Proposition 209 and racial preferences

This past weekend saw several articles addressing the issues Huntington presents in Who Are We?
David Leonhardt in The New York Times Magazine and Steve Sailer's rebuttal ran earlier today.

At issue is the question of whether or not citizenship and the benefits it entails should be race-conscious.

Citizenship

Click here to see a graph showing the foreign-born population of the US 1850-2000.

Charlie earlier mentioned the new naturalization test. Here are some sample questions.

Several years ago, President Bush signed an executive order to provide for faster naturalization of noncitizens serving in the military. Here is a story about the 26,000+ new Americans who have taken advantage of that process. Here is video of soldiers becoming citizens while serving in Iraq. Here is the text of the Oath of Allegiance.

Linda Monk on NPR

In February 2003, Linda Monk talked about the origins of the Constitution and the state constitutions on National Public Radio. They discussed why it is that most people (politicians, included) don't know enough about the Constitution.

Her favorite phrase is "We The People."

She was joined by Nat Hentoff, Alan M. Dershowitz, and Linda Chavez.

Hentoff talked about the "no law" clause of the First Amendment and our freedom of "conscience" --interestingly enough, the words "conscience" never appear in the Constitution.

I disagree with Monk's view that the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments constituted a second Bill of Rights and found that her analysis of the ratification process was too Beardian, but found that it was very interesting all the same.

Chavez talked about how she's made a career based on the notion of the Constitution's color-blind nature and how that's in keeping with the 13th, 14th, and 15th.

Dershowitz talked about the one-word missing from the Constitution -- God. He talked about the "no religious test" clause and how that established a pluralistic democracy and how that broke down a hierarchy of citizenship. The First Amendment, he writes, that the establishment clause and the free exercise thereof, clash and how we might reconcile those differences.

The Conservative Response to MoveOn

Today's New York Times has an article about the creation of Freedom Watch, a conservative organization that essentially has been created as a response to the prominence of MoveOn.org. It's a pretty recent group, and its got some extremely wealthy benefactors. Recently it has been throwing ad money around like MoveOn about Bush's troop increases. In a lot ways it seems that this group is attempting to reinforce Bush policy, although clearly it has its own agenda. My question is what will happen to either of these groups if a Democrat takes the presidency as is often predicted these days. MoveOn has made a name for itself angrily denouncing Bush Policy, while Freedom Watch seems to be making its name supporting it. Will either of them fizzle out if a Democrat control the white house? I can't see MoveOn fading into the shadows since it seems to have a lot of beefs with "mainstream" democrats, but Freedom Watch I don't really know.

You can find the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/us/politics/30watch.html?hp

Great Immigration Links from BookForum

BookForum.com is a simply awesome resource for brain food.

A recent post had lots of good links to immigration articles. Related to Huntington.

Thinking about the admirable traits behind the Republic

Our Noble, Essential Decency

by Robert A. Heinlein

I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults.

Take Father Michael down our road a piece. I'm not of his creed, but I know that his goodness and charity and loving kindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I'm in trouble, I'll go to him. My next-door neighbor's a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat—no fee, no prospect of a fee. I believe in Doc.

I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town, say, "I'm hungry," and you'll be fed. Our town is no exception. I've found the same ready charity everywhere. For the one who says, "The heck with you, I've got mine," there are a hundred, a thousand, who will say, "Sure, pal, sit down." I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers, I can step to the highway, thumb for a ride, and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, "Climb in, Mack. How far you going?"

I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so. no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime.

I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses, in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land. I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.

I believe that almost all politicians are honest. For every bribed alderman, there are hundreds of politicians—low paid or not paid at all—doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true, we would never have gotten past the thirteen colonies.

I believe in Roger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in—I am proud to belong to—the United States. Despite shortcomings—from lynchings, to bad faith in high places—our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history.

And finally, I believe in my whole race—yellow, white, black, red, brown—in the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth—that we always make it just by the skin of our teeth—but that we will always make it, survive, endure.

I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching oversized braincase and the opposable thumb—this animal barely up from the apes—will endure, will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets—to the stars and beyond—carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage, and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart.

Citizenship Exams Emphasizes Principles

In keeping with our conversation, new citizenship exam emphasizes principles.

