Few issues today are as divisive as the issue of gay marriage.  It arouses intense passions on both sides of the debate that make it seem doomed to never actually getting anywhere.  One side claims that homosexual marriage will threaten the institution of marriage; the other side claims that this is not the case.  But what if there was a solution that could change the debate in a way that makes progress actually possible?  I propose accomplishing this goal by dropping the term “marriage” from the legal side of the issue completely and substituting “civil union” in its place.

My argument is as follows:  Either the government should define the socio-economic union of two adult persons as a marriage or as a civil union.  Family and community life in our society is based on the idea of two adult persons at the head of a household functioning as a single socio-economic unit (I will address the issue of single-parent households later).  “Marriage” has been defined by those who support so-called “traditional marriage values” as the socio-economic union of one adult male and one adult female.  However, the definition of “marriage” is inconsistent in the historical record and cross-culturally.  For example, until the modern era, marriages among royal families and imperial courts often took place for political reasons.  In ancient times, kings could have thousands of wives, most of them are “gifts” to the king from other kings to solidify political alliances.  In traditional Islam, a Muslim can have up to four wives, provided he can love and care for them all equally.  If the definition of marriage is a historically and cross-culturally inconsistent, then marriage has multiple, competing definitions.

If marriage has multiple, competing definitions, then it is unwise for the government to use marriage to define the socio-economic union between two adult persons.  A consequence of using marriage as a way of defining the socio-economic union between two adult persons is that it allows for one group in society to impose its own definition of marriage upon the rest of society, resulting in discrimination and suppression of minority rights.  We want to avoid these consequences to maximize the overall public good by allowing more adult persons to form socio-economic unions.  This has implications for tax policy, hospital visitation rights, inheritance rights, and end-of-life considerations.  Therefore, the government should not use the word “marriage” when referring to the socio-economic union of two adult persons.

On the other hand, a civil union is defined as the socio-economic union of two adult persons that is recognized by the government, irrespective of the gender of either adult in the union.  Therefore, since marriage is an insufficient way of defining the socio-economic union between two adult persons, the socio-economic union between two adult persons should only be referred to as civil unions by the government.

My argument follows the ethical theory of consequentialism.  It is a hedonistic argument since it is designed to maximize the pleasure of two groups: those who want “marriage equality” and those who want to protect “traditional marriage” since the defining of “marriage” has been effectively taken out of government hands.  Heterosexual and homosexual socio-economic unions will be viewed the same by the government and under the law, and the issue of whether the union is considered a marriage or not is made the decision of the two adult persons who make up the union and, by extension, whatever religious institution performs marriage rites.  They will still have the ability to accept or reject any union of two persons if their definition of marriage is not consistent with that of the particular church.

The argument I present is also value pluralistic.  First, it aligns with the value that all persons are created equally and should not be denied any rights based on sexual orientation, putting it in line with our democratic values.  Second, it maximizes the ability of society to organize itself by breaking a barrier that has kept group of two adult persons from becoming a socio-economic unit, be it because of sexual orientation, lack of a romantic relationship, etc.  It accommodates those who believe that homosexual couples should be granted the same rights as heterosexual couples should they decide to form a single socio-economic unit (a household, if you will).

Conversely, those who believe that traditional marriage is threatened by homosexual marriage have yet to present a credible case for why they believe so.  I am not convinced by their claim that homosexual marriage will make heterosexual marriages any less meaningful, nor am I swayed by their argument that same-sex couples are worse at rearing children than heterosexual couples.  Also, since the United States grants both freedom of and freedom from religion, those who argue that homosexual marriage threatens traditional marriage have no right to impose their religious views upon the rest of society.  Whether a socio-economic union of two adult persons will constitute a marriage or not will be irrelevant in the eyes of the government and the law.  Should a particular religious institution decide to deny the rite of marriage to a homosexual (or any) couple, they will remain free to do so.  In addition, my argument is maximizing because it accomplishes the goals of both sides of the debate for the aforementioned reasons. I am aware that those who argue against civil unions will claim that this is not maximizing because they are, in their perspective, being forced to compromise their own value that homosexual marriage is immoral.  I respond that their compromising actually IS maximizing because it appeals to the value that government should be trying to maximize: everyone is equal in society and before the law and no one should be denied rights because of who they are.

