Isaac Chotiner Gets Jonah Goldberg Wrong
So Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently said this in an interview with Emily Bazelon:
Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.
Ginsburg is saying that her perception of the situation in 1980 is that there was a lot of concern on the right about Bell Curve-style dysgenics and that, therefore, insofar as folks were willing to tolerate legal abortion at all they would welcome Medicaid-funded abortions for poor people. But she was wrong. Jonah Goldberg decides, however, to read this as Ginsburg making the case for eugenics and then writes an LA Times column denouncing her and wondering if fellow liberal fascist Sonia Sotomayor is also hatching a eugenicist plot.
Now this all comes to me via Isaac Chotiner who remarks:
This leads to a more interesting topic. I had a drink with a conservative writer in Washington a while back who rolled his eyes at the mention of Goldberg’s book. My drinking buddy stated that he and many other conservatives believed ‘Liberal Fascism’ was rather amusing and ridiculous. I was heartened–behind Goldberg’s back, after all, even staunch right-wingers thought his thesis was a joke. But then it occured to me that the joke might be on the rest of us. Goldberg is a rather clever guy, and so I chalk up his decision to write ‘Liberal Fascism’ to purely financial motives. This column is just more evidence for my thesis. Again, Goldberg is not stupid; what are the odds that he happened to (grossly) misread a column in a manner that perfectly fits with the argument of his book? Hell, maybe he will even sell a few more copies today. Throwing away one’s credibility might be short-sighted or sad, but who says it is not profitable?
I think this is dead wrong. Goldberg is stupid.
My understanding from my own off-the-record chats with conservative writers is that Liberal Fascism was published for pecuniary reasons. Goldberg’s editor, in other words, understood that this was the sort of red meat the rubes would eat up. But the gossip I’ve heard has it that he was then taken aback to discover that Goldberg didn’t see the project that way. He’s sufficiently vainglorious, out of touch, and egomaniacal that he really does think of the book as a “very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care” and genuinely takes offense at the fact that people are grappling with his scholarship.
Recall his indignant huff that his book “isn’t like any Ann Coulter book.” It is! And just like some of Coulter’s work, it’s sold a lot of copies. But he really sees himself as embarked upon a more ambitious project than that of base-whipping provocateur.
86 Responses to “Isaac Chotiner Gets Jonah Goldberg Wrong”
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July 14th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Without bad faith interpretations, the right would have nothing at all to write about.
Cut them a little slack.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
MY is still pissed that it outsold his book 1000 fold or more.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Oh, choad, you’re just pissed that D. Pantload got paid for a book-length troll.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Goldberg and Hannity are like twin idiot sons of different moron mothers. I think the rest of the media by and large don’t know how to deal with pundits who are just bone stupid.
Mike
July 14th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Goldberg is offended by any mention of his scholarship and methods, yet, in his book, he makes sweeping claims to dismiss academic scholarship of Germany and fascism that really impugn the integrity of the scholarly community and bear no resemblance to any graduate-level seminar on German history or fascism that I’ve taken.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
actually, I rather liked that book.
http://www.lulu.com/content/1811025
July 14th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
people are grappling with his scholarship
That is an exceedingly generous (to Goldberg) description of what people are doing.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Recall his indignant huff that his book “isn’t like any Ann Coulter book.” It is! And just like some of Coulter’s work, it’s sold a lot of copies. But he really sees himself as embarked upon a more ambitious project than that of base-whipping provocateur.
Isn’t it worse, though? As I understand it, Coulter’s books are mostly fact-light attacks on Democrats and liberals – nasty blog posts in printed form. Goldberg’s book was something worse – it actively sought to negate an entire field of scholarship.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Wow, so that’s not what a female, liberal judge actually said, but some rightard goes off full metal stupid about it?
There seems to be a lot of that going around.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Without bad faith interpretations, the right would have nothing at all to write about.
