The Big Debate

September 10, 2024 • 8:00 pm

This may be the only debate between America’s two Presidential candidates so it would behoove us to listen to it. It’s beginning in about three minutes so, if you’re watching, put your comments below.

The candidates have two minutes to answer the question, two minutes for a rebuttal by the other candidates, and then back to the questioned candidate for a one-minute rebuttal.

The debate is actually on all three major channels, but the moderators are from ABC. You can also watch the debate live, along with running commentary from NYT reporters, on the NYT liveblog page.

Oh, and I have pretty bad jet lag, so I’ll last until my eyes start closing. Instead of starting a new post tomorrow about the debate outcome, I’ll leave this post up for post-debate comments.

Bill Maher won’t vote for someone who conveys “ick”

September 10, 2024 • 2:00 pm

Although Maher is always accused of being a right-winger, that’s not true at all; he’s more or less a left-centrist, like me.  Here he defines “ick” with some graphic examples, and says that Trump has a bad case of it, and that’s the best thing Democrats have going for them. But. . . . he then says that the extreme Left aren’t immune to it, using as an example of the extreme Left going after Cheryl Hines, married to RFK Jr., for not divorcing him.

He says this, “You want to know why I have a bug up my ass about the Left more than I used to? It’s shit like this: there’s an ugliness they never used to have. The liberals I grew up respecting–none of them are like this.  Going after the wife? Even the Mafia doesn’t do that!”  He then shows a clip of Barack Obama at the latest DNC criticizing everyone across the political spectrum for thinking the worst of those on other side, and thinking that “the only way to win this is to scold and shame and out-yell the other side.”

The YouTube notes:

Donald Trump is stained with “the ick,” but liberals who scold and shame those who don’t share their worldview risk being tainted by it, too.

I’m not sure that Bill Maher qualifies as an expert on marriage given that he’s never been married and vowed he never will be. But, as usual, he’s funny, and the message not to fully demonize one’s political opponents is always worth pondering. Maher ends up by criticizing the Republican politicians as “far worse” than the Democratic ones, but adds tjat “the kind of people who are always howling on social media are the ones who give people the ‘ick’ when they hear the word ‘liberal.'”

It was good to hear Obama again: I’d missed his convention speech.

Tonight’s debate and what Tom Friedman thinks Harris must do to win

September 10, 2024 • 12:45 pm

As you know, there’s a Big Debate tonight between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. It’ll be broadcast on television on ABC, a non-cable channel. ABC says this: (note that times are Eastern times):

The ABC News debate, moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis, will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 10 at 9 p.m ET. A prime-time pre-debate special will air at 8 p.m. ET. It will air on ABC and stream on ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu. Viewers can also stream the debate on the ABC app on a smartphone or tablet, on ABC.com and connected devices.

The debate will last an hour and a half. I may do a live post with readers reacting in real time, but I will refrain from giving any of my own take until the next day.

If you’re a PBS fan, there’s a bunch of broadcasting on PBS starting at 6 pm EDT with the PBS News Hour, and continuing through the debate (with, undoubtedly, some post-debate analysis).

A few comments and some related articles.

Although Harris has been notably silent about specific policy issues until now, and has sat for only one (softball interview), I now see that there’s a menu of policy positions on her website, which you can see here. You’d better believe that the Trump campaign will be scanning them for what they see as weak spots.  There are, of course, a gazillion ways Trump himselfcan be attacked, though, like Harris, he seems to have moderated some of his more extreme stands (e.g., on abortion) in a pragmatic bid for victory.

I’m not convinced that either candidate will tell the truth about what they really plan to do, as both now seem to be acting pragmatically: they both want to win, and both will say what they think will get them elected. Such is politics: you can’t govern unless you win.  That said, I think Harris is absolutely serious in wanting to pass a law that reinstates the provisions of Roe v Wade nationwide, and I support her on that. But unless both houses of Congress turn Democratic, she stands no chance. As for Trump, I have no idea what he’s absolutely serious about, which scares me.

