Stephen Lendman at Counterpunch:
“… there are times more forceful action is needed, and Thomas Jefferson explained under what circumstances in the Declaration of Independence he authored. When bad government destroys our freedoms, we the people have the right and duty to disobey civilly and resist.”
Hi Josh:
Thanks very much for your detailed critique. Much appreciate it. But may I say that I think there are some things you’re confusing in your language?
1. First – I am NOT opposing any Enlightenment principles I can think of. I am FOR the rule of law, individualism, and intellectual critique. I am accusing some ideologues on the left (I don’t deny they’re on the right too – in general, the ones there, however, get a lot more criticism) of not applying those principles to their own unquestioned dogmas – that are not arrived at as rationally as they think. I listed a number of perfectly historical, stone-cold facts that many Marxist historians in India ignore, making them an easy target of right-wing critics…unnecessarily. But, I appreciate other contributions the Marxists have made. By the way – I didn’t have time to get into it – but we really have to get away from this enlightenment versus post-structuralist binary – it ain’t so. The enlightenment was NOT a simple unitary thing.
2. You write: “How many American Muslims feel so thoroughly dominated by a state that is officially secular and based on universalist principles of the Enlightenment that they’d prefer to go live in Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Jordan?”
Hmmmmm…..Where do I make the argument that anyone one would NOT prefer the intellectual freedoms here? –I don’t make it. Strawman?
Next. I AM calling for universalist principles. But, I’m saying that the social engineering of quotas don’t qualify. They’re outcome-based group-preferences and anti-individualist
But even on your own terms, I assure you, I know many critics of American government who don’t live here precisely because of their beliefs. They’ve moved elsewhere – to among others, Japan, France, Canada, Mexico, India, Argentina, and in my case, I am trying to return as well. The standard need not be cutting heads off, I hope. And yes, the libraries here are much bigger, better and more accessible, transportation is better and a host of other things – and prosperity makes it all possible. Thank you very much, America. Sincerely. I deeply appreciate the opportunity to work. Never a day goes by when I don’t. It’s why I write as much as I can on the net, since when I go back, I may not be able to for logistical reasons.
3. Democracy and law are not a good fit by nature – that’s why we have checks and balances and so on….yes? The constitution which is ‘longer-view law’ (not subject to majoritarian desires) is one way we deal with that — which is what I wrote in the piece. A bit different from what you’re reading, no? I probably wasn’t as clear as I wanted to be because I was trying not to go on too long….
At any rate, that’s why I make the point about accommodation in the last line in that paragraph. Meaning, popular voices (that’s the democratic bit) are always calling for the abrogation of law, so it’s natural for them to be always straining AGAINST the rule of law. Nussbaum acts likes that makes for an insuperable crisis. I say it’s natural and can be accommodated.
4. I don’t say that people who kill others or brutalize them shouldn’t be held accountable. I make that point clearly in the line about religious fanatics. But I do say that one shouldn’t draw any untenable iron link between fundamentalism (and even exceptionalism) and violence. I know perfect egalitarians who seem always prepared to kill to push their beliefs on others and know many fundamentalists who are quiet and law-abiding. I even know people who think themselves better than others (a number of cultures do in one way or other, whether they say so explicitly or not), but don’t act to oppress others. And I know racially tolerant societies which none the less find ways to wage unjust wars. I think there’s no necessary connection. I believe Jesus was pretty fundamentalist in his beliefs. He took the voices in his head quite literally. I don’t think he was aggressive to anyone, though.
4. I don’t negate historical fact. I negate – with examples- Nussbaum’s history, because she doesn’t know or doesn’t include salient facts. It’s not any Marxism in the account she gives that I object to; it’s the lack of history. I have read accurate presentations of facts in the writing of many religiously inclined historians whose views inform but don’t distort facts. I don’t see why one couldn’t read, say, Christopher Dawson or Eric Voegelin and find them useful even if one wasn’t a Christian believer. One might find it at least as useful as some Marxist or Whig history.
Anyway, I believe I used the term “not much more” useful – which implies that, of course, we need to weigh the claims of all approaches carefully.. So yes, we have to find a common basis for our studies of history, or they wouldn’t be useful. But I think we could broaden the range of “common basis”.