Don’t forget imputations of bad faith, which are the sum total of judd’s oeuvre.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I think it’s a bit much to call him stupid. He has below average intelligence, but not significantly so. It’s just rare for people of his intelligence to be given positions where their opinion is heard on a wide range of subjects. He’s like a slightly better educated Glenn Beck.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Without the mental defectives who are stupid enough to believe it, the right would not have an audience.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
You are definitely correct Matt. If you notice in the book and in defending the book he always brings up “liberals” calling conservatives fascists. He seems to have taken this personally and may have experienced it himself. Unfortunately he has discovered a way to revenge himself by tediously seeking out anecdotes to flesh out and stretch a couple of well-known theories that argue for similiarities in fascism and socialism.
I have a post here with two emails I sent to Golberg on this issue: http://sophistryandklatsch.blogspot.com/2009/07/on-liberal-fascism.html
He responded to the first one by saying he would respond on his blog and never did. Neither did he address mine nor anyone else’s fundamental critiques. But I do think he has convinced himself that he is a lone man with the truth. It is pretty sad.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Also: Goldberg isn’t throwing away his credibility with the major media that employs him or the readers that purchase his book. So what does he care?
July 14th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
If you know what you are doing, you can do an abortion (or other medical procedures) with nunchuks!
July 14th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Oh, choad, you’re just pissed that D. Pantload got paid for a book-length troll.
Uh?
July 14th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
As opposed to doing it for free, Judd.
Jeeze, we have to explain everything to them.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Does anyone know if he dealt with the situation that there are European fascist parties that still exist and caucus with the right wing parties?
I think that would be the perfect “stupid or liar” experiment. If he knows that and tries to address it in the book he’s trying to fool the rubes with his bullshit. If he doesn’t know that he is really an ignorant git who doesn’t understand why everyone laughs at his bullshit.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I’ve met Goldberg several times. I also have friends who know Goldberg better than I do. And the conversations, when they’ve come up about Liberal Fascism or Goldberg in general, have revolved around whether Goldberg really IS stupid. Or whether he’s just incredibly lazy, and has an inflated view of his own contributions.
The conversations among conservatives generally go like this: “Goldberg is really fucking stupid, have you seen Liberal Fascism?” And the response is, “Yeah it’s stupid, but he’s actually smart, he’s just incredibly lazy.”
Now, I’ve never met Katherine Lopez. But no one I’ve met has called her anything other than stupid. She doesn’t get the benefit of the lazy tag.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Do you seriously think that Pasteëater knows anything about the modern history of Spain or Greece?
July 14th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Yo! Not “grappling with his scholarship”. Sneering at his scholarship. To be grappling with his scholarship means dealing with his scholarship in a serious way, dealing with its implications, arguing seriously in favor or against it, or something like that. To be “grappling with” something doesn’t mean looking at it and saying OMFGWTF.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Goldberg’s book was something worse – it actively sought to negate an entire field of scholarship.
The better comparison would be Michelle Malkin’s internment book, which was pitched as a kind of crossover from the Grub Street hackwork of Regnery and co. into a world of “serious conservative scholarship.”
Pantload’s editors chose something sufficiently abstract that it would slip under the academic radar, and thus escape Malkin’s fate of having to admit her errors, while retaining the outward appearance of scholarship. It’s a academic travesty, in the literary sense of the term.
I have very little good to say of Michael Ledeen, but his review of Goldberg’s book was clearly written while biting his lip.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Does anyone know if he dealt with the situation that there are European fascist parties that still exist and caucus with the right wing parties?
As I explain here http://sophistryandklatsch.blogspot.com/2009/07/on-liberal-fascism.html Goldberg addresses critiques like that by arguing, not explicitly though, that all modern politics is fascistic except American conservatism because it is classically liberal. So he would argue that European parties are on a spectrum of fascism blah blah blah.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Does anyone know if he dealt with the situation that there are European fascist parties that still exist and caucus with the right wing parties?
