Archives for January 2006

January 17, 2006

Great Moments in Federalism Part LVIX

Oregon's assisted suicide law was essentially upheld by a 6-3 Supreme Court (Kennedy majority opinion [pdf]), by invalidating an "Interpretive Rule" issued by then AG John Ashcroft, which sought to invalidate the Oregon law by interpreting the Controlled Substance Act to prohibit doctors from prescribing drugs that assisted in suicide because they had "no medical purpose."

Kennedy issues a harsh rebuke the hacktacular and overreaching Ashcroft, assailing his "lack of expertise in this area and the apparent absence of any consultation with anyone outside the Department of Justice who might aid in a reasoned judgment."

As important as this opinion is, and it's nice to have a state law on assisted suicide withstand such a creative and concerted attack by the White House, it may be most notable for its dissenters--Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts. We're going to have to get used to seeing those three names lumped together on social conservative cause issues, which apparently pose no ethical obstruction to legally conservative values, like Federalism. Not that Federalism has been trumpeted a whole lot during this administration (probably because Bush has managed to create the biggest government ever), but it's yet another example of buffet style legal principle picking by the Supreme Court's 'strict constructionists'. Not that both sides don't do it--but if one side is going to be repeatedly lauded for its legal principles, it's about time those principles were accurately identified as social conservatism rather than the array of bullshit buzzwords and baseball analogies that we're instead fed. Look forward to seeing Alito's name tacked onto this dissent list, which may become a majority roster before long.

posted by scott pilutik at January 17, 2006 12:57 PM

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January 08, 2006

Reasonable Heroes

Panda Thumber Timothy Sandefur profiles Jacob Bronowski, of whom I've never heard. Bronkowski was a WWII era renaissance scientist, with an acute ethical sensitivity, as demonstrated by the below snippet:

Bronowski explained why evolution was such a profound idea. Does not evolution simply reduce human nature to an accident, the interviewer asked?

[Bronowski answered] "On the contrary, it is those who appeal to God and special creation who reduce everything to accident. They assign to man a unique status on the ground that there was some act of special creation which made the world the way it is. But that explains nothing, because it would explain everything; it is an explanation for any conceivable world. If we had the color vision of the bee combined with the neck of the giraffe and the feet of the elephant, that would equally be explained by the "theory" of special creation."

and later

And I am infinitely saddened to find myself suddenly surrounded in the west by a sense of terrible loss of nerve, a retreat from knowledge into--into what? Into Zen Buddhism; into falsely profound questions about, Are we not really just animals at bottom; into extra-sensory perception and mystery. They do not lie along the line of what we are now able to know if we devote ourselves to it: an understanding of man himself. We are nature's unique experiment to make the rational intelligence prove itself sounder than the reflex. Knowledge is our destiny.

Bronkowski's observations bring to mind a young author who I recently stumbled over on CSPAN--Sam Harris (website, with book excerpt). Harris argues that our continued intellectual evolution will have to shed religious superstition and choose reason so that humans might survive as a species, just as chemistry 'evolved' from alchemy.

We have been slow to recognize the degree to which religious faith perpetuates man's inhumanity to man. This is not surprising, since many of us still believe that faith is an essential component of human life. Two myths now keep faith beyond the fray of rational criticism, and they seem to foster religious extremism and religious moderation equally: (1) most of us believe that there are good things that people get from religious faith ( e.g., strong communities, ethical behavior, spiritual experience) that cannot be had elsewhere; (2) many of us also believe that the terrible things that are sometimes done in the name of religion are the products not of faith per se but of our baser natures--forces like greed, hatred, and fear--for which religious beliefs are themselves the best (or even the only) remedy. Taken together, these myths seem to have granted us perfect immunity to outbreaks of reasonableness in our public discourse.

Religion isn't going away any time soon. But I often wonder if the United States' present-day religious resurgence isn't really a desperate last stand before an inevitable capitulation to reason.