That doesn’t mean I endorse teaching “Muslim physics” (the hard sciences, you’ll admit are not the social-sciences) – it means how come I can’t read or even hear anyone discuss Austrian economics in any major university in the US?
Yes – theorizing about the decline of the nation state and then arguing for global bureaucracies that are controlled largely by the intellectual outlook (I don’t necessarily disagree with all of it) of certain elites does increase the power of the state — by which I mean government at any level except the local, because those elites are held accountable finally through their own state mechanisms. Eg., you have a UN sanction, but to give it force you need the backing of government powers from various countries, which naturally have their own agendas.
I should have mentioned that by ‘state’ I mean both the ‘nation state’ and ‘government powerl’. I use the term in the general sense.
To make things clearer, I come from a right libertarian anarchist perspective (closer to the Independent Institute, not Cato), which finds the same problem with unchecked corporate power which feeds off of and reinforces the state. I am anti-state — not just anti- nation-state.
And not very fond of the idea of world government.
6. Marxists believe in a lot of things they’ve never seen, I assure you.
7. I sympathize with the view that we are in for a new feudalism (see the article by Martin Hutchinson I have on my blog) intermingled (via power politics) with some version of quasi-civilizational-trading blocs. That might not be bad – as I write – if it pays attention to local communities and doesn’t force itself on people with a religious conscience (say, about abortion or gay rights) — that’s something only decentralization could bring about. But the new trans-national governance will be bad if it counter-poses itself to corporate power as yet another face of the globalist regime.
8. I hope I am making myself clear because I think confused language (intentional or unintentional) is a huge part of the problem. Which is that fundamentalism per se can’t be conflated with chauvinism and chauvinism (I’m better than you) or exclusiveness (I want to be on my own) isn’t always or necessarily violent. I actually tend to think a bit of separatism, when cultures are very different, might be a good thing if it doesn’t carry any oppressive connotation.
For instance, I sympathize with European nations who want immigrants from Islamic countries to assimilate in some ways. Criticism of burqas that cover the face sounds right to me (for security reasons primarily; I haven’t really thought this out – just citing an example of a trade-off) but eliminating head-scarves sounds NOT right.
However, I’m not happy to talk about politics and countries I haven’t studied closely.
9. Too quick too great social changes in multiethnic empires – like India – invariably create these strains. To ignore the backlash against those changes – which were initiated by the state — and to read violence as a problem solely arising out of some essentialist understanding of fundamentalism as evil is sorely mistaken.
10. I admire Martha Nussbaum. She has ethical concerns and a willingness to get her hands dirty, which I respect. She just doesn’t know her history here and is seeing what she does know through very tendentious glasses.
In the same context, I don’t know how you could read anything I wrote as a defense of the governments of Syria, Jordan and so on. That’s the problem. Unless we are well grounded in historical facts, theoretical juxtaposition of dissimilar things under the rubric of “fundamentalism” is misleading. Islamic fundamentalism is not Christian fundamentalism is not Jewish fundamentalism is not Hindu fundamentalism. They have similarities and differences. Popular unrest in different countries arises for different reasons. Empires are not the same. Caliphates are not the same. I might believe they all need to be rolled back, but might use different approaches and analyses for each. Let’s tackle the problems pragmatically, locally. One of my points is that Nussbaum’s approach to history isn’t particular enough in that way. We need less argument and more supporting evidence. Her account (as previewed) doesn’t quite cut it as is.
I think Hindus (I don’t even want to get into her claim about Hindu identity where she is partly correct and partly quite mistaken) feel encircled, with some justification, given recent history and demographics.
Massacring a crowd in Gujarat – no matter where you stand – is absolutely wrong. And the central government should have intervened much more than it did. I write that too. Please do note my paragraph about equality under the law and respect for individuals.
But ignoring the role of the state in helping to create such situations is simply inaccurate.
We expect better from Ms. Nussbaum.
I remain, as always,
a devoted student of the enlightenment
Lucifer
I got out my piece on Martha Nussbaum’s article in The Chronicle of Higher Education this morning. She slams Hindu fundamentalism for its assault on democracy in a way that I think obscures the excellent points she makes.
I had to cut more than a page and still didn’t get to half my problems with the article.
