Archive for the ‘Culture Wars’ Category

Kori Schake on why America should keep faith in the rules-based order – The Economist

Aug 26th 2021

by Kori Schake

This By-invitation commentary is part of a series by global thinkers on the future of American powerexamining the forces shaping the countrys global standing, from the rise of China to the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Read more here.

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MY FAVOURITE expression of Americas dynamism comes from the countrys former poet laureate, Robert Pinsky: American culture, he observed, seems so much in process, so brilliantly and sometimes brutally in motion, that standard models for it fail to apply. What pessimists about American power overlook is the protean regeneration that is the countrys essential nature.

The United States has a government created by people who distrusted government, and is a great power whose people would prefer to remain uninvolved in the world. Those anomalies make it difficult to sustain international commitments, especially involving countries not constituted along similar domestic lines. And yet America is the architect of a durable political, economic and security order that has made it and others safer and more prosperous.

The debacle in Afghanistan will require demonstrations of greater commitment elsewhere, but it doesnt call into question the order itself. In fact, that America and its allies persevered in Afghanistan for 20 years despite very slow progress may even deter some challengers.

The global order should not be taken for granted. Its genius is that it benefits not just America and its allies but every country that plays by its rules. And it is especially beneficial to middle-sized and smaller powers. They would have little ability to protect their interests in an environment where the strongest werent constrained by rules and institutions. That makes the system more stable and cost-effective than those that other hegemons have established, such as French dominance of Europe in the Napoleonic era or even Spain with all its plunder from the New World. While the rules prevail, everyone prospers.

The world is confronted with a historic challenge. It is happening economically, diplomatically, militarily, technologically and more. But at its core, it is philosophical, contesting the Hegelian belief that as people grow wealthy, they demand more political rights. That idea seemed to explain how the worlds most sustainably prosperous countries were free societies. The rise of China, where there is economic well-being without an open society, calls that into question._______________

Read more:

Henry Kissinger on why America failed in Afghanistan Anne-Marie Slaughter on why Americas diversity is its strength Niall Ferguson on why the end of Americas empire wont be peaceful_______________

Yet it would be wrong to regard the tension as a great-power competition. Instead, it is a situation in which America and the vast majority of other countries are attempting to sustain a mutually beneficial order against a country that seeks to overturn it for its sole advantage. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea illustrates the distinction: China is a signatory, but routinely violates it; America has not ratified the convention yet not only abides by its terms, but also assists other countries in upholding it.

Although China benefits enormously from orderly global trade, it is still willing to abuse its terms to penalise Australia and Japan for pursuing foreign policies with which it disagrees. Russia may share Chinas ambition of an international order favouring authoritarianism, but it lacks the economic heft to create systemic change. If America cannot or will not uphold the international, rules-based system, the likeliest outcomes will be either a frayed, more chaotic world, or one dominated by China. Either outcome would be less peaceful and prosperous.

Certainly, American power has ebbed relative to the growing economies of the global south that Americas rules-based order helped bring about, as well as from the countrys own mistakes, such as the Iraq war and the chaotic departure from Afghanistan. Yet tales of American decline fail to capture the countrys capacity for reinvention and rejuvenation, from creating Silicon Valley to electing a black president. Critics underestimate how difficult it is for other countries to get right what America already has right.

The United States has both high- and low-skilled labour through immigration and social acceptance, university systems that generate technical and scientific innovation, deep and diverse capital pools for investment, reliable commercial law and recourse through the courts, and a political system responsive to public concerns. Washington is designed to be at a stalemate unless there is a broad political consensus. Its a regrettable byproduct of beneficial democratic features: congressional elections every two years that make the chamber closer to public attitudes, less centralised party control that provide wider avenues for newcomer participation (Donald Trump, for example), and a federal system that enables policy experimentation by the states.

Allies and enemies alike are right to question whether Americas capacity for regeneration is enough this time to fix its myriad problems. The country seems to luxuriate in performative politics. The culture wars have evolved into stark ideological divisions over everything from mask-wearing to army recruiting commercials to the integrity of the presidential election in 2020. Governing amid social diversity is difficult and social medias immediacy and pervasiveness complicates everything.

