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Please visit the good folks in our blogroll. I have added Richard Stallman's home page and ICUJP: Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, a wonderful organization I have had the good fortune to work with the past few months. Give these folks your support any way you can; a friendly email saying where you heard of them is always welcome.
Peace, Robert
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You absolutely must check out Richard Stallman's personal page. That's right computing freedom legend Richard Stallman, founding father of Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project has linked to Repeal AUMF from his personal page:
Long-term action items
Support the campaign to repeal the overbroad "authorization for use of military force", adopted by a panicky congress in 2001, which gives Bush carte blanche to start wars anywhere.(emphasis added)
Yes, friends, that entry links back to our own front door. Please take a moment to drop by Richard's site, which has a wealth of information other vital projects.
Thank you, Richard!
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I need easier access to these:
At Royce Hall Harris outlined three ways to support religion. In typical sophist manner he listed the three to which he has prepared answers and implied his list was exhaustive. But he missed at least one important support of religion: it is an unavoidable fact of human life, be the form a simple animism like Shinto or a complex and contradictory mysticism like Zen or a politically powerful force like the Roman Catholic church. Like it or not, humans are religious, arguably from the same drive as that which moves science, to wit, the desire to understand, to orient within the larger universe, to predict and control and achieve favorable outcomes. Cavil as much as he may like (there's a two-syllable word for your detractors
) Harris can do nothing to stem the tide of religiosity. And you rightly point out that Harris's ideological kettle cannot contain itself. I don't know that Harris's views on religion are really worth the bother to discuss. His conclusion that his views justify religious persecution, by way of contrast, should be very much at the forefront. Harris considers "us" to be at war with Islam. Not with a nation. Not with perpetrators of some crime. With a religion. I suspect this is what comes of asking questions with great socio-political impact of a neuro-scientist-in-training, about on a par with asking Durkheim about an aneurysm. But the truly dominant religions in our culture are scientism, from which comes such oxymorons as "Christian Science", and cebebritism, in which a manufactured "religion" like Scientology actively recruits the Tom Cruises and John Travoltas of the world. Harris currently benefits from the blind worship of both science and celebrity, despite the vacuity of what I've seen of his writing and presentation.
it's possible Harris just lacks the maturity to recognize what really motivates him. But to be clear, he's not a racist. Nor a sexist. When Chris Hedges made the mistake of calling Harris's position racist Sam acted like a chess junkie confronted with the one opening he knows well enough to play credibly. "How dare you call me a racist, when I'm the one pointing out how it's Muslim women who suffer most under Islam!" He was quite breathless about it, and managed to imply, deftly, that in opposing Harris it is Hedges who is complicit in the plight of the oppressed. (Nahida's comments about the accuracy of Sam's views, obviously, notwithstanding.) So, be clear, Sam Harris is not a racist, per se. He is, however, by the words he has written, an unrepentant religious bigot, and an arrogant one at that, hiding behind efforts to earn credentials completely unrelated to the subject matter at hand and a gift for, like all sophists, emotional argument, reductionism, and the raising of straw men. But I was equally disappointed with Hedges and Scheer. Scheer at one point flatly said, "I"m not going to put you on the spot' with regards to Harris's whine that Hedges misrepresented Harris. When later Hedges pulled chapter and verse from Harris's own book Harris tried to deflect. And then Hedges blew the whole thing by feeding Harris one of Harris's preferred gambits, the accusation of racism, after which Sam deftly moved to his intellectually illegitimate Nazi allusions. Hedges should have known better. And even after gifting Sam with such a slow-pitched softball, Hedges should have simply said, "My mistake, the word is 'bigot'."
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Arguably we'll be needing to block all U.S. economic activity, as there is no way we can be seen has having done aught else but threatened "the peace or stability of Iraq". But such a contradiction doesn't invalidate such orders from the Imperium; they only put us on alert that there will be not even lip service to reason.
Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,
I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order:
Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and (4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order, all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,
(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:
(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or
(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;
(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or
(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.
