Thursday, February 16, 2012
American Catholics & Politics
What stance should American Catholics assume toward politics in light of President Obama's contraception mandate? Is that stance reactionary?
Here on the Guild Review I have never really had an explicit agenda. The topics on which I write are sometimes quite random. What, for example, connects Goethe with Irish music? Nevertheless, there are certain concerns that color much of what I write here. Many of my posts over the last three or so years have been about how different individuals have come to terms with politics and the state. Hence my fascination with exile and persecution, the two situations when the individual is under the most pressure to figure out what sort of relation he can establish with the world of politics. For reasons I hope to make clear below, perhaps the best stance toward politics at the present time is that of the reactionary.
Recent events have given all American Catholics reason to reconsider their relation to the US political system. The HSS's new rule requiring Catholic employers to provide medical insurance coverage for contraceptives and abortifacients enraged this country's bishops, and President Obama's accommodation could not placate them either. The contraception mandate, then, would seem to mark the beginning of a Kulturkampf against Catholics in the US. Now any Catholic who takes the bishops' pronouncements seriously must ask himself: What stance am I to take toward a political system that has essentially declared war on my Church?
One option, of course, is simply to refuse to engage the culture at all and instead retreat into to political "quietism" or aestheticism. Just as the French quietists of the 17th century saw spiritual perfection in complete passivity, the political quietist seeks a complete Nirvana-like cessation of all desires to participate in political life. Moreover, just as the French quietists were condemned as heretics, political quietism is not a viable option for Catholics. The Church has always recognized that man is a social creature and that participation in the common good is essential for his fulfillment. Even contemplatives in monasteries do not withdraw from all worldly concerns; they must participate in the life of their community, which both shapes and is shaped by the world outside the cloister. A truly hermetic life is exceptional even among contemplatives.
On the other hand, there are many types of engagement with politics and culture, ranging from living in a Catholic ghetto or working within the system to civil disobedience and military resistance.
When Catholics first immigrated to the US in significant numbers, they were discriminated against by the Protestant establishment. Fortunately, though, they were generally allowed to live within their own ethnic communities as long as they did not become too ambitious. This gradually changed throughout the 20th century, as Catholics became more accepted by Americans but also became themselves more accepting of American culture.
Ever since John F. Kennedy's presidency, American Catholics have not generally perceived any serious conflict between the two parts of their identity. Working within the system has come to seem perfectly normal to most American Catholics. Indeed, most would agree with Mary Ann Glendon's interview "Politics as a Vocation" (h/t First Things). According to Glendon, Catholics in America are blessed to live in a country where we can actually influence politics through our vote, or other ways of "making our voices heard." Glendon, of course, is not oblivious to the need for politicians to make courageous decisions, but she generally thinks that participation in elections and the regular political process can still bear fruit.
There are times, though, when one group fails to achieve its goals through the normal political process. That is when the group will turn to civil disobedience. In our imagination, civil disobedience is a drastic step to be taken only when a group is suffering under intolerable tyranny. Yet civil disobedience also presupposes that the "tyrant" in question is reasonable enough not to slaughter civilians en masse. Not that violence is never a possibility, of course; but, it is vital that the state not kill too many protesters. Gandhi, for example, when he undertook his campaign of civil disobedience against the British Empire, knew that the British were too civilized to kill all of his followers.
Only when civil disobedience fails do most people even begin to consider military resistance. And yet, just like civil disobedience, military resistance is generally optimistic in its own way. One engages in military resistance only if one believes that violence can solve the immediate problem and restore a proper political order.
Each of these stances toward politics assumes that politics is a struggle; there is no way to avoid conflict. That is obvious. But, what is the smartest way to fight? What if none of these stances is effective in stopping or repealing Obama's birth control mandate? What if engaging with the political system as it currently is actually creates more problems in the long run than it solves? For instance, civil disobedience may not work, because it will be hard for protesters to goad the federal government into using just enough violence to gain the support of the masses, but not too much violence so as not to suffer considerable loss of human life. Moreover, mustering mass support for her position may entangle the Church in dubious alliances that she may later come to regret. And, to go one step further, even considering armed resistance against the US military is just ludicrous.
