I wrote a long post over at NaPP on my conflicting views on the subject. It relates to a recent study on STEM career opportunities that has gotten some attention.

The thing is, it’s easy and socially convenient, to be a writer in non-conservative political magazines in diverse and liberal echelons of culture and stake out a position in favor of bringing in more talent from abroad. It’s easy because it’s not something a lot of people that matter to you are likely to speak up in protest about.

And to be honest, it’s easy for me to make these arguments. I don’t live in such an area, and I write for The League, but I nonetheless inhabit a cultural and economic orbit where I am not made particularly vulnerable by a potential influx of foreign workers competing with me for jobs. My wife’s job makes my career (or lack thereof) a lot less important. But more than that, the concerns Weissman outlines are not something I see, for the most part. At first thought, nearly every STEM person I know but one (who just recently graduated with a PhD in astrophysics, which is something of a niche) is doing well financially. Even those without college degrees! Back in Colosse, I know more people that are having trouble hiring (and yes, at reasonable rates with reasonable requirements) than I do people that just can’t find work.

But then I think again, and I think of the people in Deseret. Those people are struggling, with or without a degree. I am tempted to dismiss this because, well, they live in Deseret. And not in its capital and not in its tech corridor. What can you expect? But maybe, when I think a third time, that situation is more common than I think, and Colosse is less common than I think. And I wonder how much of what I believed is the comfortable generosity of the relatively invulnerable.

Because at fourth thought, I think back to when I was working at Mindstorm, a very large software company in the Pacific Northwest. I think of the fact that I worked in a department where maybe 20% of my coworkers were American. And this was a job that didn’t require a particularly high IQ. It required job-specific knowledge that could be taught. But why teach it when you can just bring it in?

Though discussion of immigration is typically discouraged here, feel free to discuss it as long as we can avoid talking about “racists!”, “treason!”, and “destroyers of civilization!”

When Governor Mark Sanford abandoned his job to win back his lover and destroy his family, I can’t say that I approved of that.

However, once the damage had been done and the smoke had cleared, I was actually sort of happy him that he went on to marry the mistress and found happiness (I’d assume) with the love of his life.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my happiness for him (to the extent that I cared about him) was entirely contingent on his never seeking public office again. It hadn’t occurred to me that he would even try. I mean, this is not only cheated on his wife and sabotaged his family, but he abandoned his post to make that happen. That makes him relatively unique among philandering politicians. You do that, and you’re done in public life as far as I’m concerned. No second acts. That’s the price you pay, which, considering the gravity of the transgression, is a relatively minor one.

So yeah, I’m a bit bothered that he’s now Congressman-elect Mark Sanford. That’s like Jim McGreevey becoming an Episcopal minister. Or a congressman. (Okay, McGreevey professional transgression, but whatever.) Except that apparently, the New York Episcopal Church has higher standards and rejected McGreevey for being “a jackass.” The South Carolina Republicans in CD1, and indeed CD1 as a whole, apparently, is not so strict.

And so are a number of other countries (perhaps every last one, in their own way).

Steven Taylor* posts excerpts from and a link to an interview with an American political operative who has done some work in Israeli elections. He comments:

This struck me on a couple of levels. First, this is fundamentally what comparative political inquiry is: the systematic understanding of similarities and differences across cases to help produce a broader understanding of the political. Second, it is a good example of how groups of people like to think that they are somehow exceptional or unique when, in fact, they only think that because they don’t know all that much about other places. This is a mistake that Americans writ large make all time. Of course, everybody thinks that they, or their group, is exceptional (and maybe sometimes they are), but often our view of how special we are is derived from the fact that we only know one thing and we just assume that it has to be special.

There’s not much to disagree with there, that we can learn from other countries and they can learn from us. As Americans, we are often more enthusiastic about the latter than the former.

That said, when we do so, I think that there are ways in which we do have to consider that we are different (just as we should consider ways in which other countries are different from us). To use an example of international comparison that conservatives make, for instance, I don’t think that there is a whole lot that we can learn from Switzerland’s high rates of gun ownership and low rates of gun crimes. And when I take a position against learning from Scandinavian experience, it’s not political rhetoric. Even things that Scandinavian countries do that I like – such as Sweden’s voucher system – are mostly transferable to the US in my mind and imagination. Not that it wouldn’t work, or that it would, but it’s speculation. Ditto Finland.

