maya's (l)inklings

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A question of who should be allowed access to a safe form of contraception is at its root a question of how badly we want to, or believe that we can, police young women’s sexuality. When Obama is talking about his daughters, we know he’s not really basing his opinion on an anxiety that they might suffer the adverse effects of drinking a whole jug of Pepto-Bismol or swallowing 50 Advil, things that any 11-year-old who walks into a CVS with a wad of cash could theoretically do. When he says that he wants to “apply common sense” to questions of young women’s access to emergency contraception, he is telegraphing his discomfort with the idea of young women’s sexual agency, or more simply, with the idea of them having sex lives at all. This discomfort might be comprehensible from an emotional, parental point of view. But these are not familial discussions; this is a public-health policy debate, and at a time when “16 and Pregnant” airs on MTV, the fact that a daddy feels funny about his little girls becoming grown-ups has no place in a discussion of healthcare options for America’s young women. It is also nearly impossible to imagine a similar use of language or logic to justify a ban of condom sales.

Moreover, Obama’s invocation of his role as a father is an insult to the commitments and priorities of those on the other side of this issue. Are we to believe that those who support the increased availability of emergency contraception do not have daughters? That if they do, they care less about those daughters than Barack Obama does about his? And that if they do not, they cannot possibly know better than a father of daughters what is best for young women? Why should we be asked to believe that Obama’s paternity imbues him with more moral authority on the subject of women’s health and reproductive lives than the investments of doctors, researchers and advocates who – regardless of their parental status – have dedicated their lives to working on behalf of increased reproductive health options. This line of argument is no better than the Mama Grizzly argument developed by Sarah Palin during 2010′s midterm elections, in which she asserted that her band of super-conservative mothers were qualified for office because “moms just know when there’s something wrong.”

— Rebecca Traister on Obama’s paternalistic attitude about over-the-counter access to emergency contraception.

“ The sociologist Max Weber, in his 1919 essay “Politics as a Vocation,” drew a distinction between “the ethic of responsibility” and “the ethic of ultimate ends”—between those who act from a sense of practical consequence and those who act from higher conviction, regardless of consequences. These ethics are tragically opposed, but the true calling of politics requires a union of the two. On its own, the ethic of responsibility can become a devotion to technically correct procedure, while the ethic of ultimate ends can become fanaticism. Weber’s terms perfectly capture the toxic dynamic between the President, who takes responsibility as an end in itself, and the Republicans in Congress, who are destructively consumed with their own dogma. Neither side can be said to possess what Weber calls a “leader’s personality.” Responsibility without conviction is weak, but it is sane. Conviction without responsibility, in the current incarnation of the Republican Party, is raving mad.

— George Packer on the debt ceiling battle.

Baratunde really said it all.

On this stupid “Ground Zero mosque” controversy

The absurd opposition to the “Ground Zero mosque”—and Obama’s cowardly backtracking on the issue—is shaking my tenuous faith in the American public and our leaders. As Steve Benen writes, first, let’s drop the pretense that the opposition to the Cordoba House somehow isn’t about religious bigotry. He asks, would these conservatives be so hysterical if the community center didn’t include a place for worship?

If the answer is “yes,” they’d be every bit as incensed, then it’s time to acknowledge that those who are whining incessantly about the community center would have to be just as outraged by the notion of Feisal Abdul Rauf’s coffee shop. These are folks who, by all appearances, wouldn’t want a Muslim American neighbor building anything in lower Manhattan, which is crazy, illegal, and at odds with how we do things in the United States.

If the answer is “no,” they wouldn’t be every bit as hysterical, and the inclusion of a place for prayer is what serves as a deal-breaker, then it’s time to acknowledge that this has everything to do with religious liberty, and a desire to deny First Amendment protections to faith groups the right holds in contempt.

Either way, there’s no excuse for such ugly nonsense.

Of course, most who oppose the mosque are not so stupid to deny that the founders of the Cordoba House have every right to build it there—they just argue it’s still not right to do so. It’s “insensitive,” a “provocation.” But as Chris Martinez points out, given that the Cordoba House is “deliberately, expressly, and unequivocally intended to stand for the diametric opposite of what the 9/11 attackers believed,” that stance too is nothing more than Islamophobia:

The Cordoba House, in other words, is not only blatantly separate and distinct from the identity and ideology of al Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorists, it is a direct repudiation (“refudiation,” as demanded by Sarah Palin) of them. So the only way that someone could ever confuse the Cordoba Initiative with radical, militant Islam is if that person thought that Islam itself is inseparable from terrorism or terrorist sympathies (or had been misled by demagogues to believe the Cordoba House aligned itself with radical Islam).

Now, it is shocking to me that 68% of Americans are so Islamophobic that they can’t separate the radical Islamic terrorism of al-Qaeda from moderate, cosmopolitan Muslim New Yorkers. Maybe they don’t know any non-radical Muslims? I can see how this might be the problem. Hell, if I hadn’t met some loving, progressive Christians in my life, I suppose I might assume that all Christians are terrorists who murder doctors, don’t believe in women’s equality, and hate gay people. So maybe they don’t have Muslim neighbors. Maybe they remember 9/11 and can’t see beyond their fear and anger and forget about their daughter’s nice Muslim teacher or the Muslim guy at the corner store who sells them cigarettes every day. Or maybe they’re just unabashedly religious bigots. I don’t know.

But you know what would be really great? If the U.S. president would look at these opinion polls and the hysteria in the conservative media and then throw them out the fucking window and get his brilliant speech writers to write a speech about how America is based on not only religious freedom but also religious tolerance—and strengthened by religious diversity. About how bigotry of all kinds is anti-American. About how a culture war between the U.S. and some monolithic Muslim world is exactly what al-Qaeda would love to see. If he needs help, he could echo Mayor Bloomberg’s words:

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

But instead Obama backtracked. As Digby said of Obama’s most recent stance: “Oh well. It was a nice gesture for the president of the United States to unequivocally recognize the constitutional right to religious freedom. It’s probably too much to expect that he might unequivocally stand up for religious tolerance too.”

I refuse to believe that nearly 70% of Americans are religious bigots. There are times when the American people need to be shaken out of their knee-jerk stupidity. They need to be reminded of their higher ideals and told what they should believe in by their leaders. This is one of those times. And Obama didn’t step up to do it.

I love having a smart president. Via The Atlantic. Bigger photo here.