answer to andy

Here is my brother Jeff’s answer to my cousin Andy’s post. It’s pretty long, and I don’t recommend it, but here it is:

Wonder no more:

I agreed with the war in Afghanistan but had deep reservations about Iraq and the way we got into it at the time, reservations which have turned into outrage as we have discovered how the administration distorted the info available to it at the time. I think it has weakened the United States in the world rather than strengthened us. I don’t believe the elections in either Afghanistan or Iraq are historic breakthroughs (although I am happy that both occurred) and don’t think we will know what they portend for many years to come. Both Iraq and Afghanistan could well become failed states again in the future if we don’t manage them very wisely.

I believe that free markets and free trade are extraordinarily powerful mechanisms for producing economic progress for all, but I also believe that “unfettered” they can lead to terrible economic catastrophes and cruel and destructive levels of inequality. I am a social democrat who believes that both markets and government can be forces for the good when combined and balanced with each other in intelligent ways.

I am uncomfortable with the way illegal immigration rewards those who break the rules while those who try to obey the rules wait for years for entry or green cards, but I am also uncomfortable with most of the forms of “crackdown” that I hear proposed. With respect to Mexico, I think we should gradually (over a period of a few decades) move to a completely open border within the framework of NAFTA and then permit Mexican citizens, goods, and capital completely free access to the US and vice versa in the same way that the EU does for all its member states and peoples. People who believe in “unfettered” markets contradict themselves when they oppose the free flow of labor.

I believe that reversing Roe v. Wade would be a terrible setback to the fundamental rights of women to plan and control their lives in the 20-30 conservative states that would outlaw abortion.

I sympathize with those who are opposed to gay marriage only in the sense that I understand this is a hard prejudice to get past, but I believe wholeheartedly that it is nothing more than a prejudice that all in all is very similar to racial prejudice and will be seen that way more or less universally within the next century.

I am opposed to conspiratorial, anti-American insanity when I find it on the left (Ward Churchill, Michael Moore when he is at his worst), but I don’t find much of the “left” in the US infected with this if by the “left” we mean the almost 50% of the public who voted against Bush. The Democratic Party as a whole does not seem to me to be anti-American or insane or inclined to conspiratorial thinking. I am also opposed to conspiratorial, anti-American insanity on the right of the sort exemplified by Anne Coulter when she claims that essentially the entire Democratic Party was treasonous or complicit with treason during the McCarthy period or by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson when they suggested that 9/11 was God’s retribution for America’s decadence and support of abortion and gay rights or by the Swift Boat Veterans when they smeared decorated Vietnam veterans like John Kerry.

I support Israel’s right to exist and its right to defend itself against invasion and terrorism; I don’t support the United States giving a virtual blank check to any policy pursued by any Israeli government no matter how oppressive of fundamental Palestinian human rights and dignity and no matter how destructive of the prospects for peace. Between the European drift into virtual anti-Semitism and a blank check for a war criminal (condemned as such by Israeli authorities) and extremist like Ariel Sharon, I believe there must be some more appropriate middle ground that would involve major US commitments of money and military guarantees to promote security and development on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide and to encourage cooperation across that divide.

I believe that by far the most biased media in the country are the explicitly right wing media, most notably Fox News, the Washington Times, and the vast array of extremist nuts on right-wing talk radio (Michael Savage, Michael Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, etc.), not to mention Pat Robertson’s whole cable network. The mainstream media of the elite newspapers, network news operations, and CNN are radically more committed to the ethics of fair and balanced journalism than any of these conservative media and are also very responsive to documented demonstrations of bias by their reporters and editors. When was the last time any reporter or editor was disciplined at any of the right wing outlets for bias or distortion?

I believe university faculties in most public universities and most secular private colleges and universities are overwhelmingly liberal (but not at all radical left) in their political positions and the great majority of those liberal academics make a serious effort in their classrooms to be fair to views across the political spectrum. They are not always successful in those efforts because they don’t have to confront very many conservative colleagues. And there is a too large minority of liberals and leftists on campuses who have no particular regard for fairness to conservative opponents. I don’t have a solution; I believe most of this has to do with self-selection as conservatives are more drawn to other kinds of professions than academia rather than with ideological discrimination in the academy (although that also exists). I believe the ideological and religious bias and close-mindedness of conservative Christian colleges like Oral Roberts U. or Bob Jones U. is much more pronounced than most liberal campuses and is producing much more close-minded and dogmatic graduates than the secular liberal institutions are.

I believe that the UN and other international institutions are absolutely essential beginnings for a system of limited forms of global governance on issues of macroeconomic management of the global economy, world environmental issues, global inequality, peacekeeping and a host of other issues connected to the problematic aspects of globalization (which on the whole is a positive thing in the long run). I believe the UN is seriously flawed and weak and that we should be working hard to get it fixed instead of working hard to destroy it. I don’t believe we should subordinate ourselves to international law when it does not actually exist.

I believe that affirmative action is flawed and needs to be updated and in some ways transcended with new approaches to increasing racial equality and racial harmony, but I believe it is indisputable that it has produced a great deal more good than harm during its existence, including bringing to national prominence such important figures as Colin Powell (who never would have become a general without affirmative action) and Condi Rice (who never would have become a professor at Stanford without affirmative action). My views on affirmative action are pretty close to the dozens of retired generals and admirals who filed a brief in support of the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policies

And finally I don’t believe that the views that Nick/John embraced in his list (or the views embraced in my list) are somehow self-evidently correct or that failure to embrace them all is evidence of being a leftwing (or rightwing) whacko.

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