The obvious answer is that their fascist bent makes those “right-wing” parties in fact liberals. Remember, he’s defining fascism as a form of liberalism to begin with.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
You know who ELSE liked dogs?
You know who ELSE built highways?
That’s right. Hitler.
This is as very serious, thoughtful argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care, just in case you can’t tell.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I think Justice Ginsburg is right about the climate when Roe was decided (1972, as I recall). There really was a lot of movement toward legalizing abortion for — not really eugenic, more saving money on welfare — reasons. Recall that (in 1969, I think) Ronald Reagan bought into the bill in California liberalizing abortion — which I recall as the first time there was a lot of Catholic intervention in the subject, and it wasn’t pro-Ronald.
That kind of thinking continued for a while afterwards in California, specifically in the mind of the extremely distasteful Pete Wilson, who managed to convince the state media that he was some kind of “liberal republican” due to his kinky desire to save money by aborting poor babies. As far as I know, unless Wilson stages an unlikely comeback that sort of thought is extinct.
I also recall reading an account of a Supreme Court hearing in which both women (O’Connor and Ginsburg) raised the significant point that if the state could forbid a woman to have an abortion it might by the same standard compel a woman to have an abortion, which speaks to the point she was making.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
The great irony in all of this is that Ginsburg’s former belief – the one she decided was wrong when when the SCOTUS upheld the Hyde Amendment – characterizes CONSERVATIVES, her ideological opponents, as believing in eugenics.
According to Jonah Goldberg logic, a liberal saying she used to think conservatives supported eugenics, but has since realized she was mistaken to think that about them, indicates that she supports eugenics.
I must once again applaud Jonah Goldberg for his tireless work breaking down a certain stereotype.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
I am a very stupid person and Jonah Goldberg gives me hope. I imagine there are millions more like me.
Now if I only had the kind of Mom that does the kind of things Lucienne does. I’d have it made, except for the fact that I’d have to kill myself from shame.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Jonah Goldberg–self-hating fascist.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Jonah is manna from Heaven, along with Rush, and Hannity– arrogant, dumb, white guys on parade. I can’t get enough. Practically piss myself when Jonah goes on Hannity’s show. The problem for the Republicans is that there is no shutting them up. They won’t have a party left.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
It sucks that Ruth Bader was thinking along these lines. Worse yet, she’s talking about it. (Like that Sanger woman, so many years ago…)
Eugenics was always a part of it.
An inconvenient truth.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Has anyone given any thought to the idea that Goldberg DID at first see the whole enterprise as something of a lark, that he did it to burnish his right wing credentials and fatten his pocketbook, and then either
1) somehow became convinced by his own arguments as he went along (which would argue that he’s not working in the full light of intellectual day, and a champeen self-deceiver to boot) OR
2) realized after its publication that he didn’t want to be seen as the lightweight idiot so many people thought it painted him to be, so decided to try to defend it as if he totally believed in it all along?
Or maybe a bit of both: he’s somewhat dimmer than the average bear, AND he has a massive (compensatory) ego, so he could have easily convinced himself that he’s made good arguments and OF COURSE he didn’t just throw something together for the money.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Remember that fascism is when people make politics into a religion and also it’s when people try to get beyond politics like the French Revolution. It’s not always about jack-booted thugs, sometimes it’s about Jimmy Carter asking people to slightly turn their thermostats down in winter. This is central to my point. Also, Italians are not Germans. The tree was poisoned, but then it somehow grew fruit which was poisoned too.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Oh, I don’t know. There really WERE a lot of conservatives who thought in terms of minority groups being “less desirable” in the 1970s. She may have turned out to have been wrong about the effect of that belief on abortion rights, but being cautious about the racial bona fides of conservatives in the 1970s doesn’t seem terribly sucky to me.