Yet such challenges have always typified the American experience, and are perhaps to be expected for a country so brilliantly and sometimes brutally in motion, in Mr Pinskys words. The Black Lives Matter protests illustrated injustices in America, but also showed the breadth of solidarity and demand for improvement. The protests inspired demands for changes around the worldfitting for a country that sees its values as universal.

The past three American presidents have argued for less international involvement, evoking the idea of nation-building at home. But it is not a binary choice; the aims are complementary not contradictory. America needs an international order that prevents trouble so that it can focus on domestic challenges, and strengthening the country domestically boosts its influence internationally. The alternatives to the rules-based order are costlier and more dangerous than sustaining what exists: shielding ourselves against a hostile or chaotic order would require more expense and effort. America should strengthen the current system. Three steps for this stand out.

First, close the strategy-resources gap. For the past 20 years, America has tolerated a chasm between its ambitions and the money it commits to achieve them: financing wars through debt and allowing dedicated social programmes to outpace funding. Its defence posture is predicated on an annual 3-5% increase in real spending that has not materialised. President Bidens defence budget doesnt even keep pace with inflation. Were tempting adversaries to test whether we can do what we say we will. It is past time to buy a wider margin of safety, either by increasing military spending (perhaps to 6% of GDP from 3.7% today) or giving the Defence Department latitude to spend differently (such as by eliminating non-defence elementslike cancer researchfrom its budget).

Second, smarten up diplomacy. American diplomats are typically generalists on whom the State Department spends a fortune for language training. Instead, the country needs to hire language speakers and put the emphasis on teaching strategy: the arts of nuclear deterrence, successful negotiation and diplomatic history. Moreover, creativity should be encouraged. For example, faced with a lack of transparency in China, the American embassy started tweeting Beijings air quality on an hourly basis, which pressed the government to take environmental policies more seriously.

Third, stop imperiling dollar supremacy. So much of the latitude America enjoys in order to run high deficits comes from issuing the global reserve currency. It has been lucky that, so far, the alternatives like the euro or yuan are inferior. But the rise of secondary sanctions (imposed on individuals and organisations outside a country under sanctions) creates incentives for the development of new payment mechanisms to skirt the dollar zonethe very system that keeps Americas debt affordable. A plan to end deficit spending and exercising restraint in using the financial system as a weapon when imposing sanctions needs to be a national-security priority.

Americans are experiencing a crisis of confidence over whether their democracy can handle its challenges, and they question the universality of their values. They are also questioning the use of military force after failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. However leaders like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping embrace no such introspection. They imprison political activists, build surveillance systems, suffocate dissent and constrain business.

It is true that many people would not want a society as brilliantly and brutally in motion as America, but they probably do wish for a government that is fair and accountable. America should not lose faith that the truths it holds to be self-evident genuinely are just that. Sustaining an international system is hard work. No dominant power has had as much voluntary co-operation from allies as America. With collaboration and creativity, the country may grow even stronger in the 21st century._____________

Kori Schake is the director of foreign and defence policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. She has previously held positions at the Defence Department and State Department, and on the National Security Council

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Kori Schake on why America should keep faith in the rules-based order - The Economist

‘Our libraries can save us. I know they can. We just have to save them first’ – Damian Barr – The Scotsman

I was safe among the stacks, and I didnt often feel safe growing up. Lanarkshire in the 1980s and 1990s was not a great place to be speccy and gay with a Catholic mum and Protestant dad. My library card was a passport to countless other worlds and an escape from this one. With my head in a book, I could forget Ravenscraig shutting, my dad losing his job, my parents divorcing, the meagre sum my mum got at the post office shrinking while our gas and electricity meters only got hungrier. The bullies who haunted me never dared cross the library threshold. It was magic. The radiators were always roasting, the lights never went out, nobody ever tried to hurt me.

