Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Why my son will not be emasculated with or by my consent.

I'll quote this article by Laird Harrison in full because I find his account particularly compelling.

I don't know what I thought circumcision would be like. A haircut? Trimming toenails? The fact is that it hurts. I could hear it in my son's scream when he felt himself cut. My gut tightened as his tiny hand clenched around my finger. And I'm amazed now that I didn't expect that.

That knot inside me relaxed a little when the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended this month that babies being circumcised should get painkillers. The academy is the most influential group of children's doctors in the country; people who write books about childcare defer to the academy on questions as trivial as "When can you give a baby fruit juice?" So the chances are good that a lot more newborns are going to get anesthesia from now on.

But the academy refrained from answering the really big circumcision question: Should a healthy boy be circumcised? Millions of parents spend millions of hours debating this issue. It bedeviled my wife and me so much that we ended up circumcising one of our sons and not the other. And even the academy's taskforce on circumcision, after two years of poring over crates full of scientific reports, essentially couldn't make up its collective mind. "Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision," the academy wrote. "However, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision....Parents should determine what's in the interest of the child."

Wishy-washy as it sounds, I think that's a wise position. I spent days mucking around in the scientific literature on circumcision until I realized that some questions just can't be answered in the laboratory. To satisfy the normal rigors of scientific research, you would have to randomly select babies to be either circumcised or not circumcised, then follow them for several years to see which group was healthier. Obviously, no sane parent would consent to such an experiment.

So researchers are left trying to answer the question by comparing people whose parents (or doctors) chose to circumcise them to those with their foreskins intact. But that leaves too many variables unaccounted for. For example, educated people, until recently, were more likely to have their kids circumcised than uneducated ones. Whites are more likely to be circumcised than blacks, Midwesterners more than Californians, and of course, Jews more than Christians. And all of these social, geographic, and genetic factors influence a child's health.

"It is legitimate for parents to take into account cultural, religious and ethnic traditions, in addition to the medical factors, when making this decision," the academy wrote. And that's where I disagree. I think the ethnic factors are the only ones worth taking into account.

Let's assume for a moment that you could design a truly scientific experiment and prove that removing a boy's foreskin reduces his risk of a serious disease, such as cancer of the penis. It still wouldn't make any more sense to remove a boy's foreskin at birth than it would to remove his breast tissue (breast cancer in men is about common as penis cancer), his tonsils, or his appendix.

Why do we discriminate against the foreskin in this way? Why is circumcision the only surgery commonly done without anesthesia? Why are only a tiny fraction of European boys circumcised while more than a half of American males go under the knife? And why have advocates changed their minds about what circumcision is supposed to prevent, from masturbation in the 19th century to sexually transmitted disease in the 1940s to urinary tract infections today? The reason, I think, is that circumcision is not a medical procedure and it never has been.

Even when performed by white-coated doctors in antiseptic hospital rooms, circumcision is a ritual. Like scarring, branding, tattooing and piercing, it sets members of one group apart from another. It binds the tribe.

My wife is Jewish. I'm...well, let's say ethnically Christian. But more important, I was circumcised at birth. My father was circumcised, and his father before him. So when Rachele wanted our son, Dashiell, circumcised, I went along with it. And because I believed then as now that the procedure served only a religious function, I insisted that we hold a bris, the traditional Jewish ceremony, performed by a mohel, in our living room, with a bagel brunch.

While Rachele ducked into the kitchen, I watched the mohel slice away a little bit of my son. That was five years ago, and it's true that Dashiell has no conscious memory of that pain, no sense of loss. He doesn't miss what he never knew he had. But I miss it. I miss it because as soon as the blade bit into him I knew I had transgressed. I knew that it was wrong to take away a healthy, living piece of a human being's body all against his will. I knew that I would never let that happen to another son of mine.