A lot of my thirties has been spend learning the notion of context-dependent. While I am generally a supporter of gun rights here, if I were in Singapore or Japan, I’d likely not support a second amendment there. I used to glibly state “any nation that needs a draft to staff an army is probably not worth protecting,” but having learned more about the situations in some other countries (like Israel), I’ve learned it’s remarkably context-dependent. And my argument comes across like “any country that has to pressure people to get vaccinations deserves to be struck with polio.

Now, when I talk about the US as being exceptional, one thing I am not willing to argue is that we are exceptional in our exceptionalism. Being the ugly American that I am, there aren’t many countries I actually know enough about to know how alike or different they are than we are. That’s not to say I sink into absolute relativism and decline to make judgments, though I try to be less judgmental of them than I am of US.

In many ways, I don’t worry about when we are out of sync with the rest of the world. I mean, I look at our health care system and the fact that it’s different than elsewhere nearly isn’t as troublesome as the fact that it’s expensive and inefficient. I oppose the death penalty, but the fact that it is banned elsewhere doesn’t play much of a role, and so on. I have a not-admirable tendency to get irked when internationalists look at how we are out of step and seem to imply that such should be an indication that we are deficient. We are us. Exasperating, chaotic, diverse, gargantuan us. Unique, for better or worse.

To one of the points that Taylor specifically points to, I don’t really look at multi-party systems like what Israel has and envy it. I believe that there are definite advantages to the American two-party system. Which sometimes gets me looks like I am the American who is closed off to other options. Truthfully, there are some aspects of other systems I do like (the National/Liberal distinction in Australia, for example), though I am not sure how we would get from here to there. I do like New York’s fusion ticket… but the party apparatus destroyed that. So to an extent, it is very much the sort of status quo bias that Taylor has criticized. But I suppose it’s the small-c conservative in me that is skeptical of widespread electoral reform.

Which all brings me back to my general support for federalism, where it becomes easier to try things on our shores with our people to then start expanding as they prove effective or limiting exposure when they prove not to be. I am far more comfortable taking something that is working in New York and California and rolling it out nationally than I am taking something that is working for Japan or even Australia. (Some of this emanating from a view not typically associated with what Taylor is talking about: My belief that Americans can screw just about anything up, no matter how well it works elsewhere.)

* – I should note that I have a history is misinterpreting a lot of what he says, and niggling at it. Even though I am not sure we are even all that far apart politically, there is just a bit of a disconnect at times and I am sure it’s my fault. This post is not a case where I think I am rebutting what he says, merely tracing my own thoughts of my own reaction. There is a good chance that we disagree only a little, or not at all.

Of the (apparently failed) attempt to rig the electoral college in Virginia, Burt Likko writes:

Forgive me if I’m less than impressed with the notion that this would completely de-legitimize any Presidential election in which a Republican happened to win. After all, I can foresee that district-level allocation would result in fewer campaign resources being put in to a state certain to be divided — Virginia could be diminishing rather than enhancing its role as a key player in Presidential politics by splitting its 13 electoral votes roughly down the middle — if the Republican is going to get not fewer than 5 votes and the Democrat not fewer than 4, then only 4 and not 13 votes are in play, so it’s not as much of a prize.

You see, the fear on the part of Democrats, and the hope on the part of Republicans, comes from the fact that by virtue of controlling a majority of state legislatures at the point in the electoral cycle when redistricting happens, Republicans have gerrymandered themselves into a majority of Congressional districts. The assumption is that election results on a district-by-district basis will roughly parallel elections to the House. Which means Republicans will have a “locked in” advantage of thirty-three votes because the 2012 Congressional elections returned 234 Republicans and 201 Democrats.

In 2012, Barack Obama won 27 jurisdictions (26 states and D.C.) and Mitt Romney won 24, so that means that the Electoral College results of 255 votes for Obama and 282 votes for Romney, notwithstanding that the popular vote was very much in Obama’s favor. And that will be how every election for the remaining duration of the Republic will turn out. (There, I just spared you reading the article on Larry Sabato’s blog.)

