In the epic podcast about same sex marriage between me, John Schwenkler and OG Scott Payne, John spoke about the importance of recognizing the cultural relevance of same sex coupling. John finds my personal focus on legality insufficient. In an odd inversion of what you might expect, this became framed, I think, as my providing insufficient recognition of the realities of homosexual love. (This is an inversion because I am in favor of same sex marriage, where John is conflicted, with a strong feeling that the institution that codifies gay relationships should be distinct from heterosexual marriage.)

Writing in response to this, tough cookie (and same sex marriage skeptic) Helen Rittlemeyer wrote,

Everybody remembers Ali taunting Ernie Terrell in 1967: “What’s my name, fool?” Whether or not you sympathize with Terrell’s reluctance to legitimize Ali’s conversion, I think it’s clear that the gentlemanly thing to do, given the situation, is to bite the bullet and call the man whatever he wants…. Legal recognition of same-sex unions is the equivalent of putting “Muhammad Ali” on the fight card. It won’t force conservative churches to recognize gay marriages, but it will make every reference to a man’s “partner” sound hostile. If the government calls him a husband, I can’t refuse to call him one without putting myself in a class with the people who say “freedom fries.”

To which the obvious rejoinder, it seems to me, is “so just recognize the equality of the marriage.”

As John made clear in the podcast, and I think Helen believes too, calling gay marriage marriage is an example of failing to give the elephant a goddamn peanut; they believe that there is a difference between a union between two people of the same sex, and two people of different sexes. I can only say that, of course, there are some differences in those unions, some obvious, some not, but that those differences don’t need to be recognized by government in a way that changes our nomenclature for permanent romantic pairing. As John has alluded on his own blog, part of the problem with his question is that there is a sense in which race, like gender, is also real, and yet the state doesn’t see a need to differentiate between inter-racial marriages and homoracial (neologism!) unions. I think John does a little unnecessary mental gymnastics here; simply the fact that we can draw meaningful distinctions between different situations– in marriage or elsewhere– doesn’t, I think, compel us to create two different names for the institution. And I think we should always proceed with caution when we move in the direction of “separate but equal”, as the true insight of Brown vs. Board of Ed was precisely that separate is inherently unequal.

As I’ve said before, we can draw distinctions, but we absolutely are empowered, I think, as both a culture and as a society of laws, to make up our own mind about when its necessary to draw those distinctions in explicit ways. Sure, people will draw different reactions to same-sex unions, in some senses, than they draw from heterosexual unions. But cultural and social distinctions will take care of culture and society. We can leave the law out of it.

Reflecting on Israel, ED Kain writes

Note when Foukara mentions that the only country Al-Jazeera has never been shut-down in is Israel.  Perhaps this is another reason we hold them in our esteem–they reflect some of our shared values.

Quite so. This is in fact one of my hobbyhorses when it comes to Israel. When people say that we must support Israel because it is a democratic actor that at least attempts to live up to conventional Western dictates of proper conduct, they are right both in the sense that we should privilege democracy and human rights, and in the fact that Israel remains, for its many failings, head and shoulder above almost all of its neighbors in terms of the kind of conduct and organization we might want to see from any given country. What people who make this claim too often fail to recognize, or to point out, is that it is precisely because of their democratic and enlightened nature that makes Israel an appropriate target for legitimate criticism.

Sharing our values, after all, involves respecting the right to self-governance of the (presently, and for 40 years) dispossessed people of the Palestinian territories, and the preference for just war theory which renders the kind of disproportionate response to Hamas’s terrorism untenable. Participation in the world as one of the enlightened liberal democracies carries with it enormous sacrifice; our literary and philosophical tradition holds that this sacrifice is worth it. It so happens in this particular instance that I and many others think that the surest path to lasting peace and prosperity for Israel is also the best path for defending human rights, as this conflict has become a constant problem for Israeli prosperity. Beyond that self-interest, though, is the at times unfair but simple truth that of those who have the most to give, the most is asked, and that it is precisely Israel’s virtue that compels it to better behavior than it has demonstrated.

One of the many answers to “why do you criticize Israel”, in other words, is that rather than thinking so little of Israel, many of us think so much of it.

