Writing is simple. First you have to make sure you have plenty of paper… sharp pencils… typewriter ribbon. Then put your belly up to the desk… roll a sheet of paper into the typewriter… and stare at it until beads of blood appear on your forehead.

– Jeff MacNelly

This blog is officially on hiatus (as opposed to me just not updating) while I direct my quite desperation toward participating in 2009 ’s National Novel Writing Month. My normal writing routine is far from prodigious so I will not be able to both write the required thousand some odd words a day, assuming I can meet that challenge at all, and contribute half-decent posts to the blog. My co-blogger is MIA for the time being so expect only trifling tidbits until November is out. If you are interested at all in my progress then visit my profile by clicking on the image to the left.

There are legitimate criticisms of NaNoWriMo but I’m not in it to try and create some instant novel. I formulated the idea for a story in early October and have been attempting to flesh it out in notes. This contest will give me a incentive to hammer out a first draft by giving me target numbers and a deadline. When it’s all finished what I will have is a very rough draft that I can work with to shape into something better. Or at least that’s the plan.

I was struck by themes and elements that felt distinctly like allegories for current populist right-wing canards. It starts as the “look fairer feel fouler” aliens arrive on earth with promises of hope and change. They chide us earthlings for being so tribal and express their superiority in being united in a multicultural one-world government. They use new media to spread their personality cult to the youth and then recruit them into a volunteer corps. The visitors manipulate the media to shield them from negative reporting. Congratulating journalists on sacrificing their principals for the “greater good”. And announce on national television their plans to provide us all with universal healthcare. At the same time an FBI agent is tracking down a sleeper cell but in the process discovers a patriot group who are uniting to capitalize on the wide spread protests and recruit people to join their cause. Another hero in the fight is a priest who warns his flock to be weary of the lofty promises of the aliens. So law enforcement and pillars of traditional culture and morality stand up to fight the evil liberals visitors.

Is it just me or does this sound exactly like something you expect to see penned by Glenn Beck (or L. Neil Smith). I half expect in coming episodes for the aliens to ban guns , for a politician’s birth records to be called into question, and to have alien flu shots discovered to be tracking devices. A world in which David Icke and the John Birch Society’s wildest fantasies come true. I have no problem with a conservative television show, I could even enjoy it if done well, but these kind of cliched caricatures do not make for good art and they certainly don’t make for good politics. Good ratings though? We’ll see.

Of course it’s just the first episode and I’m willing to allow for the possibility that I read far too much conservative opinion and the show is simply about tyranny and revolution at a time when the people yelling tyranny the most are the right. It could be that the show is just using the same archetypal narrative of the charismatic dictator that right-wing media figures have been using. Or there’s the possibility that some blatant references to current political movements were included to stir controversy. After all there’s no such thing as bad publicity and sometimes a cigar really isn’t a penis. At this point few can say how the story will play out so I reserve my judgement on the series as a whole but I fully expect every conservative columnist and blogger from the “Mayor’s Income, Tennessee Examiner” to the folks at Big Hollywood (who I’m sure are wetting themselves) to be using the show as a new shorthand for reactionary populism.

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right.

– H.L. Mencken

The landscape of political discourse in this country is dominated by two peculiar schools of thought. It’s not the left and the right, nor liberty and oligarchy, and not even capitalism and socialism. No the dueling duality of demagoguery is that of the Not-Left and the Not-Right. I’m not one prone to the coining of neologisms but I will make an exception here. Don’t fret, I’ll try not to make a habit of it. Now what do I mean by the Not-Left and the Not-Right?

What is the one defining characteristic of the right wing spectrum of western politics? Let’s put aside the etymology of the term and look at it’s value as a description. Is there a single agreed upon quality that makes one a member of the political right rather than the left? A sole shibboleth by which new movements can be classified? If there is one I haven’t found it. I haven’t even found a single universally agreed upon definition of a conservative much less how to define “the right” as a whole. Perhaps it’s a matter of sharing a key concept like, say, a belief in traditional values. But then what about libertarians? Could it be individualism? But what about right-communitarians like McIntyre? Resistance to authority. What about theocrats and nationalists? Belief in a small government. What about neoconservatives?

