Spying on Americans III: Gonzales

In the sum of human history, people have had far more reason to fear tyrants than to fear terrorists.

I strongly suspect that if President Bush wanted to round up all of the Arab Americans and shoot them (or any other demographic group for that matter), that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would come up with a legal interpretation to defend that decision. In fact, it is possible that he already has.

Under this Attorney General, there is no rule of law. There is only the rule of finding interpretations of the law that give the President unlimited power. He has defended Bush’s “right” to do whatever he pleases, from torture to indefinite imprisonment without charges, to kidnapping citizens off of the streets of allied countries and having them disappear, and now for throwing away the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.

The recent revelations concerning Bush's eavesdropping on Americans in our own country is just the most recent example.

In an interview on CNN, Gonzales argued that Bush's actions were legal because (1) the Constitution named him “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States”, and (2a) the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires that government investigators obtain a warrant "except as otherwise authorized by Congress", and (2b) because Congress passed a one-line resolution giving the President authority to use “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 “

Gonzales is interpreting (2b) as fulfilling the “except as otherwise authorized by Congress” clause of FISA.

The Commander in Chief

I have already addressed the first part of Gonzales' argument.

In effect, Gonzales is saying that the President, in the role of Commander in Chief, has the authority to suspend the 4th Amendment to the Constitution if he deems it useful in fighting America's enemies.

If we accept his claim that this authority exists, there is no reason to believe that this authority is limited to the 4th Amendment. In fact, there is no reason to believe that this authority applies to any part of the Constitution more than any other. Therefore, according to Gonzales' line of reasoning, the President may, if he deems it useful, suspend any part of the Constitution. If he may suspend any part, he may suspend the whole.

In other words, Gonzales has us living in a Constitutional democracy only insofar as it pleases the Commander in Chief to allow us to live in a Constitutional democracy. Instead of a right, Gonzales is interpreting this as a privilege that Bush has the authority to suspend the instant he can drum up a reason for thinking that the Constitution makes it more difficult for him to defend America.

Let’s be honest, the Constitution does make it more difficult for a President to defend the country. Anything that limits his power, limits his ability to defend the Country. So, according to Gonzales, the Constitution is the law of the land only until the Commander in Chief says otherwise.

The Founding Fathers would have scorned such an interpretation. They would have seen it for what it was. First, it is an invitation for the President to invent a national crisis (e.g., a war against another country on the pretext that it might attack us) in order to assume these dictatorial powers. Second, they would know that the Constitution would not likely survive the very first crisis if the leaders felt that this interpretation was valid.

The War Authorization Act

Gonzales’ second argument -- the "all necessary and appropriate force" argument -- fails primarily because Congress cannot give the President the power to revoke all or part of the Constitution. Neither the Legislature nor the Executive branches have this power. Therefore, neither branch can grant this power to the other, nor exercise this power itself.

Here, again, if we look at Gonzales' argument, he gives the President authority to ignore any law that contains any statement like "except as authorized by Congress." I would wager that only a small fraction of the laws do not have this statement in it somewhere, in some form. Therefore, Gonzales is arguing that no law (or almost no law) passed by Congress is binding on the President. In other words, the President is above the law.

Seriously, if this is a sound legal argument, if the President now has the authority to rewrite every law containing anything similar to the clause, "except as authorized by Congress", the President can get rid of Congress and rewrite virtually every law ever passed.

If the President can rewrite any law, we must ask what other laws he has rewritten that he has not yet told us about.

This is where I draw the conclusion that Gonzales has interpreted the law in such a way that Bush could, if it pleased him to do so, round up and kill any segment of the population he pleases without breaking the law. Any law that he might break has something like the phrase “except as authorized by Congress” within it, so every law that might be applied against him, according to Gonzales, no longer applies.

Our lives and our liberty are at the pleasure of the Commander in Chief, as long as Gonzales is Attorney General.

Usurping the Other Powers of Government

What we see when we look at this NSA case is that the Executive Branch of Government has usurped the powers of the Judicial and Legislative branch and combined with the Executive Powers in the Office of the President. There are no checks and balances any more, because the President no longer needs to appeal to either branch for permission to do anything.

Judicial Authority

The case for usurping judicial authority is plain enough. The Legislature set up a special court to hear cases involving surveillance of this type. The purpose of Bush's secret order was to allow agents to engage in surveillance against American citizens without the burden of obtaining a warrant. That is to say, the judicial branch has been removed from the picture -- rendered impotent by the fact that it no longer has a say in the matter. The Executive Branch gets to be its own judge.

Bush argues that he has done nothing wrong in part because his own staff routinely reviews the provisions of this secret order. Yet, if what has come to the attention of the public is any indicator, this "review" consists of President Bush handing Gonzales a list of activities with instructions, “Now make these legal, too.”

This "review" is being conducted by a team that has done nothing for five years but argue for the unlimited authority of the President to do as he pleases.

Legislative Authority

I have already spoken of how Gonzales has interpreted the resolution of September 2001 as giving the President the power to rewrite any law containing the clause, “except as authorized by Congress.”

Since September, 2001, President Bush has been working under the assumption, which Gonzales has defended, that anything passed by Congress with this clause embedded with the attitude that, “the law is more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules.”

Question

I want a reporter to ask either President Bush or Attorney General Gonzales the following question:

“Are there any limits at all to the President’s power for so long as there are terrorists seeking to attack us – which, by the way, means ‘forever’?”

I want this reporter to have the presence of mind not to accept a phony answer such as, “Yes, the President may not break the law.” This is not a genuine limit if Attorney General Gonzales has already interpreted all of the laws out of existence. The follow-up question must then be, “Are there any laws binding on the President?”

Another phony answer that I would like this reporter not to accept is, “The President may not do anything that will weaken his ability to fight the war.” Since this is the very argument being used to defend the claim that his power has no limits, it is not an argument that can be used to claim that there are limits on his power.

And the next time Bush says, “I’m no dictator,” ask him, “May we assume that you have asked Mr. Gonzales to keep your options open, in case you change your mind?”

A Perspective on the Pledge

NOTE - March 24, 2008: The story in this post is now the first chapter in a new book, A Perspective on the Pledge

I tend to think that it is sometimes useful to look at an issue from a slightly different point of view. So, here, I have written about the arguments concerning “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, from a slightly different point of view.

Shelby Johnson had to admit that she was more than a little nervous as she walked into her first class. She was also a little late. Principal Hadley had kept her a little too long as he gave her a pep talk before she started her first assignment.

One advantage that she saw from this is that the class bell had already rung by the time she reached the classroom. All of the students were inside the room and most had selected a seat. Some were still standing as she entered, but they sat down while she dropped her books on her desk.

She wrote her name on the board, turned to the class, and took a deep breath before saying, “All stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.” She had been told that this ritual was useful in getting the kids’ minds focused on the fact that they were now in school and that the class had started, like the announcement that "all stand" before a judge entered the courtroom.

She paused when she noticed that one boy, near the back of the room, remained slouched down in his chair.

“Excuse me,” Shelby said, looking at the student. She stepped up between the rows to get a little bit closer and to make it clear who she was talking to. “Excuse me. What is your name?”

“Shawn,” the student answered. He scarcely looked up, but remained focused on the pen that he was fiddling with.

“Shawn. I would understand if you do not want to say the Pledge of Allegiance. However, I would like it if you would at least stand while the rest of the class said it, just to show a little respect to the flag.”

The boy sat silently for a second, then shook his head and said, “I don’t think I can do that, ma’am.”

Shelby got a sudden knot in her stomach. The rest of the students were standing and ready to start. She knew that they were all evaluating their new teacher, wondering what they were in for. She had heard stories of classes that would take a young and inexperienced teacher, chew them up, and spit them out again.

She asked Shawn, “Why not?”

Shawn kept his eyes focused on his pen, and slumped in his chair as if he was about to slide underneath his desk. When he spoke, his voice was soft, making it hard for her to hear him. "Ms. Johnson, the words 'with liberty and justice for all' were put into the Pledge in order to make us hate tyranny and injustice, right? I mean, we say the pledge because we are supposed to take a stand against tyranny and injustice. Those are bad things."

Shelby shrugged. This was, after all, supposed to be an Amerycan History class, and they would be talking about these things soon enough. "Yes. This country was founded on the idea that freedom is better than tyranny and justice is better than injustice."

Shawn glanced up, and made eye contact with her only for a second. She noted that he had nothing on his desk but his history book. Otherwise, she would have thought that he was reading something that somebody else had made him say. Shawn continued, "And the part about this country being indivisible. That was because of the Civil War. The guy who invented the Pledge wanted us to swear that we would uphold the Union and not promote rebellion. That's why he put the word 'indivisible' in the Pledge."

"Of course," said Shelby. "That's why you should show respect for the Flag. These are all good things that you should be proud of and that you should want to defend."

