Celebrity culture mystifies me

Celebrity culture mystifies me. Why do some people attract so much attention and others live completely unnoticed lives?

Susan Boyle, the singer who took the United Kingdom by storm, finished second in the reality TV show Britain’s Got Talent. She developed her remarkable voice and talent in relative obscurity. Had the TV show not come along, she would probably have died unknown except to her friends and family, a genuine human and true blessing to her small Scottish parish.

Now she has achieved fame throughout the United Kingdom and the United States, with an incredibly loyal You Tube following. Associates of Simon Cowell, the man behind Britain’s Got Talent, estimate that Boyle may earn £8 million in the next twelve months; Americans will not care about her second place finish, only about her You Tube video.

How many more people have talent on the level of Susan Boyle, developed yet unknown beyond a small circle of friends, family, and acquaintances? That a dance troupe bumped Boyle from first to second place, offering an equally emotional and heart wrenching performance, suggests that the number of hugely talented unknowns may exceed even our best guesses.

Why, then, do some people attract attention and others don’t?

Part of the answer is physical appearance. Catherine Zeta-Jones has just finished a commercial for Unilever that the company can only broadcast in China and Japan. The commercial uses sex appeal to sell shampoo. Nothing new there. What is new is that Zeta-Jones received over $5000 per second for making the commercial. (John Harlow, “Catherine Zeta-Jones shines at £3,700 per second for shampoo ad,” Times Online, May 31, 2009) Zeta-Jones is attractive and acts well. Is she really THAT uniquely attractive and talented?

Part of the answer is an ability to connect with people. Alberto Cutie was until last week a Roman Catholic priest. He is now an Episcopal lay preacher, scheduled to preach his first sermon today. Cutie, also known as “Father Oprah” for his capacity to connect with others, had built a huge following in Florida among Hispanic Roman Catholics until photos of him hugging a woman in a bikini on a beach were published. (“Fla. priest preps first sermon since leaving Catholic Church,” USA Today, May 31, 2009) The Roman Catholic Church took exception to this behavior on the part of a nominally celibate priest. So Cutie fled to the more accepting Episcopal Church with its healthy indifference to a priest’s marital status.

Part of the answer is media appeal. Media appeal requires more than talent, attractiveness, and an ability to connect with people. Media appeal demands an added factor that causes reporters, editors, and producers to believe people will pay, either directly or indirectly by tolerating advertising, to reach/watch stories about a particular person. Sleaze sells. Sex sells. Success sells. Crime sells. Stories that hit reader/viewer self-interest sell. Very occasionally, goodness sells.

Finally, part of the answer is serendipity, chance, kismet, synchronicity, providence, or whatever one terms factors completely beyond one’s knowledge and control. Some view this as the hand of God, sometimes the hand of God, or never the hand of God – contingent upon one’s theological perspective. God is a player in the cosmos but believing that all things depend upon an omnipotent God's active or permissive will makes God responsible for tremendous moral evil. For example, if God is omnipotent why did God allow millions of Jews to die in the Holocaust? What greater good is served by this abhorrent slaughter? Why does an omnipotent God not act directly to bring about the greater good and avoid intermediate evil? Another example: how much innate talent, intellectual prowess, artistic brilliance, and human potential dies on the vine, never even beginning to develop because those persons are among the quarter of the world’s people who live and die in extreme poverty with absolutely no hope of ever experiencing anything that any American would regard as a normal life? So whatever we call it – serendipity, chance, kismet, synchronicity, providence – is not exclusively attributable to God. Perhaps the terms simply point to the frontier of knowledge, that which we do not understand.

Tomorrow, a look at celebrity from the other perspective, that of the masses whose attention, sometimes idolizing, make mere moral into celebrities.

A new species?

Humans evolved from other primates.

That simple scientific statement seems relatively non-controversial – unless, of course, one rejects evolutionary theory as incompatible with reveled religion, a topic I’ve addressed before. Debating people whose myopic understanding of religion insists upon a literal interpretation of allegedly revealed texts is pointless, regardless of whether one’s conversation partner is a Christian, Muslim, or adherent of another faith.

The more interesting question implied in my opening sentence rarely receives attention. What form of life will evolve from humans? Unless humans destroy earth’s capacity to sustain life (or at least human life) before humans colonize other places in the cosmos, no good reason to presume that humans represent the apex of the evolutionary process exists.

An article in today’s New York Times (John Markoff, “The Future of Artificial Intelligence,” May 30, 2009) raises the possibility of a superbrain formed by linking the world’s computers. Perhaps the next major life form to emerge will be electronic rather than cellular. Perhaps the next major life form will be a cyborg, part cellular and part electronic (artificial limbs have already begun to incorporate some of these features).

My musings on this subject never advance very far. My failure to progress in developing images of a new, more advanced species that succeeds humans as the most powerful, reminds me of a need for humility, the interrelatedness of all life, and the ongoing evolution of human community.

Iraq now has a problem with lovelorn men, their marital proposal rejected by the bride’s family, seeking violent revenge using Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and other warfighting techniques acquired during the years of U.S. occupation. (Rod Nordland, “Lovelorn Iraqi Men Call on a Wartime Skill,” New York Times, May 30, 2009) Iraqis are reaping the harvest of repressed anger and violence that they for decades and we more recently have sown in that war ravaged country. Before undertaking major policy initiatives, national leaders will do well to remember our limited knowledge, making decisions with humility rather than hubris.

Pakistan claims to have retaken Mingora, the largest city in the Swat valley, from the Taliban. (Griff Witte, “Pakistan Says It Has Reclaimed Key City From Taliban," Washington Post, May 30, 2009) If correct, that is hopeful evidence that the Pakistan government in spite of sometimes problematic tactics and widespread corruption is making some headway against the Taliban. Americans for too long were indifferent to Pakistan and its people. Their acquisition of nuclear weapons changed that; today, concern grows about nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, American self-centeredness drives that concern rather than genuine empathy for Pakistanis. We have yet to learn, deeply and truly, the interconnectedness of all life. Americans worry that one of our enemies will obtain, through theft or other means, a Pakistani nuclear weapon to employ against the United States. Far fewer Americans worry about the daily plight of the vast majority of Pakistanis condemned to subsist all of their days in grinding poverty.

Morocco provides some encouraging news. Women in that Muslim country are slowly acquiring rights commensurate with those of women, rights commensurate with Islam’s highest ideals. (Robin Shulman, “Moroccos New Guiding Force,” Washington Post, May 30, 2009) Good news of progress toward civil rights and justice rarely makes headlines. People prefer to read bad news, vicariously experiencing excitement and titillation rather than celebrating the achievements of others. Thankfully, even when we have little awareness of it, human community continues to evolve as the circle of cooperation that at first included only immediate kin, then spread to extended family, then grew to include tribe and nation, slowly continues to expand toward global inclusivity. In other words, humans will one day regard the self-centeredness of Americans (and many, many other nations) will, time permitting, as an anachronistic liability.

Supporting same sex marriage

Time will prove the Episcopal Church’s moves toward ful acceptance of and support for GBLT (Gay, Bi-sexual, Lesbian, Transgendered) people prophetic and in accordance with God's will. The Episcopal Church needs to act more boldly, affirming the full inclusion of GLBT within the life of the Church, the equal suitability of GLBT persons with heterosexuals for ordination, and developing rites for blessing same-sex marriages. Standing for truth and justice is more important than pointless debates with Anglican conservatives elsewhere who have already decided the Episcopal Church is apostate. Similarly, the stance of Churches like the Southern Baptists and the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) who steadfastly oppose granting equal civil rights to GLBT people will prove blatantly unfaithful even as that stance is already experienced as harshly unloving.

Granting civil rights to others, such as the right to marry, costs other citizens, literally and metaphorically, nothing. Legalizing same sex marriage, for example, in no way diminishes or alters heterosexual marriage. Indeed, legalizing same sex marriage actually promotes respect for marriage as an institution because it encourages couples to commit not only to living together but also to merging two lives. From a Christian perspective, this means two become one flesh in terms of physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, fidelity, mutual destiny, financial affairs, etc. Each person becomes responsible for self and for the other, modeling the healthy mutual interdependence of people with God. Establishing marriage as a civil right for all discourages promiscuity, exploitation, and other genuinely unhealthy and therefore unchristian lifestyles and behaviors.

The California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a voter referendum that amended the California State Constitution to prohibit same sex marriage. I appreciate the rule of law. I appreciate living in a democracy. The Court’s ruling simply means that proponents of same sex marriage need to go back to the trenches and do the hard political work of making more converts to their cause.

The Court’s ruling is not a matter of life and death. Therefore, this ruling should not incite talk of revolution. The amendment to the California Constitution is an issue of human dignity and worth that demands people of good conscience take a stand, declare their unwavering support for equal civil rights for all people, and get involved in changing the California Constitution.

Seeking the quickest path to remedy injustice is not always the best course of action. Many pundits suspect that had the U.S. Supreme Court not legalized abortion in its landmark decision, Roe v. Wade, the legislative processes in the fifty states would have all legalized abortion within the next decade. Had that happened, the U.S. is unlikely to have experienced ongoing polarization over abortion, something unique to this country. Perhaps that controversy’s most significant fuse was that the courts rather than the legislatures legalized abortion. Consequently, abortion fifty years later remains at risk of once against being banned instead of accepted as a matter of course.

