red fuzzy jesus

CLOWNS CHASING

Long before anyone was herded into a ghetto or trained off to a labor camp, would-be Nazis began removing books from libraries.  Often they were fiery displays meant to intimidate but there were more subtle purges of books.  An agent would visit a library and inform whomever of which books needed to go.  From keeping slaves illiterate to restricting the press, infringements of liberty are always accompanied by restrictions on information.  I’ve often wondered what I would have done if I lived in Nazi or even pre-Nazi Germany.  Would I grab a book by my favorite author and hide it under my floorboards or protest and risk harm?  Would I say anything at all? 

Too often I list here all the things that trouble me socially.  I’ve struggled to find the unifying characteristic in them all.  Opposition to medical research that could cure our worst diseases, gutting Pell Grants, de-funding the national academies, requiring yellow warning stickers about the falsehood of evolution on Georgian textbooks, increased FCC and Justice Department crackdowns, cutting Public Broadcasting, and attacking libraries all relate to a creeping anti-intellectualism.   

Not long ago I wrote about PABBIS, a parents group bent on removing “bad” books from public libraries.  I mentioned then that they were part of a trend.  The AP has picked up on the story of Laurie Taylor, a mother in Fayetteville Arkansas, who really dislikes books.  She originally found three with objectionable content and requested the Fayetteville School Board have them removed.  They agreed.  Then she went back for more.  At the next school board meeting she presented a list of 35 books to be removed.  And they agreed.  Nobody ever says where the books go when they’re removed.  Perhaps they’re thrown away.  But whether they’re burned in the town square or boxed up in some back office the effect is the same. 

Realizing her new power, Ms. Taylor has now assembled a team of “allied parents” who are currently combing through libraries and listing excerpts of sexual content in books.  At last count, the list had over 70 entries and the rush was on to present the school board with the most complete list possible at their August back-to-school meeting.

The books Ms. Taylor has targeted for removal range from the benignly academic to works of literary beauty.  F words are counted and sexual passages are recorded all in an effort to preserve impressionable minds.  Her efforts have gained national and international media attention with big name anti-censorship groups also contacting the school board.  Feeling the heat, Ms. Taylor recently proposed a compromise where a special section of the library would be set aside for objectionable content and students could enter with a permission slip from their parents.  Instead of lighter fluid or dumpsters, Taylor is satisfied in restricting speech via stigmatization.

It is at first easy to dismiss this story as regional or quirky.  These things pop up from time to time, usually in the deep South, and have little bearing on freedom.  Let’s not be alarmist.  But reading story after story about Ms. Taylor made me question myself.  A woman and her gaggle of parents are on a crusade to purge literature.  Would I just say nothing? 

Today every school board member, principal, assistant principal, and librarian in the Fayetteville school district was sent an email and/or printed letter from me.  Twenty something letters went in the mail altogether and I lost count of the emails.  Below is the general text of that letter.  It’s too long, I know, but I was feeling passionate.  If I receive any feedback I will transpose it into the comments.  Below that I’m posting the list of targeted books Ms. Taylor’s group has compiled.  It’s a work in progress and I fear what it’s progressing to.

[LETTER TO FAYETTEVILL SCHOOL DISTRICT ADMINISTRATORS]

Dear -----------------:

I have recently learned of the efforts of Laurie Taylor to remove or “rope off” books in school libraries with content she deems objectionable.  I am writing to request that you resist Ms. Taylor’s agenda and preserve libraries as environments of intellectual pluralism, not holding places for only the products of consensus and agreement. 

The work of Ms. Taylor and allied parents falls in line with an infamous history of attacks on expression. In 1933, 20,000 books were burned as part of the Nazis’ rise to power.   Joseph Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda listed and targeted “degenerate books” for disposal.  The presence of “deviant content” in books was used to justify their destruction but what was really lost were the ideas those books contained – ideas that threatened the Nazis encroaching fascism. More recently, the largest single act of book burning in modern history took place on August 25, 1992, when Serb nationalist forces burned down the National and University Library of Bosnia.  These actions also came under the auspices of morality but the intent of suppressing resistance.   