But I don’t think that Trump will have the self-control that will gain him a victory in the debate. Still, a victory in the debate may not, unlike the fatal Trump/Biden debate, have much to do with how people vote come November.

What will happen tonight?  All I can predict with confidence is that it’s going to get nasty despite both candidates having moderated their tone and made noises about sticking to the issues. I don’t think Trump can control himself, and to the extent that Harris keeps her cool, she’ll come off looking better. But I hasten to add that Trump has always seemed impervious to how he “comes off,” and the support he’s enjoyed despite all the civil and criminal trials in his future support his statement that “”I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?. . . . It’s, like, incredible.”

As Tom Friedman notes in the NYT op-ed below (click headline to read, or find the article archived here). Harris has taken some positions in the past that could come back to haunt her should Trump bring them up in the debate. These include immigration and Title IX issues. As the Free Press reports in its daily news summary.

Even as Harris gets a little more specific in 2024, the promises she made in 2019 remain a headache. The latest unwelcome reminder of the progressive positions she took in the Democratic primary five years ago come courtesy of CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, who reports that during that race Harris told the ACLU she supports cutting ICE’s funding and providing gender transition surgery to detained migrants.

Further, she’s susceptible to her statement that her values haven’t changed but some of her positions have (e.g., fracking).  If I were a moderator, I’d ask her to explain that. She’s also not good when thinking on her feet, and, with the pressure of a deranged opponent coming down on her, she has to try hard to keep her cool.

I am not a fan of Friedman so much, but I think he’s pretty much correct in his article below:

An excerpt:

“Joe and I got a lot of things right, but we got some things wrong, too — and here is what I have learned.”

For my money, uttering those 23 words, or something like them, is the key for Kamala Harris to win Tuesday’s debate against Donald Trump — and the election.

Utter them, and she will hugely improve her chances to win more of the undecided voters in this tight race. Fail to utter them or continue to disguise her policy shifts with the incoherent statement she used in the CNN interview — that while her positions might have changed on fracking and immigration, “my values have not changed” — and she will struggle.

Madam V.P., if you say your positions have changed but your values haven’t, what does that even mean? And what should we expect from your presidency — your values or your actions? Our latest poll shows too many voters still don’t know.

It’s OK to say: “I learned a lot as vice president. I’m proud of our record of putting America on a sustainable path to a clean energy future. It will make us more secure and more prosperous. But I also see that we can’t get there overnight. For reasons of both economic security and national security, we need an all-of-the-above energy strategy right now. So you can trust that in a Harris presidency, America will continue to lead the world in exploiting our oil and gas advantages but we will do it in the cleanest way possible while making the transition as fast as possible.”

I’m not so sure that admitting she was wrong will “hugely improve her chances” to win over undecided voters, but if she doesn’t she’ll be in a tight place.

Will admitting she was wrong hurt her? Not to me, but perhaps to the American public, which may interpret it as a weak candidate flip-flopping on the issues.  Here’s one of the issues—from CNN—that she might want to back off on, especially given the fact that illegal immigration is now an important issue to many Americans (as is, to a lesser extent, “affirmative care”).

Click to read Kaczynski’s article mentioned above:

An excerpt from CNN:

As Kamala Harris pivots to the political center in her campaign for president, a 2019 questionnaire from a leading civil rights organization spotlights her past support for left-wing causes such as taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.

In an American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire then-Sen. Harris filled out as a candidate for president in 2020, she also expressed support for decriminalizing federal drug possession for personal use, and for sweeping reductions to Immigration and Custom Enforcement operations, including drastic cuts in ICE funding and an open-ended pledge to “end” immigration detention.

The questionnaire has received scant media attention and a spokesperson for the ACLU claimed it had remained live from 2019.

But the ACLU’s website upload and page source indicate the questionnaire was reposted last month after Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. CNN was unable to find questionnaires filled out by other candidates from the 2020 campaign that the ACLU had reposted.

