Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 387

A Right Not To Hear Someone Else’s Free Speech?

Emily Bazelon expects the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the plaintiffs in McCullen v. Coakley, a case pitting anti-abortion activists against a Massachusetts law that prevents them from approaching abortion clinics:

In Massachusetts, abortion critics who are trying to talk women out of going through with the procedure—you can call them “protesters” or “counselors,” depending on your point of view—have to stand 35 feet from a clinic entrance or driveway. The Supreme Court heard a challenge to that law today in which the picture-perfect lead plaintiff is a regular Boston protester, Eleanor McCullen, a friendly grandmother type who stresses how “gentle” her persuasion tactics are, and odds are more than good that the buffer zone in Massachusetts is on its way out. If that happens, free-speech as well as anti-abortion advocates will claim it as a victory for the First Amendment. The clinics and the women they serve will have to deal with more hassle and heartache, and maybe more danger, abortion-rights advocates worry.

Dahlia Lithwick also doubts the law will survive:

Coakley is a tough case for free speech purists, as it certainly appears to suppress only one viewpoint on public sidewalks. The ACLU nevertheless came out in support of the Massachusetts speech bubble, arguing that it’s needed to protect another, competing right: the right to terminate a pregnancy. But the Roberts Court has proven itself far more speech-protective and significantly less choice-protective than the Rehnquist Court that decided Hill. The majority in Hill believed that the right to be left alone and free from unwelcome messages trumped the rights of the protestors to say what they wished. The Roberts Court is more solicitous of the right to be heard, regardless of the preference of the listener to be left alone.

Noah Feldman argues that the law should be upheld:

[T]wo reasons suggest that the court should uphold the law. First, there is the reality that pro-choice activists do often have a presence at clinics. Admittedly, they are generally there to escort patients who might otherwise be intimidated passing the pro-life gantlet. But the fact that the pro-choicers aren’t acting as counter-protesters doesn’t detract from the free-speech component of their actions. If the pro-lifers are moved out to 35 feet, the pro-choicers will be, too — and a fair application of the law would not let them accompany clinic patients into the buffer zone. Because both sides are speaking, the law really can plausibly be described as neutral between them.

Second, under current constitutional norms, protesters at a wide range of public events are often moved to different locations in order to allow for the free flow of traffic.

Marcotte says the law is important for the safety of these clinics’ workers and patients:

Michelle Kinsey Bruns, a Virginia-based activist who has volunteered in clinic defense in eight states, told me that she’s seen plenty of patients who come to clinics “in fight mode,” worried about being bullied by protesters. “That’s what clinic harassment and violence have done for the experience of going to a gynecologist’s office: Patients know it’s going to be a gauntlet, and they approach it like a combat zone.” And Lori Gregory-Garrott, an escort at the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, wrote on Slate about the daily battle that is just trying to get patients past a wall of hostile protesters, even if the patients are just picking up their birth control prescriptions.

Charles Cook calls this a spurious argument:

The court did not consider itself to be judging the constitutionality of an anti-intimidation or anti-protest law. Instead, it believed that it was determining the question of how far wholly non-violent speech — including silent prayer and the holding of signs — may be restricted. This is a reasonable question. What is not reasonable is the claim that blanket limits on free speech are necessary in order to prevent intimidation, murder, violence, and the physical blocking of entrances. Why? Because all of those activities are already illegal, both under Massachusetts law and, in some cases, under federal law. Because there are no areas in which intimidation, murder, violence, or physical restraint are permissible, there is no need for “zones” in which they are not.

Trevor Burrus also focuses on the free speech issue:

Despite the controversial subject matter, this case is not about abortion. It’s about the First Amendment. Both pro-lifers and pro-choicers must see past the polarizing issue of abortion and focus instead on the freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful public presence issues underneath. Pro-choicers should stand against this law in the spirit of the maxim, usually attributed to Voltaire: “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” After all, the law is so broad that if a pro-choicer wanted to stand within 35 feet of a Massachusetts abortion clinic and repeat that maxim, they would be breaking the law.