It is difficult to defend the objects of Ms. Taylor’s scorn on a book by book basis because the targets are too numerous.  Broadly I will say that many of the books to which she objects are informative, frank, educational books on human anatomy and reproductive health.  Ms. Taylor may reject their values neutral approach to human sexuality but disagreeing with a book’s mores is not cause for its removal.  Other works of fiction on her list are masterfully written and artfully depict gritty authenticity and the unfortunate struggles of real life.  They teach students of hardship beyond the world of their hometown through colorful characters and hard hitting imagery.  These books expand perception and open the mind.   They have value in spite of dirty words or less than ideal circumstances.    

Should every book on her list end up in the dumpster or sectioned off I am not sure where Ms. Taylor’s demands will end.  According to news reports, there has already been capitulation and removal of some books.  That has only prompted more demands from Ms. Taylor.  Her crusade to whitewash libraries of all objectionable content will not stop at 30 or 70 or 1000 books.  Art History books are in danger because they may show a photo of Michelangelo’s David.  The works of arguably the greatest writer in the English language, William Shakespeare, contain incest, graphic descriptions of anatomy, brutal violence, and torrid sex.  Will they too fall on Ms. Taylor’s pyre?   

Many of the books already on the list are priceless works of literature by authors such as Toni Morrison and Walter Dean Myers.  It saddens me that her first exposure to brilliant writing is part of some sex-audit of libraries.  Ms. Taylor lacks any knowledge of the value of literature or, to a greater extent, its importance.  Books illuminate our lives, speak to the human condition, connect to universal yearnings and expand our minds to think abstractly.   They are the cornerstones of free thought and free expression in any society and they cannot, should not, be raked off the shelves, stigmatized in an ‘adults only’ section, or cheapened to lists of anatomy and curse words.  A reduction of books to only those that raise no objections results in shelves that inspire no thought.  My concern for the students in Ms. Taylor’s targeted schools is that they’ll lose access to great works of literature and develop her lack of appreciation for the written word.  Stunting children’s cognitive development has far more serious consequences than exposure to four letter words. 

One book you may want to draw Ms. Taylor’s attention to, if it has thus far survived her inquisition, is Fahrenheit 451.  The fictional work deals with themes of censorship and the loss to society when mental bleakness substitutes free speech. 

I do not live in Fayetteville, but the agenda of Ms. Taylor affects me none the less.  The creeping anti-intellectualism that pervades her agenda chips away at foundational freedom of conscience.  Ms. Taylor has every right to regulate what her children think, say and do.  But her attempt to dictate what’s available to others overreaches her authority as a parent and puts her more in the role of Gestapo than mother.  Please reject her agenda and leave libraries to do what they do best; provide free thought to open minds. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this lengthy letter.  Please feel free to reply with your thoughts. 

Kind regards,

Gabriel S. Hudson    
    

[LIST OF BOOKS CURRENTLY BEING TARGETED BY MS. TAYLOR AND “ALLIED PARENTS”]