"Okay," said Shawn. "Then, 50 years ago, Congress added the word white to the Pledge of Allegiance. We are supposed to be one white nation, indivisible. When we pledge allegiance to one white nation, doesn't this mean that not being white is as bad as being in favor of rebellion or tyranny or injustice?"

"No," Shelby said with a sigh of relief. "No, not at all. Congress added that to reflect our heritage. It simply pays respect to the fact that all of our founding fathers were white, and that they clearly wanted to establish a white nation, and the fact that all of our past Presidents have been white."

"And all future Presidents should be white," Shawn added.

Shelby's smile vanished.

Shawn continued. "That's the real reason why Congress put the word white in the Pledge of Allegiance. It was not so much to show respect for our heritage, but to tell people not to elect a President who was not white. You can’t have a white nation unless all of your politicians are white."

"No," said Shelby hesitantly. "Anybody can grow up to be President. That is another one of the things that makes this country great. We'll be reading about that, too."

"Ms. Johnson. You're telling me that if I were going to run for President, nobody in this country is going to say, 'We are supposed to be one white nation, and that means we are supposed to be voting against anybody who isn't white, just as we are supposed to be voting against any president who supports secession from the union, tyranny, or injustice. Do you mean to tell me that Congress did not add the word white to the Pledge of Allegiance fifty years ago as a way of putting anybody who was not white at a political disadvantage?"

"Now, Shawn, you obviously know that you don't have to say the Pledge if you don't want to. I'm not asking you to say it. I'm just asking you to stand to show some respect for the good things that this country stands for. A lot of people died to buy you the freedoms you enjoy. Don't you think you owe them a little bit of gratitude?"

The boy bit his lip, and Shelby knew that she had struck a nerve with him. Still, he was not ready to give in. "Do you think that just because I don't have to say that this is one white nation that this means that the pledge is not racist?"

"Of course it isn't," Shelby said. "This is a free country. You should show your respect for all the good things this country stands for. You should be proud of those things and show some measure of gratitude to all of those soldiers and citizens that made this a free country."

Shawn looked up again, this time a little longer. "Ms. Johnson, if somebody was about to lead a room full of people in calling you . . . I'm sorry to say this, ma'am but I am just trying to illustrate a point here . . . if he was about to lead a whole room of your fellow teachers in calling you a cheep whore, and somebody said that you should stand and show your respect for what he was doing, would you?"

A couple of the other children snickered and Shelby felt her face grow hot.

"Shawn," she said. He continued to look at his desk. "Shawn! Look at me while I am talking to you."

Shawn showed no signs of moving for a few seconds. Then he let out a long sigh. He put his pen down and sat up straight in his desk. Folding his hands in front of him, he turned toward her and held her gaze. He did not flinch or look away. That did not help, Shelby thought to herself.

One of the other students, sitting on the opposite side of the room, shouted, "You liberals will not be happy until you have removed every sign of the white race from the public square."

Shawn shrugged and answered softly, "I am not saying that white people should be banned from the public square. I want the public square to be neutral on the issue of who is white and who is not. I do not see a problem with that."

"It's a problem if you're white!"

"That's enough!" Shelby shouted. "I have not given anybody else permission to talk!"

Just then, one of the other students – a white girl -- sat down. Shelby turned to her and said, "Jenny, I did not give anybody permission to sit down, either."

The girl remained seated. "It makes sense, Ms. Johnson. The Pledge states that you have to be white to lead this country, and that's not fair."

"Jenny, what do you want me to tell your parents when they ask me about how things are going at school?"

Jenny looked over at Shawn, then back at Shelby. "Tell them that I stood up for a friend. They'll understand. And if they don't; well, it's no big deal to do the right think when it's easy. A person really only shows her character by doing the right thing when it is hard. It's wrong, Ms. Johnson, to say that we have to be a white nation."

Shelby took a step back.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Johnson," Shawn said. "I know that this does not make your job any easier. I promise that I'm not here to cause any trouble. However, don't ask me to stand and show any respect for the idea that this has to be one white nation. I just can't do that. To be honest, I don't think you should be doing that either, but I will leave that up to you. Honest, Ms. Johnson, I’ll just sit here quietly until you’re done."

"Alright," said Shelby. "I'll discuss this with Principle Hadley and I'll let him decide. In the mean time, let's say the Pledge of Allegiance."

While most of the students put their hands on their hearts, two other students sat down. One was white, and the other was not.

The rest of the class followed the teacher's lead.

When they got to the middle of the Pledge, most of the students shouted, "…one WHITE nation…"

Shawn had been ready for it, and did not flinch. They were doing just what the all-white members of the Senate had done a couple of years earlier when a challenge to the Pledge made its way through the courts.

However, the outburst caught Shelby by surprise. She stopped and turned at the students who had shouted the word, and caught them smiling in self-admiration. After they finished, they took their seats, whispering among themselves and looking back at Shawn. Shelby reached into her routine for something comforting. She spoke hesitantly to the class. "Okay, let's start with introductions."

Spying on Americans II

I had a special posting planned for today -- my 100th day of blogging. However, world events have transpired to force an important issue to the forefront that I cannot ignore.

Link to Spying on Americans I

Crooks and Liars has a video of an exchange between Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and former Republican congressman Bob Barr from Georgia. (In other words, both of these speakers are Republican -- in case somebody thinks that this is a partisan issue).

The Power to Suspend the Constitution

In this exchange, Rohrabacher asserted that he is happy to have a President willing to suspend the Constitution and to break the law in order to save American lives. “I'm really sorry that we have this kind of evil enemy that wants to slaughter us, but I'm very happy that we have a president that, six months after they slaughtered 3,000 of our citizens, he decided to follow up on a lead that was given to our people by breaking up an al Qaeda cell in Pakistan, and followed through on that to make sure that there wasn't another imminent attack.”

To be honest, Rohrabacher did not confirm or deny the claim that these acts were illegal or unconstitutional. However, he did not deny them. In addition, when asked about the fact that this is unconstitutional, he said, "[I]f a nuclear weapon goes off in Washington, DC, or New York or Los Angeles, it'll burn the Constitution as it does."

So, Rohrabacher’s argument is that the President has the authority to suspend the Constitution with impunity whenever he feels that it is justified to do so.

One problem with this is, I do not recall reading that in the Constitution. I cannot find a statement in the list of Presidential powers that says, “The executive office will be vested with the power to suspend the Constitution, in whole or in part, at the sole discretion of the President when deemed necessary for reasons of national security.”

In fact, I suspect that any delegate to the Constitutional Convention who would have made such a proposal would have met with a rather unfriendly reaction. “Mr. Speaker, I would like to move that my good friend and colleague who proposed this Presidential power be removed from these chambers until he has had such time as to become sober.” Because, if they did not think that such a person was drunk, they would have likely had him tarred and feathered.

Yet, now, 225 years after the fact, Representative Rohrabacher is happy to have a President who thinks he has the authority to spend the Constitution, entirely or in part, at times of national emergency.

Destroying America

In addition to the above considerations, it is not possible to destroy America without destroying the Constitution. Terrorists may blow up a city, but we have suffered worse. It would take a half dozen atomic bombs to do damage proportional (per capita) to what we suffered during the Civil War.

Terrorists can attack our cities and our people, but nobody can actually attack America itself -- our heart and our soul -- except by attacking the Constitution. This does not imply that it should be preserves as-is until the end of time. However, it contains provisions for change - for Amendment - and "secret executive order" is not on the list of legitimate ways to amend the Constitution.

If we think it should be on the list -- if we think that this was an oversight on the part of the Founding Fathers, we have the ability to add it.

These points are also relevant specifically to Rohrabacher's claim that if an atomic bomb goes off in New York or DC that it will "burn the Constitution." Perhaps this is true. However, previous generations have suffered worse without burning the Constitution.

Previous generations have gone through relatively worse without burning the Constitution. I would hope that we are at least as good as they were. I would hope to make the terrorists understand that they cannot win even by destroying a city. They can only win by destroying the Constitution itself. This is something that they cannot do. The Constitution itself will not be destroyed unless we do this ourselves.

Is this what we are going to do?

Sunset Provisions

Rohrabacher also bragged, “Now, I have led the fight to making sure there were sunset provisions in the Patriot Act, for example. So after the war, we go back to recognizing the limits of government.”

There is going to be no such thing as “after the war”. Rohrabacher’s justification for these provisions is that there are people out there who want to slaughter us. There will always be people out there who want to slaughter us. If the mere existence of such people is enough to justify these provisions, then these provisions will always be justified, under Rohrabacher’s criteria for justification.

He might as well have lead the fight for a sunset provision that says, “These laws shall be rendered invalid the day that our Sun goes nova and destroys the Earth.” We will likely reach that date much sooner than the date at which nobody wants to slaughter us.

So, Rohrabacher really needs to answer the question of whether he wants to make the President’s authority to ignore the Constitution and break the law permanent. He has to answer whether he wants to adopt a new rule of government whereby a permanent state of hostility exists and, thereby, the President shall never again be bound by any Constitutional provision or law that, at the sole discretion of the President, he feels justified in breaking.

