Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in John Wirenius' LiveJournal:

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Thursday, January 21st, 2010
10:22 pm	We the Corporations Today's decision in Citizens United v. Fed. Elec. Commn., (available here: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf )(sorry about the old fashioned linkage, but my computer died and I'm writing on a temp), is an appallingly ends-oriented, historically inaccurate, and disingenuous decision.  Like Bush v. Gore before it, the decision (authored by Justice Kennedy), seeks to present as entirely consistent with constitutional text and history what is in fact a radical deviation from both.  It's also just bad law.  First, the decision itself struck down as violative of the First Amendment campaign finance restrictions on corporate speech in federal elections.  It did so on the basis that "[t]he Court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations.," just as to individuals  Maj. Op. at 25.  As the Court explained: Corporations and other associations, like individuals, contribute to the ‘discussion, debate, and the dissemination of information and ideas’ that the First Amendment seeks to foster” (quoting Bellotti, 435 U. S., at 783)). The Court has thus rejected the argument that political speech of corporations or other associations should be treated differently under the First Amendment simply because such associations are not “natural persons.” Id. at 26. Well, that's a gross oversimplification.  The question of whether corporate "personhood" entitles a corporation to claim protection under the Bill of Rights actually has a long, and vexed history, and in fact the Supreme Court punted on it in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 776 (1978), after acknowledging the confusion that existed on this point.  From Bank of United Stated v. Deveaux, 9 U.S. 61, 86 (1809) through Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. 168, 177-179, 180-182 (1875), the Court repeatedly held that corporations could not claim, in their own interests as "separate entities," constitutional rights, which were reserved for natural persons.  From the Gilded Age through World War II, the Court rendered a series of inconsistent, conflicting decisions, sometimes allowing corporations to exercise constitutional rights, sometimes not.  As recently as 1944, the Court squarely rejected the notion.  (For much more detail, see my First Amendment, First Principles: Verbal Acts and Freedom of Speech (2d Ed. 2004) at 363-367).  Justice Kennedy's claim that the Framers of the Constitution would have understood the First Amendment to extend to corporate speech is, as shown by the early decisions squarely rebuffing the concept, supremely ahistorical.  The first three decisions on this point were rendered by Chief Justice Marshall, and rejected the notion with contempt.  As Justice Stevens wrote in dissent today: The Framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the public welfare. Unlike our colleagues, they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings,and when they constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind.   While individuals might join together to exercise their speech rights, business corporations, at least, were plainly not seen as facilitating such associational or expressive ends. Even “the notion that business corporations could invoke the First Amendment would probably have been quite a novelty,”given that “at the time, the legitimacy of every corporateactivity was thought to rest entirely in a concession of thesovereign.” Shelledy, Autonomy, Debate, and Corporate Speech, 18 Hastings Const. L. Q. 541, 578 (1991); cf. Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 636(1819) (Marshall, C. J.) (“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it”); Eule, Promoting Speaker Diversity: Austin and Metro Broadcasting, 1990 S. Ct. Rev. 105, 129 (“The framers of the First Amendment could scarcely have anticipated its application to the corporation form. That, of course, ought not to be dispositive. What is compelling, however, is an understanding of who was supposed to be the beneficiary of the free speech guaranty—the individual”). (Stevens Dis. at 37-38) (emphasis added). Justices Kennedy, and Scalia in a concurrence, seem to assume that media corporations (protected under the Free Press Clause) and ordinary corporate entities, speaking out in defense of their commercial interests, but not regularly engaged in speech otherwise, must have the same level of protection under the Free Speech Clause--in other words, that the Free Speech and Free Press Clauses protect the exact same activity, overlapping completely.  This would, of course, render the Free Press Clause surplusage, in violation of canons of construction that literally date back to the dawn of judicial review: Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137,174 (1803).  Thus, Freedom of the press would extend to journalism, commentary, etc., but that does not decide the sort of advertising by corporate interestst hat campaign finance law is intended to prevent.  (By the way, there is an excellent argument that the "documentary" at issue in the case might be able to claim free press protection, and that the FEC was wrong to find the movie within the statute.  My point is what the Court held, not the particular facts at issue here).  Justice Stevens, at 40-41, addresses this point quite clearly. There is, as Justice Stevens ably explains, a very good reason, other than history, original understanding, and precedent for not affording corporations free speech rights equal to those of individuals: The fact that corporations are different from human beings might seem to need no elaboration, except that the majority opinion almost completely elides it. Austin set forth some of the basic differences. Unlike natural persons, corporations have “limited liability” for their owners and managers, “perpetual life,” separation of ownership and control, “and favorable treatment of the accumulation and distribution of assets . . . that enhance their ability to attract capital and to deploy their resources in ways that maximize the return on their shareholders’ investments.” 494 U. S., at 658–659. Unlike voters in U. S. elections, corporations may be foreign controlled. Unlike other interest groups, business corporations have been “effectively delegated responsibility for ensuring society’s economic welfare”; they inescapably structure the life of every citizen. “‘[T]he resources in the treasury of a business corporation,’” furthermore, “‘are not an indication of popular support for the corporation’s political ideas.’” Id., at 659 (quoting MCFL, 479 U. S., at 258). “‘They reflect instead the economically motivated decisions of investors and customers. The availability of these resources may make a corporation a formidable political presence, eventhough the power of the corporation may be no reflectionof the power of its ideas.’” 494 U. S., at 659 (quoting MCFL, 479 U. S., at 258).  It might also be added that corporations have no consciences,no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their “personhood” often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established. Id. at 75-76. As I pointed out in First Amendment, First Principles, corporations are not capable of altruism in the same way you or I are, gentle reader (I nearly took from Mark Twain here, and addressed my "savage reader").  Indeed, even Chief Justice Rehnquist--that noted liberal!--pointed out in his dissent in Bellotti that it could reasonably be concluded that corporations, "so beneficial in the economic sphere, pose special dangers in the political sphere."  By contrast, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Scalia, seem to think that corporate speech will serve public debate by educating we proles, in overt love language that makes me re-think the improbability of Robert Ludlam's novel The Matarese Circle. Here's Kennedy: "Corporations, like individuals, do not have monolithic views. On certain topics, corporations may possess valuable expertise, leaving them the best equipped to point out errors or fallacies in speech of all sorts, including the speech of candidates and elected officials."  Maj Op. at 48-49. Here's Scalia: "Indeed, to exclude or impede corporate speech is to muzzle the principal agents of the modern free economy. We should celebrate rather than condemn the addition of this speech to the public debate."  Conc. at 9. Finally, a note on methodology.  The Court overrules decisons besides Austin , its antecedents (dating back to 1907) and its progeny.  It does so with respect to Austin, on the ground--I'm not kidding!--that it has been repeatedly cited since it was decided.  See Roberts, C.J., concurring; Stevens Dis. at 18, n. 18.  As Justice Stevens pointed out, "[r]elying largely on individual dissenting opinions, the majority blazes through our precedents, overruling or disavowing a body of case law including FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U. S. 449 (2007) (WRTL), McConnell v. FEC, 540 U. S. 93 (2003), FEC v. Beaumont, 539 U. S. 146 (2003), FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U. S. 238 (1986) (MCFL), NRWC, 459 U. S. 197, and California Medical Assn. v. FEC, 453 U. S. 182 (1981). " Id. at 3. In particular, the Court rejected the holding in Austin that "“[s]tate law grants corporations special advantages—such as limited liability, perpetual life, and favorable treatment of the accumulation and distribution of assets,” and that such special treatments warranted different treatment than natural persons.  494 U. S., at 658–659. The Court today found that "[t]his does not suffice, however, to allow laws prohibiting speech. 'It is rudimentary that the State cannot exact as the price of those special advantages the forfeiture of First Amendment rights.” Id., at 680 (Scalia, J., dissenting). "   I am unaware of any other case in which the sole support for a proposition so incontestable as to be deemed "rudimentary" came from a dissent.   The Court's blase statement (at p. 41) that  "[t]he appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy," is pretty rich coming from the authors of Bush v. Gore, another high water mark in judicial realpolitik.  The Court seems to be eroding democratic institutions here, in favor of allowing corporate interests to "correct" the voters' impressions.  Jonah Goldberg notwithstanding, the symbiosis of state power and coprorate interests is not a liberal notion.  It is one the Court is now affording constitutional status, however.    (24 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 18th, 2010
