Protect America Act (addendum to previous posting)

Just a little addendum to my last blog entry...Even the legal analyst for the blatantly biased Fox News realizes that the Protect America Act (the "warentless wiretapping" legislation) is illegal and unconstitutional. More here.

The Benefit of the Doubt

When evaluating an argument or assertion logically, you start by examining the premises. If the conclusion of the argument follows from the premises, then the argument is considered valid, but the conclusion itself is still not proven until the truth of all of the premises is proven; if all the premises are true, the argument is both valid and sound. One common technique when evaluating the premises of an argument is to see if a premise implies more than the speaker intended or would accept-- in other words, you take the premise to its logical extreme, and see if the speaker will still stand by it. For example, if someone asserts that morality is purely culturally relative, to apply this technique against their assertion all you would have to do is cite practices which some cultures condone but which are otherwise considered abhorrent-- the forced gential mutilation of women in some parts of Africa (and elsewhere), or (to cite an example from recent events), condemning the victim of a brutal gang rape to the lash for "allowing her purity to be violated" and "being with unrelated men". Yes, these are extreme examples, but they are extreme examples allowed by the original premise or assertion-- if it is true that morality is purely culturally relative, then the abhorence we feel for these acts is simply the residual effect of our own culture's morality; to judge these acts as "wrong" would be to impose our own morality upon these cultures, therefore we can not legitimately make any moral judgements against such actions. If morality is culturally delimited.

The same holds true (or should hold true) in the realm of politics. When a piece of legislation is proposed, for example, our representatives should scrutinize it and take it to its literal and logical extreme (because if they don't someone else will; this is the most common cause of all legal "loopholes"-- if the literal specification of the legislation is not explicit enough in its intent, someone will find a way to use the law in a manner unforseen by those who proposed it). This is especially true when it comes to legislation which grants the government (say, for example, the executive branch) powers that it previously did not have. I'm thinking in this case of the "warrentless wiretapping" legislation currently being battled over between the legislative and executive branches. The executive branch maintains that not only does it require the ability to listen to our private conversations without the judicial oversight of the FISA court, but also that congress must grant retroactive immunity to telecom corporations which may have illegally enabled such wiretaps. Although the Democratically controlled congress did bend to the wishes of the administration and voted to extend the so-called "Protect America" act (which grants the use of warentless wiretaps), it did not grant the administrations sought-for protection for the complicit telecommunications companies.

On Fox News this Sunday, convervative pundit Bill Kristol accussed Congress of failing to give the administration the "benefit of the doubt" in regards to warrentless wiretaps and retroactive immunity for the telecoms. Quite frankly-- that is exactly what congress should do. Our government is composed of 3 separate, co-equal branches in order to provide the checks-and-balances necessary for ensuring that one branch does not exceed its constitutionally mandated power. Congress should never give anyone the "benefit of the doubt", especially an executive branch which has previously lied about its use of the power in question. In granting the "Protect America" act, congress already failed to employee the logical principle I outlined earlier-- they either dismissed or did not bother to consider the various ways in which allowing the executive branch to wiretap at whim (without the oversight of the FISA court) could be perverted-- e.g., listening to the conversations of political rivals. Had they given, as Mr. Kristol desires, the administration the "benefit of the doubt" on granting retroactive immunity to the telecoms, they would have failed completely at their constitutionally mandated function. "Give them the benefit of the doubt" is not an argument, especially when the "them" in question is a power-hungry administration which seems pathologically averse to the truth.

Pebble by Pebble...

As I've previously written (and as anyone who pays any attention at all to the world around them can see), the system is skewed, skewed in such a way that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; skewed in such a way that even those who can see that something's rotten in the state of America are all but powerless to effect change. The example I'm going to write of today may seem trivial; it may seem but a tiny pebble compared to the other injustices which surround us every day, but stack enough pebbles up, and you soon have a mountain, a mountain of injustice ready to crash down on anyone with the hubris to pull a pebble from the heap. So be it.

A little over a month ago, Mel and I were crossing one of Portland's many bridges, on our way to a Lebanese restaurant downtown. We were unfamiliar with the area, so, while Mel navigated (reading from MapQuest directions), I drove across the bridge, switching lanes (as per the directions) in order to exit the bridge onto the street we needed. Unfortunately, both of us missed the overhead sign that read "Lane changes prohibited on bridge" (or something to that effect); the section of the bridge we were on was not pavement but metal grating, so there were no solid lines to indicate that lane changes weren't allowed. So although I was completely unaware of my infraction, the Portland police officer behind me was keenly aware of the traffic rules, and decided to rectify my ignorance by pulling us over. When he told me that I had changed lanes where doing so was prohibited, I did not argue-- I believed him, and readily (though not happily) accepted the ticket for my infraction. I was at fault; I missed the sign, and I changed lanes where I was not supposed to. So be it.