Does that mean that American Catholics should abandon the fight? No! There remains open to them another option: the reactionary stance toward politics. For the reactionary, neither civil disobedience nor military resistance is capable of restoring a sane political order. Early on, some reactionaries, most notably the French reactionaries in the Vendée, took up arms against the revolution. But, by now there is no hope of restoring the old order. Indeed, it is not clear what the best one could hope for in the current situation is. The name of "reactionary" is an unfortunate relic of an earlier age, but at least it does connect the modern reactionary to his spiritual forbears.
The modern reactionary can best be compared to an exile who knows he cannot undo his banishment, no matter how passionately he still cares for and loves the homeland that has rejected him. The reactionary may appear to have withdrawn from the contemporary world, but in reality, he has taken up an even fiercer battle on a higher plane: the reactionary's paramount concern is intellectual resistance. He looks on contemporary politics with nothing but disdain, but not out of apathy--though cynicism is certainly a temptation--but out of a concern to keep his soul unpolluted, so that he can devote himself to intellectual resistance.
Intellectual resistance is more demanding than military resistance. As the Colombian aphorist Nicolás Gómez Dávila said, "To think against is more difficult than to act against" (source). Armed resistance certainly requires courage, but the soldier has an immediate enemy who could destroy him at any moment, which helps him remain vigilant. Intellectual resistance, on the other hand, consists of transforming a culture, without the fear of death to spur us onward. Moreover, the reactionary does not wage an empty war of words in newspapers, on TV, or on blogs. It is a battle for souls. It is a war in which we must convert, ourselves first and then others.
For the reactionary, therefore, the fight against evil is itself a grace from God. (See Donoso Cortes for a classic expression of this attitude.) Connected to the reactionary's view of combat as grace is the realization that he is not guaranteed victory in history. The reactionary does not require the worldly triumph of the Church as a condition of his hope in Christ. Instead, he views history (in Tolkien's words) as a "long defeat". His calling is to be a witness to the eternal values present in history, even if being a witness requires becoming a martyr. For this the reactionary is often derided as a pessimist, but if he is a pessimist, he is a peculiarly hopeful type of pessimist.
A reactionary, then, does not consider all participation in politics futile, but understands its limits and admits how difficult it will be to restore first principles in society and politics. But, how does one live as an "internal exile" in one's country, hoping to save it yet knowing that's not really possible? And yet, one lives for the future. The reactionary sows seed that will sprout in the future, perhaps only in eternity.
Besides having to keep his hope alive, the greatest difficulty for a reactionary is that he is an exile, a lonely figure, cut off from politics. How can he reconcile his isolated existence--which he has freely chosen--with man's social and political nature? Life as a reactionary is not an ideal, just as life as an exile is not an ideal. But, no matter how much inward reserve he maintains, the reactionary must act within a community, even if it is only a few loved ones.
But, what does all this talk of the reactionary mean for Catholics in America right now? Soon after the official announcement of the mandate, Bill Donohue predicted there would be fighting in the streets. But, that won't happen. President Obama and his supporters are too smart to provoke an open uprising, and they do not want to give the pro-life movement anything comparable to Roe v. Wade to serve as a focus of discontent. They see that final victory is in sight, and so they are willing to let the pro-life movement linger for a while, because it is a more sure death. They know that if they keep up enough pressure, but do not get too heavy-handed, most people will knuckle under. In the original Kulturkampf, Bismarck threw Catholic bishops in jail and banned Jesuits from the country; Obama will not repeat those mistakes. He will not allow Archbishop Chaput or Archbishop Dolan to be compared to Bishop Matthias Eberhard, much less to Cardinal von Galen. No nuns will be carted off to the guillotine, like the martyrs of Compiègne.
American Catholics should by all means work within the ordinary political process and use civil disobedience to oppose President Obama's contraception mandate. But, there is no guarantee that American Catholics will enjoy any success. Indeed, after Catholics are forced to pay for contraception, it is nearly certain that the federal government will impose a requirement to pay for abortions; this will play out in the same way that Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to close down after they refuse to place children in homosexual households. We Catholics will be exiles in our own country. The task of a reactionary Catholic, then, will be to figure out how to hand on the faith in an age of persecution, how to prepare an underground spiritual and intellectual resistance, to convert hearts and minds. We will need to wait and be patient. Above all, we will need to take Cardinal von Galen's words to heart: "Become hard! Remain firm!"
