challenged in the former on appeal. Given the number of acquittals of people on death row from DNA evidence, the U.S. should look into that.
For the record, I am not absolutely against the death penalty in all circumstances - but I am absolutely against imprisoning or executing people who are not guilty as charged. The first line of defense does need to be ensuring that nobody is wrongfully imprisoned to begin with, but the above still holds. The Italian prosecutors said that Knox was lucky she was tried in Italy, as she would be given the death penalty in the U.S. - what's actually true is that had she been convicted in the U.S. on faulty evidence, she would most likely be screwed and be unable to reverse it on appeal.<br />
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PS - on the other hand, it also appears that the Italian appeals courts can increase a lower court's sentences, and that the prosecutors have requested that they sentence both Sollecito and Knox to life.<br />
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PPS - it appears that the appeals court exonerated both Sollecito and Knox. Our prayers should be with Meredith Kerchner, the murder victim, and her family.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-43318052436405354862011-09-05T15:20:00.001-04:002011-09-05T15:20:51.527-04:00Progressives Should Get to Know Monetary PolicyIn sociology, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_theory">conflict theory</a> is an analysis that emphasizes the economic, social or political inequality of a particular social group. When some conservatives in the U.S. claim that there's a class war on the rich, they are applying conflict theory - albeit the inverse of their conclusions is correct.
There's a conflict theory analysis to be made of inflation fears and Gov. Rick Perry's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/16/rick-perry-ben-bernanke-treasonous">attack on the Federal Reserve</a>. To be brief, one major thing the Federal Reserve, or the Fed, controls the money supply - basically, how much money is available to the entire U.S. economy. It does that by trying to set a certain interest rate on short term loans to banks - lower interest rates generally mean more money. General interest rates of various terms will track the short term rates to some extent (with longer loans almost always having higher interest rates than short term ones). This is a gross and inaccurate oversimplification, but you can think of it as the Fed setting a target interest rate. If you're interested in what the Fed actually does regarding the Fed funds rate, read <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank">this article</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_funds_rate">this one</a>. I'll argue that the Fed should be going for higher inflation, which could help stimulate the economy - but that higher income individuals are more hurt by inflation than unemployment (whereas the poor are hurt worse by unemployment than inflation). That's the class conflict that's behind the crank monetary policy ideas that some on the American Right espouse. Note, though, that macroeconomics and monetary policy isn't my primary expertise, so I may be off on some descriptions - but I think the general thrust is consistent with what some progressive economists would believe.
The Fed, and most central banks, has two goals: to control inflation and to minimize unemployment. When the economy enters a recession, the Fed reduces interest rates - this makes it easier for businesses and consumers to borrow money. Not that anyone should be doing so with wild abandon, but this makes businesses and consumers more likely to spend. When the economy heats up, the Fed increases interest rates, gradually. If inflation is too high, the Fed will also raise rates. Keynesian economists argue that a certain amount of inflation is consistent with an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation#Keynesian_view">increasing level of aggregate demand</a> - the more people who are employed and the more that they are paid and spend, the greater the demand for stuff, which causes inflation. If lots of people are unemployed, it's probably going to be difficult to have <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/04/28/200769/its-hard-to-have-inflation-when-so-few-people-have-jobs/">high inflation</a> unless there's a different cause, like war in the Middle East causing oil prices to spike.
On that last bit, there's an argument that higher inflation would reduce unemployment. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/aim-for-higher-inflation/241733/">Matthew Yglesias</a> sums it up:
<blockquote>Higher inflation expectations would have a number of benefits. For starters, they would <b>reduce real interest rates</b>, mitigating the problem of the zero lower bound on nominal rates. They would also <b>increase the cost of hoarding cash</b>. This would encourage wealthy individuals and cash-rich firms to purchase real goods and services, or else invest in productive assets. Last, since <b>mortgage debt is denominated in nominal terms</b>, a faster rate of inflation would speed the deleveraging process and let households repair their balance sheet. </blockquote>
Here's an explanation of the bolded words, which are my emphasis -
"Reduce real interest rates": Right now, interest rates on all sorts of debt are pretty low. As I said, they tend to track the rates the Fed sets in the Federal funds rate. Generally, you want to reduce rates to stimulate economic activity. However, the Fed funds rate, which is the only one the Fed directly controls, is just about zero - the "zero lower bound." The Fed can't reduce interest rates <b>directly</b>, but if they were to target higher inflation, it would have the same effect - if you're earning 5% in a savings account and inflation is 1%, you're doing pretty well, but if you're earning 5% and inflation is 4%, you're barely breaking even. Same thing if you're the debtor, rather than the saver.
"Increase the cost of hoarding cash": Higher-income individuals save more than lower-income individuals. If the rich folks were to spend more, that would help the economy (all else equal), because businesses would hire more workers to meet the additional demand. It might not be immediately obvious, but if inflation is higher, you might as well spend, because your money will be worth less next year. That influences decisions at the margin.
"Mortgage debt is denominated in nominal terms": One of our big problems right now is that lots of people have high amounts of mortgage debt, thanks to the housing bubble (i.e. thanks to the idiots on Wall Street). As I alluded to earlier, higher inflation erodes the value of debt. And it turns out it's a stealth way of reducing the burden of mortgage debt.
Now, the Fed doesn't have any direct levers to cause higher inflation. To some extent, though, them just saying that they're targeting higher inflation may well work, as businesses and individuals anticipate higher inflation. They can also just go out and buy however much bonds or other financial assets they want to, a policy known as quantitative easing. The Fed won't actually be spending any taxpayer dollars - it will just be using its administrative authority to buy stuff, usually from banks. When it does this, it injects more money into the system. There are probably some less conventional policies they could do which I'm not familiar with, but that this Wikipedia article <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy#Unconventional_monetary_policy_at_the_zero_bound">tries to describe</a>.
