Gerson can't help himself

After blindsiding Senate conservatives in a recent screed for their unwillingness to blindly approve $50 billion in deficit spending for AIDS relief in Africa, Michael Gerson is now using the Bible to attack Tom Coburn. In this piece, Gerson picks out one sentence of a Coburn column and proceeds to completely misrepresent Coburn's argument. Coburn was not arguing that Jesus was a libertarian, rather, he was making a point about how so-called "compassionate" conservatives love to spend other people's money.

Read it for yourself:

Now comes another charge -- that compassionate conservatism is actually opposed by the Bible. "Common sense and the Scriptures," argues Sen. Tom Coburn, "show that true giving and compassion require sacrifice by the giver. This is why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, not his neighbor's possessions. Spending other people's money is not compassionate."

It is not my purpose to pick on the senator from Oklahoma (once again); he is a man of principle. And he is merely restating a fairly common view: that compassion is a private virtue, not a public one, and that religious conscience concerns the former and not the latter.

But this is a theological assertion, not a political one. And as theology, it is flawed.

Be sure to keep reading and note where Gerson concludes that Coburn would not like to associate himself with the great, and yes compassionate, works of William Wilberforce, John Wesley and Lord Shaftesbury. This is of course a laughable charge. Not only has Tom Coburn demonstrated compassion throughout his life (this is a guy after all who inists on continuing to deliver babies while he is a senator, and charges nothing for it), but he works for it in the Senate. MEMO TO GERSON: It is possible to pass compassionate legislation that does not fleece the taxpayer.

This is another example of raising prudential disagreements about social ills to the level of moral disputes. Gerson and company do this everytime, and it gets tiresome.

Bullies for same-sex marriage

I never cease to be amazed by the willingness of homosexuality advocates to bully social conservatives into accepting their premises. Our arguments are so bad, we must be motivated by anti-gay animus. The analogy between same-sex marriage and polygamy is disingenuous and therefore no reasonable person takes it seriously. Et cetera.

Trouble is, it's not just cowardly libs who use these tactics. Libertarians willingly use the same ploy. Today on Volokh, both Eugene Volokh and Ilya Somin, in consecutive posts, play the any-reasonable-person-must-accept-my-presuppositions-about-same-sex-marriage game.

Why do most (all?) opponents of conjugal marriage refuse to engage supporters of conjugal marriage on the merits of our arguments? Is it intellectual cowardice, disrespect?

And why do those who consider themselves liberal and broad-minded so often resort to illiberal debate tactics? Is it delusion, malevolence?

For once, let's have a debate on the merits of a conservative idea without all the hocus-pocus. Is that too much to ask?

Mr. Popular

This article from the Boston Globe concerning liberal activist US District Judge Nancy Gertner and her blogging hobby is notable not for its discussion of Gertner but rather for its quotation of Professor Doug Kmiec. Kmiec thinks it's a fine idea for Gertner publicly (she blogs on Slate with Kmiec and others) to call into question the efficacy of the laws she is charged with enforcing. Quoth the former Reagan-administration-official-turned-law-prof:

It's one thing for us pontificators to speak grandly about how we'd like to see the law arranged. It's another for someone who bears the burden of that responsibility and has identified a . . . shortcoming in the law to be able to say, "I've seen the consequences of this, and the consequences are worrisome."

Right. It is another thing altogether. Several adjectives comes to mind: unseemly, inappropriate, partisan, dangerous. Public confidence in the judiciary and the rule of law depends in part on the confidence that judges demonstrate for the laws they must apply. When judges actively undermine confidence in the law, they undermine confidence in their rulings. If Judge Gertner thinks the federal sentencing guidelines and federal exercises of prosecutorial discretion are unjust, she should resign and do everything in her power as a private citizen to reform the law.

That much is old news. Waddya know? Another Clinton appointee on a federal bench actively undermining both the rule of law and confidence in it. We're shocked, right?

The truly befuddling aspect of this story is Kmiec's role. Since the former conservative endorsed Barack Obama and dissed John McCain he has been the liberal media's favorite "conservative." That is fine and dandy if he is still committed to conservative principles; I do not begrudge him his newfound popularity. But I am increasingly skeptical that he is still one of us.

At last, a tax I can heartily support

A tax on porn in California? Eugene Volokh doubts its constitutionality. He asserts that "the law targets not just unprotected and illegal obscenity, but also constitutionally protected pornography."

For those of you who are not corrupted by a law school education and not familiar with the Supreme Court's bizarre obscenity doctrines, simply know that the Court in its infallible judgment claims to discern a difference between obscene porn and merely erotic porn. Merely erotic porn is constitutionally protected, while obscene porn is not.

If the California tax proposal is over-inclusive, that problem can be remedied. The bill can be amended to exclude so-called "soft porn." It could, for example, provide a defense to a claim for non-payment of the tax that the material to be taxed is protected under extant Supreme Court obscenity rules. The bill would then permit men to buy not-too-naughty magazines, with all of their manifest artistic and literary value, free of the 25% tax. The men are happy, the Supreme Court is happy, and the people of California can tax the heck out of an industry that objectifies women's bodies, encourages vicious conduct, and swamps millions of men in an unhealthy addiction.

The amended bill would have the addional, ancillary effect of demonstrating how silly and unworkable the Supreme Court's obscenity jurisprudence is. Amended to exclude constitutionally-protected material, the tax bill would generate massive litigation over the question what counts as obscene porn and what constitutes merely erotic porn. Dockets in California would expand accordingly. And that's a good thing. Let the courts bear the costs of their own forays into obscenity regulation.

GOP in denial

Exactly:

As congressional Republicans contemplate the prospect of an electoral disaster this November, much is being written about the supposed soul-searching in the Republican Party. A more accurate description of our state is paralysis and denial.

Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans.

Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn't good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.

Becoming Republicans again will require us to come to grips with what has ailed our party – namely, the triumph of big-government Republicanism and failed experiments like the K Street Project and "compassionate conservatism." If the goal of the K Street Project was to earmark and fund raise our way to a filibuster-proof "governing" majority, the goal of "compassionate conservatism" was to spend our way to a governing majority.

The case for mystery -- civic evangelicalism part 3

This is part 3 of an ongoing series. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.

One of contemporary evangelicals' common ailments is the obsession with resolution. Evangelical sermons offer five step plans for reducing stress. Evangelical books offer seven disciplines for becoming totally surrendered to God. Instead of hymns, cantatas, and concerti, most evangelical churches now use that execrable substitute for music, the praise chorus, which follows a predictable and tension-free IV-V-I chord progression through an elementary melody and vapid lyrics.

Our obsession with resolution (and our corresponding aversion to tension) seeps into our civic lives. Put simply, we evangelicals are not very good at dealing with suffering. Most evangelicals today are extremely uncomfortable thinking about issues not easily resolved. Broken families, depression, fatherlessness, cancer, sexual abuse, rape. These and other life circumstances present difficult and painful realities that humans (not just evangelicals) would prefer not to think about. We Christians have a peculiar mandate to meet suffering people in their suffering. But all too often when these circumstances defy resolution, evangelicals simply throw a trite cliche at the problem and go back to their praise choruses.

How many evangelicals do you know who have read Chesterton or Kierkegaard, Mother Theresa or Frederick Buechner? (I know not too many.) Those Christian brothers and sisters knew the true depths of human suffering. And they did not trivialize suffering by offering trite solutions. Instead, as they matured they became more comfortable reconciling the love of God with irremediable pain. They did not accept, much less preach, easy answers. As Michael Novak has written of Mother Theresa, she lived darkly in the presence of her Beloved.

