Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

"Bomb Mars Historic Day for Palestinians"

The three-year outline calls, in the first crucial phase, for a Palestinian crackdown on terror groups and an Israeli freeze on Jewish settlements, combined with a "progressive" Israeli pullout from the autonomous Palestinian zones its troops reoccupied during the current round of fighting.

A second phase, which could begin as early as the end of the year, would see the creation of a Palestinian state with provisional borders. Tough issues are left for the last phase, such as final borders, the conflicting claims to Jerusalem and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants who claim the right to return to what is now Israel.

"First and foremost, the terrorism and the incitement to terrorism has to cease," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Sofer said. "It is crucial that we do not ... talk peace by day and have Israelis blown up by night."

Justice Stephen Breyer said that many felt during World War I that it was immoral to teach German, and some states outlawed it.

Justice David Souter asked why Texas doesn't ban sodomy for heterosexuals if it’s harmful. Rosenthal, sounding like Monica's mother, answered by saying that sodomy in the case of heterosexuals could lead to marriage and procreation.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked whether Texas allows same-sex couples to adopt, and how Texas defines a family.

Ginsburg asked whether a criminal in Texas could run for office.

In any case, the real nuts and bolts of the issue came up when Paul Smith, an attorney representing Lawrence and Garner, argued that Texas law means "you can’t have sexual activity at all" if you're gay. Justice Antonin Scalia objected: "They just say you can’t have sexual intimacy with a person of the same sex." They just say, in short, that gays in Texas are perfectly at liberty to have heterosexual sex.

Scalia, saying that laws against bigamy are bigoted against bigamists, asked why a state couldn’t favor heterosexual sex, or marital sex.

Breyer asked whether Texas could outlaw telling egregious lies at the family dinner table.

Justice John Paul Stevens asked if Texas criminalizes adultery or sex between unmarried straight couples.

Justice William Rehnquist reminded everyone about censure and the law's regulatory instinct: “Almost all laws are based on disapproval of some people or some conduct. That’s why people regulate.”

The issue here isn't about privacy or sex or equal protection. It's about individual liberty and the proper scope of government power.

The Fourteenth Amendment can be applied to this case legitimately if one of two situations can be proven (guess which one Lambda Legal will pursue):

• Homosexuality is not inherently dysfunctional; therefore the law should not treat homosexual acts differently from heterosexual acts
• Acts of both heterosexual and homosexual sodomy are necessarily symptomatic of sexual dysfunction; both forms can therefore be legally banned (Update: If homosexual sodomy is banned so must heterosexual sodomy, and vice versa)

This places the judiciary in a position that it must never ever be in: arbitrating scientific dispute. Many behavioral scientists accept the evidence (much of which was produced long before NARTH ever existed) that casts homosexuality as a psychosexual dysfunction; many others do not. Courts must judge the law, not science; interpreting science for the sake of policy falls under the jurisdiction of legislatures.

Virtually no social conservatives clamor for criminalization of unmarried adult heterosexuals having sex. Such people view that participation in the Sexual Revolution tends to dissipate one's ability to establish intimate, secure relationships. But they see something wrong with arresting people for it; probably very few of them can really put their finger on what it is that they find troubling. Perhaps they fear that if law enforcement is encouraged to interfere with social trends they don't like, it might eventually interfere with those that they do. Perhaps they sense that criminalization will actually reinforce this social phenomenon, breeding among sexual moderates and liberals a resentment that would vastly increase their alienation toward social conservatism. These are valid concerns, whether the Revolutionaries are gay or straight. When people refrain from turning to the law to settle cultural disputes, building bridges is easier and violence is less likely.

The Bible portrays God as one who values the well-being of humanity above all save Himself. Since government is not authorized to regulate the relationship between God and individual, its chief priority must be the welfare of all persons living in its jurisdiction. A government that makes no official mention of God but seeks to maximize the needs of the people serves God by default.