(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.
Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
Sec. 3. For purposes of this order:
(a) the term "person" means an individual or entity;
(b) the term "entity" means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization; and
(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.
Sec. 4. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of this order.
Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.
Sec. 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government, consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken.
Sec. 7. Nothing in this order is intended to affect the continued effectiveness of any rules, regulations, orders, licenses, or other forms of administrative action issued, taken, or continued in effect heretofore or hereafter under 31 C.F.R. chapter V, except as expressly terminated, modified, or suspended by or pursuant to this order.
Sec. 8. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right, benefit, or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.
GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
July 17, 2007.
# # #
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At first it seems funny, and the folks at boingboing.net present it tongue-in-cheek. But the more I think about it the more sense it makes. If this is really from a 1952 comic then it's part of the collective unconscious and may indeed explain what to some of us younger folk are the truly depraved and irrational actions of our current leaders.
(Previously at boingboing.net)
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From the Michigan Journal, behind a register-wall:
As part of a renovation happening in August to turn several existing areas into unisex bathrooms, the university will add foot-washing stations - a decision that has sparked outrage in the community.
UM-Dearborn awash in foot bath controversy
Decision to install foot-washing stations ignites arguments over issues of separation of church and state, funding
By: Jessica Carreras
Posted: 6/19/07
The University of Michigan-Dearborn recently unveiled plans to build foot-washing stations in two bathrooms on its campus, initiating a war over whether or not the stations breach the separation of church and state.The oft-stated figure for the cost of the stations has been $25,000 but, along with the necessary renovations made to the bathrooms, the cost will total $100,000 - a figure that has many steaming.
The university and proponents of the new structures claim that the stations are necessary for the Muslim students on campus who must wash their feet and hands before praying - something they do five times daily. Previously, Muslim students were seen in bathrooms propping up their feet into bathroom sinks to perform the ritual, though others simply wiped their feet with wet paper towels.
"[The administration] realized that students were more or less abusing bathroom facilities," explained student Nadia Bazzy. Two years ago, when the issue first came on the school's radar, Bazzy chaired the Muslim Accommodation Task Force, a sub-group of UM-D's Muslim Student Association. According to Bazzy, it was the administration that brought up the issue of installing foot-washing stations after noticing that sinks in the library were coming off of the walls, presumably due to Muslim students washing their feet in them.
"It was just an issue of logistics and maintenance," said Bazzy, "as opposed to this huge religious accommodation."
The discussion came on the heels of talks about the "reflection" room, which can now be seen on the second floor of the school's University Center. The push for both constructions was spearheaded by MSA and discussed with members of administration and facilities planning.
Kay Pepin, director of facilities planning, claims that the constructions serve several purposes - not just the accommodation of Muslim students. The entire project will involve the restructuring of two bathrooms in UM-D's Fairlane Center and the conversion of an area on the second floor of the UC into unisex or "family" bathrooms. Currently, there are several other unisex bathrooms on campus, including ones in the Computing Wing and the Administration Building.
"These restrooms are user-friendly for people with kids," Pepin explained.
Pepin also said that the portion of the $100,000 being spent on these bathrooms allocated for foot-washing stations will likely be closer to $20,000. The commonly cited figure of 25 percent of the total cost, she said, is an overestimate.
According to Pepin, the project was set to happen regardless of the inclusion of foot-washing stations in the new bathrooms.
This August, when the renovations happen, UM-D will join 18 other U.S. colleges who boast foot baths on their campuses. Eastern Michigan University is among them, a decision that was made after much discussion and relatively little public fuss.
"The university always wants to have things they can brag about," said newly elected Student Government President Abdulateef Muhiuddin. "Accommodating to students looks good."
The press the school has been receiving recently from such sources as The Detroit News and Free Press and local television stations, however, has made them look not so good.
According to Muhiuddin, who also works in the school's Admissions Office, parents have called the office saying that they're not going to send their children to UM-D as planned due to the decision to install foot-washing stations.