Spying on Americans

Where does this President think he gets the right to repeal the 4th Amendment to the Constitution by secret executive order?

One of the things that I dislike about 2-minute news bytes is that they provide a superficial account of an issue that neglects the foundation of principles and values that lie underneath.

President Bush acknowledged that he signed a secret order authorizing the National Security Council to spy on American citizens without any court review or any warrant. He considered judicial review to be inconvenient and cumbersome. He claims that, as a result of these secret powers, his administration broke up several terrorist attacks, including one to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch. There have been others. Bush praises his own actions on the grounds that he has saved American lives.

This sounds wonderful, doesn't it? And it all fits into a two-minute news broadcast.

Repeal the 4th Amendment

In fact, it is so wonderful that perhaps we should repeal the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. This is the Amendment that says:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

We can write it like the 21st Amendment (which repealed the 18th Amendment) so that it states, “The fourth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.”

Except, that takes a lot of time and effort to go through the Amendment process. America was under attack, and we did not have time to amend the Constitution. It was time for a decisive President to make snap decision and suspend the 4th Amendment by executive order. When President Bush signed his secret order that allowed the NSA to spy on American citizens with no judicial overview, he made a secret decision to allow searches of American citizens without any warrant at all. So, it would be hard to make the case that he did not violate the Constitution.

But, maybe that's not such a bad thing. The Founding Fathers were human. They were capable of mistakes. They refused to outlaw slavery, for example. Perhaps another of those mistakes was their decision to put limits on government searches and seizures.

Where are the Terrorists?

Let’s turn to another news item that came out this week. Lisa Myers reported at MSNBC that it has acquired a secret Pentagon report identifying groups and activities that it had investigated over a 10-month period. In this case, the Pentagon seems to be operating on the principle that any group that takes a stand against the Iraq War is a legitimate target for surveillance.

The NBC report focuses on a group of 20 Quakers meeting in Florida -- a meeting found on the Pentagon's list of "suspicious incidents" and identified as a "threat". The article states, "A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a ‘threat’ and one of more than 1,500 ‘suspicious incidents’ across the country over a recent 10-month period."

So now we see that nearly anybody who opposes the Bush policy with respect to the Iraq War or his terrorist policy can be identified as a threat, and subject to government surveillance.

One implication of all of this is quite clear. If you are a part of an organization that disapproves of the Administration policies, and you have included some mention of the Iraq War as one of the things that you do not like, there is a far greater chance that a government agent is watching you than if you are not such a person.

In other words, President Bush has created a society in which outspoken supporters of his Administration supporters can rest comfortably that they are “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” However, outspoken critics of his administration have reason to suspect that they do not have as much reason to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.”

It is as if the Constitution only applies to what a Republican may do to another Republican in good standing.

Unreasonable Searches and Seizures

There is, of course, this matter that searches and seizures are prohibited only if they are “unreasonable”. This concept of “unreasonableness” leaves a lot of room for interpretation. This makes it easy for Bush to simply assume that any search and seizure he authorizes would be "constitutional". Naturally, he is going to think that any search he authorizes is going to be "reasonable".

However, Congress used a different standard when it passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Passed after it was discovered that the Nixon Administration had been spying on Americans, it requires judicial review for these types of activities. It is good and right for us to require judicial review. The very purpose of that review is to help ensure that any searches meet this criterion of “reasonableness.”’

It is important to note that this is an enabling statute for the U.S. Constitution. It is a procedure that Congress enacted to give the 4th Amendment some force. Therefore, violating this law is, in effect a violation of the 4th Amendment as set down by Congress.

We can expect that even the most abusive tyrant can convince himself that his searches and seizures are “reasonable”. Certainly, such a tyrant is not going to have his agents waste their time on completely useless searches. He has to expect some return from his investment. If this is his criterion for “reasonableness”, he can easily convince himself that all of his searches and seizures are reasonable.

Yet, this is clearly not the standard of reasonableness written into the Constitution. The Constitution appeals to an objective standard – a standard that Congress can strive for but not arbitrarily dictate. It appeals to a moral standard. It appeals to a standard that says that the conclusion that these people are worth spying on must be a reasonable conclusion that follows from evidence, and that the purpose of the spying is to be found in the morally legitimate aims and goals of the state.

If even the worst tyrants can pass President Bush’s test for reasonable searches and seizures, then there is something dreadfully wrong with those standards.

“I Will Do Everything In My Power”

President Bush has defended his actions, claiming that “The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties. And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I'm the president of the United States.”

Everything in his power.

The first problem is that Bush seems to think that he and his appointed allies get to decide what the Constitution and the laws require. The very act of bypassing judicial review is an act of circumventing outside review of his decisions. We have already seen the Bush Administration’s ability to come up with a twisted interpretation of the law to claim that torture was legal.

The second problem is that this is a very vague standard. Could this mean spying on anybody who protests the Patriot Act so that the Administration can disrupt their political aims? This could be grounded on an argument that weakening this legislation or allowing it to expire will weaken his ability to fight terrorists.

Could this mean spying on anybody who protests the Administration’s use of torture? After all, Bush could easily convince himself that torture is providing useful information in the war on terror, so anybody who is against its use is weakening America.

Could this mean spying on anybody who protests the Bush Administration’s economic policies, such as its tax cuts? I think it is quite possible for Bush to convince himself that those who would allow those tax cuts to expire would be hurting America’s economy, lowering our economic standing, thereby making us more vulnerable to terrorists.

Could this mean spying on anybody caught saying unkind things about the President? We have already heard claim that anybody who criticizes him are giving aid and comfort to the terrorists by giving them reason to question our resolve in Iraq. So, clearly, doing “everything in my power” has to include silencing critics.

Ultimately, could there be anything that Bush wants to do that could not be justified on the basis of “doing everything in my power” to fight the terrorists? Could he not establish a tyranny, and claim that it is necessary to fight the terrorists?

The Final Solution

This is the type of situation that the 4th Amendment was designed to protect us from – a situation where the government views its own people as a hostile opponent to be spied upon, manipulated, and controlled.

This is why the 4th Amendment in the Bill of Rights is important. As Bush brushes aside the 4th Amendment and the rest of the Constitution allegedly to defend us from terrorists, wants to protect us from terrorists, we may well discover that we have lost the best weapon we have ever had for defending ourselves from tyrants.

Sound Reasoning Regarding Religiosity and Social Ills

MSNBC News recently uploaded a story that provides yet another example in which many members of the religious right are exhibiting an inability to understand basic moral concepts.

In the Journal of Religion and Society, Dr. Gregory Paul of Baltimore published a paper on the "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies." In this paper, Dr. Paul of Baltimore compared such statistics as homicide rates, teen pregnancy and abortion with the importance of religion in the lives of the people.

He discovered a correlation between these social ills and religiosity such that the more religious the people of a nation claimed to be, the greater the degree to which it was plagued by these social ills. The United States, being the most religious of these prosperous democracies, had the highest rates of homicides, venereal disease, teenage pregnancies and teenage abortions, At the same time, more secular countries such as France and Japan suffered less from these problems.

This is not the proof of immorality that I was talking about. The paper merely identifies a statistical correlation. Anybody fond of logic knows that a correlation does not imply causation. Every day, within minutes to hours after I get out of bed, the sun comes up. Yet, my getting out of bed does not cause the sun to come up.

The fundamental evidence of immorality that I am talking about is in the reaction that many on the religious right have had to this study. The article cited above lists many of these responses.

The First Wrong: Intellectual Recklessness

The first of the wrongs associated with this response is minor. Two others, I will show, are far more significant.

The first wrong concerns the fact that some people on the religious right have condemned Dr. Paul for claiming that religious belief causes social ills. This is wrong mostly because Dr. Paul never made that claim. This represents a moral flaw on the part of those who make this claim because they did not live up to their responsibility to determine what the truth of the matter was before they spoke. They saw a reason to hate, and they jumped on it, without checking to make sure that the reason they were given was well founded.

Dr. Paul was careful to report that his research only provided a correlation. He made no claims about causation. The crime of saying that this shows that religiosity causes these social ills rests on the shoulders of The Times of London, who made these unwarranted inferences and attributed them to Dr. Paul. For this, The Times of London and those who followed its lead deserve to have their knuckles soundly rapped with a ruler.

The Second and Third Wrongs: Hypocrisy and Hate Mongering

The second wrong starts with hypocrisy. Understanding the hypocrisy exposes a deeper wrong of hate mongering.

People on the religious right have been blaming secularism for society's ills for decades. From teen pregnancy to murder, they have claimed that these crimes were the effect of kicking God out of our schools and out of the public square.*

Now, many of these same people are complaining that others are using this report to draw an unwarranted conclusion that religiosity is the cause of these social ills.