I didn't really look at the ticket until later that evening; I'd been pulled over before for nearly doubling the speed limit, so I figured an improper lane-change fee couldn't be that bad. I was wrong. The ticket was almost $250, more than any speeding ticket I've ever received (and I've had a few). I thought the amount far outweighed the infraction, and though I was not going to plead not-guilty, I considered going to court (rather than mailing in the fee, as I originally planned), just to see if there was any chance of lowering the fine. After all, even though I did change lanes where I was not supposed to, I didn't do so in an unsafe manner-- I had my blinker on, I waited for an opening in traffic, both Mel and I had our seat belts on, etc. I thought perhaps these mitigating circumstances might help to lower the egregious and disproportionate fine. We talked to some friends, and were told several anecdotes about fines being lowered if you show up in court instead of mailing in the fine.

So when the court date arrived, Mel and I both took a few hours off of work, put on our dress-clothes (to show "proper respect" for the court...something I never quite understood-- I always considered respect to be shown through actions, not fashion, but I was willing to concede on this occasion; there were other battles to fight), and hopped a train downtown. We arrived just as the courthouse opened, but already a throng of people spilled out onto the courthouse steps, waiting to get through the metal detector just inside the entrance. Once inside the building proper, we found ourselves waiting in another line-- a line hundreds of people long, filling the entire hallway. We were told that the traffic cashiers' computers were down, so things would be moving more slowly than usual. While waiting in line, I realized 2 things-- first, we were not going to see the inside of a court room; there would be no judge-- we would be pleading our case to a clerk, not a court. And second, after speaking with some of my fellow vehicular criminals in line, I knew we were going to get the fine reduced. At this point, I talked to the traffic-court employee who was trying to maintain order in the hallway, and showed her my ticket. She told me exactly what my fine would be reduced to. I didn't have to explain my mitigating circumstances, I didn't have to make any sort of argument whatsoever. If you simply show up to the courthouse, your fine is reduced by a set amount, no matter what the infraction, no matter whether the action was accidental or intentional, in fact, no matter what the circumstances were at all. When we finally made our way to the cashier, we handed her the ticket, I gave her my drivers license, and she reduced the fee to exactly what the woman managing the line said it would be.

One the one hand, I suppose I should be happy that my fine was reduced, even if it was only by about $40. But I wasn't happy. In fact, I was furious. Mel and I are lucky that we both work from home, and therefore have a certain amount of flexibility in our schedules. But what about the single mother who can't take the time off work to wait for hours in a line at the courthouse? What about anyone with a job during court hours, who cannot simply leave for an hour or two to get their fine reduced? Why is it that one class of people-- those with the time to go to the courthouse and wait in line-- are automatically granted a reduced fee, while those who are unable to take a two-hour chunk out of the middle of their work day are stuck having to pay the original (and absurdly disproportionate) fee? While standing in line and talking to my fellow offenders, I found out that the amount of our fine-- approximately $250-- seems to be the standard fine for vehicle infractions of just about any sort, from running a stop sign to improperly changing lanes. To me, this seems to be a ridiculously high amount, and it seems even more suspicious that just about everyone we talked to had the exact same fee, no matter what their infraction. Is this simply some way for the state of Oregon to make money? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a scam, and the more the automatic fine-reduction seemed like a kind of bribe, a way of saying "Ok, yeah, you're right; that amount is unfair...pay this instead." But that reduction (based solely on bureaucracy, entirely lacking in judgment) is available only to the select few, those "in the know", those who can take the time out of their work-day to come to the courthouse. For everyone else, for the single mother who gets paid by the hour and can't afford to leave work, they get stuck paying the full-- egregiously unfair-- amount.

I know some of you might think I'm blowing this whole thing out of proportion; that this is simply "how the system works". There, I agree. This is how the system works. The judicial system has done away with judgment, and replaced it with bureaucracy. Those who know the tricks, the loopholes, the ways to play the system, benefit, while those who do not or can not pick up the tab. In this instance, I happened to come out ahead, at least in monetary terms. But I find no solace in the fact. I saved myself $40, simply by showing up. Had it ended there, my story would just be another pebble of injustice, thrown upon the heap that grows ever skyward; an unstable, ever-shifting mountain of injustice, which will-- sooner or later-- bury us. But I don't want it to end there. I don't want to take my $40 and shut up, happy that I got a "break". I don't know if it will make any difference, but I wanted to show how even the small, seemingly benign loopholes in the system which benefit one group of people at the cost of another all add up, pebble by pebble, until one day, the mountain which the system has built comes crashing down to bury us all.