The world needs to know that we do not trivialize its pain. The world needs to know that our God can handle tension, even tension that is never resolved during an entire lifetime. Some families are never reunited. Some cancer victims are never cured. Some drug addicts never recover. Some abusers never repent. Those are awful realities, problems for which there are no easy answers, and perhaps no resolution within the four dimensions of time and space.

Much human suffering is real and unfixable. Yet God is still sovereign and we are promised a coming Eschaton, free of suffering. The world needs that message.

Fathers need not apply

In their same-sex marriage decisions, the high courts of California, Massachusetts, and Canada proclaimed the moral lesson that gender doesn't matter. A man may choose to marry a woman or a man. A woman may choose to marry a man or a woman. It doesn't matter. Whatever the individual's gender preference, the law must endorse the morality of the individual's choice.

The UK Parliament has learned the lesson well. Last night the House of Commons voted to do away with the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child's need for a male role model before providing fertility treatment to women. A child has neither an interest nor a right to have a father because men are obsolete. That is the claim.

The war against fathers and their children is real. Studies show time and again that fatherlessness is a root cause of a host of social ills, including career criminality, poverty, psychological disorders, and drug use. Yet enlightened social engineers continue to chip away at the legal supports for fatherhood. First no-fault divorce, then same-sex marriage, now this. Must we Westerners pretend that we have no enemies without, all the while destroying ourselves from within?

John Adams is all the rage

You knew it would happen. After the HBO miniseries Hollywood types are tripping over one another to declare their allegiance to an Adamsonian view of America. Stars from Pete Wentz to Michael Moore (ok, I use the term "star" loosely with these two) have got nothing but love for the prickly but principled New England Founder.

I welcome the fact that so many liberals watched the series. I also welcome the fact that they recognize greatness in the character of Adams. These two developments simply confirm my belief that the American people can largely agree on foundational principles. It is in the application of the principles that we get crosswise.

But it must be observed that there is still a huge disconnect between their perceptions of Adams and the reality of who the man was.

Entertainers suddenly love John Adams. Consider “The View” co-host Joy Behar, who told Larry King: “When you see what John Adams was like and George Bush, it’s almost like Darwinism in reverse. You know?”

...funny-producer-turned-serious-producer-turned-all-purpose-Bush-hater Michael Moore said: “The Founding Fathers would never have uttered the presumptuous words ‘God Bless America.’ That, to them, sounded like a command instead of a request, and one doesn’t command God, even if they are America. In fact, they were worried God would punish America. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington feared that God would react unfavorably against his soldiers for the way they were behaving.

John Adams wondered if God might punish America and cause it to lose the war, just to prove his point that America was not worthy.”

To these Hollywood liberals, Adams is a foil to use against the GOP and Bush, nothing more. In fact, were they to really be confronted with many of Adams' beliefs their liberal sensibilities might well be repulsed. But that matters not, as long as he serves a purpose for them right now. That purpose of course being juxtaposing our current President with the second President. I dare say few Presidents would wear well in that harsh light.

Conservative reconnection

Good stuff...worth a read:

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan singlehandedly turned around the American economy. On the heels of the lackluster Carter years that saw high inflation and a poorly performing economy, Reagan proposed sweeping income tax cuts that transformed the American tax system. Indeed, Reagan’s policies have been credited for ushering in a new era of American prosperity.

By all accounts, the tax cuts of the 80’s were a massive success as were many other conservative wins over the last two decades. Defeating the “Evil Empire,” reforming the failed welfare bureaucracy, and winning confirmation of conservative judges — these are just some examples of conservative victories that made America better. And on these victories we must always defend the ground we have won because in Washington, no victories are permanent.

But today we have a problem.

Viva la Regulacion?

Many of my musings over the last several months (again sorry for that brief hiatus) concerns attempts to legislate our way out of the Credit Crisis. Since I rarely attempt to match wits with someone that has an British accent, I defer to an article in this week's Economist, which succinctly argues the success of the current financial system and the danger of the alternatives.

Here are few of the highlights:

As this week's special report on international banking makes clear, the main structural causes of trouble—the collective misjudgment of risk; a zealous search for yield; and the failure of oversight—are deep-seated. In financial history they crop up time after time. Financiers are rightly rewarded for taking risks, which by their nature cannot be entirely managed away or anticipated. The tendency for success to breed complacency and recklessness is as ingrained in financial markets as it is in any other walk of life. However bankers are paid, they cannot just sit out a credit boom; they have to keep dancing. Regulators lack the knowledge, the clout (and often the talent) to keep up with the banks' next brilliant scheme.

That reads like an indictment, until you consider the alternatives. Western finance, to paraphrase Churchill, is the worst way to allocate capital, except for all those other forms. It is obviously better than the waste and dysfunction in China, where centrally planned capital is dished out to the well-connected. But it is also better than the financial system the West used to have. Thanks to the astonishing innovation of the past few decades, derivatives can help firms and investors to hedge risks (there are plenty of Chinese manufacturers who would be grateful for an easy way to soften the impact of exchange-rate shifts). Securitisation widens access to capital for borrowers and to assets for investors: it can finance everything from water utilities to film studios. Leverage brings more lazy companies within reach of determined investors and more homes within reach of poorer consumers.

It is true that financiers have enjoyed vast profits—and the vast salaries that go along with them (pay at American investment banks has been nearly ten times the national average). But the collapse of the credit bubble will bring that down. And despite all the disasters, there are signs of finance's resilience. In the past few months the banks have commanded enough confidence to raise $200 billion in new capital from investors. Bear Stearns and Northern Rock were calamities, but rare ones, because the vast overall losses were spread far and wide. This time, there has been no industry-wide government recapitalisation. After 20 years of growth, the flaws of modern finance are painfully clear. Do not forget its strengths.

The Newest Thing Congress Will Regulate

Today's WSJ, has an article that discusses a bond known as the PIK-toggle. The article explains that the PIK-toggle (payment-in-kind) is allowing companies that issued these bonds to turn off the cash interest payment and replace it with more debt.

This means that $100 of interest income you expected to get will come in the form of $100 of additional bonds. Or in personal terms, its like having a $1000 credit card bill but instead of paying that $100 bill you just send your envelope back to the card company with a note that says "I'm short on cash this month IOU sometime in the future." Private Equity firms inserted the PIK-toggle provision in lending agreements to preserve cash in times of credit crises such as the one we find ourselves in today. The use of the PIK speaks to the severity of the cash crisis since compounded interest will cost these firms more in the long run.

I'm sure that Barney Frank already has drafted a bill to outlaw the PIK as well as force PE firm CEO's to wear chicken suits as just compensation for being smarter than everyone else. In all seriousness though, I expect Congress to weigh-in based on its incessant need to legislate that which it does not understand.

Let them eat... less

We've made the comparison before, but Barack Obama is now not merely making Jimmy Carter-esque policy proposals, he is now also sounding a lot like our Elder National Disgrace.

George Bush and McCain have suggested that me being willing to sit down with our adversaries is a sign of weakness and sign of appeasement.

Did he say "appeasement"? Like Carter's premature peace-in-our-time declaration after his meeting with the terrorist organization Hamas?

How about this from Obama?

We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times.

Compare that with selections from Carter's infamous 1977 energy speeches:

All of us must learn to waste less energy. Simply by keeping our thermostats, for instance, at 65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night we could save half the current shortage of natural gas.

and

One choice is to continue doing what we have been doing before. We can drift along for a few more years. Our consumption of oil would keep going up every year. Our cars would continue to be too large and inefficient. Three-quarters of them would continue to carry only one person -- the driver -- while our public transportation system continues to decline.