Is there a single property by which a political philosophy can be classified as being of the right or the left? It doesn’t appear so. It appears as if we define groups as being on the right if they hold to one of any of a family of concepts. It doesn’t seem as if there is any one thing in common between all the disparate factions that we consider being of “the right”, save one. The one thing they all have in common is that they are emphatically not the left. In fact they oppose the left and any ideas put forth by the left. There are whole blog networks devoted to giving voice to their derision of the left and to expounding the many ways the left is wrong. All the while they freely associate with other members of the right with whom they disagree violently in congratulating themselves that they are not left.

The exact same can be said of the left. What one defining characteristic do all factions of the left share? Positive rights? Liberaltarians and neoliberals base their ideology on negative rights and there are those who espouse positive rights on the opposite side as well. A role for the state in economics? Neoliberals seek to “liberalize” trade restrictions and regulatory agencies. While socialists find the economic middle road of modern democrats to be as intolerable as their opponents. Is the left united in a belief in technocratic oligarchy? Then where does that leave the syndicalists, the anarchists, and the left-communitarians? On top of all this are the millions who call themselves leftists, progressives, and liberals who hold a patchwork collection of economic and political ideals. No single property in common between them, rather a collection of ideas we have come to call the left. Save, of course, for the fact that they are not the right. United in their opposition to the right, the culture of the right, and the thinkers of the right wing. Whole electoral campaigns waged on the single clarion call of being Not-Right.

This is not to say that all those on the right (or left) define themselves only in contrast to this Hegelian Other. Rather that it is the one single thing that can be appealed to universally amongst the various blocs that constitute a side of the political spectrum. Yet there are those who willingly and purposefully take up the banner of Not, whether it be out of a genuine quixotic zeal for the destruction of the other or as a tool to manipulate the electorate or just a path of easy success in political circles. They abandon any positive or prescriptive political philosophy in exchange for one that would be willing to accept any system so long as it’s not from the other side of the tracks. Don’t take my word for it, look at what a Not-Left pundit like Robert Stacey McCain says, “The simplest way to define conservatism is this: The belief that liberalism is wrong. To the extent that liberalism is a coherent political philosophy, the conservative defines himself negatively, as Not A Liberal.”

So what happens when you declare that there are no enemies on the right? Just take a look at the recent drama concerning conservative blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs. He is being attacked by others on the right for attacking others on the right. Johnson has written a series of posts denouncing conservative associations with neo-nazi and racist organizations and attacking poor arguments and ideas put forward by fellow right-wing bloggers. This is not to say there doesn’t exist legitimate criticisms of the man but those are not what has brought the controversy. Then there are those who rushed to the defense of the infamous World Net Daily when it was attacked by John Henke at The Next Right. Or what about RNC chairman Micheal Steele’s apology to provocateur Rush Limbaugh? And then there’s the ongoing schism concerning the birther movement. On top of Alex Jones, the John Birch Society, Tea Parties, Minutemen, etc, etc, etc.

This is not an isolated phenomena of the right but the left in this country has a history of rejecting anything left of FDR. Today all but one congressman crosses himself and spits when the “s word” is thrown at them. However the right is not only on speaking terms with their fringe but often take the stage with racists, conspiracy theorists, religious extremists, and honest to god lunatics. American liberals and progressives fall into any-democrat syndrome when it comes to election season but they also distance themselves from Code Pink, disown Marxists, and denounce the “internet left fringe“. So while the Not-Right is worrisome and vacuous the Not-Left is potentially dangerous.

Champions of Not can be distinguished from legitimate critics by their turgid sophomoric prose in their task of painting all those on the other side as dimwitted subhuman creatures deserving of pity, as long as they know their place. As illustrated in another fine example from R.S. McCain, “Any conservative who thinks that the Left is interested in a rational discussion of facts (whatever the facts may be) needs to wake the hell up“. The Not pundits leap to the criticism of their enemy and evisceration of their data using any means necessary, even using false data of their own. The political blogosphere is populated with sites devoted solely to reminding the faithful of the loathsomeness of their adversary and praise for any who do likewise. A fellow man of the left criticizes the Bush establishment while putting forth a proposal for abolishing prisons? Congratulate him and hound any who dare to criticise him. A fellow man of the right attacks a new Democrat immigration proposal and puts forth a racist eugenics tirade? Lit him up as a luminary and counter any criticisms by claiming they are simply using the race card as intimidation. Anyone but Obama, even if he’s a theocratic fascist. Anyone but Bush, even is he’s a spineless corporatist.

