New York Times
January 17, 2007
What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy
By DAVID LEONHARDT
The human mind isn’t very
well equipped to make sense of a figure like $1.2 trillion. We don’t
deal with a trillion of anything in our daily lives, and so when we
come across such a big number, it is hard to distinguish it from any
other big number. Millions, billions, a trillion — they all start to
sound the same.
The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the
number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the
money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like
millions or billions.
For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public
health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for
every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged
and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.
Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t
use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and
education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and
4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also
receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.
The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission
that have not been put in place — better baggage and cargo screening,
stronger measures against nuclear proliferation — could be enacted.
Financing for the war in Afghanistan could be increased to beat back
the Taliban’s recent gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur.
All that would be one way to spend $1.2 trillion. Here would be another:
The war in Iraq.
In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon
estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff
members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House
economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost
could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part
for saying so.
[To read the rest, click here.]
The Febuary issue of First Things includes a great article by Timothy George, "Evangelicals and the Mother of God." It's not on the website yet, but it's worth keeping an eye out for it. It explores "five explicit aspects of [Mary's] calling and ministry" that George thinks are need to be considered in an "evangelical retrieval of a proper biblical theology of Mary": "Mary as the daughter of Israel, as the virgin mother of Jesus, as Theotokos, as the handmaiden of the Word, and as the mother of the Church. The article ends with:
Can there be a proper place for Mary in the prayer and devotional life of evangelicals? The early Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century thought so. Evangelicals do not pray to Mary, but we can learn to pray like Mary and with Mary -- with Mary and all the saints. Evangelicals can join in with all Christians in a prayer like this: "And now we give you thanks, Heavenly Father, because in choosing the Blessed Virgin Mary to be the mother of your Son, you exalted the little ones and the lowly. Your angel greeted her as highly favored; and with all generations we call her blessed and with her we rejoice and we magnify your holy name."
Lisa
I agree with Fr. Araujo that the tactics employed by the Harvard students to protest Ropes & Gray appear less grounded in moral engagement than in bullying. But I hope that the legal profession will respond by challenging the students to delve more deeply into a moral dialogue with the lawyers they oppose, not by expecting the students to buy into the amoral lawyering paradigm.
I would like to express my gratitude to Rick for his reminder that today is Religious Freedom Day [HERE], and to Rick and Rob for their exchange on The Taint of Association (Rob) [HERE] and Detainees and Catholic Charities (Rick) [HERE] . Some may recall that last March I offered a few thoughts about the Harvard/Ropes & Gray issue when a regular contributor to the Boston Globe commented on the pressure put on Ropes & Gray to drop Catholic Charities as a client [HERE] . Rob offered a thoughtful view, with which I agree in principle, by arguing that “it’s a healthy sign of moral engagement when law students challenge a firm’s decision to devote its resources to a particular client or cause”. I know this is a point to which Rob holds dearly because of his response to my posting from last March. But there is a need to be clear about the action that was pursued by the Harvard law students in the Ropes & Gray situation that the three of us have addressed. These students were not engaging on moral grounds using moral means a decision by Ropes & Gray to represent Catholic Charities. They were engaged in tactics unbecoming of reasoned judgment and moral argument—they were threatening; they were bullying; they were harassing; they were intimidating. This was the application of pressure, pure and simple. Ropes & Gray did not respond with persuasive argument and reasoned expression; they succumbed to the power of pressure of those whose actions were not moral engagement. If readers think my remarks harsh, let us reexamine the words of one student who led the crusade: “boycott—slash—picket”, “to shame”, “who in this game [Araujo, here: this is not a game] is maximally positioned to exert pressure on Ropes & Gray? It’s law students…”. (My italics)
The re-visitation of this episode at the core of the discussion between Rick and Rob is a powerful reminder of those who take religious freedom seriously and join in today’s celebration that this vital liberty is still denied by some. Thus, it is important for us who join in this commemoration to remember another lawyer of long ago, Thomas More, who lost his life in the exercise of his proper religious freedom. In a letter to his daughter, Margaret, dated 2 or 3 May 1535 (a few weeks before his execution for high treason), he wrote: “I am, quoth I, the King’s true faithful subject and daily… pray for his Highness and all his and all the realm. I do nobody harm, I say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive in good faith [since he would not bend to Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn] I long not to live.”