As I alluded to in the intro, the interests of the rich diverge from the rest of the country. Higher income Americans usually have a lot more financial assets, like stocks, bonds, money in the bank. They will just about always be less likely to be unemployed that the average American, and especially than the poor. However, most low- and moderate-income Americans have little in the way of financial assets. They're barely making ends meet - why do you think there's a payday loan industry? They're also more likely to be unemployed - much more likely, if they have less than a high school education or GED. <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,840440,00.html">In other words, the rich are more hurt by inflation than by unemployment. The poor are likely to be hurt more by unemployment than by some inflation.</a>
To be clear, I'm <b>not arguing for hyperinflation</b>. I'm saying, though, that we should be willing to accept higher but manageable levels of inflation, if they stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, the monetary cranks have the better of the monetary policy debate right now. They're accusing the Fed of "<a href="http://mises.org/daily/3050">debasing the currency</a>." They're arguing, as Gov. Perry did, that the Fed is rampantly printing money, as if that will cause government profligacy. They say that the Fed is <a href="http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20110306/REG/303069987">hurting retirees on fixed incomes</a>.
The thing is, though, that we're not experiencing inflation. Having the dollar 'weaken' with respect to other currencies will increase our exports - if we have a 'strong' dollar, then it's harder for other countries to buy our stuff, and if they can't, then that's detrimental to the recovery. Inflation is not that high right now. And Social Security, which is a significant source of retirement income for most Americans, is inflation protected. In other words, there's significant reason to believe that the cranks are wrong: inflation isn't very high right now, and if we could probably withstand some inflation (in the 4% range), if it boosted the economy.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-62703123693474101482011-08-23T19:09:00.002-04:002011-08-24T12:40:43.433-04:00Sometimes, Life is UnfairAn acquaintance of mine is a musician, a cello player. He and his fiance, a violinist, were recently in an automobile accident and sustained severe head injuries. Severe enough that their rehabilitation involves their therapists teaching them how to eat and speak. Normally, speech therapists help you overcome speech and memory errors - if they actually have to teach you to speak because you can't, that's a bad sign.
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<br />It's more likely than not that they will never be able to resume their careers as musicians and that they will require long-term care for the rest of their lives, at significant expense to the state (or perhaps their families, but their folks aren't exactly loaded), and that their families will experience a significant burden in caring for them.
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<br />Not that this should happen to anyone, but why wasn't it the person who hit them who experienced this severe a head injury? Or why couldn't that driver have been paying more attention, or be going a few miles an hour more slowly?
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<br />Some Christians say that everything that happens is part of God's plan, and the parents of one of these folks asked, is this really God's plan for my kid? This seems so unfair.
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<br />My response is that yes, it is unfair. Personally, I don't believe that God plans for bad things to happen to people. But Christians of both strains of thought would say, I think, that God is with us always, and that God is especially with those who are suffering. God is taking special care of my friends and their families - even if it isn't obvious.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-7370922531945670642011-08-04T19:26:00.003-04:002011-08-05T07:36:44.609-04:00An Open Letter to President ObamaDear Mr. President,<br /><br />I'm concerned with the direction the country is going, and I'd like to give you some feedback on how I see you have handled things.<br /><br />First, I'm a progressive. I strongly support many of your administration's policies. A number of my fellow progressives have complained that we weren't able to pass single-payer legislation or to put a public option (non-US readers - this means the government would compete against private insurers across the entire market) in health reform, or to fully rein in the big banks with financial reform. I share their concerns, but we passed what we could, and it was a good first step.<br /><br />However, you and your team seem to have gone out of your way to insult the left. You say all we do is complain. You spend more time insulting the left than confronting the right. I think I have you figured out, Mr. President - you're a moderate to liberal, 1980s or 1990s era, Republican. That's fine - congratulations on health reform, financial reform, getting bin Laden, and all the rest. I'd rather a Democrat do it, but whatever. We passed <br /><br />Second, Mr. President, your party (the Republican Party, that is), is quite different from Republicans of your era. They moved well to the right, starting in or about the late 1990s. At present, your fellow Republicans in Congress are far more conservative than the average American. My impression is that they have these priorities: 1) making you a one-term president, 2) eliminating most spending on government supports for the poor, 3) keeping tax rates for the wealthy low, and 4) spending more on defense. In fact, the Ryan budget would essentially eliminate Medicare, and it would probably leave inadequate support for the middle class as well. So, your party isn't particularly concerned about the middle class, either.<br /><br />Third, Mr. President, your conduct during the debt ceiling negotiations worries me. When you were negotiating with your (Republican) colleagues during the government shutdown, you should have made them raise the debt ceiling as well. You failed to. You also made a whole bunch of policy concessions to them. Such as volunteering to raise the Medicare retirement age to 67. Mr. President, if we're raising the Medicare age to 67, we'd better be getting a LOT of increased taxes (weighted to the rich). Others have commented that it won't save as much money as you'd think, that it would raise overall healthcare costs, and that it could raise prices in the insurance exchanges, but consult your policy advisors on that. Anyway, you negotiate very weakly. You act as if your (Republican) colleagues. They're not. You've given them so much that they think you'll roll over and play dead.