Scott Lemieux points out that the law as written is content-neutral:

The challengers to the buffer zone have a superficially persuasive argument that the Massachusetts law lacks the content neutrality the First Amendment requires. Presumably, the law is most likely to affect opponents of reproductive rights—supporters of abortion rights are unlikely to try to interfere with women heading into an appointment—and in this way can be seen as targeting anti-abortion speech. This argument, however, is not terribly convincing on further inspection. Certainly, the law does not target solely anti-abortion speech on its face; as Justice Ginsburg put it, the law is “not content [based]—it’s not based on speech about abortion. It’s that you can’t speak about anything.” And, as Massachusetts assistant attorney general Jennifer Grace Miller noted, the law would not only apply to anti-abortion speakers even in practice: in one case in the record, “[y]ou had the Pink Group, which is a pro-choice organization, pushing and shoving and jockeying for position.” As debate takes place near health clinics, there may be circumstances in which groups of abortion rights supporters might impede access, and the law would apply to them.

Wendy Kaminer appreciates the emotional resonance of the case to pro-choice activists but comes down firmly against the law:

Legal arguments against the law came easily; from my perspective, its unconstitutionality was clear. But putting aside emotional support for it was hard. Violence against abortion clinics was becoming a very scary fact of life back then. Opposing a buffer zone asked too much of women, especially young women and teenagers seeking abortions in a climate of fear, supporters of the buffer zone argued. In fact, we were asking a lot of them, but no more than what civil liberty demands of us all – a certain stoicism. Besides, absent an expansive buffer zone, women would not be deprived of all legal protection. Federal and state laws prohibit protesters from impeding access to clinics, and, as Harvey Silverglate points out, Massachusetts has longstanding penal law prohibiting harassment and disturbance of the peace.

And So It Begins … ?

One of the great question marks still hanging over Pope Francis’ tenure as Bishop of Rome is whether any actual doctrinal changes will occur. Damon Linker has a provocative and honest piece out wondering if “liberal” Catholics even care about doctrine any more – because so many have been content simply to celebrate the sharp transformation of tone in the Francis era and the new emphasis on Christianity as an urgent and empowering and demanding way of life. Money quote:

I had assumed all along that liberal Catholics wanted to liberalize Catholic doctrine — that they wanted to bring the church, as I wrote in TNR, “into conformity with the egalitarian ethos of modern liberalism, including its embrace of gay rights, sexual freedom, and gender equality.” But here was a liberal Catholic telling me I’d gotten it all wrong. The pope’s warm, welcoming words are “everything,” Trish said, because doctrine, including that covering contraception and divorce, is “useless.”

As someone who, to be honest, has been exhilarated this past year by the re-emergence of a genuine, living, breathing Christianity in the Vatican, I’m not in the same camp as “Trish”. But it also depends on what you mean exactly by doctrine.

If by doctrine, you mean the core tenets of the Creed I recite at Mass by heart (or at least used to until Benedict added all sorts of anal-retentive clutter), then I do not favor any changes in doctrine. I believe in what I say. Sometimes, of course, it is hard to believe something that is beyond my real understanding. I’ve thought about, meditated on, puzzled over and marveled at the doctrine of the Incarnation, for example – for me, the most radical of all Christianity’s improbable claims. I believe in it until I can’t, at which point, I embrace a mystery – what Pascal called “the use and submission of reason.” But I am utterly unworthy – morally and intellectually – to offer any real critique of these mysteries; and because I feel and know the living presence of Jesus in my own life, because that presence seems to me both human and divine, and because Jesus has rescued me so many times from myself and from the world, I accept what I cannot understand.

Then there are questions of morals. And readers know I find the natural law arguments that I have been told to believe in about human sexuality and the family to be both incoherent and unpersuasive precisely as “natural” law. (See the relevant chapters in Virtually Normal and The Conservative Soul.) I see Aquinas through the prism of our modern, and far deeper, knowledge of human biology and evolution and my own human experience as a homosexual in modernity. But over the decades I have written on this, I haven’t done more than ask the Church hierarchy to confront and grapple with what I see as incoherence, or cruelty, or anachronism in its sexual teachings. I have, for example, been passionate in backing equal civil marriage rights; but I have never made a case for including gay couples in the sacrament of matrimony, because I think we need a much deeper and slower and conscientious discussion before we think about that kind of change in a two-millennia-old faith. But, alas, both John Paul II and Benedict XVI not only forbade such a discussion but also enforced some of the most insulting and condescending views about who we homosexuals are, spoke about us as inherently drawn to evil by our very nature, and refused even to address us as fellow-Catholics or as fellow human beings.