Lastly, my argument is agent-neutral.  Since I am a heterosexual, I do not have a tangible interest in the extending of civil rights to homosexuals.  However, I do believe it to be morally wrong to deny legal and socio-economic benefits to people based on their sexual orientation, something that they are not in control of.  To do so would amount to discrimination based on whether they find the opposite gender or same gender sexually attractive.  In my mind, this is no different from discriminating based on skin color, religion, ethnicity or worldview.  As long as the union is between two adult persons, they should all be granted the same legal rights through a civil union, not a marriage.

A devil’s advocate would object to my using of two adult persons as making up a socio-economic unit.  They will ask, “but why not a person and a dog?” or “why not legalize incest?”  Responding to the case of the person and the dog, an adult person is aware of the consequences of their actions and what they are doing, whereas the dog would not be aware that he or she is married to the person.  In addition, society as a whole has decided that bestiality is immoral.  The latter counter argument also applies to the incest case: as a society we have decided that incest is immoral, and this does not even necessarily need to account for the potential disastrous genetic mutations that can result from offspring produced in an incestuous relationship.  Furthermore, both of these claims commit the slippery-slope fallacy and begs the question.  Instead of asking “Why not bestiality/incest?”, we should ask “Why bestiality/incest?” and finally, “How exactly would  allowing homosexual couples to form civil unions lead to those results?”

One objection that could be raised to my argument based on my consequentialist methodology is that it requires very significant sacrifices on both sides of the debate.  On the pro-gay marriage side, it forces them to concede that they will not be granted “marriage” as a right, but instead the legal and economic protections that being married currently provides.  This criticism does have some merits, but in response, I contend that equal rights and protection under the law are much more important roles for government than determining whether two adult persons are considered “married” or not.

On the opposing side, it is not hard to imagine the Catholic Church fighting tooth and nail to keep the term “marriage” as the term recognized and used by the government.  I respond to this by reminding the critic of the First Amendment to the American Constitution: “Congress shall pass no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  Since, according to my argument, marriage will cease to be a legal term it will be left to the realm of religion to figure out what marriage means so that religious marriage rites can be carried out.  Since marriage will be considered a religious term and the American government does not respect the establishment of religion, this criticism eventually becomes baseless.

Another obvious possible objection to my argument would be to question my premise: “’Marriage’ has been defined by those who support so-called “traditional marriage values” as the socio-economic union of one adult male and one adult female.”  One objection would be that I ignore the emotional and romantic aspects of said relationships.  I respond to my critics by dismissing this criticism as irrelevant, because my argument refers strictly to the relationship between the socio-economic union of two adult persons and the government, or whatever legal actions or bodies are involved therein.  Marriages are complicated institutions that have many facets: emotional, social, economic, religious etc.  However, the only ones I am concerning myself with here are those that are relevant to government, that is, the socio-economic aspects. This criticism fails in that it does not address the aspects relating to government.  Whether or not the two adult persons are romantically involved or not becomes irrelevant in this case.

Lastly, the issue of single-parent households functioning as socio-economic units needs to be addressed.  I argued that family and community life in western society is based on the idea of two adult persons at the head of a household functioning as a single socio-economic unit.  In pre-modern times when things like disease were more widespread and deadly, single-parent households tended to result from the death of one of the parents.  Today, the number of single-parents households is increasing and this can potentially challenge my aforementioned premise.  According to the US Census Bureau, in 2006, 12.9 million households were single-parent households.  Should this trend continue, I acknowledge that the premise in question may need to be revised to reflect this demographic shift.  Until then, the fact that the majority of households are indeed two-parent households makes this objection irrelevant at this time, but potentially could become relevant in the future.

Having the government recognize only civil unions in lieu of marriage is not only the commonsense thing to do, it is also the morally correct decision.