<br /><br />Fourth, you haven't defended your administration's achievements or its nominees. You haven't sold the public on health reform. You refused to defend Elizabeth Warren, who would have headed the financial reform folks, against unreasonable attacks. You didn't defend Milton Diamond, who <b>won a Nobel prize in economics</b> against unreasonable attacks from Richard Shelby that he was unqualified. Your (Republican) colleagues are working at every step to undermine you. Your silence is only encouraging your fellow Republicans, who aren't anything like you.<br /><br />Fifth, you've lost your way. I know you're a moderate Republican. However, you need principles. You need to communicate those principles to the American people and you need to defend them fiercely. Your team seems obsessed with capturing independents. So, you've tried to be reasonable. Well, this isn't working so well. America needs leadership.<br /><br />Last, you're going soft on your fellow Republicans. This strikes me as odd. The thing is, the Republicans have really learned to be ruthless. If you don't want to replay the debt ceiling fight the moment you get re-elected (assuming that you do), you need to learn to do the same. I thought your political team was a bunch of thugs from Chicago - either they've gone soft (and you should fire them), or you should listen to them more.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-45627188975024018402011-05-06T09:39:00.005-04:002011-05-06T13:48:14.696-04:00For Christians, the only acceptable reaction to Osama Bin Laden's death is, "Lord have mercy"Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister and possible Republican candidate for President, recently made a statement about Osama Bin Laden's death by saying, "<a href="http://www.huckpac.com/?Fuseaction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=3457">Welcome to hell, Bin Laden</a>."<br /><br />I do not presume to speak for God. However, based on my reading of the Gospels and my understanding of God, I would instead argue that the <span style="font-weight:bold;">only</span> acceptable response for Christians is, "Lord have mercy."<br /><br />Yes, may God have mercy on Osama Bin Laden. He went astray of God's will. He went against the teachings of his religion. He could have turned. He could have repudiated violence. He could have worked for peace, not for war.<br /><br />And God have mercy on us! We are so quick to war, so quick to celebrate death. I think God must be happy that al-Queda has sustained a severe blow, and we have every right to be happy about that as well. But God loves all of His children, including Osama bin Laden.<br /><br />Meanwhile, there is much work to be done. Al Queda must be destroyed. But <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/how-the-us-can-finish-off-al-qaeda/238312/">Robert Pape and Jenna Jordan argue</a> that we might want to withdraw most of our military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, while using intelligence and small scale covert operations against al Queda - because our military presence helps fuel support for al Queda. In addition, we must continue to make fundamental changes in our foreign policy towards countries that are predominantly Muslim. We must support the Arab Spring - a repudiation, by the way, of al Queda's theology of armed insurrection.<br /><br />And, as an aside, the guy who got Abu Musab Al Zarqawi without torture says that contrary to the apologists, <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/4/former_military_interrogator_matthew_alexander_despite">torture most likely impeded bin Laden's capture</a>.<br /><br />As Martin Luther King said, you cannot kill hate. War can, if used correctly, contain hate. But ultimately, peace is what kills hate, and we must work doubly hard to win the peace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-4868969386887835472010-11-29T09:18:00.003-05:002010-11-29T10:03:06.523-05:00Musing on Political CentrismKathleen Parker, <a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/26/AR2010112603573.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns&wpisrc=xs_0005'>writing in the Washington Post</a>, wonders if a centrist political movement could succeed in the U.S. As a progressive, I would welcome the chance to work with centrists to get the country back on track with sensible public policies.<br /><br />That having been said, I want to work first and foremost to create <b>sensible</b> public policies. Parker claims that many moderate Democrats were "purged" in state and local elections. That may well be. But let's consider the cases of Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Joe Lieberman. Both are moderate Democrats in the Senate. During the health reform debate, both eventually voted with the Democrats. However, Sen. Lincoln opposed the public option, despite earlier appearing to endorse it on her website. Sen Lieberman opposed the public option as well. When Sen. Reid, the majority leader, proposed replacing that with a Medicare buy in for people aged 55 and older, Lieberman essentially threw a fit and demanded that the Medicare buy in be removed. When campaigning as a Vice Presidential candidate with Al Gore in 2004, Lieberman endorsed a Medicare buy in.<br /><br />Both a public insurance plan and a Medicare buy in could have reduced national health expenditures significantly and the deficit, assuming they were designed properly. Most of the long run deficit is driven by health care costs covered by the Federal government. These options would reduce compensation to doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. Insurance companies would have to adapt, and they would see very significant competition with a public plan. But there's no intrinsic reason why providers, insurers, and healthcare companies couldn't adapt. <br /><br />The public plan and Medicare buy in were arguably <b>sensible</b> public policies, or at least they had sensible goals, Lieberman and Lincoln opposed them. That opposition appeared to be protecting business interests over the public interest. And for what? They never articulated a clear reason behind their opposition. The logical conclusion is that their opposition was solely for political reasons. They could have said, a public plan's lower payment rates could lead to problems with people being able to see doctors. Lower payment rates could constrain medical innovation. They could have counter proposed: let's raise the excise tax on high cost health insurance plans instead. If you do that, you'll get my vote. That would arguably have been good public policy as well. But they chose to vote based on politics, not good policy.