Of course, we all think conservation is a good idea. But there is something unbecoming, un-American, and unimaginative about a President or candidate for the presidency telling Americans how to spend their money.

Are we prepared for four years of economic malaise, a projection to our enemies of a weak will, and feckless leadership in the face of real crises? That's what we will get with an Obama presidency.

Can the GOP get it together?

The Fox News Sunday panel discusses...note the bipartisan agreement that a ban on earmarks and a return to fiscal restraint is in order for the GOP.

Pence: Time to leave compassionate conservatism behind

Despite his cheerleading for McCain, who contrary to what Mike Pence says, has not always been a limited government conservative (there is nothing limited government about McCain-Feingold), Pence is right on the mark here calling for the end of so-called compassionate conservatism.

We will chalk up his kool-aid drinking on McCain's conservative credentials and on the GOP's prospects this fall to him being the consummate team player. Otherwise, really good stuff here from Pence, who should be among those the Party looks to for leadership after November.

Exactly

The Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel nails it today:

This is what Republicans haven't yet understood. Their failures in office kicked off this anger, and they remain its target. Yet they've been doing a remarkable impression of 1980s Democrats, who engaged in trivial warfare even as Ronald Reagan laid out his vision for the future.

Today's GOP spends so much time fretting about how to relive the Reagan heyday, it has failed to do him credit by laying out its own plans for today's unique challenges. It remains in hock to interest groups, running ads about sanctuary cities as Americans curse over gas prices. In a repeat of 2006, it spends more time trying to scare voters about Democrats than defining itself. It refuses to give up the earmarks that are a symbol of its worn-out reign.

Evangelical right pushes back on climate change

For all their drawbacks, Dobson, Perkins and others are performing a valuable service here by establishing a right flank on this issue. That said, it would have been nice if they could have secured the support an evangelical of note who is not so identified with the right wing. Because they didn't the press will chalk this up as more reactionary rhetoric and the further splintering of the evangelical movement.

WASHINGTON - Evangelical leaders who reject arguments that climate change is human-induced but are nevertheless concerned about the environment are trying to gather 1 million signatures of people who agree with them.

The "We Get It!" campaign, launched May 15 at the National Press Club, includes a brief declaration that states "God created everything" and there is a God-given mandate to "tend his creation" and care for the poor.

"Our stewardship of creation must be based on biblical principles and factual evidence," the four-paragraph statement reads. "We face important environmental challenges, but must be cautious of claims that our planet is in peril from speculative dangers like man-made global warming."

The campaign is the latest in the back-and-forth battle between different strains of evangelicals. Some believe action is needed to protect the environment because human activity has caused its degradation, while others believe the notion of human cause is a fad and alarmist.

"We're here to say evangelicals as a whole, evangelicals even as a significant part, have not suddenly embraced man-made catastrophic global warming alarmism," said E. Calvin Beisner, spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance, one of the partner organizations leading the campaign.

Other participants in the launch of the new campaign included Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.; Institute on Religion and Democracy President James Tonkowich; and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

"You can be green without being gullible," said Perkins.

CA follows MA off the deep end

By a 4-3 decision, the California Supreme Court has overruled the carefully-considered laws of the State of California, which recognized conjugal marriage and same-sex domestic partnerships, and has imposed its own moral views on the people of that State. This act of judicial tyranny makes California the second state, after Massachusetts, to enshrine in law the morally-partisan claim that same-sex intimacy is morally valuable conduct, which deserves equal approbation in law to conjugal monogamy (the committed union of one man and one woman).

The court left no doubt about its moral partisanship. From the introduction to the majority opinion:

One of the core elements of the right to establish an officially recognized family that is embodied in the California constitutional right to marry is a couple’s right to have their family relationship accorded dignity and respect equal to that accorded other officially recognized families, and assigning a different designation for the family relationship of same-sex couples while reserving the historic designation of “marriage” exclusively for opposite-sex couples poses at least a serious risk of denying the family relationship of same-sex couples such equal dignity and respect.

Of course, California's conjugal marriage law never denied to any of its citizens, homosexual or hetereosexual, equal respect and dignity. What it did was to endorse the proposition that conjugal marital sex is intrinsically valuable while other sexual acts are not. The California Supreme Court thinks it knows better.

The court has done a grievous disservice to the people of California, especially those citizens tempted toward homosexual acts and those who reside at the margins of society, who need the encouragement of the law to take responsibility for their actions and to choose to marry.

UPDATE: It strikes me that advocates for same-sex marriage have committed a strategic blunder, in light of the popular referendum that will appear on the November ballot in California. That referendum would amend the state constitution to anneal the traditional definition in the state constitution. It is now almost certain to pass, and to motivate conservative Californians to get out and vote. Defense of (the special status accorded to) conjugal marriage always gets people to the polls. Defense of marriage from judicial overreach really gets 'em goin'.

So, unless (heaven forbid) the United States Supreme Court creates same-sex marriage nationwide, this California decision looks an awful lot like the high water mark for the same-sex marriage project. Even if Connecticut follows suit later this year, other states are unlikely to do so. The high courts of New York and New Jersey have already declined to create same-sex marriage in those states.

Along similar lines, Election Law Blog wonders whether the California Supreme Court just did John McCain a favor.

This helps John McCain because those conservative voters may not have come out in great numbers for him, but they will come out now to vote for this amendment, and they are more likely to vote for McCain than for the Democrat once they are already voting. That's not to say that California will go red, but it is to say that the Democratic nominee will have to devote more resources to this very expensive to campaign in state.

1994 again...except not that way

I can't seem to keep away from these gloom and doom posts. These two choice quotes though are irresistible in that they are spot on in diagnosing the lameness of the GOP:

"This is 1994 all over again," Frank Luntz, a famed Republican communications consultant, told The Huffington Post. "I was there. I saw it firsthand. The Republicans of 2008 are behaving exactly like the Democrats of '94 and making exactly the same mistakes. It's pathetic."

Indeed it as. The Dems of 1994 were in complete denial as to their fecklessness. They proudly scoffed at the notion that Gingrich and a handful of rabblerousers would take the majority. In short, they were complacent, comfortable and they refused to acknowledge the depth of the desire of the country for change at their expense. Reverse that scenario and you are in 2008.

Luntz, to his credit has at least been trying to wake Republicans up. But the ones who control the levers of power hate him and his message as much as they love hording and consolidating power, so he has hit a wall. It is a beautiful and proper irony that their love of power is likely to be what in the end causes them to lose it.

Another GOP strategist, Craig Shirley, pinpoints the problem, "Ultimately voters want to know what a politician is going to do for them. What has happened with the Republican Party over the last eight years is that some of the consultants have decided it is too hard to define what we stand for so we are just going to paint Democrats as worse than us."

The case for freedom -- civic evangelicalism, part 2

This is part 2 of an ongoing series. To read part 1, go here.

It has become fashionable to criticize conservative evangelicals on moral or biblical grounds for our commitment to free markets. So-called "progressive" evangelicals make the claim that statist and collectivist solutions to social ills are moral imperatives. So, we are told that health care is a moral issue and that Obama's (or Clinton's) single-payer insurance proposal is a moral imperative. We are told that climate change is a moral issue and that a cap-and-trade policy is a moral imperative. The same tune is sung to different refrains about poverty, AIDS in Africa, the number of blacks in prisons, and a host of other societal ills. Liberals slap the malleable label "injustice" on these problems, then foreclose debate on the prudential question how best to solve these serious issues by declaiming the putative indiference of conservatives to the plight of the vulnerable and marginalized.