Romney at Long Beach

Former Massachusetts Governor and Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney came to Long Beach today, and I was very lucky to be able to see him and meet him. The event was one of the campaign’s “Ask Mitt Anything” meetings where Governor Romney gives a short speech and then answers the crowd’s questions. The location of the event, an airplane hangar at Long Beach Airport, was very interesting as planes could constantly be heard taking off during his speech. Behind where Governor Romney was speaking stood a small plane and a huge American flag.
Governor Romney gave a very good speech to start. Interestingly, the first part of his speech was dedicated to the importance of bipartisanship. He spoke about how Republicans and Democrats may frequently have differences but need to come together in order to help the country (although he did actually take a jab at Hillary Clinton during this part of the speech, causing the crowd to laugh). He then spoke about some of what he was able to accomplish in Massachusetts by working in a bipartisan manner with Democrats. Governor Romney then went on to describe some of the problems he hopes to fix if elected. He acknowledged that under the Bush Administration government accountability has broken down. He said that if he became President he would use his previous management experience in the private sector to bring back accountability and help the government to function better. Next he discussed how the current government was not helping veterans enough (he received a warm applause). He also said that he hoped to increase the size of the military if elected. Governor Romney described what he calls a war against jihadists that America must win. He then shifted topics to discuss immigration and that America’s borders are broken. He promised to close the border (this actually caused the warmest applause of the entire speech). He discussed the importance of helping the economy grow. Towards the end of his speech he discussed social issues. He said that he likes “strong families” with a man and a woman raising children because he thought it was the best environment for kids. However, he also said that he thought there were many untraditional families that he respected and were also doing a good job raising children. I thought the end of his speech was the most interesting part. Unlike Hillary Clinton who has claimed she is running because she is worried about America, Governor Romney said that he is completely confident in America. He roughly said that “all of these problems may cause you to worry about our future, but I do not worry” because he thinks that America is very strong. This positive outlook for America was very much like Ronald Reagan’s outlook. I really liked that Governor Romney was able to have such a positive attitude compared to many other negative candidates.
Romney’s speaking style is also very impressive. He has looked charismatic in the debates on TV; however, in person he is much more charismatic. He smiles almost always and knows how to make jokes (at one point he complained about his name saying that he would rather his dad had named him George instead because Mitt is too random). He also commanded the entire room and made eye contact with everybody in the audience (even if it was a fairly small audience).
The questioning part of the event was fairly disappointing because people asked weak questions. One person asked Governor Romney about ten questions in her one question, none of which really made any sense. Another person held up a picture of his son who apparently is in Sweden and the Swedish government will not let him come to America. He asked Governor Romney what he would do to help his son (if you are confused by this description, I am sorry; I was confused by the question). Governor Romney answered this strange question well by saying he could not really comment because he did not know the specifics of the case. However, Governor Romney told the man to talk to one of the campaign staff members and said the campaign would try to help him. The best question was about reforming the American tax system. Governor Romney stated that while he did not have an official campaign platform for the tax code yet, he hoped to lower taxes in order to help middle class Americans.
Even though I was disappointed by the questions asked, I was very impressed by the event. Governor Romney has a clear and well thought out plan for America, and he is a very charismatic speaker. Governor Romney has shown he can work with Democrats to pass important legislation (like Massachusetts Healthcare). He has strong positions that are not extreme. He would be a strong leader who could improve America after the very unpopular current administration.

The Pledge

Here is a followup to today's class discussion. In 2002, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that including "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. A Newsweek poll then asked a national sample if the Pledge should contain the phrase. Eighty-seven percent said yes and 9 percent said no.

Religion News: Senator Clinton, New Poll

A column in today's Washington Post says: "As Clinton methodically consolidates her hold on the Democratic presidential nomination, Republicans are facing, in the words of her spiritual biographer Paul Kengor, `the most religious Democrat since Jimmy Carter.'And this introduces an unpredictable element into a wide-open election."

The Pew Forum has some fascinating new findings about attitudes toward various religions. Compare the general public (below), with college faculty members. According to a survey earlier this year: "Just one group elicited high negative feelings among faculty: Only 30% ranked their feelings toward Evangelical Christians as warm/favorable, with only 11% feeling very warm/favorable, the lowest raking among every other religious group, and 53% said that they have cool/unfavorable feelings toward Evangelical Christians."

Review of Huntington

I posted my paper on Huntington and identity on my personal blog, if anyone is interested. Money graf:

I believe his book succeeds in raising the important issue of immigration and the many challenges it poses for America. Yet it fails on four fronts. First, he exaggerates the isolation and lack of assimilation of Mexican culture in America. Second, he incorrectly juxtaposes "cosmopolitanism" and "nationalism" as mutually exclusive. Third, he undervalues the integration power of just an American Creed. Finally, he fails the test of realism: he describes many problems but offers no solutions. When the issue is immigration, the train has already left the station, and pragmatism should reign.

Rise and Fall of Anglo-America

A commenter on my personal blog just pointed me to this book. Looks fascinating, related to Huntington's points.

