Get On The Joe Train!

American rail transit hasn't been doing so well for the past four decades or so. Despite heavy federal subsidies, ridership on Amtrak is still pathetically low by international standards. Some cynics have even questioned the merit of keeping the ailing passenger rail network on life support.

Fortunately, Amtrak has a friend in high places. Since the day he landed in office, Vice President and Chief Train Enthusiast Joe Biden has become the official champion of Amtrak. And a few days ago, in the digital pages of the Huffington Post, Biden delivered a fresh argument in favor of keeping Amtrak around for future generations to enjoy (and pay for):

When I took the train every night--and I still do whenever possible--I always noticed the lights on in the houses flickering in the passing neighborhoods, dotting the landscape speeding by my window. Moms and dads were at their kitchen table, talking after they put their kids to bed. Like Americans everywhere, they were asking questions as profound as they are ordinary: Should Mom move in with us now that Dad is gone? How are we going to pay the heating bills? Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care? Now that we owe more on the house than it's worth, how are we going to send the kids to college? How are we going be able to retire?

I would look out the window and hear their questions, feel their pain. And every time I made that trip, it would inspire me to get up the next day, head back down to Washington, and give them the answers they're looking for. Those moments looking out the window and seeing the lights on, they told me things that the briefing folders in front of me never could.

Residents of the Wilmington-DC corridor must sleep soundly at night with the knowledge that Joe Biden is gazing lovingly into their windows, feeling their pain. If only more Americans would ditch their four-wheeled monstrosities and choose rail transit. Trains alone have the power to inspire the children of today to become the Joe Bidens of tomorrow.

Of course, there is a semi-serious argument embedded in Biden's nostalgic trip down the tracks. Namely, that rail transit is "a powerful and indispensable way to carry us all into a leaner, cleaner, greener 21st century." To prove his point, Biden notes the importance of rail transit in a densely populated stretch of the East Coast:

Consider that if you shut down Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, it is estimated that to compensate for the loss, you'd have to add seven new lanes of highway to Interstate 95. When you consider that it costs an average of $30 million for one linear mile of one lane of highway, you see what a sound investment rail travel is. And that's before you factor in the environmental benefits of keeping millions and millions of cars off the road.

While this is certainly true, it's also true that the majority of Amtrak passengers are concentrated along the Northeast Corridor. In almost every other part of the country, rail travel simply isn't a part of everyday life. Americans love their cars, regardless of whether they're going five blocks down the street or across the country on an epic journey to find themselves. There's a reason why you don't see a whole lot of teen train-trip movies.

On paper, rail transit has benefits. But that doesn't mean squat unless people actually use it. Fortunately, with a spokesman like Joe Biden, it's only a matter of time before good Americans realize the error of their ways and embrace the true power of the train.

Maine Comes Out Of The Closet.

When California voters passed Proposition 8, it was a stunning victory for supporters of traditional marriage.

California is a blue state. And although California is home to a strong conservative minority, Proposition 8 even managed to pass in notoriously liberal Los Angeles county. Increased minority turnout -- usually considered a boon for liberals -- pushed the proposition over the top.

To cope with the loss, the gay-rights movement invented a convenient fiction: it was all those darn Mormons! Yes, the insidious Mormon church, with its infinite supply of money, had hoodwinked the good people of California. Because we all know that Mormon coercion is the only possible reason for opposing something as awesome as gay marriage.

In retrospect, there was nothing surprising about the victory. Every time the issue of gay marriage has been brought to a direct vote, Americans across the country have soundly rejected it.

And last Tuesday, Maine joined the ranks of states that have defeated gay marriage at the ballot box.

Earlier this year, members of the Maine State Legislature legalized gay marriage. They probably assumed they were doing what the people wanted. A reasonable assumption, given Maine's demographics.

Like California, Maine is a blue state. Although Maine's senators are Republicans, both are moderate-to-liberal on the issues. And Maine isn't exactly a part of the Bible Belt. A recent Gallup survey on religious identity ranked Maine as the 3rd least religious state in the country, just beneath New Hampshire and Vermont.

Blaming Mormon cash probably won't fly this time. Protect Maine Equality, the campaign supporting Maine's gay marriage law, raised $4 million, compared with only $2.5 raised by Stand for Marriage Maine, which aimed to overturn it.

Social conservatives were outspent and outmaneuvered in unfriendly territory.

So why did this haven of secularism decide to put the gay man down?

Here's my guess: most people are just fine with the current definition of marriage -- even some people who who have no moral qualms about homosexuality. Like Barack Obama, they believe marriage is between a man and a women. And as long as Americans can vote gay marriage down by secret ballot, they will.

Which means that gay-rights activists will have to increasingly rely on courts to impose their will on the people. American voters may not approve of gay marriage, but when courts rule that gay marriage is an inalienable civil right, there's nothing they can do about it.

Sure, some people might be ticked off at first, but conventional wisdom says that history will vindicate their judicial activism.

Or will it?

Advocates of gay marriage assume their cause is the continuation of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. This assumption rests on the premise that marriage is simply the union of two individuals -- making laws banning gay marriages as arbitrary as the laws that prevented mixed-race couples from marrying in the past.

But social conservatives -- along with plenty of social moderates -- believe that marriage was designed to enshrine the unique male-female relationship. No one is being denied the right to get married; it's just that being married involves spending your life with someone of the opposite sex.

Ultimately, the issue isn't about civil rights. It's about the definition of an institution -- and who should be allowed to define it.

This nuance escapes the gay-rights crowd. People who disagree with them are hateful, or homophobic. And they believe that eventually, like the racists of the past, these bigoted neanderthals will quietly fade into the margins of society.