<br /><br />Lincoln was defeated in Arkansas' Senate race. Lieberman is not up for re election, but I understand that he will probably have difficulty winning re election in Connecticut in 2012. Perhaps they will complain that they were "purged". But these two may have deserved it.<br /><br />I have disagreements with the policies endorsed by some on the left, and in particular I disagree with those on the left who are intrinsically suspicious of business. However, most of the left's excesses are aimed at protecting vulnerable populations. Most of the right's excesses are clearly aimed at promoting the interests of the powerful, often at odds with the interests of the general public. It is clear to me which set of excess is the most pernicious.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-80612356837114694032010-08-11T22:43:00.004-04:002010-08-12T07:42:36.080-04:00Thoughts on the 14th AmendmentLast time I blogged, it was only the madmen who were talking about modifying the 14th Amendment. Now, Sen. Lindsey Graham has said he'd like to visit it. Sen. Graham is one of the most moderate and reasonable Republicans left in Congress.<br /><br />In this case, those who would like to repeal or change <i>jus soli</i> have no leverage. A Constitutional amendment would have to be passed by a two thirds (I think) vote in both the House and the Senate and then be ratified by three quarters of all the states. This is an impossibly high bar to clear. We can assume that the U.S. Constitution will not change barring social collapse.<br /><br />In any case, I would be willing to revisit the <i>jus soli</i> doctrine somewhat. Not long ago, the <a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/17/AR2010071701402.html'>Washington Post</a> reported on the practice of birth tourism, where foreign couples come here to have their babies born and automatically acquire citizenship. Many of them will go back to their countries of origin - China was the featured country in the article. However, their children will be able to have the privileges of citizenship, such as subsidized college tuition, without having contributed to the country. <br /><br />That doesn't seem right. A foreign couple comes here to give birth and their child is a citizen. The child returns 18 years later for school and is eligible for in-state tuition and federal support, but their parents haven't resided here and paid taxes. In contrast, a child who is undocumented and whose parents have lived here and paid their taxes (which is a more common scenario than many think) would not be eligible for such consideration. It would be more fair if we had a guest worker program that would enable the second family to earn their citizenship if they'd resided here for long enough, but we put the first family at the back of the line. Almost all the other OECD countries have revised their citizenship laws.<br /><br />As I posted earlier, for progressives to even consider changing the 14th Amendment, we would need a guarantee that non-citizens who are able and willing to live and work here had a fair process by which they could become permanent residents and then citizens. We would need for children to be unconditionally eligible for public supports.<br /><br />If conservatives were willing to trade modifications to the 14th for immigration reform otherwise, I think many progressives would listen. I'd encourage interested and reasonable conservatives to come forward.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-64121913265643328102010-05-03T09:57:00.003-04:002010-05-03T10:01:50.450-04:00NY Times: Attacks on Asians Highlight New Racial TensionsAn <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/us/02sfcrime.html">article by Gerry Shih</a> discusses racial tensions between African Americans and Asian Americans in San Francisco. Prejudices on both sides must be combated:<br /><br /><blockquote>George Gascón, the San Francisco police chief, announced last week the emergency deployment of 32 additional beat officers to the Bayview-Visitación Valley neighborhood. Although “crime numbers have not gone up,” Chief Gascón said in an interview, he wanted to address the “tremendous amount of fear and apprehension” among Asians.<br /><br />It is these historically black neighborhoods in southeast San Francisco that have undergone the sharpest demographic changes in the city in the past 20 years. Decades after Koreans transformed the Fillmore district from what it once was — the “Harlem of the West,” its blocks lined by the swaggering, smoky haunts of jazz lore — Chinese started moving to the Bayview in large numbers.<br /><br />Community leaders predict that the 2010 census will show the Asian population, almost all Chinese, now making up 40 percent of the Bayview’s residents and as many as 60 percent of Visitación Valley’s.<br /><br />“At one point, one group may emerge because they’ve got greater population and another group feels pushed out — feels like they don’t have any voice anymore,” said the Rev. A. Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial Church. “It involves a kind of power shift. That, of course, creates some of the tension.”<br /><br />The rapidly deteriorating climate has alarmed local leaders. The president of the Board of Supervisors, David Chiu, noted that on Wednesday, hundreds of Chinese lined up at a board meeting to tell stories of assaults and intimidation, sometimes without clear motivation, by young African-Americans.<br /><br />Two days later, a young black man, Amanze Emenike, 21, said he was 12 when he heard older boys talking about why they singled out Asian and Latino immigrants: they would not report the crime and had no gangs to back them up. On Friday morning, on a Hunters Point hilltop with a breathtaking view of the Bay, Mr. Emenike and his sister, Sherry Blunt, 22, recounted their “spree” of crime against Asian and Latino immigrants several years ago.<br /><br />By the time he was 15, Mr. Emenike said, he and his brother, Armani Bolmer, would get up at 5 a.m. to rob Mexican day laborers who got off the 23 Monterey bus from the Mission district.<br /><br />They began to single out Chinese, he said, because they had more money. In 2006, they stalked a Chinese man at the last Muni stop, robbed him, and were arrested hours later.<br /><br />...<br /><br />But at these Chinese rallies and vigils, beneath the megaphone-amplified din of positive rhetoric, there are worrying murmurs about revenge, said Henry Der, who was the executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, an influential Chinatown organization, for more than two decades.<br /><br />“I’m getting e-mails saying, ‘We need to retaliate, it’s time we pick up arms,’ ”Mr. Der said. “And these are from grown, supposedly responsible adults.”<br /><br />At such a fraught time, leaders like Ms. Tan say they must tread a narrow path between irresponsibly amplifying racial tensions and dishonestly ignoring them.