Monday, February 13, 2012
Discerning the Hero Within
With Lent just around the corner, I wanted to let you know that I am planning a series of posts designed for introspection and discernment this season. I will be taking as my jump-off point Matt Bird's Hero Project on his Cockeyed Caravan blog. I hesitate to call these reflections "spiritual," since (a) I am by no means a spiritual director and, (b) they are drawn from a blog of a man for whose theological or spiritual bona fides I cannot vouch.So what will these reflections be, and why? The format will be simple: a few questions about oneself each week, for consideration. The why is a little more complicated. Bird is a script writer and film critic. His musings on heroes approach philosophical questions, though from a dramatic angle. At the heart of things, he wants to know what makes a hero.
All this is relevant to a Christian seeking self-knowledge in light of God's calling, because God calls us to be heroes. Christianity is not about nice people sitting around and generally being nice to one another. It is about amazing creatures - hybrids of spiritual and material substance - who are created good, who fall into evil, are rescued, and are then commissioned to share in the work of their rescuer, Jesus Christ, the Hero Par Excellence.
Bird's work asks about the relationship between heroes' strengths and weaknesses, the different kinds of heroes, and how the hero discovers his or her calling. As Bird explains:
I intend to pose questions which allow readers to examine these matters in their own lives, and in a way that might be fitting for Lent.Anybody can become a hero, but they can’t become a hero by doing what anybody would do. They have to succeed because of something unique about them, not just because you put them up in a tree and threw rocks at them.
Today's image was found here.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Henry Adams' Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres
My history students are currently studying the late 19th century, and references to Henry Adams (1838-1918) come up time and again. I am not having them read his autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams, though I may use it next time. In the course of my reading I came across this interesting poem (which includes a poem within a poem - how meta!).
Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres
Gracious Lady:--
Simple as when I asked your aid before;
Humble as when I prayed for grace in vain
Seven hundred years ago; weak, weary, sore
In heart and hope, I ask your help again.
You, who remember all, remember me;
An English scholar of a Norman name,
I was a thousand who then crossed the sea
To wrangle in the Paris schools for fame.
When your Byzantine portal was still young
I prayed there with my master Abailard;
When Ave Maris Stella was first sung,
I helped to sing it here with Saint Bernard.
When Blanche set up your gorgeous Rose of FranceI stood among the servants of the Queen;
And when Saint Louis made his penitence,
I followed barefoot where the King had been.
For centuries I brought you all my cares,
And vexed you with the murmurs of a child;
You heard the tedious burden of my prayers;
You could not grant them, but at least you smiled
If then I left you, it was not my crime,
Or if a crime, it was not mine alone.
All children wander with the truant Time.
Pardon me too! You pardoned once your Son!
For He said to you:--"Wist ye not that I
Must be about my Father’s business?" So,
Seeking his Father he pursued his way
Straight to the Cross towards which we all must go.
So I too wandered off among the host
That racked the earth to find the father’s clue.
I did not find the Father, but I lost
What now I value more, the Mother,--You!
I thought the fault was yours that foiled my search;
I turned and broke your image on its throne,
Cast down my idol, and resumed my march
To claim the father’s empire for my own.
Crossing the hostile sea, our greedy band
Saw rising hills and forests in the blue;
Our father’s kingdom in the promised land!
--We seized it, and dethroned the father too.
And now we are the Father, with our brood,
Ruling the Infinite, not Three but One;
We made our world and saw that it was good;
Ourselves we worship, and we have no Son.
Yet we have Gods, for even our strong nerve
Falters before the Energy we own.
Which shall be master? Which of us shall serve?
Which wears the fetters? Which shall bear the crown?
Brave though we be, we dread to face the Sphinx,
Or answer the old riddle she still asks.
Strong as we are, our reckless courage shrinks
To look beyond the piece-work of our tasks.
But when we must, we pray, as in the past
Before the Cross on which your Son was nailed.
Listen, dear lady! You shall hear the last
Of the strange prayers Humanity has wailed.
PRAYER TO THE DYNAMO
Mysterious Power! Gentle Friend!
Despotic Master! Tireless Force!
You and We are near the End.
Either You or We must bend
To bear the martyrs’ Cross.
We know ourselves, what we can bear
As men; our strength and weakness too;
Down to the fraction of a hair;
And know that we, with all our care
And knowledge, know not you.
You come in silence, Primal Force,
We know not whence, or when, or why;
You stay a moment in your course
To play; and, lo! you leap across
To Alpha Centauri!
We know not whether you are kind,
Or cruel in your fiercer mood;
But be you Matter, be you Mind,
We think we know that you are blind,
And we alone are good.
