October 12, 2023

The calls to blacklist members of certain Harvard student groups

How ever misguided or wrong we may think the views of the Harvard student groups who have issued statements that appear to be supportive of Hamas, we should be equally appalled at calls to blacklist these students. I have frankly been stunned by the apparent casual acceptance of calls to blacklist the students on the part of the mainstream, and even some of the left-leaning, media.

These are, for the most part, young people whose geopolitical views are still being formed, and those views will evolve and change any number of times over the course of their lives. It is particularly, sadly ironic that these calls for blacklisting should come as part of an effort to support the Jewish community, given that our country's earlier forays into the practice had an especially adverse impact on the Jewish left in this country.

Blacklisting is an abandonment of the important, but difficult and necessary, act of moral suasion in favor of [im]moral moral coercion. It never works, and over time, it punishes people for views the may no longer adhere to.

By all means, when they make abhorrent statements, call them out. But do so in a way that draws them into a dialogue about why their views are so abhorrent. Certainly all moderates, liberals and progressives should be unequivocal in their denunciations of the practice, regardless of whom the blacklisting is directed towards.

And on top of everything else, blacklisting these students plays right into one of the right's favorite talking points about the left (i.e., that the left is out to censor views with which it disagrees).

I would have thought that we had learned by now one of the chief lessons of the McCarthy era, namely, that certain tactics, such as blacklisting, are beyond the pale irrespective of how righteous the cause they may purport to serve. I guess not.

September 17, 2023

People can complain all they want about Biden's age . . .

. . . but at least he doesn't wear his pants pulled up to his chest like these two guys!

September 1, 2023

On McConnell, Feinstein, aging and mandatory retirement ages

In the wake of Mitch McConnell's second "freezing" incident, there is a lot of chatter about imposing a mandatory retirement age for elected officials. Given how much I utterly despise McConnell, and think he has damaged this country in some truly profound ways, it is certainly tempting to jump on the age limits bandwagon. But as I've thought about it further, it seems to me there are some very real and practical issues that deserve careful consideration before we rush into such a major change.

As I said, I despise McConnell. But at the same time, I recognize that he is not a MAGA Republican, and that Biden has been able to work with him on at least a few issues. Wishing him gone from his post might be a question of being careful what we wish for, because his replacement could be far, far worse. And it is not clear to me that McConnell is, as yet, incapacitated by whatever condition he has. Sure, he has these freezing spells, and he has taken some falls of late, but whether he is experience a TIA, a ministroke, a seizure, or some Parkinsonian-like condition, that doesn't necessarily mean he is unable to perform the responsibilities of his position, or that he is incapable of understanding the issues before him.

The situation with Feinstein is, I think, rather different. She is clearly cognitively impaired. Yet, McConnell has said that Republicans on the Judiciary Committee will block any replacement Gavin Newsom might appoint, so if she were to resign, losing her from the Judiciary Committee might well mean the end of any further judicial confirmations under Biden.

As for Biden, it is clear that he has slowed considerably on a physical level, but I have seen no signs that he doesn't grasp the issues he is confronting. HIs occasional verbal stumbles are the result of a stutter he has battle his entire life.

At the same time, there is Bernie Sanders, who despite having had a mild heart attack a couple of years ago, remains as sharp on the issues as he ever was.

I think of Benjamin Franklin, who, nearly 250 years ago, at the age of 70 and afflicted with various ailments including gout, undertook an arduous voyage to France to be this country's first ambassador there, and critically, secured funding and military assistance from the French king, which were so very critical to the success of the American Revolution. That accomplishment took a number of years, and required great patience, which Franklin displayed even when Congress thought he was merely partying it up in Paris. Congress then sent the much younger, and extremely impatient, John Adams, to "work with" Franklin, and Adams became thoroughly exasperated with his elder colleague. But Franklin had the wisdom and experience to know how to play a long game, and knew full well that if he pushed too hard, and at the wrong time, his entire mission would end in failure.