The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America

Review
Financial Times : Illuminating...Mr. Kaufmann shows how the culture of 'white Anglo-Saxon protestants,' or Wasps, was constructed and, from the early 20th century, gradually dismantled.
--Christopher Caldwell

Times Higher Education Supplement : [A] compelling study...Kaufmann writes with admirable detachment and objectivity, and reveals the mechanism by which the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant founders of the U.S. lost their political and cultural dominance. Kaufmann shows how a longstanding cosmopolitan element within Wasp ideology shifted from a symbolic role to the core of national life, and the Wasp population recast their own role accordingly. In other words, they did it to themselves...It is so refreshing to read a generous, open and positive book on this subject--what a pity that it is Huntington who has attracted the attention.
--Nicholas Cull

Review
Eric Kaufmann's The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America will make an important contribution to the long-sustained debate over the nature and distinctiveness of American identity and American nationality. Kaufmann forcefully and effectively locates the significant moving power that has transformed the United States from a society with a single dominant ethnic group, into one that is clearly something else, in the powerful central ideas that were present at the origins of American society.
--Nathan Glazer, Harvard University

Many of Kaufmann's arguments and reinterpretations of historical periods are original. They will provoke discussion and criticism but in the process will advance our understanding of American national identity. He brings an original and fresh perspective to bear on the formation, content, and meaning of this identity.
--Desmond King, author of Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy

Civil Religion

On Monday, we briefly discussed trends in US worship attendance. You may find data here.

We can see visual evidence of the "civil religion" in many places:

• The Great Seal of the United States
• The national motto, "In God We Trust"
• The Pledge of Allegiance (see old method of salute)
• Early Thanksgiving Proclamations

And note where Americans volunteer (scroll to p. 7).

California's Electoral Votes

Sort of on the topic of the Constitution (and more specifically Article II), there's a lot of talk about a new method of counting electoral votes in California.

In summary (but still read one of those articles, please), a petition is going around to add a ballot initiative to change the electoral system in California so that electoral votes from each congressional district go to the candidate that wins that district, rather than the "winner takes all" system in place now. This could mean that if California's popular vote goes to one party, the other party (historically in this state, republicans) could still gain electoral votes from the state.

On one hand, I feel that the electoral college system as is, which we'll talk about later this term, is not the best system we could be using. On the other hand, I don't know that changing the laws in one state and one state alone, especially if it is done with ulterior motives, is a good idea either.

Hopefully, if this goes to a vote, it will provoke discussion among citizens all over the country about the constitution and electoral college while staying away from "changing ze rules in ze middle of dahh game," as Arnold Schwarzenegger put it.

Bob Herbert (very liberal NYTimes columnist) is in opposition to the idea.

Another thought: I don't know how Claremont's district normally votes, but if something like this were passed, would it prompt anyone to vote in California rather than your home state? What other effects could come from this? Personally, I think I'll be casting my vote for the Gore/Bloomberg ticket in NY.

Tocqueville!!

Who was Tocqueville?

• Short biography
• Reasons for coming to America
• Itinerary
• Map of his travels, along with journal entries

He wrote: "The religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on arrival in the United States." (p. 295 of Lawrence-Mayer ed.) See here for relevant data. Also note that October 1 is the 50th anniversary of the appearance of "In God We Trust" on American paper currency. This motto came up at a Democratic debate.

Obama and Religion

In June, Barack Obama gave an important speech on religion in politics. Video here and prepared text here.

Gore Vidale

In trusting that our academic interests expand beyond the realm of the classroom and internet blogs, I'd like to pose the following question:

What did you think of Gore Vidale?

A specific point of interest to me, and I think of specific relevance to our class, was his commentary on republics. I believe the quote from Benjamin Franklin was something to the effect that he had provided a republic, as long as the people would keep it. What does that mean for us, in today's context? Keep in mind the fact that Gore Vidale has an extremely fatalistic view of our present condition and future, which is centered around the idea that we are in a decline. Do you agree?

Personally, as naive and potentially embarrassing as this may be, the question of our imminent demise and Vidale's dire predictions came not as a shock perhaps, but as a way more foreboding image than I was expecting. There is no doubt that the United States is in trouble. The war in Iraq is far from successful, and has long ago fallen from public favor. It has become popular to mock and jeer the President that we elected not once, but twice. Our debt is continually mounting, we are impressively unpopular in many sections of the international community, etc etc etc. But to say we are not only in decline, but close to ruin? On this point, (and in general to Gore Vidale's Q&A section,) I felt there was a certain intellectual haughtiness and melodramatic fatalism that was exaggerated for effect and hilarity.

