The Right to Privacy Amendment

In an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, Dan Savage proposed that we amend the Constitution to include a right to privacy.

In the case Griswold vs. Connecticut, the Supreme Court majority found a right to privacy in the penumbra of several amendments to the Constitution. The argument basically states that if one looks at the Bill of Rights, they express a common underlying principle. That principle states that each person is entitle to some private space where the government may not intrude.

This privacy zone is a sphere of liberty around those decisions that are central to a person’s life – who to marry, whether to have children and how many, how to enjoy sex, and the like. Government may have the right to interfere in the public relationships among individual, but not in that private realm.

This has since been taken as the paradigm example of "legislating from the bench." Critics of this decision hold that the Supreme Court effectively wrote a new Amendment to the Constitution -- one that did not exist in fact. This, they argue, is outside of the proper scope of a judge.

Savage proposed that we end the debate over whether we can find a right to privacy in the Constitution by putting it there. Once the Amendment is passed, we never again need to worry about whether a Supreme Court nominee can find a Right to Privacy in the Constitution. We point to the Amendment and say, “See! It’s right here!”

The Moral Right to Privacy

The overall concern here is, as it should always be, bringing the law that is into alignment with what the law ought to be. What the law ought to be is a moral question. We cannot settle questions of what the law ought to be by looking at statute. Instead, we have to compare the law to some standard that exists outside of the law. There is no other standard to compare law against other than morality. So, in evaluating a change to the law, the only question to ask is whether this change brings the law closer to what the law morally ought to be.

Prudence suggests that, to the maximum degree possible, people should be free to decide for themselves how to live their own lives. To the degree that Person A demand the right to direct the affairs of Person B, to that degree it is likely that Person A will sacrifice the interests of Person B in order accomplish his or her own agenda.

Person A is always going to act in such a way that, to him, seems most likely to fulfill his own desires. This means that if he has the power to direct Person B’s life, he will direct Person B to act in a way that fulfills Person A’s own desires.

Of course, Person A might have a desire that Person B be healthy and happy. In this case, he will fulfill his desires by directing Person B in ways that he thinks will make Person B healthy and happy. However, even in this type of situation, other in the case of children and those suffering from some mental defect, who is in the better position to know how to make Person B healthy and happy? Who should be put in charge of running Person B’s life, other than Person B?

Even if Person A has concern for Person B’s welfare, that desire is still going to mix with and compete with all of the other desires Person A has -- desires for fame, fortune, sex, and others. These desires do not go away. They are always there. In any situation where the other options are nearly balanced, these desires will tilt that balance one way or the other. Person B’s life cannot be freed from these influences.

For these reasons, it is best that each individual direct his or her own affairs to the degree that he is able. This is not just an argument for a right to privacy, this is an argument for liberty. Protecting privacy is the essence of protecting liberty. Liberty -- freedom from government demands -- is most important in those decisions that lie at the core of a person's life -- questions about whether to have a family, when, how big it is going to be, and with whom.

[Note: I learned this argument in studying the works of 19th century British philosopher John Stuart Mill]

Blocking Objections

Opponents of such a move -- people who feel a particularly strong compulsion for making the core decisions on how other people may live their lives -- are bound to come up with a number of straw-man arguments against such a proposal. These are people who insist that the bedroom door be left open, so that they may peer inside and regulate the conduct they find there.

Child Abuse

One potential objection is that it would make child abuse a privacy issue, and that nothing could be done to protect abused children. Nowhere in the Constitution is there a right that has been thought so absolute that it overrides the state’s interest in protecting children from abuse. In all cases, from freedom of religion and the press to the right to due process, the State has been able to defend laws that look to violate these provisions on the surface if a compelling state interest is being served. Protecting children from abuse is a compelling state interest.

Incest

What about incest among adults? Would that be a privacy issue?

Actually, I would have no problem creating an argument for a compelling state interest in regulating incest, even among consenting adults.

First, given the fact that humans have an inherent aversion to incest, we may reasonably expect that a large number of incestuous relations involve one person exercising undue control and influence (psychologically, financially, or physically) over another for his (or her) benefit.

Second, any weakening of the social prescription against incest – any weakening of the psychological aversion to this type of activity – may have the effect of increasing the incidence of other types of incest. The best way to prevent these harmful forms of incest from occurring is to heighten the psychological aversion to these types of relationships. This may be best and most easily done by prohibiting all incest. This way, in any specific case, we need never wonder if this is a “permissible” or “impermissible” instance.

In addition, there is no great burden to weigh against the value of a severe psychological and social prohibition against incest. There simply are not that many people who are made worse off by such a prohibition. At the same time, we have reason to believe that such a prohibition will prevent others from being made significantly worse off.

For these reasons, there is a compelling state interest in keeping the social and psychological prescription against incest as strong as it can be made. This includes continuing to prescribe against all incest at all times under all circumstances, period, without exception.

Abortion

Savage was right that, unless abortion was specifically mentioned in the text of the Amendment, a privacy Amendment would have little to say on this issue.

We may assume that a right to privacy will not imply a right to murder one's own children even in the privacy of one’s own home.

I am not saying that the fetus is a child. In fact, as I have already written (Part I, Part II, I would deny that a fetus is a “child” in the moral sense until it brain and, with it, has acquired morally relevant interests to protect. However, my point here is that we must assume that I am right -- assume that I have made no mistakes -- before we can conclude a right to abortion from a right to privacy.

If I am right, the state has no compelling interests in protecting the life of an entity without desires- without interests. Yet, on what basis does a judge have the authority to decide if I am right or not? More to the point, on what basis does a judge decide that the lawmakers worked under the presumption that I was right and built that assumption into the law? The judges have no basis for making such an argument. It would be wrong for them to do so.

Conclusion

On the most intimate and personal matters concerning an individual's life, each individual ought to be free to make his or her decisions without the government telling them what they must and must not do. If their actions to not affect others, they should be free to affect themselves.

While there is controversy over a so-called legal right to privacy found in the penumbra of certain Amendments, this controversy can be ended by making explicit that which some argue now only exists implicitly.

The moral quest at all times is to change the law from what the law is to what the law ought to be. The law ought to be an institution that leaves people a private sphere of decision making where governments will not intrude.

A privacy Amendment would work to align the law with these moral facts. A privacy Amendment would narrow the gap between what the law is, and what the law ought to be.

"Just Read, Florida" Use of Narnia Book

Forida's "Just Read, Forida!" program has an event, funded in part by No Child Left Behind, focused on the book, The Lion, the witch, and the Wardrobe, the first of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series. The project is tied to the release of the Disney movie based on this book later this year.

The event comes with a list of prizes. In order to win a prize, a student must read the book. No student who does not read the book qualifies for a prize.

The issue here is that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is widely regarded to be a child’s primer to Christianity. The main character Aslan the Lion is meant to represent Jesus in a way that is child-friendly. This is, in short, a propaganda piece for the Christian religion.

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State sent a letter to Governor Jeb Bush of Florida requesting that he make other options available. There may be parents in Florida who do not want their children reading a book designed to market Christianity to children. Americans United suggests in its letter that it is fundamentally wrong for the State of Florida to be offering prize money to students based on their willingness to consume Christian propaganda aimed at children.

AU’s Point

I am going to grant that there is some merit to AU’s case. I believe that it is almost certain that Governor Bush and his followers have decided to take advantage of an opportunity to use state and federal taxpayer’s money to promote and pay for the marketing of Christianity to young children.

This counts as an abuse of power; government officials should not be using taxpayer-funded resources to pay for missionary propaganda for any particular religion – particularly propaganda aimed at children.

However, though I may have made the offense sound quite egregious, I do not see the wrong being done here as being worthy of a great deal of protest. I particularly do not see it as being worthy of a lawsuit.

At this time, no lawsuit is being planned or threatened. All that has happened is that AU has brought to the Governor’s attention the fact that his abuse of state authority and funds to promote a specific religion has not gone unnoticed.

Florida vs. North Carolina

This situation is similar to one that came up in 2002, when the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill required all freshmen and transfer students to read Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations. Several Christian organizations protested that this involved a violation of the separation of church and state.

They protested that there was a double standard at work because, if this were the Bible being offered as mandatory reading liberals would be protesting. Yet, they were remaining silent on this issue, betraying the fact that their position is not actually anti-religious, but more specifically anti-Christian.

In Florida, we do not have the Bible being offered, but a Bible primer, and we do in fact have protests that options are not being made available.

However, we have hypocrisy on the other side as well. Those who protested the Chapel Hill reading requirement assert that, with respect to Florida’s program, this there is nothing wrong with the State offering the sole option for participation in this program a tool for marketing Christianity to children.

With respect to the University of North Carolina, there was a lawsuit filed. The University also voluntarily adopted an opt-out policy; a student merely had to write a paper stating why they refuse to read the book. Yet, this was not good enough for those who file the lawsuit. Merely using this book as their reading program book was offensive to them and they sought to have it removed.