That’s even though I’ve heard Nussbaum speak and think she’s impressive. I am, of course, naturally prejudiced in favor of striking former opera students turned political philosophers who are interested enough in practical politics to actually get to know something about it. Add to that an interesting Amartya Sen connection, and you’ll see why I thought for a long while that I’d try to write my dissertation under her.
But if there’s anything nastier than politics in the big world, it’s politics in the ivory tower. Scholarly, well- put, soft-spoken (well, at least most of the time)…but nasty nevertheless. Martha was spared knowing me and I was spared further poli-sighing (sic)….And so I dropped out — and back into the great world. No regrets.
The Nussbaum book is going to set off a lot of reverberations, she being who she is. And I wanted to get my perverse two cents in. I was going to be meaner, but Nussbaum gets brownie points for her interest in the condition of Indian women. So I’m critical, but in a soft-spoken sort of way. Check it out (thanks to Joey Kurtzman for allowing me to post the whole piece on my blog):
“In an earlier Shvitz post, Rohit Gupta criticized Martha Nussbaum’s latest piece in The Chronicle for Higher Education, in which Nussbaum positions herself as liberal by taking on Samuel Huntington’s famous thesis of clashing civilizations.
Rohit listed some of Nussbaum’s specific mistakes, but I’d like to dissect her theoretical position, which I think is what lets her make them.
Huntington’s work was taken by a lot of people to justify a clash between the Western and the Islamic worlds. She relocates the clash. It isn’t between Western, Latin American, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox, Buddhist and Japanese, and the possible ninth, African – (a very loaded ordering, of course) as Huntington claims. Instead, she says, it’s inside each culture — between those who are willing to “live on terms of equal respect with others who are different,” and those who “seek the protection of homogeneity,” who are also (leap of logic here) the ones who want to dominate others. All fundamentalists, purists, exceptionalists and even just the orthodox belong in the Luciferian category, while liberal religions and secular universalists (who see citizenship as based on political entitlements) are cast in the role of St. Michael.
Here I take the part of Lucifer. “Terms of equal respect” begs the question. What equal respect consists of is what’s at the heart of the squabble. Luciferians feel that their many-colored beliefs – are, in fact, not equally respected by an evangelical monotheism of “universalism” and “secularism” that wants to dominate them through the state.
And I don’t believe this throws them suicidally onto the path of the onrushing engine of science either. Nussbaum herself admits that when she anxiously describes a Hindu devotee, who on one hand, claims his guru’s voice comes directly from god, but, on the other, still knows how to get fiber optic cable into his temple.
Nonetheless, this “combination of technological sophistication with utter docility” so terrifies her she thinks it can only be remedied by – (drum roll here) — education in the arts and humanities. Bada-bing!
Still, I take her point. Not knowing history is what frees up a revolutionary to break with the past most totally. Turgenev said the same thing in Fathers and Sons. But, set her theory on the ground today and see how it works. Do four years of women’s studies and French psychoanalysis, maybe with a minor in “conflict resolution,” really make non-technical folk “imagine the pain of another human being” better? If so, why did so many people use feminist language and universal human rights to justify invading Iraq? And how balanced are humanistic studies today, anyway? Are we really better off replacing an unbalanced emphasis on profitable skills, as she calls it, with an unbalanced emphasis on unprofitable skills?
How much more balanced are the perspectives that dominate major Western and Indian universities than, say, the Catholic perspective that dominates a Jesuit university? Marxist (or other) approaches to history are just that – approaches. Useful, enriching, plausible, but not written in stone. That’s what makes Nussbaum’s argument self-contradictory….
The bait she tempts us with is that technical studies need to be supplemented by the “humanities” (defined as interpretative). But what she actually gives us is a bit of a sham — history as pure fact, not interpretation. Nussbaum wants us to believe that facts presented by religious historians are guilty until proven innocent, but facts presented by Marxists historians are prima facie facts. She would have us believe that, since this immaculately conceived history is free of the original sin of hierarchy, it must lead us to a paradise of justice and mercy on earth.