Thoughts?

Hamilton's Humble Origins Continued

Hamilton's very existence refutes the notion that the Constitution and American government is the realm of white, Christian, men and instead echoes the theme of American civic religion.

I had to do some digging (and admittedly there's probably a better source), but I remembered hearing that Hamilton was ethnically Jewish.

Alexander Hamilton was born on the British island of Nevis, in the West Indies, on January 11, 1755. His mother was most likely Jewish, and his father, James Hamilton, was a non-Jewish Scotsman descended from the House of Hamilton in Ayrshire, Scotland. In the 1760s, Alexander attended a Jewish school in Nevis, which was housed in a synagogue in Charleston, the island's capital. The local Anglican school was not an option for Alexander, because he was a bastard in the eyes of the church. His mother, Rachel, had never divorced her first husband, who was also Jewish, and her union with James was therefore not technically marriage, making Alexander illegitimate.

After completing his education in Nevis, Alexander moved to Charleston, South Carolina in search of a better life and career. He became George Washington's aide during the American Revolution, was the principal author of the Federalist Papers, and served as the United States' first Secretary of the Treasury, under George Washington. Throughout the rest of his life, it seems that he had no affiliation with Judaism.

On p. 17-18 of the Chernow book, Hamilton's connections with the Jewish people are underscored.

Perhaps from this exposure at an impressionable age, Hamilton harbored a life-long reverence for Jews. In later years, he privately jotted on a sheet of paper that the "progress of the Jews . . . from their earliest history to the present time has been and is entirely out of the ordinary course of human affairs."

He went on to describe the Jewish people's very existence as evidence of "some great providential plan."

For someone who came from so little to become so much underlines both the meritocratic principle of the Constitution and its advocates as that principles embodiment.

A Tale of Two Document Fights

From today's New York Times: "Two Senate Democrats warned Monday that the Judiciary Committee would delay confirmation of President Bush’s choice for attorney general unless the White House turned over documents that the panel was seeking for several investigations."

From CQ.com: "More than a dozen House members from both parties have been served with subpoenas in the case of defense contractor Brent Wilkes, who is facing charges stemming from the bribery conviction of former Rep. Randy `Duke' Cunningham ... In floor statements posted late Monday, each of the lawmakers said that `after consultation with the Office of General Counsel' they `determined that compliance . . . is inconsistent with precedents and privileges of the House.'"

In class, we shall discuss how these stories relate to each other , to the Constitution and to the Federalist.

The Constitution and Federalist

1. As we discussed in class, you may find the Confederate Constitution here.

2. Ron Chernow's biography undercuts the notion that Alexander Hamilton was a well-born defender of privilege. Here is a passage summing up what the born-out-of-wedlock Hamilton and his brother faced in their youth:

Let us pause briefly to tally the grim catalog of disasters that had befallen these two boys between 1765 and 1769: their father had vanished, their mother had died, their cousin and supposed protector had committed bloody suicide, and their aunt, uncle, and grandmother had all died. James, 16, and Alexander, 14, were now left alone, largely friendless and penniless. At every step in their rootless, topsy-turvy existence, they had been surrounded by failed, broken, embittered people. Their short lives had been shadowed by a stupefying sequence of bankruptcies, marital separations, deaths, scandals, and disinheritance. Such repeated shocks must have stripped Alexander Hamilton of any sense that life was fair, that he existed in a benign universe, or that he could ever count on help from anyone. That this abominable childhood produced such a strong, productive, self-reliant human being -- that this fatherless adolescent could have ended up a founding father of a country he had not yet even seen -- seems little short of miraculous.

Amar on Federalist Number 10

Yale Law and College Professor Akhil R. Amar has written one of the definitive books on the origins of the Constitution entitled America's Constitution: A Biography. Amar was also an Ath speaker a half a year ago.

I found his bit about Federalist 10 to be very insightful. (Alas, it's not accessible online so you'll have to trust my faithful reproduction.)

Modern Americans of all stripes—lawyers, historians, political scientists, and general historians—have missed the central argument of these early Federalist essays. The Federalist No. 10 is taught everywhere, while the rest of the Publius’s early exposition goes unasigned and unappreciated. Bristling with insights, No. 10 indeed has something for everyone today—an explicit reference to property rights and class conflict, a celebration of demographic and religious diversity, a sophisticated account of interest groups and electoral dynamics, and a prophetic sketch of the federal government’s eventual role in protecting minority rights. But however interesting No. 10 may be to modern readers, scholars have shown this essay and its ideas had remarkably little impact on Madison’s contemporaries.