It’s not as though they covered themselves in glory during the Reagan/Bush/Willie Horton/Darryl Gates era that followed.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
“But maybe he (she) is not such a moron after all!” is a standard refreshing move in a conversation that’s repeated the conventional wisdom a nauseating number of times. There’s usually no reason for it at all. If MY’s thread were like political discourse in general, every so often we’d see someone say, “Maybe Megan McArdle is just acting dumb in a brilliantly played con!”
Goldberg is the master of conservative resentment; it has little to do with policy disagreements. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he’s fairly pro-choice, and wears it as a badge of his reasonableness, just as he doesn’t have a problem with gay marriage. But he’s very upset at the fact that most liberals are deep down very evil, fascist people.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
TBogg caught Ben Domenech on 7/10 making this exact same argument about Ginsburg as eugenics apologist. Either Goldberg got it from Domenech or they both got it from taking consecutive sips of the same fetid fever swamp.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
somehow became convinced by his own arguments as he went along
Think about how many times the publication date was delayed. Your standard Regnery/Townhall hackjob goes from pitch to draft to proof to print to remainder bin very quickly, because most political books get old very quickly — even the good ones. Pros like Hugh Hewitt know this, and churn out books like battery hens.
I wouldn’t be surprised that the time it took Goldberg to finish the damn thing — by which time, the political climate had changed a great deal– contributed to making the book more of an academic travesty than a glib Coulteresque ya-boo-you-suck effort, while also encouraging a kind of crypto-scholarly defensiveness towards the project.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
El Cid said:
[Fascism]’s not always about jack-booted thugs, sometimes it’s about Jimmy Carter asking people to slightly turn their thermostats down in winter.
Wow! Brilliant analysis! I never thought about that way, but suddenly it’s perfectly clear. When the president asks people to do something sensible, that is fascism. We barely escaped the extermination camps on that one!
July 14th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
This is an odd reading, really. Ginsburg doesn’t mention the right. And the use of “we” and “some people” doesn’t exactly line up with a left/right reading, unless you think Ginsburg is on the right.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Goldberg is another lay person who tries to use hollow talking points as a smokescreen for an actual understanding of the issues he’s discussing. His only strategy for credibility is to follow one of those talking points to as absurd a conclusion as he can possibly construct.
http://chaosoutoforder.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/the-tyranny-of-false-dichotomies-judicial-version/
July 14th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Thomas,
She talks about the 1980 decision to uphold the Hyde Amendment. The amendment was upheld 5-4, with the conservatives voting to uphold the ban on taxpayer-funded abortions, and the liberals voting to strike it down.
Her statement was about being surprised that somebody didn’t vote to strike down the amendment and allow taxpayer-funded abortions. Obviously, she couldn’t have been mistaken about how the liberals were going to vote, because they voted how they’d always voted on abortion cases – for women’s right to choose. Since her statement was about being surprised that people didn’t vote to strike down the amendment, she can only be talking about how the conservative 5 justices voted.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Rob Mac: You’d think I’d just be making up this line of thinking, but, no, as evidenced by this discussion between Glenn Reynolds, Dr. Helen, and Jo’berg hisownself (original audio here):
The direct quote was:
Also, from Jo’berg hissownself, same program, Hillary Clinton’s phrase of “It takes a village” was pretty much the same mindset that led Mussolini to coin the term “totalitarian”.
I’m not making any of this up. It’s all this ridiculous.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
I subscribe to Newsmax emails to track what the right wing is doing — and I’ve noticed that some sugar daddy always offers Ann Coulter’s books at a SEVERE discount to the grassroots.
So I wonder if a lot of people are really buying this right wing crap — or if a few plutocrats pushing a selfish agenda cut a deal with a publisher to buy up 30,000 or so of her books and then give them away in order to pay her off and to give her bullshit some kind of artifical glow. Same goes for Goldberg.