Two philosophies on defining crime are compatible with Christianity. The libertarian view insists that the State has the authority to punish nonconsensual acts of force only. All legitimate crimes are essentially variations of theft - infringements on the rights to "life and physical safety, to one's personal property, to one's freedom to choose and to express one's beliefs, and to one's freedom to choose and to pursue one's interests," to quote the mission statement of the Henderson Prize for the Advancement of Liberty. Consensual crimes are regarded as theft of "freedom to choose and to pursue one's interests."

Adding to this doctrine a second plank, those of the cost-benefit school of criminal law argue that the State may criminalize an activity if criminalization poses fewer costs to society than decriminalization. Noting that freedoms often conflict (I have the right to free speech, but if I am on someone else's property I do not have the right to speak against the owner's will), they pose that freedom to engage in certain consensual activities creates situations that impose on other freedoms. The right to refrain from wearing seat belts, for example, is argued to impose unnecessary financial burdens on insurance companies (and ultimately policyholders) and is therefore a legitimate target for criminalization.The debate between the libertarian and cost-benefit camps need not be settled to conclude this: Christians must oppose any law that violates the principles of either - and on this basis they must oppose sodomy laws.

The [only sound] arguments in favor of consensual crimes are a) deterrence and b) protecting society from freedom-sapping influences. The only thing in this world that has less deterrent value than sodomy laws is a UN weapons inspector. As for the second point, forget about whether or not homosexuality is a "freedom-sapping influence." Sodomy laws enhance the influence of gay activist organizations and cultural liberals in general, giving them a valuable and effective PR prop.

And the influence of cultural conservatives - especially Christian ones - diminishes. Many fall into temptation to waste their resources on sodomy laws and other side issues that contribute nothing toward lessening homosexual activity or its acceptance. The common philosophical inconsistency in being willing to criminalize gay sex but not heterosexual unmarried sex, neither of which gets the Mount Sinai Tablet Seal Of Approval, only feeds the multitudinous bigotries against conservatives and Christians.

As Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote this week, Castro can rely on "the unswerving naïveté and obtuseness of the American left, which consistently has managed to overlook what a goon he is." The list of those willing to keep Castro's good company, and remain silent when his actions revert to type, includes rich and famous celebrities who troop to Havana to pay their respects to the rich and famous dictator.

Perhaps they don't know any better, as they return with Cuban cigars and fawning praise: "It was an experience of a lifetime" (Kevin Costner); "he is a genius" (Jack Nicholson); a "source of inspiration to the world" (Naomi Campbell). But people who should know better make the pilgrimage too. Director Steven Spielberg, founder of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and winner of an Academy Award for illuminating the horrors of the Holocaust, described his meeting with Castro in November as "the eight most important hours of my life." Never forget, indeed.

This week, as reported in Newsweek International's Global Buzz column, a pack of New York media VIPs, each willing to pony up $6,500 for travel costs, are set to jet to Cuba with Yoko Ono to meet with the Bearded One, just as his crackdown hits overdrive. Slate's blogger Mickey Kaus shrewdly comments: "It's especially ironic that press and publishing executives are paying an enormous premium to meet with a man who is busy jailing journalists and writers for being journalists and writers."

[Dennis] Hays, executive vice president of the Cuban American National Foundation, an organization dedicated to fighting for democracy and human rights in Cuba, believes Castro's personal mystique may be blinding the celebrities to the harsh realities of life in Cuba.

"You have to remember that Fidel Castro is a cult leader, much along the same lines as Jim Jones or David Koresh. He's a megalomaniac with a messiah complex and people go and fall into his orbit," Hays told CNSNews.com..."People turn into lovesick rock groupies when they get into his presence. This is the impact that cult leaders have on people," Hays added.

Furthermore, he insisted, celebrities should not be praising Castro when they don't understand the situation in Cuba.

"It's very sad, and I wish Steven Spielberg and Danny Glover or any of these other guys would spend a little time with some of the political prisoners in jail before they make broad stroke comments about Cuba and Cuban society," Hays said.

He said he hopes celebrities will "open their eyes" before they promote Castro's Cuba.