That process sharply contrasts with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Civil Rights for people of color were centuries overdue. The promise of the Civil War as a turning point in the tragic story of this injustice never reached fruition. The progress of the 1960s in small measure resulted from some court decisions; in large measure the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s transformed America because hundreds of thousands of people, led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and others engaged the political process demanding equal justice. Laws were passed. Lives were changed. Justice became more of a reality and less of an empty promise. Today, only a few fringe elements want to return to a segregated, de facto apartheid society. Now the debates are over the best way forward, how to move closer to full justice for all, rather than whether we as a nation should attempt to turn the clock back and rescind the significant strides made toward justice for all.

The central battleground has shifted to civil rights for GLBT persons (also for immigrants and others), a cause in many quarters no more popular than civil rights for persons of color was fifty years ago. “Lynchings” occur – not literally, but when miscreants or a mob kill, injure, or terrorize a GLBT person or one of their supporters. Legislation pending in Congress would make hate crimes illegal. People have, and should have, a constitutional right to express any view. Expressing opinions and promoting hate, however, are two different matters. Individually and collectively the time for change is now.

Pakistan and Afghanistan

Encouragingly, villagers in Kalam, in Pakistan’s Swat valley, have taken up arms and driven the Taliban out of their town. (Zahid Hussain, “Taleban driven out by armed residents of Kalam in the Swat Valley,” Times Online, May 22, 2009) This is type of action represents the only way to defeat terrorists and insurgents. Concomitantly, publicizing true, first person reports of Taliban atrocities and cruelty in areas under Taliban rule will promote anti-Taliban sentiment and support for the government.

Meanwhile, a recent news report on U.S. forces in Afghanistan left me troubled. An Army Captain is under investigation for referring the family of an Afghan detainee to a civilian lawyer. The lawyer has filed a write of habeas corpus seeking the detainee’s release. The Captain acted when he became convinced, through his own research, that the military has apprehended the wrong person through a case of mistaken identity. (Richard A. Oppel, Jr., “U.S. Captain Hears Pleas for Afghan Detainee,” New York Times, May 25, 2009)

Perhaps there is more to story that in the news article. But as the story was reported, the Captain appears to have acted in good faith. When mistakes occur, whether nationally or individually, taking responsible and seeking to set things rights represents the preferred Christian course of action.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates believes that the Taliban has gained the momentum in Afghanistan and that unless the U.S. can achieve significant progress within a year, public pressure in the U.S. will prompt a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. (Yochi J. Dreazen and August Cole, “Gates Says Taliban Have Momentum in Afghanistan,” Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2009) If Gates’ prediction is correct, I wonder if that foreshadows more aggressive, and ultimately self-defeating, military action by U.S. led forces in Afghanistan. I also wonder how many people believe that sending additional twenty-one thousand, or even fifty-one thousand, troops to Afghanistan will actually tip the balance in a country that lacks adequate transportation, has no sense of national unity, and rallies to cooperate only to repel foreigners from Afghan soil.

North Korea

North Korea has announced a second test of a nuclear weapon. If that announcement is factual, a fact that U.S. intelligence agencies can confirm or refute using technology developed during the Cold War to monitor the Soviet Union, then sanctions to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons have failed. Seeking new sanctions against North Korea, which the U.S. has announced as a foreign policy goal, seems pointless. (Choe Sang Hung, “North Korea Announces 2nd Test of Nuclear Device,” New York Times, May 25, 2009) North Korea also has had two successful missile tests in the past few days, suggesting progress in developing a delivery system for nuclear weapons. (Choe Sang-Hun, “In Defiance, North Korea Is Said to Test More Missiles,” New York Times, May 26, 2009) The horse has left the barn and attempting to shut the door is pointless. Pundits say the U.S. has few good policy responses available. (David E. Sanger, “Tested Early by North Korea, Obama Has Few Options,” New York Times, May 26, 2009)

Military action to destroy North Korea’s nuclear capability seems irresponsible. Outsiders know too little about North Korea to attempt to destroy all nuclear facilities and weapons with a high degree of confidence (notably, the amateurs have begun compiling such targeting information on the web using publicly available information). A preemptive strike that missed or was ill-timed might result in North Korea launching a retaliatory nuclear strike. Most importantly, the Just War tradition has always considered preemptive strikes immoral.

Instead, the international community and the United States need to focus on finding an approach that will bring North Korea into the global community and seek to assure adequate safeguards for its nuclear weapons. A lone wolf North Korea poses a threat to its near neighbors and to Alaska. A lone wolf North Korea desperate for foreign currency may find the temptation to sell a nuclear weapon to non-state terrorists from other parts of the world irresistible. A lone wolf North Korea may wrongly believe that it has little to lose by invading South Korea. North Koreans are God's children in spite of their government’s denial of that truth and in spite of other governments declaring the North Koreans pariahs. This challenging task defies easy resolution yet is obviously of critical importance.

The starting point for developing a new foreign policy with respect to North Korea should be asking, What does North Korea want to achieve? What causes North Korea to act in ways that the rest of the world perceives as belligerent? Western experts answering those questions emphasize that North Korea’s fears invasion by the United States and the North Korea’s leader, fearing death is near, wants a voice in choosing his successor. North Korea is also unable to feed its own people, creating a high potential for internal unrest. Constructive engagement with North Korea begins by addressing North Korea’s real agenda, nobody else’s.

The United States has no interest in invading North Korea. However, from a North Korean perspective, it is easy to understand why North Korea fears a U.S. invasion. In this decade, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, then Iraq, and has threatened military action against the “axis of evil” that includes Iran and North Korea. Continuing U.S. bellicosity toward both Iran and North Korea is unlikely to give either nation confidence that the U.S. will not invade. The U.S. has never invaded a nuclear armed nation and appears unlikely to do so. No wonder that bellicose actions intended to discourage nuclear weapons development consistently fail!

Truly honoring veterans

Memorial and Veterans Days are two annual occasions when many in the United States pause to honor the sacrifices of those who have served their country in the armed forces, especially those killed in battle. Honoring veterans on those two days is good. Praying for and honoring them daily is even better. However, praying for, appreciating, and actively supporting them truly honors veterans.

Military personnel do not decide the wars the nation will fight. The U.S. military has no selective conscientious objection option for those serving in the military who believe a particular war immoral. Once in the military, an individual who enlists must complete his or her enlistment and, presuming the military has not imposed a stop-loss order on personnel with the person’s military occupational specialty, may decline to enlist. Officers must complete any obligated service; officers without obligated service may request permission to resign or, if eligible, retire. In other words, once a person is in the military he or she must often serve even if the nation initiates a military action the individual finds morally reprehensible. Thus, even when the public objects to a particular conflict, finding it particularly unpopular or distasteful, the public has a moral obligation to honor those who have volunteered to serve.

Actively supporting veterans at a minimum entails adequate compensation for active duty and retirees (e.g., paying the most junior personnel a “living wage” so that none need to live on welfare), full healthcare coverage for active duty, retirees, and any veterans’ injuries received in the line of duty, and support for the military member’s family during deployments (especially during combat). Sending military personnel into harm’s way whose spouse and children subsist on welfare is immoral. As always, words speak louder than actions and commendatory words twice a year are no substitute for genuine support.

The recent Memorial Day observances coupled with a report about the sad state of morale in the Russian military, with its inadequate pay and high unemployment prospects as the military downsizes, paint two contrasting pictures of support for the military. (Philip P. Pan, “Discontent Rises Sharply Among Russian Troops,” Washington Post, May 26, 2009)

U.S. military compensation rose sharply during the Reagan era. In recent years, increases in military compensation have lagged compensation in the civilian sector. The inflation on the horizon as the nation pumps money into its economy to end the current repression bodes poorly for future of military compensation. The legacy of many veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress syndrome and other, more visible, wounds received in Iraq and Afghanistan represents a costly unfunded obligation. Memorial and Veterans Days’ speakers will do well to remind their hearers of these obligations, pointing to them as tangible ways to express gratitude for the service of veterans.

Memorial Day

"It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the founding fathers, grave and gray-haired. But most of them were boys when they died. They gave up two lives: the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for our country, for us. All we can do is remember"
- President Ronald Reagan, Nov. 11,1985

Rationing healthcare

Rational rationing of health care demands addressing the types of issues that Ted raised in his comment to my last post on healthcare.

First, the definition of human life requires reconsideration. For example, we should consider a human body that continues to breathe, process nutrients, and perform other essential biological functions in which the brain has ceased to function as dead. Neurologists and representatives from other pertinent disciplines should craft a clear definition of brain death, a standard that healthcare providers can use to assess a person’s condition using electric encephalograms and other readily available technology. If a body satisfies the definition of brain dead, that body is no longer a person, no longer entitled to medical care, and deserving a speedy and painless end. The death of such a body is not even human euthanasia because the body was and no longer is human.

Second, a body in a persistent vegetative state should not receive any life support. Such care has no proven efficacy. The resources to provide care for a body in a persistent vegetative state could easily provide far more health and quality of life to many others. Families that attempt to insist on providing such care act out of selfish love, denying the person whose remnant persists in the vegetative state the opportunity to have a graceful death while concurrently giving health to many others. Timely termination of life support may also increase the ability to harvest organs suitable for transplant.