This gnosticism isn’t first obvious because it’s concealed by sloppy language. She talks – without irony – about the “rule of law and democracy” being under assault by Hindu fundamentalism. Presumably, a legal scholar would know that the rule of law is often under assault — by democracy itself. It is democratic values that allow the expression of fundamentalist ideas; it is the rule of law that restrains them. Democracy and the rule of law aren’t usually a good fit. That’s why we have constitutions. For that matter, the public here in the US hasn’t made a flap over legislation dismantling the constitution. This shouldn’t mean that we discard either the constitution, or – though some secularists might prefer it – the population. We just have to keep refining and rethinking the way the two accommodate each other.
Then, Nussbaum tips her hat to the idea of a nation “as a unity around political ideals and values, particularly the value of equal entitlement.” But this is vague too. Why couldn’t political ideals be as exclusionary and chauvinistic as religious ideals? And what does she mean by equal entitlement? Does she mean safeguards of individuals under the law (with which I tend to agree) or does she mean guaranteed outcomes? (with which I tend to disagree). It’s because she doesn’t ever clarify what she means by “state” and “law” that her argument is tenuous.
That’s how she goes off-track, blaming fundamentalism per se for what is more plausibly the result of the way the particular state of India was created and way its history has unfolded since.
To start, she conflates Gandhi’s and Nehru’s attitudes toward the state, although they were hugely apart — Gandhi being in favor of a kind of anti-politics that focused on the level of villages and Nehru going in for central planning and industrialization under the influence of the Laski-dominated socialism of the London School of Economics. She doesn’t tell us that, contrary to the Indians, Jinnah saw Pakistan as a Muslim state, provoking at least some of the anxieties about secularism in the Hindu right. She also omits the British part in hastening partition unnaturally, playing divide and conquer and in exacerbating Hindu-Muslim tensions. She mentions the right’s fascination with European fascism in the inter-war period without mentioning that a swathe of intellectuals from Chesterton to Yeats were too. What about the left’s fascination with Stalin and Mao?
Her entire article is marred by such omissions and errors. She presents her account of the origins of Hindu culture as cold fact, whereas it is quite controversial. She mentions the Muslim emperor’s Akbar’s syncretism in contrast to Shivaji’s Hindu chauvinism without mentioning Shivaji’s foe, the fanatic and murderous Aurangzeb. She fails to mention decades of Pakistan- sponsored terrorism in India that was not only downplayed by the US but abetted by it. It was a useful trade-off to support a Muslim country in one place where its claim was weak but oppose another in the Middle East where its claim was strong. Nor does she mention the ethnic cleansing of former East Pakistan’s Hindu population nor of Kashmir’s, nor Muslim Caliphate claims, nor reports of CIA involvement with some (not all) Western human rights, missionary and aid organizations in India. She dismisses the Hindu right version of history as simplistic but hers is more so. Neither secularism nor liberalism needs such selectivity.
More importantly, as Rohit points out, she ignores the state’s role in the years after independence in the creation of entitlements — quotas and reservations in jobs and universities. Originally meant to rectify gross inequities under law they have now become instruments of social engineering that are widely resented in India, as they are here in the US. Quotas in multiethnic states have usually had broad adverse effects but they continue to be pursued. Why? Because they satisfy what’s been called the new trans-national progressive regime that calls for human rights, environmental and social justice laws (built around Nussbaum’s idea of “human flourishing” that bind nation states to trans-national standards (how’s that for a vague concept you can stuff with anything you want?)
I would have no problem with any of that if the trend was to eventually undermine the state in favor of more and more decentralization. But if the new human rights regimes by-pass traditional communities, sub-national states or religious groups from a bias against religious or cultural identity, what you’re left with is two things: a global bureaucracy whose agenda is set by international elites dominated by Western or Westernized intellectuals, and group-identity politics in which the individual and the local community are gradually erased. At least partly, religious fundamentalism is one way in which people counter this erasure.
From that point of view, both Huntington and Nussbaum commit two versions of the same error. He supports the cultural purification of the state to strengthen it; she supports the cultural mongrelizing of the same state, also for the same reason. Believing herself to be attacking his position (vis-a-vis Islam), she ends up reinforcing it (vis-a-vis) the state. In either account, the state ends up being strengthened.