After all , the people stupid enough to actually fall for this bullshit don’t read all that much. The idea of them springing $25 for a BOOK doesn’t quite pass the laugh test.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
“It is a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.”
Not to play grammar police, but I will. If Jonah’s so smart, he would know there’s no need for a comma after “thoughtful.” In fact, the use of the comma is wrong. This from a man who grew up with the rule that a comma should be used prior to the “and” in a series.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
And now, we’re talking about it, which makes us just like them, right?
So, how long have you been a eugenicist?
July 14th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
“The Holocaust could not have occurred in Italy. because Italians are not Germans.”
“Ultimately, it is probably too confusing to try and separate Nazism and Italian Fascism completely.”
July 14th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
LOL–Plagiarizing Ben Domenech? The worm Ouroboros, that devoureth its own tail . . .
July 14th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Don W. above:
Yes, this is just how these books make best-seller lists. You can’t even go to Townhall.com w/o a pop-up offering Glenn Beck’s latest bound spew free if you subscribe to Townhall.
July 14th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Goldberg’s failure to mention the support Hitler and Mussolini gave to Franco during the Spanish Civil War as well as his failure to mention the División Azul, Spanish soldiers who fought alongside Hitler’s troops against the Soviets, unless one believes that Franco was a leftist . . .
July 14th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
[...] poor (and via correlation, minority) population starts sounding like eugenics real quick, such as this edgy quote from Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg. When it comes down to it, there is a notable difference between allowing abortions and funding [...]
July 14th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Jonah is a true believer, in what he believes in. He’s never changed his mind, like most ideologs, because whatever he believes in is supported by eternal principals, which can be crafted to any particular instant, so they remain immutable, so how could he possibly change them.
I’m hoping Nation will accept my investigation into the GOP’s support of Saddam, as they obviously supplied the Republican Guard.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
He’s never changed his mind, like most ideologs, because whatever he believes in is supported by eternal principals, which can be crafted to any particular instant, so they remain immutable, so how could he possibly change them.
That’s not really true. Following his discussion of the book and comparing his writing before and after its publication makes it clear that the process of writing this book made him much more libertarian. He’s stupid, and his interpretations are driven by some repugnant ideology, but he changes his mind.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
He may change his mind, but will he admit to it? That’s another matter entirely.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
That’s a very creative reading of Justice Ginsberg, Matt Yglesias.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
So why does Ginsberg say she was surprised by SCOTUS’s ruling, rather than the Hyde Amendment- did she think there were eugenicists on the Court?
July 14th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Jonah Goldberg reminds me of why I was pissed off when my all-women’s college accepted men into the undergraduate class.
It’s the legacy from Hell.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
joe, I know what case she’s talking about. What I’m talking about is her language, not her surprise. “I had thought that [...] there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” Who is the “we”? The right-wingers on the court? That’s an odd locution, but ok. But she continued: “So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them.” Who are “some people”? That’s an odd way to refer to oneself. How odd that Ginsburg would not be a part of the “we”–that’s the evil right-wingers–and would be part of the “some people.” Either she uses words in an unusual way, or Matt’s misinterpreting her.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Matt asserts that the publisher thought the book would make money, while the author thought it was an important contribution to modern thought.
That’s the most scandalous things I’ve ever heard. I can’t imagine that could possibly be true of any other book ever published.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
He may change his mind, but will he admit to it? That’s another matter entirely.
Yeah, he will. Look, he’s lazy and hacky, but he’s talked about how the process of writing the book made him more libertarian.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Anthony:
I agree. And, if you follow the logic of the book, he had too. Precisely because he even includes compassionate conservativism as a flavor of fascisism as well as basically all major European parties and the Democratic party but takes “classical liberalism” i.e. something like libertarianism to be the only movement not influenced by fascism. (Though he still never explains that if all of modernity since the first world war is tainted by fasicism why we should even care at the point.)