Now, to be clear, I am not, in any way, making a comparison between McConnell and Franklin. Franklin was a statesman of the first order, whereas McConnell is a craven and ruthless political operator, and nothing more. But I just think we need to think all of this through VERY carefully before we set ourselves on a path we might later regret.

In addition, a mandatory retirement age, no matter how you might want to spin it, is a form of age discrimination. Look, aging and its effects are hugely variable from one individual to the next. And the Constitution takes very seriously the idea that the people have a right to choose the persons who will represent them. So, if the people of a given state or district wish to re-elect an octogenarian, who are we to say they shouldn't be able to do so?

August 31, 2023

An open letter to David Brooks . . .

. . . in response to his latest essay in The Atlantic titled, "HOW THE BOBOS BROKE AMERICA."

Dear Mr. Brooks:

I will come straight to the point: although your latest essay in The Atlantic, titled, "HOW THE BOBOS BROKE AMERICA," makes some valid points, there is also so much wrong in the essay that I scarcely know where to begin. In your essay, you describe "Bobos" as being essentially the same thing as Richard Florida's "creative class":

You then proceed to recite a laundry list of things these "Bobos" did, including moving away from their hometowns and migrating to larger cities, and coming to "dominate left-wing parties around the world that were formerly vehicles for the working class," pulling them further to the left on cultural issues, thus alienating the working people for whom left-wing parties traditionally stood. This is, at best, an extremely facile conclusion, and is quite notable for what it leaves out of the equation!

Perhaps a little of my own story will help to illustrate what is so very problematic about your thesis. . .

Like you, I am 62 years old. I grew up as the youngest of five siblings, in a family that had been very traditional Republicans since just after the Civil War, in a tiny borough of about 800 people located in rural, north-central Pennsylvania (situated roughly halfway between Williamsport and State College (Penn State), where our family had lived since the 1830s. Our father was a successful small businessman, very much the model of the "self-made" man, and our mother worked alongside him in his business.

But, although my family's roots ran very deep in that town, I always felt like a fish out of water there. Given that it was located about 30 miles from Penn State, football was practically a religion, and for those who didn't participate in football, it was still expected, particularly of boys, that they would participate in and love some competitive sport of some kind. Well, I didn't. I didn't particularly have a talent for sports, and didn't relate particularly well to people who seemingly were unable to talk about much else. My interests tended to be of a more artistic and intellectual bent, and I was particularly drawn to classical music. To be a boy who didn't like sports was to be essentially invisible, except in those instances when I was called out as a "faggot" or "homo." And as it turned out, those labels, while deeply hurtful, were not inaccurate. As my adolescence proceeded, I increasingly became aware that, in fact, I was indeed gay.

Nevertheless, I was able to find a small group of friends who had similar interests, and managed to carve out something of a niche for myself socially. But I lived with a constant fear of potential violence should the full truth of who I was become known. I protected myself by immersing myself into my interests. I studied piano, organ, voice, and in school, the trombone. Because my interests were relatively esoteric compared to those of other kids my age, it became easy to put up my interests as a kind of protective armor, their relatively esoteric nature serving as something of a distancing and protective mechanism against those whose violence I feared.

I went on to major in opera and minor in organ in college, where I met many, many others whose stories were much like my own. After college, I moved to New York, because pursuing a career in classical music was something that simply couldn't realistically be done in my tiny hometown.

As fate would have it, and for a variety of reasons, a career in music never quite panned out for me. But I remained in New York, and have now lived here for over 40 years. Yes, David, I am a liberal/progressive. But I didn't adopt that identity because I wanted to be accepted by other liberals/progressives. I adopted it because I understood, in a very personal way, what tolerance -- and the lack thereof -- of people who are different in some respect really means. The conservative ideas with which I was raised fell by the wayside because they were incompatible with the reality of my life. I stayed in New York because I wanted and needed to live in a place where I could be who I was, openly and honestly, and without constantly worrying about being "found out."