Many people can harmonize the friction between Science and religion with relative ease, but not me personally. Science has made significant gains in recent years (for an entertaining summary of just how far evolution has come, listen to Dover trial expert Witness Ken Miller) and this may help explain the Intelligent Design movement's popular emergence--the necessity to refute has become that much greater with each scientific advance, so the resistance has formed accordingly.

Religious moderates can dismiss the biblical literalism that adherence to ID requires, but who is to say that the literalist interpretation is less valid than a moderate one? Neither make sense to me. Most religions are inherently and textually resistant to being defanged of their more insidious aspects. As long as religion remains a potent social force, moderates and fanatics will engage in a tug-of-war due to scriptural ambiguity. But under this model, moderates help impede reason by legitimizing superstition in a mainstream context, and enable fanatics by playing semantic footsie instead of embracing reason wholeheartedly.

But as the facts change, Reason will continue to accumulate and grow while religion struggles to reconcile the new facts. ID is an example of a significant, concerted, well-funded religious effort at both denying the facts exist, and changing the underlying structure which the facts are measured against. But how long can that last as new facts emerge? Or rather, at what point are those that ignore the new facts put at a biological disadvantage by their ignorance? (Some American Christians have perhaps instinctually recognized this danger, and have countered by committing themselves to natalism). (There is probably little biological disadvantage to disavowing science so long as that refusal is hypocritically selective, unlike, say, the Amish, who at least have the courage of their convictions, even if this practice hasn't spread their numbers across the globe, like say, the Mormons.) But as the facts change, the situation bears watching.

posted by scott pilutik at January 8, 2006 01:17 PM

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January 05, 2006

A Preempted Miracle

Via Pharyngula, Greg Saunders picks up on an interesting set of similarities in the initial coverage of the tragic West Virginia coal mining collapse. Beside the clever observation that identical photos can be used to convey opposite messages, he makes the more important point that much of the initial 'they live' coverage attributed that fact to a miracle or answered prayers (America's Prayers, no less--the most powerful prayers in the world). Church bells rang in the small town, hymns were sung, and exaltations to the Almighty were offered--and broadcast by emotion vultures like Rita Cosby and Geraldo.

A few hours later, we found out that the Lord ignored the American Prayers and completely fucked this small town in West Virginia. MSNBC even broadcast tape of one woman questioning her faith, which the FCC will not doubt investigate. Saunders imagines, as I often do, the degree of rationalization necessary to not place Blame Upon the Lord when the facts work themselves out to a loss.

Just like gambling addicts remember their big wins but not their losses, the fate of the twelve miners has transformed from a faith-inspiring act of God to another horrible tragedy in which it's impolite to mention religion at all.

Saunders is referring to the media, not the town, but I suppose it’d be just as impolite to bring up religion in the town.

That same night, God fucked Florida State in a triple overtime thriller, but bestowed his blessing (and some oranges in a bowl) on Penn State.

And this is all fine, I guess—you can attribute whatever you like to a micro-managing god—but this worldview exposes these religious principles as cheap hucksterism, because it never accounts for the necessary implication of such expressions. That implication is: If your god is favoring you and your group, he’s disfavoring others—God is making decisions based on preferences (Ok, I take it back; that idea could never start a war). In West Virginia, this implication became all too real, as an Answered Prayer was later revealed to be a Clerical Error.

Of course, these deaths could be a part of His Plan, which brings us back to God the devious micro-manager, teaching lessons that are never quite clear but can be basically summarized as ‘life is tough.’ But we know life is tough—Marlon Perkins taught us lesson by way of slow motion footage depicting a pack of cheetahs ripping apart a mommy antelope.