Most allegations, however, have centered on the origins of the money being used to fund the restructuring. Though rumors have circulated that tax payer funds would be used to renovate the bathrooms, university spokesman Terry Gallagher stated that the funds will come out of a fee the school's 8,600 students pay for building maintenance.
"We wanted to be part of that trend in accommodating Muslim students," Gallagher said.
Regardless, some students - Muslims included - have expressed disgust at the school's use of student fees for this project. "The cleansing ritual, or ablution, requires only a quick wipe of the feel and to spend $25,000 on something we do not need is unnecessary," said junior Saleh Al-Ahmeen.
Pepin, however, insists that the removal of the foot-washing stations from the renovation plans would not lower the cost of the project much. Alternative options, such as basins of water in the bathrooms, were not discussed in the talks between MSA and administration.
The biggest argument against the stations about the separation of church and state is still being hotly debated. A similar argument has come up in regard to the UC's reflection room, which many believe is intended solely for Muslim students. Bazzy, along with the administration, is adamant that it is not an issue of favoring one religion over another. "Everything the Muslim Accommodation Task Force has done has been for all students," Bazzy said. "There's not an exclusive sign over anything." For example, she said, non-Muslim students could use the foot-washing stations if their feet became muddy from walking outside on a rainy day.
"I don't think the university was extravagant in their decision," Bazzy said.
"It should never be contested," said Muhiuddin, adding that the school would do the same if students of other religions had similar needs. "Let people practice freely."
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A recent ACLU activity presented me with a business card, fold over style, creating a total of four panels, with too darned many words of fine, fine print detailing what to do when the police come a'calling. The concern voiced at the time was that the card tried to give too much information about a subject simply too vast for such a medium of expression as a wallent-sized card. One of the folks at that meeting took on the task of re-doing the card.
Starting with the information at this pdf file, titled, "Dealing With the Police: General Guidelines for Activists", I think I would probably keep the four-panel card, and devote a panel each to "Am I being detained" and "I am going to remain silent. I want a lawyer" and "I do not consent to this search." Panel four would be a link to a longer document, a phone number maybe. But the point is that getting folks in a position to say these sentences and stick to them is probably as much as can be done even in a four hour training session with role playing.
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Not sure what to say about this, am only just now catching up on news after several weeks. But it's scary and shameful, as reported at (where else?) Jurist:
The Justice Department said that the new restrictions [on lawyers of Gitmo detainees] are necessary because lawyers have "caused unrest" at Guantanamo, such as hunger strikes...papers seized include notes marked "privileged attorney-client material" and suggest that detainees were misusing the attorney-client communication system [JURIST reports] in what Guantanamo commander Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr. labeled acts of "asymmetric warfare."
I'm proud of my country. But an awful lot of my countrymen are cause of naught but shame.
The AP really sticks it to the DOJ in a related article:
"Blaming counsel for the hunger strikes and other unrest is a continuation of a disreputable and unwarranted smear campaign against counsel," according to the letter [from New York Bar Association President Barry Kamins] Friday.
Excellent work AP!
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Tags: Activism
Per MM in an NLG Student listserve announcement:
Students have begun a peaceful sit-in at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. They are being threatened with academic discipline up to/in excess of suspension, in addition to arrest. Jim Lafferty, head of the Los Angeles NLG Chapter has joined them inside.
Support their right to demonstrate for fair labor practices and contracting -- it only takes a moment! http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/uscsitin?rk=u72rscK1c47BE & uscwatch.org(and tell your friends!)
This group of students has been in the news before, here at boingboing.net, protesting Trojan sweatshop complicity with a "knit-in" which was shut down for failing to be held in a "free speech zone."
Jim Lafferty is a well-known figure in the activist's world. He is currently the Executive Director of NLG-LA.
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Tags: CPB
From my Remedies book, Chief Justice Warren, cited as coming from Jay v. Boyd (1956) 351 U.S. 345, 367:
"Unfortunately, there are some who think that the way to save freedom in this country is to adopt the techniques of tyranny."
