Like the current hysteria over Facebook’s so-called threat to privacy, teeth gnashing over information sharing on social networks has often bespoken a nonsensical understanding of “privacy.”

The best definition of privacy, which comports with how most people use the term, comes from Merriam-Webster: “freedom from unauthorized intrusion”. If Internet users enjoy sharing more personal details with more people than in the past, as Zuckerberg claims, that hardly portends the “end of privacy.” It might herald a rise of exhibitionism with a concomitant ascendance of voyeurism, but these do not entail involuntary revelation of secrets.

Tweeting one’s boredom waiting for a flight at the airport doesn’t force him to tell of his anticipation of joining the Mile High Club or of his arrest upon landing for public indecency. He can choose what to share or not, and with whom to share it.

That’s why even discreet introverts like me needn’t fear Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or other social networking tools. On my Facebook privacy settings, I’ve toggled almost all visibility settings to “only friends” and disallowed public search engines from indexing my profile page. I still let other Facebook users search for me, but I could forbid that if I chose. On Twitter, even though I opt not to shield my tweets from public view, I could if I wished. And on both Facebook and Twitter, I resist sharing sordid personal trivia.

Individual users have ultimate responsibility for protecting their information from eyes they don’t want seeing it, as I have done. Some privacy hawks complain the default privacy settings of sites like Facebook are too open. But prudence demands users ensure beforehand their intended audiences are the recipients of their digital detritus.

If people inadvertently overshare because they couldn’t bother to check their settings first, that demonstrates more an epidemic of laziness than a crisis in privacy. (Not knowing how to verify privacy settings indicates unwillingness to learn about an application before using it, which to me qualifies as laziness.) And, if people decide to reveal embarrassing situations and later regret doing so, the fault is their own. Facebook, Twitter, and their kin can’t make their denizens act wisely.

Casting such banalities as invasions of privacy trivializes the concept.

When governments around the world pry into our lives by any means necessary, so diffusing the meaning of privacy could damage the cause of maintaining it. How fiercely would the populace hold onto “privacy” if it consists of preventing Mr. Frat Boy from carelessly telling the world about his drunken vomit-fest on Facebook?

I agree with social networking cynics that we must defend privacy at all costs. Toward that end, let’s remember to what privacy genuinely refers: “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” (to borrow from the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution).

Robust social networking such as on Facebook could help protect the essence of privacy. As Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute notes, the most easily accessible information about people online usually takes the form of their own “[b]logs, Facebook or MySpace profiles, Twitter accounts, Last.fm pages, YouTube channels”. What we want the world to know about us, Sanchez says, is shoving aside potentially ugly or invasive chatter from others. So we can be our own public relations managers, wielding a potent arsenal to keep secure information we might not want everyone to know.

All this looking under the bed to slay the bogeyman of Facebook’s threat to privacy, however, distracts from how profoundly social networking facilitates human communication. Whereas, yes, this greater interconnectivity allows vapid effusions to travel at lightspeed onto our TweetDecks, it also lets friends and family who might be thousands of miles apart keep up with each other’s lives more easily than ever before. It provides distressed individuals an avenue to seek comfort they otherwise mightn’t know how to get. It simplifies the organization of aid to worthy causes, such as relief for victims of the earthquake in Haiti. It exposes the wrongdoing of authorities. Most famously, it has nurtured the Green Revolution that is agitating against Iran’s brutal theocracy.

I remember when people did not write blogs, upload YouTube videos, send tweets, or have Facebook profiles. Without such constant flow of ideas, stories, and news, the Internet felt more isolating and drab. Mark Zuckerberg and his peers are fulfilling the Internet’s promise as an “information superhighway,” which implies traffic zooming in both directions. I do not fear but embrace Zuckerberg’s world, and I look forward to seeing where it takes us next.

Facebook: slaying the privacy bogeyman is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

That said, religion wasn’t drilled into my head week after week. I believed in God because seemingly everyone else did. But—aside from the aforementioned events spread across years, a few references my family made to the evil of atheism, and a sense that religion was “good” and lack of it was “bad”—my Christian belief was scarcely reinforced. My family rarely talked about religion, went to church, or said grace. We had a Bible, but it was usually tucked away somewhere like an old and forgotten book. I don’t recall seeing anyone reading it. Little did I know of its details.

Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson's popular, and violent, depiction of him

That remained the case for years of my childhood. Through that time, my belief waxed and waned as I wrestled with doubts about God’s existence. After all, I had seen neither hide nor hair of God or Jesus. Prayer seemed neither meaningful nor effective. The most significant relationship I had with the divine was looking at the crucifix on my wall as I lied in my bed. (Contemplate how some Christians complain often about violence in the media, but society thinks little of exposing children to the imagery of a suffering man nailed to a cross and on his way to a painful death. The cognitive dissonance at work is astounding.)

I held onto my belief, though, especially after I perused a religious text I found laying around the house saying anyone who didn’t believe in God was bound for hell. I was terrified! I remember literally telling myself, I do believe in God, I do believe in God, I do believe in God. I was scared that I wasn’t thinking the truth, but I impressed on myself the need to believe in God. I didn’t want to go to hell, and I wanted to be a good person.

I didn’t really start reading the Bible until after I’d gone to school for a while and learned a bit about history and science. What I encountered astonished me: Evaluating the Bible for myself, I found it to be a self-contradictory mess of anti-scientific rambling and bloodthirsty evil. I couldn’t square the Genesis Creation with science. I couldn’t accept God’s psychotic jealousy in such stories as that of the Golden Calf. I thought narratives such as that of the Garden of Eden, the Great Flood, and the Burning Bush resembled fairy tales.

The massacre of Golden Calf worshippers is one of the most sickening episodes in the Bible.

Delving into the Bible placed on life support whatever pretense I had that I believed in God. The pretense died as I learned more about religions across the world now and historically, many of them claiming to be the one true religion and all of them featuring elements just as fantastical as the Bible. On what basis could I believe Christianity right and other religions wrong? None. What support did the world’s religions have other than the say-so of their followers? None.

In my early years of high school, as I discovered more about sociopolitical groupings, I called myself an agnostic. I believed myself to be a reasonable person, and whereas I did not believe in God, I thought humanity wasn’t in a position to rule out God, either. I continued thinking of myself as an agnostic until I was in college.

The summer after my freshman year, I read Atheism: The Case Against God by George Smith, a former editor of Reason magazine. I found these to be the most important points it made:

• “Atheism” denotes lack of belief in God. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary will disagree, but dissect the word: “a-,” meaning “without,” and “theism.” Also, check out the etymology on the dictionary page: “Middle French athéisme, from athée atheist, from Greek atheos godless, from a- + theos god.” The earliest historical root of the word means “without god.” Representing theism and atheism with the logical symbols I learned in my Logic class the second half of my freshman year, theism would be T and atheism would be ~T.
• Agnostics who lack belief in God, ergo, would more properly be labeled atheists.
• Since atheism doesn’t claim anything, it has no need to prove anything. The burden of proof is on the theist, the religious person, who is making the positive assertion. Logically, as with all positive assertions, the theist must show the locus of his devotion exists.
• Since the concept of God as presented is inconsistent and illogical, we can safely conclude God does not exist. We don’t need to know anything beyond the scope of our universe to make this conclusion; pure reason rules out God, as much as it does a square circle. Whatever might exist beyond the scope of human comprehension, it cannot comport with the human God concept. (That should be tautological.)
• Faith is no foundation on which to believe anything. Because faith eschews evidence, it can’t distinguish fact from fiction. Therefore, one can’t claim it’s a path to knowledge. Believing something on faith is simply believing something because one wants to do so. Some people might be okay with that, but that doesn’t change faith’s opposition to reason. Faith and reason are mutually exclusive. (A person can indulge faith and exercise reason, but not at the same time.)

I had no problem calling myself an atheist after I’d read Smith’s book.

Cementing my atheism were a talk given by Michael Shermer and two books from Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion and The Blind Watchmaker. They demolished arguments for intelligent design such as irreducible complexity. I liked Dawkins’s quip that God would assuredly be much more complex than anything intelligent design advocates falsely point to as examples of “irreducible complexity,” so the creator concept introduces more explanatory problems than it solves and demonstrates the inconsistency of “intelligent design” to boot. If the idea that the eye could have arisen without a designer strains credulity, would not God as well, to an even greater degree?

In addition, Dawkins’s criticisms of the arguments of those who call themselves agnostics struck me. Agnosticism is a reasonable position when contentions in play are roughly equiprobable. The answers to the question of whether a creator exists, however, are not equiprobable. The existence of a creator is quite improbable, since we have no evidence of supernatural forces, the universe appears evolved rather than designed, and our notions of a creator are illogical and self-contradictory, anyway.

That takes us to the past couple years, wherein my views have remained largely unchanged.

So, when left to decide matters of faith for myself without indoctrination or pushing, I eventually became a solid atheist. Contrary to what many religious believers would seem to think, though, I don’t think I have a grasp on absolute truth.

The same observation and reason that backstops my atheism says human beings are very limited creatures with very finite knowledge; none of them could know absolute truth. Claiming to do so would bespeak too literal an interpretation of Nietzsche’s advice to be one’s own god, since only a god could claim understanding of absolute truth. Such a claim would exude an irrational faith in one’s own rightness. I say faith because science tells us we lack the intellectual capacity that would make such righteousness rational.

I believe the stipulations of reason and the rules of logic point to atheism. And I believe superstition, not rationality, buttresses religion. But, as my choice of verb indicates, I’m under no delusion these are anything but beliefs. And I respect people, even friends, who don’t share my beliefs.

After all, I once supported the Iraq war. The outcome of that fiasco was the ultimate lesson in humility. I shall not wag my finger at what I perceive to be irrationality in others when I’m capable of irrationality myself. And I always try to keep an open mind; that doesn’t entail lacking firm beliefs, but keeping in mind they might, under circumstances I cannot presently foresee and consider unlikely, change someday.

Watch these

(Hypersyllogistic Forums thread discussing the above video.)

Losing my religion is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

(This blog entry is a reply to the horrid piece “The blood-stained century of evolution.”)

This article has numerous problems.

First, it engages in the logical fallacy appeal to consequences. Any consequences of a proposition, be they good or ill, have no impact on whether the proposition is true or false.

Second, throughout most of human history, religion has sought totalitarian control over everyone’s beliefs, thoughts, and actions. Within a religion’s dominion, whoever did not submit to the religious authorities faced torture and death. Whomever lived outside religious authorities’ control, these authorities often tried to convert through conquest. Few places on Earth have been free of the misery, oppression, and warfare that has resulted. The histories of Europe and Asia are particularly riven with suffering and bloodshed stemming from heretical dissent, sectarian rivalry, and interfaith hatred. If religion hasn’t quite achieved the body count of Nazism and Communism, the only reason is that religious police and faithful combatants didn’t have remote surveillance, gas chambers, machine guns, warplanes, battleships, tanks, missiles, and nukes.

Third, as a corollary to the above point, no ideological construct in human history has done more than religion to divide people into opposing groups, most of which believed they were the favored of God and hated the other groups. For example, Christians and Muslims hated Jews for centuries, the Christians because they nonsensically held Jews responsible for Christ’s death, the Muslims because a group of Jews supposedly thought Mohammed was a charlatan when he told them God was communicating with him. The Nazis didn’t invent the anti-Semitic hatred that drove the Holocaust; it was an ancient though still vibrant relic of religion.

Fourth, whereas some individual clergymen bravely resisted the Nazis, the Catholic Church as a political institution supported fascism around the world and collaborated with the Nazis, even to the extent of revealing files to them to help them determine who was sufficiently “pure” to avoid the gas chambers (and who was not). Many Protestant churches also cooperated with the Nazis. And, in Russia, the Orthodox Church served as a puppet of the state instead of resisting. And, of course, in both Germany and Russia, most people were Christians of one kind or another. Even Adolf Hitler was a member of the Catholic Church in good standing, although he made embellishments to the Christian mythos. And Joseph Stalin, even though he became an atheist, had trained as a monk; I guess extensive religious teaching didn’t dampen his homicidal tendencies.

Fifth, to the extent that the Nazis and the Communists did aim to supplant religion, the replacement was another kind of unreasoning faith: worship of an all-encompassing state. The totalitarianism that flowed from that had nothing to do with unshackling man’s reason or Darwinian evolution by natural selection, but with squashing them.

Sixth, the article mischaracterizes Darwin’s work. Darwin was a scientist who merely studied life and recorded what he found. “Might makes right” and other such drivel has nothing to do with Darwin or with evolution, which just concerns inheritance of traits through successive generations and fitness for particular environments. I must note, though, “might makes right” adeptly describes much of religious ideology and history. Think of the admonitions in many religious texts that if the will of a particular deity isn’t followed, divine and earthly punishment will ensue.

Seventh, I disagree with the article about the implications of abandoning God and embracing evolution. As I’ve written before, God is not an alternative to man’s will but rather a vessel into which man pours his will and hopes to escape responsibility for it. The erosion of the God concept doesn’t mean an ill-equipped humanity starts making moral decisions; humanity has done that all along. But society might become more self-reflective and willing to deal with its flaws without a divine scapegoat for them.

Also, I think realizing that man is only another animal that evolved over billions of years from microscopic life, and that genetics shreds arbitrary notions of “race” while confirming everyone’s unqualified and equal membership in the human species, would encourage treatment of the planet and each other with more humility and respect than religion has engendered. In that regard, Darwinian evolution isn’t divisive but unifying.

(C/P: Boston Atheists)

Addendum: Far from admiring Darwin, the Nazis banned Darwinist work. Why would the Nazis have forbidden books in a discipline they supposedly admired?

Rebutting “The blood-stained century of evolution” is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Now everyone can have his privacy violated by the Huffington Post.

The Huffington Post has put up a feature it calls “Fundrace,” which allows users to search by address, city, name, occupation, or employer to find out who has made campaign donations of $200 or more, of which federal law requires public disclosure. On a whim, I did a vanity search for my name, even though I had only contributed $100 to the Ron Paul campaign.

