bearing blog

Grabbiness.

Attorney general Eric Holder recently gave a speech defending the extrajudicial targeted killing of American citizens overseas.  Emily Bazelon at Slate writes:

We know now that the Obama administration thinks its lawyers don’t have to get a judge’s approval before a top government official makes the call to assassinate someone. As Holder put it, " 'Due process' and 'judicial process' are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security." ...Holder didn’t explain how the administration arrived at the conclusion that due process within the executive branch is enough. He has refused to release the legal memo from the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice that must lay out how the administration got to here from there—the meat that was missing from his speech. And he didn’t say how the government arrived at the conclusion in September that it was OK to kill not just Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American cleric in Yemen whom the government says is linked to underwear bomber Umar Abdulmutallab, but also Awlaki's son, Abdul Rahman al-Awlaki, who was also an American citizen.

Emily Bazelon is hardly a right-wing critic of the Obama administration, I might add, and Slate is no Fox News.  

I want to draw your attention to one particular point that Ms. Bazelon makes in her piece:

... [I]f the Obama administration claims this kind of extra-judicial power for a few cases, what’s to stop the next president from expanding upon it—and citing this step as precedent for taking others that Obama wouldn’t countenance?

Indeed.

It's really gratifying to see this in print.

This is the point that some of us have been trying to make about the infringement on religious freedom that is inherent in the HHS contraceptive mandate. 

I'm not surprised that there are a lot of people who are happy to stick it to the Catholics here in exchange for "free" pills.  Oddly enough the same people seem to be fretting about the horrible theocracy that would be a Strawmantorum presidency.   So, like, I have to ask -- does it even occur to people that someday, a right-wing Christian might make it into the White House again?  

And, while I do not expect that a right-wing Christian president necessarily would stomp all over non-Christians' religious freedoms, I wouldn't be entirely shocked if he or she tried to.

So, wouldn't it make sense not to set the precedent now?  Not out of sympathy to Catholics or other anti-choice weirdos, but just out of simple self-preservation, or perhaps.... deference to Constitutional liberties?

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Let's talk mandate some more, this time the individual mandate.  We have the same problem outside the religious sphere, with the rather unprecedented infringement on economic freedom that is inherent in the very idea that the government can force you to buy a commercial product.

This is another thing I don't get.  It's extremely hard to resist concluding that Democrats think this is a good idea... because the person in the White House has a "D" after his name.

Okay, maybe they think it is a good idea because they like the thing that the person with the D after his name wants to force people to buy.  I can understand that.  I like health insurance.  I have some.  I am happy to have bought it.  I think it's a good bet for most people, most likely.  

But it's like nobody has ever heard of "precedent."

If this administration can force you to buy one thing, then the next administration can force you to buy another kind of thing.

This is why people need to take a step back and think about the generalities.  Democrats want to grab power so they can do certain things that Republicans dislike.   Republicans want to grab power so that they can do other things that Democrats dislike.  There would seem to be bipartisan interest in preventing executive power-grabbing.  And yet, our team colors get so much more attention.

Emily Bazelon, to her credit, noticed.  The precedent of executive secrecy that surrounds Holder's claim on the power to perform extrajudicial executions of citizens abroad -- note, this means without trial -- were set during the Bush 43 administration.

 [W]hen the executive branch won’t release the legal memos that underlie its decision-making, we’re blocked from evaluating how strong or weak the arguments are. When the federal government takes a bold and new step like this, testing the boundaries of the Constitution, it’s crucial for Holder and his lawyers to explain how and why. Instead, we’re being asked to take the wisdom of the president and his national security apparatus for granted.

That’s a precedent that the Bush administration set in the bad old days of Attorney General John Ashcroft. It was this Department of Justice that produced John Yoo’s legal memos approving waterboarding and other interrogation techniques that amount to torture, the finding that the Guantanamo detainees weren’t prisoners of war protected by the Geneva conventions, and approved of warrantless wiretapping. Yoo’s legal innovations were dizzying—to put it kindly—and the leaking of his memos in 2004 was the first step toward official Department of Justice repudiation of them.

I am a fan of transparency, and also a fan of judicial process, and consequently was no fan of George Bush's foreign policy in this area.  I acknowledge that national security needs make for a disturbing gray area both in transparency and in dealing with non-state military actors, but surely some accountability to the nation, through committees of our elected representatives, can be carved out even of our most pressing security needs.  

I am not terribly surprised to see Bush's successor following in his footsteps here.  Democrats and Republicans may have significantly different ideas about how best to command a military, manage an economy, and lead the nation, but it is pretty obvious that politicians of all stripes never saw a power they didn't want to grab and hang onto for dear life.

A parable.