Spot on.
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What, exactly, will happen to political campaigns if everyone has the ingenuity and technical know-how to post a video on the Internet?
But that's the wrong question. The better question is how have we managed to get to the point where participative democracy seems novel, much less threatening?
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More from Jurist, this time their US Legal News, headline, Gonzales' future as AG uncertain as White House considers possible replacements. This would make the Attorney General the latest casualty in the Bush lineup, and raises the question of when the people of the U.S. will do unto the boss as he is doing to his fomer key players? This on the heels of news that White House handling of the "purges" could rise to the level of an impeachment worthy lie. (c.f. New DOJ emails document White House discussions of US Attorney firings)
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JURIST - Paper Chase reports on Thursday, March 15, that Germany has overturned a Stuttgart state court decision assessing fines for use of an image with a swastika "crossed out".
Judge Walter Winkler, presiding at Thursday's decision, rejected the lower court's assertion that allowing swastikas as a "fashion article" risks making them "socially acceptable" again. He did say that for any symbol to be allowed, the anti-Nazi meaning had to be immediately apparent.
Full story with internal hyperlinks here.
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Via boingboing.net, courtesy of Ads of the World, from a campaign for the Puerto Rico branch of Amnesty International. The fine print in the lower right hand corner of all three translates to "He [John Wayne Gacy/Ted Bundy/Pee Wee Gaskins] had due process of law. Why does a Guantánamo prisoner not?"
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Maybe "Know Your Justices" would be a better headline. SCOTUSblog is reporting on public availability of The U.S. Supreme Court Justices Database. At the very least I know conlaw students will appreciate this view into the players.
The database was compiled by Lee Epstein, Thomas Walker, Nancy Staudt, Scott Hendrickson, and Jason Roberts (a wonderful colleague of [the original SCOTUSblog poster] in both the political science department and law school here at Minnesota) through a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Read the full story here.
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So says this article at Jurist - Paper Chase from Thursday, March 8:
Raw Story quoted an intelligence memo from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Poland's then-Prime Minister Leszek Miller, asking Miller to keep the facility's existence secret from his own government. CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano would not confirm or deny any allegations about the Polish facility, but said the rendition program was legal and conducted “with great care.” Raw Story has more.
Follow the link above to the original for internal reference links
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Jurist's Paper Chase is reporting on the status hearings for 14 people formerly detained by the CIA in secret. The government contends this satisfies justice and law, protects any rights these people may have had. Not everyone agrees. From the Jurist Paper Chase article:
The Center for Constitutional Rights [advocacy website], the civil rights group representing detainee Majid Khan [GlobalSecurity profile], has protested that the procedings "cannot in anyway legitimize Khan's unlawful detention." Seton Hall law professor Mark Denbeaux [university profile] and Joshua Denbeaux [corporate website], co-authors of a comprehensive study of Guantanamo detainees [PDF; JURIST report] based on declassified Defense Department records, have criticized the CSRT hearings as "lawless" because detainees cannot have lawyers present or call or view evidence. AFP has more.
The original has many internal links for further reading.
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Cory Doctorow at boingboing.net is reporting:
In a chilling analysis of the PATRIOT Act, the ACLU points out that the new definition of "domestic terrorist" redefines any US criminal as a terrorist...
Of course Cory is right, it is chilling. But, well, if you follow Cory's link to the original ACLU post from 2002, well, not exactly fresh, despite the chill.
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...when we couldn't even be bothered to adopt the metric system?
(courtesy of Spencer "Keep on Truckin'" Day)
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Jurist World Legal news reports here:
[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour Wednesday criticized a US federal appeals court ruling supporting Congressional legislation denying "enemy combatants" the right to challenge their detentions in federal court. In a press conference Wednesday, Arbour expressed concern at "insufficient judicial supervision," saying:
I hope we will see the American judicial system rise to its long-standing reputation as a guardian of fundamental human rights and civil liberties and provide the protection to all that are under the authority, control, and, therefore, in my view, jurisdiction, of the United States.
