Los Angeles Times editorial:
We can't peer into President Obama's soul, but his statement last week that he is "struggling" with whether to endorse same-sex marriage is open to an unedifying interpretation. Given the president's support of gay rights in other contexts, his opposition to marriage equality raises the question of whether the struggle Obama referred to is between politics and principle. If so, we hope principle will prevail.
Colman McCarthy:
It should not be forgotten that schools have legitimate and moral reasons for keeping the military at bay, regardless of the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." They can stand with those who for reasons of conscience reject military solutions to conflicts.
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To oppose ROTC, as I have since my college days in the 1960s, when my school enticed too many of my classmates into joining, is not to be anti-soldier. I admire those who join armies, whether America's or the Taliban's: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and to their principles, for their sacrifices to be away from home. In recent years, I've had several Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans in my college classes. If only the peace movement were as populated by people of such resolve and daring.
ROTC and its warrior ethic taint the intellectual purity of a school, if by purity we mean trying to rise above the foul idea that nations can kill and destroy their way to peace. If a school such as Harvard does sell out to the military, let it at least be honest and add a sign at its Cambridge front portal: Harvard, a Pentagon Annex.
E.J. Dionne:
Was 2010 American liberalism's Waterloo? How are we to square the achievement of so many goals that have long been on progressive wish lists with the resounding defeat suffered by supporters of these measures in November?
Let's begin with what is a most painful fact for liberals: Conservatism, a doctrine that seemed moribund on election night in 2008, enjoyed a far more rapid comeback than all liberals and even most conservatives anticipated.
More than that, the current brand of conservatism is far more zealous than the political disposition of either Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush. Barry Goldwater went down to a thunderous defeat in 1964 after he declared that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." That might as well be the working slogan of the Tea Party movement.
The energy in our politics has shifted rightward with an abruptness that was inconceivable in the final weeks of the 2008 campaign, when Barack Obama could call a rally and count on tens of thousands to materialize almost at an instant.
If there is one thing the Obama White House most underestimates, it is the dispirited mood of its troops. This is not just about "the left" but, more important, about Obama's broader rank-and-file, who expected that he would usher in more change, enjoy more success in confronting his Republican opponents and prove more skilled in shifting the nation's political dialogue in a progressive direction.
Jacob S. Hacker and Daniel Markovits:
Americans who can afford it should contribute the windfall that they receive because of the Republicans' obstructionist demands to charities that promote the programs — job creation, housing, education and the like — that they believe a just government should pursue.
This would be a kind of Giving Pledge for the common citizen, a way of converting the private generosity that so many Americans demonstrate into public solidarity. It would be an expression of the indelible idea embodied in our Pledge of Allegiance of "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Pursued under this banner, philanthropy would become "political" in the best sense of the word.
We have created a website to assist in this task, GiveItBackforJobs.com. Yet we mean our effort only as a signal of the need for a broad national movement to protest the ongoing forfeiture of the public good for private gain.
Nothing can take the place of a just tax policy. But political philanthropy can provide immediate help to struggling families. And through its public purpose, it can serve as a form of protest that reclaims American ideals from a legislative process that has squandered them. By putting our money where our mouths are, perhaps we can light a path to better policies — and a better American politics.
Menachem Z. Rosensaft:
'Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except, of course, Henry Kissinger’s publicists and strategists who decided that the slowest news day of the year was the perfect time for him to apologize, sort of, for telling Richard Nixon in 1973 that "if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."
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What are we to make of this reluctant quasi-apology? To be sure, the requisite expression of remorse, albeit palpably grudging, is there, almost like the allocution a defendant has to make in open court before the judge accepts a guilty plea. And yet, terminal damage to Kissinger’s reputation has, I think, been done.
Why not just move on? Because the one thing Kissinger never did was to tell his boss that he, Kissinger, found Nixon’s bigotry against African-Americans, Irish, Italians and, yes, Jews offensive. Because we don’t know what other nuggets may emerge from the remaining, still unreleased Nixon White House tapes. Because we need to make clear to our leaders and ourselves that pragmatism or opportunism at the expense of conscience and integrity must never be tolerated.
Still, he did say the magic words: "I am sorry." Kissinger, after all, never publicly expressed any qualms for his acquiescence in the massacres in East Timor, or his covert role in the violent overthrow of the Allende government in Chile. Perhaps we can all be at least a little grateful for small favors.
Edward L. Glaeser:
For decades, the American dream has meant white picket fences and endless suburbs. But the ideas created in dense metropolitan areas power American productivity. We should reduce the pro-homeownership bias of housing policies, such as the home mortgage interest deduction, which subsidize suburban sprawl and penalize cities. We should rethink infrastructure policies that encourage Americans to move to lower-density environments. Most importantly, we should invest and innovate more in education, because human capital is the ultimate source of both urban and national strength.
As we grope towards a brighter future, we must embrace our cities, and invest in the skills that are central to their success.
Meghan Daum:
The other day I went to the movies and forgot my BlackBerry. This proved disastrous, not because I missed any calls but because during the five or so minutes before the trailers began, I found myself in the terrifying position of having nothing to do. As nearly everyone in the theater soothed themselves with Facebook Mobile or tiny, hand-held rounds of poker, I had no choice but to be alone with my thoughts.
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That's why, this New Year's Eve, I am not merely vowing to change my behavior, I am creating an app that enables me to change it. This app will do for users what no other has done before: It will allow them to be unoccupied. It will allow them to use their thumbs not for scrolling or typing but for that classic yet sadly bygone thumb-related pastime known as twiddling.
One of the best things about this app is, as they say, its "elegance." I'm not just talking about its name, Twiddle (fun and minimalist, no?). I'm talking about the fact that its main function is to simply turn your phone off. Not that you couldn't have guessed that. They already make this kind of thing for computers, an Internet-blocking software called Freedom, which is apparently not named after Jonathan Franzen's novel despite the author's much-quoted description of how he bars himself from cyberspace by removing his wireless card and using super glue to plug up his Ethernet cable (the freak).
But my app is better than super glue or the simple on/off button. My app will keep your hand-held whatever deactivated until such time as adequate self-reflection has been achieved.