Now, if that makes it easier for the state to intervene to protect the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat and reinforces guarantees of individual rights and liberties against violation by religious fanatics, I would firmly support her. But, I think Nussbaum has something more than equality under law in mind. As long as that remains the case, the underlying source of much modern violence, not only in India but in most parts of the world, will continue to be ignored – the continual and terrifying expansion of state power itself. But that is the one fundamentalism that liberals don’t take on.
And read Blacklist’s lead singer (check it out) Josh Strawn’s detailed comment at Jewcy
(Thank you, Josh)
He’s calls himself a “vocal signatory” of the Euston Manifesto, which at first glance, seems to belong to the “liberventionist” category, alas.
From Sobran’s:
“Two years ago, after foot surgery, I started walking with a cane. The ankle has healed, but I’ve kept the cane. I like it. It helps my balance, it’s funny, and it strengthens my faith.
In this allegedly Darwinian world, where life is a ruthless competition for survival, my cane is magic. It causes young people, fitter than I am for physical existence, to call me “sir” and hold doors and show me a respect I’ve never enjoyed before. Nobody ever told me a stick of wood could exert such spiritual power. I think I’ll keep it.
Admit it, you atheists: the sight of an old geezer with a cane brings out something sweet in you that, according to Darwin, can’t be there. The truth is that love for others is a profound instinct, a powerful atavism so to speak, harder to resist than hate.
Of course we all want to survive. But we want just as strongly for others to survive too. Darwinism can’t explain the environmentalist movement (though I think it’s misguided). Nor can it explain why we write wills giving all we can to those who outlive us. Nor the Bill Gates foundation. Nor the sacrifices of parents who give their lives for their children. Nor the willingness of some people to suffer so that other people won’t kill unborn children. Nor nuns and priests who consecrate themselves to God in lives of charity and chastity (the pay isn’t all that good). Nor a hundred other forms of altruism.
Altruism sticks in the craws of the reductionists who think man is, and ought to be, selfish. Ayn Rand tried in vain to persuade us that Moses and Jesus were wrong, that altruism is bad, and that selfishness is a virtue. She failed to make much of a dent in the popularity of St. Francis of Assisi.”
My Comment:
Well, I’m not convinced by Ayn Rand either and never have been, although I think her fiction of ideas can be compelling. But Sobran rather caricatures her position here. Of course, I’d like to know first what he calls altruism.
The word is used in so many different ways to refer to different things that we would have to sort those questions out first to make any headway.
Rand – I think – is coming from a Nietzschean perspective, at least in some places, but it’s been a while since I read anything by her and don’t want to claim more than that. The Nietzschean case against altruism is really a very complex one that Sobran evades. One part of Nitezsche’s gripe is that altruism is often the inability to see suffering of any kind without feeling it ourselves – which has its good side, but also its bad. How so? Because suffering is sometimes (not always) imposed by nature, by natural limits, by the community or by an individual’s own conscience…as the fruit of actions. So, if I injure someone and am tormented by guilt, and an onlooker were to intervene to relieve me of my suffering without taking into consideration the suffering of my victim and his loved ones, the onlooker might have been merciful but it’s not clear that she has been just. And, ultimately, if my intervention allows the object of my sympathy to injure again, it will not have been merciful either. To the new victim or even to the perpetrator – condemning him, as it does, to another bout of guilt.
You could prove in this way that not all acts of altruism were either moral or even efficacious. Rand – if I recall her right – overstated her case. But Sobran’s overstates his too.
Which doesn’t mean I object – either in theory or principle – to holding open a door for anyone when they’re limping or being at the receiving end of their door-holding in my turn.
But I object to door-holding being imposed on me as the indispensible center of my existence. I refuse to love my neighbor better than myself. (Not that most of us are in danger of that…)
And, some of my neighbors I insist on loving better than others — if they have a greater claim to my love.
But, of course, my language is already very confused here because there are many loves – at least four, according to C.S. Lewis – and probably more, I am sure.
And which of them to apply, when and how, would require elaborations that a short blog post, this warm, lazy Saturday afternoon and a very nice chicken tikka masala lunch cannot possibly sustain…..