Okay, let's say that the governor of a midwestern-to-southern state has an idea for a new, modest-cost, kind of feel-good sort of social program.  Reading scores in his state are low, and especially there seem to be a disturbing number of children who grow up in "text-poor environments," meaning that for one reason or another there aren't many books or magazines or other reading material in their homes.  The governor suggests, "Let's use taxpayer money to send a few new children's books home from the hospital with every new baby born in our state.  It's a token, a small thing, but it will send a pro-reading message, and maybe it will do some good."  The appropriation doesn't turn out to cost all that much, and the political/economic climate is one in which being seen as "anti-book" makes the legislators feel nervous, so the bill passes without much debate.  A few grumpy letters are written to the editor about whether it's just a political stunt, or whether a handful of books will make enough of a difference to be worth the cost, but in the end, this is a small program, and so "Books for Babies" is launched.  New parents love it, the program pleases librarians and educators, local authors are highlighted, it isn't all that expensive, and by and large it's pretty harmless.  A minor kerfuffle ensues when homebirthing parents attempt to claim books for their kids, but it's all worked out by adding involving an alternate way to get books via a letter and a copy of a birth certificate.   Everyone, it seems, is satisfied enough with this small social program to keep it going.

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Now let's say that a few years later, the governor of the next state over admires this program and announces a plan to establish a similar one in his own state.  Only this time, things don't go so well in the legislature.  Even though many of the same conditions exist which prompted the first governor to dream up "Books for Babies" -- reading scores, children who lack books -- the political situation is different.  Government waste and corruption is more in the news, there is a larger faction in the governor's opposition party, there has recently been an expose of unforeseen expensive in innocuous-looking social programs, and people are in a cutting-back mood and suspicious of anything that smacks of feel-good political stunts.  Even though it polls really well among mothers of young children, across all incomes, and especially well among Hispanic voters, this governor's "Texts for Tots" program dies an early death in committee.

But let's say that this governor is a true believer.  He wasn't trying to put on a stunt -- he really thinks that free books for new babies is a great idea, and the polls have him convinced that if he can just get the ball rolling, public opinion will turn and everyone will see what a great win-win situation this is.  Educational costs might even go down, if even just a few more kids on the margin arrive at kindergarten with a positive view of books and reading.  So he looks for a way to do it that doesn't involve the pesky legislative process.

With a little research, an aide discovers some provisions that allow the state administration to set certain operating rules for businesses in the state, ostensibly to promote accessibility to various services.  The law is broadly enough written that the governor's idea just might work:  require booksellers to provide five free books to new parents on demand -- easy, the records office can just send a little piece of paper with the birth certificate, good for five books, any children's books the parents choose from any bookstore they like.   If a parent reports that a bookseller won't honor the paper, the bookstore will have to pay a fine.  

It's a great idea.  So great, the governor wonders why he bothered with the "Texts for Tots" bill in the first place.  Using a rule is so much easier:  no debate, no votes, no argument.   It's simpler, too -- hospitals don't have to stock books, there's no committee to choose which books will be featured, and parents even have the freedom to pick exactly which children's books they want, as long as they're in stock in a physical bookstore somewhere in the state.  Why, some of them will surely become regular customers!  The booksellers will probably make more money in the end.  And if they don't, well, they'll just  raise their prices.  In the end, the cost will be borne by other book buyers, people who love books and certainly will be happy to see a few pennies of each purchase go to promote children's reading in the state.

The day after the rule is announced, hardly anyone complains.  A state bookseller's association takes a hurried poll of its members and finds that an overwhelming majority want to express support of the bill.  A few small independent bookstores express concern that they'll be swamped with requests, but they are drowned out.  One crotchety old man, the owner of a tiny independent bookstore specializing in global environmentalism, argues that he should not be forced to reward people for reproducing.  He is mostly jeered at, as being "against books for kids," and otherwise ignored.  A few months later it goes into effect.  New parents love it.   Educators love it.  Big bookstores love it and don't even have to raise prices.  Small bookstores in some neighborhoods discover that when parents come in to get their five free books, they usually add several more to their orders.  Small bookstores in other neighborhoods raise their prices and scrape by.  All this without costing taxpayers a dime.  It's perfect.

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The next governor has a different pet issue:  chronic, expensive health problems in the state, especially an epidemic of diabetes.   She wants to promote exercise and healthy eating choices, and it's in the news a lot and is a popular issue.  Her program is impressive:  tax breaks for new supermarkets in "food deserts," more tax breaks for quick-serve restaurants that include fresh vegetables and fruits in kids' meals, a revamping of the state school-lunch program, and various educational outreach programs.  Research shows that among several key demographic groups in the state, many people cite "don't know how to cook from scratch" as a major reason why they rely on heavily processed foods that the state has identified as unhealthful.  Wouldn't it be great to get some basic information into those folks' hands?

A popular local food writer, working with a local cardiologist, has recently published an award-winning cookbook that would fit the bill perfectly.  It's expressly written for people who aren't used to cooking for themselves, and includes lots of basic information: how to select produce, and how to read labels, and how to plan balanced meals on a budget, as well as elementary cooking techniques for beginners -- it practically tells you how to boil water.  Even a chapter on how to eat well if you don't have access to a full kitchen.  And every recipe in the book is low in saturated fat and packed with nutrition.  The language is clear, engaging, and uncomplicated.  There are links to free instructional videos on the Internet.  It's a stellar book.  The governor begins to think that this is the book that she wants every family in the state to have on the shelf.