In Logical form, my argument proceeds as follows:

1. Either the government should define the socio-economic union of two adults as a marriage or a civil union (Either P or Q)

2. Family and community life in western society is based on the idea of two adult persons at the head of a household acting as a single socio-economic unit (R)

3. Marriage is defined today as the socio-economic union of one adult male and one adult female (P is S)

4. Marriage is a historically inconsistent term (S is T)

5. Marriage has multiple competing definitions (U)

6. If marriage has multiple, competing definitions, it is unwise for the government to use marriage to define the socio-economic union between two adult persons (If U then ~P)

7. Therefore, the government should not use the word “marriage” when referring to the partnership of two adult persons (~P) (3, 5, 6)

8. A civil union is defined as the socio-economic union of two adult persons that is recognized by the government (W is Q)

9. Therefore, “civil union” should be used to define the socio-economic institution that two adult persons create (Q) (1, 6,

Ah, the tired and true (and trite) subject of abortion…

We’ve all heard the arguments from pro-lifers, so I won’t waste your time or brain cells rehashing them.  What does concern me, however, is the question of whether or not pro-lifers really understand the implications of what they are arguing for.  Do they really realize what would happen if having an abortion was banned in the United States?  Could it be that the position pro-lifers take would actually make a relatively minor societal problem significantly worse without even flinching?

Let’s consider a scenario in an America where abortion is illegal.  20-year-old Jane gets too drunk one night and forgets to use a condom and realizes a few days later that she is pregnant.  Jane is in her second year of college, which is being financed by student loans.  She has no idea who the father is, and is humiliated and terrified of what will happen when she tells her parents.  Being a student, she has almost no income, an extremely limited support system (we do not know if her parents will be supportive or shun her) and feeling increasingly desperate, Jane takes matters into her own hands and goes for a back-alley abortion which damages her uterus so badly that she’ll never have kids.

Or try this one on for size:  Jason and Christine have been together for 3 years, since college started.  Christine cannot go on the pill because the hormones are bad for her, so they are dependent on condoms for protection.  One night the condom breaks and Christine gets pregnant.  Again, neither has finished college or has ample financial support.  Jason and Christine decide they do not want to take the risk of a back-alley abortion and end up keeping the baby, unable to find an adoptive family.  Both are forced to drop out of college to care for the child.  Neither knows anything about nor feels ready to raise a child.  They will likely live in poverty or near-poverty because of the financial burden of raising a child they never should have had and only did because of a freak accident that could just as easily happen to anyone else.

The sad truth is that both of these cases could have been avoided by having available the option of a safe, legal abortion.  While no one in their right mind will claim that abortion is the only answer, it needs to be an option.  I’m utterly disgusted by those who claim that legal abortions provide a reliable means of birth control.  How ignorant can one be?  No one plans on an unplanned pregnancy, hence it being called one of the following: accidental, unplanned, unintended and most importantly, unwanted.  Economists cannot plan for unplanned fluxuations in the market, so why should anyone be expected to plan on getting knocked up by accident?

In addition to what banning abortion as an option for dealing with an unwanted pregnancy can do to a woman physically and financially, another consequence of the pro-life position is taking away a woman’s reproductive freedom.  If abortion is outlawed, men should be ready to give up all male enhancement and erectile dysfunction drugs.  If women cannot have full control over their own reproduction, then neither should men.  That would be the democratic thing to do, right?

I’d like to also address specifically the Stupak Amendment that by some act of Satan found its way into the House health care reform bill.  For those of you who were fortunate enough not to have heard about this stomping-on of personal liberty, the amendment expands current federal law and bans private insurers from providing abortion coverage in the future health insurance exchange.  Yes, PRIVATE insurers cannot cover abortions.  If you want abortion coverage, you’ll have to buy additional coverage.  This will work out quite nicely because we all know that women plan on having unintended pregnancies (sarcasm).

This is probably one of the greatest (read: most horrific) ironies of the health care debate.  On one hand, conservatives are complaining endlessly that creating the public option puts a government bureaucrat (instead of an insurance company bureaucrat) in between a patient and their doctor.  However, they jumped on this amendment faster than a fat kid on cake.  This amendment is the ONLY part of the bill that designates a specific (and mind you, completely legal) medical procedure as uncovered solely because some other people think it’s immoral.  Now if that is not the government coming in between a patient and her doctor, then I do not know what is…

So to answer my initial question, no, pro-lifers just do not get it.  Whether we can chalk that up to naïveté, willful ignorance, a total indifference to people who do not share the same moral values as they do, or outright stupidity is another question.

Until rather recently, I’ve been feeling pessimistic about whether Congress would manage to pass meaningful heath care reform this year.  My opinion is changing, and for the better.

Barely a few weeks ago health care reform seemed all but dead.  In the House, progressive Democrats staunchly held their ground in support of a robust public option to be included in the House bill, vowing to kill any bill that did not include one.  Things in the Senate looked bleaker: conservative (read: fake) Democrats killed an amendment proposed by Senator Jay Rockefeller to add a public option to the bill that emerged from the Senate Finance Committee, and the party leadership (including President Obama) continued to waffle on support of the public option.  It seemed like the health insurance industry had once again bought enough Democratic Senators to kill health care reform.