“I mmigration reform should start with improving our border protection, yet it was reported last week that the federal government has approved the recruitment of 120 of our best trained Border Patrol agents to go to Iraq to train Iraqis how to better defend their borders! This comes at a time when the National Guard troops participating in Operation Jump Start are being removed from border protection duties in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas and preparing to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan! It is an outrage and it will result in our borders being more vulnerable to illegal entry, including by terrorists.”
More here.
Poor Ron Paul. Does he think rationality, sincerity, erudition, and plainspeaking are things people want?
The mob – in any class – likes to be told it’s always right. It disguises its self interest in high-sounding palaver. And that’s invariably the case whenever you turn away from some attempt (feeble, no doubt) at rationality and law to pure brute interest-group politics.
The same end awaits every foot-loose republic – it turns into an empire of cacaphonous voices, each more strident, self-righteous and ignorant than the next. Each so sure that any one who contradicts his self-serving image of reality is as much a charlatan as he is:
One of those who can always find logs, even redwood forests, in other people’s eyes but never one speck – not the tiniest sub-atomic antiparticle – in their own eyeballs speaks up against the Pauline menace:
The Ron Paul that Ron Paul doesn”t want you to know
By Richard Searcy. Staff Writer
Atlanta Progressive News
May 25, 2007
“Republican Presidential candidate Congressman Ron Paul is making a name for himself by emerging as an antiwar republican in the 2008 race for the White House. While those of us who oppose the mindless war in Iraq welcome all voices of opposition, there are some troubling questions arising about Mr. Paul.
Paul has been consistent in his opposition to the war, but he hasn”t been very vocal or visible about that opposition. Most Americans knew nothing about Mr. Paul before this election season or had no idea thatsuch an animal as an antiwar Republican even existed….”
The letter goes on with even more ghastly logic, but I will stop there. There is only so much you can take at one sitting.
Anti-interventionism was not only the quintessential Republican tradition until Mr. Buckley took over the party and turned it into the All-Soviet Committee for Infinite Expansion into the Known Universe, it is the expressly designated constitutionally-defined role for the Federal government envisioned by Messrs. Jefferson and Madison.
That Mr. Searcy doesn’t know this is proof of his own limitations and not that of conservatives or libertarians – or for that matter, Republicans.
Not that Ron Paul has been silent either, as a glance at his archive will tell you. The media has, yes. For obvious reasons. And some people would sooner have the Middle East blown to smithereens and this country bankrupted than make common cause with a white male Republican who doesn’t fit their stereotype of a frothing redneck who chews glass and sacrifices babies by moonlight behind his double-wide.
So much for the opposition to the war in this country. It is bound up so completely and utterly in short-sighted unctuous self- interest that it is incapable for a nanosecond of reaching out generously to any one except someone made in its own insular – yes, despite all the lip-service to diversity, insular – image.
Ron Paul has apologized for the remarks that so offended the ayatollahs on the left.
But when are the ayatollahs going to start apologizing for their uninformed, divisive rhetoric, their incessant class-warfare, their male-bashing, anti-Christian diatribes, for the power politics that, fooling no one except themselves, they disguise as solicitude for humanity?
When?
But go and read Ron Paul’s archive. That will be the best antidote for this kind of know-nothing hatchet job.
This, in an email from Joey Kurtzman, editor at Jewcy (I posted his earlier piece where he sharpened his rather cutting wit on poor Naomi Wolf’s tender neck)
From: “Joey Kurtzman” joey@jewcy.com
To: “Lila Rajiva” <lrajiva@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Blog posting
Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 10:00:24 -0700
“I agree with you that neither fundamentalism nor even supremacism is incompatible with democracy. These phenomena aren’t going anywhere, some people will embrace them to a greater or lesser extent in any society…democracy has to be able to accommodate them, just as it accommodates other streams of thought and other dubious political phenomena. Pat Robertson and Louis Farrakhan get to participate in the political system. If not, it’s not a democracy. For the rest of us, our job is to engage them as real people with coherent (if flawed) belief systems, rather than as crackpot caricatures. ”
My Comment:
How about that? Farrakhan and Falwell, even the BJP – they’re all human beings. What a twisted concept!
What next, a garden party with the National Socialists ?
