With respect to the issues raised by Elizabeth Brown, and posted by Steve S. . . . Elizabeth asks:
[W]hy are the Catholic bishops and others not making the case that to support a politician precisely because he or she will support the use of torture . . . would place the Catholic outside of Communion with the Church and they should not present themselves to receive the Eucharist.
I would have thought it was noncontroversially the case that a Catholic may not "support a politician precisely because he or she will support the use of torture[.]" (If only it were so obvious to our fellow citizens that a Catholic "may not support a politician precisely [because he or she will support abortion rights]"!) I wonder, though -- is there really any evidence that any meaningful number of Catholics (or, for that matter, of Americans) would "support a politicians precisely because he or she will support the use of torture" (my italics), keeping in mind that to support, say, detention of suspected enemy combatants is not necessarily to support "tortur[ing]" them? Elizabeth says that "some polls indicate that a significant number of American Catholics support the use of torture by our government." Can anyone provide links to these polls indicating that, in fact, "a significant number of American Catholics support the use of [what they regard as] torture by our government" (in anything other than the mythical "ticking time-bomb" hypothetical)?
(To be clear: I agree with Elizabeth that the recent display of "tougher-than-thou-on-detainees" by the GOP presidential candidates was unedifying, and I share what I take to be her discomfort with the reach of some of the Administration's executive-power claims. And -- this should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway -- that I regard "torture", even of the worst, and even in the most desperate circumstances, as immoral. It should also go without saying, though, that to believe detained enemy combatants need not be interrogated, charged, and tried in the manner employed in American criminal trials, or that the Executive has the power to identify and detain such combatants, is not to endorse "torture.")
UPDATE: On the other hand, read this post, at Vox Nova, on torture and Justice Scalia's recent remarks about "absolutes" and Jack Bauer. (The post includes a link to a survey -- the results of which seem troubling -- of members of the armed services in Iraq regarding treatment of non-combatants and interrogation.)
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Some might be surprised that I'm posting, and agreeing with, a Barbara Ehrenreich piece in The Nation but . . . this short piece is worth reading, I think.
The "immigration issue" is (warning: hopelessly unhelpful bromide approaching) difficult, and complicated; reasonable people of good will can, do, and will disagree about immigration policy. One is not a racist or nativist simply because one worries about border security or cultural assimilation; one is not a corporate tool or a multi-culti-world-citizen simply because one thinks that America is enriched (culturally and otherwise) by immigration. With that out of the way, this bit from the Ehrenreich piece grabbed me:
All right, they committed a "crime"--the international equivalent of breaking and entry. But breaking and entry is usually a prelude to a much worse crime, like robbery or rape. What have the immigrants been doing once they get into the US? Taking up time on the elliptical trainers in our health clubs? Getting ahead of us on the wait-lists for elite private nursery schools?
In case you don't know what immigrants do in this country, the Latinos have a word for it--trabajo. They've been mowing the lawns, cleaning the offices, hammering the nails and picking the tomatoes, not to mention all that dish-washing, diaper-changing, meat-packing and poultry-plucking.
The punitive rage directed at illegal immigrants grows out of a larger blindness to the manual labor that makes our lives possible: The touching belief, in the class occupied by Rush Limbaugh among many others, that offices clean themselves at night and salad greens spring straight from the soil onto one's plate.
In the Los Angeles Times, conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg has this op-ed, in which he argues that "[g]overnment is inept at running schools. It should subsidize education for needy students, then get out of the way." (A few weeks ago, in The Weekly Standard, David Gelernter had pressed a similar argument.) Putting aside the partisan barbs, is there any reason not to agree with him when he writes:
Milton Friedman noted long ago that the government is bad at providing services — that's why he wanted public schools to be called "government schools" — but that it's good at writing checks. So why not cut checks to people so they can send their kids to school?
What about the good public schools? Well, the reason good public schools are good has nothing to do with government's special expertise and everything to do with the fact that parents care enough to ensure their kids get a good education. That wouldn't change if the government got out of the school business. What would change is that fewer kids would get left behind.