This reasoning (if such sophistry can rightly be dignified with that appellation) is as flawed as it is illiberal. These are not moral issues. We do not have moral disagreements about poverty, health insurance, or crime rates among blacks. We have prudential disagreements about how best to solve those problems. Invariably, liberal evangelicals propose greater government intervention as a final solution. Having adopted the secular progressive cause, liberal evangelicals believe, in spite of a century's worth of contrary evidence, that government has it in its power to end poverty, cure AIDS, and keep blacks from committing crime.

By contrast, we conservative evangelicals defend individual freedom, which thrives when government is small and the polity is ruled by law, rather than men. These also are prudential claims, in particular, political claims. However, I believe that a compelling case can be made that the political case for freedom is far more consistent with Christian conviction that collectivism.

Here again, we need not reinvent the wheel. The Dutch Reformed thinker Abraham Kuyper gave evangelicals a model for viewing political problems, which is consistent with practical reason and Scripture. Kuyper's principle of sphere sovereignty holds that different institutions -- the church, universities, familes, financial markets, etc. -- have sovereignty over different realms of civic life. Kuyper rejected the Hobbesian notion that rights and obligations originate with the state. Indeed, in Kuyper's view, the state is not competent to maintain most cultural commitments. (Catholics endorse a similar concept, known as subsidiarity.)

Christians reject the idea that the state is omni-competent and the author of rights. We endorse the scriptural view that God authorizes different institutions to perform different functions and to solve different problems. The state is peculiarly gifted at securing its borders, punishing crimes, and defending against foreign enemies. Churches are adept at ministering to the spiritual and physical needs of the marginalized. Families are best at producing, training, and raising children, and at meeting psychological needs for unconditional love and stability.

When the state is confined to its sphere of sovereignty, other cultural institutions become stronger, freedom expands, and individuals flourish. This is contrary to the progressive line. Progressives see cultural institutions, such as marriage (for example), as impediments to freedom. They think this way because they equate freedom with licentiousness. To progressives, freedom means liberation from institutional and cultural restraints upon their choices. But this is neither a Christian nor an accurate conception of freedom.

Prudence recognizes, and history teaches, that the failure of institutions such as marriage correspond to a diminishing of human flourishing, and of freedom. As cultural institutions fail, the state steps into the breach, taking on duties it is not competent to discharge. As the state grows in power and influence, individual freedom diminishes. As freedom diminishes, humans become dependent upon the state and cease to flourish.

Freedom, then, is not something to be pursued for its own sake. Rather, freedom is a by-product of keeping the spheres of sovereignty in proper balance. Freedom -- not autonomy, or licentiousness, or toleration -- promotes human flourishing as a constituent aspect of a society in which the state cooperates with, rather than usurps, other cultural institutions.

GOP loses...again, prepares for permanent minority

Maybe the third shocking loss will prove a charm in the effort to get the GOP to pull its collective head out of its rear. But don't bet on it:

A Democrat won the race for a GOP-held congressional seat in northern Mississippi yesterday, leaving the once-dominant House Republicans reeling from their third special-election defeat of the spring.

Travis Childers, a conservative Democrat who serves as Prentiss County chancery clerk, defeated Southaven Mayor Greg Davis by 54 percent to 46 percent in the race to represent Mississippi's 1st Congressional District, which both parties considered a potential bellwether for the fall elections.

Democrats said the results prove that they are poised for another round of big gains in the November general elections, and they attacked the Republican strategy of tying Democrats to Sen. Barack Obama, the front-runner for the party's presidential nomination, saying it had failed for a second time in 10 days in the Deep South. Democrat Don Cazayoux won the special election for a GOP-held House seat in Louisiana on May 3.

"No one could have imagined the tsunami that just crashed on Republicans in Mississippi," Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview after the victory. "There is no district that is safe for Republican candidates."

House Democrats now hold a 236 to 199 majority, up from 203 seats they controlled two years ago.

It is not as if nobody has seen this coming. The warning signs have been evident for almost three years. The pathway back to the majority is evident as well, but GOP leadership can't seem to actually lead their caucuses in that direction.

No recession

Good news:

A funny thing happened to the economy on its way to recession: It's taken a detour.

That, at least, is the view of a growing number of economists -- including some who not long ago were saying a recession was all but inevitable. They note that stock and credit markets have steadily improved since the Federal Reserve intervened to keep Bear Stearns Cos. from bankruptcy in early March, while a series of economic reports have been stronger than expected.

Obama and Israel

The Atlantic website is carrying an interview with Obama concerning his thoughts on Israel. What I found is that Obama is evasive and is choosing his words very carefully. Here are some of the highlights (I've provided emphasis and comment on certain parts that leave open the question of his Israel policy. I recommend reading the full interview.):

Q: I’m curious to hear you talk about the Zionist idea. Do you believe that it has justice on its side?

A: ...And then that mixed with a great affinity for the idea of social justice that was embodied in the early Zionist movement and the kibbutz, and the notion that not only do you find a place but you also have this opportunity to start over and to repair the breaches of the past.

Q:Why do you think Ahmed Yousef of Hamas said what he said about you?

A:My position on Hamas is indistinguishable from the position of Hillary Clinton or John McCain. I said they are a terrorist organization and I’ve repeatedly condemned them. I’ve repeatedly said, and I mean what I say: since they are a terrorist organization, we should not be dealing with them until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and abide by previous agreements....(And then comes the panderer alert ala Hillary Clinton. Do you really think this was a conversation he had in Ramallah? Hopefully some reporter is on the ground vetting this stuff.) When I visited Ramallah, among a group of Palestinian students, one of the things that I said to those students was: “Look, I am sympathetic to you and the need for you guys to have a country that can function, but understand this: if you’re waiting for America to distance itself from Israel, you are delusional. Because my commitment, our commitment, to Israel’s security is non-negotiable.”

(But Barak's not done yet). He goes onto say:

So I welcome the Muslim world’s accurate perception that I am interested in opening up dialogue and interested in moving away from the unilateral policies of George Bush, but nobody should mistake that for a softer stance when it comes to terrorism or when it comes to protecting Israel’s security or making sure that the alliance is strong and firm. (So wait are you or aren't you talking to Hamas?)

Q:Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

A:No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy.The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that, and some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I’m not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that’s the safest ground politically.

To sum up: Obama may and/or may not talk to Hamas. He will not pursue the 'most' hawkish stance, whatever that means. He even went to Ramallah and told the Palestinian kids they were delusional. He is fond of the early Zionist movement; not too sure about this new one.

Another point is that Barak tries to tie himself to the Holocaust through Slavery and then at the same time identifies himself as someone that Muslims are able to identify with. To me, much of the cocktail he is trying to brew involves mutually exclusive ingredients.

Cap and What?

Today John McCain unveiled a cap n' trade system that he would implement if elected. Like Kudlow, I'm not quite sure of it.

I can envision issues similar to the current problems with AMT; where the government fails to account for economic growth and we have these fixed units of pollution that eventually penalize the broader economy.

Here's an example, say we start with a 300 million tonne carbon emission system (this is the Cap). Hereafter 'polluters' and greenies trade these 300 million units so that polluters have to pay up to pollute more and greenies make money off of their conservation (the Trade part). If ,for instance, the US economy grows by an average of 5% per annum for 10 years this fixed system would not only create vast new costs for 'polluters' but in effect it would limit future growth because there are only a fixed number of units and so the economy can only grow up to the ceiling.