And it’s not as if I’m being callous here towards the fate of those miners or their families. I feel awful for them. But the early focus on divine intervention detracts from the real story: someone (a very rich someone) authorized construction and maintenance of those mines and ignored nearly 300 safety inspection violations, no doubt because adherence to safety regulations was too costly. That’s where the outrage should be, but we’re too dulled with god-glaze to realize it.

posted by scott pilutik at January 5, 2006 01:14 PM

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January 02, 2006

blessed are the subscribers

Evangelicals are waging war on the First Amendment outside Dover, so now that the Thomas More Center has rendered Intelligent Design a lame irreparable sham, it's a suitable time to turn attention to less secure frontlines.

In Indiana, the state legislature had traditionally opened each session with a non-demoninational prayer; which, over time, grew "systematically sectarian," according to U.S. District Judge David F. Hamilton, who ordered the Indiana House to clean up their act. In a show of partisan idiocy, both democrats and republicans have vowed to disobey the court:

Terry Goodin, a Democrat who rejects Hamilton's order, is among at least two dozen House members who have asked to give Wednesday's prayer. He said he would "absolutely" speak Christ's name if given the chance.

So there's that, despite a fairly clear Supreme Court guideline set forth in Marsh v. Chambers, 463 US 783 (1983), where Burger found a Chaplain's prayer that began each legislative session not violative b/c there was no "suggestion that choosing a clergyman of one denomination advances the beliefs of a particular church."

Which is precisely what Indiana is up to.

For what it's worth, Burger's opinion in Marsh strenuously avoids the Lemon test, probably because he knew it'd fail, as it did at the 8th Circuit.

Then there's faith based funding encroachment, which everyone knew was coming, but "vague government rules" and "a lack of government monitoring" has forced the ACLU to police the various and sundry unconstitutional forays through the courts. In one of many snippets in a decent Chicago Trib article (subscription req'd), we find...

In the past year, the Health and Human Services Department suspended a grant of more than $1 million to Silver Ring Thing after the ACLU of Massachusetts sued the department, accusing it of mixing religion with the sexual abstinence message. At the shows, Silver Ring Thing openly urged teenagers to commit their lives to Jesus Christ, and the rings it sold were inscribed with a New Testament verse.

And this:

The existing regulations are meant to prevent cases such as that of Joseph Hanas. After he pleaded guilty to marijuana possession, a county drug court judge in Michigan gave the 23-year-old Flint construction worker a choice: agree to live for a year at Inner City Christian Outreach, a faith-based residential facility, or be sent to jail. Hanas chose Inner City, which is run by a Pentecostal church.

At Inner City, staffers told Hanas that his Roman Catholic faith was "witchcraft" and prevented his priest from visiting him or giving him his rosary beads, Hanas said.

And instead of substance-abuse treatment, Hanas said he was forced to read the Bible several hours each day, attend five hours of church on Sundays and was told the only way he would successfully complete the program was to convert to the Pentecostal church.

Untethered by silly First Amendment restraints overseas, US Evangelicals are spreading Jesus's message of quid pro quo to tsunami victims:

Speaking to the daily "Svenska Dagbladet" the head of Swedish Save the Children’s tsunami relief in southeast Asia says in some places it feels like the 19th century, when missionaries demanded conversion as a condition for food and clothing.

The newspaper says that when its reporters visited several orphanages, the children, who were Buddhist, were wearing t-shirts with slogans like "God loves you" and "Jesus is the way".

This last story underscores the necessity for separating religions from taxpayer money. Some religious factions, when left to fend for themselves in an unregulated marketplace, will waste no time abusing the presumptive good will that religious groups too often enjoy. Too many religions care less for co-existing or improving peoples' lots than they do converting, witnessing, and trumpeting their religious message via all available publicity conduits. And there really is no better publicity conduit than the implied government endorsement that faith based funding provides. Under this regime, the government pimps out hundreds of religious programs along with the simple, barely enforceable admonition to 'behave' knowing full well that providing purely secular relief is antithical to their nature.

posted by scott pilutik at January 2, 2006 04:39 PM

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