And you know something: I make no apologies for that whatsoever! I refuse to believe that there was anything wrong with my wanting to live among people who could accept me for who I was. Nor do I make any apologies for making myself somewhat aloof from some of the people in my hometown, whose bigotries and prejudices I had heard throughout the first 18 years of my life. But at the same time, I know also that there were enough exceptions to such bigotry to be found there that I came to see those bigotries and prejudices as a choice. That is, I knew enough people who also grew up there who didn't choose to buy into those prejudices, that I wasn't about to make excuses for those who did. And I still don't make or accept excuses for those folks!

Neither do I think that anybody else who lives in a large, diverse metropolitan area should make any apologies for marrying and living among people who, like themselves, understand both the value and the compassion of social tolerance.

But I am hardly a member of some "creative class" of movers and shakers. I make just enough money to be able to live here. Nor have I ever been about trying to impress those of that "creative class" (which I'm not sure really even exists, at least not in the way rural people tend to imagine it).

You assert that liberals came to dominate the liberal parties that once represented the interests of the working classes. There's some truth in that, but the retreat from the interests of organized labor must be considered against the backdrop of what the opposition party was saying to those same working class voters. Your beloved Ronald Reagan was running around telling people that "government was the problem," when in fact government had been one of the few things that had stood in the way of the very corporate greed Reagan, et al., fostered and encouraged. The Republican Party never missed an opportunity to pit the interests of urban folks against those of rural folks, even as they systematically set about destroying the government supports that had helped to build the middle class. It was the mainstream of the GOP (and not today's radical fringe) that pushed the idea that poorer urban folks were "takers," and that rural folks, those "real Americans," were the makers. That was always a very selective, and hence, dishonest view of things.

In your essay, you mention a man who was a participant in a Trump regatta in Ferrysburg, Michigan, "a guy in a white T-shirt, a MAGA hat, and a modest fishing boat," who complained, "We are always labeled as racists and bigots." But you know, the people who are labeled as such were not labeled based on nothing. In many or even most cases, they did plenty to earn such designations! The fact is that racism and bigotry are rampant in places such as the town in which I grew up. If you don't believe that, then you haven't spent enough time there. That isn't to say that people in those place don't have some very positive traits as well, but whitewashing their prejudices simply doesn't cut it!

There is, among many rural and small-town voters, a kind of civic arrogance, by which they see people like themselves as the only legitimate, "true" Americans, and dismiss those of us who live in large metropolitan areas as some kind of alien species. But here's the tell: it is these same "true Americans" who continue to support a man and a political party that has systematically tried to suppress the political voice of many of their fellow citizens. But you don't see urban liberals trying to deny the votes of rural conservatives. In light of, I think it is not at all unfair of urban liberals/progressives to view themselves as superior defenders of democracy compared with their rural, conservative compatriots!

August 2, 2023

Tom Nichols' brilliant, stunning essay in The Atlantic . . .

If you haven't yet read it, by all means read Tom Nichols' stunning essay in The Atlantic, titled "This is the case.". Truly a must-read! From the essay:

July 27, 2023

A lot of people seem to have forgotten the earlier incident involving Sinead O'Connor . . .

Two years prior to the SNL incident in which she tore up the photo of Pope John Paul II, O'Connor had refused to perform at the Garden State Arts Center in NJ until they agreed not to do their usual practice of playing the national anthem before every event they hosted. She wasn't trying to make any kind of anti-American statement; it was simply that she had a policy of not having ANY country's national anthem played before her concerts anywhere, because, in her words, "national anthems have nothing to do with music." She was right about that, too, of course. But this was just a couple of weeks after Bush I had deployed troops for Operation Desert Storm, and dozens of media and entertainment figures piled on the criticism of her merely because she had declined to participate in America's pathetic military boosterism!

July 15, 2023

Just when you thought RFK, Jr. couldn't get any more irresponsible than he's already been . . .

