Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 223

The Science Of Fireworks

Take it away, chem professor John A. Conkling:

The Crimes We Don’t Hear About

America would be considered a much more violent place if we took into account crimes that occur in prison:

Each year, the federal government releases two major snapshots of crime in America: The Uniform Crime Reports, written by the FBI, and the National Crime Victimization Survey, compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. … According to both, America has become significantly safer over the past two decades, with today’s violent crime rate nearly half of what it was at the start of the 1990s. Neither report, however, takes into account what happens inside U.S. prisons, where countless crimes go unreported and the relatively few that are recorded end up largely ignored.

If we had a clearer sense of what happens behind bars, we’d likely see that we are reducing our violent crime rate, at least in part, with a statistical sleight of hand—by redefining what crime is and shifting where it happens. “The violence is still there,” says Lovisa Stannow, the executive director of Just Detention International, a human rights organization dedicated to ending sexual abuse and violence in prisons and jails. “It’s just been moved from our communities to our jails and prisons where it’s much more hidden.”

The Pursuit Of Heresy

Reviewing Matthew Stewart’s Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic, Wendy Smith unpacks his argument that the “principles that inspired the American Revolution … belong to an intellectual tradition dating to ancient Greece and reviled by every variety of Christian”:

Rooted in the philosophy of Epicurus, who saw happiness as the highest good, this tradition flowered in the 17th century to produce wide-ranging inquiries into the nature of God, humanity, religion and society that got Benedict de Spinoza labeled “the atheist Jew.” Meanwhile, the more circumspect John Locke (careful to mask his iconoclasm with boilerplate declarations of conventional piety) ended up praised by historians as “the single greatest intellectual influence on America’s revolutionaries.”

Yet Spinoza the radical, no less than Locke the moderate, shaped an agnostic world view that shook America loose from Britain. Stewart pays particular attention to two fire-breathers — Ethan Allen, surprise conqueror of Ft. Ticonderoga, and Thomas Young, instigator of the Boston Tea Party — as the most outspoken proponents of a heterodox creed shared by (at minimum) Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Contemporaries called them deists when not calling them infidels or atheists, and Stewart devotes considerable care to explaining that Deism, the philosophical engine of the Revolution, is not the Christianity Lite some 21st century conservatives have proclaimed it.

“America’s revolutionary deists,” Stewart writes, “saw themselves as — and they were — participants in an international movement that drew on most of the same literary sources across the civilized world.” His detailed explication of those sources ranges from Epicurus and his Roman popularizer, Lucretius, through early modern Italian freethinkers Giordano Bruno and Lucilio Vanini (both executed at the stake for their apostasy) to the diverse array of English and French intellectuals reacting to Spinoza and Locke.

In an interview, Stewart explains his use of the word “heretical” in the book’s subtitle:

Many of America’s leading revolutionaries were identified in their own time – with good reason – as “infidels.” Even more interesting is that the earlier philosophers upon whom America’s revolutionaries drew for inspiration were widely and correctly pegged as heretics, too. A surprising number were burned at the stake. I should add that they were heretics with respect to not just one but a variety of religious traditions.

Which brings up the second, more theoretical point I want to make in my subtitle. When I say “heretical” I don’t necessarily mean lacking in all religion. Heretics generally come out of religious traditions and remain committed to one form of radical religion or another. What they oppose is the common, mainstream, or orthodox religion. And what they oppose within that common religion, or so I argue, is a set of common conceptions about the nature of morality, the mind, knowledge, justice, and so forth – conceptions that, though not religious in themselves, serve to make the common religion credible. At least since the time of Socrates, the business of radical philosophy has been to challenge and oppose this common religious consciousness. Now, to get to the point: this radical, heretical philosophy was decisive in the creation of the world’s first large-scale secular republic.

(Image: A bust of Epicurus on display in the British Museum, London, via Wikimedia Commons)

Mental Health Break

Some fireworks in reverse to get you warmed up for tonight:

What Else Was Happening in 1776?

Reviewing Claudio Saunt’s West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776, Eric Herschthal points out that, when asked about that momentous year, “few of us would think to mention the Russian fur trade with China in the Siberian town of Kyakhta; the founding of San Francisco; or the birth of the Lakota Nation in the Great Plains.” But, he says, these lesser-known developments bear “as much weight on the United States of today as what the Founders were doing in Philadelphia”:

Saunt contends that if it were not for Russia’s lucrative fur trade, the Spanish would have had little reason to colonize much of the West Coast and the Southwest. In the late eighteenth century, the Spanish became alarmed at the increasing Russian demand for sea otter and fox furs bought from natives on the Aleutian Islands, just off the coast of Alaska. To prevent their further expansion into North America, the Spanish pushed north from Mexico into California, establishing San Francisco in 1776.