Every tribe looks to its priests to approve its rituals; we look to our scientists. But the panel we anointed to authorize this particular rite has modestly abstained. We have to look beyond them to whatever or whoever creates the human conscience. Over the years, together and separately, like any couple, Rachele and I have turned to that authority with any question that really matters. Our sons will always bear the record of the one time we got different answer.

I could not look you in the eye and argue that humans are intrinsically sacred and special, that our individual decisions and values should be taken as more than mere jabberwocky, if I gave a doctor my consent (and my money) to circumcise Max. I will bring him into this world as a complete being-- the parts he may one day choose to sever will be his personal choice. I trust he will make all such important choices wisely, or at least learn from the consequences of making the wrong choice. But I will NOT make the choice for him.

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

More of the same from the men upstairs..

According to the Bush administration, the federal deficit is expected to reach a record 5 billion this year. The budget figures for the first time include initial costs of the war in Iraq and project an even larger 5 billion shortfall next year before steadily declining to 6 billion in 2008. Confident new White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the deficit "certainly remains a concern, but it's one that is manageable, and it's one that we are addressing." Did we really expect him to say anything else?

Also, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told a congressional panel that Federal Reserve policymakers are ready to maintain "a highly accommodative stance ... for as long as needed" to encourage growth. Greenspan added that the economy "could be" on track for extended growth-- "could" being the operative word here. Will the Fed cut interest rates again, after the last quarter-point nibble in June? As of today, the key federal funds rate stands at a 45-year low. Let it not be grumbled that ours aren't revolutionary times.

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Eye on the Heartland.

Gail Russell Chaddock describes how "prairie power" makes a difference in the clout of certain Congressman on the hill. Chaddock writes:

To the dismay of hard-line conservatives, rural America is emerging as the main obstacle to the White House reform agenda: If you fix the market, all boats will rise. In the heartland, too many family farms, hospitals and schools are sinking. And their representatives insist that markets alone - whether for soybeans, health care insurance, or school vouchers won't solve the problem. They want government benefits targeted at rural constituencies, and they're getting them.

Traditionally, the Heartland tends to be a fairly socially conservative part of the country. However, economic woes drive voting tendencies in this region-- no candidate for office will win unless he represents the subsidy-craving appetites of his constituents.

The High Plains senators want to stem the heartland's population drain, or at least ease its impact with crop subsidies, water projects, and more generous social security checks and Medicare reimbursements. They want to keep federal dollars flowing. So far, they're doing well.

The key to Plains Power in the Senate is the Finance Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Charles Grassley (R) of Iowa, along with ranking Democrat Max Baucus of Montana. This committee is the gateway for tax cuts and Medicare reform - the top Bush domestic priorities in the 108th Congress - and a strong advocate for the needs of rural constituents.

This is another political gray area, where partisanship rides behind regionalism.

Monday, July 14, 2003

Prediction.

Expect a military baby-boom as disillusioned female warriors get pregnant in order to leave Iraq and return home to the states.

Monday, July 14, 2003

Forestalling Patriot II.

Local action against the 2001 Patriot Act has been commendable thus far, as anti-PATRIOT resolutions have been passed in approximately 100 U.S. cities, and by the state of Hawaii. The state of Texas is rife with resolution-writing, as concerned lawyers, clergy, and citizens are attempting to pass an Austin City Council resolution or ordinance against the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act. Similar campaigns are under way in Dallas, Denton, El Paso, Fredericksburg, Houston, and San Marcos.

Such legislation, supporters say, could send a message to local elected officials wish to reclaim liberties lost to the likes of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who currently is pursuing passage of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 ("PATRIOT II"). The new regulations would broaden powers awarded by its predecessor, and legalize secret arrests, deportation of people perceived to be dangerous to national security, and revocation of citizenship for anyone found to have given resources to organizations deemed by the government as "terrorists."

For the most part, such resolutions and/or ordinances have been relegated to the realm of mere symbolism-- protest on paper carrying little legal or substantive weight. Is there reason to believe Austin might be different?