9:14 pm	Winning an Argument Richard Hooker v. Walter Travers:  On Travers' complaint against Hooker that "he [Hooker] prayed before and not after his Sermons; that in his Prayers he named Bishops; that he kneeled both when he prayed and when he received the Sacrament, and (says Mr. Hooker in his defence) other exceptions so like these, as but to name, I should have thought a greater fault than to commit them." --Walton, "Life of Hooker" in Hooker's Collected Works, vol 1 at 46 (OUP 1875 ed.). Nice one, mate! (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 10th, 2010
9:05 pm	C'mon, People a Little Perspective, Here So, reactions to Mark Halperin's new book say that the '08 campaign was like ancient Rome? I'm guessing not. And Inauguration Day isn't quite this. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, January 8th, 2010
7:42 pm	Go Ask Auric.. ...who might have something to say about the latest GOP talking point--that 9/11 happened on someone else's watch, and thus the Christmas bombings show that Dems can't be trusted with national security: Once is happenstance: Twice is coincidence: third time is [deliberate] action: There's a big gap in my skyline that says they're lying. Also, these: September 11, 2001 attacks. As CNN noted, "On September 11, 2001, four U.S. planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people in a matter of hours." 2001 anthrax attacks. A March 2004 State Department report on "Significant Terrorist Incidents, 1961-2003" quotes then-Attorney General John Ashcroft saying of the letters containing anthrax mailed to various targets: "When people send anthrax through the mail to hurt people and invoke terror, it's a terrorist act." Five people were killed as a result of those letters in the autumn of 2001. 2001 shoe bomber attempted attack. In June 2008, then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described Reid's December 2001 attempt "to blow up a trans-Atlantic plane with a shoe bomb" as an attempt to "carry out terrorist operations for Al-Qaeda." 2002 attack against El Al ticket counter at LAX. In July 2002, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet opened fire at an El Al Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport killing two people and wounding four others before being shot dead. A 2004 Justice Department report stated that Hadayet's case had been "officially designated as an act of international terrorism." 2002 DC-area sniper. The state of Virginia indicted Washington, D.C.-area sniper John Allen Muhammad -- along with his accomplice, a minor at the time -- on "an act of terrorism" for one of the murders he committed during a three-week shooting spree across Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Muhammad was convicted, sentenced to death, and subsequently executed for the crime. 2006 UNC SUV attack. In March 2006, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove an SUV into an area of campus, striking nine pedestrians. According to reports, Taheri-azar said he acted because he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world." Taheri-azar also reportedly stated in a letter: "I was aiming to follow in the footsteps of one of my role models, Mohammad Atta, one of the 9/11/01 hijackers, who obtained a doctorate degree." Down the memory hole! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
10:18 pm	Let's See Scalia Do This (FB, look here) (Comment on this)
Friday, January 1st, 2010
8:52 am	Five Years In... As decades go, the '00s pretty much were a disaster for us as a nation (although we've had a year of digging out, now), and I snarked through, in my own haphazard, occasionally splenetic way, exactly half of it. Last year, I thought about ending the whole blogging experiment, and decided that I would miss you all far too much. So instead, the thing's expanded--I'm on Facebook, where I've met friends new and old, and I've got a second blog up, where I often cross-post. The great thing about all this is relationships which I neglected have a chance to revive, and I get to hear from people all across the political spectrum, forming new friendships. Thank you all for that. As to 2010? What might the midterms bring?? Er, that is actually disturbingly close to the GOP platform as it presently stands. Happy New Year, all! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