<br /><br />Part of the frustration, some say, is fueled precisely by the reluctance — both among Chinese and among San Franciscans generally — to discuss such issues.<br /><br />“Because San Francisco sees itself as very progressive, people just don’t want to talk about these issues,” Mr. Der said. “But that’s how people feel about it. You can’t argue it away.”<br /><br />...<br /><br />Mr. Emenike and his sister, Ms. Blunt, said the teenagers involved in the recent attacks were following in his footsteps, as he had followed older boys.<br /><br />“It’s not ‘this is an Asian person let’s get him,’ ” Mr. Emenike said. “It’s we thinking, ‘this Asian person is probably carrying a large amount of money. And this is our neighborhood, this is our home, why not?’ ”<br /><br />But if the motivations were largely strategic, and not out of unadulterated racial hatred, they were also influenced by complex emotions and a wariness of change.<br /><br />“I wake up and I’m hungry, my stomach growling,” Ms. Blunt said. “Why am I just getting by when there’s this Asian walking out of the house with a laptop going to the cafe?”<br /><br />There is also the frustration at perceived prejudice by Asians. Ms. Blunt still recalls a Chinese classmate in junior high ignoring her requests to borrow a pencil.<br /><br />“You approach them, and they just keep giving you the cold shoulder,” Ms. Blunt said.</blockquote><br /><br />Emenike and Blunt are both to be commended for their candor. At the same time, it is counterproductive for both sides to downplay the role that historical racial tensions have played. In any case, Emenike's essay <a href="http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=309bdba278fb51300087612ae8f931c2">can be found here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-76604948074532677112010-05-02T08:57:00.003-04:002010-05-02T09:43:34.498-04:00Social insurance is not outdatedI was told by a friend that Rep. Paul Ryan, a rising star in the Republican party and a fiscal hardliner, remarked that social insurance systems, such as Medicare and Social Security, were outdated. Indeed, Mr. Ryan has offered privatized alternatives: replacing Medicare with a voucher system and allowing Social Security beneficiaries to invest up to 1/3 of their account values in IRA-like investment accounts with a government guarantee of minimum value.<br /><br />The CBO responded that Mr. Ryan's Medicare vouchers would not keep up with the costs of medical price inflation. After several decades, the vouchers would cover only a fraction of the cost of insurance. As to his Social Security reform, the CBO said it would actually be more expensive than the present arrangement.<br /><br />Social insurance is not outdated. The alternative, private savings, has already been tried and it failed. Before the New Deal, many elders were in poverty. Before Medicare, access to health insurance ceased for most retirees. Social Security and Medicare substantially eased those problems. Both programs could stand to be improved. Medical costs need to be controlled. Social Security's funding shortfall is a secondary but fixable problem. Taxes will have to be raised and benefits might be cut modestly. Additionally, given the expected decline in the number of workers relative to retirees, it is worth considering investing some of the trust funds in a pension fund arrangement, much as the Canada Pension Plan now does.<br /><br />Medical and long-term care costs vary a great deal from person to person. If we relied on savings, many people would be bankrupted and a minority would over-save. In addition, socioeconomic disparities in impoverishment and access to care would be reminiscent of countries in the Global South. If we relied solely on savings for retirement security, the same thing would happen - instead, Social Security makes benefits for lower-income people more generous per dollar of tax they pay than for higher-income beneficiaries (i.e. richer folks cross-subsidize poorer folks). In addition, Social Security allows us to pool mortality risk over the entire country, meaning that we can guarantee everybody a stream of income that lasts until they die, plus survivor benefits for spouses and dependent children, plus disability insurance. <br /><br />Ryan's reliance on a savings system would do none of that. It is his proposal that is foolish and obsolete, not social insurance.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-63841210790714689752010-04-15T20:02:00.003-04:002010-04-15T20:05:39.499-04:00Slate: Martha Nussbaum's From Disgust to Humanity<a href='http://www.slate.com/id/2246892/pagenum/all/#p2'>Dahlia Lithwick writes on Slate</a> about an intriguing argument made by Martha Nussbaum, a prominent law and philosophy professor at the University of Chicago:<br /><br /><blockquote>[She] explains that much of the political rhetoric around denying equal rights to gay Americans is rooted in the language of disgust. Their activities are depicted as "vile and revolting," threatening to "contaminate and defile" the rest of us. Looked at starkly, she argues, much of the anti-gay argument is bound up in feces and saliva, germs, contagion and blood.<br /><br />The philosophical question for Nussbaum is whether disgust of this sort is a "reliable guide to lawmaking." She cites Leon Kass, head of the President's Council on Bioethics in the George W. Bush administration, who has argued that it is; that visceral public disgust contains a "wisdom" that lies beneath rational argument. Then she proceeds to annihilate that argument by offering example after example of discarded disgust-based policies, from India's denigration of its "untouchables" to the Nazi view of Jews, to a legally sanctioned regime of separate swimming pools and water fountains in the Jim Crow South. Time and again, Nussbaum argues, societies have been able to move beyond their own politics of disgust to what she calls "the politics of humanity," once they have finally managed to see others as fully human, with human aspirations and desires.<br /><br />...<br /><br />Perhaps the most radical aspect of Nussbaum's work, however, is her prescription for moving past the politics of disgust to the politics of humanity. This will be a familiar call to anyone who listened to President Obama last spring, as he described the qualities he seeks in a jurist. Nussbaum calls for "imagination" and "empathy," for respect and the willingness to listen to new narratives. In effect, this is a moral call to walk in the other guy's moccasins before we call him revolting. She observes that this "capacity for generous and flexible engagement with the sufferings and hopes of other people" was described by Adam Smith (of all people) back in the 18th century, even though it is derided as unmoored, mushy-headed, and even dangerous today. In Nussbaum's formulation, imagination and empathy are essential to overcoming the childish biases that allow us to use our legal machinery to turn others into subhumans.