In Austin, an anti-PATRIOT act may be more than just symbolic. In addition to millions spent on beefing up public safety, money has gone toward "domestic spying" by Austin police, said ACLU attorney Ann del Llano. Austin Police Dept. officers have already admitted to taking photographs of anti-war protesters, said del Llano. "The police are there to fight crime."

Alas, Austin, New York city, DC, Atlanta-- plus que ca change, c'est la meme chose. Variety is not the spice of government.

Friday, July 11, 2003

Neo-conservatism is all the rage.

Congressman Paul spoke yesterday about how we are being neo-conned. A worthwhile read, especially after the AFF panel failed to illuminate the issue.

Thursday, July 10, 2003

The latest from the Independent Institute.

A really cool new website that traces the largest increases in government power to war. Consider this your best Internet resource on the subject of Robert Higgs' Crisis and Leviathan, featuring a bibliographic compendium of both scholarly and popular works and commentary on the domestic and international effects of national "crises," including preventative, interventionist wars around the world to create a U.S. empire.

Wednesday, July 9, 2003

The GOP is no small matter.

According to a study released today by author Wayne Crews of the Cato Institute, the Bush administration issued a record-high number of pages of new federal regulations in 2002, and there is no reason to believe this trend will change. The Washington Post picked up Crews' study to argue that Republicans are no longer the party of small government. Indeed, it takes more than a tax cut to earn such a title-- you have to actually scale back on laws.

Tuesday, July 8, 2003

The Way by Robert Creeley.

My love's manners in bed
are not to be discussed by me,
as mine by her
I would not credit comment upon gracefully.

Yet I ride by the margin of that lake in
the wood, the castle,
and the excitement of strongholds;
and have a small boy's notion of doing good.

Oh well, I will say here,
knowing each man,
let you find a good wife too,
and love her as hard as you can.

Tuesday, July 8, 2003

For players.

The 100 greatest online games.

Tuesday, July 8, 2003

Birthday present ideas.

Now, when young Christian lasses boast about being born-again virgins, you can tip them on how to make the statement seem less like a semantic foible and more like the real thing.

Tuesday, July 8, 2003

My favorite new insult.

There must be some scientific explanation for your inability to grasp even the most elementary human logic. Have you been tested for the Borna virus yet?

Monday, July 7, 2003

When trying to be creative backfires into trendiness.

In an article for The New York Times, Peggy Orenstein shows how difficult baby-name creativity can be. The problem is that many people seeking adventurous names hit upon the same ones-- which end up being the trendy names of that "generation". How can I find an interesting boy's name that doesn't sucuumb to the temptation of trendiness? Is this similar to asking how one can be cool without being too popular?

Orenstein doesn't have any answers. She does, however, make a few interesting observations.

Parents continue to be more conventional with their sons, more conscious of tradition and generational continuity. Girls' names are more likely to be chosen for style and beauty. That makes them both more interesting to track and more vulnerable to sounding passe, the human equivalent of bragging about your new pashmina.

The Harvard sociologist Stanley Lieberson first bumped up against the fashion quotient of names in the 1960's. Believing they were bucking convention, he and his wife named their eldest daughter Rebecca, only to discover a few years later that she was part of a pack. How had that happened? The marketplace, after all, has no interest in what we name our children; no corporation profits if you choose Kaylee over Megan. That makes names one of the rare measures of collective taste.

Michael aside, overuse usually spells the end of a name, at least for a while. Names also lose luster when they become tied to a particular era. If you really want to ensure your baby girl will be unique among her peers, name her Barbara, Nancy, Karen or Susan. Or Peggy. Those sound like the names of middle-aged women because -- guess what? -- they are.

But names are often resurrected when the generation that bears them dies out. Although our mothers may joke that the play group made up of Max, Rose, Sam and Sophie sounds like the roster of a convalescent home, contemporary parents find those names charming. Doubtless, today's Brittany will name her daughter Delores.

