Ciceronian Review

Sad LIfe

Todd Zywicki, whose work on interstate transport of wine I admire, has a post at Volokh Conspiracy with the title "Courage at Dartmouth".  It is a sad thing.  It is sad to see smart people persist in unjustified self-pity.  It is ridiculous for anyone to suppose that D. Pipes suffers or sufffered in any way for his political views.  It is sad to see such posturing.  Last I looked, no conservatives had been fired from an academic job in the US because of politics, nor a libertarian.  And Mr. Pipes's career can hardly count as suffering for one's political views. 

The whole on-going story about the political affiliations of university faculty is mindless.  How exactly do the political affiliations of the person teaching advanced calculus bear on a student's experience or education?  How do politics intervene in the classrooms of the physics departments?  What exactly is the evidence of discrimination?  Sorry, there is nothing there.  Does it matter whether the Spanish teacher is a liberal or not?  Perhaps it matters in political theory or some parts of politics departments.  But even there, it is awfully hard to find any genuine evidence of political affilaition having substantive effect on the courses tauight or the performance of the students.  Furthermore, the notion of diversity at work in these complaints is, in a word, idiotic.  Which leads back to why this is all so sad.  None of these sorts of charges stand up under the sorts of evidentiary standards we apply elsewhere in life. 

Now Zywicki talks about diversity.  But that is a leaf which should fool no one.  First of all, universities do not exist on islands surrounded by a magical sphere excluding the rest of the world.  (Universities are not modeled on the planet Kolob.)  A student in a university unaware of conservative poltical theory can't reallly complain that the university has short-changed them.  The politic theories of the right can be found on the pages of every major newspaper in the country, and on every television network.  Second, there is no evidence -- right, no evidence -- of any political bias in the appointemnt processes for universities.  One would need to find evidence that there is some bias in selection of graduate students, for example, or that poltiical affiliations are signaled in the documentary process for interview selection.  Differences between the general population and particular departments just won't do it.   Nor will differences between the general population and a particular profession, like academic.  The categories don't match up with the right demographics, and there is no apparent causal linkage.  Something right handed legal academics interested in product liability ought to be able to explain to their colleagues.   

Cowan & MacArthur

Tyler Cowan has an interesting post on MacArthur Grants over at Marginal Revolution.  I've no real evidence, meaning it is just my impression from reading the newspaper, but grant and prizes in literature seem to have the general problem of rewarding people who no longer have any need for reward. 

Even In Zion Roe Is Sometimes Liked

The Legislature is in session, which is a scary thing.  Today no horror stories, although there are plenty of them.  One bill which looks to pass is legislation authorizing surrogacy parenthood arrangements by enforceable contract. (Set to one side the evaluation of the idea of surrogate parents, although there are a number of odd things about the practice.  And breath easy; the bill bars surrogate contracts by the unmarried, which includes gays and lesbians.  In Utah, I believe, adoption is open to gays and lesbians and the unmarried.)  Today we consider this -- Utah is one of the most anti-abortion states in the Union.  Indeed, a few years ago the Legislatgure spent over $1 mm defending an anti-abortion statute which was identical to one struck down by the Supreme Court before Utah enacted its statute.  These guys spend money on amici briefs in any anti-abortion suit they can find, and would certainly ban it completely if they could.  (Last year the Legislature passed a bill cutting off funding to any entity that provided any abortion services at all -- took special actions to get the thing changed to permit abortions to preserve the life of the woman.  That was at the behest of the University which feared it would be completely defunded if it provided abortions for any reason at all.)  So, back to the story at hand.  Surrogate parenthood is going to be authorized soon here.  The newspapers have given many inches of coverage to this, including long front page pieces.  What was not discusssed, and the Legislature certainly isn't talkng about, is the connection to abortion.  As far as I know, you can't do surrogate implantation without creating excess fertilized eggs.  And that means abortions, at least by the lights of the churches here. 

Smirnoff On Top

Advertising makes the man, or the drink, as the case may be.  No getting around the remarkable popularity of expensive vodkas.  I can't say I can tell the difference among vodkas, and rather doubted those who claimed that Belevedere was anything more than a marketing fraud.  More evidence for my side.  Blind taste test put Smirnoff in Number One. 