Saunt’s retelling of the founding era reflects the changes in America he sees today. We are increasingly aware of climate change, infectious diseases, and globalization, which makes us “perhaps better than ever prepared to understand and relate to the experiences of eighteenth century North America.” Disease is everywhere in Saunt’s account, and so are the nefarious effects of global trade on the environment and local populations. Skeptics might think that West of the Revolution, then, is mere politics masquerading as history. But all history writing is informed by the present, regardless of whether the historian is aware of it, admits it or not. Saunt is simply stating what most historians know implicitly.

Face Of The Day

Live image of Tropical Storm Arthur pic.twitter.com/ApQPwRx4JT

— Alex Fitzpatrick (@AlexJamesFitz) July 2, 2014

Another Slip Down The Slope For Contraception?

SCOTUS is getting another dose of controversy this week (NYT):

In a decision that drew an unusually fierce dissent from the three female justices, the Supreme Court sided Thursday with religiously affiliated nonprofit groups in a clash between religious freedom and women’s rights. The decision temporarily exempts a Christian college [Wheaton] from part of the regulations that provide contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Koppelman gets to the heart of the matter:

The Obama administration had accommodated nonprofit religious organizations, colleges, and hospitals on the condition that they fill out a form indicating their objection and send that form to their insurance company or administrator, which must then provide the medical services free of charge. Hobby Lobby required that the same accommodation be extended to religious for-profit employers. Some of the nonprofit organizations, including Wheaton College, objected that filing the form made them complicit in the provision of the contraceptives. The Court agreed, holding that the college need only file a letter with the federal government stating its objections.

That would create a byzantine set of regulations, according to Sotomayor:

[T]he Court does not even require the religious nonprofit to identify its third-party adminis­trator, and it neglects to explain how HHS is to identify that entity. Of course, HHS is aware of Wheaton’s third ­party administrator in this case. But what about other cases? Does the Court intend for HHS to rely on the filing of lawsuits by every entity claiming an exemption, such that the identity of the third-party administrator will emerge in the pleadings or in discovery? Is HHS to under­take the daunting—if not impossible—task of creating a database that tracks every employer’s insurer or third­ party administrator nationwide?

Waldman is also worried about the floodgates opening:

On its surface, this case appears to be a rather dull dispute about paperwork. But it actually gets to a much more fundamental question about what kinds of demands for special privileges people and organizations can make of the government on the basis of their religious beliefs. …

[T]here is seemingly no length this Court says the government shouldn’t go to accommodate this particular religious belief. A company or a university doesn’t want to follow the law? Well, we have to respect that — they can just sign a form stating their objection. Oh, they don’t want to sign the form? Well never mind, they don’t have to do that either.

Morrissey tells everyone to chill:

[T]he issuance of a temporary injunction is not a decision, as Sotomayor well knows. Sotomayor herself issued a temporary injunction to stop enforcement of the mandate on the Little Sisters of the Poor, which caused an eruption of hysteria and Know-Nothing anti-Catholic bigotry at the beginning of the year — a foreshadowing of what we saw this week, actually. A stay is just a pause that allows the courts to consider the issue at hand before enforcement does serious damage to the plaintiff, based on a reasonably good chance for the petitioner to win the case but not a decision on the merits. The court signaled that they want a closer look at the accommodation, not yet that it’s not acceptable.

Dreher’s take:

This is good news, as far as I’m concerned. As a general rule, I hold an expansive definition of religious liberty. As a technical matter, I think that Whelan is right, and that there’s nothing in Hobby Lobby that contradicts the subsequent Court order. Still, I can understand why the three dissenting justices feel sandbagged. Justice Alito, in the majority opinion, held up the HHS carve-out for religious non-profits as an alternative HHS might have offered for-profit companies, but did not. Now the Hobby Lobby majority, joined by Justice Breyer, rejects even that possibility.

But not definitively, and that’s why I think there’s less here than meets the eye. Again, the injunction is temporary, and is no doubt pending the full Court hearing the Little Sisters case, which will decide whether or not the government’s carve-out for religious non-profits is a reasonable and sufficient accommodation of religion.

But Drum worries that the Wheaton injunction is just another step of many more:

For the last few days, there’s been a broad argument about whether the Hobby Lobby ruling was a narrow one—as Alito himself insisted it was—or was merely an opening volley that opened the door to much broader rulings in the future. After Tuesday’s follow-up order—which expanded the original ruling to cover all contraceptives, not just those that the plaintiffs considered abortifacients—and today’s order—which rejected a compromise that the original ruling praised—it sure seems like this argument has been settled. This is just the opening volley. We can expect much more aggressive follow-ups from this court in the future.