Harris has acknowledged that some of her stances have evolved over time but that she holds core beliefs that remain unshakable: “My values have not changed,” she said in an interview with CNN last month.

The ACLU questionnaire, which was sent  to all Democratic and Republican candidates during the 2020 presidential campaign, provides a clear record of Harris’ progressive stances. Some candidates did not respond to the questionnaire, including Joe Biden.  The ACLU later ran radio ads attacking Biden for not answering.

The ACLU also had volunteers question candidates at public town halls and later posted videos on their website of their responses.

During one town hall event in New Hampshire in April 2019, Harris was asked by a voter if she supports adding a “third gender” to federal identification cards.

“Sure,” Harris answered to a round of applause from the crowd. “I have my entire life and career been an ally and I see the issue of LGBTQ rights as a fundamental civil rights and human rights issue, period,” Harris said.

Here’s a graphic of that, again from CNN:

I have to say that her stand on this: giving federal funding for gender surgery for immigrants who entered the country illegally, is absurd.  And slashing ICE funding is not something most Americans want.  She’d better be ready to disavow these positions, because if Team Trump has any smarts, they’ll bring them up.

Perhaps most Americans will be watching the debate as a form of entertainment rather than a way to figure out how to vote. It’s not at all clear that there will be more debates, though, so this may be the only chance to see the candidates go mano a mano. All we know is the country is poised to go down two very divergent paths, and I find debate about that to be more anxiety-inducing than entertaining.

Anyway, these are just random thoughts, but I invite your random thoughts or predictions about the debate.  I’m sure people will have more to say tomorrow.

Simon Fraser University (sort of) adopts a policy of institutional neutrality, making five North American colleges to do so

September 10, 2024 • 10:00 am

As I’ve said many times, while over 100 American colleges and Universities have adopted a version of the University of Chicago’s policy of free speech, only a handful have adopted our complementary policy of institutional neutrality (“The Kalven Report”). That policy mandates that our University, its departments, and other “official” units, are forbidden from making statements espousing a specific ideology or taking moral or political stand—except when making such a statement directly supports the university’s mission of teaching, learning, and research. Institutional neutrality—which in our school also involves investment decisions—is designed to buttress freedom of expression: nobody feels that they would be punished if they went against some “official” political statement.

As I wrote in an earlier post announcing that Columbia University also has professed this policy (I’ll believe it when I see it there):

The only universities that have adopted Kalven-esque principles, besides us, number two: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Vanderbilt University. (Vanderbilt’s Chancellor, Daniel Diermeier, is a free-speech advocate who was Provost here before he moved south.)  Some professors at Northwestern University have urged adoption of institutional neutrality, but so far little seems to have happened.

(See Diermeier’s WSJ critique of Harvard’s lame attempt at institutional neutrality.)

So, including Chicago, we had four schools adopting a policy that should be universal.  But if you count Simon Fraser University near Vancouver, B.C. as “American” (well, it’s North American), now we have five.  Read the announcement from Simon Fraser’s President by clicking on the screenshot below.

A transcript (I’ve bolded the important stuff except for the title and subtitle, but some of the bolded stuff is troubling, at least to me):

Message from the President: the Role of Universities in Troubled Times

September 09, 2024

As president of SFU, I am often asked by students, faculty and staff to take a stance on partisan political matters and current events. These requests have increased greatly in the past year, during which this topic has been at the forefront of discussion on university campuses around the world. I want to share some thoughts on why I have come to the view that it is important for university administration not to take public positions on such matters.

Universities are comprised of thousands of students, faculty and staff who all hold unique opinions and views, informed by their scholarly work and lived experiences. I believe that universities need to be a place where people can freely engage in academic inquiry, share ideas, learn from each other, disagree constructively and peacefully protest. And I believe that my role as university president is to help facilitate an environment where people can have robust conversations, including on controversial topics.