The danger, it seems to me, is the redefining of the acceptable. No, Maine and Nebraska don’t make much of a difference. No, Virginia on its own won’t make much of a difference. But once the precedent is set, it’s really hard to take back. Perhaps the most optimistic things that can be said about it are that (a) it won’t spread or (b) that it will lead to a collapse of the electoral college as a whole. The former is hardly a ringing endorsement because the possibility that it might be wrong far could be catastrophic to the system. The latter depends on much to come to fruition, and supposes that the electoral college is so bad that it’s worth getting worse for the possibility of it getting better.

If put to referendum, I would vote to do away with the Electoral College tomorrow. But… I don’t consider it to be evil. I consider the cons to outweigh the pros. There are advantages insofar as it prevents a Republican from winning by running up extreme victories in the south and it prevents Democrats from winning by running up high totals in urban areas. It also forces candidates to spend time away from urban and suburban areas, which I do not altogether consider to be a bad thing. But the breaking down of an election to a select number of states has a distorting effect that outweighs those advantages.

There is also something to be said for election-by-district. There is nothing, in theory wrong with splitting votes by legislative districts. The parliamentary system works with a similar dynamic (a candidate can lose the “popular vote” but still wind up being Prime Minister). However, the totality of events and factors relating to Virginia in particular make their actions nothing short of reprehensible. It’s indefensible. I can come up with rationales for a lot of things, but not this. Gerrymandering may be old hat, and district-based allocation are nothing new, and holding a vote based on who is and is not in the state is not unheard of… but this is all of those things and more.

I am less skeptical than Burt is that the Electoral College is now and always. Because it sometimes advantages one party and sometimes the other, a couple rapid-succession flipped votes could lead to a consensus. Because one party is more predisposed to support it than another, if the supporting party is on the losing end and the opposing party has a long enough view to know that it won’t be to their benefit forever – or if they are given something in return (such as DC statehood), I could see it happening. And lastly, if few enough states become competitive, you might get the 3/4 of states you need right there. Or the NPV initiative could work and you’d only need enough states to get to 270 and large states Republican and Democrat have incentives here. All of this is unlikely, but not impossible. (We’re pretty much debating between a 0% likelihood and a 3% likelihood, but what are blogs for if not debating this sort of thing?)

The last thing I wanted to mention is that even if you put gerrymandering aside, district-based voting favors Republicans and will for the foreseeable future. The reason being that rural voters are not as Republican as core urban voters are Democratic. There are only a couple counties in the entire country that vote as Republican as DC does Democratic. I am relatively certain that if you look at individual precincts, you’d see more Republican ones, but wider margins in the Democratic ones (including some with no Republican voters, it turns out). So because of this, even without gerrymandering, there is a stacking of the deck in favor of Republicans. This is something that we should keep in mind: gerrymandering isn’t the only problem here. This is an area where the Republicans can act and the Democrats are simply incapable of responding in kind.

There are a number of ways to skin a deer. Debating between them is a rivalry of concepts of fairness, for which there is no singular, objective answer. But I struggle to come up with a single manner in which what Virginia is doing can be justified. The best we can hope for is that it fails. The next best thing is trying to keep it as contained as possible.

Sperm donor, or father?

Topekan William Marotta sought only to become a sperm donor — but now the state of Kansas is trying to have him declared a father.

Nearly four years ago, Marotta donated sperm in a plastic cup to a lesbian couple after responding to an ad they had placed on Craigslist.

Marotta and the women, Topekans Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner, signed an agreement holding him harmless for support of the child, a daughter Schreiner bore after being artificially inseminated.

But the Kansas Department for Children and Families is now trying to have Marotta declared the 3-year-old girl’s father and forced to pay child support. The case is scheduled for a Jan. 8 hearing in Shawnee County District Court.

Hannah Schroller, the attorney defending Marotta, said the case has intriguing social and reproductive rights implications.

She said Marotta, a mechanic who has taken care of foster children with his wife, Kimberly, answered a Craigslist ad placed by Bauer and Schreiner seeking a sperm donor in March 2009.

