On The Perils Of Substance Abuse

Reihan is apparently suffering some sort of traumatic come-down from his weeklong SXSW bender, and has chosen to commemorate the occasion with a typically brilliant, but bit of a downer of a post, starting with accurately describing the inherent tensions between 1) the basic concept of a leftist philosophy and 2) certain behavioral tendencies that are quite specific to the American psyche. He then pivots, a bit incongruously in my opinion, to the subject of Senator Obama's pastor, Rev. Wright, and the current controversy surrounding a video of him which recently hit the airwaves.

I'm not going to get into the details of the controversy, because I mostly feel that it's a serious case of trumped-up charges, for reasons which I'll get into in a bit. If you want to know more about it, your favorite major news outlet will have at least one story from the last couple days.

Instead, I'm going to deal with some of Reihan's arguments in a bit more detail, and try and use these specific instances to get to a bit more of a general philosophical discussion.

Also, as a warning - I'm not exactly famous for my brevity, and the post I'm responding to is not exactly short either. So it's unlikely that I'm going to be able to keep this easily digestible. Humblest apologies, and such like. At least you're getting your money's worth today!

Regarding the American constitutional arrangement, and its somewhat "elitist and anti-majoritarian dimensions," Reihan writes:

For example, it shapes and some would say perverts the kind of redistribution that occurs. As Ed Glaeser and Alberto Alesina have argued, it seems that ethnoracial fragmentation cuts against redistribution — taxpayers are reluctant to subsidize members of outgroups, a gut instinct that is easily characterized as racist. But perhaps this impulse is a useful corrective, and one of the virtues of diversity — i.e., perhaps greater homogeneity leads taxpayers to overinterpret a kind of nationalist sameness, thus leading to higher levels of redistribution than are in fact desirable. Now, I don’t think this is obviously true, but it’s no less plausible than the other story, namely that the interrelationship between extreme homogeneity and social democracy is an unambiguously good thing.

I certainly don't argue that extreme homogeneity and social democracy are, ipso facto, an unambiguous good. I don't think that many things, once you get past the realm of tautologically good things like puppies, Twizzlers, and reruns of Thundercats, qualify as universally good, no justification needed.

And keeping in mind the fact that absolute redistribution should not be the goal of any society which hopes to maintain a vital, growing economy is a very important reason to be inherently suspicious of redistributive policies. The problem I have with America's economic system is not that it is not sufficiently redistributive. It is that it's built backwards, funneling the water of economic growth uphill through arrangements which benefit primarily the supremely wealthy, and the rest of us in roughly inverse proportion to our demonstrable need of the benefit.

The best recent example is obviously the federal bailout of Bear Stearns over the weekend, ensuring the value of investments made at a point when it was becoming increasingly obvious that they were questionable-at-best. For much better-written outrage on this topic look no further than Kevin Drum, or, even better, Sir Charles over at Cogitamus.

I can think up many morally defensible positions in favor of an economic policy which says "when enough poor and under-educated get caught up in a bad financial scheme that threatens the health of the economy, the government will help them out at least enough to keep us afloat." Alternatively I can't think up a single morally defensible argument for the policy that "when enough poor and under-educated get caught up in a bad financial scheme that threatens the health of the economy, the government will bail out the creditors who financed this harebrained scheme, ensuring that their risky capital investments aren't damaged, while leaving those who were less well-informed about the risks to simply flap in the wind."

And yet, time and time and time again (if I was a better blogger, or possibly less gainfully employed, each of those 'times' would have a link to a story about some other example of such a governmental policy, but it's after 10:30 already so get over it) this is exactly the type of policy which we enact.

So, maybe reducing the ethnoracial fragmentation would drive our policies too far in the downward-redistributive direction. You know what? It's a chance I'm willing to take, because I'd rather make the wrong decision for the right reasons than the wrong decision for the wrong reasons.

Anyhow, Reihan then turns towards the Obama/Wright flap. Quoting from Chris Hayes' excellent piece in The Nation, Reihan writes

So while Ann Coulter can call John Edwards a faggot, Grover Norquist can say he wants to drown the government in the bathtub, and a host of imperialists can foment an illegal and pre-emptive war based on lies, Barack Obama’s pastor isn’t allowed to mention that America has been throughout its history the site and cause of much evil in this world.

This, of course, is a fairly straightforward result of the nationalism of most Americans, and the (mostly correct) view that while America has been been “the site and cause of much evil in this world,” surely we’re not unique or even terribly distinguished in this regard. Mind you, this is more of a sad commentary on the world, but it is true nonetheless.

I'm sorry, I'm just not buying this attitude at all. Specifically, I want to see a quote from anyone who is being very critical of Rev. Wright who says 'well, yes, America has committed many sins in her past, but compared to Imperial Britain or Napoleonic France, she's really not doing so badly.'