C. Augustin Dierkes post on the Mexican drug war to me highlighted one of the many downsides to the drug war, one which happens to be among the more distressing changes in American life from the past century: the increasing use of the American military in civilian contexts and settings.

The point of using the war analogy in the war on drugs is to demonstrate that, when it comes to the fight against the trafficking of illegal drugs, “the gloves are off” and all equipment and tactics are on the table. And, while I echo many others in finding a great deal of empty rhetoric in the war on drugs terminology, it is true that the last several decades of American efforts at eliminating drug use has seen the introduction of weaponry and tactics previously unheard of in crime prevention. What’s more, the American military and intelligence apparati have been used regularly to limit the inflow of drugs into the United States, since the great Reaganite expansion of the drug war. The fact that our standard metrics for determining the efficacy of our drug prohibition has shown no consistent or meaningful reduction in the use of illegal drugs would be enough to question this use of military personnel in the drug war. But there are legitimate reasons to oppose this militarization independent of effect.

The founding politicians of our country had a disdain for standing armies that would have them relegated to the status of lunatic peaceniks today. But distrust of standing armies, and the uses of military personnel and equipment on domestic soil, has justifications that have nothing to do with pacifism. The American revolutionaries had seen first hand the chilling effects of military garrisons among domestic populations. We of course have military bases dotted around the United States, but in my experience the military takes pains not to have too obvious a footprint in local communities. More importantly, they don’t have military personnel deployed in official capacity within the population, unlike, say, the British redcoats stationed in American population centers before the revolution. But I’ve noticed in recent years a trend upward in the use of the National Guard, a military organization, on domestic soil– not just in assisting in the war on drugs but in providing security for events deemed high profile targets, such as today’s Inauguration, during which time we’ve seen packs of National Guardsmen wandering around. During Katrina, of course, we talked endlessly about why it took so long for the National Guard to be deployed to help. While I do support the use of the National Guard in that level of emergency, I think we need to take great care when deciding to deploy them.

My fear is that many Americans seem not to understand that the use of military personnel for crime prevention and domestic security, whether fighting against Colombian cartels (directly or by proxy) or providing security at a political event, is a major change from the traditional distrust of the military that has long been a part of the American character. This could, over time, lead to a gradual normalization of the projection of American military power within our borders, a change that I don’t think helps anyone, no matter which party is in power.

At worst, this sort of domestic use of military power can have consequences similar to the one Dierkes describes– a situation that really does deserve the appelation war. You might say that the cartels in Mexico have forced the hand of the Mexican government in provoking a military response. But as Dierkes mentions, the military does a pretty poor job of performing the central mission of any police force, which is balancing enforcement of the law with respect for individual rights and limits on police power. And there can’t help but be a kind of cycle of escalation when more and more military grade hardware is brought onto the scene. Civil rights will inevitably be eroded in this kind of action; the question is whether that tradeoff will actually bring with it the sought increases in security and law enforcement. I don’t know how best to solve the problems in this growing war between the Mexican government and cartels, but I am largely persuaded that drug legalization is the only long-term method to undercut the economic power of the cartels and handicap their ability to wage war.

Although I richly deserve a reputation as something of a polemicist, I’d like to think that I am not so shrill a partisan that I don’t admit that times have changed. In the beginning of the assault on Gaza, I joined Glenn Greenwald and others is saying that the American media consistently tells only one side of the story in the Israeli/Palestinian divide, and that side is Israel’s side. While I continue to believe that our national conversation is far from an equitable or fair one, I have to admit that things have changed; there is more criticism and questioning of Israel and its actions than I would have felt possible before the conflict began.

To be clear, even now to call American press coverage one-sided would to represent a major understatement. You can expect more pro-Israel coverage and opinion, simply measured in the amount of ink, space and time, by a large margin, in the mainstream media. More, and more importantly, what is considered pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian coverage continues to be skewed. Almost without exception, those who are considered to be arguing from a pro-Palestinian position take pains to explain (as they should) that violence against Israeli civilians is untenable. Meanwhile, you will find plenty of mainstream figures, like Tom Friedman, in the pages of major newspapers and on national cable news networks, who enthusiastically speak of “punishing” the Palestinian civilian population. I am certainly not unbiased in regards to this question, but from my perspective our national conversation on Israel is made up of those who make every appropriate qualification and proviso, and are considered extremists, and those who speak in absolutes and categoricals, and are considered moderates.