Certainly, I think there is a way to create a functioning market but its probably one that won't be created by the Federal government.

Obama's vision for an activist judiciary

Ed Whelan has been carefully documenting the evidence -- thus far unrebutted -- that an Obama presidency would result in a dramatic increase in the number of liberal activists in the federal judiciary. Today he adds to the pile.

There's nothing too surprising here. Any reasonable reading of Obama's and McCain's speeches, votes, and campaign commitments leads to the parallel conclusions that a McCain presidency would at least marginally improve the federal judiciary and that an Obama presidency would cause significant deterioration in the third branch of government. Federal judges have difficult, lonely jobs. And the vast majority of them are talented, virtuous public servants. Obama's vision of a qualified federal judge is depressing, and is one more reason why an Obama presidency would be an unmitigated disaster for the United States.

The Beauty of Capitalism

During this political season politicians are quick to point out job losses that are the result of the current financial crisis. For once, they are correct. However its not you and I that are losing our jobs its those very bankers and Wall Street types that politicians love to vilify. According to a recent article, the Financial Services sector has lost the most jobs in 2008 at nearly 50,000. This number does not include more announcements that are expected to come from Wall Street in the coming weeks.

The take away? The time honored principle of living by the sword and dying by the sword. The recent correction has brought pain to the very people who engineered Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) that fueled sub-prime lending. I know your thinking that "this guy is really insensitive to the plight of people losing their jobs." Its hard to be too concerned seeing that most of these guys made $5 million or more last year.

Catching up on the economy

I had the chance to catch up on reading this weekend and found a couple tidbits I thought needed to be passed along.

Many of the talking heads suggest we are in recession I'm not convinced just yet but do recognize that there are a set of conflicting forces at work that could push us off the cliff to a deep and painful recession. The WSJ outlined a few of these on Friday. On the plus side we have a depreciating currency which bolsters exports and reduces our trade deficit. These exports translate into job stability and potentially economic expansion. The complication is that as the dollar depreciates the cost of inputs like oil goes up, hampering expansion.

The WSJ argues that a global expansion is needed to keep the US out of recession. This I agree with wholeheartedly. The most recent global growth is the result of the US consumers resilient spending. Its about time that the rest of the world pick up the slack as our consumers have reached capacity. If the rest of the world economy can continue growing without the US consumer we are likely in for a period of trade balance corrections and stability. If not, we can expect recession with a capital 'R'.

A robust civility -- civic evangelicalism part 1

At the urging of those who think I was too hard on the Evangelical Manifesto, I have read it over again. My view is unchanged. Each time the document says something true and important, it immediately backtracks to counter a (often exaggerated) stereotype about "fundamentalist" or "conservative" evangelicalism. In a conversation yesterday about the document, someone described the content as "unrelenting moderation." I think that sums up the document perfectly, and explains its central failing succintly. A growing number of evangelicals mistake moderation for civility. That is wrong and dangerous.

Am I opposed to moderation? Well, when it comes to the Christian faith and civic life, yes I am. Does that make me a radical or extremist? Perhaps. Does it make me a fundamentalist or uncivil? I don't think so. Allow me to sketch out an evangelical case for civility in public discourse that is premised upon both (1) universally-accessible principles of practical reason and (2) Christian convictions revealed by special revelation, and is in addition uncompromising on the political substance of Christian conviction. Herewith I begin a series of posts on what I will call "civic evangelicalism," inspired by, but not directly responsive to, the Evangelical Manifesto.

An evangelical case for civility must necessarily begin with the observation that what we believe is true. That is, Christian conviction is not true for us, it is not true in our opinion, it is simply true. The divinity and humanity of Christ, His death and resurrection, the creation of all human persons in the image of God -- these and the other fundamental tenets of evangelical faith are universal principles that are both descriptive and instructive. These principles are descriptive in that they state facts, which are true whether or not any particular person chooses to believe them. The sun rises in the east whether or not I choose to think that it rises in the west. Human life has intrinsic value whether or not I choose to believe that life ceases to be worth living when burdened by physical suffering.

These principles are instructive because we humans have free will, and thus have the freedom to choose not to live our lives in conformity with the truth. We are free to live lies. When we choose lies over truth, our lives become less life-like. We choose, in short, death. In some instances we choose death in its most obvious form -- abortion, euthanasia, suicide. In other cases we do not choose immediate cessation of physical life, but we choose some portion of death -- marital infidelity, fornication, hubris, gluttony, laziness. All the vices are really direction of the human will away from life and toward death.

And here we pause to make an important observation. Because the choice of truth leads to life and the choice of lies leads to death, we Christians have an obligation to lead others to choose truth, what we will generally call "the good," so that they may truly live as they are created to live. That is the end, the goal: leading others toward the good. That project is infinitely more important than the goals of leading people out of poverty, or giving them health insurance, or even providing them with medicine. One can truly live even when one is afflicted with illness or poverty. On the other hand, many people have no material needs but are walking dead.

So the end is to lead others to direct their wills toward the good. What means do we use to accomplish that end? In short, any means that do not destroy the good end toward which we are trying to lead. And here is our next important observation. There is nothing inherently or morally wrong with coercion. Indeed, coercion is often a very effective and morally permissible means of preventing harm and directing people toward the good. Parents rightly use coercion to discipline their children. Adults rightly coerce other adults to prevent them from committing suicide, homicide, rape, or other harmful acts. The State rightly coerces individuals -- juveniles and adults -- to prevent harms, including moral harms, by criminalizing and punishing a wide array of conduct, including narcotics use and possession, speeding, and perjury.

Evangelical Christians often come under attack for being coercive. We putatively attempt to "legislate morality," to create a "theocracy," to "impose" our "beliefs" on others. (The EM beat this straw man rather thoroughly.) Perhaps at the margins some evangelicals are guilty of trying to creat an evangelical nation, where those who do not bow the knee to an evangelical Jesus are punished or otherwise coerced. I know a lot of evangelicals. I don't know any evangelicals who have that vision for America.

So if coercion is not morally impermissible, is there ever any reason not to use it to accomplish good ends? Yes, but that reason is not a moral reason, it is a prudential reason. The Catholic philosopher Robert George has explained that some good ends are "reflexive," which means that they are goods only if freely chosen. The reflexive goods include friendship and religious practice. Coerced friendship is not friendship at all. Coerced religious practice is barren, devoid of true belief and adherence. The prudential reason to avoid coercion in defense of reflexive goods is that coercing someone to choose the good destroys the good itself, and is thus counter-productive.

Other goods are non-reflexive. These goods, which include beauty and human life, are good whether or not they are freely chosen. A beautiful symphony or sunset does not cease to be good simply because no one chooses to enjoy it. Human life has intrinsic value even when the person living that life wants to die. Sometimes it is permissible to engage in coercion in defense of non-reflexive goods. It is perfectly acceptable, morally and prudentially, to use coercion to prevent or punish murder, for example.

These observations suggest one reason why evangelicals ought to be civil in their civic speech and conduct. We want to persuade others to choose good ends, and only use coercion where necessary, morally permissible, and prudentially advisable. There are other reasons to be civil, including the rule that we ought to treat others as we would want to be treated. But the point here is that civility is important not for its own sake, but because civility is instrumentally valuable to accomplish an important evangelical goal: leading others to acceptance of the truth, and thereby helping them direct their will toward the good.