Many people have commented on the uselessness of the terms “left” and “right” in politics and they have a very good point. Being on the left just means you have beliefs that fall somewhere outside the right and vice-versa. If your a marxist then you have no reason to count the democratic party as an ally. If you are a libertarian then why would you stand up for theocrats? You are not on the same side, political philosophy is not a line but a polygon. It doesn’t matter that they share one of your beliefs, you have a vision for a better world and their other beliefs are standing in the way. Have at them. A nation that elects a party or politician based on their dislike of the other side isn’t going to support a positive vision for a new America, they’re going to support whoever can whip them up in the greatest frenzy. All this dueling dualism does is create a perpetual tug-of-war between two sets of demagogues as we’ve seen in the last few decades of american politics. People aren’t voting because they believe in the vision the democrats have for the future because there is no vision beyond beating the other guy. Barack Obama’s campaign was built around change, but not social change or deep political change but rather a change from the red side to the blue. A battle over colors rather than ideas.

“The old American mind-set that Richard Hofstadter famously called the paranoid style — the sense that Masons or the railroads or the Pope or the guys in black helicopters are in league to destroy the country — is aflame again, fanned from both right and left … No one has a better feeling for this mood, and no one exploits it as well, as Beck. He is the hottest thing in the political-rant racket, left or right.“

– David Von Drehl

Did Glenn Beck rape and murder a young girl in 1990? If not then why won’t he deny these allegations? I’m not accusing Glenn Beck of raping and murdering a young girl in 1990. In fact I don’t think he did but I can’t help but wonder in light of his failure to deny these horrible allegations. Why won’t he deny that he raped and killed a young girl in 1990?

If you are unfamiliar with this meme then I recommend the excellent Ars Technica article on the subject. However as this is a controversial subject it bears restating. Glen Beck is infamous for his inflammatory wording and antagonistic phrasing. A man who, if he could get away with it, would routinely ask politicians if they had stopped beating their wives. So to mock Beck’s histrionics someone adopted a routine that Gilbert Gottfried used at a roast of Bob Saget. The question is phrased intentionally and is reminiscent of Beck’s interview with congressman Keith Ellison. Beck asked the muslim representative to “prove to me that you are not working with our enemies“.

The author of the page says he is doing this to make a point about political demagoguery and it does just that. How many of you first read this “allegation” with shock at the potential reality of this claim or disgust with it’s author. A reaction to the claim formed almost instantly without any consideration, a purely emotional response. How many progressives read this as amusing satire or thought for a moment “I wouldn’t be surprised”? How man conservatives read this as an intellectually vacuous attack or immediately suspected this was an intentional falsehood by leftist groups? It excites the passions doesn’t it?

It was intended to and so are the performances of Beck, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Coulter, Malkin, et al. It’s agitprop, agitation and propaganda. On the one hand it’s a good five minute hate to get your blood up and make you feel righteous indignation. Damn good entertainment according to ratings. These pundits have more in common with John Stewart and the Weekend Update than Edward R. Murrow. Much of it is designed to attract ratings from the faithful who can join in the host’s staged catharsis and the opposition to tune in to see what new absurdity is on offer that night. Just consider how much traffic Michelle Malkin gets from Media Matters and Crooks and Liars. Robert Stacy McCain, himself a firebrand, offers a number of recommendations for getting a million hits to your blog including “make some enemies“. Being a provocateur gets you the ratings.