With respect to Florida, no lawsuit has yet been filed, and none is yet planned. However, we can expect that if there were to be such a lawsuit, many who protested the University of North Carolina requirement would be hurling moral contempt at those who would dare say that requiring children wishing to participate in this program to read a Christian marketing piece is perfectly acceptable.

Compare and Contrast Two Reading Requirements

One may want to try to make the case that there is an important distinction here in that the Chapel Hill students were required to read the book, write a one-page essay, and attend a discussion session. On the other hand, the Narnia book is not required – children are free not to participate in the program.

Yet, students are also free to attend a university other than the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There was not state law in force at the time that required attendance at this particular school. Therefore, there was just as much liberty not to enroll in UNC then there is not to enroll in Florida’s “Just Read, Florida” program.

If we were going to draw a distinction between the two cases, we can draw one based on the fact that the University of North Carolina was having its book read almost exclusively by adults and, of these, adults who had sufficient intelligence and critical analysis skills to get into college. In contrast, Governor Bush of Florida is targeting young children with a book designed to target young children.

We may question whether Governor Bush and others who are supporting this program truly do intend to use this opportunity to market Christianity to young children. Yet, their refusal to allow children to have options suggests that they are particularly interested in having the children read this particular book.

The fact that they do not want children to have any options but to read this book if they are to participate in the program begs for an explanation. The best explanation is that it is particularly important to the organizers that children read this Christian primer and not some other book.

It does not matter to those who are defending this program that they are abandoning the very principles that they claimed needed defending in the University of North Carolina case. This, also, is an observation that begs for an explanation.

The best explanation for this is that these people are only pretending to base their decisions on principle. In fact, they accept those principles only when they are useful, and abandon moral principle the instant that violating the principle is expedient. At these times, they even go so far as to condemn those who would actually assert that same principle. This is the mark of people who only pretend to care about morality insofar as they can seduce people with their insincere virtue.

Conclusion

My view is that both of these books describe important aspects of our world.

I believe that the University of North Carolina requirement was particularly valuable. We were just entering into a conflict with Islamic fundamentalists. I felt that it would be useful if more Americans understood the Islamic culture, so that we can better understand and communicate with them. I was particularly grateful that the University of North Carolina was training young adults to fill this very important need. It does not harm somebody to learn something useful about a religion that has significant influence over such a large and important segment of the population.

For the same reason, the parents and children of Florida should accept the fact that they live in a culture in which a great many people are Christian. Even if they are not Christians themselves, it would not harm them to understand that point of view. It makes it easier for them to understand and to communicate with their neighbors. If they are concerned that their children may become Christian, the best way to deal with that is to teach their own beliefs to their children at home.

Yes, Governor Bush and others are abusing their power and position to market Christianity to young children. There is a shade of moral vice in government officials using their power and our money in this way. We should keep in mind their lack of respect for the principle of government neutrality in matters of religion. They should recognize the fact that they represent all citizens, not just Christian citizens, and should show some respect for those citizens who are non-Christian.

Newdow Proposes Lawsuit on "In God We Trust"

Michael Newdow announced recently that he intends to file a lawsuit to have the words "In God We Trust" removed from our money. In related news, the U.S. Supreme Court sidestepped a question of posting the motto on public buildings.

I have already written my core objections to having "In God We Trust" as our national motto. Those who are interested in the long argument can find it in the articles on my web site, "In God We Trust" and "We Means We".

The short version of that argument says that the motto effectively asserts that the principle that deserves the exalted status of national motto is the principle that national populations are to be divided up between a 'we' group who 'trusts in God', and a 'they' group who do not.

There is, in fact, a much more exalted principle that states that national populations are NOT to be divided up into groups of 'we' and 'they' based on religious beliefs. This "national motto" not only fails to deserve the status of most exalted principle; it identifies a principle that morally decent people would reject.

Prohibiting Mention of God

The notion that those who protest, "In God We Trust" are trying to outlaw any mention of God from public places is . . . well, it's an example of bearing false witness. No punishment is being proposed against any private citizen who mentions God, or reads a bible, or holds a prayer circle, in a public place. The prohibition is against the government -- the representative of all the people -- saying "Citizens who believe in God are better than those who do not." It is against the government saying, WE trust in God, THEY do not.

Because it is fundamentally wrong for the government to say that I and others who believe as I do, who are full American citizens and as such entitled to the equal respect and consideration of our government, are not good enough to be included in the category of "WE." The government ought not to state only those who trust in God are good enough to count as "WE".

When the founding fathers wrote, "We the People of the United States of America", they did not define "WE" to mean only those who trust in God. By "WE" they meant all citizens regardless of belief. A national motto of, "In God WE Trust" directly contradicts the principle that lies at the core of "WE the People of the United States."

Freedom of Religion

There are those who also argue that this protest violates the Christian's freedom of religion.

Using this line of reasoning, the following argument makes sense.

"The government, under the First Amendment requirement that it can pass no law abridging the freedom of religious expression, must recognize that witchcraft is a capital crime punishable by death. Our religion commands that we must not suffer a witch to live. If the U.S. Government forces us to suffer a witch to live, then the Government is allowing others (namely, witches and witch-lovers) to impose their religious views on us. We will not suffer a witch to live and, according to the Constitution, our right to freedom of religion means that the government cannot force us to suffer a witch to live."

The right to practice one's own religion ends where it interferes with the equal rights of others, such as the witch's right to life. It also ends where it interferes with the atheist's right to equal respect and consideration by its own government. It does not permit the Christian to burn witches, nor does it allow the Christian to promote government rituals saying, "Christian citizens are patriots, and rejecting Christianity is comparable to rebellion, tyranny, and injustice.”

The Anti-Christian Campaign

A third form of argument to be expected in this type of presentation is the argument that this posting is anti-Christian. It is no more anti-Christian than a posting about racial bigotry is anti-White. There is nothing inherently contradictory about a white who is opposed to racism, nor is there anything inherently contradictory about a Christian who has decided to promote and defend the principle that the state should not claim that some religious beliefs are better than others.

Again, we can imagine the witch in the previous section being branded anti-Christian simply because she protests being burned at the stake. We should also be able to recognize that those who would make such argument are more interested in using rhetoric to feed hatred than in the principles of truth and equality before the law.

The 'Blue Eye/Brown Eye' Experiment

The most serious wrong associated with a national motto of "In God WE Trust," and a daily ritual of pledging allegiance to the flag that, by including God, excludes those who do not believe in God, is the adverse psychological effect -- the actual harm -- that it does to the moral character of its citizens.

In 1968, after Martin Luther King was shot, third-grade teacher Jane Elliott came up with a way of demonstrating what prejudice was like to her students. She divided her students up into blue-eyed students and brown-eyed students. She then set up a class culture in which the brown-eyed students were considered special or better than the rest. In addition, they were given certain rights and privileges denied to blue-eyed students. Those blue-eyed students were cast as inferior 'second-class' citizens.

She reported that, the experiment resulted in an almost immediate psychological transformation in the students. Brown-eyed students began to bully and harass the blue-eyed students and seemed incapable of perceiving how their actions were wrong. At the same time, those students branded ‘inferior’ became passive and lost interest in trying to do tasks well in an environment where judgment was largely independent of how well they performed those tasks.

The type of culture that religious conservatives are fighting for in this country is substantially a blue-eye/brown-eye experiment on a national level. "In God We Trust" with its message that those who trust in God are members of the special “we” group while excluding those who do not, and "…one nation, under God …" which categorizes those who are not Christians with those who reject union, liberty, and justice, are a part of the mechanism for setting up a “blue eye/brown eye” (“we”/”they”) (“Christian/Non-Christian) culture.

One part of the class exercise was that brown-eyed students were given privileges and powers that blue-eyed students were prohibited from having, and blue-eyed students had to ask permission for things that brown-eyed students were given without question.

We can see that represented in events such as President Bush’s statement that only those who believe that our rights come from God will be appointed as judges. Thus, atheist citizens should be aware that the position of “judge” is not open to them under this system – they do not qualify. It is also represented by the fact that non-Christians are put on notice that any rights and freedoms that they do enjoy is only at the pleasure of their Christian legislators. “Your rights come from God”, they tell us. Which effectively means nothing less than, “Your rights are exactly those that we say you can have.”

If the behavior that these demonstrations bring out is duplicated in our national culture, we can expect the privileged class to view their special status as an entitlement. They will grow increasingly abusive over time and not even recognize the fact that they are doing it. To them, this would be an exercise of their “rights” – their “right” to dominate and control those who are not members of their special club.

Meanwhile, their victims will become more passive and subservient. Please note how African Americans continued to passively accept the requirement to sit at the back of the bus for decades before they finally had enough.

The Religious Right does not even make a secret of the fact that their objective is to take control of the government and its institutions, and to use it to impose their brand of religion on the nation as a whole. They now no longer hide their belief that it is their right to rule, and that all others have the duty to follow.

