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It seems natural that people would be more concerned about what the government is doing, and what results it achieves, than they are about how such questions are decided.

Yet in the end, Americans voted based more on the “how” than on the “what,” and they were correct. The right to vote is so important to the cause of human freedom that it overwhelms all other considerations.

But what is the point and justification for democracy? Is it simply that the majority should always get its way? In practice, no one actually seems to believe this or to want unlimited democracy.

n 2016, bitter and unyielding contests have placed the state at the center of national debates about race, civil rights, violence, and elections. In the span of a year, an anti-transgender bathroom bill sparked rallies and a fierce debate over civil rights, flames licked the streets of a resegregated Charlotte during protests over a police shooting, a local GOP office was firebombed, and a collection of new laws have been enacted—and promptly challenged in court. But the most contentious and sustained rift has been in the arena of voting rights, and it is there where White’s words resound most loudly.

Inserts in the hymnals boasted of the church’s commitment to racial, sexual, and gender inclusivity and advertised a training for sensitivity to transgender and gender non-conforming folks.

The latent difficulty of registering to vote compounds with some other obstacles for minorities to depress turnout even in the absence of Jim Crow laws.

It is one of fate’s cruel jokes that conservatism should be at its modern nadir just as the Republican Party is at its zenith — if conservatism is defined as embracing limited government, displaying a rational, skeptical and moderate temperament and believing in the priority of the moral order.

All these principles are related, and under attack

Conservatives believe that human beings are fallible and prone to ambition, passion and selfishness

His new book, "The Son Also Rises" (Clark is a big fan of Hemingway puns), traces families with particular surnames to measure social mobility over the course of hundreds of years in England, the United States, Sweden, India, China and more. He finds that there's much less mobility than we often assume, and that government interventions to promote it more often than not fail.

What gave you the idea to look at surname data? Initially I was interested just in extending conventional social mobility estimates into the distant past. Estimating social mobility is very data intensive. You need to link individual parents and children. There are thus no such estimates for any society before 1850. Tracking surname status was a convenient shortcut. In most societies, all the people with a surname such as Goodhart descended from the earlier set of Goodharts. We do not know the individual linkages, but we can ask what is happening to their status as a group across generations.

I found that you get radically slower estimated mobility rates for all societies when you switch to surnames.

There is no American ethnicity; the U.S. is a resolutely multicultural (and multilingual) country. The usual idea is that American identity is creedal, or organized around a distinctively American set of ideas and value.s

The trouble is that even when there is widespread agreement on nominally common values, conceptions of those values vary wildly.

Take the belief in individual freedom. Some Americans have understood individual freedom as freedom from all non-defensive physical force and fraud. Some Americans have understood individual freedom as implying roughly equal voice in the democratic process, which straightforwardly requires the redistribution of resources and state regulation of spending on political speech. Some Americans have understood individual freedom as a condition of robust autonomy or self-governance that requires universal government-financed education and a minimum of material resources necessary to ensure that individuals are able actually to exercise their liberty and are not caged-in by necessity. And none of these are the conception of individual liberty that prevailed among the Founders. Anyway, there was heated disagreement among the Founders, too. Some them took the ideal of individual freedom to be consistent with chattel slavery while others correctly found human bondage obviously at odds with liberty. Some defended a robust conception of freedom of conscience while others wished to ban the practice of certain religions for freedom’s sake. And so on

