I haven’t followed these particular issues as closely as I should, but this LAT editorial seems to get matters about right.

For more background on the Georgia Tech case, go here, here, and here (a pdf copy of the complaint).

By the way, I googled "Ruth Malhotra" (one of the plaintiffs, a fairly high profile campus conservative activist) and came across a number of blog posts that insult her in every way imaginable. Good thing she has a thick skin.

By now, you know that I’m a fan of Robert D. Kaplan. He has an interesting piece in today’s LAT. Here are the un-Fukuyamaesque introduction and conclusion of his essay:

Courtesy of RCP, Richard Garnett has wise words. A taste:

For starters, and with all due respect to Jefferson, the First Amendment does not constrain — in fact, it protects — "political" preaching and faith-filled activism. Yes, our Constitution preserves a healthy separation between the institutions of religion and government. This wise arrangement protects individual freedom and civil society by preventing the state from directing, co-opting or controlling the church. It imposes no limits, though, on conversations among religious believers — whether on Sunday morning, around the water cooler, or at the dinner table — about the implications of their faith for the controversies of the day. Our First Amendment protects religious freedom, individual conscience and church independence from government interference; it requires neither a faith-free public square nor politics-free sermons.

Even if the Constitution does not presume to tell ministers to stick to parables, is it bad citizenship, or just plain bad manners, for ministers to confuse our "public" role as citizens and voters with our supposedly "private" religious lives and beliefs? No. Religious faith makes claims, for better or worse, that push the believer inexorably toward charitable and conscientious engagement in "public life." To the extent that religion purports to provide insight into human nature and relations, it necessarily speaks to politics. We best respect each other through honest dialogue by making arguments that reflect our beliefs, not by censoring ourselves or insisting that religious believers translate their commitments into focus-group jargon or cost-benefit analysis.

This NYT article suggests that Republicans may have difficulty turning their voters out this November. This WaPo article suggests that anger gives Democrats an edge. What’s more "pink is the new red".

My biggest worry at the moment is the Senate, where races tend to be closer because you can’t gerrymander states to protect incumbents. Of course, it’s only April.

Update: It occurs to me that one of the best mobilization tools for the Republicans is the angry Democratic Left. Some argue that 2006 might be a replay of 1994. I’m at least tempted to argue that Democrats could turn it into a replay of 1998, when Bill Clinton and his party took advantage of anger-induced Republican miscues. (Of course, the Republicans controlled Congress then, which magnified the consequences of their mistakes, making them a little harder to overlook. But it strikes me that the Democratic Left is angrier now than most Republicans were then.)

I took some heat for my criticism of Cardinal Mahony’s threat to engage in civil disobedience if the House immigration bill became law.

I probably should have softened the language a bit, arguing that the threat of civil disobedience runs the risk of turning natural law into a cover for all sorts of defiance of positive law. I stand behind the thrust of my analysis and would continue to raise the following question. Does Cardinal Mahony think it should be a crime actually to assist people to cross the border illegally, regardless of one’s motives in so doing? It’s one thing to help out immigrants, no questions asked, who present themselves at your doorstep. It’s another altogether to help them into the country. I take it that everyone thinks the "coyotes" are despicable criminals. What if "well-intentioned humanitarians" got into the business, arguing that sneaking into the country is inevitable, that the border is a meaningless line anyway, that as citizens of the world, we should share our wealth and resources, and that decent folks would actually help, rather than exploit, the immigrants? I don’t know whether this is a fanciful scenario or not. I do know that Cardinal Mahony’s argument, surely unintentionally, worked to diminish the difference between compassionate humanitarians and human traffickers.

One could of course defend the Cardinal’s tactic by arguing that it was effective:

House Republicans also said yesterday they are committed to rewriting a section of their immigration bill that caused an uproar among religious and humanitarian leaders who say the law could be used to prosecute them if they unwittingly give food or shelter to someone who turns out to be an illegal alien.

Since the House passed its bill in December, Democrats have seized upon the criticism as another reason for opposing the border security legislation.

"It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures, because this bill would literally criminalize the good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, said last month.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican, said the provision is aimed at the ruthless "coyotes" and "snake-heads" who smuggle people into the country.

"Since the House bill’s passage, many have misconstrued the House’s good-faith effort to bring human traffickers to justice as a way to criminalize humanitarian assistance efforts," Mr. Sensenbrenner and other Republican leaders wrote in a letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "The House bill does no such thing, nor did it intend to."