Selfie Of The Day

Adam Clark Estes explains:

The Camera in the Mirror is a project by Spanish artist Mario Santamaría that showcases moments when the indoor Google Street View camera accidentally catches itself in a mirror. The device itself appears to be a podium-sized metal case on wheels with a camera on top and a laptop on the side. In some of the photos, you can see a human operator. The images specifically come from Google’s Art Project, a pretty awesome three-year-old effort to create visual maps of museum interiors.

The Highway Trust Fund Is Running Low, Ctd

As the Highway Trust Fund approaches its fiscal cliff, the DOT is preparing to take drastic measures to ration funds for state infrastructure projects before the money runs out by the end of August. That is, unless Congress does something quick (ha!):

Any solution will need to pass the House of Representatives, whose own plan for funding DOT involves shuttering Saturday deliveries by the U.S. Postal Service—a plan that critics described as “unworkable” and “bad transportation policy.” The Congressional Budget Office estimates that DOT would require $8.1 billion to meet its obligations through Dec. 31. A spending solution that moved the deadline to the end of the year would push it past the November midterm elections, after which solutions like gas-tax increases might stand a chance. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) supports a $9 billion bill that would do exactly that: kick the ball down the road.

But the damage may be done already: Even if construction projects aren’t suspended in the middle of the summer construction season, states may be reluctant to launch big transportation infrastructure projects—especially since states depend overwhelmingly on federal funds for transportation spending. If the funding stream is shaky, the infrastructure planning will be, too.

Vinik looks over the options:

Congress is contemplating three proposals – none of them with broad support and all of them seriously flawed, for reasons I discussed last week. The White House proposal is not much better:

It’d use revenues from corporate tax reform as a short-term patch, which would mean we’ll be back in the same position four years from now. The optimal solution remains what it’s always been: Raising the gas tax by six cents in each of the next two years, then indexing it to inflation. By recouping the value lost to inflation and ensuring such erosion doesn’t happen in the future, this would make the Highway Trust Fund whole over the long-term.

It’s easy to see why the White House isn’t endorsing such a policy: It’s a political nightmare. Doing so would break the president’s promise not to increase middle class taxes. Beyond that, Republicans would never agree to it. Obama has spent enough of his presidency searching for a compromise by proposing politically risky policies. He’s not about to do it again with the gas tax. But that means it’s up to Congress to craft a sensible solution to this problem. So far, it’s not looking very good.

But Chris Edwards argues that excess spending is to blame for the shortfall, rather than a lack of tax revenue:

Tax-hike advocates say the gap is caused by insufficient gas tax revenues. It is true that the value of the federal gas tax rate has been eroded by inflation since it was last raised two decades ago. But the gas tax rate was more than quadrupled between 1982 and 1994 from 4 cents per gallon to 18.4 cents. So if you look at the whole period since 1982, gas tax revenues have risen at a robust annual average rate of 6.1 percent (see data here). In recent years, gas tax revenues have flat-lined. But the source of the HTF gap was highway and transit spending getting ahead of revenues, and then staying at elevated levels.

Previous Dish on the HTF here.

When Movies Go Meta

In a clip-laden essay, Oliver Farry surveys a history of cinema that turns the spotlight on itself:

Picture houses became a handy (some might say lazy) plot device for screenwriters, a place for characters to disappear into when pursued by police or the baddies. This was lampooned by Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles where the villainous Hedley Lamarr ducks into an anachronistic cinema in the Old West and tries to get a student rate at the box office. …

Nostalgia for one’s youth forms much of the nostalgia for picture houses, which, in the movies is often elegiac.

This stands to reason – the cinema is a place for the young, for people with time and just enough money on their hands, for young lovers, student loners and groups of teenage friends. Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show uses the closure of the local cinema in a small Texas town as a totem for the passing of an era, and of burnished youth. …

The ultimate cinema-nostalgia film is Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso, in which a successful film director reminisces about his childhood helping projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) in the cinema in a Sicilian village. The film doesn’t stint on sentimentalism but it does have a pragmatic heart underneath it all. Alfredo encourages the boy, Toto, to leave the village to do something with his life, even obstructing a blossoming relationship with a local girl to do so. The cinema, palatial as it is for such a small town, exists only thanks to good fortune – after the initial one is burned down, costing Alfredo his eyesight, it is rebuilt thanks to the lottery winnings of a local, not exactly the wisest investment, it must be said. Toto’s future career is made possible by a film industry that stays alive, while the cinema, like many others in small towns, falls by the wayside.