You probably have heard that there is a “pastor” (and I use the term loosely) in Florida who is planning to burn copies of the Qur’an this Saturday, on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Nothing says freedom of religion like a good old fashioned holy book burning.
Of course, Reverend Terry Jones has pointed out that the first amendment protects his right to burn the book. He seems to conveniently forget that that same document protects the freedom of religion. But the same sort of people who defend posting the ten commandments on public property, and oppose the building of a cultural center – on private property no less – often don’t seem to sweat massive inconsistencies.
It reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon from several years ago. Two guys are standing around a cocktail party, and one says to the other: “The way I read it, the first amendment gives you the right to say whatever you want, and the second amendment gives me the right to shoot you for it.”
Jones may have the right to burn the book. His kind have been burning books that scared them for decades. But just because you have the right to do something, doesn’t make it right to do it.
I have the right, as part of free speech, to burn the American flag. But how many people get up in arms about that? And people wonder whether it is a proper use of free speech to do it.
Likewise, Jones may have the right, but should he? What purpose does it serve? What message does it send? Is it a responsible use of his free speech?
We have rights and freedoms in this country. And those are to be celebrated and cherished. Using them in outrageous fashion just because you can… That’s not cherishing them. That is a failure to show responsibility.
I don’t think Jones should be prevented from having his “say.” Violations of free speech do bother me. But I would hope that whatever conscience he has stops him and brings him to reconsider his actions. One of the things that has been admirable about our country is our freedom of religion, our right of conscience to worship as we choose. Jones and his ilk threaten to undermine that right, that freedom, and they hide behind a misuse of free speech to achieve it.
One more bit from the Louisville protest a couple of weeks ago. A YouTube video from still photos (including some taken by yours truly) has been put together by the organizers. I wanted to share it with everyone who might be reading here.
Please go view, comment, and add the video to your favorites.
That’s it for the moment. I’m sure that details on next year’s gathering will begin trickling out soon. Until then, you should go the Adoptee Rights Deomnstration website to see how you can help.
The Evan B. Donaldson Institute released its latest study on granting adoptees access to their original birth certificates. The summary is below. You can click on the title to read the whole report.
Authors: Dr. Jeanne A. Howard, Susan Livingston Smith, and Georgia Deoudes.
Published: 2010 July. New York NY: Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
For the Records II: An Examination of the History and Impact of Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Certificates” is based on a years-long examination of relevant judicial and legislative documents; of decades of research and other scholarly writing; and of the concrete experiences of states and countries that have either changed their laws to provide these documents or never sealed them at all.
The Institute’s report suggests that, while a growing number of states have restored OBC access to adopted people once they reach the age of majority, efforts to accelerate the trend have been impeded by misunderstandings about the history of this controversial issue, misconceptions about the parties involved (especially birthmothers), and mistaken concerns about the impact of changing the status quo – e.g., legislators often assume that negative consequences will occur but, in fact, they do not.
Among the findings in the 46-page Policy Brief, which updates and expands the Institute’s November 2007 report, “For the Records: Restoring a Right for Adult Adoptees,” are:
Barring adopted adults from access to their OBCs wrongly denies them a right enjoyed by all others in our country, and is not in their best interests for personal and medical reasons.
Alternatives such as mutual consent registries are ineffective and do not meet adoptees’ needs.
The vast majority of birthmothers don’t want to be anonymous to the children they relinquished.
The recommendations in the Institute’s new Policy Brief include:
Every “closed” state should unseal OBCs for all adult adoptees, retroactively and prospectively.
States that already provide limited OBC access should revise laws to include all adult adoptees.
No professional should promise women anonymity from the children they place for adoption.
Some follow up to the reflections on education from yesterday… Posted by good friends over on Facebook, I thought I should share it as widely as possible.
First, a letter from a teacher, one nominated for a Teacher of the Year award, to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in defense of teachers:
Yesterday, Tim Pawlenty was the guest on The Daily Show. John Stewart asked him about his fiscal views, and Pawlenty replied that he thought government should worker smarter, not just throw more money at the problem. Stewart agreed, and then Pawlenty went on to give an example.