•" Beloved"by Toni Morrison • "Snow falling on cedars"by David Guterson. •" Song of Solomon"by Toni Morrison • "Doing It"by Melvin Burgess •" Choke"by Palahniuk • "Between Lovers"by Eric Jerome Dickey •" CHEATERS"by Eric Jerome Dickey • "The Other Woman"by Eric Jerome Dickey. •" The Homo Handbook – Getting In Touch With Your Inner Homo"by Judy Carter • "Gays/justice: A study of ethics, society, and law" by Richard D. Mohr. • "Coming Out in College: The struggle for a queer identity" by Robert A. Rhoads • "GLBTQ: The survival guide for queer & questioning teens" by Kelly Huegel • "Rainbow Boys"by Alex Sanchez •" Am I Blue? Coming Out From the Silence"by Marion Dane Bauer • "Forever"by Judy Blume •" Kissing Kate"by Lauren Myracle • "Children of Horizons"by Gilbert Herdt •" Family Values: Two Moms and Their Son"by Phyllis Burke • "Eight Seconds"by Jean Ferris •" Annie On My Mind"by Nancy Garden • "BABY BE-BOP"by Francesca Lia Block •" Leave Myself Behind"by Bart Yates • Always running: La Vida Loca, gang days in L. A. "by Luis J.
Rodriguez •" Bless me, Ultima"by Rudolfo Anaya • "Breaking boxes"by A. M. Jenkins. •" Chronicle of a death foretold"by Gabriel Garcia Marquez • "Deal with it! A whole new approach to your body, brain, and life
as a gurl"by Esther Drill, Heather McDonald, Rebecca Odes. •" Druids"by Morgan Llywelyn • "Fade"by Robert Cormier •" Fair game"by Erika Tamar. • "Fallen angels"by Walter Dean Myers •" Fools Crow"by James Welch • "Girl Goddess #9: nine stories"by Francesca Lia Block •" How the Garcia girls lost their accents"by Julia Alvarez. • "I was a teenage fairy"by Francesca Lia Block. •" Less than zero"by Ellis • "Like water for chocolate: A novel in monthly installments with
recipes, romances and home remedies"by Laura Esquivel •" Love in the time of cholera"by Gabriel Garcia Marquez • "Lucky"by Alice Sebold. •" My father’s scar"by Michael Cart. • "My heartbeat"by Garret Freymann-Weyr. •" One hot second: stories about desire"edited by Cathy Young. • "One hundred years of solitude"by Gabriel García Márquez •" Paula"by Isabel Allende • "Peter"by Kate Walker •" Push: a novel"by Sapphire • "Ragtime"by E. L. Doctorow. •" Rats saw God"by Rob Thomas. • "Tenderness"by Robert Cormier. •" The bluest eye"by Toni Morrison • "The perks of being a wallflower"by Stephen Chbosky •" The Pillars of the earth"by Ken Follett • "The rose and the beast: fairy tales" retold by Francesca Lia

INTIMATE INFLUENCE

Marriage part 2 of 3

One of my favorite stories in politics comes from when Senator Graham sought the Republican nomination for president.  The first question Republican insider Haley Barbor asked him was, “How pro-life is your wife?”  Taken aback by a question for which he was not prepared, Graham’s reply was simply “not.”

Rarely do my duel passions of theatre and politics merge and when they do the intersections can be a bit forced.  Indulge me then in inventing a term to add to the endless ‘isms’ of the political lexicon.  Barbor’s inquiries are part of what I call Lysistratism – an unpredictable variable in a system based on accountability.   

John Roberts is likely to be confirmed to the Supreme Court with little fighting.  Part of his viability comes from his lack of opinion on anything.  When arguing on behalf of President Reagan he said Roe was wrongly decided.  When nominated for the Court of Appeals he said Roe was settled law.  The former can be dismissed as the opinion of his client.  The latter can be dismissed as deference to a higher court – unnecessary should he sit on it.  Lacking clarity, some commentators have focused on his wife while others have criticized such pursuits as distraction. 

Hard line pro-lifers worry Roberts will be like O’Connor, Kennedy and especially, Souter.  All three were nominated by Republican presidents with presumed pro-life credentials but all became proponents of reproductive rights on the bench.  Those who worry Roberts will follow that tradition take comfort in Mrs. Roberts’, Jane Sullivan’s, longtime activism in Feminists for Life.   

How belittling of jurisprudence to think a careful weighing of rights can be swayed by a man’s access to orgasm.  How naïve to think it can’t.  Much of the battle over who sits on the high court hinges on Roe.  It is not absurd to think that the man replacing the swing vote may pause before ruling on sexual liberty to consider his own. 

The intimacy of marriage cannot then be restricted in terms of sex.  Spouses are the chosen reflections of self as we age.  They are not only the objects of what we seek in another person but what we love about life and the world.  A Supreme Court Justice rules from his or her worldview.  A spouse helps shape it.  Little academic research exists on the influence of a wife on a man in power because no one can know the exact pull on a man’s heart and mind.  The best one can hope for is anecdotal.  Thomas Jefferson is said to have designed Monticello around Martha Jefferson.  To what extent did he do the same with our Jeffersonian democracy?