These are exactly the types of results that can be expected once a nation establishes itself as having two classes – a “WE” class who trusts in God and who are true patriots, and a “they” class who do not trust in God and whose beliefs are the equivalent to rejecting national union, liberty, and justice for all.

The Right to a Fair Trial

I can't actually believe that I find myself in a situation where I am writing this blog entry. It is a bit like discovering that I need to defend the prohibition against chattel slavery against an Administration that believes that, as long as the slaves are foreign nationals forced to work on foreign soil that its right to enslave people cannot be questioned.

Old Business: Bush’s Accusations

Before entering into today's topic, I want to address President Bush’s statements that, for all practical purposes, are grounded on the principle that, "If you do not say that I am the greatest and wisest of all Presidents, and if you do not follow my lead without question or objection, then you are providing aid and comfort to the enemy and betraying our troops to them.”

I wrote against this attitude on the blog entry for Sept. 25th, Dying In Vain. Supporting the troops means more than providing them with the best equipment and training, but also with leaders with competence and integrity. Just as it means throwing out equipment that does not work, changing training options that are ineffective, but also replacing leaders that lack integrity and competence.

New Business: The Right to a Fair Trial

Last week, the Senate, in a 49 to 42 vote, approved an amendment to the defense policy bill that would have prohibited prisoners from filing writs of habeas corpus, the legal instrument used to fight unlawful detention. Today, it reversed some of the damage in the earlier amendment. However, the fact that 49 Senators thought that it proper to deny the basic human right of having a trial by jury suggests that these people do not have a sufficient level of respect for the moral value of a right to a trial.

In researching this, I learned that this is not the worst violation of human rights that the federal government has made in the last few years. In Gherebi v Bush, No. 03-55785. D.C. No. CV-03-01267-AHM, the Bush Administration said that it had the authority to detain individuals indefinitely and to torture or execute them at will without the courts interfering. The 9th Circuit Court wrote in its opinion on the case,

“…under the government’s theory, it is free to imprison Gherebi indefinitely along with hundreds of other citizens of foreign countries, friendly nations among them, and to do with Gherebi and these detainees as it will, when it pleases, without any compliance with any rule of law of any kind, without permitting him to consult counsel, and without acknowledging any judicial forum in which its actions may be challenged. Indeed, at oral argument, the government advised us that its position would be the same even if the claims were that it was engaging in acts of torture or that it was summarily executing the detainees. To our knowledge, prior to the current detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, the U.S. government has never before asserted such a grave and startling proposition. Accordingly, we view Guantanamo as unique not only because the United States’ territorial relationship with the Base is without parallel today, but also because it is the first time that the government has announced such an extraordinary set of principles–a position so extreme that it raises the gravest concerns under both American and international law.”

Actually, I can’t believe that I am addressing this issue. I would have expected something like this as unlikely as posting a defense of the moral prohibition against chattel slavery against a government that has claimed that, as long as Americans were enslaving foreign nationals and the slave farms and factories were on foreign soil, there are no grounds for protest.

Yet, it is a useful exercise from time to time to look at what a particular moral theory has to say about that which is obviously right or wrong.

The Main Argument Against

This has happened in a context where we have a very clear example that can be used to illustrate the moral wisdom of the right to a fair trial.

What if these people who have made the case that Prisoner X is a terrorist and deserves to be locked up for life with the same recklessness disregard for truth that they exhibited when making the case that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction?

Members of the Bush Administration have clearly demonstrated their ability to view evidence through a strong filter of desire and, thereby, to draw completely false conclusions. When we look at their claim that Prisoner X is a very dangerous person who should be locked up for life, we should worry that they have looked at the evidence through the same type of filter.

The Administration certainly has a motive to collect a group a people that it claims to be dangerous. It allows them to say to the American voters, "Look at the great thing we have done to make you safe. We have put these people who wanted to harm you away so that you are now safe. Now, vote for us."

Yet, just as their lust to believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction blinded them to what the evidence was really saying, perhaps they have been overzealous in their eagerness to believe that at least some of these people are dangerous. Certainly, it will do no harm to have a neutral party go over the evidence and decide for themselves if the Bush Administration actually has good reason to support its conclusions. This is the only way we are going to know which of these people are dangerous, and which of them the Bush Administration branded as dangerous without evidence to back it up.

Of course, we could adopt the position that mere suspicion of a crime is sufficient justification for a conviction and punishment. We could, for example, state that the moral principle underlying the 5th Amendment to the Constitution was a mistake -- that this so-called right to a fair trial was one of those things that sounded like a good idea 200 years ago, but has since been proved one of those quaint little follies of men living in a simpler time.

Supplemental Defense

There are several additional reasons why the right to a hearing before a fair and impartial judge is required, and that its importance increases with the degree of harm that is to be inflicted on the accused.

First, if the guilty and the innocent are treated the same way, then this gives people little incentive to remain innocent. We encourage people to remain innocent by telling them, "We are going to take care to separate the guilty and the innocent so that, if you remain innocent, we will take pains to keep you out of this type of situation."

Second, if we do not require that guilt be proved, we create opportunities for unscrupulous people to exploit the system to work off personal grudges. If I have a neighbor that annoys me, and the government cares only about suspicion, then all I need to do is make a phone call to the proper authorities and I can have my neighbor removed. This behavior is commonplace whenever the judicial process has been corrupted. Grudge informers were common in Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union. Business owners used this to remove competitors, jealous lovers sought to remove their competitors, and political activists turned the state against their political rivals. Where guilt must be proved, this type of grudge informing is much less effective.

Third, we leave the door open for a corrupt government to consolidate power and destroy liberty. If judges can be barred from hearing cases, and the executive can be the sole judge of who lives and who dies, who remains free and who goes to jail, we create a sore tempatation for somebody to take this power too far. Tyrannies are not created by people who think themselves evil. Some tyrants think of themselves as people who are trying to do great things, but who are constantly being held back by nay-sayers and critics who cannot leave the issue well enough alone. Eventually, it simply becomes too tempting to sweep these critics away so that one can get some work done.

Rest assured that if any politician has the unchecked power to arrest and imprison people that, somewhere down the line, polticial expedience will enter into the equation of who goes to prison and who stays out.

Innocent people have a right to know that if they stay innocent, they minimize the risk that they will be hauled away and kept in some dark and secluded space, out of sight, until some arbitrary decision is made as to their fate. They have a right to be secure in the belief that if they are hauled away, they will get a chance to explain their side of the story. They have a right to require that others abide by the moral principle that it is never the duty of the person whose life or liberty is being threatened to beg for that life or liberty. It is always the duty of those who would deprive others of life or liberty to justify their actions.

This is what it means to say that people have a right to life and liberty. Those who claim that they may arbitrarily deprive people of either are people who are asserting that no such right exists and that others live or remain free only at their pleasure.

If America is not working to defend the view that life and liberty are basic rights not to be lightly discarded, then what are we defending? And is it worth the effort?

Bearing False Witness

There is one area in ethics where I think that the Judeo-Christian commandments provide better guidance than modern terminology. We recognize a modern moral prohibition against lying. The Biblical commandment, however, says that it is wrong to "bear false witness". Between the two, we would be better focusing on the biblical prohibition than on the the narrower constraint against lying.

What is the difference?

I would define a lie as an utterance that aims to cause somebody else to accept a proposition that the person making the utterance knows to be false. “Paul robbed the liquor store” spoken by a person who knows that Paul did not rob the liquor store is a lie.

"Bearing false witness" is an utterance that aims to cause somebody to accept a proposition that is false.

The difference is that the person who is bearing false witness does not have to be aware of the fact that the proposition is false to be guilty of a moral transgression.

For example, assume that I hear that Paul robbed a liquor store last night. I do not like Paul. Because of that dislike, I enthusiastically accept anything that anybody says about Paul that is bad. I also want others to dislike Paul. Therefore, as soon as I hear the story that he robbed the liquor store I believe it, and I start telling other people what (I believe) Paul had done.

If I were to do this, I would not be lying. My statements do not count as a lie because I actually do believe that Paul robbed a liquor store.

However, let us assume that the story is false. A friend of mine, while watching the news, saw video camera footage of a suspect in a robbery and decided that it looked like Paul. He told me about his suspicions, and I immediately jump to the conclusion that Paul was the person who committed the crime, and I immediately start telling everybody I know.

In doing this, I would be guilty of a moral transgression. I am not lying, but I am also not acting the way that a person of good moral character would act. I am bearing false witness against Paul, since I am testifying to everybody who listens that Paul has done something that Paul did not do, and which I have no good reason to believe that he did.

The Biblical language captures the moral prohibition more accurately than the claim that it is wrong to lie.

An Analogy

I can illustrate the difference by looking at the prohibition against killing an innocent person.

This prohibition does tells us that killing an innocent person is wrong, even if we do not know that he is innocent. To avoid the wrong of killing an innocent person, this prohibition tells us that we have an obligation to make sure that he is not innocent. We are not morally permitted to kill a person just because we think he is guilty – we have an obligation to make sure of this.