See the original for internal links.
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This may be the most depressing day of boingboing.net I've seen:
Department of Homeland Security requires internal passport for all US Citizens
The paranoia-inducing 27B Stroke 6 blog reports that the Department of Homeland Security has issued its requirements for standardizing state identification cards.
A Belgian UN worker travelling with a full diplomatic passport recount the nightmarish experience he had with US customs when he landed in New York to chair a UN meeting
Homeland Security replaces migrants with prison labor
A Boing Boing reader says: "Colorado proposes replacing 'illegal' farm workers with Homeland Security-mandated prison labor."
Makes me wonder what I'm missing on my political blogs.
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Tags: Robert Link
Jurist is reporting:
[JURIST] Human Rights Watch Tuesday called on US President George W. Bush in a public letter to account for so-called "ghost prisoners" whose whereabouts and identities have been kept secret since September when Bush acknowledged the existence of secret prisons operated by the the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) outside the US where high-value terror suspects were detained. Fourteen high-profile suspects, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were transferred to the Defense Department's military prison at Guantanamo Bay, but HRW says the whereabouts of 38 other suspects who are believed to be held in CIA prisons are currently unknown.
HRW also released a supporting report Tuesday in which a former CIA detainee, Marwan Jabour, recounted his experiences in a secret CIA prison. AFP has more.
Read the original, here, to see the extensive embedded reference links which make Jurist such a worthwhile read.
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Greenfield, Kent, "Using Behavioral Economics to Show the Power and Efficiency of Corporate Law as Regulatory Tool" (July 8, 2001). Boston College Law School Research Paper No. 2001-06. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=276168 or DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.276168
...relaxation of the profit maximization norm, the broadening of management's fiduciary duties to include workers, and the inclusion of worker representatives on boards of directors - are likely to be efficient means of reaching certain preferred policy outcomes...there is reason to believe that the suggested adjustments in corporate governance are not only powerful in achieving certain policy goals but also relatively efficient in achieving them.
I tend to think we're better off rejecting the primacy of "efficiency" rather than straining to make our position within an "efficiency" oriented view.
Greenfield, Kent, "Ultra Vires Lives! A Stakeholder Analysis of Corporate Illegality (with Notes on How Corporate Law Could Reinforce International Law Norms)" (December 1, 2000). Boston College Law School Research Paper No. 2001-02. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=253770 or DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.253770
This notion is in contrast to the views of those scholars who have written that corporations should, with only some small exceptions, seek to maximize profits even when it requires the firm to break the law.
I'm still appalled that any self-respecting "scholar" could have argued otherwise, but it only strengthens my argument that the error lies in chartering these entities with no other "morality" than shareholder return...as expressed in dollars but not sense.
Greenfield, Kent, "From Metaphor to Reality in Corporate Law" . Stanford Agora, Vol. 2, 2000 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=254117 or DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.254117
Even the so-called laissez-faire marketplace is shot through with government...corporate law should be subject to the same analysis as environmental law, labor law, tax law, communications law, and the like...One should ask what we want our society to look like and then seek to craft a bundle of legal rules and regulatory programs that are likely to move us in that direction.
It's terribly out of vogue, this kind of social engineering, more's the pity. Glad to see someone championing it.
Greenfield, Kent, "New Principles for Corporate Law" . Hastings Business Law Journal, Vol. 1, pp. 87-118, May 2005 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=744566
...the foundational assumption that society's interest should be pursued will not satisfy those who see corporate law as governed by the realm of rights. Indeed, this article will not convince anyone who starts with the assumption that businesses can be run by their shareholder-owners as they see fit. For most people honestly wrestling with issues of corporate governance, however, shareholder primacy is not the foundational assumption but rather one of the potential conclusions. What this article makes clear is that other potential conclusions exist as well.(emphasis added)
Questioning first principles, always a pleasure.
