Every ten years, based on the results of the decennial US census,  state legislatures redraw their US House districts. Some states gain seats, some lose seats, still others go through internal population shifts that require reorganization.

On February 7, the US Supreme Court “froze” a lower court ruling invalidating Alabama’s new district map, allowing its use while it hears  a suit over the map’s details.

The plaintiffs’ argument, as reported by CNN, is that the new map “dilutes” the power of black voters because it includes only one, rather than two, districts where black voters comprise a majority and therefore “have the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.”

Alabama’s majority-white, majority-Republican legislators seem to assume that black voters will only support black — and probably Democratic — candidates. They’re trying to shove as many black voters as possible into one overwhelmingly black /Democratic district and scatter the rest across majority white/Republican districts.

The plaintiffs seem to assume not only that black voters WILL act according to that same formula, but that they SHOULD do so, and that the lines should be redrawn to create two black/Democratic districts.

Both sets of assumptions are openly and shamefully racist. They’re based on the idea that the only thing that matters — the only thing that can POSSIBLY matter — when it comes to voting, party affiliation, and political representation is skin color.

If voters want to vote based on race, they will do so whether I like it or not. But gerrymandering congressional districts specifically to give weight and power to that practice and produce outcomes based on it, is classic Jim Crow “separate but equal” segregationism.

If we’re going to continue tolerating political government (someday we’ll undo that poor decision, I hope) and aspire to a “representative democracy,” districting for that representation should take no more account of skin tone than it does of sex/gender, profession, hobbies, or tastes in music.

One way to desegregate congressional districting might be to eliminate districts altogether and just elect all US Representatives “at large” state-wide.

Another might be to use an algorithm that starts at one corner of a state and works toward the opposite corner, drawing  rational, contiguous districts of equal population as it goes, and taking no account of racial or other demographic elements.

There might be other solutions, but gerrymandering to create “whites only” / “blacks only” voting booths in ANY proportion isn’t one of them.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

The United Nations designates February 6 of each year as an “International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.” This year,  in remarks accompanying his Angelus prayer before a crowd at St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis denounced the practice of involuntary female circumcision, saying that it “demeans the dignity of women and gravely undermines their physical integrity.”

For some reason, though, the UN doesn’t designate an “International Day of Zero Tolerance for Male Genital Mutilation,” nor to my knowledge has the Holy Father ever publicly applied his church’s catechism to the practice of involuntary male circumcision.

According to that catechism, “except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.”

Why is it considered unacceptable to genitally mutilate infant girls, but acceptable — or at least not important enough to vocally oppose — to genitally mutilate infant boys?

There are certainly religious explanations. The Pope’s religion is an offshoot of Judaism, which practices male but not female circumcision, while female circumcision is confined to some sects of Islam and to some animist sects.

But the bigger reason seems to be simple popularity.

More than a third of male infants worldwide are circumcised. In western cultures, pseudo-scientific “medical” claims, ranging from a variant of “balancing the humors” to the notion that it reduced the desire to masturbate (a practice also pseudo-scientifically tied to various ailments), popularized the practice in the late 19th century.

Moving into the 20th century, male infant circumcision became nearly universal in the US. As each pseudo-scientific claim supporting it fell, another rose to replace it, but we invariably eventually find that infant male circumcision is almost never therapeutic, let alone universally so.

Some parents still allow their sons to be circumcised for aesthetic reasons (so junior’s penis looks like senior’s, for example), or because  fake health claims continue to circulate, but the big reason seems to be “well, that’s just what people do.”

Fortunately, the popularity of male circumcision seems to be decreasing. That’s a good thing. But it’s disturbing that we continue to entertain it as acceptable at all.