Let us say that I do not like Paul. Because I am suspicious of him, I form the idea that he is going to set fire to my sister's house tonight while my sister and her family are asleep. In order to preempt this attack on my sister, I go out and kill Paul. Of course, I claim that I act from the most virtuous of motives – my desire to protect my sister and her family.

However, Paul had no intention to attack my sister. He did not even possess the materials that would allow him to do so. I drew the conclusion that he was a threat to my sister based on a story that I constructed around a bunch of unrelated facts and rumors that I had decided to accept even though they were unfounded and uncorroborated claims. I embraced the theory that Paul was a threat to my sister because I wanted to believe this – because, if it was true, I could kill him, and not be guilty of murder.

In fact, let us say that I hated Paul so much, and I wanted a reason to kill him so badly, that I actively sought evidence that he was a threat to my sister and her family. In my search for evidence I cherry-pick the evidence. I accept as fact whatever I can weave into a convincing story, and reject that which counts against my theory. This is not conscious deception. Since I have drawn the conclusion that Paul deserves to be killed, everything that supports that conclusion has merit, while everything that is inconsistent with that conclusion is clearly unreliable.

If I was to think this way, and I was to kill John, I would be guilty of the moral crime of murder. No doubt, I would spend my time at the trial and in jail insisting that I was motivated by a concern for my sister. This is what I would want to believe of myself, and what I would want others to believe of me. However, the fact that I had accepted the conclusion that John was a threat based on such poor evidence shows that concern for my sister was a cover – a psychological defense – for more sinister motives that I would not want to admit, even (perhaps) to myself.

A jury of impartial observers would see through this. Recognizing that I formed my belief on flimsy evidence, they would conclude that I was guilty of murder. At best, I may be able to argue that I was not guilty by reason of insanity. However, unless the evidence would have convinced a rational and impartial person that John was a threat, I have no basis on which I can claim justifiable homicide.

Similarities

The prohibition against bearing false witness, like the prohibition against killing innocent people, implies an obligation to make sure that our beliefs are true before we act on them.

It is not enough to believe that Paul is going to set fire to my sister's house. I have to have good evidence for that belief.

Similarly, I cannot claim to be innocent of "bearing false witness" when I said that Paul robbed the liquor store based solely on the fact that I believed it at the time. I also have to show that the belief itself was reasonable. I have to be able to show that I was not motivated by my hatred of Paul to accept weak evidence, but that even somebody who did not hate Paul, if given that same evidence, would have formed the conclusion that Paul robbed the liquor store.

Otherwise, I am guilty of the moral crime of bearing false witness against Paul.

Mistakes

People make mistakes. A woman, alone at home with her children, receives a series of threatening phone calls from somebody who is claiming to be on his way over to kill her and the children. She has called the police, but she lives quite some distance from town. Rain and mud make means that she will not see them for quite some time.

In the darkness, she sees somebody coming up her walkway. She shouts at the stranger to go away, but the stranger persists. She does not realize that the storm had forced the stranger's car off the road. The stranger’s child is laying back at the car badly injured. The stranger insists on getting in, so she shoots him, and kills him.

She kills an innocent person.

If she is a person of good moral character, the truth will have a devastating effect on her once she discovers it. However, mistakes happen, and innocent people are killed without the killer being a moral monster.

Mistakes may also lead a person to bear false witness against another without being immoral. However, the person who realizes he has made such a mistake, if he is a person of good moral character, will still feel the moral sting of discovering he has done something he should have done. He will seek to make up for it, even if it was an innocent mistake.

In the absence of these symptoms, we are justified in assuming that the agent really did not have much concern over whether he was doing the right thing. We have reason to suspect that we are dealing with somebody who does not have the regard for truth that he should have. The person who too eagerly embraces falsehood and accepts it as true cannot truly be said to be faithful to the value of truth.

Gov. Kaine, Politics, Faith, and Values

In a story about "What Democrats can learn from Kaine's Virginia victory," Newsweek quoted the governor-elect of Virginia as stating, ""We can't completely separate politics and faith . . . They rise from the same wellspring: the concern about the distance between what is and what ought to be."

I can't read this as anything other than a statement that a politician must be a person of faith -- that an atheist (such as myself), purely in virtue of our beliefs about God -- must be considered unfit for public office. If faith springs from "the concern about the distance between what is and what ought to be," we must assume that the person without faith has no "concern about the distance between what is and what ought to be."

I can write about how personally insulting this is. I turned down a lot of other opportunities so that I could go to college and study moral philosophy. I did so specifically because of my concern for the distance between what is and what ought to be. All of the writings that appear on my web site, my discussions in various forums and discussion groups, and this blog itself are motivated by this concern.

Yet, I have no "faith" that any God exists. So Kaine sees fit to say that I have no concern for the distance between what is and what ought to be.

Speaking more generally, we can imagine how a statement that Jews, blacks, or even Muslims lacked concern over the distance between what is and what ought to be would go over. Yet, a statement about a lack of concern between what is and what ought to be by those who are not people of faith is offered as a lesson to be learned.

The talk associated with Kaine’s victory is that the Democrats need to talk more about faith in order to make the people feel more comfortable with Democratic candidates. This allows them to reach the people on a more personal level.

Yet, this lesson would be much like saying that a candidate in a heavily racist region, where white people outnumber blacks by a safe margin, but are opposed to any type of equal treatment for blacks, needs to be white, and needs to speak openly about his own white pride, in order to give the white voters enough comfort to consider electing him into government. Perhaps, as a matter of political strategy, it may be necessary to do this where bigotry is so widely spread and so deep. However, this necessity hardly marks that society as a paradigm of moral virtue.

Dean's Alternative

In order to illustrate the problem with this statement, I would like to contrast it with statements that Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean made on "Meat the Press" on Sunday.

Tim Russert tried to press Dean on the fact that Democrats are trying to seem more pious and more Christian. At one point he asked, "Are the Democrats now trying to embrace Christ, trying to embrace moral values, because they see themselves on the wrong side of that issue?"

Dean answered, "Well, first of all there are a fair number of Jewish Democrats who I don't think are going to embrace Christ, but I think we all embrace the teachings of morality . . . . I think we all should speak about our values. I think one of the mistakes we made is to not understand that most Americans believe that moral values include making sure that kids don't go to bed hungry at night . . . make sure that everybody in America has health insurance . . . . We ought to talk about our values."

Dean could be interpreted as saying that the only two views worth considering were Jews and Christians, but I see no need for that interpretation. The point is to distinguish between religion and values. A candidate can speak about his or her own religious beliefs and the values that are mentioned within.

Yet, what matters is not the religion of the speakers, but the values he promotes. Does this person value a situation where children do not go to bed hungry? Does this person value a situation where everybody has health insurance? These are the questions that we need to answers to -- not, "Does this person follow Christ?"

I fully agree with these ideas. Political decisions reflect an attempt to realize certain values. In this very post, I am making statements about values. I am saying that what Governor Elect Kaine said was wrong -- morally wrong -- because he equated morality with faith and thereby denigrated a whole group of peaceful and honest citizens who do not share his beliefs. While Dean correctly asserted that there is nothing wrong with a person expressing his faith, though faith and values are separate, and it is a person's values we should consider, not his faith.

I have written repeatedly that the distinction between what the law is and what the law ought to be is a moral question. I have written repeatedly that I am concerned in this blog with what the law ought to be. If there is a gap between what the law is and what it ought to be, that the gap ought to be closed. We may condemn the politician politically and morally who does not act to close that gap.

On the issues that Dean mentioned, I will state that a starving child is clearly a bad state of affairs, and something that morally decent people will work to prevent. A sick person is clearly a bad state of affairs and something a moral person cannot turn his back on. We can, and should evaluate our political options based on their tendency to reduce the amount of starvation and sickness that people endure. In other words, these values should be reflected in our political decisions.

Religion vs. Values

Tim Russert continued to blur the line between religion and values when he said, "The Pew Research Foundation found in a poll of your strongest activists that 59% of those strong Dean activists seldom or never went to Church. Can the Democratic Party hold on to its secular base and still have its more prominent candidates talking about faith and religion?"

The answer, of course, is "Yes", again, as long as they take care not to blur the distinction between religion and values to the point that they feed the bigotry that suggests only religious people have values.

Dean actually answered the question by saying, "I am a Democrat because of my moral values, because I believe that we can't leave anybody behind, because I believe that what happened in New Orleans was appalling . . . ." Again, he was putting the emphasis on a person’s moral values, not on his religion, while Tim Russert was defending the view that religion is what matters, not moral values.

If we had a person whose values were, "Let the children starve, and spread sickness and plague throughout the land," we should worry about this person, and certainly see to it that he does not get elected into office. It does not matter whether he claims that his values are a matter of faith or not, they are poor values that deserve no representation in politics.