Third, the hospice movement, which promotes death with dignity, deserves increased support for reasons similar to ending life support for a body in a persistent vegetative state.

Fourth, medically assisted euthanasia, now legal in Oregon, Washington, and the Netherlands, should become an option for all. Various models exist to ensure that only the genuinely terminally ill qualify, that medical assistance is available without compromising a healthcare provider’s duty to heal, and to prevent other potential abuses.

Fifth, the present system of ensuring healthcare provider accountability through punitive lawsuits for mistakes and malfeasance demands revision. Healthcare providers will inevitably make mistakes. They are human, thus imperfect in spite of the best possible training, intentions, etc. Mistakes that are unintentional, result from an imperative to act to prevent greater harm in spite of incomplete information, etc. – mistakes that involve no culpable ill will or malfeasance – should not cause any punitive consequences for the provider. The healthcare system should provide any additional treatment or benefits the patient requires without cost to the patient. In the relatively few cases involving ill will or malfeasance on the part of a provider, the provider should suffer criminal penalties and insurance should compensate the patient (or patient’s family) for non-punitive losses. This will reduce the outlandish insurance settlements that happen today.

Are these Christian responses?

Christianity teaches that a person is a whole; any attempt to distinguish separate elements (body, mind, and spirit for example) has no basis in fact, however useful the model may prove for other purposes. In other words, when the brain is dead, the person has died, from a Christian perspective.

Simplistically believing that the Lord gives and takes away life is a shibboleth divorced from fact. Humans routinely take life, e.g., in wars, police actions, terror bombings, and homicides. To believe that all such deaths depend upon God's action or God's approval turns God into a cruel and unreasonable tyrant. I cannot believe that God desires the death of a young child or parent of young children killed in a terror bombing. Humans, for better and for worse, influence the fate of other humans.

Conversely, refusing to accept death through seeking to prolong subsistence in a persistent vegetative death cruelly wastes limited healthcare resources in a vain attempt to pretend that humans have sufficient knowledge and power to control unilaterally the timing of death. A persistent vegetative state leaves one unhelpfully in limbo, suspended between life and death. Hence, from a Christian perspective there is a time to die, whether through hospice or assisted euthanasia (these are not mutually exclusive options).

Christianity looks at the cosmos and observes a created universe that bears witness, at all levels, to a cycle of life and death. That which is born must die. Refusing to acknowledge death’s reality has little to do with Christianity and much to do with misplaced confidence in modern medicine, human abilities, and other factors.

If ill, I want a healthcare system and providers focused on healing. However, if terminally ill I want a healthcare system and providers focused on extending my quality of life as long as reasonably feasible and cost effective, then able to shift focus to helping me to die with dignity.

Gun control, National Parks, and the Second Amendment

The National Parks became, I predict, less safe this week. Congress included a provision authorizing people to carry firearms in the National Parks in legislation that overhauled credit card laws. Then President Obama signed the bill into law.

On the one hand, a few areas of national parks have become havens for drug growers. Budget constraints prevent the National Park Service from adequately policing our parks. On the other hand, too many people do not practice good gun safety. They do not store guns and ammunition separately; do not secure their guns from access by children; shoot without positive target identification; etc.

In my late teens, a friend and I camped in the backcountry at Yosemite National Park. A bear stole our food, in spite of our having hung the food from a tree. We had followed the Ranger’s advice, attaching our few metal objects to the food in case the bear tore the rope from the tree as a primitive alarm to awaken us. In the middle of the night, a bear stole our food. Again, following the Ranger’s advice, I gave chase, throwing rocks at the bear, until the bear decided that the food was more trouble than it was worth.

Listening to debate swirl about the new authorizations to bring firearms into the parks triggered some reflections about that experience. How many people, if they had a firearm, might have attempted to shoot the bear? Protection from wild animals is, after all, one justification cited to support the allowing firearms into the parks. The poor black bear was hungry and not a threat to humans; the Rangers knew the bear and left it alone because it was a nuisance, not a threat.

If a park visitor shot at the bear, would the shot kill the bear? Wound the bear? Accidentally hit a nearby human in a crowded campsite? Hit me instead of the bear? Nothing about the scenario of giving chase to a bear, after dark, in a crowded park, unsure if any of my fellow campers are armed, leaves me feeling comfortable or reassured. (Of course, in retrospect and with more maturity I question the Rangers advising me to give chase if the bear stole the food and my relying on that advice.)

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

For years, I believed that we should amend the Constitution to delete the Second Amendment. An armed citizenry, it seemed, stood no chance of victory against modern military forces. The ability of the Germans and Japanese to occupy captured nations during WWII with minimal resistance from the populace seemed to substantiate that conclusion. Although the Afghans continued to fight against the Soviets through long years of occupation, only as the Afghan mujahidin received support from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and others did the tide tip against the Soviets. Chechnyens, likewise, continue to fight against the Russian army but have not won, probably because they lack substantial foreign aid.

However, the current resistance of the Taliban and various Afghan warlords to the Karzai regime in Afghanistan, a regime backed by the U.S. and its NATO allies, and the continuing insurgencies in Iraq, have prompted me to rethink the viability of an armed citizenry resisting a modern military.

What would citizens do if a foreign power invaded the United States? Would we largely accept conquest as a fait accompli, unwilling to risk property, loved ones, and self in total resistance to the occupiers? Or, would we – at least a significant number of us – put everything on the line to defend the United States as a free and independent nation? Is any nation likely to invade the United States before the world either destroys itself or unifies into a single, global community? Is the U.S. government likely to devolve into some form of tyranny without the implicit check provided by an armed citizenry? Would the occupying nation strive to follow international law with respect to non-combatant immunity?

The answers to those questions should shape one’s attitude about the Second Amendment. Firearms, by definition, are hazardous. The right to own firearms, if one accepts a simple and direct reading of the Constitution (completely apart from what any judicial interpretation), is contingent upon the need for an armed citizenry to defend itself against tyranny by its own government or a foreign one.

Jesus was a man of peace. He taught his followers to turn the other cheek, to love their enemies, and to return good for evil. Perhaps we should all be pacifists. The list of evil rulers who ruthlessly killed hundreds of thousands, and more recently millions, of innocent people is long. Life on earth today would be very different had the allies not stopped the Nazis. On rare occasions, people must reluctantly use force to stop evil. Christians reluctantly moved away from pacifism when Christianity became the Roman Empire’s official religion. The Roman Army performed both police and military functions; without Christians in the Army during the Empire’s latter years, the Army would probably have lacked the number of soldiers needed to preserve peace internally and stop invaders.

Perhaps the greatest danger arises when firearms (and other weaponry) become widely available. At a minimum, the Church should actively discourage the private ownership of weapons (apart from hunting rifles owned by actual hunters), lobby to prohibit private ownership of military weapons to include semi-automatic weapons, and support psychological and background screenings before licensing a person to own firearms. Concurrently, Christians can profitably engage one another in over the issue of whether the Second Amendment has outlived its usefulness.

The U.S. Constitution in no way defines Christian ethics. Instead, Christian ethics should define one’s attitude toward the Constitution, e.g., some Christians rightly supported changing the Constitution to ban slavery and grant women voting rights. Sadly, I often feel safer on European streets than on U.S. urban streets. Pickpockets may operate there with seeming impunity but muggers and murders appear to prefer the home of the brave and the land of the free.

Close Guantánamo Bay prison now

News reports have highlighted that one in seven of the 534 detainees released from Guantánamo Bay have returned to terrorist activities. Congress refuses, by overwhelming majorities, to allow the administration to move any of the remaining 240 detainees to U.S. soil for either imprisonment or adjudication. The FBI fears that imprisoning some of the detainees on the U.S. may lead to terrorist attacks in the U.S. or radicalize prison incmates. (Elisabeth Bumiller, “1 in 7 Transferred From Guantánamo Returns to Terrorism, Pentagon Report Says,” New York Times, May 21, 2009)

The U.S. largely created this problem. Extended, indefinite, and isolated incarceration, as at Guantánamo Bay, will not win friends and allies for the United States. With no way of knowing how many of the 534 released detainees were terrorists before their incarceration, I am amazed that so few engage in anti-U.S. terrorism and combat after release.

Ethically, the U.S. has no justification for continuing the indefinite and isolated incarceration of the remaining 240 detainees. All have a moral right to a speedy and fair trial or to release. That some of the 240, like approximately eighty of their previously peers, will seek opportunities to engage in hostilities against the United States should in no way deter the U.S. from taking the moral high ground and acting ethically. The risk of that potential harm represents part of the cost that the U.S. must pay for its immoral actions in allowing its government to act as if no laws applied. Congress in refusing to fund the prison’s closure has acted irresponsibly and immorally.

Stalled progress toward peace in the Middle East

Tensions in Iraq’s Nineveh province between Kurds and Arab Sunnis are increasing as the Kurds push harder to establish greater regional autonomy. (Sam Dahger, “Tensions Stoked Between Iraqi Kurds and Sunnis,” New York Times, May 18, 2009) Bombings by insurgents have increased in many Iraqi urban areas.