Our libraries are a sanctuary open to all for the benefit of all and we forget this at our peril. Especially now. We dont like to think about all the ugly reasons why people might need a safe space - reasons that have only become more acute during Covid: more families falling into poverty, more children lagging behind, more of us struggling with mental and physical health. Since 2010, the UK government has chosen to close 800 libraries. Yes, chosen. Cuts dont just happen. If we allow our libraries to be the latest casualty in the ongoing culture wars, we will all suffer. More than a quarter of Scotland's libraries remain shut even after restrictions lifted. The very real fear is Covid will be a cover for more closures. This is not austerity, its stupidity. Even a writer can do the sums.

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Reading is a joy, but libraries are not a luxury. They more than pay for themselves: 6.95 is generated for every public 1 spent, according to a 2019 Economic Impact Analysis by the British Library Business and the Intellectual Property Centre National Network. We know reading is good for us, reducing stress and inspiring empathy. NHS Scotland estimate libraries saves them 3.2 million annually. Central government is forcing local government to make impossible choices between social services and libraries. This is a false binary because libraries are a frontline service. They improve literacy, champion wellbeing, tackle social isolation and bridge the digital divide. You might be reading this online but 1 in 7 Scots still struggle with data poverty and depend on library computers to get online. Libraries are our most used public service - they are as essential to the health and wealth of our communities as surgeries and schools. And the 1964 Public Libraries Act requires government to run them properly not into the ground.

When Newarthill Library was threatened in 2016 I imagined wee me locked out. Where would he go? Closure was presented as a foregone conclusion by a cash-strapped council and most folk seemed resigned to losing yet another good thing. But not everybody. I spoke to locals who used the library computer to do their benefit applications - without these theyd be sanctioned, penalized with further penury. I met happy families at the Book Bug Club. I discussed Binchy, Dickens and the new Rebus with fervent borrowers. Communities elsewhere had resisted closure and they didnt even have the thrawn grit of Newarthillians. Together, we fought and won. But its not a fight anybody should be having.

Our libraries can help power a sustainable recovery from Covid and the inequalities it has revealed and exacerbated. Our libraries can save us. I know they can. We just have to save them first.

Damian Barr is a writer, broadcaster and host, whose works include Maggie & Me.

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'Our libraries can save us. I know they can. We just have to save them first' - Damian Barr - The Scotsman

Opinion: We’re at war with COVID. We shouldn’t be at war with each other. – Houston Chronicle

Regarding Editorial: Our next goal in COVID vaccination? Reaching the reachable. Yes, they're out there. (Aug. 16): As the COVID-19 pandemic surges again, with infections increasing daily among mainly the unvaccinated, feelings of anger are surging among the vaccinated towards the unvaccinated. However, the unvaccinated are not one homogenous grouping. People have different reasons for their views. Some unfortunately do seem to be driven by political culture wars. Changing their minds appears to be most difficult unless they personally experience COVID. Others, however, may have real personal reasons for avoiding vaccination based on experience, circumstance, fear, cultural practices or strongly-held beliefs. These individuals are reachable and are prime candidates for vaccination. It is time to move beyond the conflicts and anger rampant on both sides of the vaccine debate. We are a society truly at war with COVID, a war we appear to be losing. The concerted, focused grassroots efforts called for in the Aug. 16 editorial are very much needed to change minds among the unvaccinated. Our path to victory over COVID is clearly paved with vaccinations and masks. It is a path we must follow together.

Grant Revell, Mechanicsville, Va.

The husband of a relative just died of COVID after being in intensive care for four weeks. He had not been vaccinated. Imagine the emotional cost to his family. Try to imagine the emotional cost to the medical staff who are tasked with caring for people who, by choice, refuse to get the vaccine. What will the cost be to people he may have infected? What will the ultimate financial cost be to the family, to insurance, to you and me? Intensive care aint free. And what is the continuing cost to the economy of those who refuse to get the shot and continue to spread the disease? Its no secret the economy is dependent on getting the pandemic under control.

This was totally avoidable. Stupidity is a choice. And if the cost impacted just the stupid, I could live with that. Unfortunately, the cost to you and me and society is not negligible.