But Francis has changed that. He famously sent out a questionnaire to all Catholics asking for our views on questions of the family, of sexuality, and of our actual lives in the modern world. It’s in preparation for a Synod later this year in Rome to air those very subjects – the kind of honest, real dialogue Benedict spent a lifetime squelching, stigmatizing and censoring. No one knows where it will lead. But the dialogue is as important as any result. It’s a start. Glasnost is returning to the church again.

And so when the leading Catholic theologians in Germany produce a response to the questionnaire that deeply challenges the rigid doctrines the hierarchy has deployed to understand and enforce sexual morality, it’s a sign of a real paradigm shift. Catholics are part of a faith that cherishes the life of the mind, that asserts that Christianity is fully compatible with reason until mystery intervenes, that in the beginning, as John has it, was logos. And logos was with God. And logos was God. With a Jesuit at the helm, that is arguably truer than ever.

So what do these theologians say? It turns out - quite something. The full document is embedded below. Some highlights:

In response to a question regarding the church’s teachings on the value of the family, for example, the theologians respond that the church’s teachings are “practically not accepted” and “often lacks in [their] relation to experience.” Continuing on that subject, the theologians also state that people “are not satisfied when the Church proposes only celibacy and marriage as legitimate forms of life … In the light of the Gospel, the question should be examined whether other forms of life could be relieved of the verdict of sin,” they state … Responding to questions on the church’s prohibition of artificial contraception, the theologians state that “even the most committed Catholics don’t perceive their practice of artificial contraception as a conflict with their involvement in the Church which might lead to changes in their sacramental practice.”

But what is the positive vision the theologians offer instead? I recommend reading the full document, but NCR has a great summary:

Moving to their proposal for a new paradigm of evaluating sexual acts, the theologians say the church needs to appreciate the nakedness and vulnerability people experience in their sex lives.

They state that such a paradigm would have at least three dimensions:

A caring dimension to “protect that which is fragile.” Marriage, the theologians state, “could then be understood as an institution that protects this fragility, not as an institution of obligation.”

An emancipatory dimension that “opens new perspectives when vulnerability has become violation … As an emancipatory ethics, Christian sexual ethics has to take the side of those who lose in relationships, the ones who are left and hurt to the core,” they state. “It rejects all forms of sexual violence.”

A reflexive dimension that “accepts vulnerability and counters the banalization and routinization of sexuality.” … “As a reflexive ethics of vulnerability, Christian sexual ethics know the ontological value of vulnerability,” they state. “The joy of intimacy can be experienced only when it is possible to be vulnerable without being violated.”

That last line is quite beautiful to me. Why? Because it sees just how fraught a sexual encounter must be for two human beings, and therefore how radical a form of mutual respect is required to allow it to be joyful. Yes: joyful. Instead of seeing sex as intricately bound up in sin, policed by doctrine, subject to rules first seriously devised in the thirteenth century, Catholics can see the intimacy and vulnerability of sex as requiring a kind of grace to remove from it all forms of power, exploitation, and disrespect. This is not the language of rights-based liberalism. It is the language of reason, experience and respect for the profound and great gift of sexuality and its capacity to emancipate us, to show us a way to truly care for one another, and to protect the vulnerable in an avenue of joyfulness.

It removes at once the instrumental view of sex-as-solely-procreation and replaces it with something – dare I say it? – more Christian.

I want to re-read and reflect on this document some more. I hope you do too.

German theologians respond to Vatican’s synod questionnaire

(Photos: Getty Images)

The Dish, Year 2: Where Are We So Far?

Sorry for the delay in reporting back our results. It’s been a draining week. But here’s where we are. As of this morning, this is the new graph:

You can see that in our first week of last year, we brought in a staggering $427K. In the first two and half days of our first week this year, we have brought in $300K. We’ll find out by Sunday what the final first week tally is to be able to compare it properly with last year. And we won’t really be able to assess where we are compared with last year until the end of February, when all current subscriptions will have expired. But that’s where we are as of now.

We’re all a little blown away by the response. I was popping Xanaxes a couple days ago. What if no-one renewed? We had no idea this year as we had no clue last year. All we had was faith in you. I have also spent enough time working for magazines to know that a renewal revenue number already at 72 percent after two days – and two weeks before any subs actually run out – is truly rare. It’s unheard of in publications just one year out of the gate. We knew you were a special kind of readership. But we didn’t quite realize how special until now. Renewals are an acid test, just as sustaining a business is more instructive than starting one.