In the past, I have made statements related to world events in an attempt to be responsive to issues our community is concerned with. However, I have come to understand that taking a public position on behalf of the university can have a chilling effect on the vigorous discussion and debate of students, faculty and staff. While these statements were intended to provide comfort to and express solidarity with members of the university community, their potential impact on open discussion runs contrary to the university’s purpose. I also recognize that there are many local, global and personal issues affecting community members at any given time, and issuing statements on some topics but not others can further contribute to feelings of exclusion.

If SFU is truly to be a place where people feel comfortable sharing their ideas and participating in meaningful dialogue, the university must be non-sectarian and non-political in principle. In order to facilitate this, I believe that the institution—and senior leadership as representatives of the institution—must refrain from taking public positions on topics unrelated to the business of the university, including partisan matters and world events.

Living by Our Values

Academic freedom, as enshrined in our collective agreements and underscored in What’s Next: The SFU Strategy, creates the conditions for scholars to freely examine, question, teach and learn within their area of study, provided that these actions are based on an honest search for knowledge. To truly live by our core values of academic freedom and critical thinking, we need to hold space for difficult and controversial conversations to take place responsibly and respectfully, as well as defending and protecting the human right to express views within the bounds of the law.

As outlined in What’s Next, we are also committed to embedding the values of equity and belonging in every decision and action. We have a collective responsibility to create a culture of inclusive excellence where all feel welcome, safe, accepted and appreciated. Taken together, academic freedom and inclusive excellence support each other and work together to create a vibrant academic community where everyone feels a sense of belonging.

One of the foundational practices of university life is to be exposed to different points of view, broaden our perspectives and have our beliefs and ideas challenged. This may be uncomfortable, but it is also an important part of being an engaged citizen. As we take on this work, it is important to remember that students, staff and faculty are accountable to SFU’s policies and codes of conduct. If violations of established codes of conduct, university policies or laws occur, we will follow the appropriate processes and procedures to address them.

In a time of increased polarization, we must preserve the vibrancy of our academic community while ensuring that difficult conversations are grounded in care and respect for each other. This is a challenging task, but I believe it is one we can accomplish, together. I want to assure you that senior leaders are committed to doing our part by promoting—not shutting down—healthy dialogue at SFU.

Joy Johnson
Pronouns: she, her, hers
President & Vice-Chancellor
Simon Fraser University

Now the “pronoun statement at the bottom undermines this statement just a tad, but on the whole Dr. Johnson (a researcher in “gender and health”) seems to understand the issues at play. But there is one bit of her message that seriously undermines her statement:

As outlined in What’s Next, we are also committed to embedding the values of equity and belonging in every decision and action. We have a collective responsibility to create a culture of inclusive excellence where all feel welcome, safe, accepted and appreciated.

This statement is indeed a debatable political assertion, because “equity” is not equal opportunity for everyone, which is not only the law but morally correct. Rather, “equity” is a policy of equal outcomes, and is premised on the debatable claim that a lack of equal outcomes must perforce reflect bias against an underrepresented group (e.g., “structural racism” or “structural sexism”). The University of Chicago would never adopt a policy calling for equity, but of course we do have a policy of equality of opportunity.  Our University would never assert that it tries to ensure “equity” because that is a debatable statement about ideology.

Further, ensuring that everyone feels “welcome, safe, accepted, and appreciated” may not be possible if there is true freedom of speech.  For that kind of speech almost invariably assures that, at least at some times, some students claim that they feel “unsafe” and “unwelcome”.  That, for example, was one reason that an art history professor at the private Hamline University in Minnesota was fired for showing images of old Islamic pictures in which Muhammed’s face was unveiled.  Showing those pictures (which some Muslims feel is disrespectful or even blasphemous) made some students feel “unsafe,” and that  “they didn’t belong.”  (The professor sued Hamline and, I think, got an other job.)