Now, how to do it... "Hey," suggests one staffer, "you remember how the last governor put out the Texts for Tots rule?"

There was practically no opposition to the requirement that booksellers give away a certain number of free books.  How hard can it be to require them to give away a particular book? 

Soon, in a speech to the state association of school nutritionists, the governor announces the new rule:  Booksellers all over the state will be required to give away copies of the wonderful cookbook by the local food writer and the local cardiologist.  If they refuse, they'll pay a fine.  Obviously the booksellers will benefit, because the people who come in to get their free book will probably buy more.  They can always raise their prices a few pennies a book to cover the immediate costs.  The whole state will benefit in a reduction of long-term health care costs and improved quality of life.

The state booksellers' association hastily conducts a poll and, over a few minor objections, issues a statement in support of the governor's plan.  "Healthy eating is good for everyone in the state," the press release reads.  "We are proud to be a part of this impressive effort to educate the public."

In a tiny storefront a couple of doors down from the local food co-op, the owner and manager of a store that mainly sells nutritional supplements but also stocks a small selection of vegetarian cookbooks slits open a padded envelope.  Out tumbles one copy of the governor's favorite book, plus a letter explaining the new requirement, the deadlines, a table that provides a suggested number of copies to have on hand, and information about the sliding scale of wholesale prices from the publisher.  Also a couple of glossy brochures about healthy eating, picturing a smiling nuclear family of mixed ethnic heritage sitting down to a picnic lunch.  At the sight of the photos the store owner feels an uncomfortable sinking feeling in his stomach.  He cracks open the paperback book and as if it knew what he was looking for, it opens up to the chapter on delicious, low-fat recipes made with chicken and fish.

He thumbs through it.  Yeah, there's some lip service paid to the benefits of choosing organic, free range chickens and avoiding overfished species.  But there's no getting around it:  most of the people who read this book are going to be buying conventional frozen boneless, skinless chicken breast from conventional caged chickens from conventional crowded farms, conventional fish from conventional stores.  He has never -- never -- stocked any cookbooks except vegetarian cookbooks.  Lately he's been forced to confront the inherent cruelty of conventional egg and dairy farms, and has been reluctantly facing up to the truth that his principles really are pushing him towards all-out veganism.  

The store owner closes the book.  

He's going to fight this stupid rule.   Even if it means the fines are going to put him out of business.

A more interesting statistic about Catholics and birth control.

In one sense, statistics about "who does what" are irrelevant.   The fight to overturn the HHS mandate forcing insurers and/or employers to cover contraception is a fight about religious freedom, and it really doesn't matter how many people use contraception and how many employers object to paying for it directly or indirectly.  

It is, after all, religious minorities -- groups of people who adhere to beliefs that are unusual in the wider society -- who require the most protection and who desire the most accommodation in the civil structure.  If your philosophical beliefs and practices are common, ordinary, and widespread -- such as making time for worship on the weekends, or eating only non-animal foods, or giving presents to your children on a quiet, at-home Christmas morning -- we can assume that there is some accommodation for them built right into the fabric of society, since some of your co-believers will have helped put that society together.  Indeed, if we look around we see that many jobs (though not all) are available which leave room for weekend worship, that Christmas is a day when few people (though not without exception) have obligations outside the family, that vegetarianism is largely accepted and that many eating establishments offer meatless items year-round.

If you're a member of a religious minority, though, you occasionally may ask for, and legitimately receive, accommodations written into the law.  Laws like the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prohibits the federal government from burdening a person's exercise of religion unless it demonstrates that it does so in furtherance of a compelling government interest AND  is the least restrictive means of doing so.  The mandate doesn't further the government's interest (which is stated to increase "access" to contraception, and that has been shown not to be a problem) and it's not the least restrictive means (which would be something like a rider that an employee can purchase) and so the 1993 law, enacted during the notoriously right-wing Clinton administration, almost certainly renders the HHS mandate illegal.  

But it's obvious that the media is happy to wave this "98 percent of Catholic women use birth control" statistic around because someone thinks  it matters, or that it will matter if enough people hear it.  I think the idea must be something along these lines: Few Catholics consistently obey the Church's teachings, therefore we can make the nation think that it isn't a "real" or sincere religious belief that deserves accommodation.

If that's the case, then there is a lot of misdirection going on.  Because of course the freedom that is being infringed here is not the freedom to refrain from taking contraceptive pills or being sterilized.  (The government had to stop forcing people to contracept and be sterilized some time ago... must have been back in the dark ages... oh wait, it was 1981.)

No, the freedom being infringed is the freedom not to buy pills and sterilization for other people who want them.  So perhaps a much, much better thing to ask is:  "How many Catholic employers and insurers either cover contraceptives in their employee insurance plan or directly pay for them for their employees?"

Oops, now we have a conundrum.  Because if the number is small compared to the general population of employers and insurers, well then, there just might be something to the argument that Catholic employers and insurers have a real and sincere religious belief that precludes them from paying for other people's contraceptives.  And if the number is similar or large compared to the general population of employers and insurers, well, then, what exactly is the problem that needs to be solved by forcing them?  