We know that prayer is thrown away,
For you are only force and light;
A shifting current; night and day;
We know this well, and yet we pray,
For prayer is infinite,
Like you! Within the finite sphere
That bounds the impotence of thought,
We search an outlet everywhere
But only find that we are here
And that you are--are not!
What are we then? the lords of space?
The master-mind whose tasks you do?
Jockey who rides you in the race?
Or are we atoms whirled apace,
Shaped and controlled by you?
Still silence! Still no end in sight!
No sound in answer to our cry!
Then, by the God we now hold tight,
Though we destroy soul, life and light,
Answer you shall--or die!
We are no beggars! What care we
For hopes or terrors, love or hate?
What for the universe? We see
Only our certain destiny
And the last word of Fate.
Seize, then, the Atom! rack his joints!
Tear out of him his secret spring!
Grind him to nothing!--though he points
To us, and his life-blood anoints
Me--the dead Atom-King!
A curious prayer, dear lady! is it not?
Strangely unlike the prayers I prayed to you!
Stranger because you find me at this spot,
Here, at your feet, asking your help anew.
Strangest of all, that I have ceased to strive,
Ceased even care what new coin fate shall strike.
In truth it does not matter. Fate will give
Some answer; and all answers are alike.
So, while we slowly rack and torture death
And wait for what the final void will show,
Waiting I feel the energy of faith
Not in the future science, but in you!
The man who solves the Infinite, and needs
The force of solar systems for his play,
Will not need me, nor greatly care what deeds
Made me illustrious in the dawn of day.
He will send me, dethroned, to claim my rights,
Fossil survival of an age of stone,
Among the cave-men and the troglodytes
Who carved the mammoth on the mammoth’s bone.
He will forget my thought, my acts, my fame,
As we forget the shadows of the dusk,
Or catalogue the echo of a name
As we the scratches on the mammoth’s tusk.
But when, like me, he too has trod the track
Which leads him up to power above control,
He too will have no choice but wander back
And sink in helpless hopelessness of soul,
Before your majesty of grace and love,
The purity, the beauty and the faith;
The depth of tenderness beneath; above,
The glory of the life and of the death.
When your Byzantine portal still was young,
I came here with my master Abailard;
When Ave Maris Stella was first sung,
I joined to sing it here with Saint Bernard.
When Blanche set up your glorious Rose of France,
In scholar’s robes I waited on the Queen;
When good Saint Louis did his penitence,
My prayer was deep like his: my faith as keen.
What loftier prize seven hundred years shall bring,
What deadlier struggles for a larger air,
What immortality our strength shall wring
From Time and Space, we may--or may not--care;
But years, or ages, or eternity,
Will find me still in thought before your throne,
Pondering the mystery of Maternity,
Soul within Soul,--Mother and Child in One!
Help me to see! not with my mimic sight--
With yours! which carried radiance, like the sun,
Giving the rays you saw with--light in light--
Tying all suns and stars and worlds in one.
Help me to know! not with my mocking art--
With you, who knew yourself unbound by laws;
Gave God your strength, your life, your sight, your heart,
And took from him the Thought that Is--the Cause.
Help me to feel! not with my insect sense,--
With yours that felt all life alive in you;
Infinite heart beating at your expense;
Infinite passion breathing the breath you drew!
Help me to bear! not my own baby load,
But yours; who bore the failure of the light,
The strength, the knowledge and the thought of God,--
The futile folly of the Infinite!
Text via TeachingAmericanHistory.org. Image via Wikipedia.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Bishops Defend Freedom of Conscience
I need a bumper sticker that says "I support my bishops." Media criticisms of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops notwithstanding, they have delivered a cogent defense of conscience in the face of the Obama administration's recent attempt to stamp it out.
At stake is whether or not the Church must provide contraception at no cost to the employees of its various institutions. The Church does not ask that it be permitted to impose its morality on its employees or anyone else. The Church asks only that it not be compelled to participate in the commission of acts which its conscience cannot tolerate.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the USCCB, delivered a clear defense of the Church's freedom of conscience in the Wall Street Journal:
Religious freedom is the lifeblood of the American people, the cornerstone of American government. When the Founding Fathers determined that the innate rights of men and women should be enshrined in our Constitution, they so esteemed religious liberty that they made it the first freedom in the Bill of Rights.