Finally, “inclusive excellence,” though it links to an explanation of its meaning, is really a slippery concept.  In many cases where students and groups differ in achievement, the words “inclusive” and “excellence” may not be compatible.

So this statement is a sort-of acceptance of Kalven, but shows some unsettling signs of wokeness. For the time being we’ll see what happens at Simon Fraser. It is a public university, but there’s no First Amendment in Canada.

The link was sent to my reader Mike, who is associated with Simon Fraser. Mike said this in an email:

I wanted to share some good news. My university president today publicly embraced institutional neutrality for the university and its senior leadership.  (See below).

We don’t have a real policy yet, we don’t know how far down the administrative structure this neutrality will extend, and I don’t know whether this or a different message was sent to our students at the same time. But I hope clarifying those things will be a next step. It’s a huge improvement over the past 5 years in which the president created a new vice-president-level DEI infrastructure and pursued other initiatives that have chilled free expression by choosing sides on controversial topics including Hamas terrorism. So although there is work to do this is good news and a good day for my university.
The people most responsible for this positive development are the faculty leaders of our Heterodox Academy Campus Community at SFU. Our group has politely, publicly, and insistently urged our colleagues and administrators to back off from adopting public positions on policy or cultural issues on behalf of everyone at the university, and we have extolled the virtues of academic freedom of expression. We think that public campaign has borne its first fruit. I hope its effects will continue to be felt (a real policy, extended to students, and extended down to the level of department chairs).

Mike’s statement about the President setting up a DEI infrastructure is further unsettling. I hope this is good news for Simon Fraser, but, as a cynic, I found the President’s statement worrisome. The first sign that Dr. Johnson means what she says it that she has to dismantle or cut way back on the DEI business. For DEI itself, or at least the ideology behind its most common implementations, is itself ideologically debatable. Remember, the “E” stands for “equity.”

I have landed (in Washington D.C.)

September 9, 2024 • 8:15 am

Well, it was a grueling 15¼-hour flight from Cape Town to Dulles Airport in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.,  and that was on top of a five-hour wait for my plane at Cape Town International Airport, resulting from an 8 p.m. departure when I had to check out of the hotel a bit after noon.

I tried to sleep on the plane, but it was largely futile. So, as usual, I watched a passel of movies, which included the first film (1972) of the movie trilogy “The Godfather” directed by Francis Ford Coppola.  After watching the whole three-hour movie carefully (and for about the fifth time), my opinion is only strengthened that this is one of the best American movies ever made (my top choice, which I’ve often mentioned is “The Last Picture Show,” released a year before “The Godfather”).

I know some people don’t or can’t rank movies, but if you’re daring enough to do so, I’d be delighted to hear readers’ choices for Best American Movie. (As for best foreign films, I’d choose two Japanese ones: Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” (1952) and Ozu’s “Tokyo Story” (1953).

BTW, I had forgotten that Marlon Brando, playing Don Corleone, is not the first character to speak in the movie; rather, it’s an undertaker asking the Godfather to exact justice on the undertaker’s daughter, beaten up by a gang of sexual predators. The first sign of the Godfather is the movement of his hand at 1:30. Here are the first 6.5 minutes:

The movie won the Oscar for Best Picture, and Brando nabbed it for Best Actor, but declined the award. It won a third Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, shared by Coppola and author Mario Puzo.

I’m now cooling my heels at Dulles for two hours, waiting for the 2.5-hour flight to Chicago. After that it’ll be another 1.5-2 hours before I get home. It’s been a long, long flight, but less grueling than my canceled flight to South Africa, which I rebooked flying (after our flight to Cape Town to Dulles was canceled) from Dulles to Newark, then from Newark to Johannesburg, and then from Joburg to Cape Town.

I still have at least two photo-and-text posts left for South Africa, including a visit to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in southern Cape Town, perhaps the best such garden I’ve ever seen. I hae photos of many flowers, including the resplendent King Protea (Protea cynaroides), the national flower of South Africa. Here’s a preview (these flowers can be as much as a foot across):