Amar, Akhil R. America’s Constitution: A Biography. New York: Random House, 2005, 43.

He cites newspaper records from the era to probe the influence of The Federalist and concludes that

[t]he points most likely to persuade skeptics and fence-sitters needed to, and did, come earlier, in The Federalist Nos. 2 through 8, with further reinforcement from The Federalist essays immediately following No. 10. In 1787-1788, The Federalist Nos. 1-6 and 8-9 were reprinted more often than any of Publius’s other essays.

Amar, Akhil R. America’s Constitution: A Biography. New York: Random House, 2005, 44.

Provided that the above is true, how can Professor Charles Kesler's comment (on p. ix of the introduction) that "Publius quickly became accepted as the best guide not only to how the framers had understood the Constitution when they wrote it, but also to how the people of the United States had understood the Constitution when they ratified it" (emphasis added) also be true?

Any thoughts?

(I trust this isn't a violation of the "no professors" rule as it was assigned to us. If it is, I'll promptly take it down.)

Mind on the Motherland

Samuel Huntington states that social America will not survive, attributing this culture crumble to a variety of theories. Given the developments in Russia over the past several years, the power of media to entice public officials and unify the people deserves reconsideration.

Putin controls Russian television media to total approval. Although his methods violate human rights, his ends unify the Russian people. Though Russians may access other informational sources—the internet is unmoderated—many avoid criticism and appreciate the unity of the nation and improving the economy above all. Yet Americans cringe at Putin’s “democracy-destroying” methods.

However it surprises me that major publications have not attempted to similarly unite—consolidation is key in the internet age. Google has streamlined simple internet research as Facebook has streamlined social utility. Americans love this. Could the media not be similarly unified…without sacrificing essential freedoms? Somehow the idea of cohesive media—allowing many minds to assess the same problems, to view all criticisms of all public officials, to use millions of heads rather than hundreds—is too tempting for tyrannical officials. This makes me wonder, can our leaders be trusted or trust themselves to allow a consolidated, streamlined, free media to flow? Is the opportunity too great to allow absolute power to corrupt, absolutely?

But perhaps the problem lies in our faction-oriented society. Reading the newspaper is similar to being part of a country club… only the intelligent, the well-spoken, the elevated could read such-and-such paper, while the peasants are left to CNN. Maybe we enjoy finding Julie from Kindergarten on Facebook, but need to find an oddly specific news story about an oddly specific senator (generally while crisis occurs unnoticed elsewhere.) This is a problem as well. Are we separating ourselves from one another, precipitating the collapse of American culture, by separating our thoughts? If we read and proceed to reason thereafter, could it not be possible that reading too-different news sources causes a basic level of misunderstanding?

But take this with a grain of salt. Our ends probably do not justify our means, especially if our means entail death of critical journalists. Yet the concept of unified media bears glaring problems in our society and our leadership to be considerated… thoughts?

A Model Constitution?

Read these provisions from an actual constitution. How would you appraise them?

ARTICLE 118. Citizens have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality. ...

ARTICLE 119. Citizens have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people.

ARTICLE 120. Citizens have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.

ARTICLE 121. Citizens have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native language...

ARTICLE 122. Women are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life. The possibility of exercising these rights is ensured to women by granting them an equal right with men to work, payment for work, rest and leisure, social insurance and education, and by state protection of the interests of mother and child, prematernity and maternity leave with full pay, and the provision of a wide network of maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens.

ARTICLE 123. Equality of rights of citizens irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or
nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

ARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church is separated from the state, and the school from the church. ...

ARTICLE 128. The inviolability of the homes of citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by law.

The Politics of Numbers

From the Wall Street Journal:

Most of us go about our daily lives without having to handle sums in the billions and trillions. So when advocates, politicians or business leaders want to get a rise from us over, say, wasteful spending, they have to figure out how to get us to understand what their studies have uncovered -- and to see it their way.

You may find the rest of the article here.

The Rough Draft of the Declaration

Yesterday, we briefly discussed how the Declaration hardly sprang all at once from Jefferson's pen. It went through drafts. You may find his rough draft at http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/declaration/declaration.html. A key passage did not make it to the final version:

[The King] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s [sic] most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

Slate writer on target with piece on anniversary of terrorist attacks.

So maybe Slate.com is not one of your primary news sources.  You may prefer the Politico, the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.  I have nothing bad to say about those news outlets other than they don't give me the same bang for my buck as I get with Slate.com.  It's free.  It's entertaining.  It's a wonderful mix of everything the Wall Street Journal is not.

If I want news coverage of how Americans are observing the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 I would have read something other than Slate.  But today I woke up mad.  I woke up disappointed in myself for staying up until 3 am for no good reason, but even more disappointed in American progress when I read Daniel Bynum's piece, "Homeland Insecurity."

Bynum opens his criticism by citing a recent report by the Government Accountability Office.  The GAO found that the only area of fourteen measured in which progress was rated "substantial" was maritime security.  The three major concerns of maritime security are port security, vessel security and facility security in relation to terrorism, subversion and sabotage.  Hats off to the Coast Guard.  But what about the other thirteen areas of concern?

Bynum says don't worry about them. That's comforting.  I am not kidding.  It is.  I lied.  It was comforting until I read the rest of the piece.

The larger concern, according the Bynum, is that the DHS has not taken a strategic approach to homeland security.  The DHS is so caught up in bureaucratic standards that it has forgotten how to fight terrorism.

Bynum cites a major area of concern in the DHS's failure to try to garner the support of American Muslims in fighting terrorist plots within our borders.  "If terrorists can hide among a sympathetic local community, the job of police and intelligence officials is daunting."  He is right.  If the DHS isn't going to make connections, gain sources and garner support in Muslim Communities it is hopeless to stop terrorism from taking root.

He also cities a 2005 study in which 70 percent of Muslim youth activists felt "significant hostility" towards Muslims.  Concerning enough as that statistic is, the meat of Bynum piece comes in a paragraph that could easily be skimmed over without much thought.

Bynum strongly criticizes the inability of the FBI to both prevent and respond to a terrorist attack.  Last Sunday, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton reported that analysts are still treated as second class citizens at the FBI.  To add insult to injury, the National Academy of Public Administration has been very critical of the way the FBI recruits, hires and develops its leaders.  So if the question of who is dropping the ball with regards to progress in fighting terrorism, the answer is clearly the FBI.

Perhaps there is a larger problem, though.  Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general at the DHS said, "[Terrorism] is like water.  It seeks, finds and takes the path of least resistance."  He is not making the case for spending more money and guarding more targets.  He, like Bynum, is an advocate for a better response.  As Bynum points out, you can spend too much money on homeland security.  It is possible to waste tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars on a feeling of security that has no real value.

To close, I feel it necessary to quote the West Wing's fictional president, Josiah Bartlet.  "There is evil in the world, there'll always be, and there is nothing we can do about it," he said following a terrorist attack.

What we can do something about is our response.  We won't necessarily be able to stop all attacks on American soil, but we can control how we react to them.

A.G. Replacement Narrow Down to Five

The Politico has listed five finalists to replace Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Here are the five finalists:

—Michael Mukasey was suggested by Democrats as well as Republicans during the search process. He was Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York until he rejoined the New York City law firm of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP as a partner in September 2006. Earlier, he was Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division of the Southern District of New York, where he was chief of the Official Corruption Unit. He spent 18 years on the bench, six of them as chief judge. Known as "Judge Mukasey," he is a member of Rudy Giuliani's Justice Advisory Committee.

—Theodore B. (Ted) Olson, known as one of the nation's premier Supreme Court lawyers, was solicitor general under President Bush from June 2001 to July 2004. Under President Ronald Reagan, Olson was Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel from 1981 to 1984. He rankles Democrats because he successfully represented George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the Supreme Court for Bush v. Gore cases that decided the 2000 presidential election. Olson is now a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Washington office. He is a member of the President's Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, created at the suggestion of the 9/11 commission. Olson is chairman of Rudy Giuliani's Justice Advisory Committee.

—Laurence H. Silberman, a senior circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1985 and took senior status in 2000. He was co-chairman (with former Senator Charles S. Robb) of the WMD commission created by President Bush in 2004. Silberman has a varied career that includes being a partner in law firms in Honolulu and Washington, D.C., and a banker in San Francisco. He was a U.S. Army private for a year beginning in 1957, was an appellate-division attorney at the National Labor Relations Board, was solicitor of Labor from1969-1970, undersecretary of Labor from 1970-1973, deputy attorney general from 1974-1975 and Ambassador to Yugoslavia from1975-1977. He is now the Distinguished Visitor from the Judiciary at Georgetown University Law Center.

—George J. Terwilliger, a partner at White & Case in Washington, was Deputy Attorney General, the second-ranking official at Justice, under President George H.W. Bush, from 1991-93. He served briefly as Acting Attorney General of the United States. He was United States Attorney in Vermont from 1986 to 1991, a connection that could help him with Sen. Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). Terwilliger was senior counsel to Gov. George W. Bush's presidential campaign on the Florida recount cases.