What Kaine Should Have Said

Here is the statement that Kaine should have made. “We can't completely separate politics and values. They rise from the same wellspring: the concern about the distance between what is and what ought to be."

That would be true. That would also allow for the possibility that there are people who do not share his religious faith, who nonetheless have good values.

And, once again, I assert that "should have said" is a moral statement. It passes a moral judgment against Kaine that his statement represented values that a morally virtuous person would not hold, and that a morally virtuous person would have selected different words. The problem is not with mixing politics with values. The problem is with politicians who have poor values.

The Meaning of Life

I have once again been asked how an atheist like me could possibly find meaning in life -- if it not to be found in serving God.

Imagine a distant land, occupied by humans, but whose customs differ from our own. In this land, a young girl faces her eighth birthday. On this special day, her parents give her a small paper box that fits in her hand, and they tell her, "This box contains an egg. It is very fragile, and you must take very good care of it. You must keep it with you at all times, but you must always make sure that it never gets too warm. You must keep it from being struck or dropped, because if this happens the egg will surely break."

These egg boxes are made at a temple. There is an elaborate ceremony in which a priest puts a box together according to time-honored rituals. It is sealed shut then, with a prayer, it is said that an egg enters this world from a land beyond space and time. However, if the box is ever opened or the egg is damaged, it will return to the land from which it came.

If the egg survives until death of its owner, the person's essence will enter the egg. When the egg returns to its own land, it will carry that essence with it.

These children are told that they are not to even shake the box a little, even to try to hear the egg inside. Even a mild shaking may destroy the egg.

So, this girl goes to school, where all of her friends are eager to see her box. She shows it to them proudly, but warns them that they cannot open the box to see the egg inside. As a child, she makes mistakes from time to time. Each reprimand brings the child to a renewed determination to treat the box with extra care.

Besides, she is told, this is the most important thing that she can do with her life. There are others, she is told, who have no egg, because they have thrown theirs away or their parents never gave them one. These people have nothing special to do with their lives. Their lives are purposeless, empty, and miserable (though some of them hide their misery very well).

Of course, caring for the egg requires sacrifice. There are many things that one cannot do, because it would threaten the egg. Some of those without eggs spend their lives doing things that those with eggs cannot do. However, it is said that they are not to be envied. The lives of the eggless are purposeless, empty.

Caring for her egg becomes the most important thing in this person's life. She has children of her own and, when they have their eighth birthday, she goes to the temple where she is handed a box. She gives it to her children, and teaches them how to care for it. She raises them to take good care of their egg box. She is a good parent.

Eventually, she grows old, and she dies. She is laid in her casket with the egg box that she has cared for through her entire life.

At the funeral, mourners enter with their own egg boxes. With death a vivid reminder of their own mortality, they are particularly careful with their egg boxes on this day.

Except, one person, Alan, enters the room carrying no egg box. His hands hang uselessly at his side as he makes his way among the crowd. He gets something to drink and he looks around, and finds himself being stared at. Their stares are a mixture of pity, concern, and contempt.

Some parents direct their children to go play outside. They are fearful. What if their children decide to become eggless? Then they will have no vessel to take their essence into the afterlife. The thought is too dreadful for the parent to contemplate. Some want the eggless shut away, for the sake of the children.

Alan understands. He does not like it, but he understands it.

Yet, here, at this occasion, they struggle to be civil. They exchange condolences.

Alan finds his tall, dark-haired cousin in the crowd. "Hello, Patty."

Patty turns around. When they were children, Patty moved in with Alan's family for a year while her parents struggled to find work and make a home. It takes her a moment to recognize him, then she puts her arms around him for a hug, taking care not to jolt her egg box. When she steps back out of the hug, she looks at him and says, "Still no egg box, I see."

Alan leans forward and whispers, "I'm sorry, Patty. I have more important things to do with my life than tend an empty box."

"There is nothing that has importance without the egg," Patty answers. "Without the egg to carry our essence to the next world, everything is temporary."

"Why do you think that temporary things are not important?" Alan asks. "Let me hold a hot iron to the sole of you foot, temporarily, and then you tell me whether or not it is important that I not do this."

"Alan!" Patty protests, but the smile at seeing him did not leave her lips.

"Just making a point," says Alan. "Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, the universe does not care whether you are tortured or not. But you care. I care. James and your mom and your daughter all care. If the universe does not care, screw the universe. Why are you dismissing the concern of your friends and family as unimportant?"

"I doubt if mom cares," Patty says sadly.

"She is still not talking to you?"

Patty nods. "She thinks that if I raise her granddaughter to care for her egg as the Reds do, Jennifer will not make it into the afterlife. Blues like mom think that an egg has to be kept cool until death or it will not work. Reds think that eggs must be kept warm. Mom fears that if I teach Jennifer to keep her egg warm, it will not work to carry her essence to the next life. She thinks that I am destroying her chance for eternal life."

"And you have no way to find out whether an egg is supposed to be kept warm or cool," says Alan. "There is no way to test this, because none of us has ever seen an egg carry an essence to the next world."

Patty shrugs. "It makes sense. Hens must keep an egg warm, or it will not hatch."

"Yet, we keep our eggs in the refrigerator until we are ready to use them," Alan answers. "Every year people introduce another hue or shade, convinced that theirs are the only instructions that will get them to the next world, and insisting that if you accept any other color or none at all, then you are doomed to eternal death. Yet, none can prove that they have the right formulae, because there is no way to test the ideas they come up with. We cannot experiment. Instead, we grasp, taking the same options as our parents, and we can only hope that they were right. Besides, how much have we lost in fighting and factional disputes among the different colors?"

"Don't start."

"I haven't," Alan says, spreading his arms wide to show that he carries no egg box. "You think that my life lacks meaning or purpose. I think that you are wasting your life caring for that box. You could be caring for the people around you instead. That box is empty, Patty. If you spend your life caring for that box, you end your life with one well-cared-for empty box, and that's it."

"And what do you have?" Patty asks.

"I care about things that are real," Alan says. "There is real pain, suffering, and death in the world. These are things that you can see. We know they are real. When there is joy and happiness, that joy and happiness is real, too. I can help reduce the pain, suffering and death, and increase the joy and happiness. These are my eggs. Real people. You care about your imaginary egg in a box. I care about people."

"But your life will end," Patty protests.

"As will yours," says Alan. He sees a burst of pain in her eyes and he flinches. "I'm sorry. The fact is, you will die, just as I will. Only, you will die with a well-cared-for empty box, and I will die having done what I could to bring less pain and suffering, and more happiness and joy, than the world would have had. You care for people, too, Patty. You do it because you care about them."

At that moment, Patty's daughter, Jennifer, comes running up to her and starts pulling on her hand, shouting, "Come see! Come see!"

"Patty," says Alan, gently putting his hand on her arm, speaking too softly for the persistent child to hear. "Tell me, if you left that box behind on this table, would your daughter be any less precious to you? Would you quit caring about her if you were to lose your egg?"

Patty did not answer. Her daughter was pulling at her with growing impatience, and Patty was giving in to her protest.

As Patty moved away, Alan added, "Patty, those boxes are empty. Don't let them come between you and the people around you. Those people are real, and their love is real, and that makes them more important than any invisible egg."

Pat Robertson and Dover, PA

Pat Robertson has warned the citizens of Dover to expect some type of catastrophe following its decision to expel 8 members of a school board that introduced Intelligent Design into science classes.

Robertson said, “I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected him from your city,”

It is interesting to note the similarities between Robertson's style of religion and a protection racket.

With a protection racket, a leader associates himself with dangerous people who have no qualms about doing harm to others. People who have no conscience. The leader then tells the people, "Unless you do what I say, and you give me what I want, these people will make you regret that decision."

So, the victims pay the money, and they obey the rules that he tells them to live by.

The only difference between a protection racket and Pat Robertson's ministry is that to Pat Robertson, God is his goon. God is the thug that he threatens will visit a town, state, or nation who does not pay their proper tribute.

It does not seem to matter that, for God to play this role, he would need the personality of a common thug, willing to do harm to innocent and guilty alike who do not show the proper “respect.”

The Village

Imagine if you will a large primitive village. In this village there is a man who wants power. He wants to make the rules, and not live under the rules that others make for him. The question is: How?

The people will follow him if they fear him. But he is just a man. The people will follow him if the biggest and strongest people in the village work for him. Yet, the biggest and strongest people in the village can turn on him and take power for themselves.

But what if he says, "There is a person who is bigger and stronger than any of you. He is invisible, and he can be watching you at any time. If you offend him, you will pay for it. Even the biggest and strongest amongst you cannot escape him. I happen to know what this person wants. So, if you want to be safe, then you will listen to me."

He then twists every unfortunate event into a story where his powerful invisible friend was offended, and every piece of random good luck into a story in which his powerful invisible friend offered help.

We will notice that this leader points to his political rivals and tells the villagers that those rivals offend this powerful, invisible friend. "It is their fault that this evil has befallen us. They caused the hurricane/drought/volcanic eruption/plague/tsunami/tornado/fire." So, fearful of the leader's powerful invisible friend, the village turns against those rivals.