Then, the health insurance companies overplayed their hand.  After the Finance Committee bill was finished, the insurance industry essentially said that if the Finance Committee bill passed as it was, they would raise premiums on everyone and make the current health care crisis even worse than it already is.  This set something off in the Democratic Party, who all of the sudden, with well over half of Americans supporting the public option, started to rally behind it.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in probably his first ever showing of leadership, is now including a public option, albeit a much weaker one than we hoped for, in the bill that the Senate votes on.

The Faux-Democrats in the Senate have made either muted or backhanded criticisms of the plan.  Some, including Ben Nelson, have said that they would vote against a Republican filibuster of the bill but then not for final passage of it, giving them political cover (I’m not quite sure from what, perhaps their campaign contributors?) by allowing them to vote against it.  In the House, Nancy Pelosi, progressive Democrats and the party establishment have effectively neutered the Blue Dogs.  Howard Dean has said many times that not supporting the public option will cost Democrats re-election assistance from the national party.

Granted, since then there have been some setbacks, most notably that turncoat bastard Joe Lieberman, who seems hell-bent on screwing the Democrats at the slightest opportunity, came out the day after Senator Reid’s announcement and said that he was planning to join the Republicans in filibustering any reform bill that contained a public option.  I have a few hunches that his opposition will be short-lived.  First, there has been talk of stripping Lieberman of his seniority on committees, which includes chairmanships on the Government Affairs Committee and Homeland Security Committee.  Second, his stance on the public option is very unpopular in his own state – 68% of voters in Connecticut support the public option.[1] Two of the five representatives have accused Lieberman of being “out of touch” with his constituents (Connecticut’s other Senator, Chris Dodd, is an outspoken supporter of the public option).  At the same time, Lieberman unfortunately cannot be thrown out of office until 2012, but he takes a massive political risk being so stubborn in light of the views of his constituents.

Don’t get me wrong, whatever reform we get is going to be FAR from perfect, but consider this.  Social Security wasn’t perfect when it was first implemented.  It has been amended to and expanded multiple times since its initial implementation in 1940.  Benefits have been added, more people have been made eligible to receive benefits, and a trust fund was established to keep the program solvent – none of these were included in the original bill.  Given this history with other social programs, it’s unrealistic to expect perfect reform right off the bad.  At this stage, an imperfect but decent bill is the best we can hope for.

It’s quite amazing to see, especially nowadays in our current political climate, how easily people take very vital thing for granted.  I’m talking specifically about government.

It seems that a good number of Americans don’t understand anything about government, nor how broadly dependent they are on it, even while saying things like “Keep your government hands off of my Medicare!”  It’s very troubling how quickly we forget how much the government does do for us.  For starters, you use government to build and maintain roads – the interstate highway system was the biggest public works project in American history.  Did you go to public school?  The government put it there.  Is America safe from its enemies?  A government-run military takes care of that (and it blows my mind how some people argue that government supposedly can’t do anything, but never comment on the military, a government run entity).  Is your air and water safe?  Thank government-enforced regulations for that.

Throughout history, government has expanded and intervened to aid the progression of American society.  Think about it.  It has happened at several points in our history for the betterment of society as a whole – things that so many of us arrogantly take for granted.  Going back first to the 1960s, Congress passed Medicare and Medicaid, programs that were passed because we thought it morally wrong that the elderly and the poor go broke because they got sick or injured.  People on the right cried “socialism!” and “government takeover of whatever!”  And did it happen?  No.

Continuing back to the 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs brought real relief to the American people and set America on the road to recovery.  My conservative opponents will here point to the recession of 1937 and say “Government expansion caused this recession within a depression!”  The opposite is true: Republican Congressional victories in 1938 and several hostile Supreme Court rulings pulled the rug out from under the New Deal programs and without government money being pumped into the economy, it collapsed, unable to stand on its own.  The problem of the New Deal wasn’t that FDR did too much, it’s that he did too little!

And let’s not forget some of those very important institutions and reforms that came out of the New Deal: Social Security, The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and The Fair Labor Standards Act, just to name a few.