Roger Vaught, Houston

Regarding Taliban vow to respect women, despite history of oppression, (Aug. 17): Its always the groups which have committed evils or disasters that want everyone to forget the terrible things theyve perpetrated in the past. The Talibans appeal for the world to ignore their history of violent repression, supposedly promising peace and freedom, rings hollow if one looks back at their beliefs and previous strategies. Its impossible to have freedom when the whole Taliban system is based on stamping it out.

Bob Gayle, Houston

Regarding Biden vows to evacuate all Americans -- and Afghan helpers, (Aug. 19): Last year, Biden said that he had many decades of experience with diplomacy, that he had great relationships with both our friends and our enemies, and that, unlike Trump, he would work with our allies. The media backed him up and this may have been partially why Biden was elected.

Recently, Biden said that Afghanistan would not collapse, that he had contingencies for every possible scenario, and that, after 20 years of war, we needed to leave; that it made no sense to be involved in someone elses civil war. He said there wouldnt be another Saigon evacuation. Afterward, he said chaos was inevitable. He said that the Afghanistan troops wouldnt fight. He said that he would protect the rights of women.

Do you believe that America will protect the human rights of Afghan women when they wont even protect our citizens? Do you believe we are stronger now than we were last year? Do you believe that Biden even knows whats going on? Do you believe the same would have happened if Trump was in office? Do you regret voting for Biden? I have been watching politics for over 50 years and have never been more embarrassed.

Pat Wetuski, Kingwood

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Opinion: We're at war with COVID. We shouldn't be at war with each other. - Houston Chronicle

Napa Institute expands to fight the culture war – National Catholic Reporter

Napa Institute co-founder Timothy Busch speaks during Napa's annual summer conference July 22-24. About 700 people gathered in person for the event at Busch's Meritage Resort and Spa in Napa, California, with thousands more watching online. (NCR screenshot)

The Napa Institute, a conservative Catholic organization known for its annual high-end conference featuring wine tastings and cigars, announced plans to expand its work to include programs on "priestly formation" and a lecture series at the University of Notre Dame, with the latter's first scheduled speaker to be U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Fifteen families have pledged donations totaling $500,000 over the next five years for program expansion, Napa co-founder Timothy Busch announced at the conference, held virtually and in person at one of Busch's spa resorts in California July 22-24.

Among the donors, according to Busch's presentation, is Leonard Leo, an influential Washington insider who played a key role in advising former President Donald Trump on Supreme Court nominations and other appointments to the federal judiciary. A former executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leo also serves on the board of the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America in Washington.

At Notre Dame, the new Napa Institute Forum lecture series will be housed at the Notre Dame Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government, which launched in May and is led by political science professor Vincent Phillip Muoz. Thomas will speak at the forum on Sept. 16.

"I couldn't be more proud to be bringing Justice Thomas back to Notre Dame, and I can't be any more thankful to Tim and Steph Busch and the Napa Institute for allowing us to make that happen," Muoz said at the start of a video address he delivered to the conference focused on religious liberty issues and the Supreme Court.

The center "plans to expand its focus on political leadership by bringing more national political figures to campus and hosting regular events in Washington, D.C., especially with established and aspiring Catholic politicians," according to a university news release. It will be funded by the Napa Institute, the Charles Koch Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, the M & T Foundation and several Notre Dame alumni and parents of alumni.

These new ventures supplement Napa's flagship summer conference, an annual fall business conference, occasional conferences for priests and various pilgrimages and tours.

Attendees enjoy a glass of wine July 26, 2019, at the Napa Institute's annual summer conference in California. (CNS/Courtesy of the Napa Institute)

'Chaos in the streets'

This year's summer conference included daily confession and more than 100 Masses, including a daily Mass in Latin, which Pope Francis recently scaled back unless special permission is granted. (The conference received that from Bishop Robert Vasa of Santa Rosa, California, according to Busch.)

With about 700 people gathered in person and thousands more watching online, speakers rallied participants to fight the culture wars, reject the Black Lives Matter movement, debunk what they called the lies behind gender ideology and defend the church's teachings in the face of what organizers view as an increasingly hostile secular society. Several speakers also referenced President Joe Biden, the country's second Catholic president.