Of course, I wasn’t in the results, but someone else who shares my name was: Jason Vines, vice president of corporate communications at Chrysler. Apparently, he has given $2,300 to the Mitt Romney campaign so far.

Whereas I find humorous the appalling political tastes of my alter ego, I also feel horror at the idea anyone on the Internet can discover the political activities of people who have donated as little as $200 to a candidate. The heretofore-mentioned federal campaign finance disclosure laws—which bear the understandable intent of revealing the machinations of special interests—have now facilitated violations of privacy for millions of Americans.

The Huffington Post admits such is its goal with its Fundrace mission statement:

Want to know if a celebrity is playing both sides of the fence? Whether that new guy you’re seeing is actually a Republican or just dresses like one? If your boss maxed out at that fundraiser or got comped? Whether your neighbor’s political involvement stops at that hideous lawn sign?

Thanks to efforts like those of the Huffington Post, one can no longer act politically on his beliefs—the sacred birthright of every American—and then keep his opinions private if he wishes to do so. Consequently, just for exercising his political liberties, he risks alienation from his friends, scorn of his family, termination of his employment, revenge from his candidate’s opponents, and retribution of more severe character. I wish that were an exaggeration, but “Angry in America” from U.S. News & World Report describes the relationship-breaking, rage-inducing hatred that can ensue from different political views even amongst ordinary people.

Inevitably, common knowledge of who supports which politicians will discourage Americans from backing the candidates of their choice. In the name of political decency, federal disclosure laws are demolishing the foundation of our political culture, the First Amendment, as well as undermining the mechanism of our electoral process, the secret ballot. (Does no one remember why states implemented the secret ballot in the first place?)

Of course, Congress could increase the monetary threshold beyond which campaigns would have to report donations and their sources. That way, the privacy of normal Americans donating a few hundred dollars would be safe. But equality before the law, the bedrock of freedom itself, demands legislation embody neither special restriction nor special treatment for any group of Americans. So, wealthy citizens deserve as much protection of their constitutional rights as everyone else does.

To preserve Americans’ privacy and liberty, then, campaign finance disclosure laws should be altogether eliminated. That would destroy “peeping tom” sites like Huffington Post’s Fundrace, letting everyone feel safe in the knowledge their political beliefs won’t land them in trouble.

Say goodbye to political privacy is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Primates demonstrate empathy similar to that of humans.

David Hume said humans, in observing pain, experience that pain, too. Therefore, we want to alleviate the pain of other people, to ameliorate the suffering it causes within us. This empathy for our fellow humans constitutes the basis for treating them decently.

Hume’s best friend Adam Smith, in his 1759 work The Theory of Moral Sentiments, agreed that instinctual empathy helped birth human morality. He wrote:

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner.

Observations of modern primates, which are likely quite similar to the ancestors of human beings, lend credence to the moral notions of Hume and Smith. As The New York Times reports in “Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior” (courtesy of Bondo on his blog):

Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days.

Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality. They further believe that if morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution, it is for biologists, not philosophers or theologians, to say what these rules are. [The reporter is likely oversimplifying here, as journalists tend to do...]

…

Many philosophers find it hard to think of animals as moral beings, and indeed Dr. de Waal does not contend that even chimpanzees possess morality. But he argues that human morality would be impossible without certain emotional building blocks that are clearly at work in chimp and monkey societies.

Research on the brains of humans and primates further supports the idea of innate empathy. In his most recent book, The Mind of the Market, Michael Shermer describes the latest scientific endeavors in this area.

According to findings Shermer cites, motor neurons known as “mirror neurons” comprise the foundation of human empathy. Giacomo Rizolatti discovered mirror neurons while experimenting with monkeys in the late 1980’s. Since then, scientists have found mirror neurons in humans as well.

Brain regions with mirror neurons light up when undertaking or experiencing an action but also while observing the action. And different neurons fire depending on the intent of the action, e.g., seeing one bring an apple to a cup or his mouth. If an intention is not evident—if an action has no context—then the mirror neuron network doesn’t fire as intensely. (Autistic children possess a malfunctioning mirror neuron network, which prevents them from assigning meaning to the actions of others, which then hampers their own behavioral responses.)

Furthermore, Christian Keysers and Bruno Wicker scanned the brains of test subjects as they experienced a disgusting odor and a video of someone making a face of disgust. These two scenarios—feeling disgust and watching disgust—both inspired the same brain activity. Also, these scientists found being touched in the leg and watching someone being touched in the same spot triggered congruent brain action.

Additionally, Jorge Moll discovered that charitable acts trigger the “reward” area of the brain that getting paid does. Essentially, charity gives people the same kind of emotional satisfaction as payment.

Of course, whatever natural impulses humans might have to do good, they still kill and hurt each other on occasion. But, considering the billions of humans on this planet, such antisocial behavior actually is rare. For every bad act we see on the news, millions of good acts have transpired that the media doesn’t deign to cover. (And why would it do so? “News” encompasses the unusual! The media has no reason to highlight what most people experience every day.)

As James Madison, a contemporary of Hume and Smith, suggested, men aren’t angels. But we aren’t devils, either.

Neuropsychology illuminates roots of human ethics is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

The Washington Post considers that possibility in an article a few months before the 2006 elections, noting Burns was running even with Democratic challenger John Tester in the polls despite Burns’s favors for Abramoff. Senator Charles Schumer, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, agrees in the article that scandal was not the preeminent issue for many afflicted politicians in 2006, but part of a larger tapestry of voter considerations.⁵

Scholarly research and analysis of elections in general supports Schumer’s notion scandal will not necessarily dominate elections in which it is a factor. But scandal still emerges as a significant influence on electoral outcomes, even if that might not be obvious from the 2006 campaign season.

Monica Bauer and John R. Hibbing find most incumbents who lose do so because of redistricting or scandal.⁶ The Watergate scandal of the 1970’s bore an especially potent impact on elections: Forty percent of all the incumbents in the 1970’s who achieved impressive victories one year and then lost two years later, won in 1972 and lost in 1974.⁷ Of course, Watergate constitutes the most serious instance of corruption in American history, having threatened the integrity of the electoral process and forced a President of the United States to resign. Influence peddling or sexual immorality scandals appear middling in comparison. The effects of Watergate, however, support the concept scandals that are serious enough can influence elections.

Research from Alan I. Abramowitz on the House of Representatives and the Senate further demonstrates the effects of scandal on electoral outcomes. Regarding the Senate, Abramowitz maintains senators at whom he looked who experienced scandals lost considerable voter support. And four of the five senators in his analysis who allegedly broke the law failed to achieve reelection.⁸ As for the House, Abramowitz says of the six incumbents who lost in 1988, three had done so because of scandals.⁹

Peering more deeply into how scandal affects electoral outcomes, John G. Peters and Susan Welch examine House elections from 1968 to 1978.¹⁰ They assess how much different kinds of scandal—“bribery, conflict of interest, campaign violations, morals charges, abuse of congressional prerogatives, crimes not covered by one of these five categories, and a residual ‘other’ category, acts not punishable as crimes but not fitting into the other categories”¹¹—befall politicians and spark “electoral retribution” from voters.¹² Of the scandal categories, campaign violations rank as most frequent, comprising one-third of the scandals in the Peters and Welch study. Conflict of interest, bribery, and then “other crimes” follow with 42 percent of the scandals. Ten percent of the scandals revolved around abuse of congressional prerogatives. Morals charges and the other category take the remaining 15 percent.¹³

Peters and Welch discover electoral retribution usually ranges from 6 to 11 percent of the anticipated vote.¹⁴ The amount varies for different types of scandal. Morals charges bring the worst losses of votes, and then bribery comes next. Electoral retribution also ensues for abuse of congressional prerogatives, “other crimes,” and campaign violations. Apparently, though, voters do not care enough about conflict of interest to exact retribution; Peters and Welch speculate voter expectation of such behavior in politicians might explain this.¹⁵

Incumbency advantage does not prevent electoral retribution to any degree. Seniority does not decrease the voter losses that accrue from a scandal.¹⁶ Furthermore, politicians from both the Republican and the Democratic Parties lose votes as a consequence of scandal.¹⁷

How much does all this impact scandal-ridden politicians’ chances of remaining in office? Not much, the answer might seem at first glance of Peters and Welch’s data. Seventy-five percent of candidates who ran in general elections even under the cloud of scandal won. But that statistic does not account for politicians who resigned, declined to run again, or lost their primaries. Considering these eventualities, the percentage of legislators who emerged safely from scandals falls to 62.¹⁸ If nearly half of incumbents lost their jobs somehow after a scandal, then, as Peters and Welch say, that should qualify as a serious electoral effect. (After all, if politicians thought they could win reelection after a scandal, they likely would not quit.)¹⁹

And any assumption scandals did not damage the campaigns of politicians who survived would not be appropriate. The amount of injury to them equaled the harm to politicians who lost or surrendered their offices. Entrenched incumbents, however, had a long time to build name recognition, accumulate money reserves, and obtain voter support via constituent service. This furnishes them with an electoral cushion that allows them to withstand even substantial losses of votes. Incumbents who received what Winston Churchill called the Order of the Boot, in contrast, either lacked the service time of the surviving incumbents or hailed from tighter districts, meaning the electoral cushion did not exist for them. So the same losses the long-term incumbents in safer districts could tolerate doomed the other incumbents.²⁰

Still, after conceding that many incumbents do indeed lose their reelection bids and that survivors persevere through significant losses of support, one might yet wonder why voter abandonment is not total for any politician whom scandal afflicts. Peters and Welch posit if a scandal issue is relatively unimportant, and if a candidate possesses qualifications more important to voters than the scandal, then voters will “trade” scandal demerits for value points and back the politician, anyway. The two scholars extend their argument by contending scandals would bear less efficacy than they otherwise might in highly partisan districts and in multiple issue elections.²¹

The idea of scandal versus qualifications commerce stems from the “trading theory of corruption voting,” which Barry S. Rundquist, Gerald S. Strom, and John G. Peters advance in another study of how scandal influences electoral outcomes.²² In this study, Rundquist and his compatriots experimented to see whether voters would discount scandal, and if so, what would persuade them to do so. The probabilities the test’s subjects would overlook scandal in different situations appear below:

As is evident, Vietnam constitutes the most important solitary “trading” criterion. The combinations of party, Vietnam, and polling information, and of party and Vietnam, place first and second, respectively, in the list of all criteria. Of significant impact as well are domestic issues and the combination of party, domestic issues, and polling information. In addition, at the other end of the spectrum, no test subject would ignore scandal absent other context into which to place candidates.²³

What import does everything in this paper have for the 2006 elections?

First, “trading” played a role in electoral outcomes. For example, CNN exit polls for the Montana Senate race show voters who identified themselves as Republicans or conservatives overwhelmingly supported Burns. Voters who backed the War in Iraq (an analogous issue to Vietnam), who opposed withdrawing troops from Iraq, or who cited terrorism as an “extremely important” issue²⁴ opted for Burns, too.²⁵ These phenomena, whereby ideology and issues trumped corruption, would explain why Burns almost eked out a victory in the Montana Senate race.

Second, drop-offs in voter support clearly appear for many of the candidates who won despite their links to the Abramoff or Foley scandals. In the table below appear the candidates who lost votes from 2004 to 2006, as well as their percentages of vote totals in those respective years and degree of loss.

If these candidates had not been entrenched incumbents with cushions of support, they could have easily suffered defeat considering how many voters they hemorrhaged. That applies especially to Doolittle, who could have used his entire cushion this year. Doolittle might have to pray hard to win reelection in 2008, if class discussion about losing challengers coming back to achieve victory holds true.

Third, incumbents did lose their jobs because of scandal this electoral cycle. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Representative Bob Ney resigned because of their involvement with Abramoff. Senator Burns and Representatives Richard Pombo²⁶ and J. D. Hayworth,²⁷ who also dealt with Abramoff, lost their reelection campaigns. Also, as a consequence of the Foley scandal, Representative Mark Foley himself resigned. In total, the Abramoff and Foley scandals exacted five casualties. Ergo, the 2006 election season has confirmed the notion scandal does eliminate many incumbents.

The upshot of all this is, even though voter trading and electoral cushions protect incumbents against the effects of scandal, it still significantly influences electoral outcomes.

¹ Blaine Harden, “Corruption That Shook Capitol isn’t Rattling Elections,” washingtonpost.com <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/17/AR2006091700767.html>.

² Beyond Delay, “Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA)” <http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/doolittle.php>.

³ Ibid., “Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO)” <http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/blunt.php>.

⁴ Ibid., “Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)” <http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/sessions.php>.

⁵ Harden.

⁶ Monica Bauer and John R. Hibbing, “Which Incumbents Lose in House Elections: A Response to Jacobson’s ‘The Marginals Never Vanished,’” American Journal of Political Science 33.1 (Feb. 1989): 262.

⁷ Ibid., 266.

⁸ Alan I. Abramowitz, “Explaining Senate Election Outcomes,” The American Political Science Review 82.2 (Jun. 1989): 392.

⁹ Ibid., “Incumbency, Campaign Spending, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections,” The Journal of Politics 53.1 (Feb. 1991): 35.

¹⁰ John G. Peters and Susan Welch, “The Effects of Charges of Corruption on Voting Behavior in Congressional Elections,” The American Political Science Review 74.3 (Sep. 1980): 697.

¹¹ Ibid., 701.

¹² Ibid., 699.

¹³ Ibid., 701-702.

¹⁴ Ibid., 697.

¹⁵ Ibid., 703.

¹⁶ Ibid., 704.

¹⁷ Ibid., 703.

¹⁸ Ibid., 702.

¹⁹ Ibid., 706.

²⁰ Ibid., 704.

²¹ Ibid., 706.

²² Barry S. Rundquist, Gerald S. Strom, and John G. Peters, “Corrupt Politicians and their Electoral Support: Some Experimental Observations,” The American Political Science Review 71.3 (Sep. 1977): 956-957.

²³ Ibid., 958-959.