There are universals of the human condition that transcend power and prestige.  The need for love, affirmation, confidence doesn’t vary based on career.  The power of women demonstrated by Lysistratism may affect the rights of all women.  Those who ignore Mrs. Roberts’ affectivities discredit their own analysis.    Moreso, they cast off much of the humanity in the man examined.  Who we are may be the great mystery of life answered most fully by who we love.   

HOLY FACTIMONY

Marriage part 1 of 3

Like most 20-somethings, a crucial landmark in my life is marriage.  I have no plans to go to the chapel myself but two by two my friends are pairing off and save-the-date cards are arriving in the mail.  At the same time marriage changes my personal life it is popping up in my academic endeavors.  The topic couldn’t be hotter among researchers right now and this is good news for anyone taking the plunge and walking down the aisle.  New studies provide encouraging information about modern unions.  Rather than listen to old wives tales about what makes a lasting marriage or succumb to the fear mongering of unsupported claims by fundamentalist chicken-littles, I prefer to see what the empirical data can teach.  Recent findings are illuminating. 

First, the bad news:  For those entering into matrimonial bliss, the outlook is not so good.  The latest data confirms deepening of an overnoted trend.  According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 43 percent of marriages end in divorce within 15 years. (1) The 2000 census is finally producing some applicable data putting the divorce rate at exactly 50% for a comparable time period and showing the average length of all marriages to be just eight years. (2) There’s also a study by the Centers for Disease Control showing the highest concentration of divorces occurring between 0 and 2 years of marriage.  Disheartening!  Of those that survive the first two years, 20 percent are divorced within five, 33 percent within 10. The number of divorced people in the American population has more than quadrupled, from 4.3 million in 1970 to 18.3 million in 1996.  Yikes!  (1)

Now for the good:  I would not be so insensitive as to over emphasize the divorce rates without trumpeting something encouraging.  A landmark study of marriage and divorce built on over 30 years of research has just been released.  Never has there been such a long data collection period nor have so many aspects of individuals’ lives been examined in terms of how they relate to marriage.  The chief researcher, Steven P. Martin, Ph. D. from the Sociology department at the University of Maryland-College Park, has put that little school on the map for something other than basketball.  The man has devoted his professional life to the singular study of marriage and revealed some statistically striking ingredients for longevity.  (3)

The most significant contributor to a marriage lasting 25 years or more is the presence of one Bachelor’s degree.  By the same token, the strongest predictor of divorce was education level, specifically for women (5).  Previous predictors for marital stability - including age and income level of the bride and groom at the time of marriage and marital status of parents – were dwarfed by this single aspect of a person’s life.  Although correlation does not equal causation, the statistical parallels between education level and marriage stability were so strong that Dr. Martin concluded it would be “intellectually dishonest to suggest anything other than causal.”   The effect of a Bachelor’s degree on a marriage’s length was more evident when comparing the education levels of wives. (4)   

For those who enjoy number crunching, the study produces endless informative data.  [Quoting directly from conclusions]  “Within the 70s and 90s, divorce rates declined by approximately one-half among recipients of a bachelor’s degree. By contrast, divorce rates were high and remained essentially constant among women without a bachelor’s degree. Among women who married in the early 1970s, 24 percent of those holding a bachelor’s degree were divorced within ten years, compared to 33 percent of women without a degree. Among women who married in the early 1990s, 16 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree were divorced within ten years. By contrast, 35 percent of women without the degree experienced a divorce, a striking difference of 19 percent.  Among women who married in the early 1990s, only 15 percent of those having earned a master’s or other advanced degree were divorced within ten years, compared to 39 percent of women who did not graduate from high school -- an astounding 24 percent difference. A five percent difference existed among men with the same variables.” (3)

The one sentence abstract for the entire study states, “From 1970 through the 1990s, educational attainment became an increasingly important predictor of marital stability.” (3)  In an interview following the release of his study, Dr. Martin commented, “that college graduates are the vanguard of a cultural shift away from divorce.” 