The law in the only state in which I am familiar with the law is that it all depends on marital status. A donor who is married to the mother automatically becomes the father, but a donor who is not married to the mother has to adopt the child if he wants any parental rights and the concomitant obligations.

That strikes me as a much better criteria than the one that Kansas is apparently using (though I think all such contracts should be enforceable). Though I do understand the state’s interest here, this sort of thing is toxic to the extent that we want to encourage alternative paths to pregnancy. I’ve commented in the past that one of the main reason I would never become a donor – including an anonymous one with a clinic – is that some judge somewhere will come to the decision that such arrangements are not in the best interest of the child. This isn’t that, but it would still put me ill-at-ease. (more…)

From Ross Douthat:

It wasn’t so much that LaPierre’s performance made no concession whatsoever on gun restrictions or gun safety — that was to be expected. It was that he launched into a rambling diatribe against an absurdly wide array of targets, blaming everything from media sensationalism to “gun-free schools” signs to ’90s-vintage nihilism like “Natural Born Killers” for the Newtown tragedy. Then he proposed, as an alternative to the liberal heavy-handedness of gun control, something equally heavy-handed — a cop in every school, to be paid for by that right-wing old reliable, cuts to foreign aid.

Unfortunately for our country, the Bloomberg versus LaPierre contrast is basically all of American politics today. Our society is divided between an ascendant center-left that’s far too confident in its own rigor and righteousness and a conservatism that’s marched into an ideological cul-de-sac and is currently battering its head against the wall.

The entire Obama era has been shaped by this conflict, and not for the good. On issue after issue, debate after debate, there is a near-unified establishment view of what the government should do, and then a furious right-wing reaction to this consensus that offers no real policy alternative at all.

I don’t agree with the entire piece, but it broadly explains my discontent quite well. Less about the gun debate specifically, more about the larger dynamic.

I believe in one sense that this election is closer than a lot of folks around here, in that those arguing that it was never close cause the state polls and projections persistently leaned in Obama’s favor were off-base. It’s moot now because I agree with the projections insofar as Romney never sealed the deal and the last-minute national movement appears to be in Obama’s direction. I consider the likelihood of a reverse-verdict to be greater, but I consider the greatest likelihood to be an Obama win that will not come down to the wire.

I believe Obama will win the popular vote by somewhere between 1.5% and 2%. If it’s closer to the latter, you can probably flip Florida into the Obama column (maybe you can anyway…).

Having said all of that, I do want to submit something else: There’s nothing wrong with a degree of poll-skepticism. They’re probably right. This year, I believe they are. But one of these years, they will be wrong. The likelihood of getting caught between shifting demographics, last-minute undecideds, cell phones*, and lower response rates will make polling increasingly difficult and the accommodations made for these realities will either fail to compensate or will create their own problems.

The polls have failed us before, and they’ll fail us again. Improved scientific technique seems likely to me to have a hard time compensating for various problems that will increasingly aggravate.

There are ways that this may favor Republicans in polling, and ways that it may favor Democrats. It depends on where the problem occurs, and how the pollsters respond to it.

My hope is that when it occurs, it will be something that brings a 9% margin down to a 5% or vice-versa and not something that flips an election. My belief that it could is one of the reasons I have been relatively uptight this cycle on the subject.

* – Yes, I am aware that cell phones are included in many polls. However, response rates from cell phones are likely to be lower and cell phone numbers are less likely to be up-to-date.

-{Okay, so this post directly addresses one of the previously forbidden subjects. “Comment with care” is hopefully assumed. As long as we avoid conversations about how terrible Mexicans and Mexican immigrants are, I think we’ll be okay. I mention Mexicans because it’s hard not to on these subjects, but there are greater abstract notions at play here.}-

Eric Liu has a worthwhile piece on global citizenship. I’d excerpt it but there’s no really good starting point that doesn’t take five paragraphs or more. He lists three kinds. First is global consciousness for one’s actions, which is laudable but not meaningfully citizenship. The second is more internationalism in the form of institutions, which is useful but limited in scope. The third is economic globalism, which is essentially the self-justification of the elites.