Millenials going for Obama

More on a trend that we have observed here before:

Michael Dudley is the son of a preacher man.

He's a born-again Christian with two family members in the military. He grew up in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone he knew was Republican. But this fall, he's breaking a handful of stereotypes: He plans to vote for Democrat Barack Obama.

"I think a lot of Christians are having trouble getting behind everything the Republicans stand for," said Dudley, 20, a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University.

Dudley's disenchantment with the GOP isn't unique among young, devoutly Christian voters. According to a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, a group traditionally a shoo-in for the GOP, say they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate.

Read it all.

GOP must reinvent itself

The high profile GOP losses in this week's special elections has the GOP looking for answers.

"The conference was shaken by the two losses," one House GOP leadership aide told Real Clear Politics. "We just couldn't get it done." The fallout has encouraged a brewing feud between House Majority Leader John Boehner and National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Tom Cole, two top Republicans who have spent much of the past year fighting. And while other Capitol Hill Republicans are almost unanimous in agreeing the trouble is not all Cole's fault, someone has to take the hit. "The two offices are positioning themselves to avoid blame or to lay blame," the aide said.

As I noted this week, there will be a changing of the guard post-November. It looks from the GOP aide quote above that the blame game is already amongst leadership circles is already in full effect. But lost amidst the positioning is the fact that there are answers for the here and now that the GOP should be able to see.

The Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel points out that the big GOP loss in Louisiana should have been predictable. The GOP candidate was uninspired to say the least. The GOP needs to sell a different message. What message?

Strassel points to another election that took place this week in Louisiana. This was received no attention, but its importance for the GOP could be incalculable if the message could be adopted:

The 43-year-old Republican, Steve Scalise, had pinpointed today's GOP vulnerabilities, and ran an anti-status-quo campaign. His focal point was wasteful spending, and he touted his legislation to reform Louisiana's earmark process. Another hallmark was ethics reform and his fight against public corruption. He talked up competitive private health care, lower taxes and school choice.

Republicans looking for an Obama doppelganger would have been better served by his Democratic competitor, Gilda Reed. She campaigned on immediate withdrawal from Iraq and "universal" health care. Trade came in for a bashing, as did secret ballots in union-organizing elections. Ms. Reed explained she was personally pro-life, but felt abortion needed to remain legal. Her cause became that of the liberal left, with the Daily Kos hosting an online fund-raiser on her behalf. Mr. Scalise won 75% of the vote.

This is how the GOP should redefine itself.

More on the Evangelical Manifesto

Well, I read the whole thing and I am as ambivalent about it as before. Not unmoved or apathetic, but ambivalent. There is much truth there, and much to commend. Civility in civic discourse, one of the main admonitions of the paper, is an under-valued virtue. Also, as the Manifesto teaches, evangelicals are defined not by political affiliations but by their commitment to the Gospel and to its Christ.

However, these admonitions respond to caricatures of evangelicals that are largely inaccurate or exaggerated. The truth is that most evangelicals (though certainly not all) are civil when discussing important issues with their intellectual opponents. The truth is that evangelicals do primarily define themselves theologically and not politically, especially conservative evangelicals.

So, the document ends up beating a straw man, scolding evangelicals for sins of which we are occasionally guilty but often innocent. Indeed, self-flagellation is the most prominent exercise of the authors. The list of transgressions (pages 11-13) is long: trumpeting a diluted Gospel; hypocrisy in our lifestyles; hypocrisy in our proselytization; hypocrisy in our fractiousness; hypocrisy in our (lack of) reliance upon God; hypocrisy in our materialism; hypocrisy in our environmental stewardship; syncretism; anti-intellectualism; racial segregation; catering to the rich and powerful; capitulation to postmodernism.

I am not suggesting that evangelicals are sinless. But that we are human, and therefore sinful, is not an instructive observation. Most of us gather that knowledge simply by looking around us.

Furthermore, by conceding stereotypes of evangelicals, succumbing to self-flagellation, and reducing our convictions to the lowest common denominator, the document in places celebrates all that is worst about evangelicalism. For example:

Yet far from being unquestioning conservatives and unreserved supporters of tradition and the status quo, being Evangelical means an ongoing commitment to Jesus Christ, and this entails innovation, renewal, reformation, and entrepreneurial dynamism, for everything in every age is subject to assessment in the light of Jesus and his Word. (page 10)

Well, yes. But why pick on conservatives? For every unquestioning conservative evangelical one can identify at least one unthinking liberal evangelical. Furthermore, tradition (and even the status quo) has enormous value. Indeed, evangelical aversion to tradition got us into this mess in the first place. There are so many disparate voices within evangelicalism, and so many evangelicals being blown about by winds of change, in large part because we have no Evangelical Magisterium, no unbroken chain of tradition and authority stretching back to the Apostles.

The "light of Jesus and his Word" means something very different to Os Guinness than it does to Jim Wallis. Indeed, notice that the Manifesto makes no attempt to define what that phrase means. If it did so, you would not see both of those signatures on it. I'm not being a papist here (okay, maybe a little), I'm merely observing that tradition, whether or not evangelical, or even Christian, or even theist, has significant meaning and value.

The Manifesto further disappoints by equivocating where it should stand firm. It commends our "biblically rooted commitment to the sanctity of every human life, including those unborn" and affirms the "holiness of marriage as instituted by God between one man and one woman." (page 13) Those statements should precede a full stop. End of story. Shut off the lights on your way out.

However, in the same paragraph the document calls "for an expansion of our concern beyond single-issue politics, such as abortion and marriage, and a fuller recognition of the comprehensive causes and concerns of the Gospel, and of all the human issues that must be engaged in public life." In particular, it lists the "global giants of conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness."

This is extremely unfortunate. The fact is that almost no one other than Christians is today willing to defend the intrinsic value of human life and the intrinsic value of conjugal marriage. Abortion, embryo-destructive research, same-sex marriage, and polygamy are all significant, current moral issues about which Christian conviction is clear and on which Christians have something valuable to say qua Christians.

By contrast, nearly everyone in contemporary America is vehemently opposed to "conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness." Our difference on those issues are not moral disagreements. Rather, liberals and conservatives (and others, such as libertarians) have prudential disagreements about how best to address those problems.

Disease, for example, is not a moral issue in America. Reasonable evangelicals all agree that Christians have a moral obligation to help the infirmed and, where possible, to prevent disease. We disagree about the best means to accomplish those goals. Those of us who adopt conservative views on these prudential questions are not guilty of carelessness toward the poor and the sick, nor are we engaging in single-issue politics merely because we distrust government. With this sort of language, the Manifesto renders itself impotent. The drafters had an opportunity to strike a blow for Christian principle, and they blew it.

On the other hand, the Manifesto is not completely watered down. It condemns in unequivocal language the "evils" of "genocide, slavery, female oppression, and assaults on the unborn." (page 18) It scolds reactionaries for their fundamentalism and "progressives" for their failure to conserve "what is true and right and good." (page 10)

So, as I stated at the outset, I am ambivalent. On balance, the Manifesto does not, in my mind, accomplish much, and it has the potential to do much harm, serving the relativism to which Wallis and his disciples have succumbed. After careful consideration, I have decided not to sign it. And that disappoints me, because I wanted to sign it. I have great respect for Guinness, Mark Noll, Alvin Platinga, and other signatories to the Manifesto. However, it appears that those voices were lost during crucial moments in the document's creation.

