Here is a little factoid that will tell you almost everything you need to know about politics in America. There are currently 14 Democratic women in the US Senate and there have only ever been 17 Republican women in the Senate. The graph above is from Derek Willis’ article at The Upshot, GOP Women in Congress: Why So Few? It shows the total number of women in Congress since World War I. Up to 1990, the two parties were pretty much the same. But since then, the Republican Party has become unhinged. The Democratic Party is almost to the point of gender parity. But the Republican Party has flatlined.

Sadly, Willis’ article is kind of an apologia for the Republicans. If you read it very carefully, you will see that there really is something wrong with the Republicans. But the article tries very hard to make it all about the dysfunction of the system itself. The Democrats are electing a whole lot more women and the Republicans aren’t, “And political polarization seems to be a major reason.” How is that? Well, the argument seems to be that those women who are Republicans are more moderate — thus less likely to make it through the primary process. Yet, “Democratic women who are potential congressional candidates tend to fit comfortably with the liberal ideology of their party’s primary voters…”

This isn’t “political polarization”; this is “Republican extremism.” And this is something that I’ve written about a lot around here. I still find it hard to fathom how it is that Republicans continue to get roughly half the vote in presidential elections. People who were happy with the Republican Party of Nixon and Reagan should be quite comfortable with the Democratic Party of Obama. The fact of the matter is that there isn’t really a liberal party in the in the United States. We have an extreme right, even proto-fascist, party in the Republicans. And we have a centrist party in the Democrats. It is only relative to the Republicans that any kind of case can be made for the Democrats being liberal.

The whole thing indicates why in our system liberals can never succeed by “moderating.” The Republicans have moved hard and fast to the right. Democrats have moved slowly to the right — that’s especially true on economic issues, but even regarding social issues, the party often lags behind the public. The the huge gulf opened up by the intensity of the Republican move causes journalists to discuss the change as “political polarization” as if what had happened was the Republicans and Democrats both moving to the extremes. In addition, people like Peter Wehner are able to claim that Democrats are the real extremists without being laughed out of polite society. It’s just ridiculous.

It’s pretty clear what would cause the parties to be more symmetric in terms of female participation. The Democrats could become more liberal. That would make the existing Republican Party more appealing to women in the middle of the political spectrum. So increasing polarization would cause more female Republicans to be elected to Congress. Of course, the same thing would happen if the Republicans became less extreme. But that just proves the point that the issue is Republicans extremism and not polarization.

Almost 51% of the nation is female. Yet when one party sees an enormous growth in the representation of women while the other sees its growth stagnate, it is time for yet another column about systemic polarization. Journalists not being able to discuss the issue honestly is one of the things that allows this situation to continue. The Republican Party ought to be ashamed of the current situation. But no: the problem isn’t them; the problem is just “the system.”

Lester Bower is dead. The state of Texas killed him last night. He had been on death row for 31 years. It’s not clear whether or not he was guilty of the crimes he was convicted of. At this point, there was certainly reasonable doubt — not to mention a shadow of a doubt. But once you are convicted of something — regardless of how bad the trial or your representation — it is really hard to get your conviction overturned. For roughly three decades, Bower had been trying to get the judicial system to consider the new evidence that almost certainly would have exonerated him had he been given a fresh trial.

People I talk to — death penalty advocates most especially — have a really screwy idea about how “justice” works in this country. They think that every person put to death has been found guilty three, four, or more times. This is literally never the case. Appeals only deal with whether the original trial was fair. So even when there is new information, it tends to be discounted unless it can be shown that it was improperly withheld in the original trial. As Radley Balko noted in The Washington Post yesterday, “‘Beyond a reasonable doubt’ is the alleged standard at trial. But once you’ve been convicted, you’re essentially tasked with proving your innocence.”

So the system is started and everyone involved in it just watches it proceed. It’s like a car with its cruise control set running down innocent people. And all anyone cares about is that the system works. It was it set at 65 mph; is that the speed with which it ran people over? Then it’s fine. It’s amazing to think about. And it reminds me of the 2012 Republican presidential debate when Rick Perry was asked if he ever lost any sleep over the thought that anyone had been wrongly put to death in his state. He said no, because appeals blah blah blah. Of course, he isn’t like most people; he has to know how limited and flawed the appeals process is. He just doesn’t care. Because he’s evil.

Of course, there was nothing special about Lester Bower. He’s one of many people who at bare minimum the state hadn’t proved guilty but nonetheless executed. Imagine if we had a large supply of small trash cans face down on a conveyor belt being fed into a machine that then crushed them. And there were people running around and lifting up the cans before they were fed into the machine, showing that there were kittens underneath many of them. Would any reasonable person say, “It’s good we saved those kittens, but obviously none of the cans that get crushed have kittens under them.” That would be madness. But of course, that’s what death penalty advocates say. Every time someone on death row is exonerated, they proclaim that it shows that the system works, and call for more executions.