Except this agitating entertainment isn’t about a border dispute between Freedonia and Sylvania. It’s about real issues that effect people’s lives. So it’s  not only agitation but also propaganda in that it’s designed not only to attract a commercial audience but then get them to empathize with the performers hatred and make them hate the same things. The philosopher A.J. Ayer once categorized moral statements as those made “in a peculiar tone of horror, or written it with the addition of some special exclamation marks“. Which perfectly describes the routine of our modern pundit class. The word liberal emerges from their mouths dripping with venom. They mention opposition legislation with tears in their eyes. They are always ready with a neologism like obamanation” or their own condescending shibboleth like “the one“. Everything calculated to insults and denigrate rather than rebut and analyze

One wonders if these pundits take their inspiration from Schopenhauer’s 38 Ways to Win and Argument as they are concerned first and foremost with eliciting an purely emotional reaction to overwhelm and extinguish more deliberative inquiry. The pundit class doesn’t offer us round table discussions or dispassionate debates. They offer sack cloth and ashes presentations about the horror of a marginal tax increase. Rather than trying to argue a point they resort to smearing the other with comparisons to Nazism or Fascism. This is not conducive to finding compromise or discovering the optimal solution to a problem. These are the tactics of people who do not necessarily want their side to win but want the other side to lose at all costs. Just look at the support for conspiracy theories among the media pundits from Obama’s birth certificate to death panels and from red scares to the charge of “secret muslim“. Let’s look again at R.S. McCain where he defends the infamous World Net Daily from conservative critics because, as he says, “The simplest way to define conservatism is this: The belief that liberalism is wrong“. This is the nature of demagoguery. It is a way of thinking designed only to tear down that which it considers evil and embraces any willing to join in the attack. No understanding, no mutual respect, no viewing your enemy as another human being who also wants to see a better world. No demagoguery is not debate or deliberative discourse. It is an angry mob looking for more torches and more victims.

The thing about agitprop is that it is an effective, albeit far from rational, way to convince certain people of the rightness of your position without having a solid argument. From time to time I see people claim there are those who still think the mainstream media is never wrong  but I highly doubt there are many people left who actually believe so. No, agitprop appeals to people who are, at best, weekend warriors in politics. To people whose knowledge of political history is limited to their morning paper. It appeals to people who don’t think to challenge or admit their biases. It appeals to people who haven’t formulated a systemic way of looking at the world. There are far too many people who are moved to political conclusions by their emotions.I’m not saying these people are less intelligent, they simply are not thinking critically about politics. For many the realm of politics is the game of kings and land barons in ivory towers and they have better things to do with their time and energy than read some 19th century treatise on capitalism. I don’t necessarily blame them but we can do better as individuals and as a society. Or so I believe.

We have reason to value critical thinking and should always support it whenever possible and decrying these agitprop tactics is in fact the current cause du jour. Of course it’s not so simple as a few bloggers and journalists explaining that these people prey on emotion and our human reflex toward in-group loyalty. We are attempting to address a symptom. A symptom of a poor electorate. As I said, not every man has the time or ability to read Rawls and Burke but there is room for education in more effective decision making. Of course doing so won’t rid us of our pundit class. There will always be room for the passions to override our reason and it will always be an effective tool of whipping up sentiment amongst the converted but I think we can and should marginalize the power of these agents of outrage.

Our biggest obstacle though, to limiting the effect of these talking heads and raising the level of public debate, is that a good screaming match is far better for ratings than civil deliberation.

The one thing we know about torture is that it was never designed in the first place to get at the actual truth of anything; it was designed in the darkest days of human history to produce false confessions in order to annihilate political and religious dissidents. And that is how it always works: it gets confessions regardless of their accuracy.

–Andrew Sullivan

The newly revealed Inspector Generals Report (pdf) brings to light even more instances of physical and psychological torture of middle eastern terror suspect and deaths that resulted from said torture. These documents, which were unearthed by the efforts of human rights groups and the ACLU, have spurred Obama’s justice department into finally taking some action against these horrendous acts.

First let’s look at what these men are being subjected to. These men are those suspected, not convicted but suspected, of being a terrorist. Are being held without trial and without rights may or not be guilty of anything greater than being the wrong nationality in the wrong place. Some maliciously sold to the U.S. for a bounty. Some culturally forced into service by a fundamentalist community. Of course not all were innocent. These men are locked away in a remote prison uniformed, numbered, and dehumanized like all prisoners. Are then taken by burly soldiers black bagged and thrown into interrogation chambers. Imagine that if you can. Held with no knowledge of when you will be released, or executed, and many times without warning a bag is shoved down over your head and you are put into a cell not knowing what is going to happen.

