Alas, a Blog | Feminist, anti-racist, pro-fat, plus whatever else we feel like talking about.

My Feminist Manifesto

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Richard Jeffrey Newman

Trigger warning for sexual violence:

I am a feminist because feminism is the only politics I know that commits itself explicitly to a world without sexual objectification and the personal, cultural, socioeconomic and political violence—mostly, but not only against women—that comes from it;

I am a feminist because it was in feminism that I first found the language to name what the man who lived on the second floor of my building did to my thirteen-year-old self when he forced his penis into my mouth, pushed my voice back down into my throat and filled me with a silence that made any words I spoke afterwards feel simultaneously untrue and unreal;

I am a feminist because that silence left me voiceless when the second man who presumed that my body was his to do with as he pleased did precisely that;

I am a feminist because, like both those men, I was raised in a culture where men are taught that it is our right sexually to objectify those who are weaker or are perceived as “less than” we are, starting but not ending with women;

I am a feminist because I do not want that right, because I never want to stand on the same side as my abusers;

I am a feminist because, if I am honest with myself, I cannot deny that I am, as a man, always and already on that side, because to be honest with myself is to recognize the changes that my side needs to make;

So, since feminism is the only politics I know that commits itself explicitly to a world without sexual objectification and the personal, cultural, socioeconomic and political violence that comes from it—mostly, but not only against women—I am a feminist.

Cross-posted.

Posted in Feminism, sexism, etc | 22 Comments

Smart People Saying Smart Things About The Abigail Fisher Affirmative Action Case

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Ampersand

Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Fisher v University of Texas (pdf link). Although a surprise decision is always possible, it appears likely that the conservative majority will use this case to ban race-based affirmative action in college admissions. (As you’d expect, ScotusBlog has an excellent summary “in plain English” of the case and of today’s oral arguments.)

Elle, phd:

[Fisher] also was denied admission to the summer program, which offered provisional admission to some applicants who were denied admission to the fall class, subject to completing certain academic requirements over the summer. … Although one African-American and four Hispanic applicants with lower combined AI/PAI scores than petitioner’s were offered admission to the 16 summer program, so were 42 Caucasian applicants with combined AI/PAI scores identical to or lower than petitioner’s. In addition, 168 African-American and Hispanic applicants in this pool who had combined AI/PAI scores identical to or higher than petitioner’s were denied admission to the summer program.

I doubt if Amy Fisher is worried about those 42 Caucasian applicants who got in because we are more likely to think they somehow deserved it. And what of the 168 students of color with scores identical or higher to hers who were denied admission? How is that explained?

No, it’s only an issue when a person of color is perceived to have gained something that rightfully should have gone to a white person. It is rooted in the belief that somewhere out there, there has to be a white person who is better qualified or more deserving or who “merits” more.

Since it seems very unlikely that Ms. Fisher was directly harmed by the University of Texas’ policies (since she wouldn’t have been admitted regardless), the conservative Justices seem to be leaning towards the idea that she suffered “expressive harm.” What is “expressive harm”? Joey Fishkin explains:

…Fisher’s injury is essentially that she had to suffer the indignity of participating in a state-sponsored admissions process that considered race at all. On this second view, even an entirely unqualified white candidate, miles short of the admissions standards, would be just as injured as Fisher even though there is no circumstance under which he would ever have been admitted to UT. […]

What if the admissions committee was impressed with a black student from a racially mixed school who wrote a compelling essay about personally experiencing a racist incident. Is it an expressive harm if an admissions officer finds that essay significantly more compelling than a couple of other essays, by white students—even though all the essays were written equally well—on the grounds that the particular racial context in which this black applicant lives presented some significant challenges, over and above the challenges that might be discernible from looking at the parent income figure on his application for financial aid? Or what about a promising Latino student from the Rio Grande Valley who won a scholarship to a private boarding school in Dallas, who writes a compelling essay about her desire to become a doctor and practice in the Valley, where she sees a lack of needed medical services that she attributes to structural racial discrimination? Is it an expressive harm to Fisher if an admissions counselor finds that one more compelling than the essay of another student who also wants to become a doctor?

At some point, if you push the needle far enough, it starts to sound as though the expressive harm to white applicants (taxpayers? voters?) might begin when admissions officers acknowledge in any way, while reading applications, that we do not live in a paradise of racial integration and equality, but in a society where race matters.

“Tom,” in comments at the New York Times, writes:

It’s always fascinating to me that when some white students get rejected from a school they immediately jump to the conclusion that a racial minority is responsible. They never file lawsuits claiming that they were denied admission because of a legacy applicant, or an athlete, or because of the financial ability of a wealthy student to pay, or because of the school’s desire to seek out geographical diversity. They never complain about wealthy families spending $30,000 a year on college admission consultants to boost their children’s application strength, or the higher test scores wealthy people receive because they can afford to spend thousands of dollars on SAT test preparation. No, when a white student doesn’t make the cut, she thinks it’s because of her race.

Doctor Cleveland provides a detailed description of how U of T’s admission system works, and writes:

If this is the best and clearest case that the anti-affirmative action people can come up with, why am I the one who’s exaggerating?

People always talk about affirmative action as if clearly qualified white kids were routinely being passed over for badly underqualified black kids. People talk about this as if it were an established fact. But somehow those unquestionably, no-doubt-about-it applicants never turn up in these lawsuits. It’s always a white applicant who would probably or definitely have been rejected even if things had been race blind.

Allen Bakke would not have gotten into UC Davis Med School on his qualifications. Barbara Grutter would not get into University of Michigan Law School on her qualifications. And Abigail Fisher would not have gotten into Texas at Austin on the merits.

Doctor C’s post is very harsh on Abigail Fisher, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. She’s very young – 22 now, but I presume she was a teenager when this lawsuit was initiated – and I think there’s good reason to have more patience with young people who exhibit poor judgement and are blind to their own privileges. On the other hand, maybe that sort of attitude is itself condescending; Fisher is an adult and chose to bring a case before the Supreme Court, after all.

And one final point, again from Joey Fishkin, about the likely effects if the Supreme Court rules against U of T:

At this point, it seems to me that there is no way this Court or any court can actually eliminate the use of race from college admissions. They can try. New anti-affirmative-action decisions may move the demarcation lines that tell colleges where and how to use race in admissions. But such decisions will not cause admissions officers to become truly blind to race, unless they require colleges to stop engaging in subjective efforts to build diverse and vibrant classes, and instead demand some mechanical metric of grades and test scores. There is no constitutional reason to require such an outcome, and at any rate, elite colleges would never accept it. Still, victories for anti-affirmative-action plaintiffs might have a number of important effects: reducing somewhat the overall level of racial diversity on campuses; encouraging holistic review processes that further submerge the use of race; encouraging the further use of facially race-neutral policies carefully calibrated to achieve racial diversity; and encouraging schools to shift more of the burden to applicants to think and write about race in the admissions process themselves (as in “tell us how you would contribute to the diversity of our school” or “tell us about obstacles you have overcome”).

Posted in Affirmative Action, Supreme Court Issues | 101 Comments

Know-Nothing Ablebodied People Suspect Disability Is A Scam

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Ampersand

The CBS headline says it all: “Scammers Using Wheelchairs To Skip Airport Lines Legally.”

“When [travelers] see that the line is so long, they just ask for a wheelchair,” Evelyn Danquah, an attendant for Delta Air Lines, told the Times. She said she has seen some wheelchair fakers stand and walk away as soon as they clear security. Wheelchair attendants — whose salaries range between $9 and $14 an hour, with tips, help to maintain a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding the line-hopping strategy in hopes of bolstering their paychecks, the Times reported.

The tactic even spawned a new term among flight attendants: “miracle flights.” Where passengers use wheelchairs to board but abandon them when their planes land.

