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By questioning the presumed virtues of independent voters as a group, I was not suggesting that individual voters have paramount civic obligations to identify with either major party. Independents share Democratic perspectives on some issues and Republican perspectives on others (according to Pew,) so I'm not denigrating them for eschewing party membership. There are also logistic reasons not to enroll in a party: I'm officially un-enrolled partly in the hope of cutting down on junk mail and partly in response to the Massachusetts primary system. But individual voters do have obvious civic obligations to remain politically informed and engaged as well as principled -- not whimsical or simply self-interested - when they enter the voting booth. Of course, self-interest is a powerful motivator for partisan as well as non-partisan voters, which is why presidents like to hand out tokens of their affection, like $300 tax rebates or $250 in recovery assistance to social security beneficiaries (regardless of actual need). But the less voters know, the less attention they pay to politics and policy and the less they trust the basic processes of democracy (elections,) the more likely they seem to be guided by self-interests unmitigated by information and ideals. And, (again, according to Pew) "independents score far lower than either Democrats or Republicans" on "an index of political interest and engagement." They are also "consistently skeptical about the electoral process."
You can take pride in this skepticism, considering it a sign of sophistication (and when skepticism means a disinclination to believe what you want to believe, regardless of evidence, I applaud it). But you might also ask yourself why, if skepticism is on the increase, so is misinformation: facts have rarely seemed to matter less. You might regard skepticism about representative democracy with some wariness: As I suggested earlier, it can devolve into cynicism, crude situational ethics, and a tolerance for self-interested lies, none of which signals sophistication so much as surrender.
You can take pride in this skepticism, considering it a sign of sophistication (and when skepticism means a disinclination to believe what you want to believe, regardless of evidence, I applaud it). But you might also ask yourself why, if skepticism is on the increase, so is misinformation: facts have rarely seemed to matter less. You might regard skepticism about representative democracy with some wariness: As I suggested earlier, it can devolve into cynicism, crude situational ethics, and a tolerance for self-interested lies, none of which signals sophistication so much as surrender.
(Photo: Logan Mock Bunting/Getty Images)
"Partisanship and ideology" are the enemies of "true representation in Washington," according to Lou Dobbs, who apparently sees himself as the last objective man standing. David Brooks laments that independents (increasing in number) are underrepresented politically and in the media, which offers relatively few commentators who "come from an independent perspective" (he doesn't cite Dobbs as one of them). Media outlets addressing liberals or conservatives simply "deliver streams of prejudice-affirming stories," Brooks notes, implying that independents are the last objective people standing.
A calm, rightward leaning centrist like David Brooks has relatively little in common with the demagogic, birther sympathizing Lou Dobbs, but they do share a popular tendency to romanticize independents. Celebrating his own imagined independence from ideology, Dobbs promises that his next act will entail "constructive problem solving," characterized by the "rigorous empirical thought and forthright analysis" that partisanship has allegedly banished from the public square. What do independents want from such eminently reasonable policymaking? According to Brooks they want "a frame of stability and order, within which they can lead their lives," as if people infected by ideologies (in other words, ideals) crave chaos.
But if independents value systematic order and stability, they have an odd way of forging it: their behavior contributes to disorder and instability. Independents are, predictably, the most labile of voters (with no apparent irony, Brooks describes them as "astonishingly volatile"). Unmoored by party allegiances, "their political thinking is likely to be chaotic," political scientist Nancy Rosenblum observes.
In a persuasive defense of partisanship that debunks the "faux luster" of independents:
"Research reveals that they are the least interested in politics, the most politically ignorant, the lightest voters. Independent voters know less about politics and policy, appointments and their consequences... (they) are detached and weightless...Independents neither assume responsibility for the institutions that organize elections and government nor do they owe allegiance, or even justification, to other like-minded citizens."
So while it may be tempting to celebrate independents as pragmatic centrists, at a time when parties are associated with extremism, it's worth remembering that political pragmatism, un-guided by political ideology, is a dubious virtue, as Rosenblum suggests. Independents "score far lower than either Democrats or Republicans" on an "index of political interest and engagement," according to the Pew Research Center. They are "consistently skeptical of the electoral process and the responsiveness of officials."
Skepticism can inform voters, of course, and arm them against political hucksters; but it can also devolve into cynicism, and cynicism enables gullibility. Hannah Arendt argued when people are "ready to believe the worst" and also believe that "every statement is a lie anyway ... one could make (them) believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism."
I'm not suggesting that independent voters resemble the political mobs that Arendt analyzed. I am hypothesizing that what we celebrate as the virtues of independents are not so far removed from the vices attendant upon disengagement, discontent, and a view of electoral politics as a self-serving game. Independents who mistrust the political process and unprincipled partisans who exploit it may have more in common than they know.