Imagine that. This next part you don’t need to imagine because it’s been spelled out for you. After you’ve been forcefully stripped naked and stand in a cold cell with a bag over your head and a man enters and a drill begins to whir. He demands information that you may not even have to give him. The drill get’s closer. Every footstep he makes causes you flinch a little, preparing for the inevitable strike. You fear the worst. The drill gets close to your head. You can’t even hear his demands now over the whir of the bit. It never finds purchase though and you shudder a sigh of relief, or maybe you just break down and cry. Then you are dragged back to your cell to wait for it to all start again.

Maybe it’s not a drill next time. Maybe you’ll be beaten to death with a metal flashlight. You wouldn’t be the first. They might just waterboard you. Or choke you into unconsciousness. Be careful, if you are not properly deferential you will get a gun stock to the ribs. One of these foreign soldiers might put a gun to your head and pull the trigger. It’s not loaded, though there was no way you could have known that. Or scrape your skin with a hard brush, slam your head into a wall, hang you in a position that could dislocate your shoulders, freeze you, or any number of things.

If your lucky they won’t touch you. Instead they will lead you into a room, sit you down, and threaten to rape your mother, or sister, or wife right there in front of you. While setting there being pressed for information that you may not even have you might hear screams and gunshots coming from the next interrogation chamber and when you walk out you see another detainee lying there dead, or at least what appears to you like another detainee.

After all this we are told that these professional torturers should be lauded as heroes that keep us safe. Because that’s worked so well every other time that’s been done in history. If you read the descriptions of what was done to these men, guilty or not, and you’re response is to say, as one commenter at politico did,

These animals killed 3000 and we’re worried about a gunshot next door? What a joke.

Then I have to ask whether you have any moral compass whatsoever. I think the phrase “these animals” tells us everything we need to know. It’s an embrace of the worst kind of elitism, that which says it’s acceptable to kill these people, to terrorize them, to mistreat them. Why? Because they are just “these animals”. Not fellow human beings like you or me who are entitled to the same respect and presumption of innocence. If you really believe in equal rights for all humans then those rights must be applied even to these men. If you cherish your own access to due process and fair treatment but want to deny these men those same rights then you don’t believe in human rights. To even attempt to segregate out a segment of the human race as moral inferiors is to invite conundrum.

So what can we say to justify this treatment? You might say that these are criminals and deserve harsh punishment. The first problem is that these men are imprisoned without a trial so their guilt or innocence is often left undetermined. Many confess later on, under torture but there is a reason that such confessions are not accepted in any civilian court in the west. However we have rules to deal with criminals. Foreign nationals who commit crimes and extradited are still treated with the same protections as Americans. Prisoners of war must be treated humanely and justly under well established international laws. These men are classified as “enemy combatants” a recently invented designation that allows them to be treated however the administration chooses despite that the court has ruled that certain articles of the geneva convention do, in fact, apply to these detainees. This is why there is a push to have the rule of law enforced.

What about those that are guilty, not only guilty of waging what they believe to be a war against a foreign occupation but those that orchestrate terroistic tactics, those that bomb, and those that torture and kill? It’s a common thing to hear people say these men have forfeited their rights. But are they any less human? If they are deranged sociopaths then we should lock them up in hospitals and treat them not torture them. If they were then torture would not be the least bit effective as their minds would be significantly different than a normal person.

So let’s assume that these people are legally sane but have done things we find morally repellent and a danger to the livelihood of our citizens. We have good reason to imprison them and attempt to deter future crime. We have good reason to question them. However what makes us believe that it’s alright to treat them so? Most formulations of such a justification are centered around disgust. Sheer anger at what these men may have done. They want to see them punished, they lose their empathy for them because of their crimes and the mental image of atrocities done by similar men. Disgust and anger is not a good metric for deciding on how we institutionally treat fellow human beings. Our institutions are meant to view each case on it’s own merits without sentiment or attachment. It may not achieve this objectiveness as often as it should but I see no reason why we shouldn’t strive for this higher standard in all instances.