Still, the fact remains that our discourse on Israel has undergone an evolution. I am seeing more criticism of Israel, in more places, than I thought possible. When Time magazine, perhaps the perfect symbol of mundane, middle-brow media in America, runs a cover story questioning Israel’s actions, it’s time for me to stop saying that Israel goes virtually uncriticized in the United States media. Granted, the tenor and content of that coverage remains deeply divided– you’ll note that criticism of Israel is made up primarily of questions of efficacy and wisdom for Israel’s gain, not criticism that operates under the burden of what is right for the Palestinians. But there is more criticism in the American press of Israel than there was even two years ago, and that criticism seems to have begun to seep into public consciousness, and it’s incumbent on me to point it out.

The question is whether this evolution continues, and vitally, what it means for American politics and governance. Because on the level of partisan politics in America, the unanimity on Israel is nearly universal. With a few exceptions in the House of Representatives– and by a few, I mean a dozen or less, in a body of nearly 500– there simply are no prominent elected politicians willing to waver from the established line on Israel and Palestine. I won’t go into the details of why this is so weird, in a deeply politically divided country with a partisan system that encourages difference between the two parties. Greenwald and Yglesias have already done yeoman’s work on that score. The question is whether this will change in the same manner as our media is slowly changing.

I’m hoping it does, for reasons I have written about at length. But I’m skeptical. There are many issues in American politics where even broad majorities can’t seem to make major changes in public policy. The reform of marijuana laws, for example, enjoys large margins in favor, depending on the phrasing of the question, in poll after poll. The problem is that although many would choose to reform America’s marijuana laws, the committed minority on the side of keeping the status quo is better positioned and better funded than the committed minority on the side of reform, who are (usually unfairly) relegated to niche status. Similarly, support for a change in our approach to Israel policy might enjoy broad majorities someday (currently, the best information I’ve seen is a divided electorate), but if the pro-Israel hardline maintains mainstream status, in comparison to continued relegation of the pro-even handed side to niche status, our policy might never change.

This is crucial because, as almost anyone will tell you, only America ultimately can broker peace in Palestine. This is because the deep economic, military and diplomatic investment of the United States in Israel gives us the power to deeply influence Israeli policy moving forward. As much as countries like Egypt and Jordan can provide legitimacy in the Palestinian street, and as much as the European Union can act as a powerful third-party arbiter, the simple fact is that there is no other country on earth that has the power and legitimacy within Israel to generally effect change. The sad fact is that, while Israel’s democratic nature gives it a meaningful opportunity for internal reform that Hamas does not have, political realities in Israel make it very difficult for a genuine, internally-brokered offer that represents a genuine chance for lasting peace to emerge. This is precisely the kind of situation where a relationship like that between the United States and Israel can have great benefit. The United States is uniquely positioned to show Israel a little tough love, put genuine pressure on Israel’s political process, and finally bring about the two-state, pre-1967 borders that has been widely supported for decades.

The problem is, instead of acting like the older-brother powerbroker that the United States is, we act instead with deference and apology towards Israel in the region. We fund Israel, protect Israel, have a degree of military interoperability that is literally unprecedented, and diplomatically shield Israel constantly. Any adult appraisal of that situation would suggest that the United States therefore has legitimate reasons to expect influence in Israel’s behavior. There are those who would claim that there should be no “coercion” within the Israel/US relationship. But there are two responses to that. The first is that Israel always has the option of walking away from its various entanglements with the United States; that would have consequences, but, well, that’s the price we pay for independence. The second response is that what people want and what they need are often different, and the same is true of countries. We can perhaps do whats best for Israel, and whats right for Palestine, by influencing Israel in ways that its citizens might not like in the short term. But we can only do that if we realize that we are not minority partners in this relationship, and that we have both a reasonable expectation of influence within Israel and a moral imperative to try to create positive change within.