8:10 pm	St Thomas a Becket Today, December 29, is the anniversary of the murder of Thomas a Becket, perhaps at the orders of King Henry II, certainly to the great relief of that most protean and impetuous of Kings. As I wrote two years ago (crikey!): Imagine my surprise when, years later, I found out that one of the most pressing grounds for the conflict between Becket and Henrywas the treatment of "criminous clergy" who committed offenses against the laity; in the face of years of inaction by the ecclesiastical authorities, Henry wanted the right to try such clerics in the secular courts. There was much more to it than that, of course. The real Thomas Becket may have been headstrong and arrogant, but he was also seeking to preserve the institution of the Church as it was entrusted to him, and to resist a King who was re-making the political institutions of his day and centralizing power in the King's person. As to Becket's murder, the King's role in it has always been sharply disputed--the authenticity and meaning of the infamous quotation, "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" have been debated for centuries. (An excellent account is contained in W.L. Warren's biography, Henry II). Regardless of the merits of their dispute, there's no denying that the story of Becket has given rise to much great art. My personal favorite is the admittedly ahistorical play by Jean Anouilh, brilliantly filmed with Richard Burton as Becket, and Peter O'Toole as Henry: Great though the movie is, it does considerably less than justice to either Henry (who fought a civil war to a standstill to become King) and Becket himself. And, of course, T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral is a great favorite of mine since Fordham College (thanks, Dr. Antush!), and one which combined great insight into human nature and into theology. For me, the lines that hit home most are the scenes between Becket and his Tempters. So, the Fourth Tempter offers him the power of martyrdom: You hold the keys of heaven and hell. Power to bind and loose : bind, Thomas, bind, King and bishop under your heel. King, emperor, bishop, baron, king: Becket sees this trap, and responds: Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain: Temptation shall not come in this kind again. The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 21st, 2009
8:11 am	Cognitive Dissonance? This Times Magazine profile of Catholic Natural Law expert Robert P. George highlights my fundamental inability to understand relate to much of conservative Christian thought. George, widely regarded as " the reigning brain of the Christian right," (it took, of course, the rise of women's rights and the concomitant legalization of abortion to overcome the distaste many evangelicals have long held for "popery"), has successfully urged that fellow conservatives, especially RC bishops should narrow their focus: He told them with typical bluntness that they should stop talking so much about the many policy issues they have taken up in the name of social justice. They should concentrate their authority on “the moral social” issues like abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex marriage, where, he argued, the natural law and Gospel principles were clear. To be sure, he said, he had no objections to bishops' “making utter nuisances of themselves” about poverty and injustice, like the Old Testament prophets, as long as they did not advocate specific remedies. They should stop lobbying for detailed economic policies like progressive tax rates, higher minimum wage and, presumably, the expansion of health care — “matters of public policy upon which Gospel principles by themselves do not resolve differences of opinion among reasonable and well-informed people of good will,” as George put it. Or in other words, fulminate, enact moral standards into law, but on poverty and justice issues--just empathize. This is utterly opposed to what a good friend of mine, a Deacon in the Episcopal Church, calls "trench theology." And he has pretty good warrant for it, too. The Daily Office reading for Saturday, the same day I get the NYT Magazine? Matthew 25: 31-46: 31 'When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34Then the king will say to those at his right hand, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me." 37Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?" 40And the king will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."a 41Then he will say to those at his left hand, "You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." 44Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?" 45Then he will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.' The moral disjunction here seems pretty straightforward to me. George seems all too eager to focus attention that matters onto policing the morals not just of his co-religionists, but of his fellow citizens. And George, who is a follower in his Natural Law beliefs of Aristotle and Aquinas, surely knows that Aristotle believed abortion to be permissible in the first three months of pregnancy and that Aquinas did not believe abortion was homicide until "ensoulment," post-conception, and that indeed the Roman Catholic Church itself did not hold his position until the early 19th Century. Thus, George is in the somewhat odd position of arguing that his position is the universal objective truth to be obtained by reason, despite the fact that neither of his two leading lights of Natural Law reasoning held the same position. Thus, we should adopt Aristotle and Aquinas's philosophical framework, but their specific failure to reach objective truth as George would have it does not undermine its universal quality. Yep. All clear and self evident. Meanwhile, on the actual Gospel imperatives? Nothing. Or rather, sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