You’ll notice I don’t say Nazi anymore – I am told by an anonymous poster who claimed he was a National Socialist (the blogosphere is notoriously prone to masquerades of all kinds) that they find it slanderous. And being both diverse (per-verse, my friends tell me), and inclusive, I hasten to address them as they wish. …..
But, of course, Mr. K, the more salient point is – since when do we live in a democracy anyway?
Do you see how many of our problems arise not because we don’t have answers but because we don’t have our questions right?
And why is that? Where are we getting our questions from?
How do the parameters of public debate get set? By whom? And why do people go along?
Questions…
And looking for answers, I came across this article in Salon, about Wiliam Buckley, perhaps the man most responsible for pushing conservatives into big government interventionism:
” Buckley sees little reason to accord democratic privileges to Stalinists who plot to overthrow American democracy. Nor does he believe in extending constitutional protections to those who, if they ever came to power, would immediately rescind them. Certain ideas, he believes — such as Nazism and communism — are simply “unassimilable,” and have no place in a liberal society. He voices this sentiment through the character of Columbia professor Willmoore Sherrill (a proxy for Willmoore Kendall, WFB’s mentor and CIA recruiter at Yale), who argued that there are people who don’t fit under the “American tent.”
Of course, few people are going to let you know before they come to power they are going to take apart the Constitution and Bill of Rights. So, how do you tell in advance? You can’t.
In fact, it is Buckley’s intellectual proteges – all of them well within the American tent – who have torn it apart…..from within.
The ONLY Pro-Constitution Antiwar candidate in his own words (I sent this piece to a couple of sites early this morning):
Updated version (6/1) – I altered this so as to make it less of a political endorsement:
The Texan People Trust: The Only PRO-CONSTITUTION ANTIWAR Candidate
In His Own Words
What’s behind the recent swell of support for Congressman Ron Paul?
Supporters point out a number of refreshing differences in the maverick Texan, who has the blogs a-buzz. In no particular order, they are –
20. NOT A CHICKEN HAWK. Unlike Dick Cheney, George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, Paul served in Vietnam for duty…not booty. He knows the costs – when they’re worth paying and when they’re not. That alone makes him credible to many people as an antiwar candidate.
“As an Air Force officer serving from 1963-1968, I heard the same agonizing pleas from the American people. These pleas were met with the same excuses about why we could not change a deeply flawed policy and rethink the war in Vietnam. That bloody conflict, also undeclared and unconstitutional, seems to have taught us little despite the horrific costs.”
— “We Just Marched In (So We Can Just March Out),” April 17, 2007
“Why is it that those who never wore a uniform and are confident that they won’t have to personally fight this war are more anxious for this war than our generals?”
— “Questions That Won’t Be Asked About Iraq,” September 10, 2002
19. HAS FOUGHT FOR SOMETHING – for human life. As a medical doctor, he can actually do something besides shuffle paper and grease palms, which makes him an all but extinct species in the Beltway jungle. And while his training puts him squarely in the science-based community, he’s also a genuinely religious man who has the trust of social conservatives. Many people would rather hear hard science from a principled individual like Ron Paul than soft twaddle from front men for vested interests. They see him as both a strong libertarian and a social conservative and wonder if he just might be the person to shape the issues in a way that’s rational and sensitive to rights.
“The bottom line is that mental health issues are a matter for parents, children, and their doctors, not government…..It is important to understand that powerful interests, namely federal bureaucrats and pharmaceutical lobbies, are behind the push for mental health screening in schools. There is no end to the bureaucratic appetite to run our lives, and the pharmaceutical industry is eager to sell psychotropic drugs to millions of new customers in American schools. Only tremendous public opposition will suffice to overcome the lobbying and bureaucratic power behind the president’s New Freedom Commission.”
— “Don’t Let Congress Fund Orwellian Psychiatric Screening of Kids,” January 31, 2005
18. KNOWS OPEN BORDERS DON’T MIX WITH WARFARE-WELFARE
Supporters claim that Paul is no ideologue who lets doctrinaire libertarianism trump considerations of law and ethics. His position on immigration, for instance, is not the usual “open borders” mantra of many soi-disant free traders:
“We’re often told that immigrants do the jobs Americans won’t do, and sometimes this is true. But in many instances illegal immigrants simply increase the supply of labor in a community, which lowers wages.”