I don't know what I can do to change this, other than to share it with you. In this case, I benefitted from an unjust system, but unless those who benefit from this systematic corruption take a stand and speak out against it (such as Warren Buffet), the system will remain skewed. The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer, and the mountain of injustice will grow, pebble by pebble.

Gay Marriage

With the 2008 presidential race (read: ad campaign) in full swing, it was only a matter of time before the candidates delved into one of the most pressing considerations of our time. No, it's not the trampling of civil liberties by the Bush administration, or its flagrant, unconstitutional erosion of the separation of powers. Nor is it a discussion of the ramifications of concept of "preemptive war", which undermines the foundations of international justice (just as the denial of habeas corpus undermines the very idea of the rule of law). No, it's not healthcare, despite the fact that we, the supposedly richest and most powerful nation in the world, are ranked 37th world-wide by the World Health Organization in terms of the quality of care provided to our citizens. It's not the billions wasted (or outright lost) in Iraq, or the fact that wounded service men and women are being forced to give back their enlistment bonuses because their injuries (in the line of duty) keep them from returning to the fray, while civilian contractors, which the supposedly-soverign Iraqi government has found guilty of "deliberate murder" continue to operate with impunity (at pay rates far higher than any of our enlisted soldiers). It's not an investigation of the devolution of a possibility-filled democracy into an corporate-owned-and-run oligarchy (where the "best lack all conviction, while the worst / are full of passionate intensity"). No, it's something far more insidious, something which the candidates seem to believe has a far more devastating impact upon our society (given that it comes up every election year)...It's the issue of gay marriage.

On a recent episode of "Meet the Press"(transcript available here), Mike Huckabee, the man who wants to "take this nation back for Christ" (whatever that might mean...that's a subject for another blog), was pressed by Tim Russert regarding his thoughts on homosexuuality (which he has previously compared to "necrophilia". On being asked whether "people are born gay or choose to be gay?", Huckabee responded "I don't know whether people are born that way. But one thing I know, that the behavior one practices is a choice." I have to say, if you believe that we are free, rational beings, then Huckabee's statement (that the behavior one practices is a choice) is a trivial tautology-- "what I chose to do is what I chose to do". It does absolutely nothing to answer Russert's question (who, in the true spirit of American journalism, fails to call him on it); furthermore, it makes some of Huckabee's previous remarks on homosexuality morally or logically untenable. In an interview with Larry King in December, Huckabee said that a homosexual could "absolutely" have a place in his administration. If Huckabee truly believes that homosexuality is an immoral act akin to necrophilia, I wonder if he would also be open to having a corpse-fucker in his cabinet? ("Yeah, that Joe is one hell of a secretary of defense, just never let him bring a date to an event, or you'll be fumagating the place for days..."). The reality of the matter is, he is an Evangelical Christian who will say what he needs to during his campaign, but in reality views homosexuality as a sin who has repeatedly voiced the belief that somehow, allowing two men or two women to sanctify their love through marriage is a threat to marriage, the family, and civilization iteself.

That is a proposition I have never been able to wrap my head around. I have absolutely know issue with the fact that certain churches consider homosexuality a sin, and would refuse to perform a religious marriage ceremony for a homosexual couple; that is their perogative, their constitutional right. But marriage, in our society, is not simply a religious ceremony (akin to something like baptism). No, entering into a marriage has various legal (governmental) ramifications. The state can also, through a civil ceremony, marry two people, thus conveying upon them the same (from the point of view of the government) rights and responsibilities as those conferred upon a couple married in a church, synagogue, or mosque. The state does not perform baptisms because there is no legal differentiation (in the eyes of the state) between the "baptized" and the "unbaptized" (as there is with marriage). Given the fact that there marriage does have legal ramifications, and that the state may lawfully perform a marriage, it seems to me to be an indefensible injustice to deny that legal standing to two loving, committed adults, simply because they happen to be of the same gender.

Logically, I can see only two ways to rectify this injustice-- either marriage (like baptism) becomes something devoid of legal ramifications, and left solely to the discretion of the country's various religions; or, if marriage is to continue to carry with it legal ramifications, and the state is to retain the ability to join willing individuals in matrimony, then that right must exist for both heterosexual and homosexual adults. I simply cannot see any moral reason why a loving, homosexual couple should be denied the rights available to a loving, heterosexual couple.

There are those who will argue that changing the law to allow for homosexual marriages results in a change to the definition of marriage. This is inarguably true, just as it is true that any time a new criminal law is passed (or a previous law rescinded), the definition of "criminal" also changes. Language is not static-- it changes over time; new words are added, old words fall out of use. The meanings of words change over time-- e.g., just over half a century ago, a "computer" was a person-- one who computes. Now, that usage is almost unheard of. The fact that allowing two men or two women to marry alters the definition of the word "marriage" is not an argument about whether or not it is just.

In a sense, the issue of gay marriage, which rears its head every election year, is a valid point of discussion-- the inability for gays and lesbians to obtain the same legal status as heterosexual couples is an injustice which it is our moral duty to rectify. Unfortunately, that is not how the issue is used. Among the so-called "religious right", opposition to gay marriage is an essential part of any "electable" candidate's platform. Among Democratic candidates, it is an issue which is almost always side-stepped and avoided. This leaves us, the voters, in the position of choosing between those intent on allowing this injustice to contnue unabated, and those who are to cowardly to even address it.

The notion that allowing gays and lesbians to marry amounts to an "attack" on the "family" is something I simply cannot understand as anything other than baseless rhetoric thrown about by those who desire to push their private, religious beliefs into the public sphere-- which, if I remember my history correctly, was one of the things that this nation was founded to prevent.

Where are we?

I'm sorry it's been so long between blog posts. My attempt several weeks ago to create a coffee-flavored computer went horribly awry, so I had to spend some time rebuilding a new machine. Upon reading, this post also seems more disjointed than the last-- probably due to the fact that that I was able to write only a few sentences every few days. In my previous blog, I wrote that the system in which we (citizens of the United States) find ourselves living in seems designed to keep us living day-to-day, paycheck-to-paycheck; a system which convinces us that we need what we want, to keep us constantly, unquestioningly consuming (to the point where this state of conspicuous consumption becomes a part of our national identity, euphemistically referred to as "the American Dream"); a system that keeps us so focused on securing the welfare and wants of ourselves and our families that we simply "don't have the time" to "follow politics". Sure, we may hear something about private military contractors accused of murdering Iraqi civilians, or a news blurb about $9 billion dollars, slated for reconstruction in Iraq, which has vanished without a trace, or any number of other instances of political corruption, constitutional violations, and war crimes, as we channel surf through 200 channels of broadcast distraction, but even if one of these stories captures our attention long enough for us to listen to it or watch it, it is almost invariably sandwiched between stories about Britney's vagina or whether Linday is in or out of rehab. The manner in which the "news" is presented has the effect of making every story just as valid and important as every other. When every bit of information is just as important as every other bit, the result is a trivialization of everything.

A good friend of mine pointed out that perhaps this sort of levelling effect-- where everything is just as (non)important as everything else, is simply the natural result of democracy, the end-game of the "great American experiment". For every person that spends their evenings reading or researching, there are dozens that spend their time glued to the tube. It's a fact that the Ancient Greeks (the founders of Democracy) knew-- most people are average, so a government run by the will of the people will tend towards mediocrity. This might be true, but, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy might be the worst form of government, except for all the others.

But I don't think the current state of our society is simply the results of the varied interests of a democratic populace. The simple fact is-- only some of these "interests" are deemed valuable and "worthwhile" by our society-- industry, engineering, the sciences, etc-- anything that can be put to a practical end and which can be used to increase capital (and which does not challenge the status quo). And let's not forget advertising and marketing, whose sole purpose is turning wants into needs, to keep us consuming unreflectively. In other words, yes, in our democratic society, the interests of the people are varied, but only those interests which serve the corporate interests are deemed worthy vocations. Everything else-- art, poetry, music-- the gifts of the muses-- are relegated to mere amusement; the stuff we do when we're not "working". The fact of the matter is-- the system in place awards the pursuits that maintain and enhance the system, and discourages ones that in any way challenge it; we are not free to follow our own interests, at least not if we have rent to pay or mortgage payments. So it may be true that a government of the people, whose knowledge and interests vary from one end of the spectrum to the other, might result in a certain social fragmentation, I do not think this is the necessary outcome of democracy. Interests may vary, but in a true democracy, participation in the political process is not an "interest", but a duty. If citizens do not participate in their government, they are eo ipso not living in a democracy (no matter what platitudes might surround it).

So I ask you-- what type of government do we, as citizens of the United States, find ourselves living in? What kind of government puts forth the pretense of democracy, but in reality keeps its citizens too busy to follow the intricacies of politics? What kind of government offers a "choice" between only two parties, both of whom receive donations from many of the same corporations (the same corporations which also own every major media outlet, and thus control what counts as "news")? What kind of government forces us to give up rights-- rights endowed "by our Creator"-- for the sake of "safety" and "national security"? What kind of administration, in contravention to every administration before it (and against the very idea of justice) provokes a "premptive war", a war against "terror", a war against evil itself (which seems to be defined as "anything that inhibts the continutation of our consumptive society"). I believe it was Plato who pointed out that when I tyrant takes control, the first thing he should do is start a war-- the longer and more abstract the war the better, for it will draw the people together under his leadership. There is no question that we find ourselves in a seemingly unending war, a war against a concept. It is also undeniable that that war has been the excuse for countless civil and constitutional violations. The question is-- for what purpose? If most people "don't have time" for politics, and are essenetially apolitical, then what kind of government do we find ourselves living in?

"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants." -- Albert Camus

"A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny." -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." -- Sinclair Lewis

"I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security" -- Jim Garrison

On Torture

I am sure by now most of you have heard about the infamous "torture memos" which illuminated "how a pattern in which Bush administration lawyers set about devising arguments to avoid constraints against mistreatment and torture of detainees". I'm sure you're all also familiar with the atrocities of Abu Grahib and Guantanamo Bay, and the abominable practice of "extraodinary rendition". Our current idiot-in-chief continues to maintain that "The US does not torture", despite the memos, despite the Executive Signing Statement on the McCain sponsored legislation against torture which (at least the administration believes) exempts the Executive branch from the law, despite the testimony-- photographic, verbal (including that of a former US President, and written, to the contrary. Unfortunately, too many of us have accepted this state of affairs in which the words of our governing officials at best obscure, and at worst contradict, their actions-- like the world of 1984, our words are losing their meaning.

Something else is being lost as well. Many arguments have been made about the "ineffectiveness" of torture and the "unreliability" of words spoken under duress, as if the decision whether or not to torture is simply a pragmatic, practical decision. But there is something more at stake-- something far more precious, far more important, than the question of effectiveness. The following passage, from an article in the Washington Post on the military interrogators at Fort Hunt who questioned Nazi POWs during and after WWII:

""We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice," said John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a career Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Denmark... "During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

When it comes to torture, the debate should not be about whether or not it is "effective"; in fact, there should be no debate at all, for, as mankind has known since Plato and Aristotle, violence against another is a violence to oneself-- it is the abnegation of one's very humanity. Those who resort to torture compromise their humanity; it is a self-inflicted attack upon the very principles which make us human. And just as virtue (according to Aristotle, Kant, and others) is acquired by practice, by making such acts habitual, so too is viciousness-- the more we are willing to compromise our humanity, the easier it becomes. Acts of injustice and violence become ingrained into our character. And since, at least at one time, politics is (or should be) ethics writ large, a nation which engages in (or at least, in cases like the practice of "extraordinary rendition", allows) torture is a nation whose humanity is compromised. Such viciousness, once it takes root, is like a cancer that eats away at our society from within. The longer we allow this rot to infect us, the harder it is to extract, to recover-- Aristotle believed that certain societies could become "ruined for virtue"; their viciousness can become so ingrained that it is impossible to extract. Here, Plato seems to differ-- he believes that the cave in which we find ourselves is open along its entire width-- all we need to do to free ourselves is turn around. I prefer to believe that Plato is right-- that we are still able to extract this rot of injustice and viciousness from our society, from ourselves (for even though we may not practice or even agree with the vicious acts perpetrated by our country, if we do not take a stand against them, we are just as guilty-- complacency is complicitness). But we cannot do it alone. In the words of Edmund Burke: "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

That's why I'm writing this today. I'm sharing my thoughts not because I pretend to have all the answers (I don't), but because I see the problem, and I know that the solution to the problem is the resolution of us, the citizens of this great nation who do not want to see these blatant abuses of the principles upon which it was founded continue for another second. So I will end this (longer than anticipated) collection of thoughts with a couple of questions-- what do you think we should do to extract this moral rot from within our society? How do we counteract the complacency we find in ourselves and in our fellow citizens? (Especially when this complacency is not from apathy, but simply from being overwhelmed by the day-to-day struggles to live within a system that seems to be designed to keep us concerned with the day-to-day events of our lives, a system which seems designed to keep us apolitical-- which, if such is true, is a system which cannot claim to be a democracy, for in a democracy, it is the duty of each and every citizen to be political).

From the article on the WWII interrogators: "Several of the veterans, all men in their 80s and 90s, denounced the [current Administration's] controversial techniques. And when the time came for them to accept honors from the Army's Freedom Team Salute, one veteran refused, citing his opposition to the war in Iraq and procedures that have been used at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba."

It's good to see that some of those who took a stand for our country in their youth continue to do so to this very day.

Thoughts?