Kelly Skyles, the national safety and security coordinator for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, told the Times she believes travelers shed their wheelchairs because passengers in wheelchairs are the last to leave the plane.

“Not only do we serve them beverages and ensure their safety — now we’re healing the sick,” said Skyles, who is also a flight attendant.

Many people who the article implies are scammers, are actually not doing anything wrong other than failing to conform to ablebodied expectations of what disabled people look like.

I’m not usually bothered by the five-minute walk from when I get out of security to my gate in the Portland airport. But standing on the security line is much harder. First of all, it can easily take up to 20 minutes if the airport is crowded, so I’m standing for much longer. And even if it’s only five minutes, standing still (with occasional shuffling) is just much, much harder on me than walking is. My bad knee and heel, normally slight nuisances that I ignore while walking, sometimes scream with pain waiting on line.

In 20 years time, if my body keeps on degrading, I could easily imagine myself requesting a wheelchair for the security line, but standing up and walking once I’m past it – not because I’ll be cheating, but because I’ll genuinely be incapable of standing in a security line for 20 minutes, but nonetheless capable of walking for five minutes to my gate.

Similarly, boarding an airplane is simply harder work than deboarding. To board the plane, everyone lines up in single file and shuffles, shuffles, shuffles along the jetway. It takes five to ten minutes, and if several passengers are slowed down by hard-to-stow baggage it can take even longer.

In contrast, if you don’t stand until the aisle ahead of you is clear, deboarding is a two-minute walk down the jetway to the airport, which requires much less endurance. There’s no reason to assume that someone who is capable of deboarding by themselves, is capable of boarding by themselves just as easily.

Blogger Fibromyalgiaproblems writes:

This is ridiculous.

I’m not saying NO ONE fakes needing a wheelchair, because I’m sure it happens, but I seriously doubt it’s to the degree that is implied in this article.

I don’t use a wheelchair, at all, but honestly, if I were going to fly right now, I’d need one. I can’t stand in line for any extended period of time. Not that I’m opposed to “waiting” in line, I just certainly can’t stand in it. I get around it because I plan my life so that I don’t have to stand in line, when I grocery shop I do it with other people, and if the lines are too long when I’m there by myself, I just have to find somewhere to sit until they go down, because I simply can’t stand like that for 10-15 minutes.

(I’d also recommend reading the replies to Fibromyalgiaproblems posted here.)

In comments at Ethics Alarms, Jack suggests:

…a partial solution would be to charge something for the privilege, like the current cost of checking a bag. Would you object to that? It would probably not dissuade many cheaters, but some, and at least they would be partially paying for their deception.

But most of the people “paying something” would not be the cheaters! In effect, Jack’s plan would pick out disabled people and charge them extra for being disabled.

An alternative plan: When passengers buy a ticket, passengers will be asked to check a box if they want some passengers to pay an extra fee in order to prevent other passengers from cheating by using a wheelchair without need. Those who check off “yes” will be charged an extra $80 for a round-trip, which will go to a fund to reduce cheating.

If next to nobody would volunteer to pay the fee, as I’m sure would be the case, then only inexpensive anti-cheating measures will be used, such as printing a notice in tiny print on the boarding pass asking people not to ask for wheelchairs unless they have a need one.

The benefit of this plan is that the only people paying for it, will be people who genuinely find it worthwhile to pay extra for the pleasure of knowing that there’s an anti-cheating measure in place. That seems fair.

Posted in Disabled Rights & Issues | 80 Comments

Free Contraception Cuts The Abortion Rate By Up To 71%

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Myca

The Contraceptive CHOICE Project just added a little more evidence to something that’s so blindingly obvious that it should come as a surprise to nobody. It turns out that when you provide actual women who want birth control with access to birth control, they have way fewer abortions! Weird.

The project enrolled 9,256 women aged 14 to 45 from the St. Louis area. For three years, the women were given their choice of birth control at no cost.