²⁴ On the other hand, voters who said the War in Iraq was “extremely important” supported Burns’s Democratic challenger, John Tester. This meshes with the class discussion about Republicans viewing through the lens of the War on Terror, which they would argue includes Iraq, and Democrats seeing through the prism of the War in Iraq, which they would maintain is separate from the War on Terror.

²⁵ CNN.com, “Elections 2006: U.S. Senate / Montana / Exit Poll” <http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/MT/S/01/epolls.0.html>.

²⁶ Hank Shaw, “Pombo, Abramoff Linked by Records,” Recordnet.com <http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061011/NEWS01/610110323>.

²⁷ Beyond Delay, “Rep. J. D. Hayworth (R-AZ)” <http://www.beyonddelay.org/summaries/hayworth.php>.

Does Scandal Matter? is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Voters have tired of Republican President George W. Bush for his ignorance of reality in Iraq and abuses of power at home. And Americans have soured on Republican custodians of Congress for lining their pockets with lobbyists’ bribes and concealing the depredations of individual congressmen. Because of these failings of national Republicans, the incumbent Republican Senator for Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee, must win re-election this year against the Democratic challenger, former Rhode Island Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse.

The son of long-time Rhode Island Senator John Chafee, Lincoln Chafee has demonstrated stoutness of heart and independence of vision in the United States Senate. Whereas every other Republican—alongside many Democrats—voted for the war in Iraq, Chafee opposed it. Whereas many GOP lawmakers retreat from environmental protection, Chafee embraces it. In recognition of Chafee’s efforts for the environment, the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters have endorsed Chafee in this election. Also, whereas the Religious Right scorns the legality of abortion, Chafee respects the right of women to choose it. Consequently, the National Abortion Rights Action League has endorsed Chafee as well.

Using roll call votes for 2005, National Journal calls Lincoln Chafee the most liberal Republican in the Senate. According to the Journal, Chafee is more liberal than 57 percent of other senators in economic matters, more liberal than 60 percent on social issues, and more liberal than 58 percent on foreign affairs. Overall, Chafee ranks as more liberal than 59.2 percent of his fellow senators.

Linkages of Chafee to Bush from the Whitehouse campaign are patently hyperbolic. While the White House (pun unintended) and the Republican National Committee indeed back Chafee, such is because he is the only Republican with a hope of winning in Rhode Island. In this narrow circumstance, then, necessities of politics and not bonds of affection have brought Chafee and his more right-wing brethren together. And Chafee will owe them nothing in return.

At this point, one could reasonably ask, why not support Whitehouse instead, if Rhode Island wants a senator who won’t follow Bush’s lead? As much a maverick as Chafee might be, after all, his Democratic opponent could distance himself from Bush further still.

The answer is, these troubling times have shown the need for people of valor and conviction in Washington. America requires statesmen who will resist political temptations and say “no” when their own party errs. Senator Lincoln Chafee has shown himself to be such a leader. Nothing indicates Whitehouse would act similarly.

Furthermore, Republican moderates like Chafee would have to rescue their party from the clutches of evangelicals and neoconservatives who have badly led the GOP. In the process, the Republican Party would look more and more like the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower. The resurgence of that grand old party would greatly benefit American politics.

Chafee for Senate is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Republicans, after all, have left the door open for Democrats: They have pushed an unpopular war in Iraq. They have tainted themselves with the stench of Jack Abramoff. They have supported a president who, through incompetent response to terrorism and Hurricane Katrina, has earned the ire of the American public. And, recently, they have bickered amongst themselves over how to treat detainees as part of the War on Terror.

Democrats will not repeat the historic Republican success of 1994, though. Certainly, one of the ingredients for a sweeping and enduring victory is present: A party in power has disgraced itself before the American electorate. But Democrats lack a coherent vision of where to guide the country. They adeptly illustrate how Republicans have maladministered the government; what they don’t do is explain how Democrats would perform better.

Without an overarching vision, like the Republican Contract with America in 1994, Democrats can still take the House and maybe the Senate in 2006. Americans have become so angry about the course of the nation they could think anyone would steer the helm of government better than the GOP. Any Democratic victory would be soft, however, absent a clear agenda. Democrats would be unable to govern cohesively or decisively. Without anyone else to blame for the consequent mediocre performance of government, Democrats would be vulnerable to Republican counterattack in 2008.

When Democrats controlled the legislative branch, Republicans nevertheless won the Senate in 1980. This did not portend a change in Republican fortunes, however, for Democrats retook the Senate a few years later. Unless Democrats figure out what they stand for, they could experience the same fate as 1980’s Republicans.

Democrats, beware is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Also, of course, the President believed a failed horse breeder with no disaster response ability, Michael Brown, a fine selection to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency. New Orleanders know what a swell job Brown did.

The article “Welcome to the Hackocracy” in the October 17, 2005, issue of The New Republic details more instances when, while filling government positions, the right politics mattered more than the right resumes. A suitable motto for the Bush White House would be, “Who needs knowledgeable experts when we have loyal sycophants?”

Bush has not contented himself with cronyism at home. As a headline from the front page of today’s Washington Post reads, “Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq.” This excerpt from the article reveals how the Bush administration decided who would lead Iraq’s reconstruction:

To pass muster with O’Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn’t need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O’Beirne’s staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.

What was the attitude of many of the Bush lackeys in Iraq?

“I’m not here for the Iraqis,” one staffer noted to a reporter over lunch. “I’m here for George Bush.”

The President’s staffing decisions for the Coalition Provisional Authority crippled it when intelligent rebuilding of Iraq could have dampened or prevented the insurgency. Thousands of Americans and Iraqis might still be alive today if the executive branch had sent professionals rather than ideologues to Iraq.

As Commander-in-Chief, Bush has failed his soldiers. As Head of Government, Bush has failed the American people. As leader of Iraq’s democratization, Bush has failed the masses of Iraq. Never in history has an American president failed on this many levels with such profound consequences. This writer used to think denouncing Bush as the worst president ever was hyperbole. But, now, he’s starting to believe the label is accurate.

In concert with illegal wiretapping, torture of detainees, and interpreting away provisions of laws he’s signed, this shouts the need to impeach and remove Bush from office. His behavior cannot stand before history as proper in a chief executive.

Bush’s cronyism has gone too far is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

So, what can the United States do about the situation? To answer that question, knowledge of Iran’s historical circumstances, as well as of the history of its nuclear program, is essential.

I. Historical Background

To predict how Iran will react to an American or UN stratagem, one must consider the history that will inform Iranian actions. This history is one of both foreign exploitation and increasing clerical power. The 19th century would be a good point at which to begin telling the tale.

Fath ‘Ali Shah, the first sovereign of the Qajar dynasty, ruled from 1797 to 1834. His realm had suffered through decades of warfare, leaving his government’s coffers unable to pay operational costs. Therefore, Fath turned to the British to help fund government activities, which gave the British Empire influence in the country. Meanwhile, after more wars that resulted in the Treaty of Golestat in 1813 and the Treaty of Turkmanchay in 1828, Iran had to cede the Caucuses to Russia. The Turkmanchay treaty also opened Iran to Russian merchants and diplomats. This development sparked nearly a century of diplomatic feuding between Britain and Russia, with the two nations vying for dominance in Iran, that would have dire consequences for Iran in the 20th century.

Even before then, though, Iran slipped more and more under the umbrella of the West, and not to Iran’s benefit. As European influence expanded and transportation systems developed, tying Europe and the Middle East more closely together, Iran’s economy shifted in the process. The economy became more susceptible to “global market fluctuations and… periodic famine.” But the shahs of the Qajar dynasty did nothing to slow the pace of European encroachment. Instead, to raise money, they sold land to wealthy capitalists, hindering customary patterns of land usage and harming the economy even more. To raise more money, Naser al–Din Shah, who ruled from 1848 to 1896, granted “excessive concessions” to foreigners over trade issues in exchange for hard cash. This, he did not spent on his people or his country, but on his court and his luxurious vacations to Europe. The shah’s behavior, in collaboration with foreigners, enraged many Iranians.¹

The Tobacco Riots of 1890 constituted the start of backlash against the shahs. Naser al–Sin had given the British massive concessions on tobacco trading in Iran. Angry protests and a boycott of tobacco forced Naser to rescind the concession. The events of 1890 showed:

1. Iranian merchants could organize and whip up public support.
2. The Iranian people could curtail the power of the shah.
3. The Shi’a clergy, men to whom Iranians traditionally turned for guidance for hundreds of years, who had helped agitate the people against the tobacco concession, were increasing in power.²

With these factors at work, the Tobacco Riots would serve as a preview of future events, including the Islamic Revolution nearly a century later, as well as something much sooner…

Concurrently with Iran’s increasing interaction with the West, newly arisen Iranian intellectual circles interested themselves in democratic procedures. These intellectuals found solace in the 1905 Russian Revolution³ during which popular uprisings convinced Tsar Nicholas II to substitute Russia’s absolutist state with a constitutional monarchy.⁴ After the shah’s government beat some Iranian merchants, the intellectuals united with the merchants and the clergy to stage colossal strikes and protests against the government. Eventually, to appease the Iranian masses, the shah allowed for the writing of a constitution in 1906. (This was the first alignment of all these forces that would prove strong in 1978–1979.)

Foreign intervention would spell the doom of the constitutional government. First, in 1907, the almost century–old squabbles between Britain and Russia culminated in the Anglo–Russian Convention. This Convention carved for the two empires “exclusive spheres of influence in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tibet.” In Iran, as per the treaty, Britain controlled areas “along the Persian Gulf,” and Russia regions “in northern Iran and the Caucuses.” As a result of the agreement, then, both Russia and Britain had large stakes in the internal politics of Iran.⁵

Four years later, in 1911, Iran’s constitutional regime paid an American consultant, William Morgan Schuster, to advise the government regarding finances. Schuster recommended aggressive means to obtain funds from all over Iran. This upset the British and the Russians, from whose spheres the Iranians would also acquire money under Schuster’s plan. Russia demanded the Iranian government fire Schuster; upon said government’s refusal, the Russians deployed soldiers to march on Tehran. Facing this threat, the shah sent Schuster home and terminated the constitutional regime.

Until World War I, the Russians acted as the de facto masters of the Iran outside its official sphere of influence. The Great War, however, forced the withdrawal of Russian soldiers from the country. Unfortunately for Iran, its respite did not last long. The Russians soon came back, along with the British, the Germans, and the Turks, who fought battles amongst themselves in Iranian territory.

In 1917, though, the new Soviet Union ended Russia’s claims in Iran, engendering much Iranian love for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (despite the elites’ dread of Communist ideas spreading to their country). A few years later, in 1921, the British also abandoned their spheres of influence in Iran, after “international pressure.” Britain did not leave Iran without a parting gift: It supported an Iranian military officer, Reza Khan, who in 1920 had been crucial in suppressing a Communist revolt. Reza Khan seized control of the Iranian military and eventually overthrew the last Qajar shah, after which he anointed himself Reza Shah Pahlavi, the first shah of the Pahlavi dynasty.⁶

Reza secularized Iran somewhat through educational and judicial changes. He shifted jurisdiction over many issues from Shi’a religious tribunals to state courts or government agencies. He instituted secular schools. But the new shah was not a liberal dedicated to the welfare of his people. His government censored the media and prohibited unions and political parties. The shah also renewed trade concessions for oil, which would inflame Iranian wrath for decades.⁷

Iran’s shah was not a complete stooge of the West, although he chose an unethical way to show it. In the 1930’s, afraid of the Soviet Union and desperate for more commerce, Reza increased trade and enhanced relations with the Third Reich. When Reza would not renege on his deals with the Nazis, the British and the Russians invaded Iran in 1941 and deposed him. The familiar conquerors elevated Reza’s son to Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi.

Ironically, during World War II, foreign rule increased media freedom, political liberty, and economic prosperity. New political parties and trade unions arose. At the same time, the Shi’a clergy enhanced their strength, with the dissolution of the previous shah’s secularization initiatives. After the war, when the foreign occupiers withdrew, moderate leftists, Iranian nationalists, and some clergymen loosely coalesced into the National Front, under the leadership of Mohammed Mosaddeq. The purpose of the National Front was to limit the shah’s and the clerics’ power (although the latter goal caused tensions in the political alliance). Another objective of the National Front was to achieve Iranian control of Iranian natural resources, ending “foreign exploitation” of them.⁸

Toward that end, after Mosaddeq became prime minister in 1951, he nationalized all of Iran’s oil. Britain, the primary recipient of Iran’s oil largesse, hated Mosaddeq’s action and, ergo, placed trade sanctions on Iran. Subsequently, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and current British Prime Minister Anthony Eden advocated a combined United States–United Kingdom operation to topple Mosaddeq. Nothing quite that grandiose occurred. Despite that, August 1953 saw the end of Mosaddeq’s administration. Mosaddeq’s grip on the state’s helm had been loosening because his social democratic programs had been alienating his clerical supporters. Following the shah’s hasty departure from Iran after a political conflict with Mosaddeq, the Iranian prime minister lost his already tenuous position to a Central Intelligence Agency–sponsored coup. Mohammed Reza resumed his position within a week of his flight.

Thanks to American intervention in Iran—not even to contain the Soviet Union, but to protect business profits—any chance for Iran to become a progressive republic vanished. The resurgent shah, to avoid another Mosaddeq, stifled all further political deviation from his agenda. Israel’s Mossad and the CIA assisted Mohammed Reza in this regard by helping him in 1957 to forge his own Gestapo, the Organization of National Security and Information, also known as Sazman–e Amniyyat va Ettela’at–e Keshvar (SAVAK). This secret police cemented the shah’s ruled for decades, causing Iranians to quake with fright. (As Yoda said, fear leads to anger…)

In 1960–1963, Mohammed Reza introduced the White Revolution. As part of this Revolution, the shah liberalized laws to convey more equality to women and began economic reforms that increased Iranian incomes. These measures angered the Shi’a clergy, whose power the economic reforms eroded and who wanted to continue subjugating women as per Islamic tenets. Soon, ordinary people became discontent as well with the White Revolution, as the economic reforms backfired. Failing farms compelled an Iranian rush to the cities, where Iranians found “high prices, isolation, and poor living conditions.” An ever–decreasing standard of living accompanied rampant inflation. During all this misery, Iranians had no political outlet through which to vent their dissatisfaction. No political freedom existed, with SAVAK arresting and torturing anyone who dissented from the shah’s policies. Only bloody rebellious actions could serve as channels for the people’s rage.⁹

Supporting the shah while this was happening was the United States of America. Ever increasing numbers of American consultants assisted Mohammed Reza with economic planning and military strengthening. With American aid, the Iranian military emerged as the strongest in the region and one of the biggest on Earth. The shah’s reliance on Americans tarnished both him and them in the eyes of the Iranian people.