E-mail addthis_pub = 'nybooks'; addthis_logo = 'http://www.nybooks.com/images/logo-150.gif'; addthis_logo_background = 'ffffff'; addthis_logo_color = '666666'; addthis_brand = 'NYRB'; addthis_options = 'favorites, facebook, twitter, tumblr, reddit, digg, stumbleupon, delicious, google, more'; Share Print Comments (function() { var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0], rdb = document.createElement('script'); rdb.type = 'text/javascript'; rdb.async = true; rdb.src = document.location.protocol + '//www.readability.com/embed.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(rdb, s); })(); Young Israelis: A Turn to the Right? Eyal Press Uriel Sinai/Getty Images Children at the local school in the village of Ghajar, on Israeli-Lebanese border, which was recaptured during the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, November 10, 2010 Shortly after the democratic uprising began in Egypt, a group of young Israelis led by freelance journalist Dimi Reider launched Kav Hutz (“Outside Line”), a Hebrew-language blog devoted to covering the events across the border. Unable to enter Egypt on short notice with his Israeli passport—a predicament all Israeli correspondents faced—Reider chronicled the insurrection by posting minute-by-minute updates culled from an array of online sources on the ground: Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Egyptian bloggers. The tone of Reider’s blog was reportorial, but hardly detached. “Good luck,” he wrote on the eve of the huge “Day of Departure” rally in Tahrir Square—a sentiment rarely voiced in Israel’s mainstream media, which stressed the danger of a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood if the protesters prevailed. By the time Egyptians had succeeded in overthrowing Hosni Mubarak, Kav Hutz was getting up to 12,000 visitors a day and had been singled out in Haaretz for leaving the rest of the Israeli press “in the dust.” As the story suggests, Egypt’s uprising managed to inspire not only countless young Arabs but also some young Israelis. A contributor to +972, an Israel-based online magazine that features commentary and reporting by mostly young progressives—it is named after the area code shared by Israel and the Palestinian territories—Reider was deeply moved by the courage of the protesters in Cairo and dismayed by the patronizing reaction of many Israelis. “The line the establishment took was that it’s all very nice but they’re going to end up like Iran,” he recalls. “I didn’t take that line because I bothered to read stuff by Egyptians and it quickly became apparent that the Muslim Brotherhood was just one player. It also felt distasteful to me to judge the extraordinary risks Egyptians were taking solely by our profit—by how it would affect Israeli security and the policy of a government I don’t support anyway.” For observers troubled by Israel’s alarming recent shift to the right, the emergence of Internet-savvy liberal voices like Reider’s may seem heartening. But while such bloggers appear more capable of reaching a younger demographic than Haaretz—the venerable leftist newspaper whose aging readership seems likely to shrink in the years to come—it’s not clear how many of their contemporaries are listening to them. One reason is apathy. Increasingly cynical about politics and the prospects of peace, not a few young Israelis I’ve met in recent years have told me they’ve stopped following the news. When they go online, it’s to chat with friends, not to check out sites like +972. There are also growing numbers of young Israelis who simply don’t share Reider’s views. Against the 12,000 readers of Kav Hutz were countless others who didn’t question the alarmist tone of their country’s mass-circulation tabloids when the revolt in Egypt began, as NPR discovered when it aired a segment on what Israeli youth thought of the uprising. “For us it is better to have Mubarak,” one young Israeli said. “I kind of feel sad for President Mubarak,” said another. “For the last two or three years, we’ve been seeing a very consistent trend of younger Israelis becoming increasingly right-wing,” Dahlia Scheindlin, a public opinion analyst who also contributes to +972, told me. Last year, Scheindlin carried out a survey on behalf of the Kulanana Shared Citizenship Initiative that showed eroding support for democratic values among Israeli youth, at least insofar as the rights of non-Jews go. One question in the survey asked whether there should be “Equal access to state resources, equal opportunities [for] all citizens.” Among Jewish respondents between the ages of 16-29, a mere 43 percent agreed.

In October, a poll conducted by New Wave Research asked, “If Palestinians and Israelis reach an agreement… and the Israeli government brings the agreement to a referendum, would you vote for or against?” Among voters over 55, 61 percent—nearly two out of three—said they would support a deal. Among those younger than 35, it was the opposite: only one in three (37 percent) would vote in favor of an agreement.

One reason tolerance may be less widespread among young Israelis is that they rarely interact with Palestinians or Arab-Israelis. “You don’t see Palestinians on the streets of Israel,”

What is a neoconservative? From the etymology of the word, it should refer either to someone who has newly become conservative—having been born a little liberal—or to someone who has revised conservatism into something new, without causing it thereby to cease to be conservative. It should, perhaps, refer to a political perspective that takes il Gattopardo’s maxim, “everything must change so that everything can remain the same,” very much to heart and to whatever lengths necessary.