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But even the question of "how sincere is this religious belief" is misdirected.  There is no test for sincerity in the Clinton-era law protecting the free exercise of religion against the federal government.  

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Here is a pair of recent statistics that you may find interesting.  (Via Red Cardigan, who herself found it via Get Religion).  

Of U. S. Catholics:

•  Fraction who say they attend Mass once a week or more:  22%. 
•  Fraction who say they agree that using artificial means of birth control is wrong:  22%.

(The first statistic is from CARA, a Catholic think tank.  The second is from a recent CNN poll.)

Only twenty-two percent of people who call themselves Catholics are going to Mass once a week.  This number is, of course, disturbingly low.  Recall that weekly Mass attendance is, in the Catholic faith, compulsory (though allowances are made, on the honor system, for duties and conditions that interfere with the obligation).  

Often, when you wish to define who is and who isn't a "practicing" Catholic, weekly Mass attendance is used as a reasonable proxy.  It's a practice that is required by the Church, it is relatively easy to measure, and it is public.  It is debatable whether this is the best proxy, but it is at least convenient.

The same proportion of Catholics agree with the teaching against artificial birth control.

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Let's do a little calculation with estimates using data from the Pew Forum.   Nearly 24% of the U. S. population is Catholic.  Twenty-two percent of that is 5.3% of the U. S. population.  This is only a little bit more than the number of people (4.7%) who belong to non-Christian religions, who, I think most reasonable people agree, deserve careful attention to their religious accommodations because their minority status places them at the margins of public discourse.  Just as unpopular speech is the speech that most needs protection, uncommon exercises of religious belief are those that most need accommodation.

We are a religious minority.

It is not what we would choose, but it is the reality we live in.

 

Letter from a liberal homeschooler.

Last week, the left half of the homeschooling-o-sphere exploded with discussion of this piece by Dana Goldstein entitled, "Liberals, Don't Homeschool Your Kids:  Why Teaching Children At Home Violates Progressive Values."  

I know, my conservative homeschooling readers might be going "W00t! Bring it on!" but as you can imagine, it contains a lot of stupid.  Homeschooling is a symptom of being rich and white and privileged, we have a duty to keep our children in public schools because we believe in public education, lefty homeschoolers preach sound social values but... you can imagine how well this was received ... don't practice them.

There is an absolutely fantastic piece in response to this today, called "An Open Letter to Dana Goldstein," by Stephanie Baselice.

What is a Liberal Homeschooler? Am I, for you, merely the assumed opposite of a Fundamentalist Christian Libertarian Dominionist Homeschooler? Do you imagine we are a group essentially just like the women at your office, or the last cocktail party you attended, except we are nursing toddlers in the park with our older children readingMark Twain and Philip Pullman nearby? What exactly leads you to presume that your idea of “liberal values” is one that the entirety of non fundamentalist attachment parenting unschoolers would share? Just because we are not raising revolutionaries for God’s Christian Army does not mean we agree with you about the meaning, let alone the value, of public education.

In my personal experience, you are right about some things. Home school families are indeed diversifying as a group. I live in an area where the home school community spans the spectrum from those who want to ensure that their God-fearing children are not sullied by exposure to science to those Dragon Mamas who want to make certain their offspring get into Stanford. Yet there are a wide range of perspectives somewhere between those poles, or somewhere else altogether. Many are families whose children for one reason or another did not thrive in the school system. Many have children with mild to moderate ADD, ADHD, Aspergers or OCD.

There are indeed those parents who prefer to spend family time together, perhaps running a family farm or traveling instead of attending school. There are Homeschoolers of Color who feel their children will be ill served in a public school system which tracks them towards low achievement (many of the Moms I know who meet that criteria are former public school teachers). Plenty of homeschool families I know personally live at or near the poverty line, making lifestyle choices from the bedrock of their values. Choices which involve significant financial sacrifice. 

This is my favorite line:

...You do not own the cause of progress. And the liberal tradition of fighting for public schools is a particular expression of values, not a value in itself.

... because failure to distinguish between values, and a particular expression of values, is a really common error.  For people both on the right and the left.

Another great insight:

When I worked in finance, pre-child days, I had been a registered assistant for an investment adviser. I was seriously underpaid. The number one question we got from couples under 50 was “Our family is so stressed and exhausted…is there some possible way one of us can stay home? ”. My job was to take in all their financial data, and put it together so we could analyze their situation and present financial options. Unless Mrs. Client was an attorney or a physician, or had a job she deeply loved and did not want to leave, I saw the math prove over and over again that these families would be better off financially if Mom stayed home.

Mothers, even highly educated ones, seemed often to bring in just enough money to put these families in a higher tax bracket. Usually two income households lock themselves structurally into this problem by buying more house than they really need—an expense that has recently become all to clear to families struggling with layoffs in the economic crisis. Granted, the families I was working with were usually well to do. But the same problems apply broadly to our whole society. Our lifestyle choices and our incomes are interdependent, not unidirectional. The values perpetuated by consumer culture lead us to view accomplishment in terms of income. It has long been possible to purchase status. If one lets go of that wheel, and is willing to live with less, according to different values, other economic possibilities can and do open up....