I find the notion of global citizenship unsettling. To be of everywhere is to be of nowhere. It’s nice to think that the world is of one, but… it’s just not true. States and populations within the US have conflicting interests, at times, but nothing compared to the US and China or even the US and Japan. Even countries with relatively friendly relations, like the US and India, are as much worlds apart figuratively as literally. There are times I wonder if the US has too much diversity (beyond checkboxes for race and religion) and too many conflicting interests to be a coherent nation. But the world? I don’t understand how you can have solidarity with everybody, which global citizenship implies.

The third kind that he refers to strikes me as the most problematic and potentially nefarious even. Or maybe what I am thinking about is a tangent off of that. There is a natural order of things with alliances and connections and associations. A stateless nation wouldn’t be the world as one. Rather, it would mean that Silicon Valley can more easily associate itself with Tokyo without being anchored to Fresno. It’s the forced association of borders that sends state tax dollars from New York City to Rochester and federal dollars from New York City to Minot. A lot of people – the sorts of people who ordinarily would think such thing tasteless – take a look at the overall money flow and thing that cutting off those ingrates would be awesome. Maybe they’d learn their place and all that.

But that’s just talk. Sometimes geared more towards scoring political points than anything else. As a practical matter, though, considering residents of Orissa no more or less in league with you than the people in Idaho is a fantastic way for neither of them to get the support they need. From a libertarian standpoint, the answer is “So?” From a liberal standpoint – and it’s more often than not liberalism from whence these attitudes come – it makes any social safety net (for instance) unworkable. We have to view ourselves as Americans, and take care of one another to a far greater extent that we take care of people from elsewhere. Global citizenship makes that impossible. On the other side of the world, it means that New Delhi has to make itself a colleague of the other world cities and that means it cannot be in league with rural Orissa in any real sense.

Which itself could be considered the point. Pull the people out of Idaho and (back) to California and the cities therein. As we all know, cities are superior anyway. Without the erection of borders – either formal or by driving up the cost of living and regulations to prevent people from living too close together and pricing them out – the same problems occur. If we can’t guarantee a certain standard of living of 113,000 Mexicans in Mexico, for instance, it is only a little bit easier of they all immigrated here en masse. One way or another, they’d be left behind. To repeat myself: Treating Mexicans and New Mexicans as equivalent (“We’re all citizens of the world”) would be the end to Navajo Nation. We can take care of them – to the minimalist extent that we do – precisely because we favor them over others.

The erection of national borders separating New Mexico from Mexico may be quite unfair in some sense. Someone from New Mexico can pick up and move to Texas and be a recognized citizen. Someone who works harder, is more ambitious, and is smarter who happens to be born in Chihuahua meanwhile can’t get here without some luck (family members already crossed over, for instance) or a whole lot more wherewithal (sneaking across). We can say that since the latter is smart and ambitious and a hard worker that he should be allowed over, but once we’re picking and choosing who we bring over, we’re recognizing the importance of borders.

We can open our borders and that may or may not be the end of the Republic. But if it’s not the end of the Republic, it is the end to virtually any guarantee of any standard of living supported by most Americans (and all but few liberals).

I am among those that thought, on the whole, Romney turned in a pretty impressive performance and Obama a lackluster one.

There are three hesitations I have, however. First, I have been wrong in the past (I got two of the three Bush-Gore debates wrong, and one of the Obama-McCain ones – twice I overestimated the Democrat and once the Republican). Romney looked positive reptilian when he wasn’t talking. I don’t know how many noticed or cared, but that is one of those minor things that can color future perceptions. Second, Romney’s domineering of Lehrer didn’t come across as good. I was cringing a bit at the beginning. I don’t know if he got better or I just got used to it.

The third thing may have worked in his favor, though. It allowed him to get words in he otherwise wouldn’t have an ultimately change the format of the discussion… for the better, in my view. This debate was made more tolerable by its freewheeling style. The “two minute answers” would have been more a hindrance than a help, viewing-wiser. Lehrer is getting some criticism, but I’m glad he did what he did (or didn’t do what he didn’t do).

Even if I am right about Romney’s performance and Obama’s, I don’t think this is a gamechanger. If the press gives Romney some good headlines, it mostly serves to keep him alive. The progress made in establishing himself as something other than a right-wing caricature has to be capitalized on. I’m not sure how much faith I’d have in Romney not to screw it up.