Moving back further to the early part of the 20^th century, the progressive reforms brought the United States into the 20^th century.  Scary big government programs like the Food and Drug Administration were established.  The Clayton Anti-Trust Act prevented the infamous trusts from unethically manipulating the economy.  Our food is safer to eat because of regulations enacted through the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt.  We have our national forests and parks because of the Antiquities Act, also signed by TR in 1906.  Perhaps it is because we haven’t lived in a time without these government actions and programs that we so easily take them for granted.

And let us not forget when government literally held the country together.  The United States is one nation, indivisible, and in 1865 that creed was upheld with the surrender of the rebel Confederacy.  It was a brutal and bloody fight, but the United States is what it is today because, as they say, “Washington got involved”.

A criticism that I would expect of my opponents is that American aversion to accepting government expansion and intervention is what keeps the United States from being taken over by a powerful elite.  There is a nugget of truth in this.  Natural suspicion of authority and power is a good thing, but there is a fine line between reasonable skepticism – which is utterly essential for democracy and freedom to thrive – and paranoid rejection of government in all forms, especially when the government not expanding or intervening would be detrimental to society (Wall St, anyone?).

So before you raise your voice to say that the government has no potential to do good for its people and society, think of how much you are already benefiting from the government.  It may not be perfect, but isn’t our American struggle one to form “a more perfect union”?

A Timid Observer

I’ve just spent the last nearly two weeks studying abroad in Rabat, Morocco – how the hell did I end up here in the first place? A few months ago, Morocco was just another country on a map to me. Well, my honors thesis adviser suggested that I begin learning Arabic if I wanted to continue in my field of religious studies. Add to that the potential six-figure salary for Ph.D holders who are fluent in Arabic at the State Department and I’m in. He recommended to me this particular program, so here I am. Now that I’ve dove head-first into a COMPLETELY different world, leaving behind World of Warcraft, daily showers and not having to haggle in a store for broadcasted prayer calls five times a day (this is actually a really cool thing to hear), images of King Mohammad VI at almost every turn and veiled women (and run-on sentences), here’s a few random thoughts, musings, and observations from my time here so far:

1. I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed drinking until I went to a Muslim country. All of you should be thankful for where you are right now: forced sobriety can be a real downer sometimes. Other things on the list of things to be thankful for in the states: access to dental care, less strict drug laws (10 years in prison for possession of hash, and most of the guys who try and sell to you are police informants, so don’t even try), guaranteed freedom of speech, minimal social stigmas over sexuality, and the list goes on.
2. Morocco is a country undergoing extremely rapid change. One can see on the streets of Rabat a woman in a berka walking next to a young couple in their twenties. The girl could even be wearing a short skirt. The juxtaposition of the truly traditional with the modern is utterly fascinating, and with the exception of in the more rural areas, one cannot help but notice it. For a Muslim country, Morocco is extremely progressive – it was the first Muslim country to guarantee inheritance rights for women, allow them to divorce, and essentially prohibited polygamy. Currently, the country is grappling with forbidding capital punishment and further expanding civil liberties, all with the current blessing of King Mohammad VI. I’d love to come back here ten years from now and see what else has changed.
3. We Americans have more in common with the people here than we think. For example, Moroccans love to watch TV, just like we do. My host family has the TV on as long as someone in the house is awake. They (well, at least my host family) even watch the same violent movies that we do in the states. I watched Payback the other night with my 60-year-old host mom and brother.
4. We truly underestimate how important religion is to the Muslim world. For instance, a perfectly acceptable way (and extremely common) to respond to the question “how are you?” is ‘lhimdulillah literally “thanks be to God.” Just the other night when I was outside smoking a cigarette around 2330 I exchanged what few words of Darija (the Moroccan dialect of Arabic) I knew with him, and he kept repeating that and Allah-u akhbar. Verses from the Qu’ran are even used as lullabies for small children. We need to keep things like this in mind when we interact with the Muslim world, for example, not letting rogue soldiers try to convert Afghani Muslims to Christianity. How utterly stupid and arrogant that was, and this is coming from an atheist.
5. Moroccans, unlike us, are not fat. I have yet to see more than one obese Moroccan person per day. One of the most common stereotypes that Moroccans have about Americans is that we’re fat, and I wonder why. First of all, the food here is absolutely amazing. Everything is made from fresh ingredients, all of which can be bought in the Medina (the old city). You can buy fresh-squeezed orange juice right on the street. I had cherry juice for the first time the other night, courtesy of my host mom’s labors. Moroccans simply eat so much better than we do. Hell, even the soft drinks here don’t use high fructose corn syrup: they use real sugar! Fancy that! Part of the reason why we’re so unhealthy in the states is because we eat all of this artificial crap in the name of cost-reduction. Look at the ingredients list on your food right now, do you have ANY idea what half of that stuff is? Well, it may be cheaper to make, but it’s putting one hell of a drain on our healthcare system! Do the immediate benefits of putting so much crap in our food outweigh the long-term health risks and costs that poor health ensues on our economy? We could learn a lot from Moroccans in this regard.
6. We also misjudge how amazingly friendly Arab people are. The common greeting, saalam wa’alaykum literally means, “peace be with you”, and the proper response is Wa ‘alaykum saalam, “and also with you.” This is not just for the traditional Arabs, everyone of all ages uses it. I’ve never encountered anyone more hospitable than my host family. Nothing less would be expected by a Moroccan person – the last time I heard this much about hospitality was reading about how it was violated in The Odyssey. Coming from New Jersey, where friendliness is defined as not giving someone the bird on the highway, this was quite a bit to take in, but added some to my faith in humanity.