This is not to say that fathers cannot do the job of care giving, or that Mothers cannot provide adequately for families. There are all sorts of  ways to structure families. I know many families where the parents both work part time to support homeschooling, or where Dads stay home with kids while Mom works. Some of the non traditional families are gay. Yes, extended breastfeeding does indeed create a prevalence of very traditional looking stay-at-home Moms in the AP and homeschool communities. But this is more a response to the way the consumer society and nuclear family is structured than anything else. Most Moms I know would ideally work part time and spend lots of time at home with their little ones. In a tribal situation, there is extended family and lots of help with the work of raising a family. My homeschooling group has come to be almost a tribe to me. We help each other. All the time. Because that is how we wish to live. Relationships have replaced the need for revenue in many areas of my life.

Read the whole thing.  As I've said time and time again, one of the greatest things about homeschooling is the way it brings into agreement people from across the political spectrum.  Liberal and conservative homeschoolers often have more in common than they have separating them.

Political question: Minnesota edition.

Ok, here it is.

Is taking four children ages 2 to 11, all by myself, tomorrow evening at 7 pm, to the GOP caucus (yes, that is "caucus," not "primary" -- no quiet voting booths here), in a parks building in our urban neighborhood, and doing my part to help take down the most horrible candidates, 

(a) a valuable educational experience for the older children, and a way to model participation in the political process

(b) admirably responsible, since otherwise no one from our family will be able to make our voice heard in the caucus/primary stage, which appears every year to increase in importance over casting a vote in the general election

(c) courageously positive, as I make a stand for inclusiveness of people with small children to care for even at 7 pm in the evening

(d) unnecessary, because everyone knows who is going to win the nomination by now anyway

(e) certifiably insane

(f) pictures or it didn't happen

For the record, if I remember right, in 2008 my neighborhood caucus actually went for Ron Paul.  I had my husband with me when we went, and we took the kids (three of them, then) because we didn't really have another choice that night if we wanted to go.  It was the first presidential caucus I'd ever been to.

The building in 2008 was absolutely crammed full, which fairly shocked me, because Republicans and conservatives are downright invisible in our urban neighborhood.  You never, for example, see any lawn signs.  The GOP usually doesn't even bother fielding any candidates to any significant local positions, although occasionally people running for school board will get an endorsement.  But that year there were a very large number of what appeared to be young libertarians, some of the hipsterish variety and some of the dreadlocks-under-my-oversized-toque variety, and many of them waving signs.  The oldsters who had brought cookies and punch -- not that there was any left -- were standing around at the edge of the room, blinking and wondering what had hit them.  I got the impression it hadn't been like this in 2000.

Challenge and compassion.

Boy, I haven't written in a while.  This has been a weird Lent.

 It seems I usually have weird Lents.  Last year I had a brand new baby, and after a while I pretty much gave up on any kind of penitential sorrowful feeling.  Totally un-fakeable, even, with a brand new baby to sniff.

This year I decided to cut back on blog reading and blog writing, with an eye towards avoiding irritation and recapturing some serenity.  All I really did was sequester a bunch of blogs, mostly political and social commentary, in a "Temporary Embargo" folder in Google Reader, and then promise myself I wouldn't open the folder.  I continued reading many blogs, though.   You might think that my intent would be to read only spiritual blogs or something like that, but in fact I kept a good number of political or econ or law blogs in my daily diet.  The ones I put away for Lent are the unsettling ones:  the ones that tended to draw me into combox debates, or the ones that from time to time would leave me feeling vaguely irritated all day as I imagined possible rebuttals.  I kept the ones that I often learn from, that are funny or interesting or creative, without occasionally annoying me.

The result is that I have much less to read, and apparently, much less to say.  I think I'm enjoying the Internet more, but less frequently.  It hardly feels like a sacrifice, though I can see the difference in myself and in my internet experience.   Which makes me wonder whether I should ever go back to reading the unsettling blogs at all.

And yet there's something very, very unsettling about the notion of avoiding them on purpose.  Because many of these blogs I read on purpose because they are intellectually and philosophically challenging and stimulating to me.  I guess you could say that I believe there is value in getting unsettled.  In reading opinions that differ from mine.  In hearing the voices of people who start from different assumptions.  

Is an "open mind" my value?  I am no relativist; I'm the first person to agree with G. K. Chesterton's assertion:  "The object of an open mind, as of an open mouth, is to shut it again on something solid."  But no matter how confirmed I am in my own beliefs about what's right, there's still a lot to learn from people who think otherwise.  

The best arguments against your own position are the ideal ones on which to test and hone your own arguments, for one thing.  