I really don’t get it. In the video above, the audience twice breaks out in cheers — In less than a minute! — about the fact that Texas executes so many people. These are not people who are considering whether these people are guilty or innocent. They simply don’t care. They have no sense of empathy. They think the people being executed are “those” people — never people like themselves. Rick Perry’s argument is that the death penalty is justice — completely side stepping the question, which asks how we can know that.

Last night Texas killed another most likely innocent person. But his innocence hardly matters. His death serves a symbolic purpose. It allows death penalty advocates — big and small — to say to the world, “We’re tough!” In a sense, the fact that Bower is innocent makes it all the better. It says they are willing to even kill the innocent in the name of protecting the innocent. It’s a sad day in American, but then, almost every day is. Forgive us Lester Bower.

Martin Longman has a few choice words for beltway insiders, Wanker of the Day: Bill Press. Press wrote an apologia for Dennis Hastert. Defying all laws of nature except apparently what happens in Washington, Press thinks, “Hastert was charged with federal crimes only because he’s a high-profile politician.” Outside the upper class Washington bubble, everyone knows that it is exactly the rich and powerful who do not get charged with crimes. But in the mind of Bill Press, it’s the people who get invited to Sally Quinn’s parties who are the real oppressed of this country.

But I think that Longman is largely wrong in his critique of Bill Press. His main message is that because the federal government couldn’t prosecute Hastert for his real crimes, they were right to prosecute him for trumped up procedural crimes. I have little sympathy for Hastert, but it is almost never men like him who are treated to this kind of thing. In this case, it certainly seems that some small amount of justice is being done. But in most cases, an injustice is done. And I don’t think that we can argue in favor of such official behavior just because in some cases it is laudatory. In the long run, cases like Hastert’s will be used as a justification for the continued use of such tactics.

There is a little delicious irony in Dennis Hastert getting caught in a web of his own creation. It seems to be something that conservatives are especially prone to. They love harsh and unjust laws for the “evildoers” — laws that can trap the conservatives themselves because their previous lack of imagination and empathy. But certainly the response to this is not, “I’m glad we had this unjust law so that we could bring down Dennis Hastert!” It should be that the law itself is bad and that it needs fixing. If it requires an injustice to Hastert for people like Bill Press to realize that, fine.

Sadly, that does not seem to be the takeaway for Press. It wouldn’t have taken much to change his article to call foul on what’s happening to Hastert in the context of a criminal justice system that is all about power and none about justice. We really do have a sick system. The best advice to politicians who misbehave is to simply come clean. If you have enough money, you can win almost any case in our courts. That’s the way the system is set up! It’s rare that anyone in Washington is convicted of a real crime. Instead, it is obstruction of justice and lying to authorities. The only reason our system works at all is because the vast majority of people do not have the money to fight — especially when you can’t get a jaywalking ticket without a dozen other “crimes” added on.

It’s sad that Bill Press doesn’t seem to understand this. In fact, he compared Hastert favorably to Wall Street executives. I wonder if Bill Press would make the same case for some junkie-dealer who gets a decade in prison — a common occurrence. But there is a real issue here that Martin Longman doesn’t engage with at all. I really don’t care about justice for Dennis Hastert. I care for the millions of others who get caught in our justice system who are abused with these kinds of laws.

In the Saturday Night Live finale, Louis CK did an opening monologue that started a lot of tongues wagging. Of course, I didn’t see it at the time because, you know, it was on Saturday Night Live. So I watched it. The truly shocking thing about it is that the opening monologue is funny. Who thought such a thing even possible? Actual comedy on Saturday Night Live. I had seriously considered pitching a show to Animal Planet, “Finding Humor on SNL.” But there was a big problem with it: there is so much more evidence for Bigfoot than there is for comedy on the venerable late night show. It doubtless helps when they book an actual comedian. But people weren’t talking about that. They were talking about the pedophiles.

Louis CK’s monologue was actually entirely typical of his work. He started by talking about about his “mild racism.” And then he goes on to joke about the racist urges that exist in all of us. They bubble up into consciousness the same same way sexual urges do. And if you are like Louis CK, you recognize them for the irrational impulses that they are, and bat them away. It’s like a guy who sees a really pretty woman — he doesn’t start humping her leg. Well, most of the time he doesn’t. Louis CK didn’t talk about that directly; his routine was about unwanted thoughts, and that’s how he got to pedophiles.

There is something deeply disturbing about the bit he does on the town child molester. He presents it more or less the way we once did the town drunk. Also, I have a problem with the child molester he presents. For one thing, he’s kind of incompetent, thus indicating not really a threat. But most of all: it is man who is attracted teenage boys. Yes: that is wrong, but it is understandable in a society that fetishizes youth. Much harder to understand are those who are attacked to pre-pubescent children.