In particular, the Founding Fathers fiercely defended the right of conscience. George Washington himself declared: "The conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be extensively accommodated to them." James Madison, a key defender of religious freedom and author of the First Amendment, said: "Conscience is the most sacred of all property."
Scarcely two weeks ago, in its Hosanna-Tabor decision upholding the right of churches to make ministerial hiring decisions, the Supreme Court unanimously and enthusiastically reaffirmed these longstanding and foundational principles of religious freedom. The court made clear that they include the right of religious institutions to control their internal affairs.
Yet the Obama administration has veered in the opposite direction. It has refused to exempt religious institutions that serve the common good—including Catholic schools, charities and hospitals—from its sweeping new health-care mandate that requires employers to purchase contraception, including abortion-producing drugs, and sterilization coverage for their employees.
Last August, when the administration first proposed this nationwide mandate for contraception and sterilization coverage, it also proposed a "religious employer" exemption. But this was so narrow that it would apply only to religious organizations engaged primarily in serving people of the same religion. As Catholic Charities USA's president, the Rev. Larry Snyder, notes, even Jesus and His disciples would not qualify for the exemption in that case, because they were committed to serve those of other faiths.
Since then, hundreds of religious institutions, and hundreds of thousands of individual citizens, have raised their voices in principled opposition to this requirement that religious institutions and individuals violate their own basic moral teaching in their health plans. Certainly many of these good people and groups were Catholic, but many were Americans of other faiths, or no faith at all, who recognize that their beliefs could be next on the block. They also recognize that the cleverest way for the government to erode the broader principle of religious freedom is to target unpopular beliefs first.
Now we have learned that those loud and strong appeals were ignored. On Friday, the administration reaffirmed the mandate, and offered only a one-year delay in enforcement in some cases—as if we might suddenly be more willing to violate our consciences 12 months from now. As a result, all but a few employers will be forced to purchase coverage for contraception, abortion drugs and sterilization services even when they seriously object to them. All who share the cost of health plans that include such services will be forced to pay for them as well. Surely it violates freedom of religion to force religious ministries and citizens to buy health coverage to which they object as a matter of conscience and religious principle.
The rule forces insurance companies to provide these services without a co-pay, suggesting they are "free"—but it is naïve to believe that. There is no free lunch, and you can be sure there's no free abortion, sterilization or contraception. There will be a source of funding: you.
Coercing religious ministries and citizens to pay directly for actions that violate their teaching is an unprecedented incursion into freedom of conscience. Organizations fear that this unjust rule will force them to take one horn or the other of an unacceptable dilemma: Stop serving people of all faiths in their ministries—so that they will fall under the narrow exemption—or stop providing health-care coverage to their own employees.
The Catholic Church defends religious liberty, including freedom of conscience, for everyone. The Amish do not carry health insurance. The government respects their principles. Christian Scientists want to heal by prayer alone, and the new health-care reform law respects that. Quakers and others object to killing even in wartime, and the government respects that principle for conscientious objectors. By its decision, the Obama administration has failed to show the same respect for the consciences of Catholics and others who object to treating pregnancy as a disease.
This latest erosion of our first freedom should make all Americans pause. When the government tampers with a freedom so fundamental to the life of our nation, one shudders to think what lies ahead.
A number of other bishops - including Bishop Conley of Denver, Bishops Vann and Farrell of Ft. Worth and Dallas, Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix, and Bishop Loverde of Arlington - have reechoed Archbishop Dolan's appraisal.
The bishops are urging Catholics - and, indeed, all Americans concerned about the freedom of conscience, to write to their congressmen asking them to support the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179, S. 1467). While you're at it, contact the president and implore him to reverse this decision. (And don't mark this down as a "health care" concern, because it is not; for your subject, choose "civil rights." Because that is what is at stake.)
And then say some prayers. Not least for our bishops, who bear a tremendous burden in their work as shepherds.
For Washington's comments on conscience, see his Letter to the Quakers. For the full text of Madison's comments, click here.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
How I'll Be Voting - An Update
For the sake of discussion, I'll assume a three way race between President Obama, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. This ignores the other Republican challengers and third party candidates. A third party vote can be a powerful message, and may even be necessary in the present climate, but we'll leave that topic for another day.
One more caveat: I've drawn heavily on candidate's own official policy statements. A fuller consideration would include their campaign statements, policy history, and analysts' predictions of future actions. One could write a dissertation on many of these questions. I mean only to start a discussion, not give the final word.