I do buy a number of things by brand or hype.  I have a coffee machine the shopping for which consisted of looking on the Peet's Coffee website.  There are hundreds of machines on the market, and it saved me time.  More closely connected with Belvedere and Grey Goose (really now, how could the outcome be very different -- think about what vodka is and how it is made --  the very idea that there are significant quality and taste differences is  unlikely), there are also blind wine tastings that pretty consistently show that there is very little (if any) discernible difference among wines across wide price ranges.  One test even found that people could not tell the difference between white and red wines on a genuine blind taste test.  Of course, I still mostly buy wines over $8. 

Griffith

I think Mr. Griffith should not be confirmed to the D.C. Court of Appeals, as I've explained in the past.  I don't oppose the confirmation because of his views about Title IX or similar political topics.  (I don't see his views on such matters as terribly important to the confirmation question.)  My opposition is based on (1) for over two years he engaged in the unauthorized practice of law in the District of Columbia, and (2) for the last year has engaged in the unauhorized practice of law in Utah.   Why such "technical" constraints matter is illustrated by this decision of the Utah Supreme Court. 

Is Rorty A Natural Kind

Richard Rorty has an very interesting review  of Soames' two volume history of analytic philosophy in the twentieth century.  Rorty is measured, respectful, and intelligent in his discussion. 

As between Quine and Kripke, I think Quine has more to say of continuine interest.  The notion of a posterior necessity is a little odd, but the problems lie in the arguments which end up being table-thumping.  Back in the day when I read such work regularly, the Kripke approach struck me as somewhat mystical, driven by a theological agenda.  And based on some pretty weird views about science.  But it was about language and metaphysics, not science.  Well, in the spirit of slogans (which are easier than thinking) words don't make worlds.

Young Arms For Sale

The Friday NYT carried a curious story about Iraq.  There seems to be a controversy about a "missing" $300 million.  According to the tale to the TImes, the money was boxed up (yep, $300 million in cash, stacked into cardboard boxes), transported to Lebanon and then disappeared.  The Minister of Defense says it was used to buy arms for an armored vehicle unit of the Iraqi Army.  Not so says Mr. Chalabi.  (As between the dueling rats, I place no bets for veracity.)  Let's suppose the Minister is telling the truth (so no Rumsfeld he), that would not put an end to queries.  You see, according to Mr. Minister of Defense, he can't tell us who got the money for arms because they would be killed if the insurgents learned who sold arms to the Iraqi government. 

So, why not then spend it with the folks who are easy to hand and you can be certain are not intimidated by the insurgents?  Why not buy US arms or British, or even German or French, or Russian?  Why buy on the black market in Lebanon? 

Where is Oliver North when you need him. 

(Speaking of which, did you notice that Fawn Hall hit the news, sort of.  She is the widow of Danny Sugerman, a manager for the Doors.)

That Roe

One piece of the "Letting Go of Roe" line is that the Supreme Court decision short-circuited political discussion, and so doing left the anti-abortion forces feeling political estranged.  Had the Court remained silent on the issue, then the force of political reform would gradually have legalized abortion services throughout the country, or enough for a decision by the Court to be relatively uncontroversial, or would, at least, not be so politically energizing.   I don't think so.

The argument suggests that the court decision short-circuited an open political process, a process in which the pro-choice and anti-abortion political forces were engaged in ordinary political lobbyinig with respect to state statutory schemes.  The evidence is that tha over the preceding decades an increasing number of states had decriminalized abortion services. 