Thus, the leader/priest controls the village.

It is a very simple trick, practiced over and over again throughout the ages.

The surprising thing is that this type of power-grab is still effective. There are, I would bet, hundreds of people in Dover, Pennsylvania who are fearful that Robertson's thug God will visit misfortune upon their village because they have failed to show proper respect.

I am certain that Robertson actually believes that his thug God is real. I am certain that he believes that he has convinced himself that he serves some greater good.

However, self-deception is not all that difficult. Look at history. Look at the different people on the planet and the different stories that they have accepted as true beyond question. Look at Ancient Greece, a nation full of citizens who knew beyond a doubt that the Iliad and the Odyssey were literally true. Look at the racist living today, able to convince himself beyond all doubt that his is the master race. Look at the Kamikaze pilot and the suicide bomber, and see just how easy self-deception can be. Look at the people who still believe in crop circles and the Loch Ness Monster, both of which have been revealed as hoaxes.

This (Other) God

There is this other "god" who is also testing us as well.

This "god" is all-powerful. In fact, it encompasses all of the forces of nature in all of their manifestations. No matter what anybody does, they cannot escape.

However, this "god" is not all-knowing. In fact, it knows nothing. It is completely ignorant of the universe that it occupies, or even that it occupies a universe.

This "god" is not at all benevolent. It has no qualms about destroying whole villages in a single stroke, with a tsunami or volcano or a hurricane. It can lay low half of the population of a continent with a plague, and can spark incurable cancer in an innocent child without the least twinge of conscience. If its actions destroy the whole human race, it will not care.

This "god" is constantly testing us. It is testing us to learn the biological sciences. It is constantly creating new diseases and throwing them at us, and has no intention of stopping. Every time we fail this test, people suffer and die.

This "god" is testing us to learn earth sciences. It is testing us to learn about earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. It is challenging us to learn about plate tectonics and the forces that have been molding this planet for billions of years. To the degree that we fail to understand this earth, to that degree we are bound to suffer from the tests that this "god" gives us.

This "god" is testing us to learn about the climate. This "god", out of a whim, has given us two nearby dead planets to warn us how fragile our planet is. If we trust this "god" to take care of this planet for us, we risk being tragically disappointed.

There are other tests. Each test we fail costs lives. The innocent and the guilty will suffer together, because this "god" does not care.

Remarks

This may sound like the same type of protection racket that the likes of Robertson offer. Yet, there are three important differences.

First, I can tell you now that I have no special relationship with this "god". You cannot buy safety and security from it by giving me money and power. The more you know and understand this "god", the safer you will become. But this "god" does not accept offerings, and I do not accept them in its name.

Second, I can prove that this "god" is real. Wait a day, a week at most, and look carefully. You will see the work of powerful forces that do not distinguish the innocent from the guilty. Forces that we, nonetheless, have the capacity to understand. Look carefully at the next disaster, whether it is an earthquake or a young child struck down by disease and ask, "Does this not seem like the work of a being who has no concern at all for the suffering of innocent people?"

Third, we have the capacity to understand this "god". We can do research and experiments and objectively determine its rules and laws, and we can use that knowledge to make ourselves safe.

However, there are some people, such as Pat Robertson, who demand that we put blinders on and refuse to investigate these rules. They fear our knowledge. They are afraid that, the more we learn, the less powerful his invisible thug God will become. That frightens him, so he seeks to frighten us away from learning these rules.

This (other) "god" will not stand aside because Pat Robertson is frightened of our learning the truth. It will continue to test us. When these tests come, will you we be ready? Will we have the scientific and engineering knowledge that we need to survive, and will we have put it to intelligent use?

Atheists in Foxholes

On Friday, November 11th, there will be a march and ceremony in Washington and elsewhere commemorating the military service of "atheists in foxholes"; atheists who have served in the military.

My father was one of these people. He enlisted into the army in 1946 and served during the occupation of Europe. Then he transferred to the Air Force, served through the Korean War (where he earned a Silver Star), and on for fifteen years.

He left the military with 100% disability due to injuries suffered when the airplane he was riding in crashed in Japan.

I asked him once, just a few years ago, what it was like being an "atheist in foxholes", and he sent back a letter that I posted on my web site.

That letter told of another "atheist in foxholes" -- a fighter pilot by the name of Charlie Fair. Charlie Fair died in the military.

My father died in January of this year -- his life cut short by the injuries he sustained in the military.

Actually, I'm not going to say much about the subject here on this blog entry. If any are interested, I will let my father contribute today's blog entry.

A Letter from my Dad.

Politics and Values

The instant that one election ends, the next election begins.

Part of my interest in writing this blog is to pay attention to this next election, and to pay particular attention to the question of values.

The past few years have shown us the importance of values in political office. We have, in the White House right now, a group of people whose values tell them that:

• It is permissible -- perhaps even obligatory -- to deceive a nation into war.
• Our government may treat prisoners in ways in which, if any other nation were to treat American prisoners the same way, would be considered so wrong as to justify war.
• Believes that the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment means, "No government shall take any action to prevent any church from turning America into a theocracy."
• Maintaining political power is more important than national security.

I think that values are important. One of the primary reasons why we must select our leaders based on their values is the fact that we cannot watch over their shoulder as they make each decision. We need people that we can trust, even when we are not able to watch them. If a neighbor has good values, you can trust him to watch over your house. If you have to watch what he does, he is not a good neighbor. The same is true with representatives.

Questionnaire

I do not wish to spend much time discussing policy. I want to spend my time discussing values. With that in mind, I have come up with a questionnaire that seeks to help determine a candidate's values.

1. Do you believe that there should be two different standards of behavior -- a loose set of standards for members of your own party, and a second, stricter set of standards that apply to the opposing party?
2. Do you believe that guilt or innocence should be judged first by party affiliation and then by the evidence? Does the presumption of innocence until proven guilty belong only to members of your party?
3. Do you consider it wrong to bear false witness against your neighbor? Do you believe that taking something that somebody says out of context or twisting his meaning, claiming that he said something he did not say, counts as 'bearing false witness'?
4. Do you believe that non-monotheistic belief systems are on the same patriotic level as rebellion, tyranny, and injustice? Do you favor a national ritual where school children are encouraged to stand each day and say that non-monotheistic belief systems are on the same patriotic level as rebellion, tyranny, and injustice?
5. Do you believe that the most important principle for this country to adopt -- the principle that is so important that it deserves the status of "national motto" -- is the principle "National populations ought to be divided between a we group who trust in God, and a they group who do not?"
6. Do you believe that a wise person looks at the evidence and then makes policy to fit the evidence? Or is the wise leader one who first decides on a conclusion based on faith and from that point on accepts only that evidence that supports his beliefs?
7. Do you believe that scientists are basically interested in the pursuit of facts, or have they instead formed a secret organization where they have secretly agreed to promote fictions such as evolution and global warming?
8. Do you believe that because future generations do not yet vote that their interests are politically irrelevant, and that they are to be sacrificed for the pleasure of fulfilling the demands of the current generation who do vote?
9. Do you believe that there are limits to what the majority in any society may do to the minority? If so, which branch of government do you suggest be positioned to protect the rights and interests of the minority against a tyranny of the majority? How should they be protected from the majority's eventual anger?
10. Do you basically agree with the principles set down in the Bill of Rights? If so, do you think that they describe a set of political rights that one is entitled to in virtue of being an American? Or do they basically describe a set of moral rights that one is entitled to in virtue of being human?

A Fair Questionnaire

This is not a fair questionnaire. This is not actually designed to solicit somebody else's opinions. Instead, it is designed to express a set of opinions -- namely, my own. It would not be fair to actually ask somebody to answer these questions as written, because most of the questions are engineered in such a way that they provide only one reasonable-sounding answer.

Many other organizations will be using questionnaires such as this. However, they are going to pretend that they are asking fair questions -- as if they really care about the answer somebody might give. This is a rather devious way of talking to others -- attempting to influence their attitudes without actually engaging them in debate. I, at least, will be honest and say, "This questionnaire is not designed to solicit opinions, but to express them."

Full Disclosure

I am registered as a Democrat, though I am not active. I tried to be active in the Democratic Party, but I quickly became disappointed and disillusioned. The thing that disappointed me the most was the large number of people who adopted the system simply because "the party" told them that this was the position to adopt. It is a part of the Party's culture to believe X, so they believe X.

I'm simply not somebody who likes to defend the Party Line -- when I think it is wrong.

I was, at one time, a registered Libertarian. I gave that up when I determined that third parties ultimately end up hurting the causes its members care most about. Ralph Nader's political campaigns resulted in far more damage to the environment and jobs than they would have suffered without his candidacy.

Given this, I am not particularly thrilled at the idea of Democrats gaining control of the government. I consider some of their policies to be dangerous to the very entities they claim to want to help.