Stressing the paramount importance of transparency and accountability, the ACLU has been commendably relentless in seeking the release of government documents exposing post 9/11 torture and detention practices. But while ACLU staff attorneys combat government secrecy, ACLU board members promote the secrecy of their own deliberations: a policy proposal now pending before the national board would end the longstanding practice of regularly taping national board, executive committee, and foundation board meetings and would require the destruction of historic meeting tapes, of which there are many. ACLU staff members would have discretion to tape meetings, in order to assist in preparing minutes, and the Deputy Executive Director or General Counsel would have discretion to retain some records for "compelling reasons;" but pursuant to this policy, board members would have no right to ensure that meetings are taped and no right previously enjoyed to obtain meeting tapes. Staff members would enjoy the power to create and destroy important pieces of the organization's historical record.
What prompted this remarkably unabashed rejection of transparency and accountability within the ACLU? Recently, for a few years beginning in 2004, the organization's leadership was embarrassed by meeting tapes that exposed gross violations of principle and misstatements of facts (chronicled in my book Worst Instincts and documented in a publicly accessible Beacon Press archive at the Harvard Divinity School library.)
Naturally, tapes can greatly complicate efforts to deny or distort inconvenient truths. At the ACLU, for example, tapes of 2004 executive committee and national board meetings confirm what the leadership tried hard to obscure -- that executive director Anthony Romero rather proudly acknowledged privately advising the Ford Foundation to "parrot" the Patriot Act in its post 9/11 grant agreements and that the national board rejected a motion to rescind a 2004 blacklist agreement between the ACLU and the Bush Administration, which Romero had quietly authorized. Listen to the tape (or read the transcript) of a June, 2006 national board meeting, and you'll hear some board leaders rationalizing a proposal prohibiting ACLU board members from criticizing the ACLU (the proposal was withdrawn only after its public exposure).
Some tapes may be retained under the new, proposed taping policy only because (as a footnote to the policy memorandum observes) some tapes are now publicly available in the Beacon Press archive; but much will be destroyed. What's the official excuse for destroying tapes? "(V)erbatim recordings are actually 'working papers,'" the committee that drafted the policy explains. "Thus, once adopted the minutes, not the 'working paper' recordings, are the official NB (national board) record."
Of course, a tape is the most accurate and only entirely objective meeting record; minutes are easily and regularly sanitized, which is precisely why they're valued in the new, increasingly corporate ACLU: "Minutes are a board's way of managing the public view of what happens in a board meeting in an accurate manner," the erase history committee explains. The committee also worries about the "chilling effect" of recording exchanges, the possibility that remarks may be taken "out of context," and that taping may encourage "grandstanding" -- the sort of concerns usually raised by officials eager to write their own histories, free of objective, factual records.
One excuse for erasing tapes the ACLU cannot use, is limited storage space -- a problem back when cassette tapes were used (and sometimes recycled). In recent years, meetings have been recorded digitally, and, in any case, meeting records that the ACLU prefers not to keep, or make publicly accessible in the near future, may be deposited at the ACLU archive at Princeton University, where, at least someday, they would be available to researchers. If the ACLU leadership has its way -- as it usually does -- that day will never come.
(Photo: Flickr/Liz Henry)
It's a bit like awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature to someone who reviews novels, beautifully, but has never written one. Some might even consider that a charitable analogy, considering President Obama's moves to cover or ignore strong evidence of American war crimes or his decisions and indecisions about the war in Afghanistan. There are just and unavoidable wars, but whether or not Afghanistan is one of them does not seem like an argument for the Peace Prize.
A brief item buried in the national section of today's New York Times reports that the embezzlement of ACORN funds some 10 days years ago by Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, may have involved 5 million dollars instead of the nearly one million dollar theft that ACORN leaders covered up. This fact was uncovered inl 2008, when a whistle-blower "forced disclosure," the Times reported, when it broke the embezzlement story last year. (A fuller account of the current investigation into what is now alleged to be a $5 million embezzlement was posted yesterday at NOLA.com.)
Naturally, ACORN chief Executive Bertha Lewis assails the report of a $5 million theft as "completely false;" but I hesitate to take her denials at face value. This is the same Bertha Lewis who dismissed attacks on ACORN as McCarthyism, the same Bertha Lewis who justified the 2008 removal of two dissident ACORN board members (who'd filed suit against ACORN as a result of the cover-up) by stressing that the dissidents had violated ACORN's code of conduct--a code that apparently did not require the firing of admitted embezzler Dale Rathke until the cover-up of his embezzlement collapsed.
Just as naturally, right-wing bloggers have been covering the ACORN scandal with delight, while progressives try ignoring or minimizing it, and focus on defending ACORN from a right wing-smear campaign--as if the cover-up of a six or mid seven figure embezzlement had somehow been orchestrated by its enemies on the right, or as if it should only be of interest to the right. As I noted in my earlier post, ACORN is less a victim of its political enemies than of the dishonesty of its friends (or leaders) and the moral hypocrisy that partisans left and right share.
Naturally, ACORN chief Executive Bertha Lewis assails the report of a $5 million theft as "completely false;" but I hesitate to take her denials at face value. This is the same Bertha Lewis who dismissed attacks on ACORN as McCarthyism, the same Bertha Lewis who justified the 2008 removal of two dissident ACORN board members (who'd filed suit against ACORN as a result of the cover-up) by stressing that the dissidents had violated ACORN's code of conduct--a code that apparently did not require the firing of admitted embezzler Dale Rathke until the cover-up of his embezzlement collapsed.