There is this, from the NY Post:

First, there is NO evidence that the coronavirus was engineered as a bio-weapon.

Second, there is no evidence that Ashkenazi Jews are "immune" to Covid-19! Here in NYC, the Hassidic Jewish community (who are Ashkenazi) was hit especially hard by the pandemic. And a study by Brandeis University done relatively early on, when the death toll stood at 200,000, found that the mortality rate for Jews was roughly the same as for any other group.

Third, given that, historically speaking, people have often tended to believe completely baseless conspiracy theories about Jews, for any presidential candidate to pander to this kind of thinking is beneath contempt! This country's Jewish population has made monumental contributions to this country, all across the arts, sciences and humanities -- contributions that far exceed what one would reasonably expect given their relatively small numbers!

The man is a horse's ass, and embarrassment to the Democratic Party, to his family, and to the country as a whole!

July 3, 2023

Letter to the Democratic Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Web designer case

I sent this this evening to all Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and also to majority leader Chuck Schumer. I would urge others who feel as I do to do the same. Feel free to use my version if you wish, or write your own.

[div]Dear Senator (name):

I write to you in your capacity as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee ("JC&quot to ask – no, to demand – that the JC immediately commence an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Supreme Court's ruling in the case, 303 Creative, LLC v. Elenis, et al., the case involving a putative web designer who didn't want to have to design websites for same-sex weddings.

As you are surely aware, within hours of the Supreme Court's issuing of a ruling, it was revealed in The New Republic ("TNR&quot see
https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-website-real-straight-man-supreme-court) that among the papers filed with the court by the plaintiff's attorneys was something that was purportedly a request from a potential customer about designing a website for his upcoming wedding to a male partner. This alleged potential customer's name and contact information were included with the filings, and it was presented, presumably, to satisfy the Constitutional requirement, long upheldl by this very Court, of "case or controversy," as set forth in Article III, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States. This is because the principal of 303 Creative does not now operate, nor has ever operated, a web design business, and she needed to show that she had standing to bring the case.

Article III, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution states: "The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State,—between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects." Clearly, there was no underlying case or controversy here to be decided.

After the ruling was issued, the TNR reporter followed up by contacting the individual named as a potential customer. Although the person named did exist, and his contact information was correct, he disavowed any knowledge of having made such an inquiry of 303 Creative, adding that he would have no reason to do so, since he was already married (and to a woman). So, in fact, it appears that this case did not fulfill the case or controversy requirement of the Constitution.

Several things must happen if the Supreme Court is to retain any legitimacy whatsoever.

First, the ruling in the above-mentioned case must be set aside. If allowed to stand, it will open the door to all sorts of cases being made up out of whole cloth by parties who want the court to rule in advance on hypothetical controversies, a practice this Court, including under the current Chief Justice, as long disavowed. You and I both know, Senator, that had this case involved any topic other than one that was part of the right's culture wars, it would have been thrown out for lack of standing.

Secondly, the Judiciary Committee should look into several questions related to this whole affair, including:

(1) Did any of the justices know that the potential customer named in order to establish case or controversy had actually been made up? Or did they know, and decide to rule anyway because issuing a ruling was consistent with their political beliefs?

(2) If they did not know that it had been made up, why didn't they? Why did none of the Clerks take the time to verify that the information contained in the papers filed with the cased was accurate? (These questions should also be posed with regard to any lower courts involved in hearing the case.)

And finally, the Court must be pressured to sanction the plaintiff, as well as its principal, Lorie Smith, and the attorneys who helped to perpetrate this fraud upon the Court.

I urge you, both as a Senator and as member of the Judiciary Committee, to take immediate and decisive action in this matter.

Respectfully,
Mark P. Kessinger

July 3, 2023

Getting a 403 error when trying to post to General Discussion

But I can post to the Lounge, and here, just fine. What gives?

July 3, 2023

Testing

Just tried to post something in General Discussion, and got a 403 error. Not sure why. Posting here as a tests.