So how do the candidates stack up?
Debt. Will they balance the budget? That may require raising taxes, cutting spending, or both. That may mean reforming the procurement process or passing a balanced budget amendment. The specifics can vary, but we need to see a plan.
- Romney is calling for a program of "cut, cap, and balance." He wants to reduce spending, capping government expenditures at 20% of GDP, and then pass a balanced budget amendment. He acknowledges that entitlement reforms will have to be part of the picture. He argues that "we have a moral responsibility not to spend more than we take in." To do so is a cruel burden on our children and grandchildren. If one wants to be cautious, however, we might note that Romney has criticized the president's stimulus spending as adding to the debt, but - from what I can gather - Romney is more concerned about the spending part of that equation than the debt. His basic plan is to cut taxes to revitalize the economy, thereby raising revenue. The Laffer Curve sometimes looks like that, and it might work, but it might not. I worry that he may not be willing (1) to cut expenditures as deeply as he wants to cut taxes, and (2) to raise taxes to avoid Greek-style debt.
- Gingrich states that balancing the budget is one of his goals and has put forward a white paper on entitlement reform. The budget is, however, 7th of his 9 economic priorities. Moreover, he proposes to balance it by "growing the economy" (through tax cuts and deregulation) and "controlling spending". Newt's first economic priority is to "stop the 2013 tax increases." While I'm no fan of taxes, this maniacal emphasis on cutting them seems unlikely to lead to a balanced budget. Yes, economic growth is part of the long-term solution to the debt, and low taxes are part of that equation, but they are not the whole story. Nevertheless, Newt gets points for his real work during the 1990s to balance the federal budget. Past performance is no guarantee of the future - balancing the budget in the boom years of the '90s was certainly easier than in today's economic climate - but it counts for something.
- Obama's position page on the economy does not mention the national debt, our credit rating, or the problem of the deficit. Instead, he discusses jobs, the auto industry, Hispanic families and women. I don't mean to be cynical, but this is a naked appeal to some pretty specific interest groups, without consideration of the big picture. Given the way the national debt has ballooned under President Obama, he offers little on this issue. The one thing that can be said for the president is this: much of the debt that has accumulated during his years in office came from two wars he inherited, one of which he has ended, the other of which he is drawing to a close. This will lead to substantial savings, though it hardly amounts to a concerted deficit plan.
- Winner? I think Romney edges Gingrich out on this one, but all three candidates could focus more clearly on the debt.
- Romney advocates tinkering with the tax system, but hardly the overhaul it needs. This may be politic, but it's not leadership. His stated long-term goal is to "pursue a fairer, flatter, simpler tax structure," but his articulated policy details all pertain to modest tax cuts, not closing loopholes and shortening the tax code.
- Gingrich advocates an "optional flat tax of 15% that would allow Americans the freedom to choose to file their taxes on a postcard." This is good. The problem is that it's optional. Individuals and companies will still have an incentive to lobby for special exceptions.
- Obama only appears interested in closing loopholes if they're advantageous to Wall Street. His own campaign website promises special tax incentives for clean energy technologies and small businesses. I'm not opposed to either, but the president is doing nothing to fundamentally reform the tax code.
- Winner? A Romney-Gingrich tie. Both seem to have the right idea, but insufficient plans to execute at this time.
- Romney hardly has an immigration plan. He vows to "explore with Mexico, in his first 100 days, the need for enhanced military-to-military training cooperation and intelligence sharing to combat drug cartels and criminal gangs. Mitt Romney will complete a border fence protecting our southern frontier from infiltration by illegal immigrants, trans-national criminal networks, and terrorists." So he's serious about securing the border. But we need more. I see little interest in immigration reform, and on the touchy issue of the present illegal population, he has taken a hardline stance that either ignores the size of the problem or implies a police state.
- Gingrich hits the nail on the head, directly addressing the issue - unlike Romney's comments, buried in his foreign policy positions - and calling for all three elements of a solution. He might not get his way, or particular elements of his policies might not work, but this is the best I've seen of the mainstream candidates.
- Obama certainly styles himself a friend of the Hispanic community, but his website makes no mention of the immigration issue. That may be because he's set the record for deportations. This powerful stick has not been accompanied by the carrot of comprehensive immigration reform or a push therefore.