One thought is that under the "rights" formulation a corporation is essentially a partnership---if that's how folks want to play it, taking the vicarious responsibility risks entailed therein. Most of the folks who hide behind that particular dodge probably don't want that kind of liability.
Greenfield, Kent, "There's a Forest in Those Trees: Teaching About the Role of Corporations in Society" (November 12, 1999). Boston College Law School Research Paper No. 2000-01. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=195048 or DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.195048
While recognizing the limitations of the experiments as well as the risks of extrapolating from experiment to actual practice, our findings suggest that existing corporate law - which requires directors to act as agents of shareholders and to maximize return to those shareholders - may provide incentives to directors to act unfairly toward non-shareholder stakeholders.
Seems a no-brainer. Ah, but to have research to back it up, there's the trick.
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As I'm working on my submission for the ACS Student Writing competition, this is where I'll stick stuff folks oughtta see even if it doesn't make it to the submitted paper.
The Second Amendment as Teaching Tool in Constitutional Law Classes
Eugene Volokh, Robert J. Cottrol, Sanford Levinson,
L.A. Powe, Jr., and Glenn Harlan Reynolds *
published at 48 Journal of Legal Education 591 (1998)
Chairman Mao wasn't the first to think that all power flows from the barrel of a gun -- the revolutionaries who founded this nation took a similar view.
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From the referenced pdf:
Recognition of a right such as this anywhere in the world in any historical epoch must acknowledge that “the people” must mean the peaceable populace at large without regard to race, religion, or creed.
I have trouble reading past this, the relationship of true premises to sound argument being what it is. Is the author arguing the 2nd Amendment applied to the slaves at the time of its adoption? Is he arguing that no responsible reading of the 2nd Amendment embraces the need of a populace to be able throw off an oppressive government as the colonies had so recently done? Feh.
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Bart: I am curious. Exactly what is unjust about prohibiting all state racial discrimination in favor of one race and against another race?
1) Why are conservatives/right-wingers so prone to reductionistic thought? On the one hand it is self-reinforcing. One can get hooked on the easy victories won this way, like a child who learns the scholar's mate and gets bored having to actually play the game. Reducing matters to black-and-white, excluding any middle which might undermine one's position, these are effective tactics, even when they are used disingenuously and illegitimately. There are indeed adversarial situations, zero-sum games, where a facility for persuasive fallacy is far more valuable than accurate analysis of richly nuanced reality. The Johnnie Cochran's of the world know that all the facts ever stated aren't worth a damn if they can't be squeezed into a phrase like, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." So, in fairness, it isn't just the right-wing which plays this reductionist game, it's all folks playing zero-sum, winner-take-all verbal games. And the reason for it is that it works.
But where the goal is the search for truth and justice, rather than victory in a zero-sum game, such tactics are anathema. Those of us working to better understand reality and truth in service of justice have no time for the reductionistic ideologue or his tactics, not even when he hounds us in our chosen gathering space where we come to do our work.
The litigator takes no responsibility for morals, for justice. The conscience of a lawyer must be placed in trust of the system, we are told. A litigator must win, must be an advocate. There is a judge and a jury and the codified laws to take care of justice. Lawyers don't work for justice, they work for victory for their client's interests. Our system, based on the myth of David and Goliath, flows from one simple precept: God will not allow an unjust cause to prevail. And so anything goes, really, for a certain class of person who has chosen such a career. It is probably the main feature distinguishing the "practicing lawyer" from the "academic,": one is free to count on others to ensure justice is served, the other must serve justice in their own acts rather than blindly trusting others to preserve it for them.
2) Another notion is that in litigation impeaching the credibility of a witness is not cheating. This flows partly from the above, that for the litigator anything goes because God will not let them win, no matter how disproportionate their power, if the cause is unjust. (And does this, perhaps, bleed into the rest of the issue? God will not allow an unjust cause to prevail? So God won't let anyone unjustly be rich while others are poor, that is, God will not let an unjust person prevail materially/monetarily?) Legal battles are more often about inductive logic than deductive, in which case the credibility of a witness is just one more fact to take into account.
3) Then there is the verbal attack part. This is a little harder for folks to grasp if they don't have the background. There is the example: "Gentlemen prefer blonds, but they marry brunettes." Seven words which subsume millions of words describing our culture. One semantically dense, as in highly-context-reliant, sentence. The denotative value is almost insignificant, but the connotative meaning is power packed. The better known example is, "Have you quit beating your wife yet?" Denotatively the simple answer, "No," should suffice for most of us, because most of us have never beat our wives, and having never started we cannot stop. But while the simple denotative value of this sentence should allow a simple answer of, "No," it is a rare bird indeed who will be able to answer thusly. Why? Because most people most of the time are processing connotations, are processing context. The emotional context of such a question is simply too much for the average person, and an answer of, "No," will be taken as an admission of having beaten and continuing to beat one's wife. Sad but true, the linguistic abilities of most people simply precludes the direct answer.
With those two examples in mind, consider the example, "If you really loved me you would buy me flowers." There is a presupposition in this sentence, that the listener doesn't love the speaker. Any discussion of flowers leaves this presupposition standing unchallenged. The use of the counter-factual "If you X..." denotatively gives rise to this first presupposition. But there is more. Connotatively such a sentence presupposes not only that the listener doesn't love the speaker, but that the listener doesn't really love the speaker, and that anything short of the behavior mentioned in the "bait" portion of the sentence is insincere or is in some other manner inadequate, and so the listener should feel guilty. This is what linguist Suzette Elgin calls a Verbal Attack Pattern. "If you really X you would Y." Another feature of this pattern is the plausible deniability maintained by the speaker. "You're just being over-sensitive," and "I didn't say that", and, "Let's just stick to the plain meaning of what I said," are simple counters to any efforts of the listener to point out the speaker's linguistic malfeasance (which is why Elgin pointedly advises avoiding such meta-discussion in favor of other disarming tactics, for which see her many books dealing with Verbal Attack Patterns.)
Connotation, then, carries a lot. We'll come back to it.
4) Next let's look at the tactic of reclaiming the language of the opposition. Tactically this is quite sound. If the opposition comes to rely on a turn of phrase carrying certain connotations in service of their cause and you can subvert that phrase to your own connotations you have not only advanced your cause but beat back theirs. It is similar to the strategy in war of supporting one's troops on the spoils of the vanquished; it's economical, simultaneously strengthening your forces while weakening the opponent's forces.
5) Another theme: The flashing loopy feel of flitting back and forth between connotative and denotative values of words and phrases. As with the "Have you quit beating your wife yet?" example, the simple answer to the denotative value of the question at top is, "Nothing." But the connotations? They have been turned on their head here: Language developed in the context of promoting social justice, civil rights, racial equality is now being used to thwart the creation and execution of programs designed to create social justice, civil rights and racial equality. As discussed above, this is a sound and effective tactic. But there is more. Because the denotative value of the words is so reasonable, and because historically the connotative value of such a sentence would have supported the creation and execution of programs aimed at creating greater social justice and racial equality, the use of these words by someone seeking to thwart such programs becomes quite slippery indeed. Because the goal of the reversal in connotation is merely to thwart, it then suffices if the usage confounds. And to confound one need only shift from the former connotative meaning to the denotative meaning to the "reclaimed" connotative meanings pell-mell to keep the opposition off balance. Better still, seeing one's words co-opted by the opposition to thwart one's efforts towards social justice tends to be emotionally provocative, and so there is that much more power to confound. In personal combat this is equivalent to "taking the opponent's center," and, again, it is a very effective tactic.