Retired Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, who received a Lifetime Service Award that was presented with a bottle from Busch's winery, told the audience that despite the many contributions the Catholic Church makes to the United States through hospitals, schools and vast social service networks, "none of this matters, none of it, to political leaders and lobbies that hate what the church teaches."

Retired Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia speaks during the Napa Institute's 2021 summer conference. (NCR screenshot)

The archbishop, who has advocated denying Communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians, also made a thinly veiled swipe at President Biden.

"There is no such thing as purely cultural Catholicism," Chaput said. "An emotional attachment to rosary beads is not a bad thing, but it does not exhaust the nature and the demands of a living faith." President Biden often cites his faith and carries his deceased son Beau's rosary.

The veteran conservative political activist, L. Brent Bozell III, whosigned a letterin December that declared Trump to be "the lawful winner of the presidential election" called Biden "the president of the most radical leftist ideology in history."

L. Brent Bozell III, speaking during the Napa Institute's summer conference (NCR screenshot)

Bozell, president and founder of the Media Research Center, said Biden is a "figurehead" for "elements of Marxism at play in America."

He characterized the political and cultural zeitgeist in apocalyptic terms. "Our social order is collapsing," he said. "There is chaos in the streets. There is repugnance in our schools. The Judeo-Christian tradition is being thrown away as is the very history of the United States."

Other speakers combined a vision of an embattled Catholic Church preaching hard truths, along with a consistent nostalgia for the leadership of Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan during the Cold War era. Another common theme was the state of liberal Christianity.

"The thing that really divides Christians is those Christians who realize their faith stands against the cultural tide and against the cultural pathologies of our day and those who use their Christian faith, or I would say contort their Christian faith, to affirm it," said Carl Trueman, a theologian in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College in Pennsylvania.

"Each week I read the National Catholic Register and the National Catholic Reporter. I won't tell you which one I enjoy reading most, but I'm shocked by the number of Catholics who culturally want to be liberal Protestants," he said.

Blasting Black Lives Matter and 'gender ideology'

Napa speakers frequently maligned Black Lives Matter and critical race theory, a field of scholarship developed by African American legal scholars in the 1980s to examine institutional racism in society.

"We're dealing with a new religion and its wokeism," said Chris Stefanick, an author and popular public speaker in traditionalist Catholic circles who leads Real Life Catholic, a nonprofit that produces videos and a television show on EWTN.

"We would agree there has been injustice in American history and racism," Stefanick said. "The woke world would tell you that America is nothing but a political expression of racism, and that capitalism is nothing but a racist system, and the family is nothing but a system created to exclude LGBTQ people, and that men are nothing but a sex that oppresses women, and that Junpero Serra is nothing but a representation of colonialism, and by the way we have to topple those statues and the entire Catholic Church with them."

"If you're part of an oppressor class, you're dangerous," Stefanick said. "The world is ever more treating us as if we are dangerous."

Conference speakers also repeatedly warned about "the homosexual lifestyle" and "gender ideology."

In a video talk titled "Toxic Rainbows: The 7 Deadly Deceits of Gender Ideology," Mary Rice Hasson, director of the Catholic Women's Forum and fellow in the Catholic studies program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, lamented that "we have a whole generation of children who are being brought up with this idea that their feelings decide reality."

Human beings are "created either male or female," Hasson said. "Sex cannot change. Your feelings are really irrelevant to that conversation. You can't change a single cell in your body. You can't change your fundamental identity."

Hasson criticized what she viewed as a fairly recent ideologically motivated shift among medical experts who once viewed transgenderism as a "mental illness" to an accepted category today. "It's a false science, a corruption of science that puts out these lies," she said. "People are being shamed, being canceled and losing jobs if they do not use the language that is being pushed by this ideology."

Mary Eberstadt, the Panula Chair in Christian Culture at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, blasted what she called "the nonstop obsession with identity politics." According to Eberstadt, abortion, contraception, high divorce rates, the decline in religious affiliation among young people, increased use of pornography and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement all spring from one source: the sexual revolution.