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

– Thom Paine

We imprison convicted criminals and enemy soldiers to keep them from doing further harm to society and to modify their future behavior. However even in prisons we ought (though sadly often don’t but that’s another post) to treat them as people who made mistakes and are punished. Instead of treating them like depraved subhuman creatures incapable of reforming or living in a civilized society that must be caged and subjected to Pavlovian conditioning. Our history is filled with prisons like this that lock away “undesirables” in abject conditions where they cease being treated as humans but animals. How far apart is the idea of torturing terrorists for information in the war on terror to torturing gang members for information in the war on crime or drugs? What is the moral difference between an American white youth in a bad neighborhood and a twelve year old Pakistani youth in Afghanistan? How can you say that it is just and right to imprison one without trial and not the other? By what basis do you say that it is moral and just to torture one and not the other?

This attitude of viewing criminals as less than deserving of the dignity they denied their victims devalues the very things we are trying to preserve with that law. It simply breeds more criminality and more social unrest. If you weren’t filled with hared toward the U.S. before you were, possibly erroneously, imprisoned without trial and tortured you certainly will be by the time you are released.

The next most common argument for torturing our prisoners is that it somehow keeps us safe. Even Dick Cheney, the man who many believe was behind our torture policies, has said that torturing these prisoners has saved us from 24-esque villainous plots. Not only has torture never been an effective source of intelligence but his claims are not vindicated by the facts. Torture does produce confessions, just ask worked on John McCain who, after having been tortured, recorded a “confession” to war crimes. There is a reason though, that no civilian court accepts these forced confessions.Torture simply doesn’t work. There is this pop culture image of the ticking time bomb but these scenarios aren’t close to the reality of our implementation of torture.

Torture doesn’t provide reliable information, it doesn’t deter future acts of terrorism, it doesn’t separate the guilty from the innocent, it treats prisoners like irredeemable animals rather than men, it’s born out of a primeval need for retribution, it’s subjective and capricious, and it is antithetical to civilized justice. All men should have a chance to fight for their innocence. They should be free from capricious cruelty, they should be judged only on what they have done and not on what they might do or who they associate with, or what religion they follow. They should be treated like fellow human beings. If, in the end, we embrace savagery and barbarism as tools to achieve a political end then how are we any better than our enemies? If this is a battle of civilizations then how can casting aside our principles be a winning strategy. If we win only by casting off everything that is worth defending then in the end we’ve lost.

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.

– Nietzsche

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.

– George Orwell

It started with a group of protestors shouting down an elected representative as they were trying to discuss why they supported Obama’s current healthcare bill. From there the meme spread like wildfire through popular media. Well meaning people, the lunatic fringe, professional political groups with morally suspect funding, and those caught up in the mix have been descending on town halls across the country. So the democrats and progressive groups have mobilized an effort to counter them. A country of often irrational partisanism meeting in cramped town halls with raised voices. Violence was, perhaps, inevitable.

So how have the pundit class responded to this surge in protest tactics from the right? Their bread and butter has always been overgeneralization and tribalism and what a marvelous opportunity to paint their opponents with a broad bloody brush. You can’t step two links out into the right-wing blogosphere without encountering the words “union thugs”. While the liberal-sphere’s allegations have been dismissive of the genuine emotions harnessed by right-wing groups to fuel the protests. Both of them fighting for an edge in the popular narrative but I can’t help but notice one of these things is not like the other. Though admittedly leading democrats have been trying hard to fit their foots into their mouths.

Conservatives could have defused the situation at day one by simply saying those protestors shouting down the opposition were behaving rudely and undemocratically. From that point on nothing that was done at these protests could be used as ammo. Instead legions of right-wing twitterers have slapped “I Am The Mob” onto their avatars scaring the hell out of people all too familiar with political extremism through the ages. Democratic candidates distance themselves from eco-extremists and the anti-capitalist left while Republicans embrace racialist groups and John Birchers. American conservatives have always been more adept at cultivating popular rhetoric through fomenting disgust and disillusionment, perhaps because of their close association with their own fringe.