Finally, in the 1970’s, Iranian intellectuals tired of Mohammed Reza’s tyrannical maladministration. They joined forces with Shi’a clerics loyal to the exiled philosophy professor Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini. Khomeini had condemned the White Revolution in 1963, for which government agents stormed Khomeini’s madrasah, “killing several students,” and arrested him. Eventually, the government forced Khomeini into exile. This did not stop Khomeini from constructing doctrines for the maintenance of a Shi’a Muslim state and disseminating them to the Iranian people, thereby fortifying and gaining allegiance.¹⁰

The alliance of intellectuals and clerics fomented a revolution in 1978–1979 that forced the shah to abdicate and allowed Khomeini to return home. Iranians voted for the institution of an Islamic Republic by a large margin. Ayatollah Khomeini (of whom current Ayatollah Khameini is the successor) and his Shi’a clerics and mullahs brutally crafted this Islamic Republic, eliminating whatever Western influence they could along the way. The ayatollah and his cronies have dominated Iran from 1979 until today, exhibiting as much barbarism as the shah ever did. Iran’s democratically–elected president serves as a figurehead. He possesses little authority to thwart the designs of the Shi’a theocrats.¹¹

All this history reveals a Western proclivity for harmful interference in Iranian affairs extending back 200 years. One could defend the intervention in World War II as necessary to constrict German trade and ensure the flow of Lend–Lease materiel to the Soviet Union.¹² Every other intrusion into Iran was an imperialistic endeavor to protect Western business interests. After two centuries of detrimental foreign exploitation, Iranians would have little reason to trust in the good intentions of the United States and Europe. This distrust, in concert with Iranian hostility toward foreign interference in political life and usurpation of natural resources, could make UN attempts to command Iran backfire. Iran could perceive such ultimatums as yet more Western efforts to dominate Iran’s future.

The Shi’a clergy emerges in the history as a force that, after embedding themselves into Iranian culture for centuries, have exercised rising societal influence over the past century, until they took over the country outright in 1979. Shi’a clerics have entrenched themselves in the local ways and traditions. These clerics will not disappear as a concern anytime soon. Domestic rulers in ivory towers could not rid themselves of Shi’a clergy as a potent social influence; foreign soldiers definitely will not be able to accomplish that.

With cognizance of the broad historical context of Iran, description and analysis of the current nuclear crisis with Iran is now proper.

In August 2002, an Iranian dissident movement accused the theocratic government of operating in the city of Natanz a uranium enrichment facility and in the city of Arak a heavy water plant. In December 2002, while on its weapons of mass destruction allegations binge, the United States proclaimed Iran’s guilt of “across–the–board pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.” Unlike with Iraq, American declarations about Iran turned out to be at least partially true. The IaeA examined Arak and Natanz in February 2003, and it declared a few months later Iran had broken the Non–Proliferation Treaty.¹³

Iran promised the European Union Three—Germany, France, and Britain, who had taken the lead in diplomacy with Iran—in October 2003 it would cease all research into the enrichment of uranium, an essential procedure in constructing both nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons. That December, Iran pledged it would cooperate with surprise inspections of its nuclear installations. Iran did not keep that oath, though, as the IaeA chastised Iran in June 2004 for insufficient cooperation. To strike back, Iran announced it would start researching and making centrifuges, vital to uranium enrichment, again. But Iran reversed course several months later, in November 2004, assuring the Europeans it would halt “all nuclear fuel processing and reprocessing work.” Iranian President Mohammed Khatami seemed to negate this the next year, in February 2005, when he said no Iranian government would surrender Iran’s right to nuclear technology.¹⁴

The frothing hard–liner Ahmadinejad replaced the moderate Khatami in the middle of 2005.¹⁵ With Ahmadinejad as its spokesman, Iran dropped all pretense of cooperating with the Europeans. On September 15, 2005, Ahmadinejad told the world his country would spread nuclear technology throughout the Muslim world. Nearly four months later, on January 1, 2006, Iran revealed it had discovered how to extract uranium from ore. Ten days later, on January 10, Iran restarted its research on nuclear fuel. This finally compelled the Europeans to give up their efforts to negotiate. They recommended the United Nations Security Council take up the matter.

On January 13, Iran threatened to toss the IaeA out of the country if the Security Council itself involved itself in the situation. Regardless, in a rare occurrence of agreement between the United States, Germany, France, Britain, China, and Russia, all six nations wanted the Security Council to take action.¹⁶ This produced a Security Council resolution on March 29 demanded Iran totally cooperate with the IaeA within 30 days. The Security Council’s declaration was not “legally binding,” however, because Russia and China were reluctant to impose sanctions or start war in the event of Iranian noncompliance.¹⁷

Afterward, on April 11, Ahmadinejad said Iran had learned how to enrich the uranium after they had extracted it. The Iranian Atomic Energy Organization announced the Natanz facility had accomplished the feat. Because of this, on April 28, the IaeA declared Iran in defiance of the March 29 Security Council requests.¹⁸ That is where the nuclear confrontation with Iran stands now.

II. Problem Statement

Iran, a barbaric theocracy whose president has wished for Israel’s destruction and indicated he would disseminate nuclear technology, has been researching such technology. The Iranian government claims it only wants peaceful nuclear energy. (Plenty of oil sits beneath Iran, and lots of desert that could accommodate solar collectors lies across the country. One could wonder why Iran would need nuclear technology for energy production.) The United States and its diplomatic partners worry Iran desires nuclear weapons for its own use and to give to terrorists. Hence, the United States wants Iran to end its nuclear program.

III. A: Policy Options—Diplomatic (Political)

The United States has been seeking a diplomatic solution to the crisis with Iran for the past several years. Washington, D.C., has not negotiated directly with Tehran, with which Washington has no diplomatic relations. Instead, the administration of American President George W. Bush stepped back to let Britain, France, and Germany attempt to convince Iran to terminate its nuclear program. This constitutes an exception to normal American foreign policy; the US government, especially under Bush, has preferred to address what it perceives to be security threats by itself or as a leader of an alliance. Relying completely on other countries in this instance means the US government is not in ultimate control of what happens. If the president says jump, the leader of another country will not necessarily say, how high. Still, with the American commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US government might not have wanted to stretch itself further by tackling the Iranian problem.

The Europeans did not accomplish their objective. Iran continued its nuclear research while not taking its negotiations with Europe seriously. Iran was always ready to go with another nuclear transgression for any imagined slight. Eventually, the Europeans conceded defeat, so the Security Council has now taken charge of the issue.

The Security Council has not had any more success than the Europeans did alone so far, though. It has only managed a toothless resolution on March 29 that Iran ignored altogether. Furthermore, nearly a month after the Security Council issued its commands, Iranian President Ahmadinejad speechified regarding the Security Council: “The Iranian nation won’t give a damn about such useless resolutions… Today, they want to force us to give up our way through threats and sanctions but those who resort to language of coercion should know that nuclear energy is a national demand and by the grace of God, today Iran is a nuclear country.”¹⁹ UN diplomacy does not appear to be a winning strategy.

The US could engage with Iran directly, but that would necessitate recognizing Iran’s government and opening diplomatic relations with it. Washington would be averse to doing that, especially with Ahmadinejad occupying the Iranian presidency. Besides which, Iran already knows the might of the United States forms the backbone of every diplomatic maneuver so far, yet Iran does not seem to care. For the US to open direct negotiations with Iran would, therefore, not help. All it would do is give Iran the status of being a nation the US has deemed fit for recognition, in exchange for nothing, which would bolster Iran and humiliate the United States.

III. B: Policy Options—Economic

In an effort to fabricate a compromise whereby Iran could have nuclear energy but the rest of the world could feel safe Iran was not gaining dangerous nuclear know–how, Russia offered to enrich uranium for Iran on Russia’s own soil and then ship the uranium back to Iran. Nothing has come of this Russian initiative, though.²⁰ Iran has apparently decided it wants to enrich uranium itself.

If Iran does not start cooperating with the United Nations, the Security Council could meet again and insist Iran alter course for “international peace and security.” Iranian noncompliance with such a resolution would permit the Security Council to enact economic sanctions against Iran. China and Russia, however, have been squeamish about such a move.²¹ Also, implementing broad economic sanctions against Iran would constrict or prevent the flow of oil out of that country. As the world grapples with high oil prices, across–the–board sanctions could damage everyone’s economy even as Iran hurts. The situation could be like Thomas Jefferson’s embargo of Britain and France all over again.

Perhaps sanctions could leave alone oil trade with Iran; that would have a better chance of sticking. Because oil is already the lifeblood of Iran’s economy, and because oil would become more important with trade in everything else forbidden, Iran could not afford to cut off oil supplies or fiddle with prices too much. So the rest of the world would not hurt for oil, although Iran would still suffer the pain of sanctions. If Iran continues its intransigence, Russia and China might support limited sanctions, as they would not threaten oil supplies, although a lot of skilled diplomacy would be necessary.

III. C: Policy Options—Military

In the April 17, 2006, issue of The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh unveils to the American people secret plans the US government has for war with Iran. The end objective of the war would be the overthrow of the theocracy. To achieve this, the US military would bomb Iran extensively, which planners hope would embarrass the Iranian government, thereby inspiring the Iranian citizenry to revolt and depose the mullahs. Concurrently, the American military would drop bunker–buster tactical nukes on Iranian nuclear facilities, such as the one at Natanz.²²

That is one of the most idiotic plans in the history of military strategy. The American dream of happy Iraqis valiantly rising against their oppressors and eagerly embracing regime change Washington would like turned out to be fantasy. No reason exists to believe the same American dream would come true in Iran. Two hundred years of Western imperialism in Iran has ensured Iranian revulsion of foreign influence. Most Iranians would stick by their own people rather than act as foreigners attacking their home want. The Shi’a clergy, who have centuries–old traditional claims to Iranian hearts, and not bomb–happy Americans, would find the most supporters in Iran. Because of this, not even Iranian opposition groups want American intervention, believing it would damage their cause.²³

Plus, targeted American strikes against Iranian nuclear infrastructure could likely fail. The Iranians have had the Israeli destruction of Iraq’s French–supplied nuclear reactor at Osirak, as well as hundreds of American and British sorties across Iraq in the 1990’s, from which to learn. They protected against bombing runs by constructing some of their nuclear installations underground. In addition, the US government does not know the locations of a few of Iran’s important nuclear assets. A bombing campaign could miss them.²⁴

After the United States gained nothing from starting a war, Iran could inflict grievous costs in retaliation. The Shi’a Iranians, through shared faith with Shi’a Iraqis, command enormous influence with them. Many more Shi’a Iraqis than who are insurgents now could become such at the urging of their Shi’a brethren in Iran. Iranian troops could start attacking American soldiers in Iraq. Iran could even capture parts of Iraq. One Pentagon affiliate has said, “The Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck.” Hezbollah could come out of hibernation as well, attacking Israel and American interests in the Middle East.²⁵ And, deciding it has nothing to lose, Iran could use its oil as an economic weapon to harm Western economies.

Sometimes, the benefits of military action can outweigh horrendous consequences. World War II stands as the most powerful demonstration of that truth. Attacking Iran as the military plans in Hersh’s article suggest would not, however, yield sufficient gains to offset the damage to American interests and operations or to justify the enormous loss of life in Iran, Iraq, and Israel (if not more countries).

IV. Policy Recommendation

I have not seen any policy or strategy under consideration of which I approve, so I will devise my own.

The United States and Europe should continue pursuing diplomatic solutions to the Iranian nuclear issue. I do not think Iran would capitulate to such an approach, though. Iranians, with reason, loathe foreign attempts to influence their politics and control their resources. As a result, I do not believe Iran will voluntarily strike a deal with anyone to limit or eliminate a national program it sees as its right. Meddlesome foreigners can go to hell.

Before I outline my proposal, I must state, I do not believe Iran will use nuclear weapons offensively if it learns how to make them. Any obvious first use of nuclear weapons on Iran’s part would invite nuclear retaliation from Israel and the United States, and possibly from France and Britain. Passing nuclear weapons off to terrorists would not be a viable option for Iran, either, because nuclear forensics could trace a bomb’s fissile material back to its source.²⁶ One might say the so–called “Mad Mullahs” are just that—mad—but Iran’s lack of military aggressiveness over the past 20 years, with trigger–happy Americans and Israelis nearby, argues against that. Iran’s theocrats are evil but not demonstrably insane or suicidal. They would place their own collective survival above global Islamist revolution. If nothing else, a dead revolutionary movement cannot advance its cause.

With Iran’s rationality in mind, I propose what I call neo–containment. In the neo–containment framework, if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons, the United Nations would place limited sanctions, as I described above, on Iran. Food, water, and medicine for the Iranian people, in addition to oil, would be the only exemptions to the sanctions. Limited sanctions would prevent mass starvation and famine while squeezing the Iranian economy. Militarily, the United States would officially point nuclear missiles at Iran and promise it will suffer the missiles’ fury if it does use nuclear weapons on anyone. If Iran does not want to struggle under sanctions and squirm under nuclear threat, Iran could dismantle its nuclear weapons and relinquish the capability to create more. If that does not happen, then Iran’s economic and technological capabilities can wilt under sanctions, and its psyche can suffer from knowing the world’s sole remaining superpower, with an arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons, might use those weapons on Iran, annihilating it. Iran could never build enough nuclear weapons to combat that threat. From these economic and military coercive devices, frustration and fear could build in the Iranian population, undermining cultural health and thereby national cohesion.