Pakistan continues to build its nuclear arsenal in spite of the insurgency raging less than one hundred miles from Islamabad. (Thom Shanker and David E. Sanger, “Pakistan Is Rapidly Adding Nuclear Arms, U.S. Says,” New York Times, May 18, 2009)

U.S. President Barack Obama, when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, insisted that peace in the Middle East requires establishing an independent Palestinian state and that Israel must honor its commitments to stop illegal land grabs. (Tom Baldwin, “President Obama tells Israel: stop expanding settlements,” Times Online, May 19, 2009)

More that 100 Israeli settlements crowd the West Bank, all of which, in the eyes of the World Court, are illegal. Perhaps two dozen were constructed without the official sanction of the Israeli government. One of the latter, consisting of seven ramshackle huts, Israeli paramilitary forces recently destroyed. (“Israel Removes West Bank Settler Outpost,” New York Times, May 21, 2009) Saying that is progress is like saying that a child who tentatively sticks the tip of a toe into the bath water and then withdraws it has made real progress toward taking a bath. Peace will become possible only when Israel takes significant, positive steps toward recognizing an independent Palestinian state.
Zalmay Khalilzad is reportedly negotiating with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about becoming the non-elected, de facto chief executive officer of the Afghan government. (Helene Cooper, “Ex-U.S. Envoy May Take Key Role in Afghan Government,” New York Times, May 19, 2009) Whatever Zalmay Khalilzad’s qualifications and abilities, should he take such a position will only diminish the possibility of progress toward peace in that strife torn nation. Karzai’s political opponents and the Taliban will both win relatively effortless propaganda victories by claiming that Khalilzad, an American citizen and former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, represents an American takeover of the Afghan government in everything but name.

Also in Afghanistan, evidence has become available supporting the theory that the Taliban sometimes obtains arms and ammunition that the United States originally provided to the Afghan army. (C.J. Chivers, “Arms Given by U.S. to Afghan Forces May Be Leaking to Taliban,” New York Times, May 20, 2009) In a nation as dysfunctional as Afghanistan, this news is hardly surprising; the same happened, and probably continues to happen, in Iraq.

Requests by U.S. military leaders that the U.S. arm Iraq and Afghanistan government forces have never made sense to me. Both countries are heavily armed. The more advisable, though initially more difficult, course of action is to insist that government forces in both countries utilize weaponry already available. This may require purchasing some ammunition from the foreign nations that manufactured that weaponry, but these wars are not about providing lucrative contracts to the military-industrial complex in the U.S.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Afghan governments dispute the number of Afghan civilians killed in a recent bombing of the province of Farah. The U.S. claims that civilian deaths probably totaled 20-30; the Afghan government puts the civilian death toll at approximately 140. (Carlotta Gall and Alan Cowell, “U.S. Rejects Afghan Civilian Death Estimate,” New York Times, May 20, 2009) One interesting issue is why the death tolls differ by that order of magnitude. Although the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan is touring that country with President Karzai attempting to build better relationships with people, questions about U.S. contrition over the deaths and steps taken to prevent reoccurrences remain poignantly unanswered.

As the lack of accountability for ordnance suggests, corruption within Afghanistan is widespread and Afghan government ineffectual in curbing that corruption. Reports of widespread corruption there are not new. However, the RAND Corporation now acknowledges the corruption in a report prepared for the U.S. government. (Ken Dilanian, “Corrupt Afghan officials hurt aid,” USA Today, May 20, 2009)

The not at all surprising news from Afghanistan is that the Afghan government is hosting peace talks that bring together representatives of various insurgents and warlords. Apparently, all of the groups in attendance agree that a non-negotiable condition for peace is the U.S. withdrawing its troops. (Dexter Filkins, “U.S. Pullout a Condition in Afghan Peace Overture,” New York Times, May 21, 2009) Afghanistan’s history is the history of a people united only by their common antipathy toward an occupier. A U.S. withdrawal seems unlikely given the Obama administration’s public commitment to increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan and to destroying the Taliban.

Some positive signs

When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates went to Dover Air Force Base last week to meet the bodies of four deceased military personnel returning from Afghanistan he was visibly touched by the experience. Unusual for him, he exploded with anger, upset that the four were killed riding in an unarmored HUMVEE. He has spent much of his time as Secretary of Defense campaigning to provide the military with the equipment needed to perform today’s missions in today’s wars.

Then Secretary Gates knelt by the caskets, while they were still aboard for the plane, for five minutes, apparently in prayer. (Greg Jaffe, “Pentagon's Gates Keeps Single-Minded Focus on Dual Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Washington Post, May 15, 2009)

The Defense Department needs leadership that truly cares about the troops and that recognizes the need to make difficult decisions about what systems to fund in these difficult days. Critics complain that Gates’ policies will shortchange the future by leaving the military unprepared to fight conventional wars. Perhaps the critics are correct. However, the United States simply cannot afford unlimited defense expenditures. The military needs to focus its procurement, training, and operations on effectively combating today’s threats, a task on which it can use much improvement as many of my blog entries have suggested. The efficacious and ethical will often align with respect to counterterrorism – unless one wants to choose a radically evil appropriate such as destroying Islam and all Muslims in order to address the problem of Islamicist terrorists.

Egypt appears to have achieved some recent progress in reversing gains of the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that spawned both Sayyid Qutb (the theological godfather of Islamicism) and Ayman al Zawahiri (al Qaeda’s number two). That progress resulted from arresting key leaders, political reforms, disruption of the social services the Brotherhood provided, improved governmental services, and missteps by the Brotherhood’s leaders. (Yarosla Trofimov, “Muslim Brotherhood Falters as Egypt Outflanks Islamists,” Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2009) Egypt’s actions represent the type of combined law enforcement and social justice initiatives needed to effectively and ethical counter terrorist groups everywhere.

Military leadership

Someone recently asked my opinion of the senior U.S. military leadership, a query prompted by press criticism of one U.S. general after another. In particular, my correspondent cited Generals Franks, Wallace, Casey, Sanchez, Abizaid, Schoomaker, Meyers, and Pace.

The U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have both lasted longer than did U.S. participation in WWII. The seeming intractability of those situations – at least as the U.S. currently defines them – partially explains why the press, portions of the public, and some politicians criticize senior military leadership. If current tactics and strategy had a realistic potential for success, the U.S. would have already achieved its goals.

In contrast, Generals Powell, Schwarzkopf, and Horner in the first Gulf War received praise rather than criticism. Perhaps those three are better generals. I doubt that is the case.

The first Gulf War had a clear and attainable goal: restore the sovereign integrity of Kuwait. The U.S. and its coalition allies quickly achieved that goal, fighting a conventional war, and then largely withdrew their forces from the Middle East, mission accomplished.

The goals of the second Gulf War and the conquest of Afghanistan were less clear and arguably unattainable. The U.S. (and its few, mostly reticent allies) sought to impose regime change in both Iraq and Afghanistan, defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, and to create western style secular democracies.

To date, the U.S. has achieved none of those goals. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. quickly removed the existing regime following a rapid, notional conquest of each country. By notional conquest, I mean that although the U.S. and its allies appeared to have defeated the prior regime’s armed forces, both countries had many armed groups competing for power. Defeated personnel disappeared into the local population, usually taking their arms with them, to fight another day. Eight years later in Afghanistan and six years later in Iraq, the new governments have at best a shaky grip on the levers of power, and, especially in Afghanistan, exercise authority over only a small portion of the nation’s territory. Neither nation resembles a western style secular democracy.

Ending the ability of the Taliban and al Qaeda to conduct insurgent and terror operations seems no more likely today than when President Bush began his Global War on Terror. In order to defeat both, the people of Iraq and Afghanistan must believe that life will be better without al Qaeda and the Taliban than with them, and a majority of people must hold that belief with sufficient conviction that they, not foreigners, will own the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Only then will those populations refuse to provide the assistance and support that allow al Qaeda and the Taliban to continue to thrive. U.S. strategy and tactics consistently have the unintended consequences of making indigenous ownership of that struggle less and less appealing to Iraqis and Afghanis.

The principal reason that the U.S. lost in Vietnam was that the South Vietnamese people never took ownership of the battle against the North and Communism. It was a war the U.S., and South Vietnamese elites aligned with the U.S., wanted to win, or, in the case of the South Vietnamese elites, to at least prolong. That seems to be true in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As press reports increasingly show, the tactics that General Petraeus employed in Iraq have not remained successful as U.S. funding for the Sons of Iraq movement decreased. Increased criticism of General Petraeus would not surprise me.

Admiral Fallon, in response to your question about his premature retirement, ran into trouble for publicly voicing opposition to administration policy. Senior military officers have a moral and legal duty to advise civilian authority. However, that advice should be given privately. Once the national command authority (the President and his administration) establishes policy, military officers have a choice either to support that policy or to resign/retire. Admiral Fallon opted for a third approach, which rightly proved a “third rail” for his career.

Seeking the right kind of unity

The Anglican Consultative Council has adjourned its 14th plenary. The Episcopal Café’s Lead and other reportorial sources have amply documented the results of that meeting. Even after the Council’s adjournment, debate continues (flaming in some quarters, flickering in others) about the proposed Anglican Covenant. The Archbishop of Canterbury urges Anglicans to engage in that conversation. Although acknowledging the Communion may adopt some form of federalism, he hopes that the process will instead move the Communion toward closer unity.