To Speaker Pelosi:

I don’t know whether I should be satisfied or not with the job you’ve been doing as Speaker of the House since 2006. I’ll give you credit for many things you’ve done, but recently you’ve given me doubts. You utterly bombed in your appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: you looked like a Republican in his guest’s chair and you actually answered just as many questions as Republicans typically do there. Then last week you were caught in a [potential] lie about whether you knew about waterboarding or not.

Now, you’re claiming that the CIA outright lied to Congress in 2002 (your words, “ deliberately mislead”) about the use of torture on terror detainees. I don’t know if I should believe you here. I really want to; it’s pretty much obvious that the US military in fact did torture certain detainees, and this has the potential to align the Republican Party with supporting torture (and how politically awesome is that?). I’m also relieved to hear that as I’m watching this, former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) is essentially making the same claim: that he was also kept in the dark in 2002 about the use of waterboarding and other methods of torture.

In light of all of this, you need to understand that you are not the most credible person in Washington right now. I personally am holding the merits of your Speakership to this one, and I encourage everyone else, Democrat and Republican and whatever else you can be, to do the same. If this is just another whopper to cover your ass, then get out of politics; we don’t need you making the rest of the party/government look bad. I hope to whatever the hell is up there that you are vindicated on this, Madame Speaker.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Democrat

A Timid Observer

I remember a few years ago, while I was working at a drycleaners back home, I had a conversation with a customer about the media. He claimed that The New York Times was a “liberal rag” (I’ll admit that the editorial pages tends to drift to the left, but that’s about it). I have another conservative friend who claimed that Fox News was a more credible news source than al-Jazeera (yes, you heard me correctly just then).

The last time I checked, The New York Times and its reporters have won several Pulitzer Prizes, most recently last year to Andrea Eliot for a story about an immigrant Imam (an Islamic spiritual leader).[1] I would personally place the quality of al-Jazeera’s reporting on par with that of the BBC; read their coverage of the recent Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip if you don’t believe me. On the other hand, former Bush Administration White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan wrote in his memoir of how the Bush White House fed Fox News their talking points directly[2] (and to my conservative critics on this point, sorry, but I’m going to trust McClellan over Karl Rove and company here, this doesn’t sound like sour grapes). I know it’s (well, at least it should be) common knowledge that Fox News is anything BUT fair and balanced, so how is it that people are constantly lashing out at the so-called liberal media that supposedly torpedoed John McCain’s campaign and made Sarah Palin look like an idiot (news flash: she doesn’t need any help with that)?

The answer: They’re all delusional. THERE IS NO LIBERAL CONSPIRACY IN THE MEDIA.

Before you attempt to tar and feather me for making such an outlandish claim, lets compare how two notoriously liberal MSNBC commentators have approached the Obama Administration. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have been extremely critical of how the current administration is handling the torture issue, for example. My critics are going to say here “Well of course they are! They’re liberals and Obama isn’t being liberal enough for them!” Since when is following international, federal, and military law a political issue? On the other hand, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity start screaming socialism (which, by the way, Obama is not) whenever President Obama as much as takes a breath. Not to mention Fox News has given lots of publicity and airtime to people who continue to take the right-wing mantra that torture is only a problem because we now know that we did it: Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Michael Hayden among others.