For another, I detest a straw man:  I want to contend with a real, flesh-and-blood opposition, not an easy dummy I've invented in my head.  The first hint that you've created such a thing is when you really begin to believe that your opponents are stupid, evil, and/or irrational.  Of course, many people are one of these things (including some who agree with you), but certainly many smart, truly-well-intentioned, and reasonable people out there believe differently from you -- they start from different first principles, or they follow a different line of reasoning, or they have different priorities, and that's why they wind up in a different place.   But it's always tempting to resort to "they're evil/stupid/irrational" rather than taking the time to distinguish the different starting points, or to locate the point in the chain of reasoning where you and he diverge, or to justify your own ranking of priorities against his.  And you'll never be able to do it if you never listen to the other person explain himself.

And maybe most important:  Those other people are human beings, and their arguments may be wrong or dangerous, but their feelings and experiences aren't.  We need compassion for them.  It feels uncomfortable to find ourselves with compassion, the desire to help and advise, and yet with the knowledge that our kind of help and advice won't be accepted; or worse, knowing that we don't have any good answers at all.  But it's still good to feel the compassion even if it comes with discomfort.  

So I believe all those things, that challenge stretches the mind and awakens compassion, and yet I can't deny that I live a more comfortable and calmer life when I deliberately avoid challenging myself, intellectually speaking.  What's the right answer when Lent is over?

Am I living the kind of life where I am called to guard my serenity even if it means robbing my mind of some of its favorite things to think about?  Maybe as the mother of several small children, who has difficulty tapping reserves of love anyway, I ought just to delete those blogs from my reader.  Maybe I need to live in the echo chamber for now after all, whether I like it or not, because I have challenge enough within it.  Maybe I need to drop "discussing things with people who disagree me" like a hobby I just don't have time for.

 That feels wrong.  I could *be* wrong about that.

Is the answer to find some kind of balance?  If I spend too much of my heart and energy on arguments, it's not good for me or my home life.  But I want to insist that it's good to leave my comfort zone, regularly even.    So maybe the answer is to go back to my old ways, but not to excess, and avoid unnecessary discord on days when serenity is at a premium.  Know when to quit.

Or maybe the bush just needs pruning.  Maybe all the challenging voices need to be put to the test:  is this helpful to me living my real life, exterior and interior?  Or can I contribute something real to the conversation?   Maybe I need to set aside some of it and keep others (as I did at the start of Lent, only with an eye towards permanence).  

Or maybe the answer has more to do with attitude, with a lightness of heart that can remain even while the mind thinks hard on tough questions.  

I'm not sure, but I'll tell you that this question has me unsettled all on its own.

Sins magnified.

One of my Lenten disciplines is going to be to avoid political outrage on the Internet.  I think I've found a helpful mantra this morning, ironically, in a political-economic blog.

From Megan McArdle:  A useful insight about the office of the President, one that extends to politics and politicians in general, and applies to both Dems and Repubs:

To me, a better explanation [for the Obama administration's treatment of accused leaker Bradly Manning, which some argue constitutes torture] --one that explains the fact that there's not that much daylight between Bush and Obama on these issues--is that being president makes you want to do these things.  The president has access to more information than the rest of us...

Not only does the president hear about threats we don't, but he's the guy who gets in trouble if any of these threats come off. The combination of heightened threat-alertness, and personal risk aversion, makes him willing to do bad things to avert the potential threat. And since the president knows that he's a good person, and the people around him are basically good people, he's willing to trust them with power that no institution should have.

...I mean, I used to think that Janet Reno was evil--SWAT teams and tanks in child custody disputes? Really? Then we had a succession of new Attorneys General who all seemed to err on the side of megalomaniacal overreach. At which point I decided that it probably wasn't the person; it was the office. When you're sitting up there in that lofty perch, hearing about all the bad things that are happening in the country, and you know that you could do a lot more to fight them if you just had a little bit more power--well, sure, maybe it's not a good idea in abstract, but you're not going to abuse it, you're just trying to solve problems. Et voila, Waco.

So too, I suspect, with tormenting prisoners, and civil liberties. Maybe if Mark and I were president, we'd support this stuff too. Which is not, by the way, an argument for doing it. It's an argument that we need to serve as a check on the president. Because we're not going to fix it by just electing a better person to be president. Whoever we elect will still be president, with all that implies.

I think this is a good insight because it can help us avoid the temptation to assume bad faith, stupidity, or consciously evil motives -- personal evil -- in the officeholders we disagree with. 

I think if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we all tend to give the guys "on our side" the benefit of the doubt while assailing the integrity of the guys on "the other side."  It's subtly dangerous to our own spirits to divide the political-social world up into good guys and bad guys. 

Good ideas and bad ideas, or good actions and bad actions -- sure!  

Good people and evil people... stupid people and intelligent people... noble people and base people... not so much. 

(And watch out for the temptation to insist, "I'm not saying he's an evil person, I'm saying he has evil motives!"  Since you can't actually observe motives the way you can observe actions and statements, and can only guess at them, to declare someone's motives bad is really just a circular way of declaring him a bad person:  you believe the motives to be bad because you believe him to be bad and therefore incapable of having good motives.  Fess up.)