For decades, the Religious Right has been saying that secularism is the cause of all of our problems, based on what evidence? They did not even have as much as a statistical correlation to support their claims. They had nothing. Yet, they saw nothing wrong -- nothing worthy of condemnation -- in launching a campaign of hostility and antagonism centered around groundless claims that these "others" they disliked were responsible for these social ills.

Now, a researcher shows that the correlation that they have been asserting actually goes in the opposite direction. Societies that are more secular tend to have a lower murder rate, a lower rate of teen pregnancy, and even an lower abortion rate. Now, they are up in arms protesting that others are making unwarranted claims about the negative effects of religiosity.

This is hypocrisy in the first degree. This is such blatant and open hypocrisy that those who are committed to it cannot even pretend to hide from it.

More importantly, this hypocrisy is found in a campaign of inciting hate and hostility towards others. The words and tone that the Religious Right have practiced for decades, that they now condemn in others, is that of using faulty evidence to secure a conclusion that some "others" are deserving of society's hatred and hostility.

Consistency

This argument implies that any who have used Paul's research paper to condemn religiosity are guilty of the same moral crime. These people are also promoting hatred an animosity towards others based on research that does not support those conclusions. It can be said in their favor that at least they have something pointing in the right direction. However, they are drawing conclusions that are far in excess of what that something legitimately allows.

Anybody secularist who draws a causal connection between religiosity and these social ills is committing the same wrong that secularists have been victims of for decades. It is still wrong, regardless of who does it.

However, if you know of somebody who is defending, funding, soliciting funds for, or promoting histility towards secularists on the basis that it is causally responsible for these social ills; and in particular if you can identify any individual or specific and identifiable group that has made this argument but protests that it is wrong to draw unwarranted conclusions from Dr. Paul's study, you you would be standing on very strong moral ground to condemn them.

I would recommend taking advantage of the opportunity.

-------------------------------

* A decent respect for truth requires that I insert a comment here. The fact of the matter is that God was not being kicked out of anything. The policies that the Religious Right were complaining about involved using government power to coerce citizens into participating in the religious rituals of somebody else's church.

Some churches sought to compel attendance in their religious services by holding those services in areas where others were forced to attend, such as public schools during class time. They also sought to compel attendance by making that attendance a pre-requisite to attending a town hall meeting or other civic events.

These were the tactics that others were protesting.

Bush's Moral Responisibility for Torture and War

Preliminary Notes on Torture

I would like to congratulate Senator John McCain on his victory over the Bush Administration over the issue of torture. Today, the Bush Administration said that it would accept McCain’s amendment to ban cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of prisoners.

Yet, I want to point out that the events leading up to today strongly suggest that the Bush Administration was forced into accepting limits that it did not want. In other words, I see no reason to believe that this limitation actually reflects the values of this Administration. Acting on its own values, I suspect that this Administration would have done nothing to oppose torture.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, however, not only cannot understand the difference between good and evil, he seems less practical than Bush when it comes to being coerced into doing good that he would not do willingly. He has demanded assurances that the United States will continue to get the same high level of effective intelligence as it gets under current procedures.

I have covered the issue of torture in earlier blog entries. The main point, which Hunter seems to miss, is that a safer world requires more than good intelligence. That which we say we are permitted to do to others, we say that others are permitted to do to American citizens abroad. Telling the world that it is permissible to torture Americans, as we hold that it is permissible to torture others, on a mere suspicion of potential wrongdoing, is not making the world safer for anybody.

Today’s Topic: President Bush’s War Excuse

In a recent interview with Brian Williams, President Bush said that it was his decision to invade Iraq, he made the decision based on faulty intelligence, and that it was the right thing to do. In making these claims, Bush is still acting like an alcoholic in denial. Rather than taking responsibility for his own actions, he continues to shift the responsibility on to others (e.g., "faulty intelligence") and to insist, in effect, that anybody in his position would have done the same thing.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that a huge number of people were actually in the same position he was, and they did not to the same thing. In fact, they protested that his actions were unjustified and a violation of international law.

Excusing Mistakes

Specifically, Bush is still claiming that he was not the only one who believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Everybody else believed it as well. From this, he concludes that he was justified in having this belief.

However, there are several fundamental problems with this way of thinking -- other than the fact that Bush is misrepresenting the truth when he says that others saw the same evidence as he did.

(1) Many of these other people believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction because he and his administration were saying that they did. Bush can only make his point if he can show that others reached an independent conclusion, based on their own research and their own evidence. Without this, Bush's defense amounts to nothing other than shouting, "Yes, I know I said that, but you believed me!" The only lesson that legitimacy follows from this is that it is foolish to believe him.

(2) Even if others believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, only a handful of them agreed that it was important to attack. The rest pretty much said, "Well, yes, I suspect he does have these weapons. However, I have no proof. Without proof, it would be wrong to go to war. Even if we had evidence of weapons, we need some reason to believe that he is an imminent threat. We have none of that. Therefore, war was not justified."

When Bush showed them his evidence, these countries shook their heads and said, "Is that all you've got?" There were weapons inspectors in Iraq, working, who were coming up empty. In light of this, the rest of the world stuck to the moral principle that it would be wrong to attack without good reason -- without good evidence. The rest of the world still said, "We see no justification for an attack. To attack, under these circumstances, would be wrong."

Yet, Bush pushed on with his plans to attack Iraq.

The Cost of War

Bush's defense is still that the mistakes leading up to the war were not his fault. He can only make this claim if he can show that anybody else of good character would have done the same thing. He can claim that others also believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

However, he has to combine this with the fact that virtually none of them felt that the evidence was solid enough to go to war. The vast majority of the world held to the moral principle that war was a serious decision that required more than hunches and feelings, and Bush did not have the evidence he needed.

Why does war require actual evidence? The reason is that, the more we lower our standards for going to war, the more likely wars will become. Civilized people in civilized nations want the bar for going to war to be raised high enough that there are no wars except when they are absolutely necessary. The extraordinary destruction of war requires extraordinary proof that they cannot be avoided.

Bush did not have the extraordinary proof that wars require. However, he has forced the world to pay extraordinary costs. Bush's war in Iraq has cost over 2,100 American lives, 30,000 Iraqi lives by Bush's own estimate, and 200 billion dollars. Over 15,000 Americans, and an untold number of Iraqis, have been maimed.

These are the costs so far, and clearly do not tell us what the total costs of the war will be.

Before you destroy between $200 billion and $500 billion that could have otherwise gone to schools, hospitals, and scientific research; before you cut short over 30,000 lives and maim countless others, you owe it to those who will be made worse off to have extraordinary proof. Bush did not have extraordinary proof. He is, therefore, morally culpable for this loss.

Making the World Safe

Another argument that Bush is making is that he has made the world safer.

The problem with lowering the bar for war -- the problem with making wars easier to "justify" and setting a precedent for going to war on the slight pretext of mere suspicion, is that it makes wars easier. This makes wars more likely. This makes the world decidedly less safe.

This is the same argument that I have applied to the issue of torture above. When the Bush Administration lowered the bar against going to war – saying that the mere suspicion that another country might be planning something, a suspicion grounded on faulty intelligence where the appearance of danger represented more “wishful thinking” than “thoughtful analysis”, makes war more likely.

The way to prevent war is to have a high moral standard against war. Bush is telling the world to adopt a lower standard, and that cannot be good for the world.

I repeat, the extraordinary destruction of war requires extraordinary justification. Bush did not have the level of justification that is required to justify war. The degree to which we lower the bar for justifying war, to that degree we may expect to suffer War should not be fought on a whim and a prayer.

This is Bush’s moral failing. His moral compass on the issue of a just war is as faulty as his compass on the issue of the treatment of prisoners. This is what will determine the shape of the world in the future, more than what happens in Iraq, unless the world decides to condemn the culture of easy war and torture that the Bush Administration endorses.

McCain gained one important moral victory in that battle today. There are other important moral victories still to be won.

On Liberty and Theocracy in Ohio

On Liberty and Theocracy in Ohio

I have recently encountered the most Owellian statement I have ever seen in a document called Uncommon Sense on the web site of Ohio's Secretary of State.

Many things get called Orwellian because they somewhat resemble the doublespeak that Orwell invented in his book 1984. However, this is not like Orwellian doublespeak. This is a pure example of Orwellian doublespeak.

The three primary examples of doublespeak that the state in Orwell's book 1984 employs are "War is peace", "freedom is slavery", and "ignorance is strength". The "Uncommon Sense" page seeks to promote the very idea that freedom is slavery.

The document lists 20 values that are supposed to be a part of good moral character. On this list of values, they mention "Liberty":

Liberty: High-character people preserve their public rights by fulfilling their personal responsibilities. In order to preserve public freedoms, every person must exercise private restraints. Therefore, free people embrace self-control so the need for public controls is minimized. As a result, high-character people communicate and live out character ethics and intentionally exhort others to do likewise as active act of preserving liberty for everyone. (Observable Virtues: temperance, self-control.)