In 1976 Kristol asked, “What is a ‘Neoconservative’?” and answered, in so many words, someone who wants to make liberalism work. Someone with a preference for incorporating market mechanisms into regulatory policy rather than operating by bureaucratic fiat. With a hostility to the erstwhile “counterculture” and a preference for art or “quality.” Who believes in providing equality of opportunity rather than mandating equality of result. And who holds to a conviction that a world hostile to American values will also be hostile to American interests.

“Neoconservatism … had no program of its own. Basically, it wanted the Republican Party to cease playing defensive politics, to be forward-looking rather than backward-looking … the substance of any specific agenda may not have much to do with neoconservatism, but the moving spirit does.”

How do 7 billion people on a tiny blue ball of a planet live with their differences when the deepest of those differences are religious and ideological?

In short, how do we respect diversity, and still promote liberty and maintain harmony?

Today, even when we are not talking to the world, we can be heard by the world, and the world can organize its response, frequently violent.

The U.S. Army field manual defines "the rule of law" as follows: "The rule of law refers to a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards. It requires, as well, measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law, separation of powers, participation in decision-making, legal certainty, avoidance of arbitrariness and procedural and legal transparency."

it would be difficult to conclude that US targeted strikes are consistent with core rule of law norms," they declared. "From the perspective of many around the world, the U.S. appears to claim, in effect, the legal right to kill any person it determines is a member of al-Qaida or its associated forces, in any state on Earth, at any time, based on secret criteria and secret evidence, evaluated in a secret process by unknown and largely anonymous individuals—with no public disclosure of which organizations are considered 'associated forces,' no means for anyone outside that secret process to raise questions about the criteria or validity of the evidence, and no means for anyone outside that process to identify or remedy mistakes or abuses."

Unfortunately, the U.S. government violates "rule of law" norms in other areas too. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court does not operate with "procedural and legal transparency." The Office of Legal Counsel adopts highly contestable yet totally secret interpretations of statutes that dramatically affect policy outcomes. Citizens and corporations are served with secret court orders and often feel confused about whether they are even permitted to consult with counsel. Laws against revealing classified information are not enforced equally—powerful actors routinely leak official secrets with impunity, while whistleblowers and dissidents are aggressively persecuted for the mere "mishandling" of state secrets. The director of national intelligence committed perjury without consequence. President Obama has blatantly violated a duly ratified, legally binding treaty that requires him to investigate and prosecute acts of torture. He also violated the War Powers Resolution by participating in the military overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi without securing the approval of Congress. And he won't even clarify exactly what groups he considers us to be at war with! That is only a partial list.

According to Pew, the older group believes, 73-20, that “government should do more to solve problems.” Only 44 percent of the younger group agrees — and of younger respondents, 50 percent believe that “government is trying to do too much.”

Eighty-three percent of the older group of Democratic voters believes that “circumstances” are to blame for poverty; only 9 percent blame “a lack of effort.” The younger group of pro-Democratic voters is split, with 47 percent blaming circumstances and 42 percent blaming lack of effort.

An overwhelming majority of the older cohort, 83-12, believes that “government should do more to help needy Americans, even if it means more debt,” while a majority of the younger Democratic respondents, 56-39, believes “government cannot afford to do much more.”

Indiana’s governor is now vowing to “clarify” a religious freedom law he recently signed in that state, because of what he calls a “perception problem” about whether the legislation would allow open discrimination against people whose sexual identities defy the heteronormative construct.

Rather than simply protecting the free exercise of religion, the bill provides the possibility that religion could be used as a basis of discrimination against some customers.