To try to ensure the resulting anger flows to the Iranian government and not the United States, the American government should utilize soft power resources. Washington should emphasize its foe is the theocracy of Iran, not its people. The US should publicly appear not to be interfering with Iran internally, but to be sitting back after promising to recognize Iran officially and extend economic and technological assistance to Iran if the Iranians overthrow their government. Covertly, Americans should spread through Muslim networks messages about the benefits of disarmament and democracy and the evils of nuclear–intent mullahs. When Iranians receive these messages, they should see them as coming from Muslim brothers, not American imperialists. To complement this tactic, Iranian expatriates who know the positives of republican government and the negatives of Shi’a theocracy could tell their stories to the world. This could all inspire hope and desire within Iranians for something better than lives of terror under a repressive theocracy.

Containment worked against the Soviet Union. It took 40 years to do its job, but the United States avoided a devastating war that would have left the world a worse place than it is now. I believe the similar strategy I described above would handle Iran just as adeptly. Indeed, neo–containment could perform even better. Iran could never threaten the United States with nuclear extinction, so Americans would not have to live with the dread of that again. Since Iran would be incapable of wiping out either the American people or their nuclear capability, no matter what, the Iranian government would be insane to employ nuclear weapons in anything other than clear self–defense. So Americans need not fear even the loss of a city. The risk of such an attack would not be zero, because Iran’s government could theoretically defy rationality. But the danger would be minimal, and it would not be anything we do not already face from China, Pakistan, or Russia.

Neo–containment would thus be the least perilous idea, while promising the most impressive results. The strategy would not guarantee complete success: American soft power might not overcome the tinge of “American imperialist dog.” Cold War victories argue the US would have a good chance of accomplishing its goals, though.

¹ Encyclopædia Britannica, “Iran.” Available http://www.search.eb.com.proxygw.wrlc.org/eb/article–9106324.

² Ibid.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Encyclopædia Britannica, “Russian Revolution of 1905.” Available http://www.search.eb.com.proxygw.wrlc.org/eb/article–9064487.

⁵ Britannica, “Iran.”

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ WashingtonPost.Com, “Timeline: Iran’s Nuclear Development.” Available http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp–dyn/content/custom/2006/01/17/CU2006011701017.html.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Encyclopædia Britannica, “Iran: Year in Review 2006.” Available http://www.search.eb.com.proxygw.wrlc.org/eb/article–9403324.

¹⁶ WashingtonPost.Com.

¹⁷ Paul Kerr, “UN Urges Halt to Nuclear Enrichment,” Arms Control Association: Arms Control Today. Available http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_04/uniranurges.asp.

¹⁸ WashingtonPost.Com.

¹⁹ CNN.com, “IAEA: Iran Defies U.N. Demands.” Available http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/04/28/iran.nuclear.ap/index.html.

²⁰ Kerr.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Seymour Hersh, “The Iran Plans,” The New Yorker. Available http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact.

²³ Jill Jermano, lectures at The George Washington University, 17 April 2006.

²⁴ Hersh.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Barry L. Rothberg, “Averting Armageddon: Preventing Nuclear Terrorism in the United States.” Available http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/djcil/articles/djcil8p79.htm#H2N18. Gabriele Rennie, “Tracing the Steps in Nuclear Material Trafficking,” Science and Technology. Available http://www.llnl.gov/str/March05/Hutcheon.html.

Neo-Containment for a Nuclear Iran is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Prior to attending oral arguments before the D.C. Circuit, I had the impression the Court bore diminutive stature. Intellectually, I had known the D.C. Circuit sat on the judicial pyramid just below the Supreme Court, with only a few other courts in the nation wielding power equal to it. But, since I had anticipated visiting the Supreme Court, my emotional reaction to the D.C. Circuit had been, this is not important. I had expected the D.C. Circuit courthouse to stand in an obscure part of the city. When I walked out of the closest Metro stop to the courthouse, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Capitol Building sprawling to the right. Knowing this locus of power resided near my destination made me feel as if I had judged the D.C. Circuit poorly. Maybe I would observe something exciting and significant after all.

Granting that, however, whatever the D.C. Circuit did would not have the thrilling impact of a Supreme Court decision. Hence, when I arrived at the courthouse, no lines of eager visitors loitered outside. No crowds of tourists clogged the interior halls. (That suited me, for it meant I could come at a reasonable time and still hope to complete my field work!) The strongest impediment to my progress was, I had no clue how to find the courtroom. I asked a security guard where the D.C. Circuit met; he said the fifth floor. After riding the elevator there, I found a sign pointing to the clerk’s office, but nothing indicating the location of the courtroom. So I walked to the clerk’s office, intending to ask where the Court sat. In the office, I overheard someone else asking where the Court was and receiving an answer. That answer led me finally to the courtroom, almost on the opposite side of the building from the clerk’s office.

I found myself in a modern and ornate room. Exquisitely polished wood paneled the walls on the sides and in the back. Gray marble served as the front wall, behind the raised platform on which stood the judges’ desk. Wooden pews, as clean as the walls, lined the area from which the audience could watch the proceedings. The lawyers, appellees, appellants, courtroom staff, and judges would sit on black high–backed office chairs. To facilitate the work of the lawyers, staffers, and judges, gray Dell laptop computers sat on the desks of the proceeding staffers and participants. The sight of the computers surprised me, admittedly because most courtrooms on television and in movies lack such technology. I wish I had brought a wireless network sniffer so I could determine whether a wireless network was operating.

Despite the modern chairs and appliances, the courtroom evoked to my mind the comparison of the American judicial system to a church, though of the law and not the divine. As I said earlier, the audience sat on pews. On both sides of the courtroom, judges in their robed finery looked down at everyone from grave paintings hanging on the walls. Like in church, respectful silence pervaded the room, with no one daring to speak above a whisper without permission. The ostentatiousness yet stateliness of the room reminded me of church. Plus, a heavy atmosphere suffused the courtroom, weighing down the inhabitants until they surrendered their reserve and beheld the place with awe. One calling the courtroom a “cathedral of justice” would not exaggerate.

Immersed in this regal setting, I had thought the first argument—United States v. Navron Ponds—would commence punctually at 9:30 AM. That would keep with the aura of order the courtroom exuded. Instead, the lawyers did not take their seats until a few minutes after 9:30, and the judges not until some minutes after that. As the judges (Judith Rogers, David Tatel, and Janice Brown) filed into the courtroom, the clerk really did say, “Oyez, oyez, oyez,” which I had thought an anachronism with which the court system had dispensed. The clerk demanded everyone rise until the judges sat their desk, which we did. And then, at last, the oral arguments for the first case began.

Each lawyer stood behind a podium in the center of the room to speak. As the attorneys gave their presentations, I observed a digital timer on the podium, counting down from the 10 minutes each side had to make their cases. I figured, since each side had 10 minutes apiece, the oral arguments would conclude within a short 20 minutes. Incorrect my assumption was. As the judges asked, and the lawyers attempted to answer, questions about the merits of each side’s case, the timer for both sides reached “00:00″ and stayed there for 20 to 30 minutes afterward. When the oral arguments concluded, nearly an hour had passed.

Neither the first lawyer, a woman advocating for Ponds, nor her male opponent, an attorney for the United States government, impressed me. The government lawyer acted more confident, but both he and she espoused contradictory lines of thought and did not know the answers to some of the judges’ questions, including queries about the very precedents the lawyers were citing. The judges controlled the arguments, trying to resolve inconsistencies and illuminate legalities in both sides’ cases. (I suppose the best lawyers argue in front of the Supreme Court, not the Circuit.)

Judge Tatel asked the most questions, vigorously poking holes in the arguments of each lawyer. Sitting at the middle of the judges’ desk, laptop in front of her, Judge Rogers spoke less often than Tatel, although she increased her frequency of questioning for the government lawyer. The third judge, Brown, said hardly anything at all. She asked one question of the woman; the rest of the time, she sat and stared at the lawyer behind the podium or glanced occasionally down at papers she had gathered in front of her.

The appellant himself, Navron Ponds, did not attend the proceeding from what I could gather. That disappointed me because I would have liked to picture the man around whom the case revolved. But I guess Ponds’s presence was unnecessary. No one could give testimony, so Ponds would not have had the option of taking the stand in his defense. Also, the judges of the D.C. Circuit would have been less susceptible to a defendant’s positive appearance and demeanor than a jury.

Because I had other classes to attend later in the day I visited the D.C. Circuit, and because the oral arguments can last much longer than their time allotments would indicate, I left after the presentations of the first case. I exited the courthouse feeling satisfied, for the D.C. Circuit had exceeded many of my expectations. It seemed less organized than I thought it would be upon entering the courthouse and courtroom, but that I could predict such stems from the ornate environment and weighty atmosphere I had not believed I would find at the Circuit. Additionally, the issue under consideration was important, at least to this libertarian.

What was this issue?

Navron Ponds, a Washington, D.C., lawyer, did not want to pay his taxes. Therefore, he committed tax evasion, in the process of which he also laundered money. Amongst Ponds’s activities were “transferring the title of his cars, selling a rental property and causing his sister to open an annuity account in her name with the proceeds. Ponds used the funds in that annuity account for his personal use and benefit.”¹ The federal government acquired at least part of its evidence against Ponds through the use of a subpoena demanding categories of documents, following Ponds’s failure to disclose his receipt of a 1991 Mercedes-Benz from a client, Jerome Harris. These six categories were documents relating to:

1. “The use, ownership, possession, custody or control of the 1991 Mercedes-Benz”.
2. “The payment of legal fees by Harris the defendant”.
3. “Any vehicles in Harris’s custody (if the defendant had access to them).
4. “Laura P. Pelzer (defendant’s sister) or the two other individuals who were on the title of the Mercedes”.
5. “Correspondence between defendant and the government in the underlying criminal case concerning Mr. Harris”.
6. “Employees in the defendant’s law office”.²

A federal court convicted Ponds of tax evasion and wire fraud, sentencing him to 20 months in prison and then 3 years of supervised release.³ Ponds appealed, though, on the grounds the evidence the government used against him was tainted. In the oral arguments before the D.C. Circuit, the attorney for Ponds asserted the subpoena the government had served Ponds was unconstitutional as per the precedent of United States v. Hubbell. In Hubbell, the Supreme Court had established the government may not subpoena documents under broad categories. This would violate a citizen’s Fifth Amendment rights because it would require him to incriminate himself through his choice of what documents to produce, as well as by the very act of forcing him to reveal to the government incriminating documents. (I mean specifically reveal, as in bring forth something previously unknown to the other party, and not merely produce.) Only if the government already knows with “reasonable particularity” what documents it is seeking may the government subpoena them. Ponds’s lawyer asserted the government did not know what documents Ponds had, as the generality of the subpoena categories revealed, so the D.C. Circuit should dismiss Ponds’s conviction.

The appellee lawyer argued, at first, the government did not use the subpoenaed documents in its case against Ponds. After Judge Tatel questioned that assertion, saying the government indeed had admitted it had used the documents in its investigation, the attorney eventually maintained the government knew with “reasonable particularity” Ponds had specific sources of information. As the lawyer continued his presentation, Judge Tatel asked him whether, pursuant to the subpoena, Ponds would have needed to produce correspondence with his sister relating to a family reunion. The government lawyer initially said no, because that would not be material to the investigation. Tatel portrayed that as making the person choose to reveal incriminating documents, as those would be the ones relevant to the investigation, thereby violating the Fifth Amendment. Conceding Tatel’s point, after which he changed his answer, saying Ponds would have needed to produce anything relating to his sister, even birthday cards.

While both sides argued their cases, the judges made clear their obligation to obey Supreme Court precedent. Judge Tatel proclaimed, as a lower court, the D.C. Circuit’s task was to follow the precedents of Hubbell and Fisher v. United States, a related case, even if the Circuit did have to figure out what the cases mean and how they mesh. Later, Judge Rogers said she was “trying to understand the concept the Supreme Court wants us to apply.” This all comports with the role of the D.C. Circuit in the federal judicial system. The Supreme Court sits atop the judicial pyramid, and so directs the decision-making of federal courts below it. This means lower court decisions must be consistent with Supreme Court rulings. In the event a lower court flouts Supreme Court precedent, the Supreme Court will likely overturn the decision, anyway. Ergo, the D.C. Circuit would have extreme difficulty charting new legal territory in contradiction of Supreme Court precedent.

That said, the understanding of lower courts refracts Supreme Court precedent in accordance with the mindsets of the deciding judges, so predicting how the D.C. Circuit will decide is not as simple as canvassing previous Supreme Court rulings on the topic. One must consider the models of judicial decision-making as they relate to the Circuit judges who considered this case in order to determine potential outcomes. The primary decision-making models are legal and attitudinal.

The legal model of judicial decision–making represents the ideal of how Americans believe judges should operate. According to this model, judges sublimate their own political and societal preferences to the plain meaning of the law. If a law is not clear, judges will consider the original intent of the law’s writers in rectifying ambiguities. In addition, judges will conform to the principal of stare decisis—”to stand by that which is decided”⁴—whereby they will respect judicial precedent as much as they can to facilitate a stable legal system. Most lawyers and judges give lip service to following the law and to stare decisis,⁵ and as I described earlier, the three D.C. Circuit judges who heard Navron Ponds were not exceptions.

If Tatel, Rogers, and Brown decide as per the tenets of the legal model, they will overturn Ponds’s conviction. The Hubbell case reaffirmed the Supreme Court’s earlier finding in United States v. Doe that the government may not subpoena “broad categories” of documents to fish for incriminating materials.⁶ As previously mentioned, that would violate a citizen’s Fifth Amendment rights. The government may only seek through subpoenas documents of which it knows “either the existence or whereabouts.”⁷ (As Fisher held, compulsion to produce voluntarily–created documents does not itself violate the Fifth Amendment. No government agent forced anyone to create those documents, and the government has every right to obtain documents of which it knows.⁸ What violates the Fifth Amendment is requiring someone to identify incriminating documents for the government, said Hubbell.⁹) Ponds’s lawyer noted if the government had known what it sought, it could have crafted the subpoena more narrowly instead of requesting such large categories of documents as, for instance, those relating to Ponds’s sister. The advocate went on to say the government could have pursued an alternative course that would not have violated Ponds’s rights against self-incrimination: The government could have gotten a search warrant and fetched any incriminating documents itself. That the government did not do so bespeaks either sloppiness or insufficient compelling evidence Ponds had broken the law. Whatever the reason, the government acted inappropriately, judging from what Hubbell maintained. If the D.C. Circuit judges follow Supreme Court precedent, they will toss this conviction the government achieved at least partially through ill–obtained evidence as Hubbell defines it.