"Remember, this is a man who has killed tens of thousands of his own citizens. He's killed over 30 Americans, he harbors fugitives from U.S. justice, he has supported terrorism and narco-terrorism throughout the hemisphere, causing untold thousands of other citizens' deaths," Hays said.

Murdering your children isn't murder if you're a woman – it's postpartum depression.

Sex addiction, compulsion and promiscuity aren't problems if you're gay – they’re part of an “alternate lifestyle.”

Murdering a police office isn't murder if you’re black – it's a “heroic” act.

Vandalizing, degrading or mocking the symbols of a religion is only a hate crime if the object is Islam or Judaism. If the target is Christianity, it's "art."

Murdering 3,000 American civilians isn't terrorism if the murderers are Muslims – it's the Freedom Fighter's heroic last act against an oppressor.

For example, as a gay woman, I expect tolerance. But I understand that tolerance is not "acceptance" or "buy-in." I don't expect other women to run out and become lesbians just because they tolerate me, or even if they like me or admire the stands I have taken. A fundamentalist Christian may think my lifestyle is wrong, but it's not by fundamentalist Christians that I have been attacked and demonized over the last seven years.

A good example of the difference between today's Right and today's Left can be seen in their reaction to murder. People on the Right, no matter how strongly opposed to abortion they are, nearly all recognize that anti-abortion activists who kill doctors are wrong. Contrast that with the Left's lionization of black men who kill whites, and especially white police officers.

Ronald Reagan is one of those decent people, but in all the feminist establishment's mirth about his illness, never did they consider, never would they consider, the humanity of the man. Some may have made sympathetic public comments, but, like Madelyn Toogood, the woman who beat her little girl in a parking lot, they were simply looking around to make sure no one was watching before they returned to privately declaring that Reagan deserved to suffer. … By now, you may not be surprised to learn that in certain gay and feminist circles, bottles of champagne wait in refrigerators to be opened when Reagan dies. …

As I cried after the interview because of the sadness of it and my own guilt and shame, I checked my phone messages. There was one from a gay male friend, whom I see infrequently these days but with whom I share some fun and important activist memories. He had been watching the same interview, but he was cheering. “Woo hoo! It looks like we might be opening up that champagne sooner than later! I hope you were watching the Dragon Lady on “60 Minutes” tonight. I suppose with Alzheimer's, he's not suffering anymore, but it sure looks like she is! There is a God after all.”

A unified American public has grown bitterly divided, and a world population that had profound sympathy and support for us has grown contemptuous and distrustful, viewing us as we once viewed the Soviet Union, as a rogue state.

"You looked at the Soviet Union as a dream," Limbaugh said. "You looked at the Soviet Union as a freaking paradise. Now don't sit here and tell us you looked at the Soviet Union as a rogue state. ...

"[The world population has] a newfound respect for us, Tim. And maybe some people around the world ought to be frightened of us. Maybe there ought to be a little fear of the United States of America in some hearts in some countries in this world."

On page 106 of the guide, co-author Ann Pelo details an activism project she initiated at a Seattle preschool after her students spotted a Blue Angels rehearsal overhead as they played in a local park. "Those are Navy airplanes," Pelo lectured the toddlers. "They're built for war, but right now, there is no war, so the pilots learn how to do fancy tricks in their planes ..." The kids returned to playing, but Pelo wouldn't let it rest. The next day she pushed the children to "communicate their feelings about the Blue Angels."

Pelo proudly describes her precociously politicized students' handiwork: "They drew pictures of planes with X's through them: 'This is a crossed-off bombing plane.' They drew bomb factories labeled: 'No.'"

"Respect our words, Blue Angels. Respect kids' words. Don't kill people."

"If you blow up our city, we won't be happy about it. And our whole city will be destroyed. And if you blow up my favorite library, I won't be happy because there are some good books there that I haven't read yet."

Pelo reports that the children "poured out their strong feelings about the Blue Angels in their messages and seemed relieved and relaxed." But it's obvious this cathartic exercise was less for the children and more for the ax-grinding Pelo, who readily admits that she "didn't ask for parents' input about their letter-writing – she didn't genuinely want it. She felt passionately that they had done the right thing, and she wasn't interested in hearing otherwise."