So I am still perturbed about what to name the baby. He seems to want a name that means "little fierce one" (in Celtic or Gaelic, "Lorcan")-- at least, that is what his movements suggest. At the same time, I am tempted towards a melange of anomalies and simple, resolute names. Take the following favorites, for example:

Lysander- (greek) liberator; also Lysander Spooner
Aidan- (celtic) fire
Brant- (teutonic) firebrand
Connor- (celtic) wise aid
Max- (latin) the greatest
Miles- (latin) soldier; also Miles Davis
Pavel- (Russian) little
Adley- (hebrew) just
Alistair- (scottish) defender of men; also Alistair Macintyre
Arlen- (celtic) pledge
Asher- (hebrew) lucky, blessed, happy
Ingmar- (scandinavian) famous son; also Ingmar Bergman
Isaac-(hebrew) laughing one
Hadrian- (swedish) dark one
Emerson- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Gage- (old french) pledge
Kern- (gaelic) dark
Mingus- the jazz master
Rhys- (old welsh) rash, ardent
Ronan- (celtic) a pledge
Saloman- (hebrew) peaceful
Simon- (hebrew) he who hears
Skyler- (durch) scholar
Tristan- (welsh) clamor; also significant in Romanian and French, where triste means "sad"
Warren- (german) defender
Yarin- (hebrew) to understand
Twain- (english) divided; also Mark Twain
Leron- (arabic) the song is mine

If you have any preferences, email me at alinaon@aol.com and let me know. Cast a vote for a name or suggest a mroe meaningful one.

Monday, July 7, 2003

Good profile on Josef Szajna.

The World and I holds a nice presentation of apocalyptic artist Jósef Szajna's work. An excerpt:

On the eve of World War II, he became a soldier, fighting for the Polish resistance. The Gestapo caught him and sent him to Auschwitz and then, after a foiled attempt to escape, to Buchenwald, two dreaded concentration camps. The identifying number on his arm was 18729, which he interpreted to mean by numerical divination that he was "twice alive." His age when he was captured was eighteen, the first two numbers, and the last three numbers add up to eighteen as well.

He was placed in a cell in the death block. "Waiting for execution brought me closer to the problems of eternity, closer to God. Everything became metaphysical. All that we believed in," he later wrote, "... races, classes and political views--were not important anymore. We were an archipelago of human/inhuman psyches, floating in a sea of numbers." He and other inmates suffered under the ironic motto Arbeit macht Frei (work makes you free). It did make many of them free, in death.

Monday, July 7, 2003

A quote borrowed from David Hart's "Quote of the Month".

Hart quotes an excerpt from Richard Cobden's Russian War-- more timely now than when Hart quoted it (March 2001):

"To set myself right with those hon. Gentlemen who profess to have great regard for liberty everywhere, I beg to state that I yield to no one in sympathy for those who are struggling for freedom in any part of the world; but I will never sanction an interference which shall go to establish this or that nationality by force of arms, because that invades a principle which I wish to carry out in the other direction - the prevention of all foreign interference with nationalities for the sake of putting them down...

Are we to be the Don Quixotes of Europe, to go about fighting for every cause where we find that some one has been wronged? In most quarrels there is generally a little wrong on both sides; and, if we make up our minds always to interfere when any one is being wronged, I do not see always how we are to choose between the two sides. It will not do always to assume that the weaker party is in the right, for little States, like little individuals, are often very quarrelsome, presuming on their weakness, and not unfrequently abusing the forbearance which their weakness procures them."

David Hart's online library of classical liberal texts, as well as his link to good texts on war and peace, provide excellent resources for the inquiring mind.

Sunday, July 6, 2003

Why envy earns no sympathy.