July 14th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
I have to say you are being mean. Jonah Goldberg isn’t an elected official. Attacking him personally in this way is like beating up as wimpy kid in high school just to prove how tough you are. I mean by your own account Goldberg didn’t write the book with the intention of misleading any one. So what is it that you are doing? why not just leave the poor guy alone?
July 14th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I mean by your own account Goldberg didn’t write the book with the intention of misleading any one. So what is it that you are doing? why not just leave the poor guy alone?
Uh, his intentions don’t matter. He wrote a pernicious book that relativizes one of the greatest evils of all time to score cheap political points, and it became a number one bestseller. It is important to refute and mock that ridiculousness, regardless of whether he intended to mislead.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
That being said (that Jonah is an idiot) should not prevent serious people from seriously questioning the history of liberal democracy. Take, for instance, the French liberal arguments in favor of colonization (esp. Jules Ferry). Or read some Agamben for instance. There is a very serious, philosophical, critical case to be made against the utilitarian/Millsian tradition of liberalism.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
If only I had the kind of Mom (& Dad) that John Ensign (R-NV) does… Then I’d have it made!
July 14th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
“Off the record conversations with conservatives” and “gossip I’ve heard.”
Wow. Nice. Class act, this post.
July 15th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Yes Sam, it’s just another classic example of liberal fascism in action.
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July 15th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Attacking him personally in this way is like beating up as wimpy kid in high school just to prove how tough you are.
No, it’s not. As Anthony says, it should be considered a public duty to mitigate the capacity of foolish authors of foolish books to make new fools out of their readers.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:01 am
I was heartened-behind Goldberg’s back
“heartened-behind” is a great, screwy, hyphenated word. I’m not really sure what it means, though.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:18 am
It’s interesting that Ginsburg misread the conservative movement like that; it’s a pretty colossal misreading, but it does make some sense from a 1980 perspective. I’ve met plenty of right-leaning folk that think more or less exactly along those lines about abortions and poor minorities.
But that can’t be your public position if you’re the conservative movement, either in 1980 or now, seeing as:
1. It’s anathema to religious traditionalists of both the Evangelical and the Catholic varieties.
2. It seriously undermines any chance at minority outreach, and, just as importantly, hurts you among many white voters who are uncomfortable with anything that they recognize as racist or white supremacist thinking.
If your voter base consists mostly of country-club types and that’s enough to get you through a primary and a general, you’re still far better off arguing for a woman’s right to choose. It sounds a hell of a lot better.
The bigger surprise might be that Ginsburg admitted to all this in an interview. It makes it easy for a conversative to complain “those liberals think we’re all evil racists” like they often do. Of course, Goldberg is going way beyond that here in attributing a position she admits she misattributed to some other group of people directly to her, which just makes my head spin.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Goldwater believed that abortion was a personal choice, so the non-religious conservative movement of the 70s wasn’t up in arms opposing abortion (quite the contrary). Meanwhile, delegates to the 1971 Southern Baptist Convention gathering in Saint Louis adopted a resolution endorsing abortion “under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” Eminent Southern Baptist theologian W.A. Criswell registered his approval of Roe v. Wade at the time it was handed down. This attitude only began to change through the 1970s under the influence of Francis Schaeffer, who helped establish the foundation for such organizations as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition. The goal was to reshape America along the lines of Calvin’s Geneva, with abortion as one of the rallying cries. Prior to that, fundamentalists considered it largely a “Catholic thing,” and were much more worked up over racial issues (Jerry Falwell was a strident anti-Earl Warren guy, not really an anti-Warren Burger guy).
So I think Justice Ginsberg could be forgiven for having read the conservative movement of the 1970s as being much more represented by William F. Buckley than by the anti-Roe crowd. The sudden co-opting of denominations that traditionally distrusted government and supported separation of church and state into the political campaign of a formerly pro-choice non-religious Hollywood actor surprised a great many people.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:00 am
(Not that Buckley himself was pro-choice, but at the time he at least gave the impression of being willing to debate the issue. And of having certain concerns about the lesser non-white races in America.)