The stat that leaps out from the data, as I said yesterday, is the average subscription price. As you know, anyone can become a Dish subscriber – and get full access to everything, including Deep Dish – for as little as $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year. If you haven’t yet subscribed at all, do it here in two minutes! But we also made the subscription a Radiohead-style “pay-what-you-want” above that minimum. And you did. Our average subscription in the same period last year was $31. This year, it was $38. In some weird inversion of capitalism, we didn’t raise the price – but you did! I asked for maybe $5 more, and on average, you gave us $7. That makes a big difference when you add it all up. We can’t tell you how grateful we are.

But on the less bright side, the actual number of subscriptions we’ve renewed is down considerably from the new ones we gained last year. Yes, there are still two weeks to go before subs actually expire, and weeks after before lapsed subscribers find there is content they can’t get to. And, yes, last year, we were in an emergency and asked for immediate help just to stay alive. But right now, we’ve only converted slightly more than half of all our total subscribers from last year into stable, auto-renewing subscribers (18,000 out of 34,000). (The reason our revenues are holding up is the increase in subscription price.) We hope to get that proportion up by the end of March - because we need to. Yes, auto-renewing subscriptions are far more valuable than one-off donations. And we’re only two and a half days in. But that’s a big drop, and if we don’t do considerably better by March, we’ll have to do some tough restructuring.

So it’s a great start – but by no means is our future secure. The only way we can get there is if those of you who haven’t yet subscribed at all – and there are 30,000 of you who have used up all your read-ons but are still free-loading – decide to sign up. It’s only $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year – and takes just a couple of minutes to do. Just click here. And it can only happen if those of you who have already subscribed renew in much larger numbers than we have gotten so far. If all of you did that, we could get past the turbulence phase of the take-off and head for smoother air.

I should repeat, of course, that everything I’ve said here is based on just two days or so of data. It’s highly distortive and may well change – for the better or worse. All we can say is that we’re immensely grateful for the extraordinary commitment of our renewing subscribers so far. For a subscriber to choose to renew at a much higher rate is the greatest vote of confidence any magazine can have. We intend to do everything we can to deliver a Dish to our renewing subscribers that is more than worthy of your extraordinary commitment.

I know it’s tiresome to read these posts rather than the regular Dish, but I also know you understand why it’s necessary and vital nonetheless. So, if you haven’t subscribed yet, and have been feeling a little guilty for the past year, please take a couple of minutes to subscribe. It’s only $1.99 a month, after all, or under $20 a year. Just click here. And if you are a subscriber and haven’t yet gotten around to renewing, please stop for a second this lunchtime and take a moment to renew. It’s as simple as signing up in the first place; again, it’s only $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year. Just click here. If you can match our current average of $38, we’d be over the moon. If you can’t, we totally understand, which is why we’ve kept the minimum price the same as last year.

We really are trying to create something new here: the first solely online, reader-supported, ad-free site on the web. Think of the precedent that would set for online journalism. We’re getting there … but we still have a long way to go. So please renew here and keep us alive. And thanks again.

For everything.

Update from a reader, who brings up another big way to support the Dish:

What if I’ve already renewed my subscription for the base price of $19.99 but decide to contribute more money later, or give the gift of the Dish to someone else?  Is there a way to do that?

That link is here, and you can set your gifting price at whatever amount you wish, $19.99 or above.

The Cuckoo’s Nest Stigma

Jon Hochschartner spent time in a psychiatric hospital and left with a positive view of them:

When I tell friends I was hospitalized for 19 days, they’re horrified. Generally their reaction has less to do with what they think might have landed me there than with the brutal conditions they assume I must have encountered inside. In their imaginations, I barely escaped without having my frontal lobe scooped out with a spatula. This wasn’t my experience at all. Instead I found a supportive, nonjudgmental community made up of staff who quickly diagnosed my problem and fellow patients whom I count as friends today. Granted, the hospital at which I stayed, Four Winds Saratoga in upstate New York, is private. Perhaps some public hospitals are so underfunded they amount to detention centers for the mentally ill. Places like Four Winds should be socialized, and the quality of mental health treatment provided there should be made available to everyone.

The film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest played on television one day and, enjoying the irony, we patients watched it in our housing unit’s common room, laughing frequently with self-awareness. Hoping to share the joke, I told the doctor about it when he next did his rounds. While mildly amused, he said nothing had done more to prevent those who needed help from seeking psychological treatment in general, and electroconvulsive therapy in particular, than that movie. ECT saves lives, he insisted. Indeed, I’d guess that as many as one-quarter of the people on my unit received ECT—voluntarily, it should go without saying. And all spoke positively of its effects.