The statistical side of Sociology always leaves me a bit glazed.  As a Political Science guy I am more interested in translating the study of society into policy.  President Bush’s affirmation of marriage as an institution is correct.  It is a building block of society and any free state has a rational basis for supporting it via the law.  However, the Bush administration’s preoccupation with protecting marriage from same sex unions seems more than a bit misguided when compared to reality. 

The 2005 budget announced by the administration in February includes severe cuts in federal funding for Pell Grants. Since 1973, about the time Dr. Martin began collecting data, Pell Grants have been the staple of federal funding for low-income college students. The average recipient of a grant comes from a family whose parents have a combined annual income of less than $35,000 and the Bush administration will eliminate Pell Grants for 90,000 of them, affectively preventing them from completing their education. Another 1.3 million students will suffer a reduction in the amount of their grants.  (6) I cannot overstate the challenge this presents to those trying to achieve a degree.  Regardless of my GPA or work study, without Pell Grants I would not have graduated from William & Mary.  I just secured my financing for the fall semester at NYU and again, Pell Grants cover the largest chunk of my tuition – larger now than even my assistantship. 

This slam to education is of course one of the necessary cuts to fund the multi-trillion dollar “war against terror.”  Ignoring for now that education assuages the type of political extremism that fuels terrorism, the inability of low income people to achieve a Bachelor’s degree will have a tremendous impact on the institution of marriage.  Are the trade-offs worth it?  Well, the Department of Education predicts a savings of $300 million as a result of the reductions. Consider this against the fact that 2008 will produce the largest high school graduating class in American history as a result of the baby-baby-boom. (7)  George Bush’s commitment to marriage protection could not be clearer. 

I doubt any academic study will change the President’s direction on family policy or anything else.  After all, there is about ten times more data showing those with a Bachelor’s degree tend not to vote for his party of imaginary family values.  Disregarding futile political applications, Dr. Martin’s work sneaks in one final gem for newlyweds.  A parallel predictor of marital success was continued learning in the decades following the wedding.  Respondents that read regularly were much more likely to report “fulfillment with their partners” for each 5-year interval.  For this reason, in addition to the porcelain gravy train on the registry, marrying friends of mine will be receiving books.      

 

1. National Center for Health Statistics, A Division of the Center for Disease Control.  Marriage and Divorces. 2003 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm
2. U.S. Census Bureau. Number, Timing and Duration of Marriages and Divorces 2001 http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/marr-div.html
3. Martin, Steven P. Diverging paths and outcomes in family formation:
Education, marital transitions, and birth timing of U.S. women 1975-1995. New York (University of Maryland, College Town) 
4. See also Martin, Steven P. Diverging fertility of U.S. women who defer childbearing past age 30. Demography 37(4):523-533.
5. See also Martin, Steven P. Delayed Marriage and Childbearing: Implications and Measurement of Diverging Trends in Family Timing. Forthcoming in Social Inequality, edited by Kathryn Neckerman. New York: Russell Sage.
6. Bush Releases FY 2006 Budget: Federal School Counseling Program (ESSCP) and Other Vital Programs in Jeopardy. American Counseling Association.  February 10, 2005
7. Fitzgerald, Brian K. The Opportunity for a College Education: Real Promise or Hollow Rhetoric? 2003 Secondary http://media.wiley.com/assets/206/04/jrnls_ABC_JB_fitzgerald805.pdf

JOHN ROBERTS

John Roberts to me seems mostly an innocuous nominee.  From a purely strategic standpoint his nomination is brilliant.  That isn’t to say I agree with his positions.  Faced with the difficult balancing act of nominating someone that pleases the base while not causing a confirmation nuclear war, Bush did about as well as he could.  Many people thought Bush should nominate a woman or the first Hispanic to replace the first woman on the Supreme Court.  Either would have been nice but Bush chose more substantive qualities than mere identity politics. 

Roberts’ positions are somewhat of a blank slate.  He has a mysteriously short paper trail leaving his judicial philosophy in question.  There’s talk that he’s anti-choice because of a statement he made about overturning Roe when he worked in the solicitor general’s office.  But, in that position he was speaking for his client, not personally, and that’s not necessarily an indication of how he would rule in an unforeseen case.  His professional credentials (high praise at Harvard, clerking for Rehnquist, Hogan & Harston partner, DC Court of Appeals) leave little question about his qualifications. 