It’s tempting to say, with a wink, that the right has discovered, or rediscovered, protesting. Of course the right has a long history of protesting. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that America has a long history of reactionary protest. For every major, and a great deal of minor, changes in America there is always a contingent vocally opposed to it. So these protests against a radical change in this country’s healthcare are not a unique or sui generis phenomena. Nor are they, by themselves, evidence of widespread disapproval against it as some have taken to treating them to be. Protests like this can exist independent of general opinion.

This new “wave” of political violence isn’t mainstream just yet. There are always extremists, radicals, malcontents and little tyrants in every movement and ideology. It, as they say, takes all kinds. So I don’t think the actions surrounding these town halls are proof of a new stage in the devolution of american political discourse. This is not to say that there hasn’t been a growing radicalism in right wing politics over the the past decade or so just that I don’t see these protests as a turning point but an all too foreseeable outbreak.. These might be the preliminary moments of a turn for the worst in the way we as a country approach politics but at this stage I’m skeptical.

Why shout down your opponents? Often it’s a tactic used out of desperation or an emotional reaction but what else could it be? Do those who use this tactic feel the speaker is somehow illegitamite? That they have some ulterior motive? If so then it’s just a case of over enthusiastic bulverism which fails to account for the well intentioned man on the street who supports the policy.  Perhaps it’s a basic disrespect for those speaking as if all those who disagree or hold a certain ideology are not worth talking to. That would fall in line with what some conservatives say and the demonization popular amongst pundits. Maybe it’s a true conviction that the opposition is evil and is to be defeated at all costs. It’s that kind of thinking that frightens me the most.

It could be the barbaric side of realpolitik that treats policy engagements as the evolutionary replacement for pitch battles. Through such a view there are may be no standards of decorum or rationality in politics, only being about who can rattle their sabers the loudest and scare the populace the most. The kind of empty headed loud mouthed rhetoric that dominates the pundit class. In the end it’s like a mix of all the above but none of them strike me as particularly convincing justifications for their strategy.

In the end I think these protests are now mostly a mixture of true grass roots sentiment whose flame is being fanned by well funded political groups. Like any form of  direct political activism it tends to attract extremists. We should denounce these extremists everywhere we see them if we believe in open discourse but should be careful to seperate the legitimate arguments from extremist antics. I think there is a great deal of absurdity in the arguments against public healthcare in general and that those with the loudest voices are often not the brightest lights. However I doubt the efficacy of these tactics. While a great tool to energize the conservative base and attracting media attention to their message it strikes me as, ultimately, meaningless to the larger forces that will decide the fate of healthcare in America.

Or maybe I’m just overly optimistic.

“I’m not against the police; I’m just afraid of them.”
– Alfred Hitchcock

As everyone and their neighbor already knows Harvard professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. was arrested for disturbing the peace. The particulars surrounding the incident and the perspectives of both the professor and the officer have been widely documented so I won’t rehash the details here.

It’s very easy to read racism into the event. It was a white officer who arrested a black man under suspect conditions. Those factors are all too familiar to those who have been exposed to racism from the police. However I don’t think this particular incident was specifically a racist one. The neighbor who called the police made no mention of race (by her own account, though 9-1-1 tapes have yet to be released as of the writing of this post), the officer in question taught classes concerning racial sensitivities and racial profiling, and there doesn’t seem to have been any racist language used by the officer. So I doubt that the officer was motivated by racism.

However I can certainly understand Gates’ reaction. A white man arrived at his home uninvited and demanded that he exit his home and present proof of his identity. Anyone would be taken aback. But Gates was perhaps too familiar with tales of police racism and he reacted. Some have made outrageous claims about Gates’ motive but I think that it’s unimportant. Imagine if instead of an African-American scholar it was a vocal anarchist who reacted loudly and rudely to the officer. Either way the officer’s actions were uncalled for.

The crime that Gates’ was initially charged with, before the charges were dropped, was disorderly conduct. However the only crime that can be divined from any of the accounts offered is “contempt of cop“. He was arrested after shouting at the police officer, claiming that the officer’s actions were racist, and possibly insulting the officer. All of which are protected speech. Nothing Gates did was expressly against the law.