The History of the Fight for Liberty

This definition suggests that I need to reinterpret much of what I thought I had learned about American history.

I did not realize that when the Founding Fathers declared that they were fighting for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that they were protesting King George's unwillingness to provide the American colonists with sufficient opportunity to exercise private restraint.

And, apparently, the soldiers who fought to end slavery in the Civil War were concerned that African Americans were being denied their inalienable right to temperance.

Also, some French apparently thought that this issue was so important that they built for us a large statue, the Statue of Liberty, with a plaque by which she says to the world, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning for self-control."

And that "Pledge of Allegiance" . . . apparently, what we are having these children pledge to each day is "self-control and justice for all."

I never knew that until now.

For some reason, my understanding of history made it far easier to imagine the colonists protesting the constraints King George sought to impose, not pleading for more. I can easily picture in my mind the southern slave owner teaching his slaves the Ohio definition of freedom. However, I do not think that these are the words that slaves would use in demanding their liberty from their owner. The Ohio definition represents something that those huddled masses yearning to breathe free were running from, not what they were running toward.

Liberty Means: "Submit or Suffer the Consequences"

I want to draw your attention to the explicit threat written into this definition of liberty -- the threat that says, "Do what you are told and you will not get hurt." The Ohio definition says that "self-restraint" is necessary to prevent "the need for public control."

These are the words of King George saying that the lack of restraint on the part of the colonists made it necessary for him to send the Red Coats to Boston.

These are the words of the slave owner who says that that the slave's 'uppity' nature made it necessary for him to bring out the whip.

These are the words of tyrants and dictators throughout history who have always defended their authoritarian power by appealing to a need to subdue an unruly people.

These are the words of those who have no use for liberty and no interest in preserving it. These are the words of people who want others to name them soveriegn and blindly obey their commands, and who are tired of silly conventions such as a love of liberty limiting what those in power may command of their subjects.

So, they preach a concept of liberty that says, 'Do as you are told' combined with the threat 'Or else we will make you suffer.' This way, if the subjects become restless and unruly and have to be put down, those with power can comfortably say, "This is your fault. If you had been more cooperative, passive, compliant, and obedient, then we would not have had to do this."

Liberty as Restraint of Government Excesses

There is an element of restraint associated with liberty. However, it is not "private restraint" or "self-control". It is a public restraint -- a restraint on the demands that those with power will make on those who do not share power. It is a command that those with authority, whether they are employers or project managers, or group leaders, or the majority in a democracy, will not abuse that power.

In my blog posting, "All Men Are Created Equal," I gave a 'rule of thumb' that can be used to determine whether those with power are abusing their authority instead of honoring the rights of others. It is a modification of the principle, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It also finds use in Social Contract Theories regarding political legitimacy.

This "rule of thumb" invites people with power to evaluate the rules they adopt according to whether they would agree with those same rules if they found that they were in the weaker position. "Would you comfortably accept others imposing on you that which you impose on them?"

So, if Muslims were in the majority, and Christianity were a minority religion, would the Christians comfortably accept a rule that requires their children to read daily passages from the Koran at school, pray five times eash day while bowing to Mecca, and a pledge of allegiance to "one nation with only one God and Mohammed is its prophet"?

Or, would they accept an atheistic leadership that requires students to read and recite "The Case Against God" and pledge allegiance to "One nation with no God"?

If not, then they should know that it is wrong to impose these types of demands on others. They should be as reluctant to see schools turned into government funded Christian temples as they would be to have those same schools turned into government funded Mosques or Synagogues. Imposing those burdens on others would be to transgress the boundaries of liberty.

This is a test that England would not have passed in 1776. We can trust that if America had been the parent country, and it imposed taxes on England without allowing those living in England to have representation in Congress, that the English would not have accepted this. They should not have expected America to accept it.

It is a test that the slave owner could not have passed. I doubt there would be much luck finding a slave owner who would not protest being taken from his home and hauled to Africa to work without pay in a foreign country, bought and sold, separated from his family, and freely killed when it benefits his masters to do so.

It is a test the tyrant cannot pass, because he would not be content to live in a tyranny in which he was not the one in control.

Ohio's Defender of Liberty as Servitude

It is a test that J. Kenneth Blackwell, the current Ohio Secretary of State and Republican candidate for governor cannot pass, because he is advocating policies  that he would certainly protest if others, were to seek to impose similar policies on him.

Reverend Rod Parsley, mentioned in the article linked to in the preceding paragraph, is explicitly fighting to bring down American democracy, and replace it with a Christian Theocracy. To his congregation, he says that "Americans must be `Christocrats.'"

If Americans must be Christian, this can only be accomplished by revoking the citizenship of anybody who is not Christian. He also has said of this form of government, "...[it] is not democracy, [it] is theocracy. God is in control, and you are not."

These are not the words of somebody who has much use for liberty as it is typically understood. He is clearly somebody who only has use for liberty in terms of "doing what you are told so that you are not suffering the consequences that we will impose upon you otherwise."

Looking through the rest of the values described in "Uncommon Sense", there is a common theme. This is a recipe for how to be a perfect servant to a master in need of servants. In addition to the loss of true liberty, the person of 'high character' is also supposed to shun independence, willingly yield to authority, have no use for privacy, and even seek "the benefits of suffering."

Liberty is, on this definition, nothing other than servitude. It is as if the text were lifted straight out of George Orwell's book.

Reasons and Action

Before starting on today's topic, I have a couple of follow-up items to post.

First, I want to make a quick comment about the Administration's claim that they do not torture. The next time somebody from the Administration says this, I want somebody to have the mental acuity to ask, "What do you mean by torture?" If that official says something like, "That which is illegal under international or American law," I want them to press the issue and say, "Your legal staff has a habit of twisting these laws to allow for a great deal that sensible people still call torture. Are you truly against inhumane treatment of prisoners? Or are you simply lowering the bar down to the ground so that you can do whatever you please to a prisoner -- only, you're not going to call it 'torture'?" I want to know the answer to these questions.

Second, with the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams in California, I wish to remind the readers that I have previously posted my thoughts on Capital Punishment: The Cost of Celebrating Killing.

Today's Topic

Don Jr. has asked some questions that I would like to bring to the surface, because they concern the foundation of ethics.

Much of this concerns a syllogism that I provided in a discussion on an earlier posting. Namely:

(1) It is nonsense to say that a person ought to do something that there is no reason to do.

(2) Desires provide the only reasons to do (or refrain) from action.

(3) Therefore, it is nonsense to say that a person ought to do something that is not ultimately traced to some desire.

Desires and Selfishness

First, Don Jr. challenged my statement that (2) Desires provide the only reasons to do (or refrain) from action. by saying, But maybe every mother (every single one) who does—and feel that she ought to—turn her child in when she knows her child has committed a serious crime actually desire to turn her child in. And maybe all pedestrians (every single one) who put their lives in danger to save another actually desire to put their lives in danger for a stranger.

A person who believes that something is right, and who also has a desire to do that which is right, will do an action "because it is right". However, if she has no interest in doing what is right, then she will not do so. Where there is no desire, there is no action.

Similarly, a parent who cares about (desires to preserve) the life of his child more than he cares about (desire to preserve) his own life will give up his life to save his child. In all cases, peoples’ actions are a reflection of their values – their desires.

This is not the same as saying that everybody is selfish. A selfish person does what he desires but, at the same time, does not care about the well-being of others (except insofar as he can use them, as one would use a tool, to make his own life better). An altruistic person does what he desires, but desires to see others healthy and happy. He sincerely wants to make other people’s lives better. He might even care more about (more strongly desire or value) the well-being of others than he cares about the quality of his own welfare.

Prudential vs. Moral Ought

Second, Don Jr. said, The actual conclusion, call it (C*), that logically follows from your premises is this: "Therefore, it is nonsense to say that a person ought to do something that he or she has no desire to do."

This confuses practical ‘ought’ with moral ‘ought’.

When somebody says to me, "You should not put your hand on that stove" (sorry Shmanky), he is not telling me that I have a moral obligation to not to put my hand on the stove. He is giving me advice. As advice, it considers only my own desires -- my own reasons for action. Granted, he is still probably speaking within a moral framework. The person who gives advice in the form, “You should take the job in Phoenix” or “You have to go see that movie,” is usually best interpreted as saying, "Of all of the morally permissible actions available to you, you should . . . .” Still, the advice itself is not a claim about what morality requires.

Moral statements are different from these types of statements. How are they different?

The person who says, "You should not drive while under the influence of alcohol," or “You shouldn’t take that,” in the moral sense, is not talking only about what would fulfill the desires of the person he is talking to. This illustrates the fact that the key difference between a statement of advice and a statement of moral obligation is that the latter is concerned what will happen to others.