If circumcision was invented from scratch — as religious ritual or “medical” procedure — today, we’d throw its inventors in prison or cart them off to mental hospitals. Hacking off healthy parts of infants’ bodies is a violent and barbaric practice, and we should treat it as one.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

The Empire Center’s James Hanley tells readers of The Wall Street Journal that “anyone who wants to pay more to go green should have that choice”  (“Congratulations, You’ve Won a Higher Electric Bill!,” January 31). The subject of Hanley’s op-ed, the residents of Yonkers in upstate New York, did have the freedom to choose between two energy plans, with a higher electric bill for the renewable-sourced one. Hanley objects to them being defaulted to the renewable option, the sort of policy which has given Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s “libertarian paternalism” the reputation for being more paternalist than libertarian in practice.

It’s true that “in a properly functioning market, consumers express their preferences through the prices they pay.” Yet Hanley tacitly implies that renewable options are a luxury. This has been asserted outright by John Stossel: “The market didn’t arbitrarily pick oil as the dominant source of energy.”

R. Buckminster Fuller observed that the ability of fossil fuels to burn quickly after being formed over far vaster stretches of time makes them an “energy savings account.” The short-term benefit doesn’t reflect their limited supply, with the “fabulous energy-income wealth” of renewable alternatives untapped.

Paul Krugman noted a decade ago that despite Solyndra becoming a symbol of solar as government boondoggle, that particular company’s “failure was actually caused by technological success: the price of solar panels is dropping fast, and Solyndra couldn’t keep up with the competition.” One would expect Stossel rather than Krugman to be the pundit noting the limits of political policymakers’ ability to foresee market winners.  Yet when Stossel writes that “government’s ‘green’ subsidies suck money away from far more useful activities,” he overlooks how the non-green energy sources which he assumes to be simply more economical are subsidized on a much larger scale.

Helen Leavitt’s 1970 muckraking tome Superhighway–Superhoax documented how “a staggering number of private interests” formed the impetus for “the largest single public works project ever undertaken.” Amory Lovins points out that “100-plus percent subsidies” aren’t enough to draw private investment to nuclear power, so that “we can have as many nuclear plants as Congress can force the taxpayers to pay for.”

Whether your way is the greenway or the parkway, you’re not going to get very far without a clear view of the price.

New Yorker Joel Schlosberg is a senior news analyst at The William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

1. “You Can’t Have the State Highway Your Way” by Joel Schlosberg, CounterPunch, February 7, 2022
2. “You Can’t Have the State Highway Your Way”
   by Joel Schlosberg, OpEdNews, February 7, 2022
3. “You Can’t Have the State Highway Your Way” by Joel Schlosberg, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, February 9, 2022
4. “You can’t have the state highway your way” by Joel Schlosberg, Dillon, Montana Tribune, February 9, 2022
5. “You Can’t Have the State Highway Your Way” by Joel Schlosberg, Queens [New York] Ledger, February 10, 2022
6. “You Can’t Have the State Highway Your Way” by Joel Schlosberg, Forest Hills/Rego Park [New York] Times, February 10, 2022
7. “You Can’t Have the State Highway Your Way” by Joel Schlosberg, Leader/Observer [New York City], February 10, 2022
8. “You Can’t Have the State Highway Your Way” by Joel Schlosberg, The Long Island City/Astoria [New York] Journal, February 10, 2022
9. “You Can’t Have the State Highway Your Way” by Joel Schlosberg, Queens [New York] Examiner, February 10, 2022
10. “You Can’t Have the State Highway Your Way” by Joel Schlosberg, Greenpoint [New York] Star, February 10, 2022
11. “You Can’t Have the State Highway Your Way” by Joel Schlosberg, Brooklyn [New York] Downtown Star, February 10, 2022
12. “You Can’t Have the State Highway Your Way” by Joel Schlosberg, Independent Political Report, February 10, 2022
13. “You can’t have the state highway your way” by Joel Schlosberg, The Millbury, Ohio Press, February 11, 2022
14. “You can’t have the state highway your way” by Joel Schlosberg, The Lebanon, Indiana Reporter, February 24, 2022