Just as naturally, right-wing bloggers have been covering the ACORN scandal with delight, while progressives try ignoring or minimizing it, and focus on defending ACORN from a right wing-smear campaign--as if the cover-up of a six or mid seven figure embezzlement had somehow been orchestrated by its enemies on the right, or as if it should only be of interest to the right. As I noted in my earlier post, ACORN is less a victim of its political enemies than of the dishonesty of its friends (or leaders) and the moral hypocrisy that partisans left and right share.
When is thievery not a crime but a personal tragedy? When is lying for personal gain or political expedience a mere error in judgment? The answer is obvious to any partisan. Your political enemies engage in criminal or morally repugnant acts; your allies, friends, and relations make mistakes or bend the rules for the greater good. As Rudolph Giuliani remarked during his presidential campaign, the definition of torture "depends on who does it." Waterboarding was "aggressive questioning," when Americans inflicted it. "It was a judgment call," (not a criminal conspiracy,) ACORN president Maud Hurd said in 2008, describing the decision to cover-up the embezzlement of nearly a million dollars by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.
No, I don't mean to suggest that torture and embezzlement are moral equivalents. I do mean to state that activists, advocacy groups, politicians, and pundits, left and right, display equivalent moral hypocrisy when rationalizing illegal or unethical conduct by some of their own. It's the hypocrisy bred by the self-righteousness of people convinced that they're on the side of the angels, that their commitment to the right cause makes them incapable of doing wrong. It's the hypocrisy that led the ACLU national board to trivialize, misrepresent, or conceal serious misconduct by its staff and lay leaders (the subject of my book, Worst Instincts.) It's the hypocrisy that has consistently characterized the "progressive" response to recent and still unfolding ACORN scandals. By ignoring, minimizing, or rationalizing grossly unethical and even criminal conduct, ACORN's left-wing friends have harmed it more than its right wing enemies ever could.
Today ACORN leaders and supporters strain to contain the damage caused by the video sting of ACORN employees, characterizing the employee's conduct as anomalous and blaming the controversy over it not on any genuine concern about ACORN's recent history of gross dishonesty but on right wing pique at being out of power. ACORN executive Bertha Lewis predictably decried the attacks on her organization as "reminiscent of the McCarthy era."
Well yes, you'd have to be an idiot not to recognize the right wing's glee over ACORN's latest troubles and not to believe that many of its critics would refrain from attacking a conservative organization implicated in similar conduct. So what. ACORN's lack of integrity is not excused or ameliorated by the advantages Republicans derive from it.
ACORN's progressive supporters, not to its mention leaders, should begin by taking responsibility for its decline. The depth of ACORN's dishonesty and dysfunction was clearly indicated over a year ago by New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom's stories revealing Dale Rathke's embezzlement of about $950,000 and its nearly decade long cover-up. (ACORN had been accused of misconduct before, but the Times story could not simply be dismissed as another right wing smear campaign.) The Times reported that not even the ACORN board had been informed of the theft, ("a small group of executives decided to keep the information from almost all of the group's board members and not to alert law enforcement.") ACORN executives probably told themselves and each other that the cover-up was in the organization's interests, but the organization was not even reimbursed for its loss: The embezzlement reportedly occurred in 1999 and 2000; in July 2008, when the first Times story appeared, only a reported $210,000 had been paid back, and Dale Rathke had been allowed to remain on the payroll until mid 2008 when "disclosure of his theft by foundations and other donors forced the organization to dismiss him."
The follow-up to this story was equally disturbing: ACORN's leadership seemed to persist in concealing misconduct instead of acknowledging and correcting it. In August 2008, a small group of ACORN activists, led by two members of an interim management committee, filed a lawsuit against the organization in a reported effort to separate it from the Rathke family, "protect financial records from destruction and enhance board access to documents." In October 2008, a report released by an ACORN lawyer pointed to managerial and financial improprieties that "may have led to violations of federal laws." In November 2008, the dissenting interim management committee members were removed; their lawsuit was dropped, and the dissenting group (the ACORN 8) subsequently sought a federal investigation of the embezzlement.
This point is worth repeating: after allowing an embezzler to remain on the payroll for some 8 years, ACORN's leadership quickly expelled two dissident board members who seemed intent on providing transparency and accountability. The two dissidents were found to have violated ACORN's code of conduct (which apparently deemed whistle-blowing a graver offense than stealing,) and they were "aggressively trying to distract the organization from its core mission," ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis recently explained to the Washington Post.
