Category: Politics

My Google News feed is never short of unsettling stories, ranging from global headline grabbers to more localized luridness, such the trial of a 30-something Catholic high school tutor who had sex with an underage student. As for national stories, there’s the ongoing strife over Michael Brown and Eric Garner’s deaths; anxiousness over a pending Senate report on the CIA and torture; and the fallout over the recent revelation that Rolling Stone’s (RS) article on a brutal gang rape at the University of Virginia (UVA) fell more than a wee bit short of journalistic standards. That revelation in particular has received a polarized response, with those on the Right showing a characteristic lack of tact when it comes to blasting RS and, by extension, the young woman at UVA, Jackie, who may or may not have authorized the publication to go with her story—a story which, whether one sympathizes with her or not, appears to be riddled with factual inaccuracies and implausible statements. The Left, naturally, is in a tizzy, for in their eyes, those who would attack RS and criticize Julie are now “rape apologists” who want nothing more than to keep the booze-filled, empty headed, and ogreish fraternity culture alive and well on campuses across the country. (As an aside, I should note, from personal observation, that the drinking-and-sex atmosphere of college fraternity life is ubiquitous; I can think of a half-dozen examples of sexual predation and rape being conducted by men who would likely be defined as “hipsters” and posture to everyone that they were “feminists,” “Leftists,” “counter-cultural,” etc. I saw similar behavior in punk/hardcore circles in my teens as well.)

I didn’t vote this past Tuesday, and I explain why in my latest column from the Center for Michigan’s Bridge magazine: “Why Did This Conservative Stay Home on Election Day?” It has been a decade since I last took part in the electoral process, and my main motivation for voting then was to support amending the Michigan constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. (Incidentally, that amendment was upheld yesterday by the Sixth Circuit of Appeals — though Heaven only knows for how long.) It’s not out of the question I will head to the polls again at some point in the future. For now, however, I’m staying home. From the article:

My quarrel is not over which marginally different candidate won and what marginally different causes he or she will claim to advance, but rather with a political landscape that furnishes us with such lackluster, nay, deplorable options. I will gladly set aside my right to gripe about this or that lawmaker so long as I do not have to endorse a system that makes their political careers possible. So long as that system endures, my refusal to vote shall as well.

Were you looking for midterm election thoughts on Opus Publicum? I hope not, because I really don’t have any. As should be pretty clear by now, I am not a “political junkie” even though I consider myself to be generally informed about state- and national-level political trends. Moreover, to paraphrase a “Tweet” I read last night, U.S. elections come down to deciding which flavor of liberalism will prevail; there is no serious opposition going on. Still, I confess that I spent an inordinate (roughly three hours) amount of time listening to/watching election coverage, including the free online streams of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. What did I learn from doing that? Only that Jon Stewart has a very difficult time in front of a live camera. Though I almost never watch his show, I can’t imagine that the regular taped editions feature anywhere near the amount of verbal fumbling I heard last night. It was almost painful.

Beyond that there isn’t much to report. The Republican Party increased its majority in the House while taking control of the Senate. That’s a recipe for further congressional deadlock, which isn’t the worst thing in the world considering the players involved. So, since nothing will get done in Washington, we now we have two years (yes two years) of 2016 campaigning to look forward to. A few pundits have speculated that 2016 may see the rise of more third-party candidates, but my hunch is that probably won’t be true for any major national election. There’s too much at stake. Others believe that 2016 will just be more of the same old, same old; even if the Democrats take back control of the Senate, they may very well lose the Presidency. What this seems to mean is the steady reemergence of what I will call “federalism by gridlock.” As lawmakers in D.C. regularly fail to pass meaningful legislation (e.g., minimum wage increases), state lawmakers and voter referendums will have to continue stepping in to fill the void left by federal inaction. This is, in fact, already happening across the country. For those who like to champion states’ rights, this probably seems like a victory. However, given the mixed quality state legislative bodies and the general lack of media monitoring of their behavior, there are good reasons to worry about this trend.

Very few people who read this web-log care about Michigan politics and even less care about the politics of hunting wolves in the “Mitten State.” Let me try and assure you that this entry, freewheeling though it may be, is not intended to be as parochial as the title indicates. Anyway, on with the post.

When Juan Donoso Cortes was busy making a name for himself all over Europe with his apocalyptic prognostications concerning the weakness of liberalism and the coming doom of socialism, a contemporary of his up in Denmark was busy penning books which would be read by a few hundred people and understood by even less. Within a few decades of their respective deaths, all of Europe — and eventually the world — would know the name Soren Kierkegaard. Few could recall that Cortes had ever existed at all.