I believe Lawrence O’Donnell, writing for Time magazine, categorized it best when he wrote:

Gates: You’re not the boss of me!
Crowley: I am the boss of you.
Gates: You are not the boss of me!
Crowley: I’ll show you. You’re under arrest.

Yet some, almost exclusively from the right , have taken the view that Crowley’s actions were perfetly justified. Some have said that Gates “deserved it”, or that one should “never talk back to the police”. An LAPD officer writing at the National Review under the pseudonym Jack Dunphy says, “And you, if in asserting your constitutional right to be free from unlawful search and seizure fail to do as the officer asks, run the risk of having such holes placed in your own [hide].”

As Radley Balko writing in Reason magazine said, “too many conservatives took the instinctively authoritarian tack“. There exists a view that the police are a moral authority that should not be questioned. Policeman are however, men, and they are men who willing to take on a job that is based on exerting control over fellow human beings. Every duty they perform is an opportunity for abuse of their power. Balko’s article gives many examples of police misconduct and it’s easy to find anecdotal accounts online of those who were unfairly treated by the police. Police should be criticized and should be questioned because power ought to be scrutinized.

I don’t think there was racism involved. However I think that arresting a man for simply being rude to a police officer should never be a crime. This is not a case anywhere near as heinous as the Oscar Grant shooting or other recent tragedies of police misconduct but it is a disturbing glimpse into how people view the police and the power of police authority. It is, as has been said, a teaching moment. I think the lesson to learn is that the police power is something we should all be weary of.

It seems that the catalyst for the discussion being brought to the forefront in the national media is the footage of an angry woman questioning Congressman Castle of Delaware, at a town hall meeting, about why Congress had accepted Obama’s birth certificate, since he is actually a citizen of Kenya. This unleashes a fury of angry support and boos for the Congressman when he attempts to factually state the President is an American citizen. See the CNN story.

It is not only in Delaware that the lunacy exists. Alan Keyes (who apparently has still not gotten over being soundly beaten by Obama in Illinois) has filed yet another lawsuit to challenge the birth certificate. World Net Daily is selling signs and postcards to promote this idea and asking for donations to a national billboard campaign. A group of Republican congressman are beginning the push for legislation requiring Presidents to provide a birth certificate. Members of Congress from Alabama, Florida and Texas have all made comments questioning either the presence or veracity of a birth certificate. Plus, of course, conservative talk radio and the conservative blogosphere are filled to overflowing with the viscous, slimy ooze of this story.

So what are the specific complaints of those claiming Obama is not an American? Two things primarily. One is their repeated claim that the Constitution requires that both parents of a President had to be American born. Article 2, section 1.5 lays out the requirement clearly, “No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

The constitution contains nothing about the parents of a President, whether they be born in England or Kenya. The founders apparently didn’t care as much about America as the modern nutjob conservatives. The other repeated rant is that Obama has never shown his original birth certificate and should do so publicly to lay the turmoil to rest. The campaign did produce an official Hawaii-issued birth certificate before the election. It has been closely examined and one can see the raised seal from the notary. However, since this is not the original birth certificate, the conspiracists claim it must be a fake.

Having been in a position that required me to produce an official copy of a birth certificate which was actually certified by the state and later notarized by the US Secretary of State’s office, I can tell you first hand that a birth certificate on a new piece of paper is just as valid as one on an old piece of paper. In any event, those who believe in this nonsense will continue to do so even if every possible form of paper evidence were released. Once true believers accept something as fact, no amount of evidence can change their minds. I guess two thousand years of Christianity has taught us something after all.

Plus, what other President has ever been asked to prove their legitimacy by publicly showing the original copy of their birth certificate? None that I know of. Whether this is being driven by dislike for the color of his skin, the sound of his last name, the direction of his politics, or the fact that he doesn’t say he loves Jesus at every public appearance, it is stupid, unnecessary and reveals the backward and ignorant quality of too many of America’s natural born morons.

I am tempted to say “get over it,” but I know these people do not have that capacity. For getting over it would require the ability to examine evidence and reach rational conclusions based on that evidence. However, hysteria is all they’ve got.