The thing that will help him the most is his demeanor.  He looked so youthful, so sweet as Bush announced him - though his family was quite creepy.  A lot of liberals so far have held their fire.  There is nothing about this nominee that stands out as threatening.  I’m sure someone will find something but I’m not sure it will make a difference.  He’s a conservative with high credentials that at first glance appears not to be a rabid right-wing ideologue.  Sounds like we have a winner.  It’s now Patrick Leahy & co.’s job to hold his feet to the fire and make him answer some important questions.  This appointment could shape law for 3 or 4 decades so it’s not asking too much that he be thoroughly vetted.  As per knee jerk opposition, I have none.          

READING GOOD

The good folks at BoingBoing.net (one of the best sites on the web) directed me to the homepage of PABBIS, Parents Against Bad Books In Schools.

The opening page to the site contains some gems.  Observe:

“Both in the classroom and library.”

That’s how the ‘sentence’ appears in the opening paragraph.  Note it’s not even close to a complete sentence.  In a listing of criteria under which a book might be considered “bad”, PABBIS provides this straightforward assessment:
“Is book relevant to curriculum, standards of learning, program of instruction?” and “What are educational goals/objectives and does book achieve them?”
I don’t know, is book?  Is “the” a swear word?  Does caveman like book if book good?    

The criteria are prefaced with the disclaimer:

“Bad is not for us to determine. Bad is what you determine is bad. Bad is what you think is bad for your child.”

My, how postmodern. 

The rest of the site may not have as many glaring errors as lack of articles and incomplete sentences but the syntax is simple and blunt and the complexity of presentation reads like a bad Native American stereotype in an old western.  I love it when an organization with which I disagree demonstrates my objections so clearly. 

There are many groups like this one popping up all over the country.  Book burning is all the rage these days.  Parents are demanding Harry Potter books be removed from school shelves.  Rep. Gerald Allen of Cottondale, Alabama wants to ban all books with homosexual content including The Color Purple and the complete works of Tennessee Williams and William Shakespeare.  His censorship ambitions don’t stop at school house libraries.  He wants books with references to “deviant lifestyles” banned in all public university libraries as well.  Similar “indecency” sites focusing on movies, television, and media employ the same formula.  Works are “reviewed” and a running tally is made of bad words and sexual references.  The tallies are then summed to create an overall score of ‘badness’ and the work is recommended for consumption or prohibition. 

I’m not a parent and if I were I probably wouldn’t want my grade school kid watching a lot of Comedy Central or Mtv.  But, what’s age appropriate for children is not of primary significance to these groups.  In counting dirty words and body parts, none of the reviewers concern themselves with the quality of the writing.  They never talk about the dimensionality of the characters or if the work proffers a compelling human story.  The ideal byproduct imagined by these groups is akin to the entertainment preferred by the suicidal wife in Fahrenheit 451.  In that fictional world all offensive material is banned and she enjoys watching clowns chase each other instead.  The silly and inconsequential are all that’s left.  To me, if a novel doesn’t make a bead of sweat glisten past the supple lips of a repressed housewife only to rest on her ample, heaving bosom, it probably isn’t that good of a read. 

The problem with censoring all offense is the loss of thought provocation.  Individuals, and derivatively society, benefit from presentations that offend the sensibilities.  It makes one a thinker.  All steps forward in mankind’s understanding of the world were shocking and controversial at first.  (Why did Galileo lose his head again?)   Related to that is the loss of purpose in books when reduced to lists of swear words and boobies.  Frankly, people that can’t appreciate literature for its literary merits end up being, well, illiterate.  One can assume those that work to ban books in public libraries haven’t read too many themselves.  Exhibit
A: “Is book relevant…?”

The American Library Association hosts an annual Banned Book Week when libraries across the country pull threatened pieces off their shelves and display them prominently.   The idea is to encourage readers to take a second look at something dismissed for ruffling the feathers of said repressed housewife.  But I think the reverse should occur.  I would rather the truly offensive, those that work to ban books, be put on display.  Thankfully, PABBIS has granted my wish with their web site.  Is site good?  Good is not for us to determine. Good is what you determine is good.