Reading these stories, you didn't need to be familiar with not for profit governance issues to recognize a profoundly compromised organization; you only needed to be awake. But ACORN supporters probably told themselves that thefts and cover-ups by the leadership were relatively minor governance problems that did not and would not hamper or corrupt ACORN's substantive work. That's how ACLU supporters frequently responded to compelling evidence of internal misconduct: characterizing repeated malfeasance as a series of "mistakes," they tended to dismiss as "tempests in teapots" or "inside baseball," controversies over "mistakes" like lying by the leadership or spying on staff or revelations that the executive director had quietly approved a government blacklisting agreement and, when he was caught, misrepresented the timing and substance of counsel's opinion regarding the agreement and the ACLU's potential criminal liability for non-compliance. So I recognize the evasions and denials offered by ACORN supporters in the wake of the very serious embezzlement and cover-up scandals of 2008 that presaged the current scandal over the video sting.
Consider Peter Dreier's response to the theft and cover-up in the Huffington Post: In a lengthy piece dominated by praise of ACORN's "fight for social justice" and protests of right wing smear campaigns, Dreier excuses the "brilliant" Wade Rathke's decision to conceal his brother's embezzlement as mere misjudgment, attributed not to dishonesty or self-interest but brotherly compassion and concern for ACORN's reputation. He writes misleadingly that the stolen funds were repaid, without noting that until the theft was revealed after 8 or 9 years, about 80% of it remained unpaid. He laments that "Rathke's remarkable organizing work for almost 40 years will now have to be judged against this tragic example of poor judgment." He characterizes the theft and prolonged cover-up as "missteps," stressing that they did not begin to compare to "swindles" by villainous corporations like Halliburton or Enron involving billions; (although it's obvious that the difference between the "missteps" at ACORN and the "swindles" at Halliburton is not measured in dollars but in partisan loyalties.) He notes that "progressive groups have to be squeaky clean. They must live by a higher standard...," as if only a unusually scrupulous organization with unusually high standards would prohibit and punish embezzlement.
Today, ACORN apologists persist in trivializing its offenses: The video sting is not a major story, mediamatters.org insists, suggesting that the real story is - what else - right wing scapegoating and "fear-mongering." Founder Wade Rathke still seems filled with sorrow, not remorse, noting that the "sneak films are too sad and painful for me to watch." ACORN is suing the video-tapers and distributors for violating state surveillance laws.
But, as Barney Frank cogently observes, "The defense against sting operations is not to ban them, but to behave properly so that they do not reveal as they did in this case clear evidence of gross impropriety." Facing the cut-off of federal funds and the prospect of becoming politically untouchable, ACORN is, once again promising reform. It has hired former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to conduct the "robust, no-holds barred review" that should have been commenced at least a year ago, after the embezzlement scandal broke. Harshbarger may recommend new internal structures and processes, but I suspect that reforming ACORN will require removing staff and lay leaders who have already demonstrated their lack of integrity. New processes won't respond to a need for new personnel. Indeed, if people involved in covering-up embezzlement and purging apparent whistle-blowers had a functional sense of honor or concern for ACORN's mission, they'd resign.
Whether or not ACORN recovers, this crisis of its own making should serve as a cautionary tale for other groups, like the ACLU, that consider themselves too pure to fail; but I doubt that it will. Lying is a habit that's very hard to break, especially when people justify their lies in the service of a greater good. Wade Rathke said he concealed his brother's embezzlement so as not "put a "weapon" into the hands of enemies of Acorn." And, people who begin covering up the misconduct of others out of concern for an organization's reputation (as well as their fear of being ostracized,) inevitably end covering up for their own complicity, and perpetuating conspiracies of silence.
No, I don't mean to suggest that torture and embezzlement are moral equivalents. I do mean to state that activists, advocacy groups, politicians, and pundits, left and right, display equivalent moral hypocrisy when rationalizing illegal or unethical conduct by some of their own. It's the hypocrisy bred by the self-righteousness of people convinced that they're on the side of the angels, that their commitment to the right cause makes them incapable of doing wrong. It's the hypocrisy that led the ACLU national board to trivialize, misrepresent, or conceal serious misconduct by its staff and lay leaders (the subject of my book, Worst Instincts.) It's the hypocrisy that has consistently characterized the "progressive" response to recent and still unfolding ACORN scandals. By ignoring, minimizing, or rationalizing grossly unethical and even criminal conduct, ACORN's left-wing friends have harmed it more than its right wing enemies ever could.
Today ACORN leaders and supporters strain to contain the damage caused by the video sting of ACORN employees, characterizing the employee's conduct as anomalous and blaming the controversy over it not on any genuine concern about ACORN's recent history of gross dishonesty but on right wing pique at being out of power. ACORN executive Bertha Lewis predictably decried the attacks on her organization as "reminiscent of the McCarthy era."
Well yes, you'd have to be an idiot not to recognize the right wing's glee over ACORN's latest troubles and not to believe that many of its critics would refrain from attacking a conservative organization implicated in similar conduct. So what. ACORN's lack of integrity is not excused or ameliorated by the advantages Republicans derive from it.