I placed the odds of an Obama victory at 20% before the debate, and I’d place it the same now. A bad performance, though, would have shifted things possibly irrevocably in the other direction.

A part of me wonders what conversations went on behind closed doors in the Romney campaign. There was some talk at the Leaguecast of whether his apparent shift will hurt him among conservative voters. I actually wonder if the goal of the campaign now is not to convince those voters (or more specifically, the donors) that he’s in their corner, but to convince them that he can win. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were pleased with what they saw, if it pans out.

Scotch helps presidential debates go down.

Of the churches within the United States, one of the most gay-friendly is The Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Church of England. Though it varies from region to region, The Episcopal Church allows its priests to perform gay marriages, allows them and their bishops to be gay. So it’s interesting that, across the pond, the Church of England is taking the opposite stand:

Responding to a consultation in England and Wales, the Church of England said government proposals to allow same-sex marriages by 2015 would “alter the intrinsic nature of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as enshrined in human institutions throughout history”.

It said marriage acknowledged “an underlying biological complementarity which, for many, includes the possibility of procreation”.

Justice Minister Crispin Blunt: “We’re seeking to protect… religious organisations”

The Church claims that plans to exempt religious organisations from performing gay marriages would be unlikely to survive legal challenges in domestic and European courts.

As such, the government’s consultation exercise, which closes on Thursday, was “flawed, conceptually and legally”, it added.

Concerns over forcing churches to participate in ceremonies have been raised over here. If the day ever came where this was seriously proposed, I would stand arm-in-arm with the likes of the Southern Baptist Church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Catholic Church in opposition. This, to me, stands at the core of what Freedom of Religion is about. I think such a day is unlikely, though, because I don’t think even a liberal court would allow it, much less force it. Churches have always had great latitude over who they have and have not allowed to marry under their steeples.

The European Union, of course, does not have the same First Amendment history that we do. That creates a whole different set of concerns. I honestly take the Church of England’s concerns in this area a lot more seriously, even though I wish they had the willingness to perform these ceremonies that their American counterparts do (and maybe they do, they just have some hold-outs).

It’s one of the things that points to the Constitution as being a valuable safeguard that, ironically, can allow the government a little more latitude in my view. When we know where there is a limit (at least currently), we feel more free to move a little closer to that limit.

I know that my view on Second Amendment Issues has been greatly effected by Heller v DC and McDonald v Chicago. Prior to that, I would have opposed any sort of gun registration tooth-and-nail in large part because I would fear it be a step along the way to confiscation. Knowing that there are indeed limits to the extent the government can ban guns makes me less likely to oppose some measures that I would otherwise see on a more slope-like surface. Not that I am entirely sanguine on the topic. The confiscations in New Orleans gives me some pause. They had to give the guns back, but there is something quite disconcerting about governments being willing to take the guns when you arguably need them most.

In a comment on a post about anti-discrimination law over at NaPP, Jaybird asks:

Here’s a question that may clarify some things (while it muddies others):

What are the limits to our jurisdiction when it comes to setting things right?

If any, of course.

In the modern day in age, the answer is “nowhere that isn’t expressly forbidden by the Constitution and modern interpretations thereof.” The Constitution is interpreted relatively broadly in some cases, and narrowly in others. Outside certain specific parameters, though, The Commerce Clause covers just about everything this side of a mandate and there’s nothing stopping mandates or anti-discrimination law on the state level which doesn’t even need a paper clause.

It is partially because the government can grab this much power in theory that I think we should sometimes take a step back and say that even though the government can do this and is perfectly within its rights to try to right this particular wrong, is this something we want the government involving itself in? At least a little skepticism in the notion that a wrong that we think might can be righted ought to actually be righted.

I believe that the vast majority of people who cite the possibility of churches having to perform ceremonies would argue against gay marriage in an equal amount if this were completely and entirely not a concern. I do think the CoE does demonstrate, though, that the more open-ended the willingness of the government to right wrongs, though, the more likely you might see some resistance on the basis of slippery-slope arguments. This makes it exceptionally important that when we run across stories like this, that we do not talk of stripping churches that do things we disagree with of tax-exempt status.