"During the Persian Gulf War, I became acutely aware of how difficult it is to honor families' values when those values are different from mine. In the classroom, I emphasized peaceful resolutions to conflicts and talked often with the children about elements of peace. Most families felt comfortable ... but when our conversations about peace expanded to include discussions of the Persian Gulf War, some families became uneasy ... [Some] families talked about the necessity of war to overthrow oppressors and to protect and free people ... This was a really uncomfortable time for me …"

"If you blow up our city, we won't be happy about it. And our whole city will be destroyed. And if you blow up my favorite library, I won't be happy because there are some good books there that I haven't read yet."

Consider Kosovo - which is in Europe, in case you’d forgotten. Four years ago, and without a UN resolution (which Russia had threatened to veto), NATO bombed Serbia to stop ethnic cleansing of the local Albanians in Kosovo. Afterwards, it was put under UN administration. How has it fared?

Disastrously, according to the respected Kosovar journalist, Beqe Cufaj. Writing on 23 March, he summed up the situation: "This morning, when Berlin announced that the UN secretary general and the Security Council have tasked Germany and its government with compiling an urgent plan for humanitarian aid to post-war Iraq, a Kosovar could not help but shudder ... Because if the Iraqi people have to undergo anything like what we have in Kosovo, God help them."

In Kosovo, after four years of UN administration, the economy is still in ruins and there are daily power cuts. Just in case you are tempted to blame the electricity problems on the bombing, Kosovo’s power plants were undamaged by NATO. The Kosovars blame the chaotic state of their power system on the UN. According to UN sources, some $9 billion has been spent on reconstructing Kosovo. But endemic poor accounting by the UN meant that a lot of this cash was embezzled. At the end of this month, the former chairman of the Kosovo Energy Corporation’s advisory board, a 36-year-old German named Joseph Trutschler, will go on trial charged with embezzling $4.3 million. God knows why, since he was paid a staggering $500,000 for his more official services.

UN involvement in Haiti in the Caribbean was even more useless. In 1994, for the first and only time in its history, the UN Security Council voted to overthrow an anti-democratic government after a coup deposed the elected president. So much for the doctrine of national sovereignty being defended by the opponents of regime change in Iraq. In September 1994, the US troops were directed by President Clinton to invade Haiti.

Afterwards, the US troops withdrew in favour of a UN peacekeeping force. But the anti-Western UN civil service was deeply unhappy about having been put in charge of running a Third World country, even if it was a recognised basket case. The UN mission in Haiti was headed by a former Algerian foreign minister, Lakhdar Brahimi. At least he spoke French, which could not be said of the 1,000 soldiers from Bangladesh who went to maintain order. Ultimately, the UN shrugged its shoulders and withdrew, and everything returned to the hell that passes for normal in that part of the world.

Then let’s not forget Rwanda, where nearly a million Tutsi people were slaughtered in 1994 in ethnic violence when the UN "peacekeeping force" was pulled out at the beginning of the bloodshed after ten Belgian troops had been killed. God forbid that UN peacekeepers actually do any fighting. The UN also failed miserably in running Cambodia, where it organised elections and then let the losing party blackmail its way into the government.

In spite of Taiwan's good will and efforts to share its health resources with other nations, the paper argued, it has been denied participation in many international rescue operations and medical activities due to the lack of WHO membership. It cited the example of the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck Turkey Aug. 17, 1999, after which Taiwan's experienced medical teams were not allowed to assist in rescue operations. The paper also made reference to the fact that Taiwan's family-planning program has twice been rated as the best in developing countries, and yet the nation still fails to be included in the World Fertility Survey, the Demographic Health Survey and other medical-data collection and analysis events under WHO auspices.

Stephanie Schaudel, co-coordinator for Voices in the Wilderness, an anti-war group in Chicago, said the "richness of culture" in Iraq is going to be subjected to Americanization by U.S. corporations during the post-war rebuilding of the war-torn nation. The result, she indicated, would be difficult for Iraqis to swallow.