ACORN's progressive supporters, not to its mention leaders, should begin by taking responsibility for its decline. The depth of ACORN's dishonesty and dysfunction was clearly indicated over a year ago by New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom's stories revealing Dale Rathke's embezzlement of about $950,000 and its nearly decade long cover-up. (ACORN had been accused of misconduct before, but the Times story could not simply be dismissed as another right wing smear campaign.) The Times reported that not even the ACORN board had been informed of the theft, ("a small group of executives decided to keep the information from almost all of the group's board members and not to alert law enforcement.") ACORN executives probably told themselves and each other that the cover-up was in the organization's interests, but the organization was not even reimbursed for its loss: The embezzlement reportedly occurred in 1999 and 2000; in July 2008, when the first Times story appeared, only a reported $210,000 had been paid back, and Dale Rathke had been allowed to remain on the payroll until mid 2008 when "disclosure of his theft by foundations and other donors forced the organization to dismiss him."
The follow-up to this story was equally disturbing: ACORN's leadership seemed to persist in concealing misconduct instead of acknowledging and correcting it. In August 2008, a small group of ACORN activists, led by two members of an interim management committee, filed a lawsuit against the organization in a reported effort to separate it from the Rathke family, "protect financial records from destruction and enhance board access to documents." In October 2008, a report released by an ACORN lawyer pointed to managerial and financial improprieties that "may have led to violations of federal laws." In November 2008, the dissenting interim management committee members were removed; their lawsuit was dropped, and the dissenting group (the ACORN 8) subsequently sought a federal investigation of the embezzlement.
This point is worth repeating: after allowing an embezzler to remain on the payroll for some 8 years, ACORN's leadership quickly expelled two dissident board members who seemed intent on providing transparency and accountability. The two dissidents were found to have violated ACORN's code of conduct (which apparently deemed whistle-blowing a graver offense than stealing,) and they were "aggressively trying to distract the organization from its core mission," ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis recently explained to the Washington Post.
Reading these stories, you didn't need to be familiar with not for profit governance issues to recognize a profoundly compromised organization; you only needed to be awake. But ACORN supporters probably told themselves that thefts and cover-ups by the leadership were relatively minor governance problems that did not and would not hamper or corrupt ACORN's substantive work. That's how ACLU supporters frequently responded to compelling evidence of internal misconduct: characterizing repeated malfeasance as a series of "mistakes," they tended to dismiss as "tempests in teapots" or "inside baseball," controversies over "mistakes" like lying by the leadership or spying on staff or revelations that the executive director had quietly approved a government blacklisting agreement and, when he was caught, misrepresented the timing and substance of counsel's opinion regarding the agreement and the ACLU's potential criminal liability for non-compliance. So I recognize the evasions and denials offered by ACORN supporters in the wake of the very serious embezzlement and cover-up scandals of 2008 that presaged the current scandal over the video sting.
Consider Peter Dreier's response to the theft and cover-up in the Huffington Post: In a lengthy piece dominated by praise of ACORN's "fight for social justice" and protests of right wing smear campaigns, Dreier excuses the "brilliant" Wade Rathke's decision to conceal his brother's embezzlement as mere misjudgment, attributed not to dishonesty or self-interest but brotherly compassion and concern for ACORN's reputation. He writes misleadingly that the stolen funds were repaid, without noting that until the theft was revealed after 8 or 9 years, about 80% of it remained unpaid. He laments that "Rathke's remarkable organizing work for almost 40 years will now have to be judged against this tragic example of poor judgment." He characterizes the theft and prolonged cover-up as "missteps," stressing that they did not begin to compare to "swindles" by villainous corporations like Halliburton or Enron involving billions; (although it's obvious that the difference between the "missteps" at ACORN and the "swindles" at Halliburton is not measured in dollars but in partisan loyalties.) He notes that "progressive groups have to be squeaky clean. They must live by a higher standard...," as if only a unusually scrupulous organization with unusually high standards would prohibit and punish embezzlement.
Today, ACORN apologists persist in trivializing its offenses: The video sting is not a major story, mediamatters.org insists, suggesting that the real story is - what else - right wing scapegoating and "fear-mongering." Founder Wade Rathke still seems filled with sorrow, not remorse, noting that the "sneak films are too sad and painful for me to watch." ACORN is suing the video-tapers and distributors for violating state surveillance laws.
But, as Barney Frank cogently observes, "The defense against sting operations is not to ban them, but to behave properly so that they do not reveal as they did in this case clear evidence of gross impropriety." Facing the cut-off of federal funds and the prospect of becoming politically untouchable, ACORN is, once again promising reform. It has hired former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to conduct the "robust, no-holds barred review" that should have been commenced at least a year ago, after the embezzlement scandal broke. Harshbarger may recommend new internal structures and processes, but I suspect that reforming ACORN will require removing staff and lay leaders who have already demonstrated their lack of integrity. New processes won't respond to a need for new personnel. Indeed, if people involved in covering-up embezzlement and purging apparent whistle-blowers had a functional sense of honor or concern for ACORN's mission, they'd resign.