The national rate of abortion is 19.6 abortions per 1,000 women. The rate for women in the project? 4.4 to 7.5 abortions per 1,000.

The effect on teen births was even more remarkable, dropping from 34.3 births per 1000 teens to 6.3. SIX POINT THREE! That’s a better than 80% drop. Let’s see how ‘abstinence only education’ stacks up to that.

Anyway, it’s hardly surprising that ubiquitous birth control has this effect, but it’s nice to have some actual numbers.

From the TIME Magazine article:

The findings come amidst contention over President Obama’s health-care law, which offers women FDA-approved birth control without a copay. As of August 1, contraception is covered for women signing up for new health insurance plans or renewing their existing plans.

“[C]hanges in contraceptive policy simulating the Contraceptive Choice Project would prevent as many as 41% to 71% of abortions performed annually in the United States,” the study’s authors wrote.

Nearly half of the more than 6 million pregnancies that occur each year are unintended, and about 43% of them end in abortion. Further, about 1 million births are unintended, costing U.S. taxpayers about $11 billion a year in associated expenses. Low-income women with less education are far more likely to have an unintended pregnancy than their wealthier, educated peers.

So! Now that that’s nice and settled, I expect religious conservatives and the pro-life movement to embrace this common-sense solution to one of the major issues of our age and back universally available birth control.

After all, if you believe that abortion is murder, and that ending it is one of the most important moral considerations we face, this should be a no-brainer.

Waiting … waiting … sigh.

Goddammit, guys.

Posted in Uncategorized | 44 Comments

The Minimum Wage, Global Warming, and Expert Consensus

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Ampersand

Via Bleeding Heart Libertarians, I read Daniel B. Klein and Stewart Dompe’s admirable article “Reasons for Supporting the Minimum Wage: Asking Signatories of the ‘Raise the Minimum Wage’ Statement.”

Klein, an economist who opposes the minimum wage, wanted to understand why so many economists disagree. As Klein and Dompe explain, summarizing many surveys of economists regarding the minimum wage, “US economists are not only divided over the minimum wage, but the distribution of policy opinion is U-shaped, suggesting deep-seated cleavages.”

Internationally, economists in the USA are more likely than economists in other countries to believe that the minimum wage causes significant increases in unemployment (economists in France are the least likely). In the US, economists who specialize in labor economics are somewhat more supportive of the minimum wage than other economists.

My point is, there is no consensus among US economists regarding the minimum wage. And yet, conservatives often speak as if the negative consequences of the minimum wage are settled fact.

Art Carden writes that scrapping the minimum wage “would show investors, entrepreneurs and employees that policymakers appreciate the laws of supply and demand” — but the hundreds of economists who support the minimum wage are fully aware of the existence of supply and demand.

Meanwhile, the same Art Carden is frequently found on lists of “skeptical scientists” who doubt the scientific consensus on global warming — a consensus that is absolutely extraordinary in its scope.

Carden isn’t alone. The Power Line blog seemingly doubts there are experts who favor minimum wage, but unhesitatingly labels Global Warming a hoax.

David Henderson writes that “economists of various political stripes tend to oppose the minimum wage…. Economists’ consensus estimate is that a 10% increase in the minimum wage would destroy 1% to 2% of youths’ jobs.” But he also derides “the mistaken belief that ‘the science’ is ‘settled'” when it comes to climate change.

In other words, when about half the relevant experts disagree with Henderson’s partisan preference, then there’s a consensus. But when nearly every expert in the world disagrees with Henderson’s partisan preference, then there’s still a lot of doubt and we can’t say anything for sure.

Posted in Economics and the like, Environmental issues, Minimum Wage | 22 Comments

Professor Regnerus’ Study Seems Deceptive About His Funding Source’s Participation

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Ampersand

[Cross-posted on Family Scholars Blog]

In his post earlier tonight, Brad Wilcox writes that I “asked about [his] affiliation with the Witherspoon Institute.”