Whereas the legal model posits judges slavish in their objectivity, the attitudinal model stipulates judges ruled by their subjectivity. Judges will decide cases to advance their own policy preferences, and they will contort law and precedence as much as necessary to support their agendas. In these circumstances, the ideologies of judges deciding a case, and not prior statutes and decisions, will better help predict the eventual outcome. One should still consider precedent–setting cases, such as Hubbell and Fisher in regards to Navron Ponds, but in the context of how the judges could interpret the cases to match their political goals.¹⁰

If Judges Tatel, Rogers, and Brown act under the dictates of the attitudinal model rather than the legal model, would they decide the case differently from what I outlined above? No. Judges Tatel and Rogers are leftist judges, ´ la Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and David Souter, respectively.¹¹ The American left usually supports narrow government authority under the Fifth Amendment. Given that, Tatel and Rogers would not allow the government to require citizens to identify for investigators incriminating evidence.

As for Brown, a conservative similar to Associate Justice Antonin Scalia,¹² she might vote against the government as well, to curtail government aggressiveness, a bane of American conservatives. Scalia himself voted with the majority in Hubbell not to allow subpoenas of broad categories of documents.¹³ Brown’s conservatism, however, might take her in the direction of wanting to be hard on criminals. This could lead her to back the government’s actions. In support, Brown could maintain the subpoena categories are not broad enough for Hubbell to cause problems. And she could accept the government’s claim it knew with reasonable particularity about Ponds’s incriminating documents.

However Brown proceeds, the attitudinal model would still suggest the overturn of Ponds’s conviction because of the voters of Tatel and Rogers. (On a side note, if one assumes the attitudinal model has primacy, then my interpretation of what the legal model demands could be a function of my libertarian ideology. Similarly, perhaps judges, into whom law schools drilled the legal model, intend to apply that model but behave as the attitudinal model would predict, anyway, because their ideologies influence their legal interpretations.)

Another way the media especially likes to predict how judges will rule is evaluating their behavior during oral arguments. Was Judge A mean to Lawyer Z? Then maybe A will vote against Z’s position. Or was Judge E accommodating toward Attorney R? Then perhaps E wants the same results R does.¹⁴ Using this approach, though, is not useful in gauging how the D.C. Circuit might decide Navron Ponds. Judge Tatel grilled both sides. Initially, I believed Tatel reviled the notion of invalidating the subpoena, but then the government lawyer came up, and Tatel ripped him apart, too. I concluded, then, Tatel was playing devil’s advocate for both sides, which was fun to watch but undemonstrative of his true thoughts. Judge Rogers also expressed skepticism of both appellant and appellee. Judge Brown did not talk enough for me to analyze her behavior at all.

¹ Internal Revenue Service, “FY2004 Examples of General Tax Fraud Investigations.” Available http://www.irs.gov/compliance/enforcement/article/0,,id=106792,00.html.

² United States of America v. Navron Ponds. 290 F. Supp. 2d 71; 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20522; 92 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 7047.

³ IRS.

⁴ ‘Lectric Law Library, “Legal Definition of Stare Decisis.” Available http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/s065.htm.

⁵ Dr. Garry Young, lectures at The George Washington University. March 21, 2006.

⁶ FindLaw, United States v. Hubbell. Available http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/99-166.html.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ FindLaw, Fisher v. United States. Available http://laws.findlaw.com/us/425/391.html.

⁹ FindLaw, Hubbell.

¹⁰ Dr. Garry Young, lectures at The George Washington University. March 23, 2006.

¹¹ Dr. Garry Young, e-mails to Jason Vines. April 10, 2006, and April 11, 2006.

¹² Dr. Garry Young, e-mail to Jason Vines. April 10, 2006.

¹³ FindLaw, Hubbell.

¹⁴ Dr. Garry Young, lectures at The George Washington University.

A Paper on Oral Arguments for United States v. Navron Ponds before D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

What set the Vulcans apart from previous generations of foreign policy gurus, such as the “Wise Men” who devised containment and the “Best and Brightest” who stumbled through the 1960’s, was their emphasis on American military power.  That the generations of foreign policy officials should differ in this regard makes sense, considering their respective backgrounds.  The Wise Men were businessmen, bankers, and lawyers; naturally, to prosecute foreign policy, they would rely on economics and institutions, the tools of business and legal professionals.  Later, the Best and Brightest, who hailed from Ivy League academia, would, through a combination of elitist disrespect for the military and lack of real-world experience, bollocks up the Bay of Pigs invasion and the defense of South Vietnam.  Finally, in the latter stages of the Cold War, the Vulcans experienced foreign policy through the prism of the Defense Department.  At one time or another, Rumsfeld and Cheney served as defense secretaries; Wolfowitz was an undersecretary of defense; Rice worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Powell chaired the JCS; and Armitage worked as an assistant defense secretary.  Also, Powell and Armitage had even served as military officers.  Of course, Powell still was one, as the JCS Chairman.  That the Vulcans would perceive military power as what ought to be the primary tool of American foreign policy should be little surprise, then.  The military was what these people knew.

As advocates of solving America’s problems through military might, some of the people who would later become identified with neoconservatism, early in their careers, opposed détente with the Soviet Union.  They did not share foreign policy virtuoso Henry Kissinger’s belief American power was on the wane, so the United States should seek accommodation with the Soviet Union.  Firstly, the budding neoconservatives did not trust the Soviet Union to honor the terms and spirit of détente.  Secondly, the future Vulcans did not believe American power was ebbing.  They thought the United States was the most powerful country in the world, and as such, need not reach accommodations with anyone else.  To counter the Soviets, the Vulcans advocated buttressing America’s dominant international position with a military buildup, restoring and surpassing the might and prestige the American military had before Vietnam.

For this goal, the Vulcans struggled against Kissinger in the administrations of President Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, slowly eroding Kissinger’s influence as the years passed.  The election of Democratic President Jimmy Carter placed this battle between Republican moderates and hawks into stasis, but the subsequent Republican administration of President Ronald Reagan saw victory for the anti-détente forces.  Kissinger and his policies of accommodation were out.  The future Vulcans, including neoconservatives who had been Democrats but defected to the Republicans because they considered Carter weak on Communism, were in.

The 1980’s saw the neoconservative ideas put into practice:  Reagan massively increased the American military budget.  At first, the Reagan administration displayed no interest in reaching deals with the Soviets.  Indeed, Reagan dismissed the USSR as an “Evil Empire.”  Reagan might have seemed to betray the neoconservatives when he negotiated with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, but Reagan did not soften his rhetoric about the Soviet Union.  In addition, Reagan did not proceed from an assumption the United States was weakening and so needed to reach an accord with the Soviets.  Instead, Reagan dealt with Gorbachev from a position of strength, given to him by a preeminent American military.  One could say Reagan followed neoconservatism to a natural end by seeking a just peace with the Soviet Union on American terms, an endeavor partially enabled by America’s colossal military strength.

After the Cold War, the United States found itself the one superpower in the world.  The Vulcans wanted to ensure the permanency of America’s supreme worldwide influence.  They believed the United States should not downsize its military, in order to cash in on a post-Cold War “peace dividend,” but enhance its military strength and expand its military capabilities so much, no other group of nations could hope to match the American military.  Any such enterprise would not be affordable or feasible for foreign nations or alliances.  With its unchallengeable military domination, the United States would always be able to ensure its ideas held sway in the international realm.  And it would not have to cooperate or compromise with anyone.  The United States could unilaterally prosecute its foreign policy objectives.  This neoconservative strategy for Pax America evoked condemnation from the American left when it became public, but the Democratic administration of President William J. Clinton did not substantially deviate from the course the neoconservatives had set for the post-Cold War United States.

With the current Republican administration of President George W. Bush, the Vulcans are back in power (excepting Powell and Armitage, who left office after Bush’s first term).  In the War on Terror, the neoconservatives have profoundly impacted American foreign policy, using the war as a test bed for their Pax Americana stratagem of using the military to solve the nation’s foreign policy difficulties, without recognizing constraints other international actors have sought to place on us.  The United States has refused to negotiate with governments it views as enemies in the War on Terror.  Americans have just issued demands, such as surrender Osama bin Laden or cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors, after which the American military attacked countries that did not comply.  In the process, the United States has eschewed the military aid of its allies, such as NATO.  The United States went so far as to shrug off international opposition to the war in Iraq.

I believe The Rise of the Vulcans superbly explains how the Vulcans wedded themselves to neoconservatism.  Readers get to know much about the Vulcans whom James Mann describes, as well as the neoconservative philosophy of foreign policy.  This allows readers to understand better why the Bush foreign policy advisers behave as they do.  Thankfully, Mann’s swift and cogent prose makes achieving this understanding easy and fun.  If Mann were a historian or political scientist, excess verbiage and ponderous explanation likely would have made reading The Rise of the Vulcans a chore.  But Mann’s writing benefits from his experience as a journalist, I think, which would have taught Mann to craft his writing for maximum readability.

The neoconservative ideology Mann describes scares me, to be honest.  While I agree with the neoconservative strategy against the determined foe that was the Soviet Union, I oppose their vision for a post-Cold War Pax Americana, a.k.a. an American Empire.  To any who would object to that characterize, I ask, how else could one label a country that uses its military to achieve foreign policy results, while concurrently aiming for supremacy over the international system and striving to ignore the preferences of other countries?  That is not the United States of which the Founding Fathers conceived in 1776 and 1789.

Do not misunderstand me: Even today, I support a powerful military.  I am not a dove; I even thought the idea, at least, of invading Iraq and toppling the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein was appropriate.  But I must oppose as “imperial” efforts to use the military to impose Pax Americana on the world and to act without consideration of our allies or the international institutions we helped forge after World War II.

Bibliography

Mann, James.  The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet.  New York: Penguin Books, 2004.

The Rise of the Vulcans Paper is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

1. Presidential candidates have little reason to campaign to the whole country. If partisan or personal loyalty makes victory certain in a state, a candidate can safely ignore it in favor of other states. Conversely, if a candidate will definitely lose in a state, then he won’t waste his time there. Only competitive “battleground states” see much activity.
2. We have less national turnout. If a state will assuredly support one candidate, why bother voting? Also, lack of vigorous campaigning in a state might contribute to voter apathy during an election.
3. With the winner-take-all plurality system, candidates try to attract moderate voters, so to avoid turning people off, they emphasize their personalities more than their policies. This results in bland, visionless candidates who take those traits into the White House.

I believe a new presidential electoral system is in order. We need something that rewards candidates who have bold ideas, while drawing more voters into the process as well.

Therefore, I recommend we emulate the French.

Hear me out! The French have an excellent method by which to elect their president. It is a two-stage electoral process. In the first part, candidates from all the country’s parties can run. Candidates who mobilize partisans with daring policy agendas will perform best here. Afterwards, during the second stage runoff, the first and second place finishers of the first round compete. Whoever achieves a majority vote wins. This requires the candidates to make themselves as palatable toward the center as possible.

Eliminating the Electoral College and implementing two-round direct popular vote elections here would deliver many benefits. It would reward courageous candidates with striking ideas in the first stage, but it would weed out dangerous fanatics in the second stage. It would allow smaller parties to achieve greater prominence than they could achieve in a winner-take-all elector paradigm. It would give candidates reason to campaign to every American. And it would give each voter a larger role in determining the outcome of the election.

As a German friend also pointed out to me, “I don’t quite get it that in the US, votes for the Greens i.e. are all lost, even help a candidate from the right to get into office (see 2000)—a second turn of the elections would allow Green supporters to vote for the Democrat.” This is an important point. The major parties would have to give adherents of smaller parties reasons to vote for them. This would force the Democrats and Republicans to take other parties, such as Greens and Libertarians, seriously, and perhaps heed some of their political desires. This would make more Americans feel as if they play an important role in the republican process.

To complete the reform, we also need to make going out to vote easier. Right now, we seemingly make voting as hard as we can. Elections take place on weekdays, so if Americans want to vote, they must take off work or rush to the polls before or after work. When they get there, they must wait a long time to finish the process, because the volunteer polling coordinators are old, retired people. (Young people have to work, after all.) All this makes voting seem not worth the hassle to millions of Americans.

To change that and increase turnout, every Election Day should become a federal holiday. That would allow Americans to vote without worrying about missing work and forfeiting pay, or hurrying through throngs of people in the morning or evening. Younger Americans would also be able to volunteer to oversee the polls, thereby making voting a smoother and faster experience.

While we’re on the subject of changing our electoral system, let’s consider this: At the time the Constitution was drafted, one of the Anti-Federalist objections to the document was to the pluralistic election of representatives. The Anti-Federalists argued this could allow the election of representatives whom most of the community despised, but who still managed to get more votes than anyone else. Instead, according to the Anti-Federalists, districts should select their representatives by majority vote.

I believe that Anti-Federalist objection has merit. How can a representative represent a district if most of the people there hate him? Changing congressional elections to two-stage elections, similar to what I outlined above for presidential elections, would be a good idea. That way, we could ensure the majority of citizens in a district would have voted for their congressman. All the benefits of switching the national presidential election to a two-stage majority vote model would apply here.

Many conservatives would object to the national scope of my reform plan. They’d correctly point out it would erode federalism. Because population centers—cities—would yield greater power, our executive branch might also shift to the left. Given the power of the presidency, this might produce a government similarly inclined to governments in Europe. Anathema to conservatives, that would be.