Incidentally, I think that this view would be entirely justified. In antagonistic conversations with my politically active South African ex-girlfriend, I would often point out that, as singularly dominant world powers go, the U.S. has undoubtedly been the most beneficent, the least likely to exploit native peoples and resources, purely for its own benefit. Not to say that we are blameless, or maybe even a net good for people around the world. But a hell of a lot less likely to be out exploiting the natives with the raw power of the US government. And that ought to be worth something.

But that's not what gets said. Instead, there is hateful bile about Rev. Wright, baseless accusations that Senator Obama, in contrast to anything he's ever said in public, will be supporting Palestinian terrorists over the Israelis. Claims that Senator Obama believes the white government brought crack and AIDS to the ghetto.

Most of the reasonable conservatives, the types of people who I would read (like Ross Douthat or the good folks over at The American Scene) aren't engaging in speculation about the specifics of Rev. Wright's comments, or what they really say about Senator Obama's beliefs. Instead, the speculation is all horse-racey, about how 'Obama will have to come out and really distance himself from this', or 'well, this is really something Obama is going to have to work to explain.' The closest anyone I read has come to accusing Senator Obama of holding any questionable views is Ross (say, here and here), and he doesn't approach the realm of the absurd (let's call it the 'Ace of Spades line'), not by a factor of 10 or more.

So it kind of appears, to me, that the types of people Reihan is defending, the good faithful who believe that America is "not unique or even terribly distinguished in this regard," don't actually exist, or not in sufficient numbers to really be discussing in detail.

Reihan continues, writing about the possibility of a white Rev. Wright-like figure.

Of course, documentary evidence of a white man doing the same would surely have a similar impact. I grew up watching television, and I have a keen appreciation for the power of images. By layering race over this simple and familiar fact, Chris takes a mundane fact, that people respond to images more readily than text, and makes it seem alarming and suspect.

I'm sorry, but again, I simply don't buy this. Not to get caught up in the same arguments that everyone else is having, but powerful and popular douchebags like Pat Robertson and James Dobson come out all the time and say things which are, at least to my mind, equally (or more) controversial and repugnant. And yet, they are embraced by the standard-bearers of the right. Maybe the presidential candidates are not members of their specific congregations, but this is splitting hairs, to my mind, and not a valid reason to sweep their embrace under the rug.

To me, the metaphor here ought not to be with Rev. Wright, but with someone like Louis Farrakhan. Senator Obama has, right, denounced and rejected Mr. Farrakhan's beliefs and endorsement. To me, if there was really a symmetry in how we treated controversial utterances from ministers, regardless of skin tone, there would be an equal radioactivity to someone who publicly met and accepted endorsements from a Robertson or a Dobson as there would be to someone who did the same with Farrakhan.

But, of course, there is not. And hence, I don't believe for one second that a video of a white minister, speaking along similar lines as those of Rev. Wright, would have equal valence.

Finally (finally!), Reihan says

I have no doubt that Senator Obama is as devout as he claims, yet he’s also reluctant to wear an American flag lapel pin. Though he’s embraced a devotional, very public brand of religiosity, it could be that his thoughts on faith are decidedly complex, and not well suited to being enthusiastically discussed on the campaign trail.

Where to begin here? Firstly, what the hell does a meaningless, tacky display of "patriotism" have to do with religious devotion? Reihan, of all people, should know that wearing a "Ra-Ra-Riot" t-shirt is no evidence whatsoever that you really and truly get what they are saying. In fact, for almost any band who is saying anything worth listening to, wearing their t-shirt is almost guaranteed evidence that you don't get it. Because, part of what they are saying is 'hey, man, go figure shit out for yourself, don't let the Pepsi or KFC or me tell you what to think.'

Since I think America has a hell of a lot of things to say that are worth hearing, many of them having to do with exactly that same line of thought, I will not be wearing an American flag lapel pin anytime soon. But I still fail to see any link between my opinion and Senator Obama's devotion, or lack thereof.

And, lastly (I promise!), and once again, nobody is talking about Obama's faith. All that is being said involves triple-bank-shots based on whether or not he can be reliably proven to be nodding during a certain part of a certain sermon that was delivered 8 years ago. If you want to know about the man's faith, go ask him. Or, better yet, read his book, which conveniently spends whole chapters discussing this very subject!

So, in the immortal words of Inigo Montoya: "There is too much. Let me sum up."

I believe that the American constitutional system has some inherent unfairnesses built into it, which I acknowledge are there for a reason, but I would like to weaken nonetheless.

Rev. Wright, using language stronger than I would use, but then again he's a preacher and I'm an engineer, pointed out some of those structural difficulties and their historical context.

Senator Obama has never made any public statement which would lead you to believe that he holds truck with any of Rev. Wright's more controversial utterances.

Nonetheless, because he is a black man speaking angrily, the video of Rev. Wright has found great controversy-generating power in the media.

This controversy has led to much speculation about Senator Obama's beliefs, even though, as already explained above, there is zero factual evidence to indicate that there is reason to doubt what he has been saying all along.

Wow, what the hell is wrong with you that you're still reading this far?