AGING LOONILY

Today is my birthday and I am getting old.  I’ve always been told that as you get older, you get more conservative and that if you’re not conservative you ‘have no brain.’  Ignoring that the more education one receives the more likely one will be liberal; it does seem to follow that with age comes conservatism.  The old explanation goes something like… people are idealistic in their youth but as they mature, pay taxes, have children of their own, they embrace more conservative ideas.

I’ve said before that labels like ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ or the more in vogue ‘progressive’ mean very little these days.  Viewpoints and thinkers labeled conservative often favor government impositions conservatives deprecated a couple decades ago.  But assuming the idea that conservative means fewer taxes, less social welfare, tougher law enforcement, and conventional notions of family and life one can see how life’s progress would trend in that direction.

I’ve also always been told that liberals are feelers.  They emote.  They do what their heart tells them is right whereas conservatives deal with the world as it is.  They’re concerned with the cold hard facts and cynical about all these bleeding heart ideas from washed up hippies.  Liberals are so idealistic in college when they first read Proust but they change once they get real jobs and pay taxes.   

I am a reluctant liberal and reluctant still to assume that title.  To me, a lot of conservative ideas make sense.  But it is because I see the world from somewhat cynical if not harshly realistic eyes that I fall to the left so often.  To me, to embrace conservatism one must accept an idealized view of the world or live in some la la land of indifference.  I would love to think everyone can just do it on their own and blame failure on laziness.  Equating hard work to success and good life management to prosperity is attractive to me.  But my cold hard look at the world shows Enron and their kin robbed a lot of hard working people blind so I’m thankful there’s an economic safety net even if it garners the pejorative, “welfare state.”  I’d love to think most parents are great and all daughters could come and talk to them in the event of an unwanted pregnancy.  But I can’t plead ignorance to the abuse and incest some girls call home.  So I oppose parental consent restrictions on abortion. 

The process that makes people more conservative is not a greater submersion in reality but a retreat from it.  Once your teeth and car and home are assured, and insured, you are several degrees removed from the reality many wake up to everyday.  To me, life is never more real than when you’re eating Ramin noodles (again!) and scraping up quarters to do your laundry.  That is the real world.  It’s also when you’re a flake, a student, a loony, loony liberal who doesn’t know how the world is.  Sadly, in a lot of society, that IS how the world is.   The junior partner with a home in the suburbs who doesn’t want to help the poor has forgotten, not entered the real world.   

Sure I hope for success.  I hope for greater financial security some day.  I’d love a big house and nice car.  But I also hope I keep my head out of the clouds as I move through adulthood.  I hope no matter what level of success I reach I remain grounded, concerned with facts and reality, and cynical enough to see the world how it is.  In short, I hope to remain, liberal.   

QUESTIONABLE INTENTIONS

Roger Sherman and Wil Livingston really disapproved of partial birth abortion in the late 18th century but their zeal was unmatched by John Blairs love for internet pornography.  Gunning Bedford thought everyone should have hand grenades by their bedside to ward off intruders while Richard Basset couldn’t be bothered with marijuana for medicinal purposes.  And no one wanted two men to be able to marry each other more than Dan of St. Tho Jenifer, constitutional delegate from Maryland.  Sound absurd?  Not so fast.  These and other such arguments are readily deployed under the rubrix of ‘founders’ intent’. 

Every issue imaginable gets argued with phrasing such as, “…the founding fathers intended…” and usually there’s a convenient ‘father’ for every angle.  Never do interest groups contort more than when trying to fashion their viewpoint into the intention of an unnamed group of men who must have agreed with them oh-so-many years ago.  The intentions of the founding fathers are as useful as they are pliable because none are around to dispute the claims.  However, beyond hollow rhetorical devices, the intentions of so-called founding fathers on singular issues are about as worthless as the worm eaten coffins in which they lay. 