To counteract the leftward effect and to placate conservatives, I suggest we repeal the 17th Amendment. Let the state legislatures elect senators again. Senators who don’t rely upon the people as an electoral base would be a lot more willing to challenge the president. Not only might the Senate be more conservative than the President, but they’d feel safer defying him since the people who put him in office wouldn’t be the same ones who put them in office. They wouldn’t have to worry as much about the President’s popularity.

In addition, with the people electing both the House of Representatives and the President under my plan, we’d need more checks against the tyranny of the majority. Election of federal senators by state legislatures would constitute such a check.

No electoral procedures could solve all problems. But this extensive reform plan would eliminate many of them:

• Campaigns focusing only on battleground states.
• Nullification of millions of votes.
• Candidates whose only goal is to win a plurality of the ballots.
• Victories by candidates whom most of the community doesn’t support.
• Apathy of the electorate toward politics.

We especially should not underestimate the importance of the last element. Only an interested and engaged citizenry can serve as the foundation of a republic. Without it, a republic cannot stand.

Heal our republic: change our electoral system is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Oh, what a difference a few weeks have made! Now, I say, impeach and remove this dangerous man. Bush’s profane abuses of his office cannot stand before history as acceptable behavior in a president.

Why have I resolved thusly?

Bush approved of a torture technique, waterboarding, used by Spanish inquisitors and punished as a war crime after World War II.

First, indications have accumulated Bush indeed condones torture of detainees, despite his pleas to the contrary. The military has used doctors to exploit detainees’ weaknesses and monitor their health during harsh interrogations, which participants have said leave the subjects injured or, sometimes, dead. A doctor who investigated the abuse reports:

The range of interrogation techniques, or abuse techniques, is pretty much the whole array of usual stuff that happens in countries that torture. It includes beatings, suspension, near-asphyxia, chemical burns—there were instances of burns with lighter fluid—kicks, slamming against the wall. There was at least one thumbscrew I saw. Electrical shocks with, in our case, external electrodes. I did not see any internal electrodes. There were instances of asphyxiation, food and water deprivation, deprivation of access to toilets, deprivation of access to medical care, forcing people to urinate on themselves, forcing people to masturbate, to renounce their religion, to put the urine or feces of other people on themselves, other forms of nudity, forced fondling, verbal abuse, threats against family, mock executions, forcing the victims to watch other family members being abused. They also used what’s called “perceptual monopolization,” which included… loud noise… (Emphases mine. Source: “The American Way of Torture“).

Besides which, the Bush administration has confessed to allowing waterboarding, a technique that entails submerging detainees underwater so they believe they’re drowning. This, as well as the tactics described above, is torture.

Even under the most Machiavellian considerations, interrogators shouldn’t torture captives in their charge. People will tell their tormentors anything, true or not, to make the horrors stop. This floods intelligence services with bad information. (I wonder if that helped the Bush administration conceive a bogus vision of Iraq’s WMD program.) So, practically speaking, condoning torture is stupid policy.

In addition, of course, torture violates the most cherished ideals of the American people. Our country stands to shine benevolent hope into the world, not darken it with the same barbaric cruelty our enemies do. For Bush to lower his administration to the level of thugs and terrorists destroys his moral authority to lead not only our good nation, but the free world. In so doing, he damages the Presidency of the United States.

That alone would warrant Bush’s impeachment. As Alexander Hamilton says in Federalist 65:

A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

A president need not commit a legal crime for impeachment to commence. “High crimes and misdemeanors,” instead, encompasses violation of trust and harm to society that can fall outside the strict boundaries of law. (If “high crimes and misdemeanors” meant literal crimes, a president would be impeachable for jaywalking. That’s absurd.) Under this criterion from the Federalist Papers, Bush’s abuse of power in authorizing systemic torture qualifies as an impeachable offense.

President George W. Bush and his political adviser, Karl Rove, swagger along.

Still, many people might not see brutal treatment of foreign alleged terrorists outside American borders as important. It’s not happening in the United States, as far as they know, so it?s a foreign policy problem remote from their concern. But, sadly for us, that’s not the extent of Bush’s transgressions.

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects American citizens from government searching and snooping without a warrant. When Bush ascended to the Oval Office, he swore to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” And yet he has flouted that very document. Showing his isolation from reality, Bush has matter-of-factly—as if he can’t understand why anyone would be upset—admitted to ordering the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens on multiple occasions. No courts issued warrants for these invasions of Americans’ privacy. They transpired at the sole behest of the executive.

So not only has Bush adopted the tactics of an authoritarian regime abroad, but he’s also done it at home, trampling the Bill of Rights with his cowboy boots. Bush loves to pontificate about freedom, warning us of the danger terrorists pose to it. If terrorists are the enemies of freedom, as Bush maintains they are, then he has become their collaborator.

To borrow from the president’s father, President George H. W. Bush, “This will not stand.”

If Americans value their rights and liberties, then they cannot allow a man who defies the Constitution to remain in office. Such would encourage not only Bush, but future commanders-in-chief, to encroach further on American freedoms. To the Congress of the United States, I say, impeach Bush now. And then kick him out of the West Wing.

Impeach Bush now is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

What Christmas is really all about

On December 25 of every year, a wonderous celebration takes place: We scarf down copious amounts of food, imbibe generous portions of alcohol, and give and receive presents in joyous approbation of the money, greed, free enterprise, industriousness, decadence, and gluttony that define our culture. We should do that; it promotes recognizance of what we are, which is a good thing. But let’s stop calling the day on which we indulge in a capitalist wet dream “Christmas.”

Jesus Christ, from whom Christmas takes its name, preached against love of wealth. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” said Jesus in Luke 18:25. He deplored coveting a neighbor’s possessions, hording things for oneself, valuing the material world before God, harboring pride, etc. He urged his followers to give to the needy, whom Jesus extolled as “blessed” (Luke 6:20).

Jesus would like the communism of Karl Marx more than the capitalism of Adam Smith. (At least, he’d prefer the economic aspects of communism, not the atheistic parts.)

So naming the December 25 holiday, which features the best and worst of capitalism, after Jesus makes no sense. Volunteering in soup kitchens, while sending thanksgivings to the Lord for what we have in life, would celebrate Jesus. What we actually do on a day ostensibly in honor of Jesus is broadcast a huge “Sod off!” to him.

Let’s officially rename the holiday “XMas” already and stop pretending we care about Jesus on that day.

Rename Christmas already is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Many people would answer, “God.” God provides our lives with purpose. In a universe that God forged, we all have a role in His master plan. This means we all matter within the grand scheme of existence. Without God, our lives could have no meaning, because we’d just… be. We would have no more relevance to the universe than a stone or a stick.

I object to that viewpoint. If one lives because of God’s will, then he is little more than a cog within the universe that is God’s machine. He has no identity but that which God allows him to have. Certainly, he can’t bear culpability for the shape of the universe or the condition of his brethren, because ultimate blame for the way things are doesn’t lie with him. It doesn’t reside with anyone else, either, but with God.

Far from giving humanity purpose, God instead robs us of individuality and absolves us of responsibility. We become helpless babies within the orchestration of existence. (The similarity in this regard between religion and Marxist dialectics is ironic, considering the anti-left rhetoric of the modern Religious Right.)

Without God or any other supernatural force, our lives have no preordained purpose. No one from on high has constructed paths for us to follow. In those senses, we do indeed have commonality with the matter and energy around us. But from similarity doesn’t follow sameness. We still possess something that makes us inherently different from everything else: sentience, a.k.a. self-awareness, a.k.a. the ability to think. We know who we are, we know what we want, and we formulate and execute plans based on our identities and desires.

Therefore, we imbue our lives with meaning ourselves. We construct our own paths and then follow them… Or not; maybe we’ll change our minds and think another direction is better, and so veer off that way. With all this power, though, comes responsibility. We can’t hold anyone else at fault for our actions. We can’t shift accountability for the state of our world onto anyone else. Our lives are only what we make them, or what we don’t make them.

This, and not vapidity, is what some people fear in a life without God. The onus of control terrifies them. So they attempt to transfer it to another agency, God.

They don’t succeed, though. Consider that the God or supreme force of everyone who is religious conforms to whatever the believer thinks is righteous. No person worships exactly the same God someone else does. One man’s God condemns homosexuality, whereas another man’s does not. One cleric’s God commands the masses to slaughter unbelievers, whereas another cleric’s does not. Etc., etc. God isn’t a mystical otherworldly force telling his flocks what to do. He is a mental construct people use to justify the beliefs they’ve chosen to hold and the lives they’ve decided to lead. God buttresses what individuals were going to do or think anyway, and he functions as a lightning rod to draw away the attendant responsibility.

Ergo, all that separates people who derive their meaning from God, and those who craft their own meaning, is the latter’s recognition and acceptance of personal responsibility and control. Even if this concept isn’t new—Friedrich Nietzsche expounded on this with his Superman concept—it is, in my opinion, profound. It makes everything we do more important.

The television program Angel, which was more philosophical than superficial critics believe, made this point in the 16th episode of its 2nd season, “Epiphany.” Angel, the main character, realized at the end, “Nothing we do matters. So all that matters is what we do.”

That phrasing is quirky, but the message is insightful: In a universe that has no great plan behind everything, there’s nothing else but our actions and choices. So they’re not meaningless, but as meaningful as they could possibly be.

The meaning of life is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Bush and Miers

After nominating John Roberts, an intelligent Harvard Law School graduate who even the Democrats had to admit was well-qualified, to whom does President George W. Bush turn for his next Supreme Court nomination? His present White House counsel and former personal lawyer Harriet E. Miers. And what is her philosophy as a judge? She doesn’t have one, because she’s never been a judge before.

This nomination defies logic. Shouldn’t a woman who sits on the highest court of the land, and who helps direct lower courts, know what being a judge is like? As a lawyer, she might have argued before judges many times, thereby gaining some understanding of their job. But observing someone doing a job provides only incomplete knowledge of what working in that job entails. For example, one can’t know what a police officer’s job truly encompasses until one has felt the anxiety of walking a beat or arresting a dangerous criminal. Judgeships are the same way; until one has presided over a courtroom, managed lengthy dockets, and struggled to keep opinions out of decisions, one can’t comprehend a judge’s duties.

How does Miers even know she’d enjoy sitting on the bench? As a lawyer, she presented subjective viewpoints all the time. Would she like factoring them out of her decisions now? More importantly for the country, would she be able to do so? No one knows!

When people said Bush’s next Supreme Court nominee didn’t have to be a John Roberts… they didn’t mean she didn’t have to be qualified for the position.

In drafting the “advice and consent” clause of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers did not intend for the Senate to force the president to nominate whomever they thought best, as Alexander Hamilton says in Federalist 66 and 76. The purpose wasn’t to allow the Senate to screen nominees ideologically. Instead, the objective was to ensure the president nominated people of merit. As Hamilton writes in Federalist 76:

To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.

It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entire branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.

Miers, a woman who has personal ties to the president but no actual merit, is the kind of nominee whom the Founding Fathers wanted the Senate to prevent from taking office. Democrats who’ve been waiting for a chance to rip apart one of Bush’s Supreme Court nominees now have the Founders’ blessing to do so. (Get to it, ladies and gentlemen!) And senatorial Republicans will hopefully cast aside partisanship and join with the Democrats to stymie President Bush’s nomination as well.

Bush scrapes bottom of nepotistic barrel for latest SC nomination is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Those words, from the theme song of Firefly, perfectly capture the spirit of the television show, from the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Joss Whedon. Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his daring crew aboard the spaceship Serenity forge their livings in a vast and lawless frontier, reminiscent of the Wild West. The show actually embraces the Wild West theme, featuring six-shooters, horses, cowboys, and twangy music. From a sci fi show, that might seem odd, but it makes sense. If you’re struggling to survive in distant space, would you rather have expensive, state-of-the-art equipment that could break and then require scarce parts, or cheap and proven technology that’s easily replaceable?

Even considering the logic of the Wild West theme, it would shift from novelty to annoyance quickly in a normal show. Thankfully, Firefly is not a normal show. I say, without exaggeration, it is one of the best science fiction programs of all-time.

As you might have inferred from the program’s desperate Wild West theme, the crew of the Serenity aren’t virtuous and heroic explorers spreading enlightened values, a la Star Trek. They’re real people facing serious problems that don’t always wrap up neatly with a bow on top by episode’s end. As they smuggle, help, thieve, and sneak their way across the far reaches of an oppressive empire, each of the unique characters demonstrates the best and worst of humanity. We flawed yet decent humans can sympathize and emphasize with these characters: The irascibly ethical Captain Reynolds. The tough and sensitive Jayne. The perky, plump, sexy, and intelligent engineer, Kaylee. The super-talented but super-unstable River. The moral though practical preacher, Book. The scrupled whore, Inara. Etc.

In that regard, Firefly distinguishes itself from the modern Battlestar Galactica. Even when things go to hell, and the baser instincts of people emerge, the courage, hope, and humor that are also hallmarks of our species burst into view. Light triumphs over dark, not always cleanly, but eventually. The same episodes that make us gasp and cry also make us smile and laugh. To some people, that might seem like a dichotomy that could only lead to disjointed installments. But Whedon makes the juxtaposition work.

Further adding to the appeal of Firefly is its defiance of genre. Certainly, as a show with a spaceship in the future as its primary setting, Firefly is a science fiction program. Yet weird aliens, peculiar anomalies, and complicated technobabble don’t drive its plots. Anyone who likes drama, comedy, and action could enjoy Firefly.

Unfortunately, Firefly only ran half a season in Fall 2002 before Fox canceled it, after bungling it throughout its whole time on the air. For example, Fox aired the first episode, explaining the premise of the show, last! Luckily for us, we can still watch Firefly as its creators intended on DVD. It’s 14 episodes of sci fi/action/drama/comedy goodness.

Additionally, Universal Pictures has picked up the Firefly ball from where Fox dropped it, and they’re using it in a grander game than Fox ever considered. On September 30, the rough-and-tumble crew will fly across the silver screen in the motion picture Serenity. Now that Star Wars has become one with the Force, and Star Trek has stopped boldly going, the adventures of the Firefly-class Serenity can satisfy our craving for space adventure.