I stumbled across a thought-provoking piece by Joseph Epstein on "the green-eyed monster" called envy. (Epstein is currently wrapping up a book on the topic, forthcoming in August 2003.) On the disticntion between envy and jealousy, Epstein writes:

The real distinction is that one is jealous of what one has, envious of what other people have. Jealousy is not always pejorative; one can after all be jealous of one's dignity, civil rights, honor. Envy, except when used in the emulative sense mentioned by Aristotle, is always pejorative. If jealousy is, in cliché parlance, spoken of as the "green-eyed monster," envy is cross-, squinty-, and blearily red-eyed. Never, to put it very gently, a handsome or good thing, envy. Although between jealousy and envy, jealousy is often the more intensely felt of the two, it can also be the more realistic: One is, after all, sometimes correct to feel jealousy. And not all jealousy plays the familiar role of sexual jealousy. One may be jealous--again, rightly--of one's reputation, integrity, and other good things. One is almost never right to feel envy: To be envious is to be, ipso facto, wrong.

Perhaps Epstein's most poignant assertion about envy describes it as a "self-poisoning of the mind...usually less about what one lacks than about what other people have". To feel envious is to "do it to yourself", as Radiohead sings in "Just"-- "you do it to yourself, you do, and that's what really hurts". It is to admit that the happiness of other people enrages you. It is to prefer levelling over level-headedness. And it is a pity that we find so many excuses for it.

Friday, July 4, 2003

From David Hart's lecture at the IHS Seminar this weekend.

A WMD take on the "This page cannot be displayed" sign.

Thursday, July 3, 2003

Love it.



Thank you Roderick for posting such a lovely inspiration. And thank you Cameron for, as usual, drawing wonderful things to my attention.

Thursday, July 3, 2003

Various policy distinctions-- today's grab-bag.

Robert Higgs points out that defense of one's home is not terrorism, even if your home happens to be in Iraq.

Why can't America lose a war in Iraq? James Pinkerton writes:

Because of the widening mismatch between rhetoric at home and observed results in Iraq. Put simply, if the White House keeps insisting we've won, even as Americans are still dying, the credibility canyon will eventually swallow Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The American military can handle what's ahead, but Americans on the homefront are ill-prepared for what's happening now. The White House has appeared to believe its own propaganda, namely, that the "liberation" of Iraq would be a "cakewalk." Much of what Americans were told about the war - we'd find weapons of mass destruction, we'd be met with jubilation, Iraqi democracy was just around the corner - has been disproved.

No wonder that disillusion has set in. According to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll, a full 44 percent of Americans view the costs of the war to be "unacceptable." One might ask: As full-fledged combat operations resume, complete with aggressive names such as "Scorpion" and "Sidewinder," are the American people going to feel better about rising body counts? A second victory over Iraqi enemies will come, but it will not come without a fight.

Sooner or later, Bush is going to have to go on TV and level with the American people. He will have to eat some of his happy-talking spin-words and tell the truth: There's a lot more blood, sweat and tears ahead. That's the least that Bush owes to those who are bleeding and sweating - and to their relatives back home, who might be in tears.

Interesting admissals from US National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice last Thursday when meeting with British officials before a trip to the Middle East. Rice attacked the concept of a multipolar world, dismissing it as a "theory of rivalry" that had never promoted peace.

"Multipolarity was never a unifying idea or vision... it was a necessary evil that sustained the essence of war but did not promote peace," she said in an address to the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS.)

"Multipolarity is a theory of rivalry, of competing interests and, at its very worst, of competing values," she told the assembly of experts on international and security affairs.

Those, like the Bush foreign policy team, who consider a unipolar world the ideal should ask themselves a few questions:

1. Does a unipolar world, led by the United States, cause problems for free trade? In other words, can we rely on the US government to promote free trade in an atmosphere of fairness when it has no other governments powerful enough to make it back down from particular sanctions and tariffs? Please recall that the current administration has promoted free trade less than the Clinton administration, not to speak of the damaging effects of steel subsidides and tariffs.

2. Will a unipolar world led by the United States increase the amount of military intervention (i.e. use of the military as policy tool)? What will stop us from, say, sending our troops into a country with strategic resources that refuses to trade with us on our own, perhaps biased terms?

