Amitai Etzioni Notes

Supreme Court tilts election, big time

This week’s Supreme Court decision allowing election laws that greatly favor the GOP to stand received little attention, considering the considerable and partisan effect it will have on the upcoming election. Because the court dealt only with the law of one state (Indiana), one might assume that whatever damage is to be inflicted on the Democrats would be limited. Actually, 23 other states have already enacted similar laws, and, now that the law has been given the green light by the court, others may well follow.

McCain’s Gas

McCain is depicted as a man of integrity, as one who commands an inner core of strong values, a man of principles. But, he has veered to the right to gain the GOP nomination; he changed his mind on several key policy issues (e.g. on extending the Bush tax cuts). But all this is not nearly as revealing of the true nature of his political character as his call to lift the tax on gasoline (albeit, for now only for the summer). It is a very revealing move.

 

If wishes were horses—liberals could democratize

The hearts of most liberals may well be in the right place; they bleed for the poor, care about the ill, and seek to reign in power. However, they often have a hard time facing up to tragic facts: that the road to hell is paved with good intentions; that simply throwing more and more money at unyielding problems is unlikely to make them budge; that there are severe limits on what even the ‘richest nation in the world’ can do (especially given the democratic need for majority support for government action).

Unhooked—and paying for it?

Washington Post reporter Laura Sessions Stepp’s recent book Unhooked is a rich sociological vineyard. It revisits a theme flagged by Tom Wolfe in his 2004 novel I am Charlotte Simmons. Both are studies of new sexual norms that have emerged on college campuses in which millions of students have sexual relations with one another while avoiding social relationships. They do not “waste” time on dating, seeking to avoid both the “costs” of developing relationships and the pangs of loss when relationships sour and then break-up. Instead, students engage in sexual relations with partners who are, as the catch-phrase puts it, “friends with benefits”; only the focus is on the (sexual) benefits, not on friendship.  The energy conserved by avoiding relationships, we are told, is then invested by students in their careers.  Some feminists celebrate this development, arguing that all that has changed is that women now do what men long did: f— and hurry along.

Let Them Wear Headscarves II: A Response

My call for dropping the ban on wearing headscarves, for those women who wish to wear them -- even on campuses in Turkey, in governments buildings in Germany, and in schools in France (where crosses are allowed) -- generated a considerable set of comments [here]. The following is my response. Given the variety of the responses, it is not possible to react to each single comment; instead I will try to deal with issues raised by several commentators.

J Street: In the Wrong Corner

Finally, there is a new Jewish lobby, said to be dedicated to the security of Israel, called J-Street. Sadly, from day one it defined Israel’s number one enemy as —another pro Israel lobby, another group of American Jews, namely, AIPAC. Jews have excelled in many areas, but in none have they done nearly as well as in hating each other and in generating factions and sub factions that fight one another, even when the enemy is at the gate. (There are already fights within J-Street).

Let Them Wear Scarves

Can you explain to me why thoughtful people, including several renowned public intellectuals, oppose the right of women to choose to wear headscarves--on campuses out of all places? The same people,  commentators, editors, and other talking heads who strongly hold that a woman has a right to do with her body whatever she pleases—third trimester abortions, abortions without notifying her husband, piercing everything that sticks out and a lot that does not—but not to cover her hair with a piece of cloth.

The Limits of Internationalism

In reaction to the busted unilateralism of the Bush Administration, internationalism is again in vogue. Watch out, lest you get what you are praying for. For a reminder of what the United Nations, the premier international body, is often like, see its recent treatment of hate speech.

Stanley Crossick reviews Security First

"That great Communitarian, Amitai Etzioni, compellingly argues that the first priority in foreign policy is to provide basic security, not to democratize (Security First, 2007, Yale University Press). He argues for a 'muscular, moral foreign policy' for the United States. Security cannot, however, be mainly based on military forces, police and other methods of law enforcement. Security is based largely on values, on most people most of the time doing what must be done because they believe they ought to do it.

When and where the right to security is violated, all other rights are violated as well. The prevention of genocide is a much more legitimate reason for intervening in the affairs of another country than, say, democratization.

Priorities, priorities, priorities

The current debate about the foreign policy of the next administration focuses on select hot spots (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan). Sometimes, Russia and Chain are mentioned. Very little attention is paid to what over arching principles are going to direct the new foreign policy and what basic strategy it is going to follow. Above all, no one is willing to come clean and openly admit that the United States –“the richest nation in the world”— can do much less than we wish, and hence must set priorities. Moreover, the United States may very well be unable to get very far down the list of what ought to be done, leaving much uncovered.