And then some!

Firefly quenches sci-fi thirst is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

The last time the American court system grappled with “under God” in the Pledge, Michael Newdow represented himself, and he sued on behalf of his daughter against the Pledge in public schools, on the grounds it contained “under God.” Newdow argued that constituted government endorsement of religion. The Ninth Circuit agreed, ruling the 1954 law that introduced “under God” into the Pledge unconstitutional. The Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, though without resolving the underlying constitutional question. They chickened out of that by saying Newdow didn’t have standing to file a lawsuit on behalf of his daughter, of whom he didn’t have custody.

Now, though, Newdow has sued against “under God” again, this time as a lawyer representing three parents who do have custody of their children. With the standing of the plaintiffs in this case unquestionable, the Supreme Court won’t be able cowardly to dodge the constitutional issue. They’ll have to resolve the matter one way or another.

(Read from the Washington Post: School Pledge is Unconstitutional.)

I champion the separation of church and state. As per the First Amendment of the Constitution, the government has no business endorsing religion. Forcing children in public schools to acknowledge the United States as “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance constitutes government support for monotheistic religion. If you don’t believe me, believe the man who signed the 1954 bill adding “under God” to the Pledge, President Dwight D. Eisenhower:

From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.

Eisenhower admits the intent of the bill was to impress upon schoolchildren belief in Christianity! For the American government to do this flouts our Constitution.

So I applaud today’s ruling against compelling kids to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. Still, I have quibbles with it. Judge Karlton maintains the 1954 “under God” law isn’t unconstitutional in and of itself; only forcing students in class to proclaim they’re “under God” defies the Constitution. I disagree. The Pledge of Allegiance receives the sponsorship of the United States government. With “under God” in the Pledge, the government is thereby acting unconstitutionally.

Also, concentrating on “under God” instead of the whole Pledge of Allegiance would make the findings of the decision more palatable to the citizenry. It wouldn’t be such a radical change from what they experienced in school, so it wouldn’t scare them as much. Children would still recite the Pledge every morning, just without proclaiming subservience to God. (I actually think compulsory recitation of any version of the Pledge evokes Fascism, but that’s another argument for another screed. )

I hope the Ninth Circuit tweaks the findings more sensibly, to reflect the Constitution more accurately and to increase the acceptability of a decision in favor of Newdow.

School pledge ruled unconstitutional is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, though, I believe we can soberly and fairly assess the responses of local, state, and federal governments to the crisis. Reason, not partisanship, will be our guide.

Clearly, no government at any level responded as it should have. Let’s start from the bottom:

• The media has lionized New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, but he shares responsibility for what happened in his city. His government knew thousands of people wouldn’t have financial or logistical means to evacuate New Orleans. Yet he didn’t use dozens of available school buses to help evacuate people, so they sat empty on their lots. Instead, Nagin arranged for the Superdome to become “a shelter of last resort,” without first adequately stocking it with food and supplies. Also, even though New Orleans knew one day wasn’t enough time for an evacuation, Nagin didn’t issue an evacuation order until the day before the storm hit. In addition, Amtrak offered its last train out of New Orleans, with room for several hundred passengers, to the city for evacuation efforts. Incredibly, Nagin’s government rejected the offer.
• Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco waited a few days before agreeing to an evacuation order. Also, after Hurricane Katrina struck, Blanco didn’t call in the National Guard for a day. Blanco obstructed relief efforts, too, by refusing to allow the feds to take command in New Orleans. She feared an effort by Republicans to portray the action as an admission her government bore responsibility for the catastrophe in New Orleans.
• Of course, the federal government under the command of President Bush deserves blame. For nearly a week after Katrina, the federal government had no personnel in New Orleans. The absence of FEMA workers and military forces during that time permitted starvation and chaos. If a government can’t take care of its citizens, it surrenders its legitimacy. The government of the United States has dangerously approached that point vis-a-vis New Orleans. Rank incompetence from our government officials has exacerbated public anger over the slow response. For instance, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, didn’t know refugees were suffering and dying in a New Orleans convention center, after the networks had been covering that situation incessantly. The (now thankfully former) director of FEMA, Michael Brown, overshadows Chertoff’s idiocy, though. He, too, had no idea about the conditions in the convention center. He wasn’t cognizant of the flooding in New Orleans. And, after the dreadful response of his agency to Katrina, Brown professed not even to know why anyone had a problem with him! I guess, however, we couldn’t expect anything more from a former horse breeder… who was fired. Bush makes much ado about his ability to delegate. His delegation of authority to unqualified boobs who supported his campaign instead of intelligent administrators with decades of experience should indeed earn the attention of the American public. They should punish Bush and his supporters for it in the midterm 2006 elections.
• Attempting to defend the performance of his department, Chertoff raised a good point: FEMA was designed to work with local government personnel after a disaster. It wasn’t set up for a calamity in which local governmental infrastructure has collapsed. That doesn’t excuse the national government’s five day delay in reaching New Orleans. But it raises the important question, just why wasn’t FEMA prepared to handle a disaster so massive, it might have to work on its own? During the reorganization of the federal government after September 11, 2001, the Congress and the President should have taken their time to make the Department of Homeland Security more efficient, and FEMA itself more robust. After all, what if terrorists pulverized a region with an atomic strike? Or, what if a natural phenomenon destroyed an area, which has actually happened? The federal government had an excellent opportunity to strengthen FEMA for such catastrophes, but neither the Congress nor the President took advantage of it. Their short-sightedness haunts us now.

I can’t believe the myopia of partisan commentators who insist either the federal government or the local/state governments bear complete responsibility for what Katrina’s aftereffects have wrought. Anyone with the slightest ounce of objectivity could see this constitutes failure of government at all levels.

Blame for Katrina spreads all around is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Now, I must ask another question: Do we set up the American government to fail in our eyes?

In the modern era, we expect the federal government to solve all our problems. Americans perceive their government officials not as maintainers of law and order, but as wizards who can ameliorate every difficulty. One of the problems that exists with this mindset, though, is the nonexistance of any such wizards. The bureaucrats and politicians who comprise our national government are human beings, just like the rest of the populace, who have superhuman expectations to fulfill. When they can’t meet those expectations, Americans believe they have failed in their duties.

Let’s examine reactions to Hurricane Katrina, for example. Regardless of how lean our government might have been, time would have been necessary for FEMA units and National Guard contingents to reach New Orleans and stabilize the city. This is especially true considering New Orleans still had thousands of people trapped inside. Any operation to rescue and evacuate them would have required extensive preparation. The alternative would have been rushing in half-cocked and doing less good in the long run.

Yet within a day or two after Hurricane Katrina, many people condemned President George W. Bush and every politician down the line for not doing enough to help New Orleans. One could legitimately criticize the government for not having a skeletal presence in New Orleans, at least to reassure the victims help was there, and more was on the way. But expecting enough government agents and equipment to assist thousands of people to materialize in a day reeks with absurdity.

Many critics have also lambasted the government for not doing enough to fortify New Orleans to withstand a Category Four or Five hurricane. These criticisms have validity; the federal government could have done more to help New Orleans prepare for the strongest possible hurricanes. Still, money and time are finite, and the national government must help guard regions all over the country against disaster. One could understand federal reticence over the decades to pour cash into New Orleans for protection against a hurricane with little chance of occurring.

By not understanding the limits of government capabilities, through such examples as I’ve outlined, do we make government failure, as far as the public’s concerned, inevitable?

I think the answer is yes. This could spark widespread dissatisfaction with our government that no politician could resolve, which could erode the authority of government. That could imperil the government’s ability to maintain order in this country.

So, how do I react to Katrina?

I won’t condemn government officials as failures for their policies in the past. They were human beings trying to administrate a whole country. Mistakes are inevitable. I would just like for them not to repeat errors.

My point with this screed, however, isn’t to insist we shouldn’t be angry about the government’s slow response to Katrina. We should. Americans should temper their rage, though, with the knowledge government can’t optimally solve all problems. We should stay our final judgment on the government’s competence or lack thereof.

Do we set up the government to fail? is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

This, naturally, entails a massive bureaucracy that can’t help but act inefficiently and slowly.

Considering the morass in New Orleans, I’ve been wondering if all the bureaucracy weighing down government might have slowed its response. If the government didn’t need to allocate resources for the nanny state, perhaps it could concentrate its attention on areas such as law enforcement, national defense, and disaster response. Maybe that then would have allowed FEMA and the National Guard to respond more swiftly and effectively.

As events happened, President George W. Bush began to mobilize government responders for Hurricane Katrina before the storm tore across the Gulf coast. But they didn’t achieve a significant presence in New Orleans until a few days after the hurricane had hit! More victims probably died after Katrina, waiting for rescue or aid, than during the hurricane itself.

Maybe, if the government could have reacted more quickly, thousands of people would still be alive who perished in Katrina’s aftermath. Does a lesson exist there, not to pull the federal government in too many directions at once?

Could a leaner government have saved lives? is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Consider the coverage of Hurricane Katrina over the last few days. The news channels regaled their audiences with snazzy logos for the crisis. CNN even billed itself as “Your Hurricane Home” or “Your Hurricane Channel” or something like that. Or think about how the media handled the invasion of Iraq a few years ago. Each of the networks had its own “Operation: Iraqi Freedom” design and accompanying fanfare. If viewers didn’t know better, they might have thought they were watching an exciting new drama from Don Bellisario. That’s especially the case given how antiseptically the American media handled a scary and brutal war.

I know I’m not alone in thinking all this packaging of the news is… crass! When human beings are suffering and dying, prefacing stories of their pain with a flashy graphic and a jaunty tune disrespects them. It downplays the serious of their ordeals. And it makes newscasters seem like profiteers of human misery.

A return to some of the old practices of news, such as handling tragedies seriously, shouldn’t be an unreasonable desire. The media accomplished serious reporting on September 11, 2001, so we know such is not beyond the media’s capabilities.

It shouldn’t lie beyond their usual sensibilities, either.

Packaging the news for maximum crassness is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

I haven’t played the game, but I’ve read it allows players to control a main character who fights both street gangs and corrupt police, during the course of which he can hijack cars, participate in shoot-outs, etc. A lot of people say it’s fun, but definitely not for kids. The game carries a rating of “M,” for “Mature,” to reflect that. This tells parents Grand Theft Auto is only for players above the age of 17.

Senator Clinton, casting herself as a defender of American values before her probable 2008 presidential election bid, has condemned the game and demanded the Federal Trade Commission investigate Grand Theft Auto, from Rockstar Games. Why? Not because of the game’s violence. Not even because of how the game was when it shipped. Instead, a user modification of the game is what has drawn Clinton’s anger. This mod permits Grand Theft Auto’s main character to have sex with his girlfriends in various min-games, which if available in the standard game, would have earned it an “Adults Only” rating, keeping it off many store shelves. The creator of the mod, known as Hot Coffee, claims he unlocked content already in the game’s code that Rockstar had disabled. Rockstar contradicts the modder, saying that the content was never in the game, and that the modder added it all himself.

Clinton’s ruckus is much ado about nothing. Let’s presume the sex games were indeed part of the original code of Grand Theft Auto. That’s still nothing scandalous. Inactive programming from discarded features ships all the time with games. Eliminating code from abandoned ideas can be difficult, and it could even break algorithms for concepts a game’s producer wants to keep. So the game’s programmers leave the code as inactive, and it’s not part of the game as it ships. A bored modder could sift through a game’s code and write files to reactivate the dormant code, which might have occurred with the Hot Coffee mod.

Rockstar Games, though, cannot be accountable for what a modder does to Grand Theft Auto. They are responsible only for the game they distribute to the public. And the sex adventures are not part of that game. Whether someone chooses to change the behavior of the game is solely the affair of the person in question.

Besides all this, let’s not forget Grand Theft Auto bears an “M” rating. The M appears right on the box, informing parents about the game’s potential inappropriateness for children. The addition of slightly more risque sexual content by an independent modder hardly changes the overall nature of the game. If parents don’t want their kids playing such a game, then they should forbid its purchase. The use of government power to threaten investigations in order to scare game developers violates the First Amendment and imperils an activity many adults legitimately enjoy.

I don’t expect these arguments to concern many politicians or commentators. They seek easy answers to America’s problems. Rather than trying to determine the flaws with our society itself, that lead to unsafe underage sex, for example, blaming and attacking a video game is simpler. It enables politicos to sit back at their desks and say, “We’re doing something,” while the hard task of attempting to resolve our difficulties remains undone. Heaven forfend the original thought we would need otherwise!

Self-important politicians meddle with game industry is a post from: Hypersyllogistic

Yes, to a point. For those who believe in God to thank him for the overall health of the human race is nothing to disparage. But most individuals are not so liberal in their thanksgivings. They thank God for their accomplishments, their talents, their awards, or their food. Americans have an inclination to thank God for the success of their country.

How colossally arrogant!

Open the Bible, and what are we likely to find? One tale or another about God finding someone, or a whole civilization, unworthy. He then arranges their deaths by various means, through floods, pestilence, wars, etc. Afterwards, God’s wrath still burns, so the souls of those who perish face damnation.

Let’s also consider the modern temporal world. In Africa and Asia, millions face starvation and death at the hands of corrupt governments and fanatical terrorists. In areas of the West and Latin America, poverty runs out of control. For much of the world’s population, life isn’t like a box of chocolates, as Forrest Gump might say. It’s like a box of rocks with a grenade surprise inside.

Apparently, however, according to those who thank their deity for their fortune, God has chosen people and nations whom he shields from misery and enhances with ability. God might not care about everyone else, even other Christians, but he certainly loves them. That’s horrifyingly crass, but it’s the necessary implication of thanking God for what only a fraction of humans possess.

We should acknowledge that what we achieve in our lives isn’t the result of divine providence. It’s the fruit of our own industriousness and ingenuity. Studying or practicing enough to achieve greatness, constructing infrastructure to improve quality of life, ameliorating diseases, stopping tyranny, and thousands of other awesome events aren’t the acts of an invisible man in the sky. Instead, our destinies are what we make.

“I thank God” is a post from: Hypersyllogistic