When I say that driving under the influence is irresponsible, immoral behavior, I cannot be convinced that my statement is wrong merely by being shown that the person really likes to drive under the influence. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that he is creating a risk for others. That risk makes it rational for others to condemn and to punish those who would drive under the influence. That risk gives others reason to identify the act as wrong and drunk drivers as wrongdoers.

I can, at times, give both personal advice and moral condemnation. I can say that drunk driving is both wrong and stupid. Yet, these remain two separate claims, and only one of them is a moral claim.

If one wants to inquire as to how morality gets linked to harming others, I answer that you can no more take the concept of harm to others out of morality than you can take roundness out of a circle.

This is still consistent with the claim that desires provide the only reasons to do (or refrain) from action that exist. Only, in this case, we are talking about society's reasons to deliver condemnation and punishment to those who engage in drunk driving. We are talking about society's justification in calling drunk driving immoral. It is a justification that exists as a matter of objective fact. Either the 'reasons for action' for condemning drunk driving exist, or they do not.

Euthyphro

Third, Don Jr. asked me to answer a Euthyphro-type question that, "Do you say things are good because they are good, or are they good because you say they are?"

Nothing is good because I say it is.

Value-laden terms are tied to reasons for action. There is no sense in calling something good that there is no reason to bring about, or to call something bad that there is no reason to avoid. The concept of "good" and "bad" are tied to reasons for action the way the concept of "circle" is tied to roundness and "bachelor" is tied to being unmarried.

So, if you were to ask me, "Is this good because it is tied to reasons for action, or is it tied to reasons for action because it is good?" I would answer this question the same way I would answer, "Do you call this a circle because it is round, or do you say it is round because it is a circle?" I answer that I do both at the same time because this is what the words mean.

However, if you point to some specific and concrete thing, such as kindness and charity, and ask, ""Do you say these things are good because they are good, or are they good because you say they are?" I answer that it makes no sense to say that they are good unless they truly are good. Furthermore, to say that they are good means that there are reasons for action that recommend bringing about these things. Therefore, it makes no sense to say that something is good unless there really are reasons for action that recommend bringing them about.

Note: I said nothing about what a society thinks it should praise or condemn. I said nothing about what a society does praise or condemn. There is a fact of the matter as to what it makes sense for society. Societies can be just as wrong about what they praise and condemn as I can be about where I put my hand.

Nothing about me personally much affects what it is rational and prudent for society in general to praise, condemn, reward, or punish. Before I was born, it was prudent for society to condemn and punish and to promote society-wide aversions to willful killing, rape, theft, deception, tyranny, bigotry, and the whole host of moral wrongs. It remained prudent while I was alive, and will remain prudent after I die. Morality did not come into existence when I was born, it is immune to my personal beliefs, and will not cease to exist when I die.

"All Men are Created Equal"

The Declaration of Independence states, '…all men are created equal…' The founding fathers said that we were created equal because they believed in a creator. This means that they believed that those who believed in a creator have a natural right to rule those who do not, and all others have a natural duty to obey.

This is, in essence, the political philosophy of the religious right. It is an absurdity that contradicts itself almost immediately. Whereas the Declaration of Independence is founded on the principle of political equality, the religious right wants to interpret it as a document that recognizes their divine right to rule over all others.

The Function Of "All Men Are Created Equal"

The function of the phrase "all men are created equal" is to serve as a premise in an overall argument. That argument's purpose was to prove to a candid world that the United States had a right to break its political chains with Great Britain and to establish an new nation. In order to prove that they had this right, they had to counter any argument that said that they owed their allegiance to England.

The doctrine that they most needed to challenge was one that said that governments get their authority from God. On this theory, the citizen's duty to yield to the authority of the king was the same as his duty to yield to the authority of God -- because the King was said to be somebody that God had picked to rule over man on Earth.

It was a very convenient doctrine for the monarchies of the Middle Ages to foster and promote, because it kept the peasants in line. Questioning the King was no different than questioning the Bible, which no citizen would dare do, allowing the King to exercise absolute authority over his subjects.

This was a part of a tradition that held that the Bible was literally true, and measured all evidence according to how well it conformed to scripture. If a collection of observations appeared to support a conclusion that the Bible (according to the Church) said was not true, then these 'observations' were dismissed as the work of the devil trying to deceive us away from truth. People were told that they had to be constantly vigilant against heresy and lies that Satan weaved to distract people from God.

Any individual who did not dismiss these observations that challenged Church doctrine, and continued to defend their theories, was branded an enemy of God and of all good men. This is why "Giordano Bruno" was burned at the stake, and why Galileo was told that he would endure the torture of inquisition unless he recanted his "proof" that scripture (as the Church interpreted it) was mistaken about the earth being the center of all things.

Rejecting Church Authority

Yet, even Bruno and Galileo were working on a tradition that Martin Luther had started. Martin Luther challenged the idea that the Church had a monopoly on truth, asserting that he could interpret the Bible better than anybody in Rome, thereby calling into question the idea that we must trust to Rome to deliver the truth. The Church doctrine was that all truth was contained within scripture, and that they knew the one true interpretation of scripture -- an interpretation that they received through communication with God. Luther dared to say that their interpretation was flawed.

The Church tried to preserve its authority by insisting that "truth" could only be found in its declarations of right and wrong, that "wisdom" meant recognizing the authority of the church and the dictates of its leaders, and that all people of good moral character recognized their own weaknesses and the need to submit to the higher authority of the Church.

However, Luther did not recant his statements, and he inspired others to get into the habit of questioning the Church. Countless new interpretations sprang up as each person put their own mind to the task of trying to discover what the Bible really said. They started to look elsewhere for evidence that they could apply to determine which answers were right or wrong.

The Age of Reason

Bruno and Galileo were working within a new tradition that said that humans could look at nature, make empirical observations, and from these deduce natural laws. They shocked the world with the things that they were able to discover -- truths that were hidden, but were available to those who looked.

Isaac Newton used this method and identified laws of nature that were simply too obvious to ignore. They contradicted the Church’s stand that the Earth was the center of the solar system – the claim that got Bruno executed. However, by this time, people were in the habit of thinking that where empirical research contradicted Church doctrine, this only meant that the Church had to update its doctrine.

What the "natural philosophers" were doing with the physical law, others thought they could do with moral law. They thought that they could look at man in a state of nature and determine natural moral laws that did not require referencing religious texts. As with the physical laws, if these natural moral laws contradicted accepted biblical interpretations, then the Church needed to correct those interpretations as well.

John Locke

One of the most significant efforts in this quest for moral knowledge was John Locke's "Second Treatise on Civil Government." In this essay, Locke looked at man in a state of nature and found it to be a state of perfect political equality. There was no natural right to rule, and no natural duty to obey. Kings did not get their power and authority from God. Rather, men, in a state of nature, in order to better secure their life, liberty, and property, invented a tool called the State as they would invent a hammer or a saw, and designed this tool to better secure these rights.

Because men had the authority to create a government, they also had the authority to bring it down. If that government became dangerous – if it threatened the rights that all men have by nature – then men are within their natural rights to throw this defective tool away and replace it with a new and better tool.

Locke still believed in God. He still believed that human beings were created. He believed that God created a universe that was governed not only by natural physical laws, but natural moral laws. He believed that, just as natural physical law can be determined philosophically without referring to any Bible or religious text, that people could look at man in a state of nature and discover moral laws independent of what could be found in scripture – truths that could then be used to understand scripture.

The Declaration of Indepedence

Thus, it was written into the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

When this was written, it still contained a couple of mistakes, some of which took more than a hundred years to work out. The founding fathers did not yet apply this principle to people in Africa. Nor did they hold that these principles applied to women.

It took this country another four score and nine years to realize that men in a state of nature would not accept slavery – that this clearly violated the idea of political equality. It took over a century to realize that the same arguments that showed that no man had a natural right to rule over another man also showed that man did not have a natural right to rule over women, thus they gave women the political right to vote (recognizing a moral right that had always existed).

However, it took only a decade for the founding fathers to realize that men in a state of nature would not have approved of a theocracy. Thus, when they wrote the Constitution ten years later, they wrote a document that did not mention God except to say that no religious test will be required of anybody seeking public office. This said, in effect, that people of different religions came to the State as political equals. There was no natural right that gave one religion a right to rule, nor was there a natural duty on the part of those of any other religion to obey.

There is an easily applied rule of thumb to use in determining if a law is consistent with this view of government. Ask yourself if two equals, meeting in a state of nature, would agree to those terms. If a group of Muslims met an equal group of Christians in the state of nature and agreed on a government, they would clearly not agree to a Christian government, nor would they agree to a Muslim government. They would not agree even to a majority rule (out of fear that they would find themselves in the minority). The only government they would reasonably agree to is one that managed the peaceful interactions between the two groups while showing favoritism towards neither.