One Indiana pizzeria, asserting that it is “a Christian establishment,” has already said that it will not cater gay weddings: “If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no.” By the way, is wedding pizza a thing in Indiana? Just asking…

“The Case for Reparations,” Coates’ 16,000-word cover story for The Atlantic, where he is a national correspondent. Published online in May, it was a close look at housing discrimination, such as redlining, that was really about the need for America to take a brutally honest look in the mirror and acknowledge its deep racial divisions.

The story broke a single-day traffic record for a magazine story on The Atlantic’s website, and in its wake, Politico named him to its list of 50 thinkers changing American politics

Coates believes that if there is an answer to contemporary racism, it lies in confronting the pas

South Dakota is on the cusp of becoming the first state in the nation to require public school students to use facilities like bathrooms based on their “chromosomes and anatomy” at birth.

The so-called “bathroom bill,” which passed the state House in early February and is being debated by the state Senate Tuesday, marks a revival of the charged fights that played out in states across the country in 2015.

At least five other states have considered similar “bathroom bills” this session, and scores of other measures that LGBT rights advocates consider discriminatory are pending in legislatures around the U.S.

Both male and female roles influence each other.

Japan, like China and Korea, is heavily influenced by Confucian ideals.

en are the heads of the household; women are dependent on the men.

it’s true that trans-exclusionary radical feminists or TERFs, as they are known, are one minority that is actively not tolerated by the LGBTQ establishment, and often demonized by the gay community. It’s also true that they can be inflammatory, offensive, and obsessive

what interests me is their underlying argument, which deserves to be thought through, regardless of our political allegiances, sexual identities, or tribal attachments. Because it’s an argument that seems to me to contain a seed of truth.

the proposed Equality Act — with 201 co-sponsors in the last Congress — isn’t simply a ban on discriminating against trans people in employment, housing, and public accommodations (an idea with a lot of support in the American public)

Here is the central tenet of Facebook’s business: If lots of people click on, comment on, or share an ad, Facebook charges that advertiser less money to reach people. The platform is a brawl for user attention, and Facebook sees a more engaging ad as a better ad, which should be shown to more users.

And yet, in the context of the 2016 Presidential Election, this way of auctioning advertising—originally developed by Google and normalized in the pre-Trump age—can seem strange, unfair, and possibly even against the rules that govern election advertising.

Trump, of course, was the canny marketer, while Clinton’s team was the unengaging competitor. While most everyone covering the digital portion of the election has known this, the logical conclusion that follows can still feel startling.

the idea persists that there is something wrong and oppressive about people of one background adopting and adapting the artifacts of another.

A Canadian university cancelled its yoga classes as culturally appropriating—notwithstanding that most of the strenuous moves taught in a modern class actually originate in Danish gymnastics and British army calisthenics, which were in turn appropriated by Indian entrepreneurs seeking to update yoga from a meditative to an active practice for the body-conscious modern age.

The cultural appropriation police answer the yoga and banh mi objections with a familiar counter-argument: it’s about power. It’s fine for colonized Indians to incorporate European fitness regimes into their yoga; wrong for Canadians of European origin to incorporate yoga into their fitness regimes.

But by 1916 the Liberal-Conservative coalition government felt it must reward the men fighting for Britain. Even Germany had enfranchised all adult males in 1871.

Enfranchising millions of working-class men was daunting for the politicians, especially as Labour grew in strength during the war; even more so in 1917 when the Russian Revolution brought the spectre of socialism still closer.

Britain was unusual in restricting female franchise. In the many other countries where women won the vote around this time – including Germany in 1918 – they gained it on equal terms with men.

“Our democracy’s ideals were false when they were written.”

How can an enduring “ideal” — like, say, freedom or equality — be “false” at one point in history and true in another? You could of course say that the ideals of universal equality and individual liberty in the Declaration of Independence were belied and contradicted in 1776 by the unconscionable fact of widespread slavery, but that’s very different

(They were, in fact, the most revolutionary leap forward for human freedom in history.) You could say the ideals, though admirable and true, were not realized fully in fact at the time, and that it took centuries and an insanely bloody civil war to bring about their fruition