"Beneath the performative rage of Black Lives Matter last summer, as it menaced bystanders and woke people up in the middle of the night, and indeed beneath the increasingly punitive insistence about gender, beneath even cancel culture itself, the loving eyes that we are supposed to see our brethren with uncover a common denominator: suffering," Eberstadt said.

Jesuit Fr. Robert Spitzer (CNS/Courtesy of Robert Spitzer)

"These people who claim to be victims are indeed victims but they are not victims of the abstractions that they have been taught to cling to. They are victims along with many people born after 1960 of the destructive maelstrom of a revolution that racked and shrunk and sometimes destroyed their families, even as it sometimes destroyed their churches and their communities," she said.

Robert Spitzer, a Jesuit priest and a former president of Gonzaga University who co-founded the Napa Institute and serves as its president, suggested how to reach Catholics who no longer look to the church for moral guidance on issues of sexuality, gender and marriage.

"There is a credibility gap we just have to face," Spitzer said. "The majority of our kids strongly disagree with church teaching even though it's necessary for their mental health and salvation. But our teaching has to be defended for the church and the culture."

The priest presented a series of slides and snippets from academic studies he said proved how homosexuality, transgenderism, use of pornography and sexual relations before marriage are destroying lives.

"In order to avoid the accusation of religious bias we have to give our Catholic school teachers a shield to stand behind," Spitzer said. "We have to use secular studies. If we can get good secular studies from Harvard and Stanford and Pew and Gallup, that is what will do the credibility trick. Then young people won't think we're pitching Catholic Church propaganda."

Fortress Catholicism

Napa was founded in 2010, with Busch's financial backing, after then-Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput warned in an article about what he called "the next America," a secularized country hostile to religious rights and traditional morality.

In his welcome address, Busch, chairman of Napa's board,exuded the sunny disposition of an affable CEO, while delivering a dire assessment of politics and culture. His message blended traditional Catholic themes with blistering resentment toward racial justice activists.

He described Napa's mission of "faith formation, truth telling and uniting Catholic leaders to transform the culture" as more urgent than ever as "religious liberty is attacked, right to life is attacked, transgender ideology is forced upon our children and Black Lives Matter is promoting racism, critical race theory, and destroying the nuclear family."

Busch added that "this neo-Marxist movement, operating under some discriminatory theory of Black Lives Matter, is attacking the American experiment, which is based on Judeo-Christian principles. We need to pray it will end or our country will be destroyed."

The audience unmasked and almost exclusively white applauded his paean to Christian nationalism delivered in the comfortable confines of Busch's Meritage Resort and Spa.

In response to critics of the Napa Institute, Busch touted his close relationship with church leaders, including the president of the U.S. bishops' conference, Los Angeles Archbishop Jos Gomez, whom he called "one of my closest advisers."

Busch has emerged as an influential player in the church by financing academic institutes, elite conferences and a business school to create networking spaces for Catholic politicians, religious liberty attorneys, corporate leaders and clergy at events that are part spiritual renewal, part political strategy sessions and part charismatic tent revivals that celebrate unfettered capitalism.

In 2016, Buschmade a $15 million donationto the Catholic University of America in Washington, the largest gift in the school's history, which has powered the university's business school named after him and his wife. During a 2017 Napa Institute conference at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, Buschpraised President Trump as a pro-life leaderat a National Press Club dinner attended by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and former senator Rick Santorum.

The Napa Institute claims to advance a muscular, heroic orthodoxy in the face of secular threats and a weak-kneed liberal Christianity. Its dogmas are amplified by echo chambers such as EWTN, First Things and a network of institutions that anoint themselves the true arbiters of Catholic identity in public life.

"We're in a season in which we need to rebuild the walls of the church," R.R. Reno, editor of First Things, said in a panel focused on how to renew and reform the church. "Today our problem is there is very little distinction between the church and the world. It is time to rebuild. Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls of the Temple. We're in a Nehemian moment in the 21st century where we rebuild the walls of the church so the world sees we are a fundamentally distinct institution that lives in accord with its own laws and principles, and not the principles and laws of the world."

Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver also framed the state of Catholicism in gloomy, defensive terms. "These are dark times," he said during the conference's closing panel. "I often tell my seminarians some of you may become martyrs if our country continues in the direction it's going. Secularism has become the false god. We have to be bold enough and courageous enough to live the costs of discipleship."

[John Gehring is Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life and author ofThe Francis Effect: A Radical Pope's Challenge to the American Catholic Church.]

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Napa Institute expands to fight the culture war - National Catholic Reporter

Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft | TheHill – The Hill

Conservatives have a new target in the culture wars: requiring women to register for the draft.

The Senate Armed Services Committee included in its version of the annual defense policy bill a provision that would require women to register with the Selective Service System, the agency in charge of administering the draft if the United States ever imposes one again.

Conservative senators are vowing a fight when the bill moves to the floor and through negotiations with the House, but even the top Republican on the committee concedes it is likely a losing battle since Republicans are split on the issue.

Still, conservatives, including several seen as potential future presidential contenders, are betting appeals against drafting our daughters will resonate with their base.

The fight over expanding selective service registration to include women is a redux of several years ago. But the latest iteration comes as Republicans have leaned into cultural issues as part of their electoral strategy, including roping the military into their effort to ban critical race theory.

And some of the same conservative firebrands who have taken up the critical race theory fight are turning their attention to the provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would make women register for the draft.

Our military has welcomed women for decades and are stronger for it. But Americas daughters shouldnt be drafted against their will. I opposed this amendment in committee, and Ill work to remove it before the defense bill passes, tweeted Sen. Tom CottonTom Bryant CottonOvernight Defense: Biden administration expands Afghan refugee program | Culture war comes for female draft registration | US launches third Somalia strike in recent weeks Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Chuck Todd is dead wrong: Liberal bias defines modern journalism MORE (R-Ark.), seen as a potential 2024 White House hopeful.

A source familiar with Cottons thinking told The Hill he is still figuring out the exact approach to take but will likely work to remove the provision during the conference process between the Senate and House, which is expected to include a similar requirement in its own version of the bill.

Sen. Josh HawleyJoshua (Josh) David HawleyOvernight Defense: Biden administration expands Afghan refugee program | Culture war comes for female draft registration | US launches third Somalia strike in recent weeks Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Biden's bipartisan deal faces Senate gauntlet MORE (R-Mo.), similarly seen as a possible 2024 contender, also tweeted against the provision, saying that Missourians feel strongly that compelling women to fight our wars is wrong and so do I.

I imagine therell be an amendment offered on the floor. I think youll probably get a number of Republicans to join that amendment, Hawley told The Hill when asked about his strategy going forward. We shouldnt be conscripting women against their will.

I think it'll be a pretty big issue, Hawley added. It's the leading reason I voted no on the NDAA as a whole, so I think it'll be a pretty big issue.

But just five of 13 Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee voted against the provision during the panels closed-door consideration of the bill.

When it came time to approving the bill as a whole, Hawley and Cotton were the only Republicans on the committee to vote against it.

And one of the five who opposed the amendment about the draft, committee ranking member Sen.James InhofeJames (Jim) Mountain InhofeOvernight Defense: Biden administration expands Afghan refugee program | Culture war comes for female draft registration | US launches third Somalia strike in recent weeks Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Gillibrand expects vote on military justice bill in fall MORE (R-Okla.), said this past week he does not anticipate a big fight over the issue as the NDAA moves through the legislative process.

I don't think we will because we're split, Inhofe told The Hill when asked whether Republicans will put up a fight over the draft when the bill comes to the floor and goes through conference. Judging from the response we're getting behind closed doors, I don't think we will.

Committee Chairman Jack ReedJack ReedOvernight Defense: Biden administration expands Afghan refugee program | Culture war comes for female draft registration | US launches third Somalia strike in recent weeks Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft House panel looks to help military sexual assault survivors MORE (D-R.I.) said he would not be surprised if an amendment is offered to remove the provision when the NDAA comes to the floor.

But, he added, theres strong support... on both sides of the aisle and I think among the American public to keep it in.