His example? Education. Specifically, higher education. He claimed that, in 20 years, no student will want to drive thirty minutes to a campus and “sit and listen to some boring person drone on about Econ 101 or Spanish 101.” Rather, we will want a new model for education, and new model for paying for it. He asks, on behalf of students, “instead of paying thousands of dollars, can I pay $199 for iCollege…?”
There is a lot to unpack in Pawlenty’s remarks, and I’m not sure I can do it all here. But I’ll touch on some of the important issues. The first is that Tim Pawlenty has no education background, as far as I know. He doesn’t know how to teach. He has no expertise in educational theory. He is, in short, a politician talking out of his ass. When people complain that government needs to get out of the way and let others more capable run things, this is one of those areas I tend to agree. Pawlenty is usually one of those people, but not when it comes to education.
Pawlenty’s disdain for education and educators is obvious when he describes professors as “boring people who drone on” about their subjects. I grant you that professors who drone on are boring. But the good professors, many of the ones I work with, don’t drone on, and their students don’t describe them as boring. I would want to know from the governor how recording a video of a boring person drone on and selling it on iTunes (as he seems to suggest doing) would improve the educational experience? Even boring lectures can be made more engaging by the prospect of interaction. But when they are prepackaged affairs, even engaging lectures can be boring.
Why do I mention prepackaged lectures? Because I don’t know how the governor plans on getting the cost of education down to $199 without resorting to prepackaged classes. Is the cost of education too high? Yes. Why is it so high in Minnesota? In part because of Pawlenty’s fiscal mismanagement. And in part, because Pawlenty has supported the centralization of the bureaucracy which takes a hefty chunk of the budget meant to go to the educational system. Instead of reducing administrative overhead, Pawlenty has encouraged its growth. How could he now hope to reduce the cost of education down to $199 (is that per course or per degree?)? Well, the only way that occurs to me is to develop a standard course that is delivered online and sold throughout the state.
Is there any evidence this is a good way to educate? No. Rather, it meets Pawlenty’s goal of giving the consumer what he or she wants. He has no regard for education.
I have no doubt some people (who never took a course in reasoning) will attempt an ad hominem refutation at this point. Of course if the iCollege becomes a reality, I am likely to be out of a job. That is a simplistic way to dismiss my objections, and I have no doubt it’s all some will notice. But it is a fallacy, and that more people don’t know it is part of the problem.
(Incidentally, some people objected to the Iraq war on the grounds that Bush and his cronies would benefit from the oil. That is an ad hominem of the same sort, and I criticized it at the time. I didn’t like the war, but that’s a bad argument against it. In the same vein, you might support Pawlenty’s position, but attacking my position on this ground would be a similarly bad argument. Find another one.)
Even were I to leave education behind, I would oppose Pawlenty’s proposal. And anyone who is concerned that the next generation of Americans be competitive in the world should likewise be concerned.
If you want to see the whole interview (at least the portion that was broadcast – there were other segments posted on the website that they didn’t have time to air)… The education comments start at about 5:00 minute mark.
I’m almost tempted to file this under “Memes.” The refrain that terrorists hate our freedom, popularized under the previous administration in the U.S., has not died. It has taken on a life of its own.
And here I thought maybe we had moved past it.
But no. Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, commented to The Guardian, “Terrorists around the world, who feel threatened by the freedoms that we have, always focus on those symbols of freedoms – and that is New York city.”
This notion, that terrorists hate our freedom, seems to serve many purposes. It resonates with the rather Christian need, prevalent in this country, to see ourselves as the victims, the persecuted. We are oppressed, even as we are the most powerful country in the world.
It also furthers the goal of turning terrorists into aliens, people so foreign as to be unrecognizable as human beings. It is easier to mistreat, torture, and wantonly kill those who aren’t human. Since freedom is a human right, and all humans want to be free (as implicit assumptions), those who hate freedom cannot really be human. Thus we can treat them however we wish.
I do not condone terrorism. (If I object to war, terrorism can hardly fare better, morally speaking.) But it is too simplistic to reduce terrorists to haters of freedom. It ignores their very real, and often complex, complaints and political objectives. Terrorism needs to be dealt with. But to do so properly requires a more complete understanding of what they are working to achieve.
Bloomberg’s repetition of this trite Bushism does not help us do that.
We do not yet know who was behind the attempted bombing in New York. (To Bloomberg’s credit, he has acknowledged this much.) I have family there. Indeed, my wife was there just a couple of weeks ago at a conference and visiting her family. I want the perpetrator(s) of this failed attack caught and punished.
But I also want us to think about terrorism in more sophisticated (and thus more accurate) ways. Only then can we make any real progress on the issue.
Another rant about how Obama is Hitler and is going to destroy the country.
I’ve lost count as to how many this makes.
To be fair, I remember a few rants about Bush being the devil. Those annoyed me, too.
It just has me wondering… Why must we constantly cast everyone either in the role of angel or demon? Are we, as human beings, incapable of disagreeing with one another without believing our opponents evil? Must all the people we agree with be divine?
Mill wrote, in chapter 3 of Utilitarianism:
If differences of opinion and of mental culture make it impossible for him to share many of their actual feelings – perhaps make him denounce and defy those feelings – he still needs to be conscious that his real aim and theirs do not conflict; that he is not opposing himself to what they really wish for, namely their own good, but is, on the contrary, promoting it.
I’ve never been a big fan of Mill’s ethical theory, but this comment has always struck me as important. Most human beings want what is best for the general public. Even though we might disagree on what that is and how to accomplish it, it is important to remember that our opponents are not crazed lunatics out to destroy the world.
I know this level of complexity is not how most of us are used to thinking. It is simpler to reduce those we disagree with to caricatures, to two-dimensional straw-men. But most people are just that, people. Human beings. Imperfect. Some things they are wrong about. And somethings they might have gotten right. And even when they are wrong, they are not demons.
Unless and until we can remember that on a regular basis, we will have little common ground in this country, and little civility in public discourse. As it is, we have the perfect recipe for fanning the flames of discord. The devil would be happy.
There is a whole flickr group dedicated to “Teabonics” (funny mistakes on Tea Party signs)… This is maybe the best one I’ve seen, so I thought I’d share…
This morning, the Senate passed its version of the Health Care bill. There are things in the bill that are bad. There are things missing from the bill that are good. On balance, it is a good bill?
Lots of people have opinions. But like most opinions at this point, they are based on theoretical commitments rather than any actual knowledge of what effects this bill will have. I’m actually inclined to agree with Senator Olympia Snowe (R., Maine) who thought the processed was being rushed to finish before the new year.
Of course, political realities being what they are, if the bill wasn’t passed before the new year, the chances are good it wouldn’t be passed at all. Congress never seems to have the stomach for difficult legislation during an election year. So while I might think Snowe has a point, if something is going to be done, now seems to be the only time.
Of course, we might still wonder if it’s worth doing something – anything – rather than letting it die. But if we don’t get reform now, when will we get it? Probably never.
I do think it’s telling that one quote I found from Obama on passage of the bill doesn’t mention health CARE reform:
‘We are now finally poised to deliver on the promise of real, meaningful health insurance reform that will bring additional security and stability to the American people,’ Obama said shortly after the Senate acted.*
For those claiming that this legislation is unconstitutional, I remain unconvinced. There are many restrictions on our behavior imposed by the government: seat belts, car insurance, registering for the draft, etc. It amazes me that many of the same people who oppose gay marriage turn around and cry for freedom when the government tells them they need to buy health insurance.
And it’s not as though we haven’t had many examples of unconstitutional legislation in the past decade. Most notably was Congress’ abdication of its right (and responsibility) to declare war to the executive branch. And the expansion of executive powers over the last ten years has truly been unconstitutional. All of which began with the Supreme Court (not the electorate) deciding the outcome of a Presidential election.
Hand-wringing over constitutional issues seems hollow and self-serving at this stage.
Let’s now dig into the guts of this bill, stay vigilant, and ensure that it has positive outcomes for the people it’s supposed to help. I remain skeptical. But hope springs eternal.
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