- Winner? Gingrich unambiguously comes out ahead.
- Romney is a firm supporter of school choice. Excellent.
- Gingrich also supports school choice (though a few details differ).
- Obama has made education a major element of his campaign. However, his education policy page primarily trumpets the spending of money. Considering the NEA's massive contributions to the Democratic Party, don't expect the president to rock the boat.
- Winner? Another Romney-Gingrich tie. The biggest unknown here is how far either one could get on actual reform before Washington chokes it off.
- Romney's tangled history of positions on abortion call into question his adherence to the moral positions of his Mormon faith. Nevertheless, the fact that he comes from a church famed for its strong families, and the fact the he remains married to his first wife, are good signs. However, Romney was once known as a supporter of same-sex marriage. He now opposes it, and explains that he was "firmly in support" of protecting gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons (GLBT) from discrimination, but he always opposed same-sex marriage. If that's an accurate representation of his views and policies over the years then I think he's right on target. But this may simply be waffling.
- Gingrich has a tumultuous personal history of failed marriages. That's troubling, though (1) I do believe in conversion and (2) nothing says a personally flawed leader cannot produce good policies for the nation, though I would be skeptical of such an outcome. Nevertheless, he has come out strongly against same-sex marriages. I do worry, however, that his position on this matter risks alienating moderate voters by sounding hateful; this is a difficult issue and any candidate should tread with care.
- Obama has positioned himself as a champion of the GLBT community. He has highlighted his opposition to the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, though this is one of the least controversial issues in the field of GLBT rights. The president has carefully avoided using the M word with regard to same-sex relationships, but he trumpets his support for "lesbian widow Edith Windsor in her suit
against DOMA [the Defense of Marriage Act]." - Winner? Gingrich, by a nose. His personal life notwithstanding, he's probably the most likely to sign pro-marriage legislation.
As I've argued before, the right to life - particularly the life of the unborn - is terribly important in a general sense, but is largely out of the hands of the president. The one exception is the appointment of Supreme Court justices. President Obama's appointments have been in favor of abortion; given Romney's checkered history of positions, I worry he might appoint the next David Souter. Gingrich is the only candidate of the three I feel confident would appoint an anti-abortion justice.
What do you think? Please, share your thoughts in the comment field!
Today's image of the 2008 Democratic National Convention comes via Reuters.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Review of Joseph Roth's Letters in the Wall Street Journal
This weekend's Wall Street Journal features a review of a new English translation of a selection of Joseph Roth's letters. The review does a good job of conveying how tenuous Roth's hold on life and reality sometimes was. For example, the review mentions that Roth asked for money from Stefan Zweig for several years in the 1930's but would then berate him for interfering in his writing. But unfortunately (from my point of view), it concentrates on the purely political aspect of Roth's writing. While there is no doubt that politics meant a great deal to Roth, and that much of his oeuvre is concerned with politics in one way or another, the elegiac quality of his greatest works points to something more important than politics.
Anyone whose interest is piqued by the review may want to read three earlier posts about Roth (parts 1, 2, and 3). Maybe someday I'll finally get around to writing something about The Radetzky March as I've been planning for some time.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Foreign Samurai
Samurai have an iconic Japanese identity. There have, however, been a handful of foreign samurai across the centuries.
If this story sounds vaguely familiar, you may have heard it before. James Clavell's novel Shōgun and its hero, John Blackthorne, made famous by the miniseries of the same name, are loosely based on the life of William Adams.
One of Adams' sailing companions, Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn (1560 – 1623), also became an adviser to the shogun. He too was granted the two swords of a samurai and the title hatamoto.
Again, if this story sounds familiar, you may have seen it before; Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, is inspired, in part, by Brunet's life.
At the same time Eugène Collache, a French sailor, deserted his ship while in Japan and joined the shogun's forces, then fighting a rearguard action on the island of Hokkaidō. Collache was given the task of fortifying the mountain chain which protected their position, and he later fought in the Battle of Miyako Bay, in which he commanded one of three vessels that launched a surprise attack against the imperial navy. During the battle his ship was wrecked, and Collache was captured and imprisoned. He was eventually released back to France. Throughout his time with the shogun's faction, Collache always wore his samurai dress (pictured right).
Are these men mere historical curiosities, examples of cultural eclecticism? Perhaps. But they also strike me as interesting examples of the interconnectedness of the world, proof that broad national categories don't always make sense.
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