Whether or not ACORN recovers, this crisis of its own making should serve as a cautionary tale for other groups, like the ACLU, that consider themselves too pure to fail; but I doubt that it will. Lying is a habit that's very hard to break, especially when people justify their lies in the service of a greater good. Wade Rathke said he concealed his brother's embezzlement so as not "put a "weapon" into the hands of enemies of Acorn." And, people who begin covering up the misconduct of others out of concern for an organization's reputation (as well as their fear of being ostracized,) inevitably end covering up for their own complicity, and perpetuating conspiracies of silence.
Should Virginia voters care about the views expressed by gubernatorial candidate Robert McDonnell in his graduate school thesis 20 years ago? Today's headline in the Washington Post implies that voters should ignore McDonnell's thesis, and that ideologically, he is a changed man; the thesis is merely a record of his "past views." Despite his disapproval of wage earning women, his view of feminism as an "enemy" of the family, and his condemnation of homosexuals (he equates homosexuality with other "evils" -- drug abuse and pornography -- that the government should "punish and deter"), McDonnell claims that he now opposes workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and has revised his views of gender roles. I have some sympathy for anyone confronted with an inflammatory paper written by his younger self. I don't always agree with articles I wrote last year, much less 20 years ago; sometimes an article or column is simply an argument with myself. And I tire of efforts to characterize (or smear) political candidates and nominees with ideas expressed or merely explored in papers or speeches years ago. (Intellectually exploration has become absurdly perilous politically, as Cass Sunstein might attest.)
But reading McDonnell's thesis, I am not convinced of its irrelevance. Maybe he is more tolerant or even supportive of at least some civil rights for women and gay people, as the Post suggests. The views of thinking people, and politicians, on particular social issues do evolve. What's perhaps most troubling are not the micro questions but his macro-vision of civil government as divinely ordained. "The civil ruler is a minister of God to execute judgment and encourage good," McDonnell explained.
It is this belief in the propriety, even the necessity of a government guided by particular religious ideals that appears to underlie his approach to social and economic issues, from gay rights to tax preferences and the legality or availability of contraception. Viewing fornication as sinful, for example, McDonnell lamented the Supreme Court decision extending a right to use contraception to unmarried couples, "at a time when every state in the union made sexual intercourse between unmarried persons a crime." Maybe McDonnell would now oppose criminalizing consensual intercourse between unmarried adults. The question is does he still believe that, in general, particular religious (in other words sectarian) notions of sin should shape the criminal law?
These are the questions I'd pose to McDonnell: is he still convinced that "Man" can only do good in an environment shaped by "faith" not "atheism"? Does he still agree that "a people that reject the importance of the family in its God ordained covenantal form must assuredly reap the consequences," and how might government promote the "God ordained covenantal form" of family life? Does he still oppose "a public school system in which textbooks and courses of instructions are increasingly oriented to humanist values and a secular philosophy"? And, if so, which non-secular philosophies and non-humanist values should public schools seek to inculcate in their students?
Reading McDonnell's thesis, which relies on slogans, political talking points, and declarations of faith more than argument, I also wonder if he's developed his capacity for nuanced, rational thought. Twenty years ago, he described the Supreme Court decision in Griswold v Connecticut (affirming the right of married couples to use contraception) as an attempt "to create a view of liberty based on radical individualism, while facilitating statist control of select family issues." Whatever did he mean by that? Can he elaborate on his previously stated view that "the giftedness of the Republican philosophy is that it embraces the talents and worth of all peoples, while Democrats seek to Shepard a nation of powerless incompetents." How did McDonnell then reconcile his tribute to "the worth of all people" with his opposition to extending "special rights for homosexuals or single parent unwed mothers" and his view of atheism as inimical to goodness? What is his view of non-theism (and non-theists) and the role of sectarian religious beliefs in government today?
Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9313013@N04/1510078088
Who cares if American intelligence agents or private contractors tortured terrorism suspects? That is not a rhetorical question. A widely discussed, 2009 Pew Forum poll suggests that the public is evenly divided over the use of torture, with 49% agreeing that it is "often or sometimes justified" and 47% objecting that it is "rarely or never justified." These results may have been skewed by assumptions about torture's effectiveness in extracting information implicit in Pew's multiple choice question: "Torture to gain important information from suspected terrorists is justified... often, sometimes, rarely, never." What if Pew has posed some variation of this question: "Torture is likely to produce important information from suspected terrorists that might not be produced by other means (often, sometimes, rarely, never)?" What if Pew had asked "Is torture more or less likely to gain important information than other means?"
Still, public support for torture seems likely to reflect partisan allegiances, however questions about it are posed. As Pew noted, "party and ideology are much better predictors of views on torture than are religion and most other demographic factors," sensibly adding that, naturally, religion plays a role in shaping political ideology. (Some atheists reveled in the finding of disproportionate, white evangelical support for torture, regarding it as evidence of religion's tolerance for cruelty; but I imagine that one religious response to the atheists might be -"You simply don't understand the nature of evil and are unwilling to combat it.")
