Gaza Strip: Sean Rocha over in Slate has an interesting and well balanced article on Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza. Of particular note is the role of organizations such as the Hamas that "has a long history of running social welfare, health, and other quasi-governmental organizations in its territory," so have some degree of legitimacy. The only problem is many of them also are dangerous terrorists. This makes people understandably wary about working with them, but true peace often requires it. The tendency of governments like us to support similarly nasty sorts with less legitimacy with the people at large also leads to some degree of cynicism.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan sharply criticized the United States on Thursday for seeking another exemption from the International Criminal Court, particularly in light of the Iraqi prisoner scandal.
Right ... and now, as the world looks on and sneers, we are left to looking toward countries like Romania and China to insure that we are left to our flawed devices. This might be a good thing, since the ICC only excepts those countries that provide a reasonable effort to investigate and charge alleged violators themselves.
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Pledge Case: I referenced a column yesterday that suggested the opinion might have confused domestic family law. Did it really threaten the enforcement of parental rights when federal constitutional issues are involved? The answer seems to be ... depends on who you ask. You can hear a discussion with the plaintiff and Freethinkers author Susan Jacoby here.
For those dubious about the majority opinion, there is some reason to ratchet it down a notch (at least regarding the author). Justice Stevens voiced his hesitance (in a dissent) to inject the federal courts into domestic law before, even when constitutional rights were involved, including in a parental rights (vs. grandparents rights) case known as Troxel v. Granville. Justice Kennedy also dissented on somewhat different grounds.
It suggests my basic philosophy: life is not always run on idealistic grounds, but some sort of principle is around somewhat more often than one might think. The question is: what wins out in that particular case?
How Not To Argue: Another good article concerns the danger of mixing religion with politics, even when the program (faith based initiatives) might be a good idea per se. I replied to a criticism of the article, and the critic uses just the sort of argument that we should be wary of.