Why, exactly, should we in the Episcopal Church care about an Anglican Covenant and the Anglican Communion?

Christian unity is a prominent New Testament theme. Emphasizing unity and participating in the larger Church helps to define our Anglican Christian identity, highlights the Church’s global reach, and enriches us individually and collectively. We Episcopalians trace our ecclesial roots through the Scottish Episcopal Church to the Church of England, from which the American Revolution separated us. Apostolic succession provides a tangible link across the centuries to Jesus.

These linkages have been more than intellectual concepts for my journey. I was privileged to spend two years of my ministry on exchange from the U.S. Navy with the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy, serving as a Church of England priest and chaplain. Our Episcopal membership in the Anglican Communion made that experience possible.

The twentieth century World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order movement flopped. Faith and Order sought to promote Christian unity by articulating doctrinal formulations of the Christian faith with which various Churches could agree and by identifying ecclesial structures for achieving visible, structural unity. Those worthy goals proved impossibly elusive.

Different Churches live with very different worldviews. Culture, ecclesial history, language, and many other factors all help to shape a Church’s worldview. I value collegial ministry. In the Navy, I treasured opportunities to conduct joint Lutheran (ELCA) – Episcopal worship services. With approximately twenty-five Episcopal Navy chaplains, we were rarely co-located. Next best was working with an ELCA chaplain. Each time, I learned much about a very different tradition with which I generally shared liturgical practices but a tradition that had a different set of theological emphases, different polity, different ethos, etc.

During my time with the Royal Navy, my Church of England colleagues included priests from Canterbury, York, Wales, Scotland, Australia, and South Africa. In other words, we came from seven Anglican Communion provinces. All of these nations had close ties with Great Britain. Yet as I listened carefully, I heard about seven sets of traditions, theological emphases, and ethos. Since then, through conversations, travel, and reading I have developed an even greater appreciation for the breadth of diversity represented in the Anglican Communion.

Anglican polities that at first glance may appear similar in fact incarnate highly valued differences. Some provinces are their nation’s established church (or part of it), whose major policies, leaders, and worship require government approval. Other provinces function as ecclesial fiefdoms, largely controlled by the provincial Archbishop. Other provinces operate as representative democracies, integrating bishops, clergy, and laity into a system of checks and balances. Still other forms of Anglican polity exist in the various provinces.

In sum, perhaps the Anglican Communion has embarked on an enterprise similar to the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order movement, an enterprise likely to prove an equally frustrating and elusive search for greater organic unity.

What if the Anglican Communion laid its efforts to draft an Anglican Covenant to rest and instead promoted the unity of cooperative mission?

Cooperative mission is not mission tourism. Cooperative mission is feeding the hungry – spiritually and physically – together. Seminarians spending one year studying in the seminary of another province might become the norm, not the exception. Clergy might routinely serve several years in another province. Mission teams from all provinces might beneficially serve in all other provinces. Companion diocesan relationships might continue to proliferate and strengthen.

On a larger scale, the Anglican Communion could beneficially create a massive global mission initiative to engage thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Anglicans, in cooperative mission. For example, the Anglican Communion might establish an Anglican mission to feed, house, and otherwise care for many of the world’s millions of displaced persons. The Communion could organize this with initial funding from monies now spent on consultative meetings. Every province could link the mission to its biblical and theological teaching, recruit volunteers, raise funds, etc.

Cooperative mission of this type helpfully bypasses theological and structural differences, focusing on incarnating Jesus’ love. The latter half of the twentieth century offers numerous examples of Churches cooperating in mission in spite of important doctrinal and structural differences. Surely, many of the people who participated in such a mission would return home with a genuine appreciation of other Anglicans and a radically deeper commitment to the Communion.

No amount of dialogue seems likely to resolve the substantive theological and structural issues that divide the Anglican Communion. Unity is too valuable to lose because of that impasse. Jesus left us no doctrinal statement, no plan of organization. He simply loved people and encouraged others to do follow his example. Perhaps now is the time for we Anglicans to go and do likewise.

Music, religion, and health

Recently, I attended a North Carolina Symphony concert that featured Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” perhaps the best known concerto ever written. Someone inquired, why did Vivaldi begin with spring and end with winter? My answer, without knowing Vivalidi’s motives, was that the pattern of spring to winter mimics life, progressing from birth to death.

Humans seem hard-wired (designed, if one posits a Creator, as I do) to search for meaning in life. The research of Drs. Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili reported in their book, Why God Won’t Go Away, supports that conclusion. They write, “After years of careful scientific study, and careful consideration of our results … [we] believe that we saw evidence of a neurological process that has evolved to allow us humans to transcend material existence and acknowledge and connect with a deeper, more spiritual part of ourselves perceived of as an absolute, universal reality that connects us to all that is.” (p. 9)

Humans often express and search for meaning through rituals. Key components of ritual are rhythm, repetition, and distinctive behaviors. Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” is powerful music precisely because its rhythms, repetition of key themes, and distinctive music communicate the pattern of life, from birth to death even when people do not consciously think about the music.

Good worship does the same. Good worship has a rhythm that echoes the Creator’s activity in the cosmos, repeats themes within each service and from one service to another, and invites people to engage in distinctive behaviors. In the Episcopal tradition, for example, the rhythm of worship moves from word to sacrament. The readings follow a three-year cycle keyed to the liturgical year, repeating themes and frequently echoing the themes in multiple readings and the sermon. Worshipers engage in distinctive behaviors, associated primarily with worship in the twenty-first century: group singing, public prayer, gathering in community, kneeling, and sharing in a ritual meal – all generally performed in a space especially designed and reserved for those activities.

People who prefer to disengage from religion would do well to contemplate the potential consequences of that choice. Those consequences have nothing to do with hell. The consequences do have to do with a person’s health and happiness in this life. New berg and D’Aquili cite Dr. Harold Koenig, who teaches at Duke Medical and Divinity Schools, who has said, “Lack of religious involvement has an effect on mortality that is equivalent to forty years of smoking one pack of cigarettes per day.” (pp. 129-130)

Choosing between being part of a religious community and smoking a pack of cigarettes per day for forty years seems like a very easy choice, if one seeks personal eudaimonia. Critics may reply that true religion should spring from love for God rather than self-serving behavior. I agree. But in the absence of love for God, self-serving behavior that promotes life represents a good beginning that, if Newberg and D’Aquili are correct, will often lead to more profound religious experiences.

Intractable problems

House Appropriations Chair, Representative David Obey, recently said:
“With respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan, I am extremely dubious that the administration will be able to accomplish what it wants to accomplish. The problem is not the administration’s policy or its goals. The problem is that I doubt that we have the tools there that we need to implement virtually any policy in that region.” (David Herszenhorn, “Unease Grows for Democrats Over Security,” New York Times, May 14, 2009)

A recent incident in Afghanistan illustrates my understanding of Obey’s perception of the U.S. problems in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. desired to expand a military base (Forward Operating Base Wolverine) in an area dominated by the Taliban. The area is very fertile and agriculturally productive because of an extensive system of millennia old underground irrigation canals. Preliminary work on the base began to disrupt the vital irrigation system.

U.S. leaders belatedly scheduled a meeting with local Afghan leaders to explain the base’s importance and to acknowledge the importance of the irrigation system. The Taliban arranged to meet with the local leaders immediately prior to the meeting with the U.S. leaders, demonstrating great political shrewdness. Not surprisingly, the locals brought hardened attitudes to their meeting with U.S. and the session failed to satisfy both sides. (Michael M. Phillips, “Learning a Hard History Lesson in 'Talibanistan,'” Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2009)

Quite simply, the U.S. agenda does not match the agenda of most local Afghans, nor are the two agendas often compatible. Afghans often dislike the Taliban’s harsh interpretation of Sharia, but have an even deeper animosity toward any outsider, be the outsider Mongol, British, Soviet, or U.S. Three thousand years of history and culture separate the U.S. from the people of Afghanistan, a gap no rapid response force can bridge. In attempting to impose regime change on Afghanistan and drag that country into a westernized version of twenty-first secular democracy that U.S. has embarked upon an “impossible dream.”

Concurrently, an Iraqi cleric allegedly sympathetic to the U.S. is under arrest in Iraq for criminal activities that include kidnapping. Mullah Khalil began as a Saddam Hussein supporter and then became an insurgent working with al Qaeda against the U.S. occupation before supposedly becoming part of the U.S. sponsored and funded Sons of Iraq movement. Recent attacks against Khalil’s mosque appear orchestrated by al Qaeda. (Anthony Shadid, “The Swift Rise and Fall of Iraqi Cleric Nadhim Khalil,” Washington Post, May 14, 2009)

Confirmation of the exact details of Khalil’s convoluted narrative is impossible. However, the story graphically illustrates two truths. First, loyalties in Iraq shift frequently. Second, the Iraqi culture was and is vastly different that anything that most American military planners and politicians understand.

In sum, Representative Obey is correct. The U.S. lacks the tools (or knowledge) to resolve the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq in accord with U.S. aims and goals. The U.S. needs to exit both Iraq and Afghanistan expeditiously and to redefine its national goals in terms that are achievable, respect the dignity and worth of all people, and have a realistic probability of moving the world toward peace.

Pope Benedict's Middle East visit

The visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Israel has received mixed reviews. His support for the existence of Israel was well received. Yet some vocal Israelis were upset that the Pope in his remarks at Yad Vashem, the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, did not explicitly apologize for German crimes and for his own membership in the Nazi Youth. He has done both, previously. (Howard Schneider, “Israelis Criticize Pope For Holocaust Remarks,” Washington Post, May 13, 2009)

The Pope during his visit to Bethlehem expressed his solidarity with Palestinians and his opposition to Israeli construction of the wall to separate Israel from its Palestinian neighbors. This pleased the Palestinians while leaving the Israelis less than satisfied. (Rachel Donadio and Sharon Otterman, “In Bethlehem, Pope Laments Israeli Wall,” New York Times, May 13, 2009)

Benedict clearly lacks the charisma and popular appeal of Pope John Paul II. However, Benedict’s experiences provide a lesson for those who would engage in the hard work of peacemaking, regardless of their personal charisma. Peacemaking often demands charting a middle course that will leave partisans on both sides at least partially dissatisfied. More often than not, whether in an interpersonal or geopolitical situation, the path to peace lies somewhere in the middle rather than at one extreme or the other.

Tangentially, the Christian population of the Middle East has declined from approximately 20% in 1900 to 5% today. That precipitous decline, in large measure, reflects the rise of radical Islam and the decline of the Christian peacemaking vocation in the rest of the world. (Ethan Bronner, “Mideast’s Christians Declining in Influence, New York Times, May 13, 2009)

Christians have no theological or other reason to claim land in the Middle East. Christians do have a vocation as peacemakers, a role that is easier to fulfill when one does not have an interest in the particular details of how two hostile factions reconcile their differences to at least permit peaceful coexistence.

Healthcare for all

The right to life is a basic ethical precept. Humans, like all other life forms, appear “hard wired,” that is, genetically predisposed, to strive to preserve life. Gray areas exist, admittedly. For example, at what point does human life begin? Answers range from the moment of conception to some point after birth when the individual has developed some degree of autonomy. At what point does human life end? Answers range from the end of all bodily functions to the end of autonomy. One’s answers to those two questions will in turn shape one’s ethical positions on issues like abortion, suicide, and euthanasia with informed consent.

Adequate access to healthcare is essential for the right to life, even acknowledging those gray areas, to have any real value. To say that all people have the right to life while denying ten or twenty percent adequate access to healthcare illustrates the power of actions to speak more loudly than words.

Rick Scott, former Chief Executive Officer of Columbia/HCA and now head of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, exemplifies that position. Presumably, as a healthcare executive, he values the right to life. Yet he and his new lobbying group are in the forefront of the charge against the administration’s efforts to establish healthcare for all. Conservatives for Patients’ Rights has released television ads that highlight the failures of the Canadian and British health systems to provide what patients regarded as timely care or necessary drugs. (Dan Eggen, “Former Hospital CEO Rick Scott Leads Opposition to Obama on Health Care,” Washington Post, May 11, 2009)

During the two years that I lived in the United Kingdom, I knew several people who had to wait for surgeries or for whom the National Health Service refused to provide the treatment that the individual desired. In none of these cases was the wait or refusal life threatening. Living with an unpleasant medical condition certainly diminished the individual’s quality of life. However, the ignored trade offs – benefits to society as a whole – for that diminished quality of life included lower healthcare costs (U.S. healthcare costs are the world’s highest) and better healthcare outcomes (greater longevity, lower infant mortality, etc.). By granting all residents access, the U.K. focused its limited resources on cases in which healthcare could make the greatest improvement and on prevention.

The U.S., like Britain and Canada, rations healthcare. Too often, we view that fact as a secret. Yet the U.S. rations healthcare based on one’s ability to pay. Some people self-insure. Self-insurers with adequate funds may buy the best available healthcare, may go overseas for lower cost care. Other affluent people purchase the most comprehensive individual insurance available. In both Canada and the U.K., affluent people make similar choices.

Self-insurers without adequate funds generally lack adequate preventive care; their medical problems increase in frequency and severity. These people typically rely upon the most expensive source of care, an emergency room from which they receive immediate help but no long-term assistance. This drives up everybody’s healthcare costs.

For people with health insurance, the insurance company implicitly rations care, stipulating procedures, drugs, payments, etc., that it will fund. Beneficiaries begrudgingly accept most of these decisions but occasionally the media will report on a company’s egregious behavior, e.g., refusing to provide basic fare.

As an affluent American with great health insurance, I suspect that any national healthcare system will disadvantage me. So be it. I am confident that the care for all will provide a greater net benefit to U.S. residents that the current privatized system.

Utilitarianism approaches ethical issues aiming to identify the course of action that will provide the greatest good for the greatest number. No moral principle (except perhaps egoism in the case of the affluent) stipulates that privatized or nationalized healthcare is morally superior. The facts are clear. Nationalized healthcare in both the U.K. and Canada has benefited the greater number; the few featured in videos like those produced by Conservatives for Patients’ Rights are among the relative handful disadvantaged. In the absence of a compelling moral principle, adopting the utilitarian solution of the greatest good for the greatest number represents the Christian course of action, a course consistent with eudaimonia, abundant life.

Can the U.K. and Canada improve their existing national healthcare systems? Absolutely! But the possibility, even need, for continuing improvements in no way mitigates the imperative for the U.S. to provide healthcare for all, an imperative that will reduce costs and result in better outcomes (longevity, etc.).

The willingness of healthcare industry groups to commit to reducing the growth of healthcare costs by 1.5% per year signals that even stakeholders with vested interests in maintaining the status quo recognize that our healthcare system is broken. (Michael A. Fletcher and Cici Connolly, “Industry Groups Pledge to Stem Health-Care Cost Increases,” Washington Post, May 11, 2009) Perhaps current efforts to restructure the healthcare system will produce more results that did the Clinton administration efforts in the 1990s.

Palestinian-Israeli peace progress

The Pope, during his visit to Israel, called for establishment of a Palestinian homeland. (Rachel Donadio, “Pope Underlines Support for a Palestinian State,” New York Times, May 11, 2009) Concurrently, the King of Jordan has stepped forward to support U.S. President Obama’s Middle East initiative. King Abdullah’s remarks are also part threat. If peace efforts fail, he foresees war next year. (Richard Beeston and Michael Binyon, “King Abdullah of Jordan's ultimatum: peace now or it’s war next year,” Times Online, May 11, 2009)

Momentum appears to be building for some progress toward peace in the Middle East. That progress is a key to a better, less violent world. The Palestinians displaced by the establishment of Israel have waited since 1947 for a homeland. The Arab nations have refused to accept Palestinian refugees for permanent resettlement, believing that large numbers of refugees would increase world pressure to either “undo” the establishment of Israel as a nation or create a Palestinian homeland.

Arab intransigence, coupled with funding refugee camps, resulted in this generation of Palestinians. Most of them were born after their twentieth century forebears fled Israel. Most see no future for themselves or their children, living in extremely cramped and economically unviable refugee camps. These refugees often support Palestinian terrorists because the refugees see no other realistic hope for a better future.

Anwar Sadat courageously broke with Arab solidarity to make a separate peace with Israel. Sadat recognized that nobody can rewrite history. The modern state of Israel is a reality, one that will not change in the foreseeable future. He paid for that decision, and other decisions unpopular with Islamic radicals, with his life.

Since Sadat’s death, the power of Islamic radicals has steadily increased. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda routinely capitalize on the animosity Arabs feel toward the United States because of its unilateral support for Israel at the expense of the Palestinians and have their ideological roots in the movement responsible for killing Sadat.

Even-handed U.S. support for the Palestinians and Israel that leads to establishment of a viable Palestinian homeland would directly result in decreased violence by Palestinian terrorists against Israel and increased Arab support for the United States.

Sane people find the violence perpetrated by terrorists reprehensible. Only when no other option appears possible will such people ever countenance supporting terrorists. Terrorism, in other words, is the last resort of the weak oppressed with great injustice. Genuine progress toward justice transforms the seemingly intractable problem of terrorism into a problem with which the criminal justice system can effectively deal. This happened in Northern Ireland when Britain ended many longstanding injustices. This will happen in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict when the parties establish a Palestinian homeland.

Israel, along with the Arab nations and the global community, must shoulder responsibility for the injustice of displacing the Palestinians without establishing a Palestinian homeland. As Sandy Toland’s anecdotal The Lemon Tree vividly describes, the Zionist settlement of Palestine before and during the establishment of the modern state of Israel often encouraged, in act if not rhetoric, Arab Palestinians to leave Israel. As frustration with ongoing Palestinian demands for a homeland then Palestinian terrorism mounted, Israel’s responses became increasingly counterproductive, hardening rather than diminishing the problem. Border controls, residence permits, economic sanctions, the wall, group punishments (e.g., destroy the entire apartment block in which the Israeli Defense Force believes that terrorists occupy one apartment, leaving all residents homeless), etc., are tactics that promote support for anti-Israeli terrorists.

Most Americans, citizens of a global superpower for most if not all of their life, find understanding the desperation felt by a Palestinian refugee difficult. Poor American whites who supported the Klu Klux Klan were part of a terrorist organization formed out of desperation. The Klan’s cause, however, lacked justice and consequently never gained the traction in the broader community that needed to flourish. Without a doubt, the Klan was a terrorist organization, striking capriciously at blacks, Jews, Roman Catholics, and others who insisted on the equal dignity and worth of all God's children. What the Klan did differed only by historical circumstance from contemporary terrorist tactics. Notably, effective police action on the part of the FBI and federal marshals, later aided by state and local police, rather than military action have largely ended the Klan’s terrorist tactics.

Noncombatant casualties

The Pentagon blames the death of innocent Afghans on the Taliban corralling the civilians as “shields.” (Jim Garamone, “Taliban Forced Civilians to Remain in Targeted Buildings, Petraeus Says,” American Forces Press Services News Articles, Defense Link) The logic of that conclusion fails to hold water. The public and government leaders would severely rebuke police in this country who bombed structures in which criminals were holding civilians hostages. Similarly, if the hostages the Taliban held were U.S. citizens, the public and government leaders would demand that the military account for its brazen disregard of human life. The difference is that the hostages were not U.S. citizens.

The military doctrine of overwhelming force, appropriate for conventional battlefields in which both sides presume that almost everybody present is a combatant, consistently results in noncombatant casualties when employed against terrorists and insurgents. Overwhelming force maximizes force protection, i.e., reduces friendly force casualties to a minimum. The doctrine of overwhelming force unintentionally and invariably increases noncombatant casualties in settings where the presumption that noncombatants are not present does not apply, such as most anti-insurgent and counterterrorism operations. Defeat al Qaeda demands tactics that equally respects noncombatant and friendly force lives.

Ethically, the imperative to respect all lives equally rests upon the premise that God values all human lives equally. Militarily, the imperative to respect friendly force and noncombatant lives equally rests upon the need to deprive terrorists and insurgents of the popular support those groups require to survive and to fight. Mao Zedong used the picturesque metaphor of fish swimming in the ocean when he spoke of the need that guerillas and other unconventional fighters have for popular support.

The alignment of the ethical and military should make the tactical decision to stop relying upon overwhelming force an easy choice for the U.S. and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, setting aside the doctrine of overwhelming force will put U.S. military personnel at greater risk. Doing so will likely increase the number of military casualties and subsequently increase the amount of internal political pressure that U.S. leaders feel to expeditiously end both wars.

War is never free, easy, or cheap. Attempting to wage war on the cheap by not including the war costs in the federal budget substantially increased the federal deficit. Attempting to wage war employing tactics and strategies that minimized the likelihood of U.S. casualties was a vain effort to minimize the war’s cost that had the unintended effects of hardening animosities among Iraqis and Afghanis, increasing noncombatant casualties, ultimately prolonging the conflict, and diminishing the moral stature of the United States in the global community.

Morality and religion

Is morality necessarily rooted in religion?

Pope Benedict the XVI answers that question in the affirmative. The Dalai Lama, no less a religious leader, answers that question in the negative. Who is correct?

The Dalai Lama contends that morality can arise out of recognizing our mutual interdependence, a recognition that births common concern (cf. Ethics in the News from the Parr Center at the University of North Carolina). Sociobiologists believe that humans have a genetic predisposition for reciprocal altruism, a pattern of behavior premised upon mutual interdependence that posits humans will help another today in the expectation that the beneficiary will reciprocate in the future. Reciprocal altruism coheres well with the Dalai Lama’s identification of our mutual interdependence.

Does that therefore mean religion has nothing to contribute to morality?

I believe religion can offer three important contributions to the human understanding of morality. First, religion reinforces the notion of reciprocal altruism necessitated by mutual interdependence. Second, religion helps to exegete the meaning of reciprocal altruism. Christians, for example, point to Jesus when they want to define what it means to love one’s neighbor. Third, religion helpfully provides mechanisms for accountability to one another as a means of promoting moral behavior. The most important of those mechanisms is community.

All of the world’s major religions echo each of the three contributions. I do not find those echoes surprising; indeed, I would find it very strange if those basic concepts were not integral to all of the world’s major religions. God, ultimate reality, or whatever one wishes to call the creator, is not the province of only one group. The living God is present and active throughout the cosmos and humans should interpret religious differences as culturally conditioned rather than divinely inspired.

The earthen vessels of human religious traditions are just that, imperfect earthen vessels. The living God flows through those vessels but is not identical with any of the vessels.

Pakistani attacks on the Swat valley

The United Nations estimates that as many as five hundred thousand people may flee the Swat valley. The Pakistan government has targeted the Swat valley, literally and figuratively, in an effort to wrest the valley from Taliban control. (Zahid Hussain, “Exodus of Pakistani civilians as battle against Taleban rages,” Times Online, May 9, 2009)

Jet fighter strikes, whether from the Pakistani Air Force or another armed force, are generally an ineffective means of defeating groups like the Taliban. The jets inspire fear among the inhabitants and the strikes often presage more intense battles. Ground forces that face difficult combat situations will also call for air support to dislodge or destroy their opponents.

Both uses of air power reflect an attempt to employ overwhelming force the enemy. In conventional warfare, the doctrine of overwhelming force makes very good sense, expediting the end of the war and often reducing the number of total (foe, friendly, and noncombatant) casualties. However, in non-conventional warfare, such as combating the guerilla and terrorist operations the Taliban usually conduct, overwhelming force actually extends the war and increases the total number of casualties. Air power is imprecise, especially when employing traditional munitions, which the Pakistani air force uses. Air power alienates the civilian population, building support for the enemy, i.e., the Taliban.

The gain from the combat efforts that produced a half million refugees? One hundred and forty three slain militants, according to the Pakistan government. From the perspective of one who ardently hopes for the defeat of the Taliban, the cost does not seem worth the gain. From the perspective of others who hope for the Taliban to prevail, I suspect the losses well worth their gain.

This type of reliance on air power violates both Just War Theory jus in bello criteria, proportionality and noncombatant immunity. Importantly, this type of reliance on air power also violates the Koran’s teachings about the conduct of war, e.g., resulting in numerous noncombatant casualties. In sum, this violation hands the Taliban a propaganda victory on a silver platter.

Defeating a group such as the Taliban is hard work. A government must uphold the ideals of justice and respect for persons in all aspects of governance. The government must then fight its foe one carefully identified foe at a time. Military firepower offers no shortcuts, no assurance of force protection.

The corrupt Pakistan government is ill-prepared for this task. The Pakistani military is equipped with tank, armored vehicle, and the equipment appropriate for battling India rather than insurgent Islamic militants. (Matthew Rosenberg, Rehmat Meshud, and Zahid Hussain, “Pakistan Again Faces a Test It Has Often Failed Before,” Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2009)

Same sex marriage

Maine has joined the short roster of states that have legalized same sex marriage. New Hampshire’s legislature appears poised to approve similar legislation. If so, five of the six New England states (Rhode Island being the lone hold out) will recognize same sex marriage. (Keith B. Richburg, “Gay Marriage Bill Signed in Maine; Similar Measure Advances in New Hampshire,” Washington Post, May 7, 2009)

These developments represent a dramatic shift in public attitudes from thirty years ago. At that time, a broad consensus appeared to exist, which branded same sex relationships immoral. Now, a new consensus appears to be emerging that at least tolerates same sex relationships, if not fully accepting those relationships as an expression of healthy relationships for people with a same sex gender orientation.

In some instances, the shift represents a libertarian live and let live practicality. In other cases, the shift represents a profound insight about the diverse nature of creation and a commitment to helping all people live life as abundantly as possible.

I applaud both rationales. Law has many useful functions. However, the legal system should only intrude on personal freedom when unavoidable. Choices about the gender of one’s partner harm nobody else. Promoting monogamy and fidelity is in society’s best interest, e.g., children are most likely to thrive when raised by two parents who enjoy a healthy relationship with one another. In other words, legalizing same sex relationships is one area in which libertarianism overlaps with a God inspired caring for all.

Who, better than the individuals involved, can identify the partner with whom they will find the greatest happiness?

Admittedly, arranged marriages sometimes work. Two individuals who share common backgrounds will often share common values, hopes, and lifestyles. However, the widespread abandonment of arranged marriages in favor of “love marriages” (choosing one’s own partner based on personal preference) suggests that choice tends to provide more happiness than does arrangement. Part of that happiness may derive from perceiving a greater degree of control over one’s life; part of that happiness may derive from having a more fulfilling partner.

Proponents of arranged marriages point to an increased divorce rate as evidence that choosing one’s own partner does not work. The divorce rate increased after many people and social groups had abandoned practicing arranged marriage. Among the likely causes of the increased divorce are the social acceptability of divorce, women’s progress toward equal rights and employment opportunities, and greater commitment to actively pursuing personal happiness instead of passively accepting one’s fate in life.

Resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in remarks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) took a surprising – and highly laudable – stance. Biden emphasized that Israel must accept a two state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict while concurrently underscoring U.S. guarantees of Israel’s security. (Tom Baldwin, “Barack Obama hints at tougher line on Israel,” Times Online, May 6, 2009)

Biden’s position represents the only path toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The Israelis and Palestinians must make that peace themselves. However, the U.S. can profitably pressure both groups to move toward accepting the right of the other to exist as a secure, independent state.

Biden openly acknowledged that his comments might trigger allegation of anti-Semitism. Such allegations are unfounded. Neither people nor nations have to choose between support for Israel or Palestinians. Support for both is possible on an equal basis and entails no inherent contradiction.

Yet fear of such allegations has caused other politicians to speak more elliptically or to remain silent. These politicians have lacked the moral courage to stand for the truth, perhaps unwilling to alienate the substantial donors and Jewish voters that AIPAC strongly influences or unwilling to risk being tarred with the damning label of anti-Semitic. This type of tactic is a form of verbal terrorism, threatening verbal violence against those courageous enough to disagree with AIPAC.

Even if a two state solution were not the optimal path to peacefully resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, democracy requires dissent. Democracy presumes that the best option, at least as perceived in the present moment, emerges from the crucible of public debate, a presumption that requires sharply divergent and conflicting opinions.

Those who oppose affirmative action for racial minorities are not all racists, although some are. Those who opposed the equal rights amendment for women were not all misogynists, though some were. Those who oppose gay marriage are not all homophobes or worse, though some are. Those who oppose a one state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, whether a Jewish Israel or Muslim Palestine, are not all anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim, though some are.

Numerous sources have branded former U.S. President Jimmy Carter as an anti-Semitic for his opposition to Israel’s building of a wall to separate the Palestinian territories from Israel and for his support for a two state solution to the conflict. Biden’s concerns are well-grounded.

Only when people, especially opinion leaders, dare to speak the truth will we begin to move beyond the bigotry that anything short of unilateral and unequivocal support for Israel is anti-Semitic. It is no wonder that so many Muslims regard the United States as anti-Muslim. Both Biden and Carter rightly and directly express their support for Israel’s security and right to exist. But they also rightly aver the importance and necessity of a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Presidential pressure

U.S. President Barack Obama is pressuring the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan at their joint meeting in Washington, D.C., this week to cooperate more fully in suppressing the Taliban. (Helene Cooper, “With Taliban Threat Rising, Obama Presses Visiting Allies,” New York Times, May 6, 2009)

Historically, Muslims living under unjust rulers have turned to Islam as a vehicle for expressing their dissent. This tactic places the ruling elite between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, allowing the dissent to continue builds support against the regime, presuming that the protesters focus on concerns widely shared by the populace and widely perceived as unjust. On the other hand, attempting to suppress the dissent reinforces the protesters’ allegations that the ruling elite are apostates rather than faithful Muslims.

In a previous post, “Taliban to Rule Pakistan?” I commented about why Pakistanis believe their government unjust. I raised similar concerns about the Afghan government in my post, “Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.”

In other words, both the Afghan and Pakistan governments appear to occupy a no win position with respect to suppressing the Taliban – UNLESS either government takes the initiative to end corruption, establish credibility among its citizenry, and assertively promotes justice and good government. None of those changes seems likely in a global environment in which military might is usually the preferred option. The apparently well-intended but misguided air strikes that recently killed dozens if not more than a hundred Afghan civilians increased citizen animosity for the U.S. occupation and its client (the Karzai government), underscore the futility of a strictly military response. (Carlotta Gall and Taimor Shah, “High Afghan Civilian Toll Seen in U.S. Raid,” New York Times, May 6, 2009)

Unfortunately, unjust, corrupt ruling elites rarely cede power willingly or gracefully. Ironically, doing so represents the best hope for effectively countering the militant Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Ceding power to genuine reformers in Pakistan and allowing tribal autonomy united in the loosest of federal structures in Afghanistan represent the best hopes for ending the Taliban resurgence. Once established and credible, the new governments would be able to attack the Taliban with popular support, avoiding the no win forced choice the current regimes face.

The U.S. must allow the various Afghan and Pakistan political parties and forces to compete for power, tolerating in a “hands off” fashion the turmoil and instability necessarily associated with that competition. Backing one group over another fatally creates a perception that the favored group is simply a front for U.S. interests, a powerful perception in a part of the world in which the U.S. has more enemies than friends and generates more resentment than affection.

More news from the Middle East

Tragically, bloodshed in Iraq is increasing. The London Times is now reporting that U.S. recruited and paid Sons of Iraq members defecting to insurgent groups, including al Qaeda, is a major causal factor in that increase. (Ali Rifat, Hala Jaber, and Sarah Baxter, “Iraq bloodshed rises as US allies defect,” Times Online, May 3, 2009)

Meanwhile, Iraqis remain internally polarized unable to achieve stable, effective government. Symbolic of those problems are the struggles to control a decrepit palace of former dictator Saddam Hussein and a reconstructed Babylon that the U.S. and its allies used as a fortified base. Nostalgia for Hussein’s rule seems to be rising as conflicts between municipalities, regions, and national bodies never reach resolution. Concurrently, religion, ethnicity, and tribe rather than national citizenship define an Iraqi’s identity. (For example, cf. Steven Lee Myers, “Babylon Ruins Reopen in Iraq, to Controversy,” New York Times, May 3, 2009)

Concurrently, Pakistan, apparently in spite of its government’s best efforts to stop the move, continues to edge toward collapse. Two thirds of Pakistanis live in rural areas with a lifestyle that at least one author characterizes as thirteenth century. The other third live in urban areas, many with western educations and secular worldviews. Broken promises, envy, resentment of the corrupt ruling elites – factors that have developed over decades – set the context for the Taliban’s appeal to Pakistan’s rural majority. (Sabrina Tavernise, “Pakistan - Struggling to See a Country of Shards,” New York Times, May 3, 2009)

A quick fix to bring stability and a healthy sense of nationality to Pakistan’s people does not exist. Establishing a just government (i.e., ending corruption, effectively promoting economic justice for all Pakistanis, insisting on the rule of law for all) will require time. Getting Pakistanis to trust that government will require even longer. This ukase demands years not months, an unlikely scenario given prevalent western insistence on quick results.

Gay marriage and legalizing marijuana

Social attitudes in the United States are changing. Support for gay marriage continues to increase, with two-thirds of those under thirty-five supporting it. New Hampshire’s legislature seems poised to legalize gay marriage. Iowa’s Supreme Court recently ruled that laws prohibiting gay marriage in that state were unconstitutional. Connecticut and Vermont allow gay marriage. Among voters opposed to gay marriage, most have little energy for fighting proponents, focusing on other, more important issues (e.g., the economy).

Support for legalizing possession of small quantities of marijuana for personal use has also continued to creep upwards, now reaching the forty-six percent level. (Jennifer Agiesta and Alex MacGillis, “Poll: Rising U.S. Support for Social Issues, Such as Gay Marriage,” Washington Post, April 30, 2009)

Do these changing attitudes signal a diminishing of the culture wars that so deeply divided the U.S. in the last decades of the twentieth century?

Perhaps. More importantly, the changing social attitudes may signal a fresh recognition that government attempts to broadly legislate morality inevitably fail. Legislating morality is essential at the intersection of one person’s rights with another person’s rights. For example, the sadist who derives a sick pleasure from murdering another deprives the victim of the right to life; the choice to legislate against that type of behavior is an easy moral choice as the right to life far outweighs the any value one can find in sadist’s pleasure. Some legislation of morality is imperative, e.g., criminalizing murder, child sex abuse, etc.

What about gay marriage? Arguments that gay marriage adverse effects heterosexual marriage are bogus. Whether the couple next door is gay or unhappily heterosexual has no direct bearing on one’s own ability to develop and sustain a satisfying marriage. If nothing else, legalizing gay marriage honors the civil rights of gays and lesbians equally with the civil rights of heterosexuals. This poses no threat to anyone, no more than an unmarried or adulterous couple living together does, regardless of one’s view of the morality of homosexuality.

What about legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use? Scientific evidence demonstrates convincingly that smoking any substance harms human health. People self-medicate with various drugs, some legal, some illegal (e.g., alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, marijuana, etc.). No reliable data proves marijuana more harmful than other forms of self-medication. Estimates of alcohol addiction, for example, range as high as ten percent of the population.

Decriminalizing or legalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use will produce numerous benefits. Financially pressed governments could tax what in many areas has become the largest agricultural cash crop. The legal system (law enforcement agencies, the courts, jails, prisons, and probation offices) could devote its scarce resources to crimes truly destructive of personal well-being or the social fabric while reducing the need for as many new prisons and jails. Social respect for the law might increase as widespread disregard for laws banning consumption or possession of marijuana were changed.

Conversely, employers rightly concerned about the ability of employees to function unimpaired in positions that might jeopardize people, product, or equipment could implement random urinalysis as a condition of continued employment. Police could still test vehicle drivers stopped for other offenses for the presence of THC in their blood stream, as is now the law. In other words, legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use does not have to interfere with the rights of others.

Persons who object to the use of marijuana, and I include myself among that number (except for medical use) could do as they now do: choose to refrain from ingesting marijuana. Changing the law does not alter my ethics, but will reduce the social costs attributable to a law that is largely not enforced and probably unenforceable.