Wednesday, July 2, 2003

Bush's "notion".

On Wednesday, the President of the Somewhat-Free World said that the constitutional ban on gay marriage proposed in the House might not be needed, in spite of the recent USC decision in the Texas case. Bush spoke with his usual eloquence on the subject, declaring:

"I don't know if it's necessary yet....Let's let the lawyers look at the full ramifications of the recent Supreme Court hearing. What I do support is a notion that marriage is between a man and a woman."

Oy vey.

Wednesday, July 2, 2003

Keep your edge polished.

What's not to love about Doug Patton's response to the "do not call" list? But what's not even better about Radley's spirited, thoughtful shredding of the same list?

Wednesday, July 2, 2003

Military blues.

Jonathan Steele writes about the Anglo-American Empire's admitted mistakes in the post-Iraq-war planning scenario. Now let's see how long it takes the kings to admit the whole imbruglio was a bloody mistake.

Am I too skeptical about the ability of the US military to do good abroad? Maybe-- but the last 30 years bear me out. (Please no more WWII scenarios-- we are NOT involved in anything even minutely resembling World War II right now. We aren't even sure who the enemies might be.) My skepticism includes the ability of the US military to do good for even its members.

Wednesday, July 2, 2003

When the Lord takes it upon himself to govern Alabama.

Alabama governor Bob Riley is pushing for a heretobefore-unmatched fusion of faith and government. Using his Christian faith as justification, Governor Riley called for a .2 billion tax hike, largely on the backs of wealthier taxpayers, for the benefit of the poor. According to ABC News' Oliver Libaw:

It's all adding up to the largest increase in the state's history, and perhaps the first based on the Bible.

And it only gets trickier as liberal Democratic religious activists hop on board Riley's Bible-thumping tax plan.

"What Bob Riley is doing is acting like a Christian," said the Rev. Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners, a Christian magazine that focuses on social justice issues. Wallis believes his faith mandates support for progressive policies, like government services for the poor. "The Bible is full of poor people," he said. "Biblical politics has the poor at the center."

But for many Christians, the issue is not that simple, however. "For most of us, religion and politics are just too complicated for an easy, simple world view," said John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron in Ohio who studies religion in politics. "Does care for the poor mean taxes, or does it mean charity, or does it mean food stamps?" he asked.

Richard Cizik, a vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, cites Matthew 22:21: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." "It's really hard for the Christian to determine what's God's and what's Caesar's," said Cizik, whose group represents at least 10 million Pentecostals, Charismatics, and other evangelicals.

But even those who give very different answers agree it is an important question. Cizik says he doesn't support raising taxes, but he agrees religion has something to say about tax policy. "The Bible isn't a recipe for a tax policy. But it does say a lot about the poor. And I think that evangelicals need to address this issue in increasing measure," he said.

Wallis agrees. "A budget is a moral document, whether it be a family budget or city budget," he said. "It says what our priorities are and what we care about."

Neoconservative thinkers have long accused Muslims of drawing too thin a line between religious and civic duty. However, both liberal and conservative Christian leaders are noting the rapidly increasing ties between religious and political issues. For Riley, his "save the poor for Jesus" strategy will probably attract a large number of the traditional Democratic voting constituents of Alabama, which tend to be either extremely poor or very wealthy.

Alabama aside, however, the conservative vote-grabbing strategy of using faith to justify big government policies has gained credibility among the Right. Here, the principles of economic conservatism seem to clash with the principles of Messianic Christianty. Or do they?

A faithful Christian is encouraged to spend his time and money helping those in need. But is a faithful Christian encouraged to steal other people's money and use it for helping others in need? Does the end justify the means? Can the bureaucrat justify the crime with reference to his good intentions? Can the Christian justify the un-Christian crime of theft with reference to the fulfillment of his Godly duties? How far from here to perfectly coherent justifications of holy war?

CASTIGAT RIDENDO MORES.

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