The United States has not instituted a draft since the Vietnam War, and Pentagon officials have repeatedly said they intend to keep the force all-volunteer.

But men ages 18 through 25 still have to register with the Selective Service System or face consequences such as losing access to federal financial aid for college.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court declined to take up a case challenging the constitutionality of the all-male draft, citing the expectation Congress would soon act on the issue.

Congress has been debating whether to make women register for selective service since the Obama administration opened all combat jobs to women in late 2015, rending moot the previous rationale for excluding women from the draft.

The following year, both the House and Senate Armed Services committees included a requirement for women to register in their initial versions of the NDAA.

But the Houses version of the NDAA dropped the language before the bill came to the floor. After conservatives pushed to exclude the language during conference negotiations, the version of the NDAA that ultimately became law in 2016 instead created a commission to review the draft registration requirements.

Last year, that commission recommended draft registration be expanded to include women, calling it a necessary and fair step.

In 2016, Cotton voted against the provision in the Senate Armed Services Committee but did not co-sponsor an amendment to remove it when the NDAA was on the Senate floor, nor did he sign a letter more than a dozen Republicans sent during conference negotiations calling for the provision to be removed.

Cottons spokeswoman, Caroline Tabler, denied he is being more vocal this time for political reasons, saying the senators position is the same in 2021 as it was in 2016; hes opposed to it.

News that this years NDAA would revive the requirement for women to register lit up conservative advocates.

Trump administration budget chief Russell Vought, who now runs a conservative think tank, responded to a news story about the provision by tweeting, No. You are not drafting our daughters.

Jessica Anderson, another Trump administration alum who is now the executive director at conservative advocacy group Heritage Action, similarly tweeted this past week, Dont draft our daughters.

Sen. Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzUp next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Biden's bipartisan deal faces Senate gauntlet 228 Republican lawmakers urge Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade MORE (R-Texas), another potential 2024 candidate who while campaigning for president in 2016 said it would be nuts to make women register for the draft, told The Hill this past week he thinks it is one of the many ways Washington is out of touch that we're seeing legislation move forward to draft our daughters.

I would certainly support an amendment to remove it, he added. The military is home to many proud fighting women and men, but that is a voluntary choice, and it is altogether different to forcibly conscript our daughters and put them into harm's way, and I think that is out of touch with the American people.

Complicating matters for those who want to remove the provision is that in addition to Republicans who support it, some anti-war Republicans would rather do away with the draft altogether.

Sen. Rand PaulRandal (Rand) Howard PaulFive takeaways from the Ohio special primaries Trump-backed Mike Carey wins GOP primary in Ohio special election Hillicon Valley: Senate report finds major cyber shortcomings in federal agencies | Gig firms seek Mass. ballot question to classify workers as contractors | Blizzard's president steps down after workplace protests MORE (R-Ky.), for example, recently signed a letter with Sen. Ron WydenRonald (Ron) Lee WydenThe job of shielding journalists is not finished Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Democratswarn shrinking Biden's spending plan could backfire MORE (D-Ore.) and Reps. Peter DeFazioPeter Anthony DeFazioUp next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft Biden's bipartisan deal faces Senate gauntlet The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Facebook - Biden sets new vaccine mandate as COVID-19 cases surge MORE (D-Ore.) and Rodney DavisRodney Lee DavisUp next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft House rejects GOP effort to seat McCarthy's picks for Jan. 6 panel Banks blames Pelosi for Jan. 6 'breakdown of security' MORE (R-Ill.) calling for the abolishment of Selective Service.

I think it's mostly an act of submission, Paul said of registering for the draft. It's not really used. The government's already got your Social Security number. It's mostly just saying you'll submit to the will of the government to send you to war.

Asked whether hell offer an amendment to abolish the draft, Paul told The Hill, We havent really gotten there yet.

Still, Paul, who frequently holds up consideration of bills in an effort to force votes on his amendments, acknowledged that a lot of times they dont take amendments on the NDAA.

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Up next in the culture wars: Adding women to the draft | TheHill - The Hill