I, too, pray for our country, our profession, and our legal system. I wish harm to no one; and, like More, I wish them good. But there is a need to be honest about the tactics of some whose actions trivialize or endanger the proper exercise of religious freedom. To examine the exercise of this right in a moral engagement is understandable; but, to threaten its exercise with tactics such as those used in the matter of Ropes & Gray is objectionable. RJA sj
I just made it. Here is a blurb from the President's proclamation:
On Religious Freedom Day, we commemorate the passage of the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, authored by Thomas Jefferson, and we celebrate the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom.
You know, not to be a crank, but I would much prefer pegging "religious freedom" day to someone other than Thomas Jefferson. How about -- oh, I don't know -- January 28, the day on which it is said that Emperor Henry IV knelt before Pope Gregory VII at Canossa?
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
A few readers, having read my earlier post, have asked after Archbishop Wuerl's San Diego statements. Here they are, from the California Catholic Daily.
Not his style
Archbishop Donald Wuerl goes on record: he will take no action to prevent Nancy Pelosi from receiving Communion despite her obstinate support of abortion and same-sex marriage
Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., who has come under fire for failing to speak out against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s attendance Jan. 3 at a Mass at her alma mater, Trinity University, came to San Diego’s Kona Kai Resort the weekend of January 13-14 to speak at an international Communion and Liberation conference.
While in San Diego, Wuerl told California Catholic Daily reporter Allyson Smith that he has no plans to discipline the newly elected Democratic Speaker, who is now the most powerful Catholic in Congress -- and an ardent supporter of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and pro-homosexual legislation.
Smith: “Did you make any statement last week about Nancy Pelosi going to Mass at Trinity University?”
Wuerl: “That was a matter between the university and Nancy. They were offering their location, and the Mass was celebrated by a priest with faculties, and there was no reason to make any comment.”
Smith: “Do you intend to discipline her at all for being persistent and obstinate about her support for abortion and same-sex marriage?”
Wuerl: “I will not be using the faculty in the manner you have described.”
Smith: “Will you make a statement to your priests and deacons to warn her not to allow her to receive if she presents herself for Communion?”
Wuerl: “You’re talking about a whole different style of pastoral ministry. No.”
Smith: “No? Thank you.”
Pelosi has been roundly criticized in conservative Catholic circles for publicizing her attendance at the Trinity University Mass and another recent visit to St. Leo the Great church in Baltimore in an effort to recast her image from that of a liberal San Francisco Democrat to that of an Italian Catholic grandmother.
Prior to the Mass at Trinity, American Life League president Judie Brown implored Archbishop Wuerl to intervene in the matter. “Rep. Pelosi has a tremendous opportunity to make a difference for all human beings as the most powerful Catholic in Congress,” said Brown. “Unfortunately, she continually supports the very act that destroys life rather than protects it. It is for this very reason that a Catholic institution should not condone or support her position as a legislator.”
The purpose of Archbishop Wuerl’s San Diego visit was to attend Communion and Liberation’s “Conference on the Occasion of the Publication of The Journey to Truth is an Experience,” a book by the organization’s founder, Monsignor Luigi Giussani. Wuerl participated in a panel on the topic “Education and the Christian Experience.” Other panelists included international leader of Communion and Liberation Fr. Julian Carron and Theology and Christian Scriptures professor Rev. Dr. John W. Wright of Point Loma Nazarene University. The panel was moderated by theologian Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete.
According to promotional literature distributed at the event, “Communion and Liberation is an international ecclesial movement in the Catholic Church founded by the late Msgr. Luigi Giussani in 1954.” The group’s mission “is the education of its members toward Christian maturity, and collaboration in the mission of the Church in all spheres of contemporary life. CL is today present in over 70 countries throughout the world and in more than 120 cities in the United States.”