</blockquote><br /><br />I'd highly recommend reading the entire article.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-52657734340658351202010-04-14T17:08:00.003-04:002010-04-14T17:18:11.683-04:0010% of U.S. Households owe no net Federal taxes - NOT 47%Conservatives have been going crazy over the fact that 47% of U.S. households owe no net Federal income tax. That statistic is correct. However, it is more like only 10% of U.S. households who owe no net Federal income and payroll taxes. The payroll taxes are flat taxes that fund Medicare and Social Security; in that sense, they are regressive in isolation (although as a whole the tax system is progressive, and could stand to be more progressive).<br /><br />David Leonhardt <a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html'>debunks the 47% myth here in an editorial in the New York Times</a>. This reckoning is before most state and local taxes. Conservatives think, and I agree, that everyone should pay taxes, even if it is just a nominal amount. It's a practice of citizenship, just like voting. However, The fact is that the vast majority of people do, in fact, owe net taxes. The U.S. has chosen to administer some tax credits through the tax system, like the Earned Income Tax Credit and, in the last year, the Making Work Pay tax credit as an economic stimulus measure.<br /><br />Leonhardt's article is highly recommended, but I won't post it. I'll say instead that my wife and I had an adjusted gross income of $23,851 this year - only about 160% of the poverty level. We paid a total of $199 in Federal income taxes, net of the MWP credit. We aren't eligible for the EITC because we don't have children - the EITC limits are much lower than our income. We also paid a total of (I believe) $2,640 in Social Security and Medicare taxes. That figure works out to a tax rate of 12%. We are struggling to get by, but we are contributing towards our communities, and we expect our contribution to rise with our income in the years ahead. I have no beef if people making less than we do owe no net Federal taxes - most of them have children to feed. We ought not to tax people in poverty.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-26127371091244137422010-04-14T15:22:00.002-04:002010-04-14T15:25:50.322-04:00Newsweek: Ricky Martin, Coming Out and the Health of NationsJulia Baird, <a href='http://www.newsweek.com/id/235702&ei=LAO0S8aRBsT38AaH_JzQCg&sa=X&oi=news_article&resnum=2&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CDsQqQIoAzAB&usg=AFQjCNHx1er4GfrhAZywjJHnPkExfqDhGQ'>writing for Newsweek</a>, uses the World Values Survey to argue that richer nations which have moved towards "self-expressive" or "emancipative" values tend to be both happier and more accepting of homosexuality than nations which are still oriented towards "survival" values. Of course, it isn't only wealth that produces self-expressive or emancipative values. And there are certainly a lot of folks in the OECD countries who are oriented towards survival values who would not value Martin's ability to come out.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-71471816492390327252010-04-14T15:19:00.002-04:002010-04-14T15:21:56.189-04:00WSJ: An article on a community loan activist and the Community Reinvestment ActA <a href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303720604575170723843633554.html?mod=WSJ_hps_RIGHTTopCarousel'>Wall Street Journal article</a> details the struggles of Matthew Lee, who is still fighting for the Community Reinvestment Act and to make banks stop predatory lending. Despite what some conservatives say, loans made under the CRA did not default at higher rates than normal. However, predatory, high-interest loans made outside the CRA in low-income or under-banked communities did.<br /><br /><br />One of the last times I saw Matthew Lee was in April 2004. Mr. Lee had taken his fight to bring credit to the underserved to a special meeting of the Federal Reserve that was considering J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s acquisition of Bank One Corp.<br /><br />A modest and somewhat rumpled attorney, Mr. Lee chastised the $60 billion deal, arguing that J.P. Morgan had failed to provide enough credit to urban areas. He argued that the bank and its mega bank rivals financed predatory check-cashing stores across the country.<br /><br />Mr. Lee won, sort of. J.P. Morgan pledged $800 billion in new credit over 10 years and promised to review its support of predatory lenders. The merger was approved.<br /><br />After the meeting, Rev. Jesse Jackson called Mr. Lee, 44 years old, a prime mover in the modern civil-rights movement: the fight for access to capital. "He's an enemy of predatory exploitation," Rev. Jackson said.<br /><br />It's six years later, and to say a lot has changed is like saying the housing market has hit a hiccup. The Community Reinvestment Act, the banking law Mr. Lee sought to enforce and build on, has come under fire for allegedly fueling the financial crisis through a wave of defaults. The act requires banks to offer loans to underserved areas, mainly urban, poorer neighborhoods.<br /><br />But if you think the backlash against community lending and the banking law has changed Mr. Lee's perspective you'd be wrong. Through his Bronx-based organization Inner City Press/Fair Finance Watch, Mr. Lee continues to challenge the banking industry for ignoring poorer neighborhoods and its support of predatory lending practices.<br /><br />"Persistence is the key," said Mr. Lee. "There are still groups interested in the intersection on consumer protection and Wall Street sleaze."<br /><br />If anything, the attacks have made Mr. Lee more resilient in challenging banks to end its support—directly and indirectly—of predatory lending, an effort that includes subprime loans.<br /><br />The Impact of CRA Loans<br />Critics argue that Community Reinvestment Act loans fueled the mortgage bubble by offering credit to those who would have otherwise been turned down. A 2008 report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute concluded that banks that conform to the act are more likely to be less sound and that CRA loans create higher costs for borrowers.<br /><br />But the evidence is scant that the legislation played a role in the recent crisis. More than 80% of subprime loans were made by institutions or big bank subsidiaries that weren't subject to CRA, according to 2008 testimony by Michael Barr, a professor at the University of Michigan. And a 2008 study by Federal Reserve found no correlation between the financial crisis and CRA lending.<br /><br />Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in 2007 that CRA loans "usually did not involve disproportionately higher levels of default."