Mark Kleiman, a member of my small blogroll (several have long blogrolls), changed the name of his blog. The old link provided transfers the viewer to the updated link, so no problem there. He fell victim to the "group blog" movement and now calls his (their) blog the "The Reality-Based Community" which has the motto "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." That seems a bit mean, doesn't it? Well, so some seem to think.
One member of the blog wrote an interesting take on how moral reform movements are no longer led by ministers any more like in the days of Martin Luther King Jr. In this sense, and an email clarified the matter further, he means "mainstream" ministers. This should be taken into consideration when he says:
On the whole, the clergy's loss of influence has been a stupendous gain. Without this decline, the story of sexual freedom, gay rights, and legal abortion (for now, anyway) would have been very different. But so would the story of Civil Rights. Those who want a new Civil Rights movement will have to grapple with the lack of leaders immediately respected by both Blacks and Whites. Once, the role of minister provided an unexpected bridge. No longer.
The problem is more general. A society with no uncontroversial moral authorities will find it easier to justify personal liberty than to tell anyone why he should (slightly) limit his liberty to promote the moral value of equality.
As I noted, many religious leaders and groups do support sexual freedom. In fact, certain religious movements had an important role, continue to do so, in said movement. For instance, the individual salvation wing from the times of the Founders promoted a certain view that supported a separation of church and state that helped said "story."
Of course, many of these groups were not "mainstream" -- the Baptists in Madison's day in part wanted separation because the alternative favored certain majority religions. All the same, many "leaders" were involved -- take the anti-slavery movement -- that word surely does not imply majority support across the board, does it? After all, in his day, Martin Luther King Jr. was surely not "uncontroversial!" See, "The Letter From The Birmingham Jail" etc.
His latest discussed the NSA wiretaps issue. This one is much less to my liking as compared to my partial disagreement:
Democrats are holding a "meeting" (can't be a hearing without Republicans) today, hoping to gin up public attention on this. I hope they fail. Reality-Based people, listen up: THIS IS A LOSING ISSUE FOR US. The only poll I know of shows that people overwhelmingly favor Bush's doing this. And while Mark Kleiman thinks that this will change if we pound the table about illegality and "a government of laws, not of men," I harbor enormous doubts. I share Mark's principled attachment to legality and his extreme distrust of Bush's executive arrogation. But both are minority and elite tastes.
btw I caught some of this "meeting," which was really called a "hearing" at certain points. One of the panelists came from the Reagan Administration, another was a middle-aged Quaker in a wheelchair, an expert in the history of national security matters, and civil libertarian lawyers/professors also were involved. I found it useful. But, then, I am among the "minority and elite" who finds threats to our liberty and basic constitutional values like separation of powers worthy of concern as much as pocketbook issues like Medicare. Also, of course, this is just part of the problem. Many other abuses, which polls show the people oppose, interlock here.
In the long run, executive power run riot is also quite costly. Consider the war. Also, I recall a poll that says if the President broke the law, the people oppose that too. The poll he cites is phrased in a narrow way that is misleading. But, anyway, the man has a short memory. Democrats tried to only rely on pocketbook issues a few years back. Where has that lead us? Selling our soul because it might not poll well, which is dubious in the first place, does not seem to be something the reality based community should promote.
After all, it really is dangerous and bad for the community.