10:19 pm	Back to Barchester The summer before I started college, I first read Anthony Trollope's The Warden and its sequel, Barchester Towers. Its depiction of Nineteenth Century clerical life was a delight to me, and the depth of the character-drawing made me a fan for life. (Still am!) At the time, I somehow missed the BBC's adaptation of the two novels. Viewing it now, it holds up quite well--Donald Pleasence captures the goodness and naive quality of the Rev. Septimus Harding,and endows him with a gentle, pawky sense of humor; Nigel Hawthorne is funny and credible as his choleric son-in-law, Archdeacon Grantly, and a young Alan Rickman is superb as the slippery Mr. Slope. The women are excellent, too; Susan Hampshire is positively delicious as the charming but naughty Signorina Madeline Vesey Nata Stanhope, and And Geraldine McEwan shines as Mrs. Proudie, the bishop's domineering wife. Trollope is unique in English literature, in that he can make the goodness and gentle good humor of Mr. Harding credible, and not cloying. (CP Snow thought that only Dostoevsky made goodness more believable). Admirable though Rev. Harding is, I regret that I often am more like the Archdeacon--quick-tempered if well meaning. Enjoy, but be careful--one trip to Barchester is never enough, and there are four more novels after these. And, then, of course, there are the the Pallisers: (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
8:59 pm	Pockets. Just Pockets. "Most of Jesus's parables were free market parables...: As E.D. Kain writes (linked above): It just strikes me as a remarkable example of how absurd the conservative movement really has become. (There are so many examples but this brings them all under one roof.)</p> ….or has it always been this way?  Have the intellectual pockets of conservatism always been just that – merely pockets? Watching Schlafly try to reconcile free markets and Christianity is just sad. It’s exactly why thoughtful proponents of free markets run into such jaded and hostile reactions from people on the other side of the fence. I think Christianity and free markets are reconcilable but only with the addition of some form of safety-net-state. The Christian Democrats understand this concept over in Europe.  Americans like Schlafly think Jesus was the first coming of Milton Friedman. It just makes me throw my hands up in the air. I try too hard to retain the word “conservative” – to hold on to some other sense of its meaning, some other definition that the American right has no hold over. I have great admiration for the paleocons, but I would never really fit in even with that idiosyncratic bunch. I’ve tried to come to terms with the idea that the movement can be changed for the better but I’m beginning to doubt myself even there. The invention of the modern Tea Party only reveals how deep the fraud runs. Or, tp put it more succinctly, this is not a faithful adaptation of the Gospels, although the denouement captures the GOP view of Christianity pretty neatly: (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
8:24 pm	The Curse of the Grand Tufti Well, here we go again. After persistently holding only one side--the Episcopal Church--accountable in the widening schism, even though we are in fact the only "side" that has observed the moratoria requested until now--Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is threatening consequences to TEC if it approves the Diocese of Los Angeles' selection of Mary Glaspool as Suffragen Bishop. Williams' comment:"The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold." Meanwhile, Archbishop Williams remains utterly silent on the violations of the moratoria by more conservative provinces making geographical incursions into TEC's jurisdiction and on the utter failure of these churches to participate in the so-called "listening process" to hear the concerns of gays and lesbians. (It's all here). Moreover, Williams has been for two months silent on the ghastly proposed Ugandan legislation which seeks a death sentence for "aggravated homosexuality," and prison sentences for all--parents and priests included--who become aware of a person's homosexuality, and fail to expeditiously report it to the government. Notably, this legislation is fostered by American right-wingers, a fact noted by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in her denunciation of the legislation. Abp. Williams managed to denounce the selection of a lesbian suffragen within a day; the persecution of gays and lesbians with support (albeit equivocal) from the Anglican Church of Uganda does not rate a mention. Sadly, this is typical of Rowan, as I observed in the links at the beginning of the post. He should remember that for the bonds of mutual affection to hold, he needs to be seen as someone worthy of our affection. I for one doubt this proposition, and am more and more inclining to welcome the impending schism. (Comment on this)