I get really tired of the "Obama is evil" movement, and am equally tired of the "Bush is evil" movement.  Similarly tired of the smaller "He or she is evil" movements that play out in smaller theaters, like the one going on now in the Wisconsin State Capitol building. 

McArdle suggests that maybe it's just being President that tempts human beings to do apparently bad stuff.  Gee, I can't imagine that -- holding one of the most powerful offices in the world, a severe temptation to evil acts and omissions?!?  Sarcasm aside, it also seems pretty obvious to me that men with different leanings would be tempted to a slightly different variety of evils, but also that universal desires -- say, to increase one's own personal power, or to be thought well of by others, might lead to startlingly similar behaviors even by men of quite different political beliefs.  Hence McArdle's suggestion that this theory explains why President GW Bush's reviled policies towards certain prisoners appear to have been continued rather than reversed under President Obama.

I think we would do well to reserve our indignation towards the personalities of our political opponents, even in the most upsetting of policy debates, even the ones that seem to us the starkest battlegrounds between good and evil.   Better, I think, to recognize that high offices themselves constitute high opportunities to commit dreadful sins and injustices.   Yes, they also present opportunities to do great good... which means nothing more than opportunities to commit terrible sins of omission.  

And it's really just our preference for some sins over others that leads us to condemn some sinners over others, I think.  They're all freaking sinners, as are we.

During this Lent, one way I'm going to temper my political outrage is by avoiding the blogs and websites that tend to exacerbate feelings of irritation.  (That's not all political blogs and websites, incidentally -- some of them generally inform and entertain me without making me angry, at least if I don't go on to read the comments.)    But since it's impossible to avoid political information and opinion entirely, I think it will also help to have in my pocket the little mantra:  "It's not the person, it's the office."   Because without the publicity and power the office has granted, the officeholder's flaws would never, ever have become so magnified as to attract and hold my attention and my judgment, through my own distorted lens.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

The clock is ticking down to Ash Wednesday and I'm still wondering what I'm going to "do" for Lent.  I am a little bit jealous of my husband, who never worries about it, but cheerfully gives up chocolate every single year and calls it good.   As I have written in previous years, I have sworn off all non-obligatory food-related sacrifices because they mess with my head.  I think maybe I was on to something when I wrote this post before Lent another year:

Do you think maybe it's backwards to try to think "hmm, what can I give up for Lent?  Something that I like, something that's a sacrifice, hmm..."

Do you think maybe it might be better to think first "What particular virtue do I want to develop, or what bad habit or vice do I want to eliminate?  How could I fulfill my vocation better?" ... 

... and then, having answered that question, to consider what sacrifice would actually serve that goal?  I mean, maybe chocolate is really hard to give up, but maybe it's not a chocolate-free Lent that would best help you grow in holiness.  Unless you have a disordered attachment to sweets in particular, and you think chocolate is actually getting between you and God, and that's what you're hoping to work on.

Or is that just me being overly analytical?

I think I will go back to St. Francis de Sales today and consider his idea of discerning which one virtue (or a very few virtues) to focus on.  Maybe that will help me think of something.  I already have a couple of good ideas for small things I plan to do, but unfortunately none of them are things I can do daily.  On the other hand, if you put it all together, it might work out to almost daily.  

I need something to read, for one thing.  One of the most rewarding things I ever did during Lent was read the Diary of Sister (now Saint) Faustina -- the one who saw the Divine Mercy apparitions.   I came out of it with a much better understanding of what the Church means when it calls an apparition "worthy of belief," which isn't the same as coming right out and saying "This really really happened exactly the way the visionary said it did and you have to believe it really happened."  Because even if you were to assume that St. Faustina was delusional or mistaken about what happened to her (I guess it doesn't work if you assume she was a liar), you would find that her writings about her experience, the thoughts she took away from them and transcribed, are true to the Gospel and inspire love of Christ.  Probably more than anything you're likely to read here.  

I was thinking about paying $3 for a pdf of Amy Welborn's newly refurbished, Lenten-devotional form of her late husband Michael Dubrueil's work The Power of the Cross.    (She has it in forms that should work on your Kindle, Nook, iPad, or iPhone; not having any of these I was going to go for the pdf.)  Or I might pull Fulton Sheen's Life of Christ off my bookshelf -- it's just about the right length for Lent.  Or I might start re-reading Volume 1 of Jesus of Nazareth, since Volume 2 will be released next week, and I could take them as a whole.

Last year I didn't give up computer time, facebook, email, or blogging, on the theory that to do so would be the equivalent of giving up answering the phone or opening the mail.  And I probably won't do so this year either.  But one thing I did do was set time limits around my internet usage, and that turned out to be pretty valuable.  So I may do that again this year.   I also thought that I might consider which of the political blogs I follow tend to be the most destructive to my internal peace, and temporarily delete them from my reader.  

My schedule is such that I get about two opportunities a week to visit the Adoration chapel all by myself for more than an hour.  Only I rarely, or never, actually use the time for this.  I always have something else to do (and in fact I do not think of these time blocks as "opportunities to visit the chapel" but rather as "planning time" or "me time.")  I think I may try using these time blocks for Adoration instead.  It would probably be good for me to give up planning time to God.  Theoretically his plans work out better than mine anyway.