The “founding fathers” are not a discreet knowable.  Who are the founding fathers?  Are they the signatories of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution?  If that’s your definition then we should examine the works of Thos Fitzsimons who signed the Constitution as a delegate from Pennsylvania.  Too bad we can’t because he was illiterate.  What about the authors of the Articles of Confederation?  The Federalist Papers have shaped political mores for over two hundred years.  Is each and every author of a Federalist Paper a founding father?  What about all the men who just wrote letters such as those that corresponded with Thomas Jefferson?  They certainly helped shape the founding of the nation but it’s unclear if they qualify as fathers.  Finally, most political philosophers, such as John Locke, never stepped foot in the new world but their ideas also inspired the structure of our government.  Is a contribution of thought sufficient for founding father status?   

However one sets the perimeters for what counts as a founding father only one thing can be agreed upon; they didn’t agree!  People speak of the founders’ intentions as if that group of men spoke in one voice.   Compare the writings of any two fathers and you’ll find little in common.  Some favored a strong centralized government, others did not.  There are a variety of interpretations for the phrasing ‘advise and consent’ as well as some very interesting opinions on slavery.  Very little continuity of rationale exists from one founder to another so claiming founders’ intent on any singular issue is an exercise in selective ignorance. 

The founders also could not have perceived some of the constitutional issues that arise today.  Last year, Reason Magazine produced a special issue wherein each subscriber received a specialized cover with a satellite photo of their home.  In most cases, details such as lawn ornamentation could be deciphered on the cover of the magazine.  How jarring it must have been for subscribers to retrieve their mail and realize that the photo on their magazine was of their own home and, in some cases, included the home owner.  The special issue dealt with infringements on the right to privacy in post-9/11 America.  Scalia and like minded judges always claim the founders didn’t intend a right to privacy because the word privacy isn’t mentioned in the constitution.  But can you imagine explaining to even the scientifically minded Ben Franklin how to put a large device in Earth’s orbit that can take close up pictures of people’s homes. 

Likewise, the founders couldn’t have imagined some of the weaponry on sale at your local Wal-Mart when drafting the second amendment or RU-487 or modern ideas about affirmative action.  Deploying founders’ intent in political discourse is a useless catch all because you can find a quote from some founder to support just about any position while at the same time recognize the issue was beyond the founders’ imagination.

So, then is the will of the founders of no value?  Of course not – and this is what I call the founders’ intent for founders’ intent.  The founders never intended to be infallible gods.  They were farmers, bankers, lawyers, etc., that left their lives to come together to create a system that best addressed the issues of the day, like quartering soldiers.   They never meant their words, or the Constitution for that matter, to be the final say forever and ever amen.  They created a wonderful, flexible document that allowed new men (and women, though they didn’t know it at the time) to address new problems in new ages.  So, an exterminator from Texas (Tom DeLay) could argue with a Dairy Queen manager from Colorado (Ken Salazar) and our government would grow and develop over time.  They laid bedrock principles, like not abridging speech and providing for due process of law, but were purposefully mute on legislative specifics.   

Some would argue that the constitution does not have absolute protections for unenumerated rights.  Meaning, if it’s not found in the ‘plain text’ of the Constitution it was part of the founders’ intentions.  This is bunk.  Some signatories to the Constitution at first objected to the original Bill of Rights because they feared such an argument might be made.  The Constitution doesn’t explicitly say you have the right to eat cereal in your boxer shorts or drive to Atlantic City on a whim one Saturday night but I still don’t think the federal government has a rational basis for prohibiting either.  The point is, the founding fathers created a system where you do what you want to do without expressly stating every single right ‘intended.’  When unforeseeable conflict arose between rights and law they created a brilliant judicial system to handle disagreements. 

With the resignation of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, some are calling for an “originalist” that will stick to the founders’ “intent.”  This preference draws from the false assumption that founders’ views on current issues are knowable or even applicable.  When groups claim they want someone who sticks to the original intentions of the founding fathers they want you to believe they and they alone speak for every man who shaped the nation at its inception.  No one can state with absolute certainty or consistency what the founders intended in regard to any contemporary issue.  The founders intended us to figure those things out for ourselves when the time comes.  Wise men, those guys, even the illiterate ones.