—Larry D. Thompson, who is PepsiCo's Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, General Counsel and Secretary, would be the nation's first African-American attorney general. He was Deputy Attorney General to John Ashcroft from May 2001 to August 2003, and remains popular in the Justice Department. He has noted in speeches that he was the first African-American to serve as United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, a position he held from 1982 to 1986. Thompson is a member of Rudy Giuliani's Justice Advisory Committee. He was a possibility to succeed Ashcroft (the slot went to Gonzales), and has been mentioned as a potential Supreme Court nominee.

My prediction: Ted Olson.

My reasons: First and foremost, as a former solicitor general, Olson has argued somewhat successfully in the one place where the War on Terror has had a few rebukes: The Supreme Court. John Yoo, in his masterful War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terror , also depicts Olson as the kind of career public servant that had already made the nation proud.
Besides his years in Washington and the love the DOJ already has for him, Olson has the moral legitimacy card to play. He lost his wife on 9-11. The Democratic press will probably not go after him on the personal level that they have other Bush Administration nominees.

Why it won't be the other guys: Laurence H. Silberman has been talked about as a potential Supreme Court nominee for the last few years and it seems silly that the Bush Administration would want to take away a good judge from the bench for only a few years. While Mukasey has the reputation of being tough on crime, he doesn't have the terrorism experience and has never argued a case before the Supreme Court. Terwilliger will remind Democrats of their judicial and political defeat in 2000. Larry D. Thompson is a possibility, but I sincerely doubt that he'll get the job. For starters, his nomination would be another Gonzales-like nomination designed to get the support of a vital constituency. The thinking goes that Thompson, who is black, will bring more black Americans to the G.O.P. This is wishful thinking at best. I can find little evidence that Americans even know who their Attorney General is, to say nothing that they'll base their votes in 2008 on a man who would go out with the old Administration. To think that it will somehow compel black Americans to go to the polls for the GOP is unfounded.

Thoughts?

Kwame Anthony Appiah on Huntington

Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah has some interesting thoughts on identity and cosmopolitanism. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Appiah in which he addresses / challenges Huntington:

The first is that the new immigrants, like the old, learn English. They may not speak it all the time, but then neither did the old immigrants. But not only do Spanish-speaking immigrants in the United States learn English de facto, they believe in learning English. Polling data show that 97 percent of Spanish-speaking immigrants say it is very important for their children to learn English. So the idea that there is a resistance to accepting, for example, English as the political language is false.

Now, as for the question about whether something from Protestantism is crucial to American identity, this is one of the ways in which talk of culture gets in the way. Individuality clearly has roots in European Protestantism. This particular way of conceiving of the individual conscience as sovereign, and therefore each person having special responsibility for the management of his or her own life, is clearly there. It is an important part of what happened in the Reformation. Its development through John Locke, in the Treatise on Toleration, and into Mill, has a Protestant background. But it is an idea you can separate from any creedal or other form of affiliation to any particular denomination.

This is an idea held by Americans, and which divides the United States from Europe. It is a sort of skepticism about the state, codified by the Founders in the Madisonian structure of our Constitution, which is designed to make government difficult. In the arguments for the First Amendment freedom of the free exercise of religion, part of Madison's thinking was that if you allow these varieties of sects to remain strong, you will have sources of social power outside of the government to counterbalance the dangerous accumulation of too much power by the government.

Now, this is not a Protestant argument; this is a separate argument based in a political theory that the American Founders developed. Many Europeans find this instinctive hostility to government—the instinctive assumption that if the government is doing it we should first ask whether somebody else couldn't do it better—to be part of American individuality, but it has nothing to do with Protestantism.

On the question of sovereignty, that we are in charge of our own lives, it appears that Spanish-speaking immigrants have bought in to the idea. I haven't seen data yet on the issue of skepticism about government.

These are empirical disagreements; these are not disagreements of principle. If things were going the way Sam Huntington thinks they were going, I would be worried too. I don't have any abstract objection to the worry; I have an empirical objection to his account of what is happening.

National Treasure

Okay, National Treasure is not exactly a documentary. Among other things, you really could not put the Declaration of Independence into a mailing tube, because it would crumble. But there are some really nice lines in the movie. Listen:
http://www.moviesoundclips.net/movies1/nationaltreasure/treason.wav

The GOP Debate Last Night: Pitney's View on GOP morals

Admittedly, I'm posting a bit too much already, but in the unlikely case you missed it, our professor has written about the GOP's moral problem in The National Review Online.

Early in the debate, there was a discussion of Larry Craig. Toward the end, a college student asked Rudy Giuliani whether his personal life sets a good example. Together, these two moments suggest a question that will haunt Republican candidates for all levels of politics. In light of Craig, Vitter, and God-only-knows-who’s-next, some voters will ask: “How can Republicans preach about moral issues when so many of you are moral menaces?”