Well, that's enough of that:  it's almost time to start school.   So, comments topic of the day:  Not "what are you thinking about doing this year," but let's look for evidence of good ideas from the past.  In your most fruitful Lents, what were the sacrifices or devotions that enriched you the most?

Challenge.

On my post about explaining abortion to kids in the context of American history education, in which I wrote that I would treat the subject as part of a unit on the changing experience of American childhood, I received a good question from "emma" in the combox.  Here it is:

Do you also ask them to put themselves in the positions of their once-younger siblings, now grown older, and facing an unwanted pregnancy?

I gave a quick answer for the combox:

Emma, that's absolutely got to be part of their education, yes -- just as I ask them to put themselves in the position of all kinds of people facing challenges in life. I've tried to do that repeatedly as we've studied American history: asked them to put themselves in the place of marginalized people as well as in the place of people who've done terrible things. I've asked them to put themselves in the place of undocumented immigrants, in the place of people who supported immigration amnesty, and in the place of people who support strict immigration law enforcement -- so they can understand where everyone is coming from. I asked them to put themselves in the place of white antebellum Southerners and white antebellum Northerners and free blacks and slaves. Heck, a couple of weeks ago I even asked them to put themselves in the place of Richard Nixon. "Can you understand how a person could imagine that their political opponents were really *enemies?* And if you thought that, would it still be okay to lie and cheat to win elections?"

How else can "do the right thing, always" sink in, how can "never help people commit injustice, never" sink in, until you really understand that sometimes doing the right thing is terribly, terribly difficult? That sometimes contributing to injustice is terribly, terribly tempting?

 I think it's a question worthy of highlighting for further discussion, don't you? 

My point, in putting Roe v. Wade within a unit on the experience of childhood, is to point out that it affected the legal status of children primarily -- much more than it did the legal status of women.   Of course, this only follows from the notion that unborn children are, in fact children; but I am sure the commenter understands that this is a fundamental assumption in my homeschool.

As with all my educational theories, we shall see how it plays out as my children get older and ask tougher questions. My philosophy about imparting the conviction that the unborn deserve protection  is that it's necessary to go beyond "abortion is bad, so don't ever have one or pay for one or recommend one, try to help people who think it's their only choice, and vote against it whenever you can."  

What's more fundamental than that?  What's more necessary than that?  Well -- ask yourself why abortion is a bad thing, why people shouldn't have them, pay for them, promote them, why it's better to help people make different choices, why its legal status should change.  The only good answer is that the unborn are persons, children, and all those judgments follow from it. 

The Catholic novelist and short-story master Flannery O'Connor once famously said about the Eucharist, "If it's just a symbol, then to hell with it."  Well.  About the anti-abortion movement, I can say:  "If the unborn aren't persons, than to hell with it." 

And so the thing that must be imparted is the gut-and-brain knowledge that unborn children are nothing more nor less than children, younger than themselves.   A ten-year-old boy will protect his little sister like a Rottweiler:  I have seen it.   A four-year-old girl will carefully care for her baby brother:  I have seen it.  The whole family will gather eagerly around Mom's belly to watch for the tiny kicks:   I have seen it.  They know.  They mustn't lose this knowledge.

If you know that an unborn child is a child, you don't need to be told that she needs care, not violence.

If you know that an unborn child is a child, you don't need to be told that a scared pregnant girl is a scared young mother with a baby, that a boy with a pregnant girlfriend is a worried young father.   I'll have completely failed any one of my sons if he makes it to adulthood without being able to imagine what it might be like, what it is like for too many American men: to fear that he can't care for his family.   I'll have failed my daughter if she grows up without putting herself in the place of a mother who's afraid she can't care adequately for herself and for her child.  

I believe that to awaken compassion for young mothers and young fathers and their children is to awaken a desire to help them all, not a desire to harm any of them.  Political positions come long after that.

Readers:  What do you think of Emma's question and challenge?  A good one, no?

Get your political hotdish right here.

So, did you wake up this morning with an unbearable urge to know the answer to the question, "If the Minnesota congressional delegation had a hotdish contest, what would Al Franken and Michele Bachmann bring?" 

If so, the Heavy Table blog has a recipe roundup for you.

Normally, I find Michele Bachmann cringe-worthy as far as Republicans go, but I'll give her quite a lot of credit for showing up to this harmless Franken-planned event.  (Hint to other Minnesota Republicans:  When Michele Bachmann shows you up in the bipartisanship department, especially for a publicity stunt, you might want to take a good long hard look at yourself.)

If anybody from outside Minnesota clicks through to the recipes and is horrified by them, you need to know that the inclusion of cream of mushroom soup is kind of a Minnesota inside joke.    And I will bet you dollars to donuts that if you actually made the winning recipe, you'd like it, whether you admitted it or not. 

I mean, deep down, who doesn't like tater tots?

OK, maybe really deep down.