For example, what is going to be the effect of lowering energy prices? It means that people will continue to consume fossil fuels at a high rate and not conserve. This will result in a more rapid depletion of our remaining oil reserves. This means that, when a shortage does hit, it will hit harder and faster than it would otherwise hit. It means that alternative energy is less price-competitive, which means that it will attract fewer investment dollars, which means even more dependence on fossil fuels, made cheap by the actions of Democratic legislatures.

Yes, I agree that there are people who are made worse off by high prices. They should be helped. However, for the most part, this help should come in the form of energy assistance, not in the form of lower prices. We need to put the free market to work finding ways to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and finding alternatives, and high prices is the best way to do this.

I am not particularly thrilled about the prospect of Democrats winning control of the Legislature. I believe that some of their policies -- particularly with respect to health care, jobs, and energy are destructive enough that I would consider risking the Republican alternative that blends corporate feudalism with theocracy to prevent this.

Conclusion

So, let the race begin. I am looking for readers who would like to alert me to instances where politicians use faulty logic -- examples where they use fallacious reasoning to defend their position, twist the words of their opponents so as to misrepresent their views, twist the words of their opponents, hypocritical standards, and the like. I am looking for anything that tells us about the moral character if these people that you care to point me to.

If you would be so kind.

It depends on what the meaning of "torture" is.

When former President Clinton said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." He pulled a technical trick that allowed him to say that he did not lie --- technically. He redefined "sexual relations" so that it included only intercourse. It did not include oral sex, which fell outside of the meaning of "sexual relations" as he was using the term. Republicans accused him of lying anyway, because the meaning of a term is not determined by some private meaning a speaker decides to assign to it, but by what the hearer would think that the speaker was saying. On these standards, "sexual relations" includes "oral sex."

Now, President Bush tells us, "We do not torture." In doing so, he pulled a technical trick whereby he can say that he did not lie -- technically -- in saying that the United States does not use torture. To do this, he redefined 'torture' to mean 'the unlawful treatment of a prisoner'. According to the Bush Administration lawyers, the only type of treatment that the law prohibits is that which causes permanent organ failure or death. Since, we may assume, that current treatment does not result in any of these effects (which, I hasten to add, we have been assured of, but we do not really know), then none of this treatment technically counts as "torture", on the Bush definition.

It all depends on what the meaning of 'torture' is.

Meaning and the Law

Apparently, "torture" does not mean subjecting a prisoner to excruciating pain, if that pain did not result in organ failure or death. Peter Brooks, writing for Slate, wrote about the twisted logic that the Bush Administration used in order to define its interrogation techniques as “legal”. The task, in this case, is to scour legal documents for definitions that suit the purpose, then tie them together in a way that gets a preferred result.

As Mr. Brooks pointed out, the methodology that the White House lawyers came up with to explain that there is no torture without organ failure or death is the same general rule of law that governs their philosophy of law in general. This is the methodology that advises their choice of Justices, including nominees to the Supreme Court. This procedure – that of looking through texts and interpretations until finding one that fits a desired conclusion – is the essence of “original meaning” that prevents judges from legislating from the bench, or so we are told.

The Implications of Bush’s Definition of Torture

As if the plain meaning of the language, in this case, meant that no person who did not suffer death or organ failure was ever tortured.

I would like Bush to stand in front of a room full of Americans who spent time in a North Vietnamese POW camp (including Senator John McCain) and say to them, "All of you soldiers who are still alive and who have suffered no permanent organ failure as a result of your captivity . . . none of you were tortured. It does not matter how painful your experience was. It does not matter how much discomfort you were subjected to. You were not officially 'tortured' unless you suffered permanent damage."

I would like to see if they would agree with him.

It is also important to note that, if this is going to be the official American definition of torture, then, in any future war (or, even, any war we fight in today), consistency would demand that we apply the same standards. So, I would also like Bush to say to all currently-serving soldiers, "If you were ever to be captured by the enemy then, no matter how harsh your treatment or what they do to you, if they do not subject to you to permanent organ failure or death, then we will not protest that you are guilty of torture."

In fact, Bush has to be interpreted as saying this to every American citizen. "Bush is saying to us, 'If anybody should kidnap or capture you -- say, by hijacking an airplane or simply grabbing you off of the street -- they may subject you to any form of treatment short of permanent organ failure or death, and the American Government will have no grounds to make any formal protest. This is because we have already adopted as a matter of policy that any form of ill treatment that falls short of this limit is legitimate."

This is what your President told you on Sunday, that any treatment short of organ failure or death that you may suffer at the hands of a foreign national is not torture, because Americans subject its prisoners to this type of treatment, and Americans do not torture.

Whatever this President allows to be done to foreign nationals, is exactly what he is telling those foreign nationals that they may do to Americans.

An End, and a Means

Within the same speech in which Bush gave his defense of America’s treatment of prisoners, he also said that the government has an obligation to protect American people, and that “anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law.”

In the White House Statement of Administration Policy given on July 21, 2005, the Administration said that it opposes any legislation that “would restrict the President’s authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorists attack.”

This is a very broad request. In fact, it is reasonable to assume that any restriction on the President at all – restrictions such as laws, or the need to obtain the advice and consent of the senate – any and all restrictions would restrict the President’s authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack.

Which then raises the question: Do we have a President who favors dictatorship over limited government?

Face it, the 4th Amendment restrictions against unreasonable search and seizure and requiring probable cause, the 5th Amendment requirement requiring warrants and due process of law, and to 8th Amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment, are all limitations on the President’s ability to protect America effectively from terrorist attack. Given the reasoning that Bush is using, if he had been president at the time of that first session of congress, would Bush have had a White House policy that recommended rejecting the Bill of Rights?

Does this President think that placing certain restrictions on the powers of government is a good thing, like our founding fathers did? Or does he think that limiting the President’s power is a bad thing?

What type of American is he?

I guess it depends on what you mean by “unreasonable”, “probable cause”, “due process of law”, “unreasonable”, and “cruel and unusual”. I am certain that, with enough digging, Administration lawyers can find interpretations that effectively repeal these restrictions entirely, given that the President seems to find them too burdensome.

The point is, the President has to think that the list of things worth defending has to be longer than just one item – American lives. American values have to count for something as well. Indeed, a great many Americans have given up their lives in order to protect those values. It is a bit of a dishonor to them to tell them that lives are more important than values. Many of them believed, I trust, that some values are worth dying for.

“The ends justify the means” is not typically found on the list of values worth dying for.

“Torture” is not typically found on the list of values worth dying for.

President Bush needs to recognize that one of the key tools we have for telling the difference between the good guys and the bad guys are their values. “The ends justify the means” and “torture” are not typically regarded as the type of values that help us in distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys.

I would like to recommend that America try being one of the good guys again.

Charity and the Corporation

Bill and Melinda Gates

In the last five years, Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) and his wife Melinda have given approximately $6 billion to charity. The two projects that have commanded the most of his attention are AIDS and Malaria.

The Gates are rare among billionaires. Most people who accumulate this much wealth and power tend to act like the modern equivalent of the medieval Duke or Lord. They seek to build the largest empire they can, attacking rivals and conquering "market share." In this quest, nothing is considered immoral. The only question to consider is whether one can get away with the action and how much it would cost them if they get caught. The law itself, and the instruments for making law, becomes strategic tools to be put to the most profitable use.

Then, when these corporate Barons reach the point where they no longer wish to rule their income or they die, they hand their empire over to an heir. That heir may be a biological descendent, or some younger man (usually a man) who has sufficiently impressed them and been "adopted" (in a sense) as an heir to the throne.

Gates says that his daughters will inherit only a small portion of his vast wealth. He does not want them to inherit too much because, he says, it would harm them to do so. Of course, he is not talking about physical harm. Rather, the view seems to be that easy access to wealth is damaging to one's character. Bill and Melinda Gates seem to think that it is better that their children have good character than lots of money.

The way that Bill Gates speaks about the work that Microsoft does seems to be consistent with this line of thinking. He speaks of his software empowering people, allowing them to do things that they would not have otherwise be able to do. He might say that the money he has received is insignificant when balanced against the power he has given to others.

I can see where the argument is coming from. From the time I started to study ethics, I wanted to spend my time looking seriously at moral issues and publishing the results of that research. Now, at virtually no cost to myself, I can research an issue from the comfort of my own den, write up an essay evaluating that issue, and publishing for others to see. I hope that I can show that I am better than those who try to push an agenda without concern for the quality of their arguments -- the "I do not care if I am right, as long as I am persuasive" crowd.

Of course, Gates, is not the sole person responsible for this. Questions can be asked about whether I would be do more of this or less if Microsoft had been less successful. Yet, there is no questioning the fact that his actions have given the fight against AIDS and Malaria $6 billion more in the last five years than they would have otherwise had. There is no questioning the fact that if others had gotten this money, many (most?) would have used it to grow their kingdoms rather than provided help to others.