"Some people would think that seeing a KFC (formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken) on a street corner is a sign of progress, I certainly don't," Schaudel said.

Schaudel sees the destruction from the war as the greatest threat to the Iraqi people, but believes their suffering will continue as America's cultural influence increases.

"You can just look at what those kinds of businesses have done to the diet and health of many Americans to think that it might not be the number one thing we should be exporting," she explained.

"Iraqis have really good food, they don't need a KFC," she added.

Dustin Langley, a spokesman for International A.N.S.W.E.R. in Washington D.C., sees the Americanization of Iraq as inevitable.

"What we will see is they will enter this homogenized McDonalds culture and of course we will see a loss of local traditions and a local way of life," Langley said.

I abhor the idea of federal funding for private schools. We should be introducing the public schools to market forces, not luring private schools away from them.

Thanks for your comment - blogged it today. How in particular should we open public schools to market forces?

"Have you ever seen such amazing arrogance wedded to such awesome incompetence?" - Molly Ivins, March 16, 2003.

What's in it for me as a political humorist is that George Bush is just fabulous material. Bush-speak, the thing-thing, that gloriously daffy streak he has - "Read my lips," "90/90 hindsight," "the manhood thing."

Lord, but I would miss that goofy, preppy, golden retriever-like part of his personality, those moments of transcendent dorkiness when we all stand there trying to believe he's just said what he did.

If you have any mercy in your hearts for those who make a living being funny about politics, take pity on us. Mark Russell is going to commit suicide if we elect Bill Clinton. Saturday Night Live will fall on its collective sword. Russell Baker will molt and decline. Mike Royko will be stuck with Chicago and I'll be stuck with Texas. - Molly Ivins, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Election Day, November 3, 1992

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Justice O'Connor delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III, concluding that a State, consistent with the First Amendment, may ban cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate. Pp. 6-17.

(a) Burning a cross in the United States is inextricably intertwined with the history of the Ku Klux Klan, which, following its formation in 1866, imposed a reign of terror throughout the South, whipping, threatening, and murdering blacks, southern whites who disagreed with the Klan, and "carpetbagger" northern whites. The Klan has often used cross burnings as a tool of intimidation and a threat of impending violence, although such burnings have also remained potent symbols of shared group identity and ideology, serving as a central feature of Klan gatherings. To this day, however, regardless of whether the message is a political one or is also meant to intimidate, the burning of a cross is a "symbol of hate." Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U. S. 753, 771. While cross burning does not inevitably convey a message of intimidation, often the cross burner intends that the recipients of the message fear for their lives. And when a cross burning is used to intimidate, few if any messages are more powerful. Pp. 6-11.

(b) The protections the First Amendment affords speech and expressive conduct are not absolute. This Court has long recognized that the government may regulate certain categories of expression consistent with the Constitution. See, e.g., Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 571-572. For example, the First Amendment permits a State to ban "true threats," e.g., Watts v. United States, 394 U. S. 705, 708 (per curiam), which encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals, see, e.g., id., at 708. The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats protects individuals from the fear of violence and the disruption that fear engenders, as well as from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur. R. A. V., supra, at 388. Intimidation in the constitutionally proscribable sense of the word is a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death. Respondents do not contest that some cross burnings fit within this meaning of intimidating speech, and rightly so. As the history of cross burning in this country shows, that act is often intimidating, intended to create a pervasive fear in victims that they are a target of violence. Pp. 11-14.