<br /><br />"I understand that your average 'blame the liberals' may not understand that," Mr. Lee said. "But when you actually look into it, you find the real sleazeballs were companies like Ameriquest, Countrywide and New Century and they didn't make a single loan for CRA because they weren't covered by CRA."<br /><br />The Big Bank Connection<br />That doesn't mean banks bound by CRA didn't participate in risky lending.<br /><br />Big banks, such as Citigroup Inc., are just holding companies. Their subsidiaries had different missions. Citibank generally made prime loans and was covered by the law. CitiFinancial didn't have a CRA requirement, but it underwrote more subprime loans. And Citigroup's investment bank, packaged and sold risky loans from many sources to investors.<br /><br />"There's a good argument that if CRA would have been enforced, people would not have been fleeced on their loans," Mr. Lee said. "And regulators, had they not enforced CRA so narrowly, that when you look at Citigroup underwriting Ameriquest loans, they [the regulators] would have said 'are you kidding?'"<br /><br />Citigroup declined to comment.<br /><br />Part of the dispute may have to do with what the banking law actually does. The act does not require banks to make loans to people without credit or considered risky. It only requires that it provide credit in areas where there's a lack of bank finance. CRA loans generally don't carry higher-than-market interest rates.<br /><br />Such misunderstanding is why Mr. Lee continues to push banks in a climate where inner city lending—fairly or not—is under attack. Because the banking law challenges can only be made when a bank merger is announced and few mergers are being made, Mr. Lee is stockpiling information.<br /><br />He's poring through annual mortgage data supplied by banks to see what markets they've abandoned. He's gathering information about J.P. Morgan's and Bank of America Corp.'s ties to World Acceptance, a small-loan, consumer finance company that makes subprime and controversial loans called 78s.<br /><br />A J.P Morgan spokesperson declined to comment.<br /><br />Fair Finance Watch also is targeting Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for its in-store "money centers" that charge for check cashing and same-day bill payment.<br /><br />So, the fight goes on. But there is one part of Mr. Lee's job that has changed. He said he's now fielding calls from distressed homeowners—not necessarily CRA beneficiaries—who are wrestling banks looking to foreclose.<br /><br />Said Mr. Lee, "I've actually had to learn more about workouts than I ever really wanted to know."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29880615.post-62909820318105610192010-04-14T14:49:00.001-04:002010-04-14T14:54:07.753-04:00Robert Wright: Against Pro-Israel (NYT blogs)Robert Wright has a rather controversial piece on the <a href='http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/against-pro-israel/?hp'>New York Times Opinionator blog</a> where he critiques what he sees as excessive and unquestioning support for Israel:<br /><br /><br />Are you anti-Israel? If you fear that, deep down, you might be, I have important news. The recent tension between Israel and the United States led various commentators to identify hallmarks of anti-Israelism, and these may be of diagnostic value.<br /><br />As you’ll see, my own view is that they aren’t of much value, but I’ll leave it for you to judge.<br /><br />Symptom no. 1: Believing that Israel shouldn’t build more settlements in East Jerusalem. President Obama holds this belief, and that seems to be the reason that Gary Bauer, who sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, deems Obama’s administration “the most anti-Israel administration in U.S. history.” Bauer notes that the East Jerusalem settlements are “entirely within the city of Jerusalem” and that Jerusalem is “the capital of Israel.”<br /><br />That’s artful wording, but it doesn’t change the fact that East Jerusalem, far from being part of “the capital of Israel,” isn’t even part of Israel. East Jerusalem lies beyond Israel’s internationally recognized, pre-1967 borders. And the common assertion that Israel “annexed” East Jerusalem has roughly the same legal significance as my announcing that I’ve annexed my neighbor’s backyard. In 1980 the United Nations explicitly rejected Israel’s claim to possess East Jerusalem. And the United States, which normally vetoes U.N. resolutions that Israel finds threatening, chose not to do so in this case.<br /><br />In short, accepting Gary Bauer’s idea of what it means to be anti-Israel seems to involve being anti-truth. So I don’t accept it. (And if you’re tempted to accept the common claim that Israel is building only in “traditionally Jewish” parts of East Jerusalem, a good antidote is this piece by Lara Friedman and Daniel Seidemann, published on Foreign Policy Magazine’s excellent new Middle East Channel.)<br /><br />Symptom no. 2: Thinking that some of Israel’s policies, and America’s perceived support of them, might endanger American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (by, for example, giving Jihadist recruiters rhetorical ammunition). This concern was reportedly expressed last week by Vice President Joe Biden to Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. And General David Petraeus is said to worry about the threat posed to American troops — and to America’s whole strategic situation — by the perception of American favoritism toward Israel.<br /><br />Identifying threats to American troops is part of a general’s job, and it seems to me Petraeus could honestly conclude — without help from dark “anti-Israel” impulses — that some of those threats are heightened by the Israel-Palestine conflict and America’s relationship to it. But Max Boot, writing on Commentary’s Web site, seems to disagree; if Petraeus indeed holds such opinions, that’s a sign of “anti-Israel sentiment,” in Boot’s view.<br /><br />Now, for a lionized American general to even hint that America’s stance toward Israel might threaten American troops is a serious public relations problem for Boot’s ideology. That, presumably, is why Boot tries to show that this “anti-Israel” view, though attributed to Petraeus, is not in fact Petraeus’s view. Specifically, Boot aims to discredit journalists who attributed this quotation to Petraeus: “The [Israel-Palestine] conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel … . Meanwhile, Al Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support.”