Friday, November 27th, 2009
1:17 pm	The Beat Goes On.... Further and better particulars on the Roman Catholic Church's 40 year cover-up of systematic and pervasive child abuse on the part of the Archdiocese of Dublin. The Times (London) has the quick summary: The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland connived with the authorities in a cover-up spanning decades to shield paedophile priests from prosecution, an official report concluded yesterday. Hundreds of crimes against children were not reported as the four archbishops of the Archdiocese of Dublin remained wedded to the “maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church and the preservation of its assets”. Instead, the church hierarchy shuffled the sex offenders from parish to parish, allowing them to continue to prey on victims. In some cases paedophile priests were even promoted. The 750-page report by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse on the Dublin archdiocese — the second significant inquiry this year to expose appalling levels of sexual abuse of minors in Ireland under the aegis of the Roman Catholic Church — said that it had uncovered a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy throughout the period that it investigated between 1975 and 2004. It said that the State had helped to create the culture of cover-up and that senior police officers regarded priests as “outside their remit”. “The State authorities facilitated that cover-up by not fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure that the law was applied equally to all and allowing the Church institutions to be beyond the reach of the normal law enforcement processes,” it concluded. When considered in conjunction with the evidence of Vatican condoning of such cover-ups even in papal statements on the issue from John XXIII to Benedict XVI (pre-papacy for him), one must ask finally, what does this tell us about the Roman Catholic Church? This, I think: That its ecclesiology is fundamentally flawed in it's agoraphobically top-down model, one which prizes the interests of the institution so highly, and which cannot ever admit error or failure--individuals fail the Church, the Church itself cannot err. By identifying itself completely with the Body of Christ, the Church heavily disincentivizes itself from acknowledging systemic problems--the "rogue priest" model is the only one that the Church can bear to recognize, because to do otherwise sets up a cognitive dissonance between its theological claims and its behavior. That gap, perceived outside the Church as the rankest hypocrisy, is in fact denial of the most psychologically necessary kind. To believe it, one must shift the topic from the cover up to the offense itself, perpetrated by a number of priests not much greater than that percentage of abusers in society at large, a defense the Church has made at the highest levels. But it is, of course, the concerted cover up over decades by men widely deemed holy and even heroic within Christendom--John XXIII, a hero to liberal Catholics, and John Paul II, a hero to conservatives, to name but two. Or, one can, as did British MP Ann Widdicombe in the Intelligence Squared Debate I linked previously, de-emphasize the cover up, and the sex abuse, and spin it as overly authoritarian discipline typical of the time, and even (as did Widdicombe) accuse Church critics of a double standard, by unfairly demanding that the RCC know better than the times. (This of course set her up for the deadly riposte of Stephen Fry: if the Church cannot be expected to better than secular institutions, he asked, his voice rising for the first time in the debate, then "What are you for?"). The fact is, having one man, and a small circle of princes, responsible for the preservation of a 2,000 year institution which it believes to be the true incarnation if Christ's Body on Earth is to put an insupportable burden on that man and that circle of men. It cannot be maintained, because it attributes perfection to the necessarily imperfect. And that leads to covering up the gap between the Heavenly Image and the Earthly Reality. (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
11:41 am	Happy Thanksgiving, Folks. I'm not in the mood to go off on politics today, nor to be sententious--so I'll just wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving, West Wing style. With seconds. (And, among the many things for which I am grateful, you lot rank pretty high. Thanks for the pleasure of your company--even when we squabble debate!) (Comment on this)
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