I do not think that is quite right.  Abortion rights were certainly a subject of political work.  But there was no mass political movement against abortion rights.  The rise of abortion opposition as a political focus followed the decision in Roe, and did so by a number of years.  An important decision, no doubt, but it is misleading to talk as though there was an immediate backlash.  It took years of organizing.  (The Catholic Church had not yet settled on unremitting opposition from conception; evangelicals and fundamentalists had no coherent approach -- not least because the Bible does not condemn and barely mentions abortion.)  As a consequence, the decision did not short-circuit any political engagement that should not have been limited.  Short-circuiting political engagement did not happen, and Court action does not often manage it.  For ezample, it did not end political engagement with the various civil rights decisions.  The solid Republican south is, after all, simply the manifestation of the party's decision to throw in with the racists the Democrats abandoned.  So the analysis either begs the question or is grounded in a notably cynical view of judcial action concerning the Constitution.  EIther what is urged is that the Court ought not act except where doing so is (relatively) uncontroversial (in other words, do nothing of importance) or, while there is nothing inherently wrong with Court involvement through decisions in political engagement, it ought not to have acted in this arena.  But the argument for not acting here is that it limited political discussion.  But that is a circle, not an explanation. 

Indiana Is Feverish

Earlier this week the Court of Appeals in Indiana upheld the state’s statute barring same sex marriage. The reasoning of the Court is remarkable, and so I remark upon it. Here are the key passages:

The key question in our view is whether the recognition of same-sex marriage would promote all of the same state interests that opposite-sex marriage does, including the interest in marital procreation. (p.12)

Based upon these facts, te essence of the Plaintiffs’ argument is that it contravenes the central purpose of the Indiana Family Law Code to deny marriage to same-sex couples because although many of them are raising families, [and may lawfully adopt children] they are precluded from the multiple benefits associated with marriage. (13)

Still Roe

In the renewed discussion of Roe, and more particularly the suggestion that liberal “let go of Roe” there is remarkable little discussion of the legal issues. At Left2Right there is a discussion of some philosophical issues about persons, but little of the law. The short essay in The Atlantic has only the legal discussion I’ve already addressed. Overturning or letting go of Roe is difficult to accomplish without making a mess of a number of other parts of Constitutional law.  Suppose we give up the idea that there is a fundamental right to control reproduction – no right to abortion of any kind. Leave it to the states. What happens to the right of privacy with respect to other aspects of reproduction? Are we supposed to believe that in this republic that it would be permissible for a state to bar reproduction? Or to bar contraceptives? Would it be permissible to compel pregnancy? It is just a mistake to think that abortion can be singled out among aspects of reproductive activities to be left without protection. Thus, getting rid of Roe cannot but do grievous harm to Lawrence, and Griswold.

My point is not that I think there is some danger that states will now bar other contraception techniques. It is not a practical point about the politics of legislation. It is about preserving some intellectual coherence to Constitutional law in the area. (The blithe assumption that things won’t be so bad if left to the states is, in a word, astonishing. Abortion services are already remarkably rare. State legislatures are quite willing to interfere in marital and sexual relations as any survey of legislative activity for the last five years would show.) Abortion rights are embedded in the Constitution now. The proper way to remove them is to amend the Constitution. It is telling that anti-abortion politics is not aimed at passage of such an amendment, in two salient respects. 

First, it is indicative of a basic intellectual inconsistency. To the extent one objects to privacy rights found in the Constitution by the Supreme Court, one objects to the Constitution as it is. The ordinary route to change is through amendment. By focusing instead on attempts to change by means of political pressure on appointments, the anti-abortion forces are intent on increasing the politicization of the Supreme Court (and confirmation process) and so betray the alleged principles of jurisprudence they claim to advance. It also debases discussion of Constitutional interpretation.

Consider the recent statement by the leadership of the Catholic Church on the topic – that a nominee’s anti-abortion and anti-Roe beliefs should not be a bar to confirmation. Nowhere does the Church acknowledge that this can be persuasive (or even accepted as offered in good faith) only if the opposing views too are not a basis for opposing confirmation. But the Church seems unwilling to say that.

Second, it is evidence that anti-abortion advocacy concerning the Supreme Court is, at the core, unprincipled. Knowing that they cannot prevail in a campaign to amend, they seek to circumvent ordinary constitutional processes.

In terms of “letting go of Roe,” no one has explained how to let go of that decision without letting go of the entire notion of privacy protected by the Constitution. Which leads us to the question whether there is anything genuinely disturbing about Constitutional protections for privacy rights.