In any case, I suspect that the public view of torture is essentially pragmatic, turning on whether it is regarded as a necessary or reliable means of obtaining information to save American lives. But, I'd also be willing to bet that people will evaluate competing claims about torture's effectiveness through partisan colored glasses, which means that, in the end, public opinion will be determined mainly by partisan loyalties (and maybe indirectly by religious ideologies). Relatively few people will take (or have) the time to examine objectively available evidence of torture's effectiveness; instead, they'll assume the truth of claims asserted by their political heroes or opinion leaders, right and left. Surely the success of demonstrably false claims about "death panels" allegedly embedded in health care reform proposals demonstrated the irrelevance of facts when confronted with lies (or emotional "truths") circulated by influential political partisans.
The battle lines over torture, and torture investigations, are obvious: Ari Fleischer tells the Huffington Post that Attorney General Holder's decision to investigate interrogation abuses is "disgusting ... It's amazing to me that the people who kept us safe may now become the people our government prosecutes." Fleischer smoothly assumes an affirmative answer to the essential question, "did people who engage in torture 'keep us safe?' " Cheney repeats that torture saved lives.
Meanwhile, at salon.com, the admirably indefatigable Glenn Greenwald urges all Americans to read the Inspector General's report describing torture in horrific detail (despite significant redactions). Greenwald, (like other civil libertarians) persuasively objects to Holdler's focus on low level interrogators who engaged in torture, not the lawyers and policy makers who authorized it; but while I share his desire to hold "high-level officials" accountable, I'm skeptical that many people will be moved to oppose torture by reading about it in detail (which relatively few people seem likely to do anyway). The torture debate will probably not be won by moral arguments and disgust over torture's methods (which some may find titillating) or even empirical truths, but by what a majority of people are led to believe is the answer to the question "did torture keep us safe?" Torture opponents had better start declaring that the answer is "No."
(Photo: Flickr User Gribiche)
Driving civil libertarians crazy is probably not a goal of this month's town hall protesters, but it may be one of their signal achievements. Having openly applauded, tacitly supported, or simply ignored the Bush/Cheney national security state and the unprecedented expansion of unaccountable executive power, the right wing now defends freedom against the spectre (and it is only a spectre) of universal health care?
If the fury directed at "Obamacare" is partly fueled by angst about cultural and demographic changes (from gay marriage to the emergence of a non-white majority,) it also reflects a very limited understanding of repression and the role of government in everyone's life. According to an indeterminate number of unhinged protesters enjoying inordinate amounts of airtime this month, the hallmarks of a police state include prohibitions on carrying assault weapons to public meetings and the provision of publicly supported health care -- with the exception of medicare. Conservative Republican support for medicare spending indicates that it is not a form of left-wing repression, probably because so many voters rely on it: "Deep Medicare cuts are just one of the mounting reasons why Americans are losing faith in the Democrats' government takeover of health care," John Boehner's web page declares. (Or, as one confused protester famously demanded, "keep your government hands off my Medicare.").
How do the town hall protests define repression? Apparently it comprises any government regulation perceived as a threat to any constitutional right or federally mandated benefit that the protesters enjoy. Naturally this solipsistic approach to rights and liberties is deeply incoherent: effectively equating the right to bear arms with a social security check or medicare coverage, it combines a little libertarianism with a lot of socialism.
But the town hall protests do help explain why a conservative movement that has practically copyrighted the word "freedom" acquiesced in the establishment of the Bush/Cheney imperial presidency. Its effects on ordinary Americans were covert, sporadic, and unpredictable; you might never know that you were victimized by it -- if your emails were being intercepted by government agents or if you were denied a job or a mortgage because your name mistakenly appeared on a terrorist watch list. You might easily imagine that torture and detention without due process were calamities that only befell the terrorists who deserved them; in one popular view every terrorist suspect is an actual terrorist and there are no innocent or wrongly tortured and imprisoned Guantanamo detainees. (Nearly two-thirds -- 62% -- of evangelical Protestants and nearly half of all respondents to a 2009 Pew Forum survey opined that torture was sometimes or often justified.)
Of course, trust that the Bush Administration was using its virtually unlimited power to protect America and the fear that Obama is intent on destroying it is, in no small part, a function of partisanship. But conservative Republicans are not protesting Obama's continuation of Bush's national security policies (like his embrace of the state secrets doctrine or resistance to releasing torture photos.) Protests of the national security police state still emanate mainly from the left (as well as from free market libertarians.) "The Makings of a Police State: Aren't We There?" FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds asks, citing the creation of a perpetual state of war, ubiquitous surveillance, government secrecy, and summary search and seizures among other lamentable developments, like an executive branch contemptuous of the rule of law. Somehow, health care reform doesn't seem so scary after all.