A Death Blow To Net Neutrality? Ctd

John Blevins argues that the FCC ruling hasn’t killed the open net:

The FCC’s open Internet rules quite sensibly prevented Internet access providers from engaging in blocking and other unreasonable discrimination. The D.C. Circuit, however, struck down these rules, which has led to criticisms that network neutrality is dead. Fortunately, it’s not.  The court vacated only these particular rules, not the FCC’s ability to act in the future. Specifically, it concluded that the FCC could regulate Internet providers under a statute known as Section 706, which authorizes the FCC to take various steps to promote broadband deployment. The court correctly recognized that prohibiting blocking and discrimination can lead to greater broadband deployment by increasing consumer demand. For instance, the introduction of the World Wide Web (which required no permission or toll payments) fueled the network investments of the 1990s. The growth of online video is driving modern investment today. …

In sum, the FCC still has sufficient authority to protect the open Internet. The million-dollar question is whether it will choose to use it — and whether the public will pressure it to do so. Following the opinion, Chairman Tom Wheeler stated his preference to proceed in a “common law fashion,” which is legalese for individualized decision-making. I am therefore tentatively hopeful that the FCC is heading in this precise direction.

Matthew C. Klein highlights the costs net neutrality impose on ISPs:

The reality is that these companies must spend vast sums on capital expenditures to keep pace with soaring demand for high-speed Internet service. For all the talk about stifling competition and hurting startups, the existing system means that text-based websites end up paying the same rates to Internet access providers as video-streaming services that consume far more bandwidth. Why is one-size pricing — an effective subsidy — fair?

How is that in the interest of consumers? Why shouldn’t companies pay for the data needs they create? If the government can prove that broadband providers should be classified as common carriers in the same manner as telephone companies, then it should regulate these companies as utilities. If not, it should let Verizon Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. set Web access prices as they see fit. They could use the extra revenue to invest in new capacity and make U.S. consumers better off.

Berin Szoka and Geoffrey Manne assert that the ruling actually gives the FCC “carte blanche to regulate the entire internet”:

[C]ounterintuitively, there’s every reason to think new entrants — the little guys — would benefit most from non-neutrality: Payola (paying radio stations directly for extra airplay), for example, is frequently derided by those who misunderstand it, but it actually helps new artists break through. Sponsored data and other prioritization arrangements on the internet are just a further extension of this. The FCC’s earlier approach would have foreclosed innovative, upstart edge providers from buying the preferential treatment or “premium carriage” they might need to gain recognition and draw users away from well-established incumbents.

Bottom line: The FCC should stop trying to ban prioritization outright and focus only on actual abuses of market power. But instead of adopting antitrust principles, Wheeler’s case-by-case approach will probably be guided by little more than the outer boundary of avoiding common carriage regulation (if even that). And that’s the real issue here. It’s not about what the FCC wins or loses, but that net neutrality “common law” could be haphazard and devoid of economic rigor — and, worse, that the FCC could use the same Section 706 power to regulate internet services beyond broadband. That’s where we should be focusing this discussion: the FCC’s new, sweeping discretion.

Reihan understands net neutrality proponents’ concerns, even if he doesn’t share them:

The broadband market is defined by high barriers to entry, and one suspects that at least some ISPs will be willing to test the bounds of their customers’ patience before competitors spring up to challenge entrenched incumbents. Or perhaps ISPs will find ways to differentiate their offerings in ultimately consumer-friendly ways. I would feel more comfortable if the U.S. were more open to alternative arrangements, like municipal broadband networks, and if more spectrum were available for innovative wireless technologies deployed by new entrants.

Kevin Werbach thinks competition will allow for more innovation than net neutrality has:

It’s important to keep in mind that the point of network neutrality isn’t to ensure that no company ever has a competitive advantage; it’s to allow innovators to thrive and win in the marketplace. And the best way to do that is through a competitive market. Network neutrality was devised in the early 2000s as a “second-best” response after the FCC refused to require physical open access to dominant broadband networks, the approach adopted in most of the world. Even now, the best hope for a dynamic, affordable, and innovative Internet is real broadband competition.