But the line where Louis CK got into trouble was something I quite agree with, although with caveats as I will explain in a moment. He said:

I’ve discussed this issue before, Free Will. It really comes down to this: I’m not morally superior to a pedophile because I don’t rape children. I’m not attracted to children so it simply isn’t a problem I face. I suspect that there actually are a lot more pedophiles than we are aware of who are simply able to make the calculation that sex with a child is not worth the price — to themselves or the child. So what we are left with are people’s whose urges are so great that they cannot contain them. These are tragic figures.

About a year ago, I started thinking seriously about a question that probably doesn’t occur to many people, “Why do people have sex?” I’ve done an informal poll, and everyone seems to agree that in a pure orgasm sense, masturbation is better than sex because you are completely in charge. So other than all the kissing and hugging that is very important, why sex? It speaks very much of my own distorted vision of the world that it took me the whole year to figure out that people find having sex more erotic than masturbation.

It must be the same thing with pedophiles. It must be that these pedophiles are just out of control. The thought or the actuality of the act is just too much for them. And like Manson’s family, they doubtless work their way up to it. I had an experience when I was eight or nine. I was at The Emporium — a department store very much like Macy’s. In those days, they had little record stores in them and I was alone in one of them. This older man came up to me with a record album, saying, “Look at this, kid.” The album was pressed up against his pants and his not quite erect penis was propped up on it. On seeing this, I immediately turned and walked away, saying, “That’s gross, man.”

I don’t know if he was a pedophile or not. I certainly didn’t see it that way at the time. It seemed instead more like a prank to disgust me. But I’ve long thought that the incident was part of a progression. Whether this guy went on to rape children, expose himself on street corners, or head the Santa Rosa Police Department, I cannot say. But I can say that of all the notable problems in my life, I feel very lucky to have never felt compelled toward anything outside one sigma of the sexual behavior mean. (In English, that means: I’m incredibly boring in terms of sexual interests.)

It is really great that Louis CK is talking about this kind of stuff — even if he does misrepresent and minimize it. As a society, we could do more for pedophiles — And the society at large! — than wait until they start preying on children.

Timothy B Lee wrote a great reminder, Rand Paul Is Getting Way Too Much Credit for Killing 3 Patriot Act Powers. It’s great to see because I’ve always assumed that Lee was a little sweet on Paul. But he sees that what Rand Paul is doing is grandstanding. He’s making a lot of noise and making it all about him: Rand Paul Protector of Liberty. But ten hour filibusters are not about governing. As Lee noted, it was really successful at getting Paul a bunch of media attention, “But it ultimately had little effect on the outcome of the legislative fight.”

Mitch McConnell’s play was to get the House’s USA Freedom Act filibustered and then present the straight Patriot Act as the only alternative. The only problem was that 54 Senators — almost all of them in the Democratic caucus (44) — voted the Patriot Act down. Rand Paul was one of ten Republicans to help out in that cause. But clearly, this whole thing was something that the primarily the Democrats did. All that Paul did was showboat the issue and take credit for it. There are Republicans to be given credit, but they are mostly in the House of Representatives — they’re the ones who got the USA Freedom Act passed in the first place (although they couldn’t have done it without some support from the Democrats, and they got a lot).

But even after that vote, the coalition for the USA Freedom Act needed to hang together, which it did through the weekend. Eventually, Mitch McConnell gave up and allowed a cloture vote on the bill and it was passed 77-17. Of course, Rand Paul was one of the people who voted against the bill. He was joined by other loons like Tom Cotton and Joni Ernst. But I understand: the USA Freedom Act is hardly perfect. But it is a great improvement. The fact that Rand Paul voted against it says a lot about what kind of a non-leader he is. And also perhaps that he doesn’t really care about privacy issues except in so much as they can bring him attention.

Lee pointed out something that is really interesting here. In the first vote on the USA Freedom act — the one that failed — Rand Paul voted against cloture. This whole thing could have been over a lot sooner if Paul were inclined to be a statesman, “Paul’s decision to break with the overwhelming majority of pro-privacy senators and oppose the USA Freedom Act delayed the legislation’s passage and created a risk that McConnell would be able to stampede the Senate into renewing the Patriot Act.” That’s a bit chilling, and highlights Confucius’ aphorism, “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”

Rand Paul, of course, has gotten a lot of good press for all this. Lee countered this, “But a larger share of the credit should go to other senators… Ron Wyden (D-OR), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Mike Lee (R-UT)… three examples of senators who did the hard work of building a consensus for the USA Freedom Act in the Senate.” He also highlighted Representative James Sensenbrenner as the mastermind behind the original bill in the House. Without a clear alternative, Congress would have felt that it needed to pass something. So ultimately, this rare victory for privacy is due to the very existence of the USA Freedom Act. A lot of credit should go out to Congress for how it dealt with this issue.

Afterword

In general, I don’t think that the professional centrists will be applauding too loudly over this one. When it comes to bipartisanship, they are mostly only interested in things that will hurt the poor like cuts to Social Security. In the two issues where there is a lot of bipartisanship — surveillance and prison reform — the professional centrists don’t much care.