The reason I emailed Brad was that I had grown curious about an issue that lgbt-rights blogger Scott Rose has raised.

To provide context, here’s the full text of the email I sent to Brad, with links added:

Hi, Brad. Barry Deutsch here – we’ve exchanged a few comments on “family scholars blog” from time to time.

I’ve been reading about something that I will probably blog about, but I wanted to ask you if you wanted to comment.

I’m hesitant to ask you about this at all, because so many of the folks who have criticized Regnerus’ study have been, in my opinion, over-the-top, and have made personal attacks on Professor Regnerus. That’s not something I want to be associated with. Although I’ve criticized Professor Regnerus’ study, I bear him no ill will.

Professor Regnerus has said a couple of times, referring to the NFSS, that “the funding sources played no role at all in the design or conduct of the study, the analyses, the interpretations of the data, or in the preparation of this manuscript.”

However, it appears that you were a paid consultant on Professor Regnerus’ study. And your bio page on the Witherspoon website describes you as “Director of the Program on Marriage, Family, and Democracy.” Finally, publicly available tax records indicates that Witherspoon’s tax return describes the NFSS as one of “the two major accomplishments” of a program called “Family, Marriage & Democracy.”

From this information, it appears that Professor Regnerus’ statement that “the funding sources played no role at all” in the NFSS cannot be accurate.

I’ll probably blog about this in the next couple of days, but if there’s anything I should know for the blog post, please do let me know. (I’ll assume that anything you tell me is okay to repeat in a blog post, unless you say otherwise, of course.) If you think it’s objectionable for me to blog about this, of course please tell me why, so I can consider that as well.

Best wishes,

Barry

First of all, I want to thank Brad for his response.

Brad says that he provided advice to “Witherspoon Institute staff” about “the New Family Structures Study,” as the Director of the program that funded the NFSS. However, Brad explains that his “Director” title was strictly honorary.

Separately, Brad was also a paid adviser on the NFSS project.

There is nothing unethical about Brad working with both NFSS and Witherspoon, in my opinion. Brad is a known scholar with interests similar to those of Witherspoon and Professor Regnerus; it is natural that both the staff at Witherspoon and Professor Regnerus should seek his advice.

However, given Brad’s dual role, I cannot understand why Professor Regnerus wrote in his study:

The NFSS was supported in part by grants from the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation. While both of these are commonly known for their support of conservative causes—just as other private foundations are known for supporting more liberal causes—the funding sources played no role at all in the design or conduct of the study, the analyses, the interpretations of the data, or in the preparation of this manuscript.

Professor Regnerus’ statement is unequivocal – there was “no role at all,” according to him, at any level other than funding. But based on what Brad has now written, that simply wasn’t true.

There’s a similarly unequivocal statement on the official NFSS website:

In order to insure that the NFSS was conducted with intellectual integrity, beginning from the earliest stages the Witherspoon Institute was not involved in the Study’s design, implementation, or interpretation.

Neither of these statements are consistent with the role Brad played, according to what Brad describes in his post, and Professor Regnerus should not have made either statement.

I continue to think that the main argument against Professor Regnerus’ study is that it was poorly designed to address the question it claimed to address, for reasons that have already been much discussed. (For those interested in reading up on the matter, I recommend this post and the comments at Scatterplot, and also following the links in this post at Family Inequality.)

And as I said in my letter to Brad Wilcox, I don’t wish Professor Regnerus ill, and I have a strong aversion to personal attacks. But there’s a difference between not making personal attacks, and refusing to criticize what appears to be significant dishonesty in a published study.

Scholars are obligated to be honest in their claims — especially claims which are intended to establish the scholar’s credibility and objectivity in the mind of the reader.