UPDATE: Scanning the list of those who have signed the document since its public release anneals my resolve not to sign. An Evangelical Manifesto that can command the assent of self-described wiccans and atheists is a document capable of infinite interpretations, so watered down as to have no real meaning.

Courts behaving like courts

Imagine a state high court charged with interpreting a state constitutional amendment that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Imagine the court concluding that, under that provision, marriage is the union of one man and one woman. In other words, imagine a state supreme court interpreting the law, rather than legislating from the bench.

That is precisely what the Michigan Supreme Court did yesterday, when it ruled that a state constitutional amendment, which enshrines conjugal marriage in state law, prohibits state employers from providing marital benefits to same-sex couples. The court demonstrated how elementary is the judicial role. It began its analysis by observing, "The primary objective in interpreting a constitutional provision is to determine the original meaning of the provision to the ratifiers, 'we the people,' at the time of ratification."

Kudos to the high court of Michigan for its exposition of, and faithfulness to, originalism. Is it possible to require Justices Souter, Ginsberg, Breyer, and Stevens to sit under the tutelage of the Michigan Supreme Court for a term or two? The experience would benefit them immensely.

Preparing for a changing of the guard

On Tuesday former House Speaker Newt Gingrich sounded the alarm. In a memo to Congressional Republicans Gingrich pleaded for a change of course. Without "real change," Gingrich wrote his colleagues, the GOP was sure to suffer "real disaster" at the polls this fall.

To his credit Gingrich outlined a legitimate agenda that he believes could be a rode map to electoral success. A moratorium on earmarks, promoting nuclear energy and promoting judges who will uphold the constitution were some highlights of the conservative agenda. Absent bold action on big issues, the GOP is toast.

Yesterday a round of stories popped up about the impending disaster with speculation about who may replace the current leadership team in the House. The Politico piece described "dark clouds hovering" over the current team of Boehner, Blunt and Cole. As their prospective replacements The Politico offered Eric Cantor, Adam Putnam, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy. How Cantor and Putnam would not be tainted with the failures of the current team is beyond me. But perhaps they are far enough down on the totem pole that that can make a good argument to their colleagues that their advice was not heeded.

Interestingly no stories brought up the potential for new leadership in the Senate. If House leadership has been uninspired, Senate leadership has been downright counter productive at best, nefarious at worst. It seems to me that any significant GOP losses in November (which there will be) is a strong argument for housecleaning in both chambers.

The strongest argument for new leadership in November is being made right now. Newt Gingrich's plea has not been alone. Since the 2006 election conservative voices have been making the exact case that Gingrich did repeatedly. But the pleas have all fallen on deaf ears in leadership circles. To Boehner's credit, he has been somewhat more responsive than his Senate counterpart, but he still has lacked the courage to shake things up the way they must be.

So the continued denial of reality on the part of GOP congressional leadership should be damning in a post-2008 GOP bloodbath world.

As for Gingrich's very public scolding...I suspect this has more to do with laying the groundwork for a post-election coup than it does with actually changing course right now. Of course Gingrich would be happy if leadership took up his agenda and pushed it. But he knows full well that conservatives have been agitating within Congress for this kind of push for over a year. He also knows full well that there is zero desire within the House and Senate GOP caucuses to adopt a bold agenda. So putting the agenda out there now, along with the warning, is more about winning the argument in November.

Speaking of that argument, don't think the forces of the status quo are not preparing right now to win it as well. They will blame the Gingrich's of the world for causing division and detracting from the "message" (which has been, "we may be bad, but those evil Democrats are way worse." This doesn't exactly work in a political landscape where a generic Republican loses to a generic Democrat 55-32). They will point the finger at reformers in Congress too. All those pesky conservatives who forced the GOP to take votes on issues of conservative principle, thereby highlighting GOP abandonment of their foundational issues, will be blamed for losses.

Of course it is all insane, but they will do it.

It is imperative that conservatives be ready with their best arguments. The GOP cannot suffer through another congressional session with uninspired leadership. The Party cannot afford it. More importantly, the country cannot afford it.

The Manifesto manifests itself

To much pomp and circumstance, it is released. Hugh Hewitt is less than enthused, calling it "pride going before a snooze." Between Two Worlds, which deems the document "imperfect" but "remarkable," has a summary.

We will no doubt comment once we have had the opportunity to read the thing. 7400 words is a lot of words and we have other work to do. Judging from the executive summary, there is not much to object to, but not much in particular to get excited about, either. We shall see...

McCain's advisors on judges

One of the frequent and, I think, reasonable criticisms of John McCain is that he has not yet demonstrated a commitment to putting originalist judges on federal benches. In fact, with the Gang of Fourteen deal and his unfortunate comments about Justice Alito, McCain gave conservatives real reason to doubt his judgment on judicial picks.

I, for one, feel a little better now that McCain has announced the membership of his Judicial Advisory Committee. Chaired by Ted Olson and Sam Brownback, the Committee also includes pro-life and/or originalist stalwarts Gerry Bradley, Steven Calabresi, Rick Garnett, Robert George, Fred Thompson, and Eugene Volokh.

But wait! Is that Lindsey Graham I see in there? The Lindsey Graham who abetted McCain's abandonment of qualified, competent Bush nominees and undermined deployment of the Constitutional Option?

Let us hope the Committee makes its decisions by majority vote.

Professor Defarge

This hilarious story appeared on the Journal Online a couple of days ago, but a friend just brought it to my attention. As often happens when American professors open their mouths or put pen to paper, Professor of "French Narrative Theory," Priya Venkatesan, made herself a laughingstock when she threatened to sue her former students because their anti-intellectualism allegedly violated her civil rights. A sample, a soupcon, if you will, of her comedy routine:

Ms. Venkatesan's scholarly specialty is "science studies," which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, "teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth." She continues: "Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct."

The agenda of Ms. Venkatesan's seminar, then, was to "problematize" technology and the life sciences. Students told me that most of the "problems" owed to her impenetrable lectures and various eruptions when students indicated skepticism of literary theory. She counters that such skepticism was "intolerant of ideas" and "questioned my knowledge in very inappropriate ways."

I work in academia. Yes, these people really exist and no, we conservatives don't have to make them up. I recently received a draft program for a scholarly conference I will soon attend. With genuine anticipation I opened the program scanning for workshops in my subject area. To my chagrin, I found them. The description of one workshop began by denying that gender is biological and declaiming that social science has now proven "that gender is not fixed; rather, it is variable and negotiable." It went on to complain, "The hegemonic masculinity is the culturally dominant masculinity."

Um, yeah. As a friend is fond of pointing out, truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.

"Religious Right" still integral

An interesting read from USA Today:

With the deaths of prominent evangelical pastors Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy last year, funeral bells began tolling for the Religious Right. Political columnist E.J. Dionne wrote Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right, and theologian Jim Wallis offered The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America. Even religious and civil liberties attorney John Whitehead, who assisted Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against President Clinton, joined the chorus with an article titled, "The Passing of the Christian Right."

These reports are at the very least premature, and in all likelihood dead wrong. High-profile leaders will come and go, but the strength and commitment of conservative Christians on the front lines of parish life are as strong as ever.

Jihadists: Legal Division

Brooke Goldstein has a great piece detailing the "legal division" of the jihadist movement.

Here's a taste:

The Islamist movement has two wings – one violent and one lawful, which can operate apart but often reinforce each other. While the violent arm attempts to silence speech by burning cars when cartoons of Mohammed are published in Denmark, the lawful arm is skillfully maneuvering within Western legal systems, both here and abroad.