It's true that homosexuality is gaining more public acceptance, and the same thing can be said about gay marriage. But even if the entirety of secular America embraces gay marriage (hardly a foregone conclusion), the religious beliefs held by millions of other Americans will make gay marriage a controversial issue for the foreseeable future. And America's increasing ethnic and religious diversity could play a major role in undermining the gay-rights agenda. Immigrants from third-world countries tend to be more culturally conservative than their native-born counterparts, and the expanding Muslim community in the U.S might prove to be a powerful conservative force in the culture wars.

In other words, resistance is not futile; Americans will not be assimilated. Whenever an advocacy group adopts the language of inevitability, mental flags should go up. This is no exception. Maine's rejection of gay marriage revealed just how tone-deaf gay activists have become. There are deeper issues at work here than a simple conflict between bigotry and acceptance. And if supporters of gay marriage want to continue to ignore and marginalize their opponents, they should brace themselves for the sting of defeat.

When Worlds Collide.

Barack Obama's much-hyped speech to the Muslim world won't change anything. But it was a pretty good piece of political rhetoric.

Yes, he presented a white-washed version of Islamic history, but what else could he do? He's trying to make friends. And generally, you don't diss the people you want to befriend.

Most refreshingly, Obama resisted the temptation to identify Bush administration policies as the root of America's conflict with the Muslim world, as he's done on past occasions.

And while there were the expected apologies for past American actions in the Middle East (like the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadeq), Obama had equally strong praise for the good ol' USA.

Even so, it's beyond naive to assume that rhetoric will do anything to cure the Middle East's problems.

As Obama acknowledged, the conflict between Islamic nations and the West has been going on for a long time. But Obama's dead wrong when he assumes that all this fighting is the result of a communication problem. Like Bush, Obama assumes that all people essentially share the same set of values. It's a beautiful idea, but it's also completely wrong.

Not everyone is a fan of freedom, peace, equality, and tolerance. Historically, very few nations have celebrated these values the way modern societies do, and many nations still reject them. There are a variety reasons why this happens. Some people value the stability of tradition over the chaos that results from individual expression. Some people believe that the collective will should be exalted above personal choices.

And yes, many Muslims reject democratic values because of their religious beliefs.

Like all religions, Islam is complicated. To say that Islam has always been a religion of violence and intolerance would be inaccurate. But to characterize it as a force for peace and tolerance would be just as lopsided. Historically, most Islamic rulers allowed Christians and Jews to exist in their lands. But non-Islamic citizens were hardly equal. Their testimony was disregarded in court, and they were forced to pay a special tax. At times, they were forced to wear distinctive clothing. The Ottoman Empire populated its army with military slaves known as janisaries, most of whom were kidnapped from Christian families when they were children.

While the extermination of religious minorities was rarely official policy, it did happen.

There are verses in the Koran that imply that Christians and Jews will get to paradise, but there are also verses that seem to command Muslims to conquer unbelievers. Even if many modern Muslims would rather live and let live, you don't have to be a history professor to figure out that Muslims in the past felt differently about the matter. And there are still plenty of Muslims who follow the path of violent jihad.

Islamic jurists from different sects have conflicting opinions regarding Islam's compatibility with modern values. Needless to say, some come down firmly against them. While it's true that several Islamic countries have had female leaders, the broader state of women's rights -- and human rights in general -- in the Muslim world is still dismal. Assuming that all of this is just a massive coincidence, or the result of Western imperialism, is nonsense.

The arrogance of Western commentators is their constant claim that "true Islam" is peaceful. Some Islamic sects are peaceful, others aren't. What gives someone the authority to decide which ones are "true?"

I don't think that most Muslims are "bad people" by human standards. I don't think most of them want to kill me. I think they have some legitimate grievances against the West.

But radical Islam isn't an insignificant force in the Middle East. And its adherents don't share our values.

One of the great failures of humanistic policy makers has been their failure to understand the reality of god-centered religions. They assume that a common ethical core lies beneath the veneer of religious belief. If someone does bad things, it's simply because they're poor and oppressed. This is the flawed worldview that Obama espoused when he talked about people "clinging to guns and religion" because of economic hardship.

But in reality, many people do things simply because they believe it's what their god wants them to do -- whether or not it benefits them personally. Their values are not centered around humanistic ethics, or a survival instinct.

Material poverty can help spark an interest in radicalism, but not all radicals are poor. The Bin Laden family certainly isn't hurting for cash, but that didn't stop lil' Osama from going astray.

What am I getting at?

I'm not sure. In the real world, there's not much the American government can do beyond the things we're already doing: fighting terrorists when possible, allying ourselves with moderates in the region, and attempting to coax skeptical Muslims with reasonable concessions and kind words.

But reality should always inform our decisions. And the reality is that some people are very different from us, and will probably never be like us -- no matter how much we try to be their friends.

This is the world we live in. Coming to terms with it doesn't give us a clear roadmap for the future -- but it doesn't hurt either.

Idea Roundup 11-10-08

- Nobel prize winning economist and liberal gadfly Paul Krugman urges Obama to learn from FDR's mistakes -- by throwing caution to the wind and implementing massive government programs that would make the New Deal weep.

- Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw spies a connection between the great depression and high taxes, and politely asks Obama to pay attention to economic realities.

- National Review editor Rich Lowry thinks the GOP needs fresh ideas to recapture moderate voters. Meanwhile, National Review contributer Deroy Murdock calls Bush a "weak bumbler", disses Newt Gingrich, and calls for a return to Reaganism.

- Some guy at the Huffingtonpost is betting on John Kerry for Secretary of State.

- A Politico ideas piece argues that Palin's frontier mindset leaves her out of touch with mainstream America. And yes, she'll be back.

- Also, possibly the most awkward meeting ever: