Category Archives: Politics

Why are Internet discussions less polite?

20 Replies

In the comments section of another post, St. Martel observes that:

Discussion fora on the Internet do have a tendency to make people a little less polite than they would be in person.  Not sure why that is…

[May I point out how glad I am that my readers are capable of noticing this and correcting for tone on their own?  Yes, I may?  Okay, I will then.]

I think there are 3 main reasons why internet discussions are less polite:

1) Anonymity.  People feel free to say things they wouldn’t otherwise say when it can’t be traced back to their “real” identity, so that there are no consequences (for those with limited capacity to feel guilt, anyway).

While this probably accounts for many of the worst abusers, I don’t think it’s all that relevant in the case of a) people like myself who blog under our real names, or b) people with robust consciences who don’t like trolling and insulting people so much.

2) Lack of bodily interaction.  We human beings consist of both bodies and souls.  When we have conversations face-to-face, we aren’t just communicating with words.  Our social instincts, evolved over millions of years, involve all kinds of subtle communications when we talk in person.  Even merely talking over the phone (by voice) provides subtle clues which are not present in internet conversations.  Whereas, on the internet we have a conversation between disembodied minds.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful technology, but it’s missing a lot of color, the sense of the other person as a person, the embodied almost-sacramental aspects of human relationships.

Hence the email convention of including a smiley to say when we are joking. :-)  (That wasn’t a joke, that was just an example of a smiley.)  Although, that doesn’t always work either.  As my father St. Larry once said:

You know how people are sometimes rude on Usenet or on a mailing list. Sometimes they’ll write something that can only be taken as a deadly insult, and then they have the unmitigated gall to put a smiley face on it, as if that makes it all right.

This helps explain why you should avoid quarrelling with somebody by email.  It seldom brings disputing parties into agreement.  Emotionally tense situations are best resolved in more personable settings, if you can handle it.  (Though sometimes email or a physical letter can be useful to broach a sensitive topic if you’re too chicken to initiate the exchange in person.  But that’s different from quarrelling.)

So on the one hand, arguing with somebody face-to-face can trigger an unpleasant sense of  Conflict! Conflict! with an accompanying adrenaline surge.  It’s annoying if your body starts trembling with fear when your mind just wanted to have a nice friendly conversation about how somebody else is wrong about politics or something.  On the other hand, we instinctively know this and most of us adapt in order to be more personable and friendly when there’s an actual face on the other end.   It’s much easier to see what’s going on and correct it mid-stream.  This leads to a 3rd point:

3) Long comments with a delay in responding.  If I speak to you in person, then if I put my foot in it and begin to misunderstand you, or say something insulting, you will immediately respond and I have the ability to self-correct before anything goes too terribly wrong.

But if I’m in an argument on the Internet, that’s not how things work.  Suppose you read a long response from somebody and you start obsessing about in what ways it is wrong and needs correction.  So then you write a long response of your own, but it’s pretty easy to get carried away.  If the tone is wrong, it won’t be corrected until several hours or days later when an equally strongly worded message comes back, and that of course will itself generally be a disproportionate response (for the same reason) which triggers a similar reaction.

Of course, the whole thing can be nipped in the bud if both parties make a conscious effort to be unusually polite and respectful, but it’s surprising just how much greater an effort it takes.

But even if the discussion is totally polite, there’s a downside for philosophy.  Long-winded comments make it too easy to talk at cross purposes, without correction from the other point of view.  After all, when I’m writing a long argument I’m putting myself into the brain state where I am right and the other person is wrong, and one stays there for quite some time.  This is dangerous to one’s sense of balance and fairness.

Psychological studies have shown that when people hear evidence that their own strongly-held political views are wrong, the usual response is to argue against the new evidence.  Paradoxically, this causes them to become more certain of their previous point of view [too lazy to find a link right now, but I promise I’m not just making this up].

From this perspective, arguments are rather dangerous things!  Simply by expressing an argument for X, one naturally causes somebody on the other side to compensate by arguing for ~X.  But this puts them in the position of a lawyer trying to make the best case for one side, not a judge disinterestedly weighing the evidence for and against.  And as we all know, lawyers have a tendency to come to believe that their own side is right (even if it was basically a coin-toss which side they would be assigned to in the first place.)

This is something I worry about quite a bit as somebody who enjoys arguing about religion on my blog (and in person).  Rational people should settle disputes rationally, but what if providing rational arguments don’t tend to actually cause this to happen?  What does one do instead?

One could compensate for this by asking people to argue for the other side of the debate for a change (one implementation of this is the Ideological Turing Test, adapted to religious arguments by St. Leah Libresco.)  But this only works if we presuppose a strong interest in finding the truth.  The “debate team” mentality where the goal is to win by coming up with sophistical bogus arguments, is not really improved by the fact that the positions are assigned randomly.  That just makes it even more relativistic.

To try to get around some of these issues, the Socratic method of dialogue requires that the participants ask each other questions instead of arguing directly, and respond by making short speeches, not long.  The other rule is that you can take things back as needed without any shame, instead of getting stuck defending one’s initial reaction to the question.  As St. Socrates says to Polus in St. Plato’s Gorgias:

SOCRATES: Illustrious Polus, the reason why we provide ourselves with friends and children is, that when we get old and stumble, a younger generation may be at hand to set us on our legs again in our words and in our actions: and now, if I and Gorgias are stumbling, here are you who should raise us up; and I for my part engage to retract any error into which you may think that I have fallen-upon one condition:

POLUS: What condition?

SOCRATES: That you contract, Polus, the prolixity of speech in which you indulged at first.

POLUS: What! do you mean that I may not use as many words as I please?

SOCRATES: Only to think, my friend, that having come on a visit to Athens, which is the most free-spoken state in Hellas, you when you got there, and you alone, should be deprived of the power of speech—that would be hard indeed. But then consider my case:—shall not I be very hardly used, if, when you are making a long oration, and refusing to answer what you are asked, I am compelled to stay and listen to you, and may not go away? I say rather, if you have a real interest in the argument, or, to repeat my former expression, have any desire to set it on its legs, take back any statement which you please; and in your turn ask and answer, like myself and Gorgias—refute and be refuted.

So I guess the really philosophical way to argue on the Internet is chat!  Text chats (IM) are still disembodied, but they have a much quicker turn-around time, perfect for Socratic dialogue.  I use gmail chat all the time to talk physics with my physics collaborators, but I don’t usually have philosophical discussions that way.  But maybe I should.

The “nuclear option” was unlawful

2 Replies

[Edit 12/28/17—In the title and throughout, I have replaced “illegal” with “unlawful”, in order to avoid the possible implication that the travesty below would be subject to criminal punishment, something I did not intend to imply.  Since I wrote this article, the Republicans have followed suit by nuking the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees as well.—AW.]

Last week, 52 Senate Democrats voted to get rid of the filibuster for Presidential nominations to certain positions—in particular for Lower and Appelate Court Nominees, but not for Supreme Court nominees.  This move was branded as the “nuclear option” back when Republicans threatened to do it (but did not) during the Bush presidency.  It was completely and unabashedly unlawful, and those Senators who voted for it (most of whom denounced it vigorously when Republicans proposed it) should be ashamed of themselves.  This post will explain why their decision was contrary to the law.

The most important law in the United States is the Constitution.  It takes precedence over all other laws, and describes under what conditions laws can be made.  It says among other things that

Each House [of Congress] may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.  (Article I. Sec. 5)

In accordance with this proviso, each of the two houses of Congress has adopted a set of rules, which they use regulate debate, votes, and other matters (kind of like Robert’s Rules of Order, but the details are different).  The Sentate Rules can be found here (Rule 22 being the most important for issues surrounding the filibuster). 

Since the Constitution authorizes the Senate to make Rules for itself, these Rules are just as much binding law as ordinary federal legislation is (but, obviously, they only bind the Senate itself, not the rest of us).  The only possible exception would be if a Rule contradicted the Constitution.  In that case, the Rule would be invalid.  For example, if the Senate passed a Rule saying that they could expel Senators with a majority vote, then this rule would be invalid, since the section of the Constitution which I quoted requires a 2/3 vote.  But on most procedural issues, the Constitution is silent so the Senate gets to decide.

The important Rules to know about are the following:

  • Technically, it only takes a majority of the Senate (if all are present 51, 50 with the VP) to pass Bills, to approve a Presidential Nominee, or to change the Rules, but this is only once debate on the Bill or Rule ends.

The hard way to end debate (which almost never happens) is to give two chances to each Senator to speak as long as they can on the topic (without taking breaks to go to the bathroom!).  This was used to pass the Civil Rights act of 1957, after Senator Strom Thurmand spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes.  (This was a real filibuster, the kind where you read biscuit recipies, which almost never happens these days.)

The easy way is to invoke cloture, which limits the time left for debate:

  • It takes a 3/5 majority (60 votes) to end debate on most topics,
  • except on a motion to change the Senate Rules, which takes a 2/3 majority (67 votes).

So, practically speaking it takes 60 votes to do anything in the Senate.  This Rule forces the Majority Party to have to reach out at least a little bit to the Minority Party when they pass legislation.  Otherwise the Minority might refuse to vote for end debate (and this is what is usually called a “filibuster” in these boring times).

Some additional important Rules:

  • At any time, the Senate may agree to temporarily waive a Rule, but this requires a unanimous vote.
  • If there is a question about what a Rule means, the Presiding Officer gets to interpret the rule.  However, the matter can then be appealed (without debate) to the entire Senate, and by a majority vote they can sustain or reject the decision.

Now notice this.  It takes a 2/3 vote to change the Rules (really to end debate on a Rule change).  But it only takes a majority vote to interpret the Rules.  This makes sense: when the Senators vote to change a rule, they are exercising a legislative function, deciding what the rule ought to be.  When the Senators vote on interpeting the rules, they are excercising a quasi-judicial function.  Essentially, they are the “Supreme Court” which decides what the Rules mean.  When making this vote, surely they are morally bound to judge honestly, and decide, not what they think the rule ought to be, but what it actually is.  Otherwise, it wouldn’t make any sense for there to be a higher threshold in order to actually change the rules.

But the power to interpret necessarily includes the power to misinterpret the Rules.  This can be used to abolish any Rule by majority vote—not by amending it, but simply by interpreting it not to apply, even when it clearly does apply.

This is the “nuclear option”.  The way it plays out was as follows.  Majority Leader Reid raises a Question of Order asking whether the Rules permit him to end debate on a Judicial Nominee with only a majority vote.  Patrick Leahy, the Presiding Officer, rules that according to Senate Rules and precedents, the answer is No—the Rules clearly state that a 3/5 vote is required.  So Reid appeals the decision to the main body of the Senate.  The Senate voted 52-48 to overrule the decision of the Presiding Officer (among the 52 being Leahy himself!).  Bye bye filibuster for Judicial Nominees.  (3 Democrats had the integrity to vote against, and of course the Republicans also voted against.)

Note that no actual change to the text of the Rule occured.  It was only “reinterpreted”, in a Humpty Dumpty-esque act of linguistic power:

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’     (St. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass)

I have asserted that there can be no actual justification for the Senate’s interpretation of Rule 22 .  There are only 2 possible ways the decision could be correct.  Either: A) Rule 22 has a special exception for certain Judicial Nominees or else B) Rule 22‘s 3/5 vote requirement is unconstitutional when used to filibuster Judical Nominees.  (But apparently  not Supreme Court and Executive Branch Nominees?!?)

Option (A) is clearly absurd.  Rule 22 gives the threshold to “bring to a close the debate upon any measure, motion, other matter pending before the Senate”.  Clearly the approval of a Judicial Nominee is “a measure, motion, or other matter”.

Option (B) is only slightly less absurd.  The Constitution says that the President:

shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law.  (Article II. Sec. 2)

The argument here is that “Advice and Consent” implicitly includes the idea of a majority vote.  This is a rather weak argument, since “majority vote” is nowhere included in the text.  Whereas the statement about the Senate making its own Rules is quite explicit.  So this interpretation of the Constitution seems quite dubious.

Even if the Constitution did require a majority vote for Nominees, there is absolutely no good reason why this should apply to some types of Nominees but not others.  Nor is it obvious why the filibuster would be constitutional for legislation, since the majority vote requirement could just as easily be read into the power of the Senate to pass Bills.  But if the filibuster is unconstitutional in general, this would be a rather surprising thing to find out now, after 170 years of precendent to the contrary.

The fact is that those who voted for the “nuclear option” knew perfectly well that it was of extremely dubious legality.  They didn’t do it because they genuinely believed in it.  They did it for political reasons, as a naked act of political power.

Can any justification can be made for this act?  Let me make some points about what is and is not relevant:

  1. Whether or not the “nuclear option” was legal cannot possibly depend on how frequently the Republicans were filibustering Judicial nominees.  It is a question of legal interpretation, not a question of history.  The unfair tactics and hypocrisy of the other side is irrelevant.
    .
  2. Besides, the Opposition Party in a democracy is allowed to use any legal tactic in order to delay or obstruct legislation.  If their obstruction is unwise, unprecedented, immoral, or hypocritical, voters may take note and respond.  But excessive use of a legal tactic on one side cannot justify use of an unlawful tactic on the other side.
    .
  3. The liberty of a free people depends on the fact that government officials do not consider themselves above the law, but instead obey it.  Without this social norm, restrictions on the government (such as the Bill of Rights) would be meaningless.  This social norm is therefore far more important than nearly all of the minor partisan squabbles which could tempt one political party to abadon it.
    .
  4. There may be extreme circumstances which may justify unlawful actions, but “There are hypocritical obstructionists in Congress” doesn’t qualify.  That’s way too common of an occurrence to justify anything!
    .
  5. When I call the nuclear option unlawful (unruleful), I don’t mean that the Senate doesn’t have the power to interpret its own rules, or that this decision doesn’t stand as a precedent from now on.  If the Supreme Court were to rule 5-4 that the First Amendment allows the government to ban books, this act would be legal in the sense that they are charged with interpreting the Constitution, yet still wrongly decided in the sense that it directly violates the text they are charged with interpeting.
    .
    If we further suppose that the Supreme Court knew perfectly well that the decision was erroneous, but did it anyway in order to spite their political opponents, then that would be a pretty close analogue to what the Senate just did.
    .
  6. Strictly speaking, it is the act of banning books which is unconstitutional, not the decision itself.  Similarly, the Senate decision is tantamount to an unlawful violation of the Senate rules, but since it is the highest court for interpreting its own Rules, there is another sense in which what it did is now de facto legal.
    .
    This doesn’t make much practical difference, though.  A completely lawless use of the power to interpret is exactly the same as if there were no law at all.
    .
  7. My views are not based on which party is in charge.  I was vehemently opposed to the “nuclear option” when Republicans proposed it, and I am still opposed now.

All told, it is a dark day for the Republic.  The trouble is, these days both Parties hate each other so much that they spend all their time thinking about how the other side is hypocritical, without noticing that they also chang their position whenever it is convenient.  (See Kerr’s Law).  Political expediency trumps truth.  I’ll spare you all the juicy quotes from the Senators who flip flopped on this issue when the Party roles were reversed.

Instead I will remind us of the words of the Master whom most of those in Congress claim to serve:

How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.  (Matthew 7:4-5)

The Achievement Gap

Leave a reply

Sometimes educators talk about “closing the achievement gap” which separates high and low performing students.  There are documented gaps in educational outcomes on the basis of e.g. economic classes, race, etc.  Some of these gaps lead to serious social problems down the road.  But even if we somehow produced a society which had equal outcomes for every factor in the current Politically Correct List of Superficial Ways to Classify People™, there would still be high-performing students and low-performing students.  Educators don’t like this sort of situation, because they don’t want to feel like they are failing some of their students.

Now, there are two ways to close a gap.  One is to take the students who are doing badly, and teach them better.  The other way is to take the students who are doing better, and teach them worse.  Or at least, don’t pay any special attention to them, since the goal is to produce equality.  This shows the danger of adopting equality as a goal.  Inequality is defined as a difference between two people.  Adopting equality as a goal means you are trying to benefit one person as compared to another.  If all better-off students were worse off, there would be less to feel bad about.

Instead, we ought to adopt the goal of benefiting all students.  But especially the ones who are most capable of benefiting from education.  This is, primarily, the more intelligent and motivated students.  People with (small “d”) democratic sensibilities don’t want to hear this.  But as St. Lewis writes in an essay on “Democratic Education”:

Equality (outside mathematics) is a purely social conception. It applies to man as a political and economic animal.  It has no place in the life of the mind.  Beauty is not democratic; she reveals herself more to the few than to the many, more to the persistent and disciplined seekers than to the careless.  Virtue is not democratic; she is achieved by those who pursue her more hotly than most men.  Truth is not democratic; she demands special talents and special industry in those to whom she gives her favors.  Political democracy is doomed if it tries to extend its demand for equality into these higher spheres.  Ethical, intellectual, or aesthetic democracy is death.

A truly democratic education—one which will preserve democracy—must be, in its own field, ruthlessly aristocratic, shamelessly `high-brow’.  In drawing up its curriculum it should always have chiefly in view the interests of the boy who wants to know and can know.  (With very few exceptions, they are the same boy.  The stupid boy, nearly always, is the boy who does not want to know.)  It must, in a certain sense, subordinate the needs of the many to the needs of the few, and it must subordinate the school to the university.  Only thus can it be a nursery of those first-class intellects without which neither a democracy nor any other State can thrive.

The goal of leaving No Child Left Behind sounds enlightened, but leaving some children behind is in fact a necessary logical corollary of teaching children difficult subjects.  If your only goal is not to abandon the children who are behind, then you will abandon those who are ahead: the ones who are actually interested in learning.  Most people, believe it or not, forget most of what they were made to learn in school.  The future philosophers, scientists, authors, judges, and so on will actually remember (part of) their education and apply it.

This is not to say that education is unimportant for the masses.  A certain quantum of literacy and comprehension is necessary to survive in the world.   By definition, a democracy has votes, and a certain degree of education is necessary to vote wisely.  When broad sections of society are deprived of a good education, and become a permanent underclass, society suffers.  The heroic teachers who try to remedy this, by volunteering to teach failing students, are worthy of our respect.  It is a valuable project, but it ought not to have such an exclusive monopoly on our thinking that we forget the need to teach those most capable of learning.

But aren’t those students going to be learning anyway, in pretty much whatever environment you put them in?  To some extent, yes.  But it makes a difference what you think is the point of education.  The current goal is to produce a system in which any student can succeed if they really try.  This means lots of busywork, and a hefty amount of grade inflation (rewarding the consistently effortful, and punishing those who take chances on difficult subjects).  It does not necessarily mean teaching critical thinking.  Teaching people to be “good at school” can mean be a sort of slave-mentality, while the goal of a liberal arts education is to produce people who can think for themselves.  This involves a sort of paradox: you have to teach people to teach themselves.  Ignoring a student’s needs is one way to try to encourage this, but it is not the best way.

Let me be autobiographical for a moment, just to give a concrete example. I hope that I am now old enough and fulfilled enough to be beyond any resentment, but I feel that a specific example will be helpful, and I am the example I know best.

In the area of mathematics, I was “left ahead” as a child for pretty much my entire school career before I started taking college classes.  The teachers recognized my knowledge, but none of them did what was required to give me sufficiently advanced material.  I suppose they probably had their hands full with the students who needed more help with the assigned curriculum.

Eventually, in the 7th grade, someone put me into the 8th grade Algebra class.  It was too late—I was already starting to do Calculus by then.  I was too bored by the subject to do any homework, so the teacher failed me, even though she knew I knew all the material.  She thought I was lazy and needed study skills, which was true, although this was hardly the correct motivator to produce them.  I had to repeat the class again in 8th grade.   I was mortified, but fortunately none of my classmates knew about the situation.  I still didn’t do any homework (through guilt-ridden procrastination and deception, not through a firmly decided upon rebellion), but this time she recommended me into the Honors Geometry class in the 9th grade.

This time homework was only 10% of the grade, but the extremely formulaic and tedious standards for proofs docked me another 10% or so on the exams.  (See A Mathematicians Lament for an important critique of the way we teach Geometry and other mathematical subjects.)  That got me to a C+.  As a result I was looking at having to take the non-honors version of the next course in the sequence Algebra II.  (Los Altos High School had a policy against skipping classes).  Bear in mind that, on my own, I was learning Maxwell’s equations,  General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics at this point.

There was a standardized test to overcome the C, but in a school full of overachievers it was deliberately designed to be impossible.  Too many questions in too short of a time.  I knew immediately, before getting the results, that it wasn’t going to fly.  I was going to be steamrollered under the wheels of an formalistic bureaucracy which was unable to make a plain human diagnosis of the sort of student I was: lazy but brilliant.  I was terrified that I would never receive the help I needed to succeed at what I already knew I wanted to do in life: theoretical physics.

 Some wandered in desert wastelands,
finding no way to a city where they could settle.
They were hungry and thirsty,
and their lives ebbed away.
Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He led them by a straight way
to a city where they could settle.
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
for he satisfies the thirsty
and fills the hungry with good things. 
(Psalm 107:4-9.  Read the whole thing!)

So I cried out to the Lord to save me, and he rescued me from my afflictions.  The instruments of his salvation were as follows: Although I complained of the inhuman bureaucracy, in fact there was an excellent academic counselor at the school who knew my situation and advised me to apply to the Foothill Middle College Program, basically a way to flunk out of high school into the local community college. They only take Juniors and Seniors, so I had to skip my Sophomore year.  No regrets!

When I went there, Foothill finally gave me an actual placement test, and I got the highest result and so placed into Calculus 1A (I made an arrangement with the prof to skip the classes and take the final: with Calculus 1B I finally got to new material).

My weird education story doesn’t end there, but this was a critical turning point.  It happened because at some point certain educators cared enough design and implement a program for people like me.  For this and many other gifts I give thanks to the Head Teacher:

I love the Lord, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.
Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.
(Psalm 116:1-2)

Double Standards

Leave a reply

A cynical, but probably accurate take on the double standard for government officials committing perjury.  One of the problems with the US federal government is that it seems almost impossible to bring people to any kind of accountability to lower federal officials without the President agreeing to it, but since all scandals tarnish the administration, Presidents from both parties have learned the best strategy is to bluster through it.  In theory, Congress has the power to impeach, but since this is almost always viewed as a partisan attack, and removal from office requires the consent of both parties, this is a nonstarter.

Sometimes people who are cyncial of the two party system talk as though this corruption arises because, when push comes to shove, the two parties are actually on the same side.  While that can happen, I think in the current hyper-partisan U.S. mindset that’s quite the wrong explanation for tolerating corruption.  In some ways it’s the exact opposite.  Because the parties hate each other, they can’t view criticism from the opposition as anything other than a cynical attempt to win elections.  Since it is viewed in this way, there is no chance of getting people from both parties on board with any given clean-up act.

For example, when President Clinton was impeached by House Republicans, this was viewed as a shallow, partisan and moralistic attempt to topple a popular president for reasons completely unrelated to his fitness to govern.  Notwithstanding the fact that if Clinton had been the CEO of anything else, he would have been fired for sexual harrassment and jailed for purjury.  But he was the President, and that’s what made it seem shallow.

There is actually a serious difficulty here, and I don’t mean to suggest that there’s nothing to be said for some degree of political immunity.  The ideal situtation would be if all officials, including the President, were fearful of accountability if they engaged in illegal or corrupt activity.  But we also don’t want too much political instability.  The removal of an elected President is necessarily a highly political decision, and completely destabilizing to the balance of power and prestige in the entire federal government.  It seems especially unfair to remove a President of one party for something that the other party began.  Practically speaking, we cannot have “no one is above the law” for these reasons.

Another solution is to say that while “the King can do no wrong”, his ministers can still be held accountable, even if one suspects the orders came from above.  It’s unfair, but it may be the best compromise.  Specific wrongdoing gets eliminated while the President is still free to persue his agenda in all other respects.  But perhaps we are too high-minded to stomach this class divide, and as a result we get a different class divide: the lower level officials also effectively share in the Presidential immunity.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that, although Congress is as active as ever in passing bad laws, they seem to be rather ineffective in acting as any kind of check on the Executive branch, perhaps in part due to their extreme unpopularity as an institution.  In Federalist Paper #48, James Madison argued that in a tripartite republic, it was the Legislative Branch which was most to be feared:

In a government where numerous and extensive prerogatives are placed in the hands of an hereditary monarch, the executive department is very justly regarded as the source of danger, and watched with all the jealousy which a zeal for liberty ought to inspire. In a democracy, where a multitude of people exercise in person the legislative functions, and are continually exposed, by their incapacity for regular deliberation and concerted measures, to the ambitious intrigues of their executive magistrates, tyranny may well be apprehended, on some favorable emergency, to start up in the same quarter. But in a representative republic, where the executive magistracy is carefully limited; both in the extent and the duration of its power; and where the legislative power is exercised by an assembly, which is inspired, by a supposed influence over the people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength; which is sufficiently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions, by means which reason prescribes; it is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions.

The legislative department derives a superiority in our governments from other circumstances. Its constitutional powers being at once more extensive, and less susceptible of precise limits, it can, with the greater facility, mask, under complicated and indirect measures, the encroachments which it makes on the co-ordinate departments. It is not unfrequently a question of real nicety in legislative bodies, whether the operation of a particular measure will, or will not, extend beyond the legislative sphere. On the other side, the executive power being restrained within a narrower compass, and being more simple in its nature, and the judiciary being described by landmarks still less uncertain, projects of usurpation by either of these departments would immediately betray and defeat themselves. Nor is this all: as the legislative department alone has access to the pockets of the people, and has in some constitutions full discretion, and in all a prevailing influence, over the pecuniary rewards of those who fill the other departments, a dependence is thus created in the latter, which gives still greater facility to encroachments of the former.

Hence the need to design a weak, bicameral Congress, and to strengthen the powers of the Executive and Judicial branch.  But I think it is clear that things have now drifted to the point where it is the Executive branch that is too powerful.

I’m speaking abstractly here, but just to avoid misunderstanding: It should go without saying that neither Obama, nor Bush before him, did anything which merits impeachment, by historical standards, and in light of what many other recent Presidents have gotten away with.  We should nevertheless try to restore some kind of constitutional accountability to government.

True Justice

Leave a reply

After writing about the death penalty recently, I was reflecting about the real meaning of Justice.  It’s tempting to think that Justice refers to the thing which happens (or should have happened) in Law Courts.  And of course we hope that the laws and the “justice system” will work out in a way which is actually just.  However, there is a sense in which the justice system is a million miles away from true Justice, if we define Justice as harmonious reciprocal relationships.

Even if the justice system worked perfectly on its own terms, it would be a mistake to think that this is Justice.  The fact that crimes are committed (or else people are suing each other in civil courts) means that the harmonious relationships in society have already been disrupted.  Our Law Courts are, at best, a means for correcting injustice, and even then they can only do so in limited respects:  judges can restore property and restrain criminals, but they cannot change people’s hearts to love each other again.

We call a hospital part of the “health-care system” not because lying in a hospital bed is Health, but because it is something we use to remedy sickness.  The best sort of Health is not needing to go to the hospital in the first place.

Let’s see what the Prophet Zechariah has to say about this.  Someone came and asked him a question about what the (religious) law should be:

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev.  The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek, together with their men, to entreat the Lord by asking the priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, “Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”  (Zechariah 7:1-3, NIV)

Some context is important here.  The Jews had formerly been captured and exiled to Babylon, as a divine punishment for their sins.  Jerusalem and its Temple had been destroyed, and the fast in question commemorated that.

But now the Persians are in charge, and they have authorized the City and Temple to be rebuilt.  So the Bethelites have a natural question.  Do we have to still keep fasting or not?  The fast has become part of their religious practices, and they want to know whether it still applies to them.  What will Zechariah tell them?

Religious people naturally trend into thinking of religion as a certain set of rules which have to be kept, as if it were a secular legal code and they just have to stay on the right side of the law.  They want to know which way God wants things to be—but in fact either Yes or No would be misleading, because God wants a different sort of thing entirely:

Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me:  “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? (7:4-6)

Stop asking whether you should fast or feast—it’s the wrong question.  Instead ask why you were fasting, and why you were feasting.  Was it really for God, or was it just to mourn your own sorrows and celebrate yourself?

And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.  Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’ ” (7:8-10)

The Lord replaces the people’s question with a different command—do justice, resuce the oppressed.  THIS is the point of all of the religious rules, not which days are appropriate for fasting.  This is reiterated later:

“These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts; do not plot evil against each other, and do not love to swear falsely. I hate all this,” declares the Lord.  (8:15-17)

There is indeed a role for Law Courts in this notion of Justice.  Zechariah was speaking to a broken society which had lost its bearings, which needed legal stability and fair dealing in order for any reconstruction to occur.  But the requirement of Justice goes deeper than just institutions.  The Just person is not just characterized by legal justice but by honesty and integrity in all of his dealings.

The Law Courts are a means and not an end.  What end it is a means towards may be seen in this beautiful passage:

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age.  The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “It may seem marvelous to the remnant of this people at that time, but will it seem marvelous to me?” declares the Lord Almighty.  (8:4-6)

We have now nearly ascended the treacherous craggy slopes of Mount Justice.  Peering into the misty summit, upon which the Earthly Paradise is located, what do we see?  Children playing games with each other!  And sentimental elders looking on and reminiscing.

We do not see here the perfect restoration of body at the Resurrection, but we see the highest vision of Justice between humans beings which any society here and now can attain.  Doubtless the children sometimes accuse each other of cheating.  But the ideal of neighborliness is there, which is indeed the point of the command to Love your Neighbor.  This is Justice.

There is also a harmonious relation of the entire people to God:

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “I will save my people from the countries of the east and the west.  I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God.”  (8:7-8)

This is Justice too.  The establishment of a truly just earthly society (harmony between human beings) requires also a correct relation to the God who works justice and righteousness in the earth:

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “You who now hear these words spoken by the prophets who were there when the foundations were laid for the house of the Lord Almighty, let your hands be strong so that the Temple may be built.  Before that time there were no wages for man or beast.  No one could go about his buisness safely because of his enemy, for I had turned every man against his neighbor.  But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as I did in the past,” declares the Lord Almighty.

“The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops, and the heavens will drop their dew. I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of this people.”  (8:9-12)

God, humans, animals, the environment; all harmoniously related.  This is Justice.

Once the Temple is established (not just as a building but in our hearts) then there is a bond between neighbors which allows children to play safely in the streets.  Humans and animals can be fed for their work, because they are treated fairly.  Commerce is possible because people don’t need to be afraid of aggressors (this is why the Law Courts aren’t optional).  Responsible cultivation of Nature is possible because the Temple trains us that things which belong to God are sacred.

Only then does the Prophet return to the question of fasting:

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.”

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the Lord and seek the Lord Almighty. I myself am going.’ And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord Almighty and to entreat him.”

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you’.”  (8:18-23)

Real Justice is attractive, and causes celebration and emulation.  It is no longer a question of rules, but of God’s promises.  Whether or not you abstain from anything else, abstain from injustice.  Days for producing Justice are always festivals.  Therefore, rejoice always whatever you do.