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The key, of course, is the distinction between discrimination as opposed to unjust discrimination. When is discrimination unjust? When one has a discriminating palate one is not unjust, one simply has a refined ability to tell things apart. Likewise, being able to tell one person from another, treating them as individuals rather than members of a group or class is typically not unjust. The wording in popular discourse is rarely "unjust discrimination," but merely "discrimination" or, as above, "state racial discrimination." The question is, when, if ever, is it just to discriminate based on race? The black-and-white ideologue's reductionistic answer is, "Never." There is a popular concept of "color blindness," but this too is a recaptured term. Where the civil rights movement of the 60s preached color-blindness as opposed to Jim Crow laws and segregation, conservatives preach it...why?
Why do conservatives preach "color blindness" and "prohibiting all state racial discrimination" in order to thwart the social justice sought by programs such as affirmative action? Why do conservatives generally stand against social justice, civil rights, racial equality? Why do conservatives seem to fear providing real opportunity for all our citizens, fear working to make "all men are created equal" a reality in as many ways as possible? It might be partly because that kind of egalitarianism, taken to that kind of extreme, has been so thoroughly attached to Communistic thought. Anything that smacks of "Commie thought" has been deemed inherently bad. This debate was long ago prefigured as a fight against American Individualism versus Russian Collectivism. But what, then, about American Collectivism, as in "E Pluribus Unum"? Conservatives seem to have missed this notion, that we create on strong nation by attending to the rights, and needs, of each of our citizens.
We have had more than a century for Social Darwinists and other Might Makes Right thinkers to discredit anything which could undermine their right to unearned privilege at the expense of their neighbor's basic well being. Part of that work was selling the plebes on Horatio Alger stories so the plebes in turn would support Social Darwinism in belief that it gave them a chance to make the big time. We have been sold the myth of upward social mobility, that we can all be above average, that any of us could be President, that any of us could be Bill Gates, and that if we're not these things then it is all and only our own fault because we had the freedom, the opportunity, and the personal responsibility. Ignore the privileges of being born to oil or banking money, put the focus on the "personal responsibility" part. Blame the victim. Personal responsibility or privilege? Both exist. But the Social Darwinists, and apologists like Coase and Posner, can't admit that privilege plays a significant part in how the world works. To admit class exists at all allows for claims of inequity.
As an aside, it is worth noting here that the communist ideal only works at the hunter-gatherer level of organization. As soon as a society's members are no longer functionally interchangeable, as soon as we have specialization of function or ability, stratification results. With stratification and specialization comes inequality, which in turn gives rise to inequity. Luckily there is more to life than being rich. And yet what made Marx work was the idea that there isn't anything better than being rich. Ultimately Marxism, through the doctrine of "False Consciousness", served the Social Darwinists by reinforcing the notion that all that matters is storing up one's treasure's on Earth. Marx, in the end, was as crazily tied to Might Makes Right and "only capital counts" as any robber baron of the age. Storing up one's treasures in Heaven is just pie in the sky. Weber's ideas about Calvinism seem spot on in this light, for just as God will not let an unjust cause prevail, neither then can God be expected to let Earthly treasure be unjustly distributed. In such a belief structure if you are poor or downtrodden you surely must have sinned somewhere to deserve it.
What is so wrong with prohibiting state racial discrimination of one race against another? Nothing. It is a great idea and a great ideal, which is probably why the 1964 Civil Rights law was passed in the first place. To further that ideal we will often need state racial discrimination of one race with-and-for another race. Whites desperately need blacks and browns and reds and yellows and their influences, in their offices, in their schools, or else the whites will have an increasingly hard time dealing with the rest of the world. All the races need all the justice we can arrange, and the state must justly discriminate for all the affected races, to save the underprivileged from poverty and despair and the realities of socio-economic immobility, and to save the privileged from the sin and shame of unwittingly contributing to the misery of their fellow man.
This is not a nation of "Looking out for number one," "Greed is good," "Take the Money and Run." This is a nation of "promote the general welfare" and "secure the blessings of liberty." Not just for those lucky enough to be born with a penis and pale skin, but for all our brothers and sisters of all pigmentations. And, yes, part of the state's job is to help all come to see each other as brother and sister. I will never understand why such a goal should so unsettle anyone of good conscience.
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