July 15th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Goldberg: Stupid or venal. Why do we have to choose?
July 15th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Jonah’s book is just more, ‘up is down’ crap. What happened to the days when Republicans were pragmatists? No adventure wars for them.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
The irony of course is that the majority of American conservatives are opposed to abortion essentially out of eugenic reasons. It doesn’t take much scratching beneath the surface to discover that one of the biggest motivators driving the “pro-life” movement is the fear that white women will all have abortions and use birth control while Blacks and latinas drop babies all over the place. This is where movement Conservatives are geniuses at rhetoric – Goldberg uses liberal arguments against liberal positions, which gets mainstream journalists all confused, but never for a second do the Movement followers ever doubt that Goldberg is really one of them, down to the core of his black fascist heart.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
“Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of”
How can you possibly read the word “we” as to not include the speaker.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Dave 123,
Quite easily. Like this:
In 2003, we supported going to war in Iraq. We supported that decision by about a 2:1 majority.
Now, I personally never supported invading Iraq, you know. I was against that war from the beginning. But we, as a society, supported it.
We supported Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. This use of “we” does indeed include me – as an American – just as Ginsburg’s use of “we” includes her – as an American. However, in neither case does the use of “we” indicate anything about my, or Ginsburg’s, personal opinion.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
joe, are you saying that Ginsburg believes that most Americans think (or though–there’s some ambiguity here) that there are populations that most Americans don’t want to have too many of? I think the fact that Ginsburg thinks most Americans are morally repulsive, or were, is pretty big news too.
And in any case how does that help Matt’s reading, which is that Ginsburg is saying something about “the right”, not America?
July 15th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Thomas,
White people are the “we” in that sentence. Like “we supported the Iraq war”.
She was saying that in 1970 most whites were either proud racists, unexamined racists, trying hard not to be racist but still struggling with fear of a future black America, or in a very small minority in the white community.
And again, to misquote Peter Principle
Thomas: Stupid or venal. Why do we have to choose?
July 16th, 2009 at 8:07 am
I think matt is guilty of the common flaw of generalizing too widely from his own experience. God knows his publisher couldn’t have expected to make any money on his turd of a book.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Thomas,
joe, are you saying that Ginsburg believes that most Americans think (or though–there’s some ambiguity here) that there are populations that most Americans don’t want to have too many of?
Not “thinks,” “thought.” And not “most Americans” but “most conservatives.”
I think the fact that Ginsburg thinks most Americans are morally repulsive, or were, is pretty big news too. You do realize that her statement is about how she realized she was wrong about this, right?
July 16th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Except the argument against her being included in the “we” is not that “we” referred to all of America but that it referred to some unidentified racist groups. So using your logic, she counted herself as part of one of those racist groups, but just was not for the use of abortion to limit the size of “undesirable populations.”
So under this logic, she is calling almost all of white Americans in the 1970’s racists who wanted to limit the black population through abortion. Well, that’s much better.
July 16th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Um, if conservatives had thought Roe could have been used as the foundation for decreasing “growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of,” then wouldn’t they have been supportive of Roe, given their inherent bigotry? Was Ginsberg being inclusive of conservatives in her statement, or was she just using the royal “we?”
July 16th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
So, Vanya, if it is true that
“It doesn’t take much scratching beneath the surface to discover that one of the biggest motivators driving the “pro-life” movement is the fear that white women will all have abortions and use birth control while Blacks and latinas drop babies all over the place. ”
Why then, did the progressive Ms. Sanger locate her clinics in poor,ethnic neighborhoods?
July 17th, 2009 at 1:35 am
Because Ms. Sanger didn’t want poor ethnics having lots of babies. Where’s the contradiction? Conservatives only became anti-abortion when they realized Sanger was wrong about who was going to take advantage of easy access to abortion.