The only sensible rule would be one like, "I may not prohibit you from building any temple that you want on your own land, and you may not force me to pay for it, and neither of us will claim dominion over the neutral territory between us -- the common meeting ground -- that is the state. We declare that the state is neutral territory. As such, you may not hoist your religious symbols there as if to claim it as your own, and neither shall we."

So, now, what can we say of those who look at the Declaration of Independence, see the phrase, “All men are created equal,” and argue from this that Christians (and, certainly, they mean their own brand of Christianity) have a natural right to rule and everybody else has a natural right to obey?

We can say that they are tearing the heart out of the principles upon which this country was founded and stomping it underfoot. They are saying, in effect, "We reject the philosophy that was laid down in the Declaration in Independence, and demand that the United States adopt a moral and political philosophy explicitly rejected in its founding document. We reject the idea that we are to think of ourselves as political equals to all others and demand instead a right to rule."

The Declaration of Independence does not say, “Only those who believe in a creator are equal, and all others are their political inferiors.” It says, “All men . . .”, a phrase that we now know should have said “All people . . .”.

What part of “all” do you not understand?

Money is Speech

In a recent blog entry called “One Dollar, One Vote”, Martin Mapes brought up the issue of “Money is Speech.” This slogan represents the idea that where a person puts his money is the same as speech, so that limiting where he can put his money represents a restraint on “free speech” and a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech to the Constitution. This principle has been used to challenge a number of campaign finance laws.

Insert my standard caveat here: I do not write about what the law does or does not say, but about what the law ought or ought not to say. So, I am not interested in whether limiting campaign contributions is a violation of the First Amendment, but whether such laws are a good or a bad idea.

I view campaign finance legislation to be a waste of time and effort. The only thing that they accomplish is to create a confusing set of regulations that a person has to go through in order to run for public office. If they have any effect at all, it is to keep amateurs out of political campaigns because they are worried about their ability to navigate the campaign financing laws. This leaves the field open to the professional politicians, with party advisors working to make sure that they meet the requirements. If anybody actually gets caught by these laws, it is more a matter of carelessness or hubris than an attempt to gain some type of an advantage.

The Public Relations Specialist

Let us assume that you are some wealthy person – say, a corporate executive involved in some industry. You have a great deal of money that you can use to influence a particular campaign. I, in turn, am a consultant advising you on how you can have an effect on the election.

First, you make a campaign contribution for the maximum amount to this candidate. You convince everybody you know to do the same. In asking them to do so, you make a deal with them to provide support for the candidate of their choice.

Second, make a contribution to the county party that the candidate belongs to, to the maximum amount.

Third, find somebody to dig up whatever you can on any actual or potential opponent that this person may face. There can be no law against learning as much as you can about a particular candidate. If you find anything, make it public. If you find anything that could look bad for this candidate, make that public as well. You can give the information to the candidate of your choice. However, I would recommend giving it instead to a columnist or radio talk-show host who will print it in the paper or put it out on the air. This will help your candidate, but can scarcely be counted as a campaign contribution.

Fourth, look at the issues that your candidate supports. Now, either send contributions or find somebody willing to set up an organization that will defend that position at the local level. For example, if your candidate is going to argue in favor of privatizing social security, then find a local organization that is in favor of privatizing social security. Have them hold a conference in this candidate’s district. Give them money so that they can run television and radio advertisements defending the privatization of social security in your area.

Fifth, do the same thing with issues that your opponent supports. Only, this time, you are going to help finance the organizations who are speaking against your opponent. It’s the same principle – give those organizations some money so that they can speak up on those issues.

Sixth, if you own a company, arrange to buy some advertising for whatever talk radio show that will best help your candidate. Allow that talk radio host to afford some more advertising and help to boost its ratings. You might even slip him or her some of your research so that it reaches the voters. Help him to promote the show.

Invite speakers and writers into the area. Invite an expert on the subject of privatizing social security to give a presentation in your area, or help to finance the organization that might do this. Invite an author into your town to sign books on the subject at a local book store. Purchase a number of those books yourself and give them away.

These are just a few ideas that I can come up with just off of the top of my head. If somebody wants to pass some type of campaign finance laws, this may interfere with some of the ways in which you can contribute to your preferred candidate, but there are hundreds of other directions for that cash to flow. Ultimately, campaign finance laws are like trying to stop a river with your bare hands. The water (money) is just going to flow around you. The water (money) will still get where it is going. At most, you are going to create a little bit of turbulence along the way.

The fact is, money is speech. The only way to prevent a person from finding ways to support a candidate through campaign contributions is to ban speech itself. It means gagging any group that says anything that may favor a candidate. It means that, while the election is going on, environmental groups are banned from discussing the environment, senior-citizens groups are banned from discussing issues that affect senior-citizens, and anti-war protestors are prohibited from saying that we should bring our troops home, because advocating any issue will indirectly support any candidate that supports that same issue.

What Really Helps

If I had a magic wand that I could wave to improve the world, I would turn up society’s intolerance of those who deceive and manipulate the public. I would institute a program that would inform the public on the different types of deception that public relations and “perception management” firms have perfected, and I would establish an organization whose purpose is to expose the use of those organizations. I would promote those organizations and encourage every voter and customer to express great contempt at those who use these practices.

One of those organizations can be found on my list of links, “factcheck.org.” This organization goes through campaign advertisements and looks for examples of deception an distortion. I would very much like it to be the case that any candidate or public interest group whose advertisement shows up on this list that is marked as false or misleading instantly loses that candidate enough votes to threaten his chance at winning an election. They show every sign of being bi-partisan, more interested in finding and reporting errors than in promoting any political party.

I would simply like the people themselves to tell candidates and special interest groups, “We need accurate information, and we are simply not going to tolerate your manipulative antics any more.” So, evidence of false and misleading information has an immediate detrimental effect for that candidate or organization.

Candidates need to be informed of one’s decision that he or she is going to be basing their voting decisions substantially on moral character and, in doing so, the candidate’s willingness to be honest with the voter and to avoid false and misleading statements will be a major part of that decision. I would like to recommend that people be ready to share this decision with family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

When those others say, “All candidates do this. Every one of them misrepresents the truth when it suits them to do so,” answer, “Only because we let them, and look at where that got us. We have a culture where a candidate can stand up and make statements that factcheck.org can say are lies and nobody cares. If nobody cares about whether the candidates lie to us, then how stupid is it for us to expect them not to lie?”

This is a change in culture, not a change in the law. However, it is the only type of change that can affect the amount of deception we get in political campaigns. It is the only way to force candidates to provide us with honest information on the issues. If we are not willing to do this, then we can continue to expect that our elected offices will fall into the hands of those who are most willing and able to finance the most convincing lies.

American Behavior at the Climate Change Conference

The Climate Change conference has ended in Canada, and the role that the American deligation played proved to be an embarrassment. It would be comforting to claim that only the Bush administration was embarrassed by these events. However, we must remember that their participation was a reflection of American culture. There is no escaping the fact that it was not just a few political leaders who were humiliated, but America itself.

The Rules of a Conference

I would like to propose that there are some moral principles governing the attitude that one should have when entering a conference or a meeting of any type. The first rule is to set aside the arrogance of assuming that you are the only one there who actually understands what is going on. The world is big enough and complex enough at this point that no one person can fully understand even a small section of it. Furthermore, there is the fact that individuals tend to magnify the importance of their concerns, while belitteling effects on others. Therefore, prudence and fairness both suggest that we bring different people together, each with their own pieces of the puzzle, to work on putting these pieces together to form a coherent picture.

This arrogance itself is a sin. Arrogant people are an actual threat to others. They pretend to know more than they know in fact, so their actions are commonly wrong. They care more about their concern then what affects others, so those mistakes tend to harm others. An attitude that makes somebody a threat to others is the very definition of a moral failing. Those who recognize their own limitations find it easier to listen to others, to accept advice, and to get it right.

I know that not everything said in committee is wise and prudent. That’s the point. Nobody walks into a meeting with all of the best ideas – ideas that cannot stand improvement from the input of others. Some of those ideas are better than others. Hopefully, by airing those ideas, the best will emerge.

However, the likelihood of this depends on the climate in which the meeting is held. If there is a dominant individual who will not hear anything he does not already believe is true, the meeting is a waste of time. If this is a collaborative effort among people who recognize that their different talents and potential for contribution, then something can come out of it.

The American presence that the global climate change conference in Canada was more like the first of these two examples. America entered as a senior partner that has already made up his mind and who is determined to view the meeting as a waste of time. He has no intention of listening to what others say or of considering their input.

Here is a hint: if you go into a meeting and everybody else at the meeting says that you are wrong, it is time to seriously consider the fact that you are wrong. It is time to throw away the arrogant assumption of infallibility and start to ask why nobody else can see the 'truth' that you believe.

America’s Representative

Let us start with the fact that, according to the Washington Post, Exxon-Mobile hand-picked Watson to participate in the negotiations, after which Bush named him the lead negotiator. Now, on the surface, I actually think that the energy industry should have people participating in these discussions. They have legitimate interests in the outcome and, though some may want to count the oil industry as the enemy, prudence and fairness work in both directions or they do not work at all.