(c) The First Amendment permits Virginia to outlaw cross burnings done with the intent to intimidate because burning a cross is a particularly virulent form of intimidation. Instead of prohibiting all intimidating messages, Virginia may choose to regulate this subset of intimidating messages in light of cross burning's long and pernicious history as a signal of impending violence. A ban on cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate is fully consistent with this Court's holding in R. A. V. Contrary to the Virginia Supreme Court's ruling, R. A. V. did not hold that the First Amendment prohibits all forms of content-based discrimination within a proscribable area of speech. Rather, the Court specifically stated that a particular type of content discrimination does not violate the First Amendment when the basis for it consists entirely of the very reason its entire class of speech is proscribable. 505 U. S., at 388. For example, it is permissible to prohibit only that obscenity that is most patently offensive in its prurience--i.e., that which involves the most lascivious displays of sexual activity. Ibid. Similarly, Virginia's statute does not run afoul of the First Amendment insofar as it bans cross burning with intent to intimidate. Unlike the statute at issue in R. A. V., the Virginia statute does not single out for opprobrium only that speech directed toward "one of the specified disfavored topics." Id., at 391. It does not matter whether an individual burns a cross with intent to intimidate because of the victim's race, gender, or religion, or because of the victim's "political affiliation, union membership, or homosexuality." Ibid. Thus, just as a State may regulate only that obscenity which is the most obscene due to its prurient content, so too may a State choose to prohibit only those forms of intimidation that are most likely to inspire fear of bodily harm. Pp. 14-17.

The aggression in Vietnam was committed by Hanoi. We failed because we did not invade and conquer the aggressor. The war was led for us by liberal Democrats. Consequently we spent our manpower and our credibility on the impossible task of nation building in the South while the war was still on. If we had invaded Hanoi in 1965, we would have cut the supply lines to their agents in the south and the war would have been over in a matter of months. Another lesson we should learn from Vietnam is to confront early the Communist threat at home.

One more point. You say, "At the time I was a Marxist, but it was of the libertarian variety." This makes as much sense as saying "At the time I was a fascist, but it was of the libertarian variety." Some day perhaps you will invite me into your seminar or one of the platforms you control as a Professor of Cultural Studies at CUNY where we can discuss how a doctrine that calls for state ownership of everything can be libertarian.

"Ultimately, it's my fault for joining in the first place," said Funk, who didn't show up when his unit was deployed to Camp Pendleton. "It wasn't as well thought out as it should've been. It was about me being depressed and wanting direction in life."

Funk, who grew up in Washington state, enlisted last February when he was 19 and living on his own for the first time.

"I saw the valuable things you can learn like teamwork, leadership -- things you can learn in Boy Scouts," he said. "I saw it as a way to learn new things and meet new people. It was a way to get what I thought was missing in my life."

He also said he caved in to pressure from a recruiter who capitalized on his vulnerability. He refused Tuesday to identify the recruiter.

"They don't really advertise that they kill people," Funk said. "I didn't really realize the full implications of what I was doing and what it really meant to be in the service as a reservist."

Funk said he began doubting his fitness for military service during basic training at Camp Pendleton last spring when he felt uncomfortable singing cadence calls that described violence and screaming "Kill. Kill. Kill," during weapons training.

"I was unwilling to do that. It just felt very wrong," he said. "I started just to mouth the words so I wouldn't get in trouble."

Watkins: I'd like to leave the army please, sir.
Colonel: Good heavens man, why?
Watkins: It's dangerous.
Colonel: What?
Watkins: There are people with guns out there, sir.
Colonel: What?
Watkins: Real guns, sir. Not toy ones, sir. Proper ones, sir. They've all got 'em. All of 'em, sir. And some of 'em have got tanks.
Colonel: Watkins, they are on our side.
Watkins: And grenades, sir. And machine guns, sir. So I'd like to leave, sir, before I get killed, please.
Colonel: Watkins, you've only been in the army a day.
Watkins: I know sir but people get killed, properly dead, sir, no barley cross fingers, sir. A bloke was telling me, if you're in the army and there's a war you have to go and fight.
Colonel: That's true.
Watkins: Well I mean, blimey, I mean if it was a big war somebody could be hurt.
Colonel: Watkins why did you join the army?
Watkins: For the water-skiing and for the travel, sir. And not for the killing, sir. I asked them to put it on my form, sir - no killing.
Colonel: Watkins are you a pacifist?
Watkins: No sir, l'm not a pacifist, sir. I'm a coward.