Most of the greatest barriers to broadband competition are at the local level: State prohibitions adopted at the behest of the incumbent carriers, difficulties with zoning and access to rights of way, and limited willingness to invest in the kinds of municipal open access fiber optic utilities that are wildly successful in cities like Stockholm. The FCC has been hesitant to confront these impediments, perhaps because it was so focused on net neutrality. Yet even Judge Silberman, who dissented in part in the Verizon case because he thought it gave the FCC too much authority, expressly stated the Commission could take such actions.

Paul Waldman fleshes out the competition argument:

Is net neutrality the reason that here in America we have some of the most expensive Internet service in the world, at speeds that have consistently lagged other highly developed nations? No. The reason our broadband is so expensive and yet so mediocre is simple: ISPs operate as virtual monopolies, with most Americans having only a couple of choices for broadband service, but we don’t regulate them like monopolies, meaning they can keep raising prices all they want. It’s the deadly combination of low competition and low regulation.

Susan Crawford doubts that competition will keep ISPs in line:

The court’s opinion is about much more than net neutrality. In finding that the FCC must be held to its decision to exempt Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC), AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. from common carriage obligations, the court says the commission can’t require these giants to connect to any other networks, treat new businesses the same as old ones, carry the speech of Americans without altering it, or otherwise refrain from imposing their profit-driven interests. In the Internet access business, competition cannot replace regulation, because real competition doesn’t exist. At the moment the court’s ruling came down, I was in my living room in Cambridge, Massachusetts, talking to my friendly Comcast installer. He told me that our mayor had signed an exclusive agreement with Comcast so that no competitors would be allowed in town. The man may have been a little confused about the legal niceties of what’s happened here, but he was dead on about the reality: My only choice for high-speed Internet access in Cambridge is Comcast. And the same is true for more than 77 percent of Americans: The local cable monopoly is the only seller of wired high-speed, high-capacity Internet access. I asked whether Comcast would soon be installing fiber-optic service — the fastest kind. Nope, he said. Too expensive. Yet in Stockholm, a city I had just visited, 100 percent of the businesses and 90 percent of the homes have fiber optics. In New York, where I also live, I pay four times as much as someone in Stockholm does for service that is an 18th as fast.

Tim Fernholz bets that this ruling blowing up in the winners’ faces:

The basic question—one at the heart of a lot of internet issues—is to what extent the internet’s pipes should be considered public infrastructure, like roads, water lines or telephone lines. Such “common carriers” may not unreasonably discriminate against their customers. The FCC doesn’t consider ISPs common carriers but “information services,” exempt from regulation as new, developing technologies. The federal appeals court said, in essence, that the FCC can only impose net neutrality on the broadband providers if it first declares them common carriers. It could now take that step. The carriers’ allies in Congress have long opposed such a move, but they probably couldn’t force the Obama administration to block it. Congress itself could also put in place—or prohibit—net neutrality rules, although it’s unlikely to do either. Even failing a common-carriers declaration, net neutrality isn’t buried. Both its opponents and proponents believe the court decision has unintended consequences that will empower the FCC to enforce the essentials of net neutrality without re-classifying ISPs. Even if they aren’t considered common carriers, the FCC is empowered to regulate them under a different statute.

The Pro-Pot Party?

Waldman compares Democrats’ support of marriage equality to their support of marijuana legalization:

I’m not saying that by the end of the 2016 race every Democrat will support legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes. But what the experience of same-sex marriage tells us is that when opinions about an issue are changing, politicians change too. And that means that where a candidate stands right now may or may not tell us where he or she will stand two years from now. So my guess is that all the Democrats will support some kind of legalization. The more tentative ones may support an extremely limited medical legalization of the kind that now exists in the District of Columbia, where there are only a few approved conditions (and a grand total of 120 people have signed up). Others may favor a looser medical legalization that is still limited in some way. But I’ll bet some Democratic candidate, maybe one who’s “serious” but is still an underdog and thus has little to lose, will come out in favor of legalization.

(Chart from (pdf) Pew.)

Where’s The Diplomacy Lobby?

Noah Millman is concerned by the absence of a real pro-diplomacy constituency:

The anti-war left has fundamental doubts about the integrity of American power. But diplomatic engagement requires a comfort with that power, and understanding of its uses and its limits. The anti-war right, meanwhile, has fundamental doubts about the legitimacy of limits on national sovereignty and freedom of action. But diplomatic engagement, again, requires comfort with the architecture of international relations, which is buttressed all over with liberal internationalist structures of one sort or another. As a consequence, it’s very difficult for the anti-war constituencies in the two parties (and outside of either) to work together for a foreign policy that is more restrained in its use of force. Which means that right now, both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives are pushing legislation that pretty much everyone involved in the diplomatic process understands is designed to make a diplomatic solution much less likely.