If the fury directed at "Obamacare" is partly fueled by angst about cultural and demographic changes (from gay marriage to the emergence of a non-white majority,) it also reflects a very limited understanding of repression and the role of government in everyone's life. According to an indeterminate number of unhinged protesters enjoying inordinate amounts of airtime this month, the hallmarks of a police state include prohibitions on carrying assault weapons to public meetings and the provision of publicly supported health care -- with the exception of medicare. Conservative Republican support for medicare spending indicates that it is not a form of left-wing repression, probably because so many voters rely on it: "Deep Medicare cuts are just one of the mounting reasons why Americans are losing faith in the Democrats' government takeover of health care," John Boehner's web page declares. (Or, as one confused protester famously demanded, "keep your government hands off my Medicare."). How do the town hall protests define repression? Apparently it comprises any government regulation perceived as a threat to any constitutional right or federally mandated benefit that the protesters enjoy. Naturally this solipsistic approach to rights and liberties is deeply incoherent: effectively equating the right to bear arms with a social security check or medicare coverage, it combines a little libertarianism with a lot of socialism.
But the town hall protests do help explain why a conservative movement that has practically copyrighted the word "freedom" acquiesced in the establishment of the Bush/Cheney imperial presidency. Its effects on ordinary Americans were covert, sporadic, and unpredictable; you might never know that you were victimized by it -- if your emails were being intercepted by government agents or if you were denied a job or a mortgage because your name mistakenly appeared on a terrorist watch list. You might easily imagine that torture and detention without due process were calamities that only befell the terrorists who deserved them; in one popular view every terrorist suspect is an actual terrorist and there are no innocent or wrongly tortured and imprisoned Guantanamo detainees. (Nearly two-thirds -- 62% -- of evangelical Protestants and nearly half of all respondents to a 2009 Pew Forum survey opined that torture was sometimes or often justified.)
Of course, trust that the Bush Administration was using its virtually unlimited power to protect America and the fear that Obama is intent on destroying it is, in no small part, a function of partisanship. But conservative Republicans are not protesting Obama's continuation of Bush's national security policies (like his embrace of the state secrets doctrine or resistance to releasing torture photos.) Protests of the national security police state still emanate mainly from the left (as well as from free market libertarians.) "The Makings of a Police State: Aren't We There?" FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds asks, citing the creation of a perpetual state of war, ubiquitous surveillance, government secrecy, and summary search and seizures among other lamentable developments, like an executive branch contemptuous of the rule of law. Somehow, health care reform doesn't seem so scary after all.
My post last week on the battle over releasing the names and addresses of people who signed a petition placing Washington state's domestic partnership law on the ballot generated some confusing responses that seem to me worth addressing.
First, it's important to distinguish between the privacy interests of people who merely sign a petition to place a referendum on the ballot and people who financially support a referendum campaign. While there are sound arguments for allowing anonymous political donations (especially small individual donations below a set minimum), the public interest in revealing financial backers of a political campaign (especially organizational or institutional backers) is much stronger than the interest in revealing the names of individual citizens who sign a petition.
Why shouldn't the privacy of the ballot box extend to referendum petitions? We protect the individual right to vote for or against a ballot question in secret in order to prevent voter intimidation and encourage participation; why shouldn't we protect an individual right to cast a secret vote (by signing a petition) to place a question on the ballot? Of course petition signatures ought to be verified to prevent fraud (and the process of obtaining signatures requires oversight), but verification is the job of the secretary of state (or some other official.) Somehow I don't think we would be well served by vigilante verification of referendum petitions anymore than by vigilante verification of voter ID's on election day.
It is also a mistake to assume that everyone who signs a referendum petition is expressing an opinion on its merits. I can imagine signing a petition putting a candidate or a question on the ballot that I opposed, or regarded indifferently, if I believed that either the candidate or the question should be the subject of a popular vote. In any case, I don't agree that we have a legal right to know where our families, friends, employers, or local businesses stand on controversial questions of rights, as one comment suggests. If you want to know where they stand, you should ask them. It's not the state's job to tell you what other people think.
(Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/frankieroberto/3065244369)
First, it's important to distinguish between the privacy interests of people who merely sign a petition to place a referendum on the ballot and people who financially support a referendum campaign. While there are sound arguments for allowing anonymous political donations (especially small individual donations below a set minimum), the public interest in revealing financial backers of a political campaign (especially organizational or institutional backers) is much stronger than the interest in revealing the names of individual citizens who sign a petition.
Why shouldn't the privacy of the ballot box extend to referendum petitions? We protect the individual right to vote for or against a ballot question in secret in order to prevent voter intimidation and encourage participation; why shouldn't we protect an individual right to cast a secret vote (by signing a petition) to place a question on the ballot? Of course petition signatures ought to be verified to prevent fraud (and the process of obtaining signatures requires oversight), but verification is the job of the secretary of state (or some other official.) Somehow I don't think we would be well served by vigilante verification of referendum petitions anymore than by vigilante verification of voter ID's on election day.
It is also a mistake to assume that everyone who signs a referendum petition is expressing an opinion on its merits. I can imagine signing a petition putting a candidate or a question on the ballot that I opposed, or regarded indifferently, if I believed that either the candidate or the question should be the subject of a popular vote. In any case, I don't agree that we have a legal right to know where our families, friends, employers, or local businesses stand on controversial questions of rights, as one comment suggests. If you want to know where they stand, you should ask them. It's not the state's job to tell you what other people think.
(Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/frankieroberto/3065244369)