In my opinion, Professor Regnerus’ carefully-crafted statement about his funding sources’ non-participation was deceptive. It omitted a relationship that was obviously relevant and should have been mentioned, and Regnerus’ choice to omit that, and the use of wording which gave the impression that there was unequivocally no relationship to report, calls his credibility into question.

Furthermore, Professor Regnerus’ statement had the effect of covering up an apparent conflict of interest that some people would view as unethical and against academic norms. To actively cover up such an apparent conflict of interest is, in my view, far worse than the apparent conflict of interest itself. I cannot see it as anything but extremely unethical behavior.

Posted in Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues | 4 Comments

California Outlaws Therapy To “Cure” Homosexuality In Kids

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Ampersand

California is now the first state to outlaw “conversion therapy” — treatments intended to “cure” homosexuality — when practiced on minors. (You can read the bill here). The future of the bill is up in the air, since several right-wing groups are saying they will sue to have the law overturned.

Over on Ethics Alarms, Jack is, well, alarmed. I tried to post a response to his post, but my post isn’t showing up – probably it’s just waiting for approval, or there’s been a technical glitch. But I’m impatient, so I’m going to post my response here.

Jack said that the law was wrong because it goes against free speech, because it interferes with parental autonomy, and because it restricts experimentation and free thought. My response follows.

Jack:

None of your three points stands up well to scrutiny.

1. Free speech. That it involves “talk” doesn’t automatically means its protected by the first amendment. If I talk Linus into believing that I’m the owner of the Brooklyn Bridge and sell it to him on a verbal deal, I can be arrested as a con artist, even though I did nothing but talk.

Therapists offering conversion therapy are, first of all, con artists – they’re bilking desperate parents out of money by offering something that they cannot deliver. That’s not protected speech.

More importantly, courts have found time and again that the state’s compelling interest in protecting children from harm can survive a first amendment challenge. As Justice White wrote:

It is evident beyond the need for elaboration that a state’s interest in “safeguarding the physical and psychological well being of a minor” is “compelling.” … Accordingly, we have sustained legislation aimed at protecting the physical and emotional well-being of youth even when the laws have operated in the sensitive area of constitutionally protected rights….

Ferber v New York involved sexual performances, but given the overwhelming evidence that conversion therapy severely harms children, the same principle applies here. The First Amendment is not a license for child abuse.

2. Disrespect for autonomy of parents.

But this law doesn’t restrict parental behavior, only therapist behavior.

It does makes a particular commercial service (conversion therapy) unavailable, but no more than a law forbidding prostitution interferes with a father who wants to buy his son a sex act for his 16th birthday, or a law forbidding drug use interferes with parents who’d like to buy their daughter a joint. Do you object to those laws because they abridge parental autonomy?

There are already laws in California holding parents accountable for making clearly harmful medical decisions for their children, as in the case of a Christian Scientist who allows his child to go untreated rather than get medical treatment. This law is much milder, since it only applies to therapists and cannot punish parents in any way.

More generally, there are a lot of laws against parents injuring their children, either actively or through neglect – laws against child abuse, laws requiring children to be educated, etc.. There are times when protecting the health of children is more important than protecting the right of parents to treat children in whatever way they want.

3. Restricts experimentation and free thought.

So do all imaginable rules and regulations on therapeutic, psychiatric and medical treatment. Should we therefore say that no regulation is acceptable?

Suppose a hynotherapist claims that sexually molesting his patients while they are in a trance is an experimental treatment that he believes will benefit his patients — is that a reason for us to repeal California’s law against sexual misconduct by licensed therapists? After all, to use the same logic as your argument, who are the Legislature to say that a good rape while hypnotized isn’t exactly what the patient needs?

The answer is pretty clear, of course. The legislature are the people’s duly elected representatives, and as such they are the authorized people who pass laws regulating the providers of health care. Of course, they should carry out that duty based on the best scientific evidence, and acting only in cases where the scientific literature shows severe harms for a treatment not counterbalanced by proven benefits.