In the absence of a diplomatic solution, the arguments for military action will get louder and stronger. But the substantial majority who oppose war, and the large minority who oppose it fiercely, are basically having almost no effect on the debate over the diplomatic process.

I don’t know what there is to do about that. But it troubles me greatly.

Cannabis In The Nation’s Capital

DC residents want to legalize marijuana:

Support for legalizing marijuana has expanded dramatically in the nation’s capital, with residents who were split evenly on the issue four years ago now favoring sales of the drug for personal use by a ratio of almost 2 to 1, according to a new Washington Post poll.

Washingtonians of every age, race and ethnicity — teenagers and seniors, blacks and whites — registered double-digit increases in support of legalization.

Weigel covers DC’s decriminalization push:

In D.C., black people and white people are just as likely to smoke pot. Black people are at least eight times more likely to be arrested for it. That’s untenable, especially in a culturally liberal city that votes roughly 19-1 for Democratic presidential candidates. And that’s why the D.C. council is trying to reduce marijuana to a parking ticket-level offense: $25 if you’re caught with less an than ounce, $100 if you’re smoking outside. Selling and growing would stay illegal, but the smokers wouldn’t be collared anymore.

He thinks that the “decriminalization bill, endorsed by 10 of 13 council members, will probably be law by the spring.”

Carting Out Confucius

Evan Osnos reports that the Chinese government – which just a few decades ago blamed Confucianism for fostering “monsters and freaks” – has found a new use for the ancient scholar:

In the eighties, the Party studied how Confucian values had helped to stabilize other countries in East Asia. Generations of Chinese thinkers had dreamed of finding the optimal recipe for “national studies” – the mixture of philosophy and history that might insulate China from the pressures of Westernization. After the democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989 ended in a violent crackdown, leaders needed an indigenous ideology that might restore the Party’s moral credibility. The Communists gave speeches at meetings devoted to Confucianism, and state television launched a series about traditional culture intended, it said, “to boost the people’s self-confidence, self-respect, and patriotic thought.” In 2002, the Party officially stopped calling itself a “revolutionary party” and adopted the term “Party in Power.” The Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, declared, “Unity and stability are really more important than anything else.”

The view from Qufu, Confucius’ home town:

In 2007, the city’s International Confucius Festival was cosponsored by the Confucius Wine Company. Thousands of people filled a local stadium, giant balloons bearing the names of ancient scholars bobbed overhead, and a Korean pop star performed in an abbreviated outfit. Near the cave where Confucius is said to have been born, a five-hundred-million-dollar museum and park complex is under construction; it includes a status of Confucius that is nearly as tall as the Statue of Liberty. In its marketing, Qufu has adopted comparisons to Jerusalem and Mecca and calls itself “The Holy City of the Orient.” Last year it received 4.4 million visitors, surpassing the number of people who visited Israel.

Official Websites For Unofficial States

A political scientist analyzes how breakaway states market themselves online:

Territories hoping for independence present themselves as already functioning states in the hope that they can gain access to the international system and that other states will trade with them, investors will spend their money there and tourists will visit. This would all make survival easier, and more pleasant, even without international recognition.

The Somaliland government website argues that the territory has “one of the most thriving economics in Africa” and the Transnistrian counterpart also highlights the many economic opportunities it can offer and a detailed powerpoint presentation for potential investors. Over in Nagorno Karabakh, several websites try to sell the entity to investors with posts such as 10 Reasons to Invest and aim to raise money from the Armenian diaspora.

Their arguments are vehemently opposed by the states to which these territories legally still belong. Countries such as Georgia and Azerbaijan also make frequent use of the internet to counter these messages, and instead describe these entities as illegal breakaway territories founded on ethnic cleansing, controlled by unscrupulous leaders, and dominated by organised crime. The strategies used by the unrecognised territories can therefore be described as “competitive democratization” or “competitive state-building”. They are trying to convince the world that they are more democratic and more stable than their parent states. Since most of these entities emerged from violent conflicts, they are also keen to demonstrate their peaceful intentions.

(Screenshot from Somalilandgov.com)