<br /><br />Boot assures us that this passage, far from being a good guide to Petraeus’s thinking, was just “pulled from the 56-page Central Command ‘Posture Statement’ filed by his staff with the Senate Armed Services Committee.” Well, I don’t know who did the filing, but the document itself is titled “Statement of General David H. Petraeus … Before the Senate Armed Services Committee.” So I’m guessing it’s a fair guide to his views — in which case, by Boot’s lights, Petraeus is anti-Israel, right? And in which case I’ll reject Boot’s criterion for anti-Israelism.<br /><br />Boot has an ally in Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Foxman said the perspective attributed to Biden and Petraeus “smacks of blaming Jews for everything.”<br /><br />Foxman’s claim may seem hyperbolic, but look at it this way: If he can convince us that blaming any Israeli policy for anything is akin to blaming Jews in general for everything, then anyone who criticizes an Israeli policy will be deemed anti-Semitic — and fear of that label will keep everyone from criticizing Israel. And by virtue of never criticizing Israel, we’ll all be “pro-Israel.” And that’s a good thing, right?<br /><br />Actually, it seems to me that if we were all “pro-Israel” in this sense, that would be bad for Israel.<br /><br />If Israel’s increasingly powerful right wing has its way, without constraint from American criticism and pressure, then Israel will keep building settlements. And the more settlements get built — especially in East Jerusalem — the harder it will be to find a two-state deal that leaves Palestinians with much of their dignity intact. And the less dignity intact, the less stable any two-state deal will be.<br /><br />As more and more people are realizing, the only long-run alternatives to a two-state solution are: a) a one-state solution in which an Arab majority spells the end of Israel’s Jewish identity; b) Israel’s remaining a Jewish state by denying the vote to Palestinians who live in the occupied territories, a condition that would be increasingly reminiscent of apartheid; c) the apocalypse. Or, as Hillary Clinton put it in addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference on Monday: “A two-state solution is the only viable path for Israel to remain both a democracy and a Jewish state.”<br /><br />So, by my lights, being “pro-Israel” in the sense embraced by Bauer, Boot and Foxman — backing Israel’s current policies, including its settlement policies — is actually anti-Israel. It’s also anti-America (in the sense of ‘bad for American security’), because Biden and Petraeus are right: America’s perceived support of — or at least acquiescence in — Israel’s more inflammatory policies endangers American troops abroad. In the long run, it will also endanger American civilians at home, funneling more terrorism in their direction.<br /><br />The flip side of this coin is that policies that would be truly good for Israel (e.g., no more settlements) would be good for America. In that sense, there’s good news for Bauer and Boot and Foxman: one of their common refrains — that Israel’s and America’s interests are essentially aligned — is true, if for reasons they don’t appreciate.<br /><br />Sadly, the Bauer-Boot-Foxman definition of “pro-Israel” — supporting Israel’s increasingly hard-line and self-destructive policies — is the official definition. All major American newspapers, so far as I can see, use the term this way. AIPAC is described as “pro-Israel,” but the left-of-AIPAC J Street isn’t, even though its members, like AIPAC’s, favor policies they consider good for Israel.<br /><br />No doubt this twisted use of “pro-Israel,” and the implied definition of “anti-Israel,” keeps many critics of Israeli policies from speaking out — Jewish critics for fear of seeming disloyal, and non-Jewish critics for fear of seeming anti-Semitic.<br /><br />So, if I’m right, and more speaking out — more criticism of Israel’s current policies — would actually be good for Israel, then the newspapers and other media outlets that sustain the prevailing usage of “pro-Israel” are, in fact, anti-Israel. I won’t mention any names.<br /><br />Postscript: It has been reported that, notwithstanding accounts in Israel’s media, Biden did not, in fact, complain to Netanyahu in private about the threat of Israel’s policies to American troops. Perhaps predictably, the journalist who first reported this is the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who has been described by one New York Times columnist as Netanyahu’s “faithful stenographer.” I don’t doubt that Goldberg found an administration source who downplayed Biden’s remarks to Netanyahu; obviously, once tensions started to subside, and the goal of both America and Israel was to smooth relations, it wasn’t going to be hard to find an administration official who would do that, regardless of the truth about what Biden said. So I attach little significance to the administration’s revisionist account of what transpired between Biden and Netanyahu — especially given the heat the administration no doubt took over the original account of what transpired.<br /><br />Update: A response from Gary Bauer, whose views I critique in this column, and my subsequent reply, <a href="http://community.nytimes.com/comments/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/against-pro-israel/?permid=170#comment170">can be read here</a>.<br /><br />Bauer says that Ramat Shlomo — the part of East Jerusalem where Israel’s controversial 1,600 housing units are scheduled for construction — is “not a settlement” and “not in a Palestinian neighborhood” and “not a neighborhood that the Palestinians have ever had any intention of taking control of” until Obama turned it into an issue. A useful supplement to Bauer’s perspective is this paragraph from the piece by Lara Friedman and Daniel Seidemann that I cite (and link to) above: “In 1993, when the peace process was taking off, the settlement of Ramat Shlomo — which last week caused such a headache for Vice President Biden — didn’t exist. The site was an empty hill in East Jerusalem (not “no man’s land,” as some have asserted), home only to dirt, trees and grazing goats. It was empty because Israel expropriated the land in 1973 from the Palestinian village of Shuafat and made it off-limits to development. Only later, with the onset of the peace process era, was the land zoned for construction and a brand-new settlement called Rehkes Shuafat (later renamed Ramat Shlomo) built.”<br /><br />And here is a relevant paragraph from a Jan 26, 1994 Washington Post article (not available online) by David Hoffman titled “Israel Constructing a Jewish Cordon Around Jerusalem”: “The Jerusalem municipal boundary was enlarged after the ‘67 war to include Arab East Jerusalem… . For a quarter-century, Palestinian building has been sharply restricted, while Jewish building has expanded. Recently, the Jewish population in the annexed portion of the city surpassed the Arab population for the first time, boosted by construction of new Jewish neighborhoods there.”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0