8:01 pm	Mental Health Break My good friend Bob Barry really sold me on the Who, years ago in college. Here's the deal closer for me. Then, of course, there's always my "other" Who addiction, fostered by the afore-mentioned Mr. Bartilucci, and it's time again for new Who for you: Can't be politics and law, all the time, can we now? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 15th, 2009
9:10 am	The Bartilucci Clause So, as I'm reading my dead-tree edition of the New York Times (you're welcome, free-riders!) what do I run across? An old and dear friend up to new-ish tricks: Bravo, say people like Vinnie Bartilucci, a computer programmer from Lehigh Valley, Pa. Among his methods for countering loud cellphone talkers is to place a small recording device he carries for work on the table next to the offender. Mr. Bartilucci did just that last summer at a McDonald’s in lower Manhattan, soliciting the logical question: What are you doing? (Which was punctuated by an expletive.) “I said, ‘Well, since you obviously want me to hear your conversation, I’d better keep a copy of it,’ “ Mr. Bartilucci recalled. THE ploy worked: the man got up and walked away — but the victory felt Pyrrhic. “We’ve learned so much about personal freedom that we sort of work under the assumption that everything we do is perfectly acceptable, and God help the person who tries to limit us in any way,” Mr. Bartilucci said. Ah, Vinnie. The man who once tried to convert a Jehovah's Witness to the Church of the SubGenius, who shattered the Chaminade High School dress code by staying within its technical limits while subverting its spirit in toto (the subsequent revision was known as the Bartilucci Clause), and who (with my connivance, and a bravura performance by a now-respectable Marianist brother, whose confidentiality I will respect) hoaxed my high school graduation party so notably that it still comes up 25 years later at Wirenius family gatherings. (Not to mention my mother who still dissolves at the memory of certain impressions done at the dinner table when Vinnie would visit ....) Some people have the knack, as Thomas Wolfe noted in Look Homeward Angel, of raising the temperature in any room they are in--of bringing life, and spontaneity and fun with them. If the occasional windmill gets speared in the process, so much the better. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 13th, 2009
10:23 pm	Mark Twain Tonight! Here is Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain on Man: the Reasoning (?) and Religious (?) animal: And a glimpse of the genuine article: (Comment on this)
Monday, November 9th, 2009
7:42 pm	Um, Crikey. Do not, do not ever get into a debate with Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens (Jeeves and Boozer?). Behold: Intellectual demolition derby, with manners. From Intelligence Squared; hat tip: Andrew Sullivan, himself a Catholic, who writes: You can forgive the pro-Catholic side for losing the debate in Britain on whether the Catholic church is a force for good in the world. Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop John Onaiyekan were up against Hitch and Fry. What you cannot forgive is the sheer intellectual shallowness of the defense. Just listen to the small speech above, I mean: really, this is the best we've got? **** The problem with the theoconservative take-over in the Catholic priesthood is not so much its extremism as its mediocrity. And it is mediocre because it has been trained not to think, not to argue, and not to engage the modern world. It has been trained solely for obedience - blind, dumb, unquestioning, intellectually moribund obedience. Actually, I think the extremism and the mediocrity are both problematic. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
10:01 pm	Your GOP at Work Here is Rep. John Shadegg putting his own stupidity into the mouth of a baby, from whom he thinks we should take policy advice: Here's Shadegg a few years ago, when he had thoughts of higher office: Some guys never learn... (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
9:08 pm	Brush Up Your Shakespeare! Yesterday wasn't just Election Day, it was a chance for me to reconnect with some old friends (and new) by engaging in a great cultural event. I refer of course to Theatre of Blood, with Vincent Price and Diana Rigg Sometimes the classics don't age well. But then there's this one, which was every bit as delicious as I recall from my admittedly misspent youth: Enjoy! (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
9:02 pm	And Chris Christie is an Honorable Man... First, he blatantly steals from Monty Python, whose surviving members may sue him. (The video is here). Then he rips off a stock footage house. Meanwhile, no explanation for Christie's driving with impunity scandals or his loan to a subordinate who appears to have used her position with the US Attorney's office (where he had supervised her) to benefit the Christie campaign. Look politics ain't beanbag, as they say. But stealing from Python...despicable. A palate cleanser : (Comment on this)