Islamists with financial means have launched a "legal Jihad," filing frivolous and malicious lawsuits with the aim of abolishing public discourse critical of Islam and with the goal of establishing principles of Sharia law (strict Islamic law dating back to the 9th Century) as the governing political and legal authority in the West.

Islamist Lawfare is often predatory, filed without a serious expectation of winning, and undertaken as a means to intimidate, demoralize and bankrupt defendants. The lawsuits range in their claims from defamation to workplace harassment and they have resulted in books being pulped and meritorious articles going unpublished.

Goldstein is right on point. The jihadists are sharp and perpceptive. As long as the surest way to end political debate in this country is to yell "racist," or "sexist," the jihadists will use that same tactic against us. The reaction to this movement needs to be measured but forceful. It need not--and should not--turn into a barrage of anti-Islam rhetoric. However, the contrast between the Islamist vision for the world (coereced adherence to Islam) and the West's vision (renewed commitment to religious freedom and pluralism) needs to be made again and again. If only so we don't forget the stakes.

The Catholic divide

Meanwhile, there appears increasing evidence that a substantial bloc of the Catholic vote will follow Doug Kmiec into Obama's camp this year. That would be a shame. Unlike evangelicals, Catholics have recently stood firmly for orthodoxy and the intrinsic value of human life and marriage.

If these trends continue, and Obama wins the presidency, a lot of evangelicals and Catholics will soon regret the part they played in his election.

Manifesto Destiny

It is not worth speculating on the contents of the so-called "Evangelical Manifesto" that Os Guiness, Richard Mouw, Rick Warren, and other evangelical leaders will release later this week. Various accounts portray the document as either a call for evangelicals to withdraw from political engagement on behalf of conservative causes or an attempt to pull evangelicalism even farther left (and therefore away from orthodoxy) than it has drifted in recent months. Until the mysterious missive is made public, the fragmentary evidence of its argument will not support fair inferences.

However, the advance marketing of the Manifesto itself raises questions. Whether Guiness et al have intentionally created an aura of exclusion and secrecy or merely done so clumsily and unintentionally, they have created a distasteful impression. Like a self-appointed college of cardinals of the evangelical church, they meet in clandestine quarters choosing who will receive an invitation to join their deliberations. Apparently they expect evangelicals to wait with bated breath for the white smoke and the declaration, "Habemus Papum!"

If that was the intent, the effect on this evangelical has been the opposite. I am growing increasingly skeptical and will greet the document not with jubilation but with a critical eye.

On being a permanent minority Party

The feckless Republicans are still at it:

Operating outside public view, the House Democratic majority is taking extraordinary steps to maintain spending as usual while awaiting the arrival of a Democratic president. Remarkably, the supine House Republican minority hardly resists and even collaborates with its supposed adversaries.

There has been little public Republican protest over the seizure of the appropriating process by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her clique. For the second year, no appropriations bill other than defense is scheduled for passage. Instead, spending details are crafted in the speaker's office, negating President Bush's veto strategy. In a little-noticed maneuver on April 23, Pelosi won passage of a bill preventing billions from being saved through Bush administration Medicaid regulations. Despite the GOP leadership's nominal opposition, House Republicans voted 2 to 1 for higher spending.

Adding in Pelosi's unprecedented tactics in blocking the Colombian free trade agreement, she has in 16 months established herself as one of the most powerful speakers ever. The stunning aspect of Czar Nancy's rule is the degree of Republican acquiescence. Neither the loss of their House majority in 2006 after 12 years nor the prospect of more losses this November has toughened the Republicans.

More:

House Republicans had another chance last Thursday to demonstrate interest in restoring their anti-waste credentials. Republican Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona offered a proposal to keep the individual limit on direct farm payments at the current $40,000 instead of raising it to $60,000, as the House did earlier. The state of the GOP is indicated by the fact that even though Flake's proposal failed, the 104 to 86 supporting vote by Republicans was seen as progress. Voting against it were Blunt, Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam and Republican campaign chairman Tom Cole.

Sadly, this is par for the course in Congress. It is why I keep saying their must be wholesale change in personnel. New faces with new voices need to be elected to Republican leadership. The current leadership structures within the GOP are incapable of putting forth a compelling vision for conservative governance. They are incapable because they are part and parcel with the old regimes that have been part of the corruption and complacence that the American people now overwhelmingly associate with the Republican Party.

As much as I bristle at the thought of strengthened majorities for liberal post-2008, I do think (hope is probably the better term) the GOP congressional bloodbath at the polls will provide a window of opportunity for conservative reformers to push the Party in the right direction.

More bailouts

The Wall Street Journal has been all over this:

Congratulations! You and your fellow taxpayers will soon be the proud owners of a multibillion-dollar portfolio of student loans. And a leading Member of Congress promises that this pretty bundle of debt comes to you with no cost and no risk. President Bush apparently agrees.

St. Thomas and Planned Parenthood

Thomas Mengler, the dean of St. Thomas Law School, has rightly decided not to extend volunteer credit to a student for working at a Planned Parenthood clinic.

"I view myself as responsible for promoting and protecting our institutional identity, including but not limited to our Catholic identity," Mengler said Thursday. "Our law school clearly has a faith mission."

Two aspects of this story, which the author brushes past, seem worth remarking upon. First, note that St. Thomas requires its students to perform volunteer service. The Star-Tribune attempts to bury this telling fact. Service is as prominent a component of the school's Catholic mission as its defense of innocent human life. However, it is a component for which liberal MSM outlets like the Trib are not prepared to give credit.

Second, Mengler's decision is unlikely to earn him friends in the legal academy. Most legal scholars disparage defense of the unborn, as they disparage defense of traditional institutions such as conjugal marriage, as theocratic, dogmatic, and irrational. Kudos to Mengler, who unlike a certain wimpy element within Christendom (against which I often inveigh), cares much more about unborn humans than he does about receiving an invitation to the cocktail party.

Add St. Thomas to my ealier list of law schools for aspiring conservative lawyers to consider. (And while we're at it, throw in BYU in the Mountain West.)

McCain's Health Care Proposal

Today on NRO, John McCain sets out his health care proposal. To my inexpert eye, the proposal seems to incorporate the best learning on this subject from the last several years. (I am curious to know what our resident economists think.)

The centerpiece of the proposal is individualized tax credits, which would supplement the credits currently granted to employers who insure their employees. A taxpayer who chooses the individual credit would be free to choose an insurer, to whom the credit would be paid on the taxpayers behalf. The system is designed to increase competition, with its attendant increase in quality and decrease in cost, while also increasing access.

Tax credits, which directly reduce tax liability, are more valuable than tax deductions, which reduce taxable income and thus only indirectly reduce tax liability. However, neither a credit nor a deduction is much use to someone who pays no taxes. Many of the poorest Americans have no tax liability. It is not clear how McCain's tax credit might benefit them. On the other hand, the poorest Americans are often eligible for Medicaid, and have their basic health care needs covered through that federal welfare program.

Kudos to McCain for a promising proposal. The man looks more conservative by the week.

Time to rebrand

Nothing short of wholesale change will turn this around:

Only 27% of voters have positive views of the Republican Party, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the lowest level for either party in the survey's nearly two-decade history.

The leadership in the Republican Party has driven it into the ground. New leaders across the board need to be put forward. The House, the Senate and the White House...they have all failed the Party.

There are some up and comers in the Party with good ideas. The problem is their ideas are stifled by leadership structures and actors who exist to perpetuate the corrupt and tired status quo. Maybe after Congressional Republicans get their rears handed to them in November there will be some movement to shake things up.