However, this is premised on the assumption that the negotiator will aim at producing the best product available, and not that he will go there with the intent of sabotaging the meeting.

At one point, the American representatives walked out of the meeting. As the article states, “The walkout was widely seen here as the capstone of two weeks of American efforts to prevent any fresh initiatives from being discussed.” In other words, the Americans showed up with the intention to block progress, not to contribute to progress.

America’s stand brought Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada to say, "To the reticent nations, including the United States, I say this: There is such a thing as a global conscience, and now is the time to listen to it." The Bush Administration, and some in Canada, called this a political stunt since Martin is in the middle of a campaign. However, this does not change the fact that this was a popular sentiment, widely and favorably repeated at the conference. Sometimes candidates can have the luxury of actually being right.

Maliciously Deceptive Use of Statistics

The Bush Administration has countered that it is working on an alternative strategy. Instead of emissions limits, it is funding energy-saving technology.

The Bush Administration also took credit for the fact that America’s greenhouse gas emissions actually went down from 2000 to 2003 by 0.8 percent. However, this is a maliciously deceptive use of statistics. Emissions reductions are what happen when an economy stalls and goes into recession. Factories close. People quit driving to work because they have no jobs to go to. They find ways to save money. The Bush Administration can take credit for this only if it is willing to say that it intionally caused the recession -- which I suspect the Bush Administration will not do.

This is indicative of the type of behavior we can expect from people are more interested in “perception management” than honest discussion. They want to manipulate our beliefs, and see nothing wrong with both taking credit for and denying responsibility for exactly the same set of facts depending on what is convenient at the moment.

The Bush Administration cannot argue that their stand is a matter of principle. As I commented in my blog entry The Tragedy of the Global Climate Commons, I find it surprising that those who claim to be friends of free enterprise mock free enterprise and defend what is effectively a communist (communal) system for dealing with greenhouse gas emissions. In this case, supporters of the Bush Administration mocked capitalism by handing out “emissions credits” printed on toilet paper.

Not only do we see arrogance in the way that the Bush Administration is dealing with the issue of climate change, we see more acts of malicious deception and "perception management" in what it takes credit for, and a lack of integrity as well.

Being Right

This is not a question of whether the Bush Administration is right in its approach to global warming. This is a question of how to decide on the best course of action.

Of course, everybody who enters a conference or a meeting does so with the assumption that they are right, and everybody at the meeting who disagrees with them is wrong. However, somebody has to be wrong. It shows a morally decent level of respect for others and a morally decent level of humility to admit that somebody else at the conference may have something useful to contribute, and a joint decision is the proof that everybody has had an opportunity to make their contribution.

In the end, one should leave the conference saying, “Okay, I obviously do not know everything, and maybe this will work.” One works with others to try to walk away with the best product, holding firmly to those things that one is the most certain of, and giving up those things that others seem the most certain of. This is the morally decent and respectable attitude to take.

Yet, few people who attended the Climate Change talks in Montreal were given much of a reason to see the United States as either morally decent or respectful. Instead, we showed them pompous arrogance, malicious deceit, and hypocrisy. We proved that America itself seems somewhat deficient in moral character.

Final Analysis

In the end, the Conference participants felt like they could work on a deal. They drew comfort from the fact that a large number of Americans showed up who gave them some reason to believe that there is still some good in this country, even if it is not reflected in its government. Their goal is to come up with a new set of objectives by 2012. By then, George Bush would be gone, and they are hoping that America can elect a better man as President. Not necessarily a Democrat, but somebody who can engage in civil dialogue with the rest of the world.

It would be nice.

Heroes

On the bus ride home from the office Christmas party yesterday, the bus was dark and quiet except for a couple of people sitting on opposite sides of the bus from each other near the front having a discussion. During part of the trip, they were asserting the claim that a police officer, or firefighter, or anybody in one of these positions, does not deserve the name "hero" for such things as rescuing a child from a burning building or a wounded occupant from a burning car.

I do not know how common this view is, and perhaps it is not common at all. However, I have heard it enough times to think that it might be worth a commet. I have heard it said of those who joined the military who now find themselves in danger of being blown to bits by a roadside bomb in Iraq -- that we do not owe them our gratitude because they volunteered for this and are doing only what they had already agreed to do.

This is utter nonsense.

Why does the person who volunteered to become a police officer, fire fighter, or soldier deserve less praise for their heroics than an average citizen who also puts his life on the line for his neighbor? The private citizen who rushes into his neighbor's burning house to save the child has also volunteered to take the risk. Unless somebody pointed a gun at him and said, "Save that child or die," his actions are voluntary. If he should get burned or otherwise injured, or if he should die, should our attitude be, "He voluntarily accepted the risk when he decided to enter the building; therefore, we owe him no gratitude for his actions and no sympathy for his injuries?"

Claims like this simply make no sense. If not for the fact that I had heard it more than once, and often attributed to Iraq soldiers, I would not consider it worth refuting.

Including Nurses and Doctors

By the way, there is another group that needs to be included in this collection; doctors and nurses. They stand on a front line against disease. If a new pandemic should break out, while we hide in our houses and hope that the disease does not infect us, they will be out caring for the sick.

Some will refuse. The medical profession will experience its share of deserters once the risks become real enough, just as the military does. Those who would desert in the face of danger obviously deserve no praise. But there will be those who stay and seek to do their job to the best of their ability. They would be fully deserving of the name "Hero."

Deserving Praise

The members of these professions deserve the name "hero" just for signing up. Some may never get an opportunity to pull a child from a burning building or do anything similar. Yet, they were willing to name themselves as the person to call if there should be a child that needed rescuing; or a violent person or animal that needs to be captured; or a sick individual who needs treatment even though he may pass his illness on to others; or a tyrant seeking to establish a brutal dictatorship to be fought.

The rest of us hope that we will never need to use their services. Yet, the fact that they have put themselves at the ready to take care of these dangers is enough to allow us to sleep more soundly. The fact that they are ready to take these risks is enough to earn from us our praise and our gratitude.

If somebody does not think that these people deserve this, then let these public servants stay home for just one weekend. Let them stand down and refuse to take any risks. Let us see how little difference it makes in our lives that they do not agree to take these risks. This will tell us if they deserve our praise and our gratitude.

Desertion and Other Exceptions

This is not to say that every person in uniform deserves our praise and gratitude. If a person volunteers to take these risks, we sleep soundly only with the knowledge that they will actually take the risk when the situation arises.

We sleep more soundly at night knowing that the fire fighter is out there only because we assume that he will take the risks required when the time comes. If he is not willing to do so, then he should not be telling us that he will do so. Sixty officers in New Orleans were fired for desertion in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. These were officers who volunteered to take a risk -- to stand between those who could not evacuate and harm, but who refused to do so.

Related this, I have heard some people who enlisted in the military or the reserve offer complaints like, "I only did this so that I could get money for college. I did not expect to go to war." I have heard this in the context of protesting the War in Iraq -- as a reason to bring the troops home. There may be other reasons for bringing the troops home that have merit, but this has none. The people who took the money did agree to stand ready to participate in armed conflict. If they had not agreed to stand ready, then they would not have gotten the money. They made a promise; they have obligations to hold up their end of the bargain.

There are also allegations that other officers in New Orleans became the types of people they agreed to protect us from. They took up looting as a profession, taking property for their own use when they agreed to work to prevent people from taking that property for their own use. For these people, condemnation and punishment are more appropriate than praise and gratitude.

San Francisco is now dealing with a scandal within its police force where a number of officers produced a video that denigrated blacks, homosexuals, and others that they had agreed to serve and protect. It is only reasonable to assume that those who denigrate others will be less interested in protecting those others. There is a very real risk that if the officer views a peaceful citizen as something that is sub-human and worthy of ridicule, he or she will be less than willing to view threats against that person as something worthy of his concern. This causes members of the target group to worry that they are not getting the protection that they are paying for.

Conclusions

These items illustrate that not all people who take up these occupations are heroes. Yet, this is a far cry from saying that none of them are. For the most part, and until we discover evidence to the contrary, we can agree that these people voluntarily offered to risk their own well-being to protect us from danger.

Many can be brave until the instant one is actually called. As long as the risk to life and limb is some abstract future thought, it is easy to imagine what one would do. Then the time comes, and the person sees the possibility of death. Some cut and run. Some were in it, "only to get the money to go to college." They were not truly interested in defending others, but interested instead in getting the benefits offered to those who might feign an interest in defending others.

If somebody is actually challenged, and meets that challenge, then we know that he or she is one who has actually accepted the commitment to take the risk, to get the special training to help defend others. We now know that our praise is not misplaced. These people have proved themselves to be heroes. They deserve the praise and condemnation worthy of somebody who fits that description.