Okay, there are some things about the way that Microsoft does business that I do not approve of. I am not here to sing the praises of everything that Bill Gates does. At the same time, there are come things for which he does deserve praise.

Cause-Based Marketing

Many companies try to improve their image through "special offers." They will tell you that, in exchange for purchasing their product, they will make a contribution to charity. This is supposed to make you, the customer, feel good about buying their product. Once you get in the habit of buying their product, and feeling good about it, they hope that you will continue to buy the product, even when they are not supporting a charity.

Yet, when a company does this, there often is not much to feel good about.

Let us imagine a case in which Company A has a product that sells for $5.00. For each item sold, they will contribute a $0.25 to Charity C, which we assume is a worthy and important cause. If you are interested in supporting that cause, is it worthwhile to purchase this product from Company A?

You will need to look carefully to find out. I invite you to consider the possibility that Company A has a competitor, Company B. Unlike Company A, this company does not spend large amounts of money on commercials and other expenses. It simply sells its y product for the lowest price possible. As a result, you can pay $3.00 for what others are paying $5.00 for.

I would like to recommend buying Company B's product and, for each unit that you buy, you send the $2.00 you save to the same charity that Company A is claiming to support. You will spend just as much money. You will have a chance to feel eight times better about yourself. And the charity will have a lot more money to do good deeds with.

Finally, you are the one who gets to write the charitable donation off of your taxes, rather than allowing the corporation to write it off of theirs. Let us assume that, during the course of this promotion, a customer purchases 100 units of product from Company A. Company A makes a $25.00 donation to Charity C. Company A then takes a $25.00 tax deduction from its taxes. If the customer had written a $25.00 check to Charity C directly, he would have collected the tax refund.

The customer, in this case, is arranging for Charity C to benefit from a $25.00, but it is also donating the tax refund it would have gotten from that contribution to Company A.

Of course, if this individual would not have made any type of donation to charity, and thus not gotten any tax deduction, then there is some merit to the corporate program. Twenty-five cents is better than nothing.

Yet, I am writing this section of this post for people who do care, who may be tempted into participating in such a gimmick precisely because they think it does some good. I am writing to say, “You can do better.”

In addition, give some thought to how much this company is spending to advertise its charity. How much does it cost to print all of the promotional materials that go along with their charitable work? How much do they spend buying the advertising that they go through to inform you about their promotion? What would happen if that money went to the charity instead of what comes out of each of your purchases?

When is the last time you took out an advertisement in a paper to announce to the world that you made a charitable contribution? If you ever feel tempted to do so, I would recommend sending the charity the money that would have paid for the advertisement as well.

This is not to say that all cause-based marketing fits this pattern. Where a company invites a customer to contribute a dollar to some cause, adding the money to the bill, would not qualify for this type of criticism.

Conclusion

Why did I write this particular essay? What is its point?

The issue that I have discussed under “Cause-Based Marketing” has bothered me for some time. I have acquaintances who go to a great deal of effort promoting these campaigns because they think that they are benefiting an important cause. I watch them buy – and push others to buy -- $100 worth of product so that they can arrange for the company to make a $10 contribution to “the cause”. They could have done more good by sending the charity itself a check for $20.00, and made it up by buying $20.00 less of that product.

Then, I read the interview on Bill Gates. I listen to these same people complain about purchasing Microsoft products when, in fact, Microsoft has made it possible for medical research programs to get over $1 billion per year – without gimmicks, without high-price advertising, and without customer contribution, simply because the person who founded the company cares about the causes he contributes to.

This represents two different attitudes towards making charitable contributions, and the way that a careful marketing campaign can manipulate public attitudes to favor the one that produces the least benefit.

I thought that the issue needed some perspective.

Free Trade

Talks set up in Argentina to establish a "free trade zone" across the Americas. Some are celebrating this fact. Others are disappointed (to say the least). I have mixed feelings. I see people on both sides offering rationalizations and half-truths in support of a position that threatens to do more harm than good.

The Liberal Problem

I am going to take on the liberal side first. On the liberal side, there are protests against "outsourcing" and against companies that move jobs out of this country to a country where people are willing to work for substantially lower wages.

This is a complex issue, and there is no way to give an overall assessment in the confines of one of these posts. The best that I can hope for is to address some of the issues involved in this debate, and how a moral resolution of those issues will move the discussion forward, though other issues will remain.

Anti-Free Trade

There are a group of people protesting these negotiations that are "anti free-trade." This is not a wise position to take. Trade is the most powerful tool that exists for increasing everybody's well-being.

Imagine that you are living alone on a planet with nobody to trade with. You have to build your own shelter, find your own food, prepare that food, build your own tools. If you should ever suffer some sort of calamity, you stand a good chance of dying.

Introduce a few more people into the community, and everybody is better off. People now have the freedom to concentrate on what they are good at, and what they enjoy (for the most part), and trade what they produce with others, who are doing what they are good at, and what they enjoy. So, if you like to hunt, you do the hunting. You bring back two bucks instead of one. You give one to your neighbor, who likes to build things. In exchange, he builds your house.

Using this system, we generate special skills, and people become better at what they do. Because you are spending all of your time hunting, you can perfect the art of hunting, and bring back more food yourself than two of you -- neither of which were specialized hunters -- could bring back. Your neighbor, at the same time, is perfecting the art of construction, creating tools, and building better houses faster because he has had the opportunity to focus his efforts on this job.

An anti-free trade "mountain man" is somebody who wants to keep all of the work in his own household. He does not wish to have other households do the carpentry -- all carpentry is going to be done solely by the people in his household. Because his neighbor cannot do any carpentry for him, his neighbor has nothing with which to purchase food. Each household must do their own hunting and their own carpentry, and they are both poorer because of it.

This is an issue of general principle. We also have to look at specifics.

Outsourcing

Liberals also have a problem with outsourcing. They are opposed to a company that hires a four programmers in India at $12,000 per year each, instead of a single programmer in America for $50,000.

Yet, at the same time they claim to have strong moral objections to those who aim to use the government to promote a system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. If a Republican were to go onto the floor of the House and say that he opposed a bill because it would allow an employee making $200,000 per year to be replaced by four employees making $48,000 per year, they would scream for this person's head.

This is hypocrisy. Where there is hypocrisy, there is proof that the person making a claim is only pretending to have morality on his side. In fact, he is not basing his decisions on any type of moral concern. He is basing it on some other standard, such as, "Whatever is best for me regardless of who else is hurt."

If the person being hurt is the person with $200,000, then they are evil, and they have no right to the money. If the people being hurt are the four who would have otherwise had jobs as computer programmers, then those who would give them jobs are being evil, because of the damage they will do to the person making $50,000.

Again, hypocrites, by definition, are people who are only pretending that their actions are grounded on some moral principle.

The Conservative Problem

Here is the problem on the Conservative side of the debate. There are individual companies that make more money than the people of entire South American nations. We Include provisions in these “free trade” treaties that the United States, for example, interfere in the internal affairs of another country. We cannot base our decisions on the basis of any perceived wrongs that we see may be going on elsewhere.

One of these huge companies comes in, corrupts the government, and virtually enslaves the people of that country. It is all perfectly legal, since the company lobbied for the laws that, for all practical purpose, forces the population of this country into the factories. And the United States can do nothing but watch.

The farming provisions contained within these proposals have this effect. One of the things that the United States government is fighting for is the right to continue to subsidize American farmers. These subsidies allow the American farmers to dump their subsidized goods on Central and South American markets. The Central and South American farmers are driven out of work. They have no option but to go to the city to find work. The people that they find are the same big companies that manipulated passage of a plan that has the effect of forcing people off of the farms and into their factories.

Another area in which these provisions are problematic is in the area of environmental protection. Typically, it is considered immoral for one person to promote his own well-being by poisoning his neighbor. If I were to slip some cyanide into my bosses drink, so that I could get his job after his untimely demise, this would generally be regarded as morally problematic. They would probably call it murder.

The prohibitions on interference allow a large company to purchase legislation in a South- or Central-American country where they can poison the people who live downwind or downstream of their factories, with no requirement to pay any compensation to those whose life, health, and property are damaged by these poisons. The prohibition in interfering in the internal affairs of these countries or basing our governments’ actions on their internal politics means that we do nothing if their government should adopt laws allowing the poisoning of its citizens for profit.

Conclusion

In good conscience, I cannot see anything particularly morally commendable on either side of this debate. There are advantages to be had from free trade. Free trade is a good thing. However, real free trade requires respect for the rights of each individual.

Effectively, we have two groups. One group is pursuing policies that condemn the people of Central and South America to poverty and want, as would be illustrated by forcing a person to live in the mountains without trade. The other group is pursuing policies that would allow those corporations to profit from the servitude of its citizens or to poison those citizens.

We need free trade throughout the Americas – genuine free trade, that respects the rights of each individual. At the same time, no country should ever sign a contract that says, “Regardless of the severity of the victimization that you engage in, I bind myself to do nothing but stand back and watch.”