In this case, the law they passed cited the extensive scientific literature showing not only that conversion therapy has no benefits (and does not work), but that it carries a high risk of severely harming the patient. Furthermore, the group they are protecting – children – are a particularly powerless group unable to protect themselves.

Under these circumstances, this law is entirely appropriate, and we should hope that the other 49 states quickly follow suit.

Finally, you falsely claim that this law dictates thought. That’s obviously not true. In no way does this law outlaw anyone thinking anything. Parents are free not only to think that their children shouldn’t be gay, but to share this opinion with their children, with their friends, and anyone else.

I guess you could argue that outlawing a therapeutic practice that has been shown to be ineffective and harmful is dictating thought. But if that’s the case, then surely ANY regulation of ANY therapeutic practice is dictating thought. Is that your view?

P.S. If gay activists were “all-powerful,” same-sex marriage would be legal everywhere, and 99% of Republicans would be unelectable. Alas, this is not the case. Not even in California.

P.P.S. Oh, and a follow-up point on autonomy.

It increases autonomy when decisions about optional medical treatment are put off until adulthood. If my parents choose a treatment for me, that takes away my autonomy; if the decision is put off until I’m an adult able to decide for myself, then that increases my autonomy.

It’s not entirely simple, of course. In making these decisions, parents have to weigh other factors — for instance, are there benefits to beginning treatment earlier than age 18, that won’t be available after age 18? There are cases where there are strong reasons to begin treatment before age 18.

But in the case of conversion therapy – which has no proven benefits, has never been shown to work, and can cause lifelong harm – all factors point in the same direction. There is no benefit to early treatment, and there is every reason to wait for adulthood, to let the patient decide for themself.

Posted in Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues | 21 Comments

Open Thread And Link Farm: Inflating Feet Edition

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Ampersand

Post what you like, when you like it, with the condiments you prefer, on a plate of a size and shape that reflects your preferences developed in your childhood which were based in turn on the preferences your parents developed in their childhood and so on. Self-linking is wonderful and gives me a tingly feeling in my swollen feet.

Sikh Woman Teaches Reddit Users a Life Lesson in Tolerance

“Oklahoma judge refuses to let trans women legally change their names. In his decision, Judge Bill Graves – who I hope is soon an ex-judge – quoted the Book of Genesis. (Also, take note that this is a mainstream news article writing about trans issues, so expect bad pronoun usage and the like.) (Corrected from the original wording – see comments.)

There Aren’t That Many Takers in America Republicans complain that we’re a society of “makers versus takers,” but the “takers” are only about 5% or less, depending on how you count.

Love these Chris Ware New Yorker covers, mostly focusing on parents and children.

Kill the Indians, Then Copy Them

Our bodies get weird as we age department: Over the last bunch of years, my feet and ankles have swollen, so that they’re now sort of rounder and chubbier. That’s not the weird part, many people’s feet swell a bit as they get to (gulp) middle age. But I asked my doctor about it, and she told me to elevate my feel when I sleep, which I now do. And it works, my feet are now considerably bonier and less rounded in the mornings. But now my feet are inflatable feet; they’re thin in the morning, but slowly inflate over the course of the day. I find that far stranger than I found chubby feet to be.

Can the black middle class survive? A journalist discusses the subtle racism he encountered at places like Time Magazine.

How Obama’s Immigration Policy Is Breaking Up Families

Esther, Mark Driscoll, and using rape to control women

Economics focus: Taxing the poor to pay the poor. Europe’s big welfare states have very regressive tax systems, and become progressive only with the redistribution.

I can’t resist quoting Gerry Canovan’s post, entitled “And Per Se And,” in full: “Now that I know the true origins of the word “ampersand,” I find I don’t believe in anything.”

ASMR, the Good Feeling No One Can Explain. Oh. My. Spaghetti. Monster. I had no idea that other people felt that tingling response, or that it had a name. For me, it mainly comes from watching people do meticulous tasks. Or even reading descriptions of people doing a meticulous task.

Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming

Posted in Link farms | 74 Comments

Are Libertarians Distinct Because They Oppose Forced Marriage?

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Ampersand

Over at Bleeding Heart Libertarians, Jason Brennan, interspersing new text and paragraphs from his book (available on Amazon), discusses what makes Libertarianism distinct:

Libertarians are distinct in that they believe each person has an extensive sphere of personal liberty. They have strong rights against being interfered with, coerced, or subjugated. These rights act as side constraints. They forbid intrusions onto others’ lives, even when such intrusions would serve those other people’s good.

…for example, imagine I am a supremely expert life coach. Imagine that I can determine what the happiest and best life for each person would be. Suppose I know with certainty that talented David would do much more good as a doctor than as a beach bum. Suppose I also know with certainty that David would be much happier and better off as a doctor than as a beach bum. However, suppose David wants to be a beach bum. Libertarians say that I cannot force David to become a doctor, despite how good it would be if he did. He has the right to choose his own way of life, even though (we are supposing) that I know with certainty he should make a different choice.

Similarly, even if you have a moral obligation to help the homeless, it doesn’t follow that I may force you to discharge this obligation. Does this mean libertarians are selfish, callous, or indifferent to others’ suffering?

… even if I believe it is wrong to force you to help the homeless, this does not imply I don’t care about the homeless. In the same vein, if I am unwilling to force to you marry your “soul mate”, that does not mean I am indifferent to your happiness. Rather, it means that there are limits on what I may force you to do, for your good or for the good of others.

Yes, but: Who doesn’t believe there are limits on what people can be forced to do for the good of others?

There is nothing distinctly libertarian about opposing forced marriage, or forced medical school. Liberals are against that. Conservatives are against that. Progressives are against that. In our culture, very nearly everyone is against that. You might as well say that libertarians are distinct because they breath oxygen.

The only thing on Brennan’s list that is distinctly libertarian is that libertarians are against forcing people to help the homeless. And even that isn’t really a fine enough distinction. I’m pretty far left, but even I don’t think I have a right to walk up to some random homeowner, club him over the head, steal his housekey, and drop it in the next beggar’s cup I see. The real issue is how people feel about helping the homeless through a marginal increase in taxation.

Libertarians are distinctive, in part, because they and they alone seem to have difficulty perceiving the enormous moral difference between a marginally higher tax rate and forced marriage or doctorhood. ((“They and they alone” is an exaggeration, since some conservatives would agree, but I’d argue that’s an example of how libertarians have influenced conservative thought.))

Posted in Libertarianism | 30 Comments

Are Too-Strong Families Bad For Society?

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Ampersand

The ways that too-weak family ties can harm society are frequently noted. But what about the other extreme — can overly strong family ties also harm society? Mark Silk at Religious News Service writes:

It has, of course, been an article of Republican faith for the past generation that strong families are the backbone of America, that strong commitment to family guarantees the health of the nation. But when it comes to the building up of social capital, it is anything but clear that strengthening our commitment to our families is a good thing.

In a famous study half a century ago, the political scientist Edward Banfield coined the term “amoral familism” to describe how family solidarities in a southern Italian village decreased engagement in and trust of the political community as a whole. Rather than see their futures wrapped up in the success of their country and civic community, the villagers sought to maximize their family’s situation by any means necessary, no matter what the cost to the larger community.

Over the past few years, economists studying social capital around the world have been studying the question anew, and have generally found that Banfield was on to something. In an important paper, Alberto Alesina and Paola Giuliano looked at 80 countries and found that those where the family ties were weakest tended to have the strongest levels of civic and political engagement and generalized social trust. And vice versa. The top performers in terms of civic engagement were northern European countries: Denmark, the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Germany. At the bottom were the Philippines, Venezuela, Egypt, and Zimbabwe.

(Via Daily Dish.)

Posted in Families structures, divorce, etc | 15 Comments