It’s a tough question, but Republicans could turn it around in support of conservative principle. Here’s one way to answer: “Everybody on this earth is flawed. That applies to members of my party. It certainly applies to me. And precisely because we’re imperfect, we need policies that support the better angels of our nature. Schools should teach about virtue. Children should have the chance to pray if they wish. And couples should have every encouragement to choose life.

“That’s what our party stands for, and I’m proud of it.”

“The question isn’t whether the messenger is faultless. It’s whether the message is right.”

This way, Republicans could stand firm without inviting charges of moral arrogance and hypocrisy. And the acknowledgment of human imperfection has the added advantage of being true.

— John J. Pitney Jr. is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College.

I wish I could agree that this strategy will work, but I'm less than enthusiastic. Giuliani divorced his wife on national television, after all, and Gingrich, who may or may not enter the race, divorced his wife on her death bed. The Moral Majority might have a difficult time holding its nose and voting for Giuliani, a politician with a penchant for dressing in drag. I find it difficult to imagine that any GOP operative could spin these issues in favor of the GOP. Please tell me I'm wrong.

How to End the War in Iraq

Professor Ed Haley wrote an op/ed in the San Francisco Chronicle this week about the thorniest issue in the American political debate at the moment: Iraq. Money graf:

To achieve peace in Iraq and security in the Persian Gulf, the United States should seek an immediate cease-fire in Iraq and launch two sets of simultaneous negotiations, one for the Iraqis designed to end the civil war and bring national unity and peace to their tormented country, and the second involving the United States, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia to address international questions, such as preventing outside intervention, safeguarding Iraq's frontiers against infiltration by terrorists and providing international assistance for Iraq's reconstruction. If anything is clear from the last six years of war, it is that Iraqis reject outside dictation. The two-level approach empowers them to solve their own problems protected and aided by a concert of outside powers.

Both elements of this approach -- the Bush administration suddenly engaging Iran and Syria in conversation and political leaders within Iraq mustering the courage to "talk it over" as a country -- seem hard to imagine.

Hillary's Alinsky connection help

See Clinton's Alinsky connection in today's New York Times

As the year was ending , Ms. Rodham was working on a 92-page honors dissertation on Saul Alinsky, the antipoverty crusader and community activist, whom she described (quoting from The Economist) as “that rare specimen, the successful radical.”

Power and Activism

Beyond Mr. Alinsky, the treatise yields insights about its author. Gaining power, Ms. Rodham asserted, was at the core of effective activism. It “is the very essence of life, the dynamo of life,” she wrote, quoting Mr. Alinsky.

Ms. Rodham endorsed Mr. Alinsky’s central critique of government antipoverty programs — that they tended to be too top-down and removed from the wishes of individuals.

But the student leader split with Mr. Alinsky over a central point. He vowed to “rub raw the sores of discontent” and compel action through agitation. This, she believed, ran counter to the notion of change within the system.

Typically, the paper, which received an A, was neatly typed, exhaustively footnoted and even included a page of acknowledgments. “Although I have no “loving wife” to thank for keeping the children away while I wrote,” Ms. Rodham said, “I do have many friends and teachers who have contributed to the process.”

In a listing of primary sources, Ms. Rodham reported that she met three times with Mr. Alinsky and that he offered her a job. “After a year trying to make sense of his inconsistency,” she wrote, explaining her demurral, “I need three years of legal rigor.”

Clinton went on to become a lawyer (she flunked the bar in D.C.) and worked for other radicals (the Black Panthers, etc.) Her pro-community views are well noted in her book, It Takes a Village.

Juxtapose that with what Saul Alinksy said about individual liberty.

A final word on our system. The democratic ideal springs from the ideas of liberty, equality, majority rule through free elections, protection of the rights of minorities, and freedom to subscribe to multiple loyalties in matters of religion, economics, and politics rather than to a total loyalty to the state. The spirit of democracy is the idea of importance and worth in the individual, and faith in the kind of world where the individual can achieve as much of his potential as possible.

Great dangers always accompany great opportunities. The possibility of destruction is always implicit in the act of creation. Thus the greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.

Does anyone know where I can find a copy of the thesis? I'm interested to see how she differs from Alinsky after all. I looked for it, but Clinton apparently had Wellesley deny access during her (first?) White House years and access is limited to those who go all the way to Wellesley, MA. Also any help finding Obama's statements on Alinsky would also be nice.

Thanks for any help on this,
Charles Johnson