My colleague, Peg Brinig, has posted a new family-law paper on SSRN, called "Best Love of the Child." Here is the abstract:
This paper examines the creation of the ability to give unconditional love (perhaps in tune with the theologians' definition of “best love”) and to discuss how laws might make this easier for children. Given my past work, it is perhaps not surprising that I see this as requiring permanence in the relationship. I hypothesize that children acquire this tendency (or longing, as Aristotle and Jennifer Roback-Morse would term it) as they see it around them. The most likely three relationships from which children can draw models of unconditional love are God's love, the parents' love for each other, and the parents' love for the child.
God's love is of course the model for all human unconditional love. We might see parents' response to it in frequency of church attendance or how important they say religion is in their lives. The ability of law (at least in the United States) to influence belief and the exercise of it is of course a delicate constitutional question. The law can certainly continue to not discriminate against religion and to allow such benefits as charitable tax deductions for religious contributions and tax exemptions for religious properties. Tuition vouchers are a help, too. But the controversy in Massachusetts surrounding Catholic Charities' adoption policies show how fragile this balance has become.
The parents' love for each other also can serve as a model for children. Other research, including my own, shows that unconditional love is most likely to flourish in marriage as opposed to cohabitation. It is also most evident in what Judith Wallerstein calls “The Good Marriage,” whose opposite is the “Separate Spheres” (or marriage reduced to its lowest common denominator) discussed by Lundberg and Pollock or the “exchange relationship” detailed in Gary Hanson's “Marital Exchange Relationship” piece in psychology. This love is threatened by any attempt to equate marriage and cohabitation (as with current Canadian law and the American Law Institute's Domestic Partnership proposals). It is strengthened by legal efforts to make marriages stronger, whether these are through requirements for premarital counseling or through tax and other subsidies based upon marital status (listed in, for example, the Vermont same-sex marriage case of Baker v. Vermont) and perhaps by laws that force couples to carefully think through the decision to divorce. From a nonlegal perspective, marriage is strengthened by increased support from extended family and the community, secular and religious.
The parents' love for him or her is perhaps the first unconditional love noticed by a child. We can see it in what the parent says about the child, what kinds of activities he or she does with the child, and how close the child feels to the parent, perhaps whether the child feels the parent stands up for him or her or acts as an advocate. From an absent parent, we can still get some glimpse of this love through continued contact, attendance at the child's activities, and even faithful payment of child support. From a negative perspective, we see the absence of unconditional love in parents who say they are disappointed with their child, who neglect their child (when they have the means of support), perhaps when they engage in custody battles and certainly when they abuse the child. Law can strengthen parental relationships with children. On the extreme, children in foster care are unlikely to see this love, and efforts should be made to either strengthen the family of origin or place the child in a permanent adoptive or kincare situation. Child abuse is criminal and serious, and should be taken seriously by the law and prevented where possible (including abuse by non-parent adults living in the home). For another example (of many), custody laws can be carefully drafted to minimize incentives for vindictive behavior and to promote relationships with noncustodial parents. We can continue to promote family autonomy so that parents in less stressed families can effectively allow their children to flourish.
This paper tests these ideas to the extent possible, finding that characteristics favorable to unconditional loving as adults are present in environments consistent with each of these models. I conclude with a number of policy recommendations to strength families and make them more permanent.
A friend and former student sent me the link to this commencement address, by Leon Kass, delivered at St. John's College. It's wonderful. Here's a bit:
The greatest moral challenges headed our way do not in fact come from hate-filled fanatics threatening death and destruction. They come rather from well meaning scientists and technologists offering life, pleasure, and enhancement. They are the by-products of modernity’s noble and humanitarian quest to conquer nature for the relief of man’s estate. They are, in a word, the challenges of bioethics, challenges to our humanity arising from burgeoning new technological powers to intervene in the bodies and minds of human beings.