I should also mention that until the digital television switchover is finalized, Fox News has a de-facto monopoly over analog broadcast news, as the other major networks joined the 21st century and do not broadcast in analog anymore. So everyone that still has an analog TV set only gets the Fox News channels. Granted, this will cease to be an issue once analog signals are made a thing of the past, but it’s still worth noting where Americans who haven’t had access to digital television have been getting their so-called news for so long.

This leads me to only one conclusion: conservatives are confusing journalism with liberalism. If it isn’t right-wing propaganda, it isn’t journalism in the eyes of the American right. We saw this all throughout last year’s presidential campaign. When Sarah Palin was asked relatively easy questions by Katie Couric in their now infamous interview, she and her supporters dubbed it “gotcha” journalism. Sorry, but isn’t that a journalist’s job, to make sure you aren’t bullshitting the people (and this is completely disregarding Palin’s abysmal performance during the interview)? Couric wasn’t being a liberal journalist; she was merely being a journalist. Palin to this day continues to blame the nonexistent liberal media for hurting her during the campaign, as if she bore no responsibility for her own misfortunes (ironic for a conservative who preaches personal responsibility to not take any whatsoever for her own problems, isn’t it?).

So it seems you still have two options when you turn on your American news: attempts at journalism or blatant propaganda, only it sure as hell isn’t left-wing propaganda.

Further Reading: What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the Media By Eric Alterman – 2004

The other day, the White House finally made public the so-called “Torture Memos”, as part of a deal with the CIA not to prosecute anyone who conducted said actions. While lacking the cojones that I was hoping for (prosecutions, prison terms, you know the deal) the top-secret memos that justified waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” have finally been made public and now everyone can see how lawyers in the Bush Justice Department tried to essentially make torture not torture.

I find the lengths some Americans are willing to going in order to try and justify these heinous actions really quite bizarre. They often hide behind some mega-whoppers of rationalizations for debasing the inherent dignity in another human being. I’m going to pull the rug out from under three of these arguments:

1. Torture procures reliable intelligence or information

The United States justice system does not accept confessions made under duress. There are many famous cases of defendants making false confessions just to stop the interrogation process. One of these victims was Michael Crowe, a 14-year-old boy who confessed to the murder of his younger sister because “…it’s what you want to hear.” The 2-day interrogation was videotaped and Crowe was bullied into making a confession. Thankfully, a grave miscarriage of justice was averted when DNA evidence exonerated him. So, if we recognize that coerced confessions are not useful in our own justice system, why should we think it works differently elsewhere? When questioned about giving false information to interrogators after he was waterboarded, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad told the Red Cross “I’m sure that the false information I was forced to invent in order to make the ill-treatment stop wasted a lot of their time and led to several false red-alerts being placed in the US.”[1]

How is Khalid Sheik Mohammad outmaneuvering our interrogators? If torture really worked, we would’ve gotten at least some kind of reliable information out of him.

2. International law doesn’t matter.

When other countries violate international laws, we call them “Terrorists” or “Rouge States” or an “Axis of Evil,” even when they consider their actions to be necessary for securing their regimes’ hold on power. When we violate international laws, we call it “protecting the United States.” Doesn’t sound very different, does it? We cannot afford this blatant hypocrisy and claim to be a bastion of democracy and champion of freedom while denying to others what is guaranteed in the document that our sense of identity is based upon.

I know what my critics are going to say here: something along the lines of “They aren’t American citizens, so who cares” or “They’re bad people so they don’t deserve any rights.” Little do they know that they answer their own criticism when they call terror suspects “people.” As long as we are dealing with human beings accused of trying to harm Americans and not wild animals, they should be treated as such.

3. Interrogation tactics that involve torture are necessary for the safety of the United States

This is the single biggest whopper that we got from the Bush Administration, and Dick Cheney continues to spew it to this day. The truth of the matter is that the photographs from Abu Ghraib and tales of Guantanamo Bay have been used as recruiting tools for al-Qaeda. The simple fact is the use of torture has made Americans less safe and greatly reduced our ability to claim the moral high ground in international relations. We can only hope that President Obama and company come to realize this and that the United States can restore its moral superiority in the international arena.