Under current law, it is illegal to transport, harbor or conceal aliens and to encourage or induce them to remain in the United States. House Judiciary Republicans say courts have interpreted these laws broadly to mean "help or advise," and yet they have never been used to prosecute humanitarians.

"We can assure you, just as under current law, religious organizations would not have to ’card’ people at soup kitchens and homeless shelters under the House bill’s anti-smuggling provisions," Mr. Sensenbrenner wrote. "Prosecutors would no sooner prosecute good Samaritans for ’assisting’ illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. under the House bill than they would prosecute such persons for ’encouraging’ illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. under current law."

The aforementioned letter from Reps. Sensenbrenner, King, and Hyde can be found here. I think that it stacks up pretty well as an example of sober and prudent moral reasoning about a contentious political issue.

I also thank all my friends who took the time to look at my original piece and offer me their honest judgments about its tone and substance.

Update: Rob Vischer asks some interesting questions.

I noted earlier this week that blogger Will Hinton was contemplating challenging Cynthia McKinney. He’s now reporting rumors that Denise Majette, who unseated McKinney in 2002, would challenge her again. Since Majette recently announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the state Superintendent of Schools, I’m not sure.

Majette could conceivably win that statewide race (unlike the one she jumped to when McKinney made noises about reclaiming her old seat in 2004), but it would have to be a good year for Democrats, which I don’t think 2006 will be in Georgia. On the other hand, the fact that she’s interested in running for something suggests that she hasn’t gotten politics out of her system. She also has presumably begun to raise money and put together a campaign organization, all of which could be redeployed relatively rapidly in a primary race against McKinney. While the Anybody But Cynthia people would presumably relish the prospect of such an ostensibly credible challenger, I think that this is one case in which McKinney might actually have the upper hand. Majette has "abandoned" the district once before, leaving behind some bitterly disappointed supporters. Her ambition--er, I mean, dedication to public service--can be said to be inconstant, whereas McKinney’s is constant.

I dunno. Majette and McKinney have reasonably similar voting records (though Majette is not reflexively anti-israel, as McKinney is). If I lived in the district, I’d be part of the ABC crowd. Indeed, when CM was my Congresswoman, I was part of the ABC crowd, voting twice for Majette. (Yes, I have voted for Democrats in the past, even when there was a Republican challenger.) But since the district lines were redrawn, I’m no longer stuck with McKinney, which sorely tempts me to want to see her continue to serve, albeit ineffectively, so that she continues to be an albatross around the necks of the Democrats. But in the end, I wouldn’t wish her on my friends and colleagues who live in the District, and I think that her polarizing presence isn’t good for politics, even if it is good for Republicans.

Hugh Hewitt has the best guests and the best interviews on the radio today. Yesterday, in the event you missed it, Hugh interviewed Mark Steyn regarding this article on Iran (posted earlier by Steve). You can read a transcript of the interview here. Steyn also talked brilliantly--if alarmingly--about the outcome of the recent Italian elections where the leftist party took control of the government. More indication, in his mind, that Europe is headed past the point of redemption and on toward complete capitulation.

I don’t yet have anything to add to this rather heated exchange, as I’m still plowing through this uncharitable piece, but it strikes me that those who want to understand the issues that animated Strauss are better served by turning to this book, reviewed here..

Argh, I can’t help myself! I have a preliminary thought, subject to much revision. Ryn makes much of incarnation and synthesis, and, apparently, of the Incarnation as an example of synthesis. Which comes first for him, synthesis or Incarnation? If the former, then he strikes me as, ultimately, a polytheist opposed both to Judaism and Christianity, on the one hand, and to philosophy as Strauss understood it, on the other.

More later, when I can catch a breath.

Update: Someone’s unhappy with me, apparently unaware that I am aware of the significance of the Incarnation, either as the example par excellence of "synthesis" or as the only real "synthesis." (I’ve read a little theology.) My point is a simple one, I think: yes, you can say that all particular histories acquire their significance as part of God’s providential plan and that each of us is significant because we’re created in God’s image. But all those particular histories (call them national histories, if you will) have to be understood in the light of the Incarnation, i.e., of the "synthesis." There is a tendency among traditionalist conservatives (and I don’t know Ryn’s work well enough to judge the extent to which he shares it) to "apotheosize" the local and the particular, which (to be sure) has its place, but pales in significance before the way in which we participate in the universal history of salvation. Stated in Augustinian terms, some traditionalists seem to be in the thrall of the City of Man and not to recognize how their participation in that City is qualified by their membership in the City of God.