“The Immigration Question,” April 4, 2006.
“… immigration may be the sleeper issue that decides the 2008 presidential election.”
“More importantly, we should expect immigrants to learn about and respect our political and legal traditions, which are rooted in liberty and constitutionally limited government.
Our most important task is to focus on effectively patrolling our borders. With our virtually unguarded borders, almost any determined individual – including a potential terrorist – can enter the United States. Unfortunately, the federal government seems more intent upon guarding the borders of other nations than our own. We are still patrolling Korea’s border after some 50 years, yet ours are more porous than ever.”
— “Immigration and the Welfare Stare,” August 9, 2005.
This is not xenophobia – it’s common sense in most countries in the world.
17. UNDERSTANDS THE NEED TO REIGN IN THE EXECUTIVE. Critics of our out-of-control Caesar can take heart from Paul. He is very clear on the importance of the separation of powers and the need for checks and balances in the government and he’s spoken out time and again for strengthening the power of Congress.
“…why not try something novel, like having Congress act as an independent and equal branch of government? Restore the principle of the separation of powers, so that we can perform our duty to provide checks and balances on an executive branch (and an accommodating judiciary) that spies on Americans, glorifies the welfare state, fights undeclared wars, and enormously increases the national debt. Congress was not meant to be a rubber stamp. It’s time for a new direction.”
— “Searching For a New Direction,” January 19, 2006.
He’s also stood up against corrupt federal programs like the “war on drugs”:
“We have promoted a foolish and very expensive domestic war on drugs for more than 30 years. It has done no good whatsoever. I doubt our Republic can survive a 30-year period of trying to figure out how to win this guerilla war against terrorism.”
“The drug war encourages violence. Government violence against nonviolent users is notorious and has led to the unnecessary prison overpopulation. Innocent taxpayers are forced to pay for all this so-called justice. Our eradication project through spraying around the world, from Colombia to Afghanistan, breeds resentment because normal crops and good land can be severely damaged. Local populations perceive that the efforts and the profiteering remain somehow beneficial to our own agenda in these various countries.”
— “War on Terror? It’s as Bad as the War on Drugs,” October 30, 2001.
16. GETS VOLUNTARY SELF DEFENSE not only in the constitution but in Anglo-American political history. Ron Paul, say supporters, really understands what some eastern elites don’t – how central the second amendment is to the notion of a self -reliant, vigilant population. Especially now, the right to arms may be the only safeguard for citizens who don’t trust the police to protect them. That includes minorities who’ve been on the receiving end of police brutality.
“Gun control historically serves as a gateway to tyranny. Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control. Our Founders, having just expelled the British army, knew that the right to bear arms serves as the guardian of every other right. This is the principle so often ignored by both sides in the gun control debate. Only armed citizens can resist tyrannical government.”
— “The D.C. Gun Ban,” March 12, 2007
In the same spirit Paul also opposes the draft, which allows the privileged and powerful to forcibly deploy less privileged young men as cannon fodder.
“I believe wholeheartedly that an all-volunteer military is not only sufficient for national defense, but also preferable. It is time to abolish the Selective Service System and resign military conscription to the dustbin of American history. Five hundred million dollars have been wasted on Selective Service since 1979, money that could have been returned to taxpayers or spent to improve the lives of our nation’s veterans.”
— “Rethinking the Draft,” November 28, 2006
15. SUPPORTS DECENTRALIZATION CONSISTENTLY by supporting national sovereignty against transnational organizations manipulated by global elites. The same principle leads him to support the states against the Fed – and turns power back to local communities and people, instead of bureaucrats.
“The superhighway proposal is not the result of free market demand, but rather an extension of government-managed trade schemes like NAFTA that benefit politically connected interests.”
“This will require coordinated federal and state eminent domain actions on an unprecedented scale, as literally millions of people and businesses could be displaced. The loss of whole communities is almost certain, as planners cannot wind the highway around every quaint town, historic building, or senior citizen apartment for thousands of miles.”
“The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union — complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union. Like the European Union, a North American Union would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether . . .”
— “The NAFTA Superhighway,” October 30, 2006.
“All federal aid for Katrina should have been distributed as directly as possible to local communities, rather than through wasteful middlemen like FEMA and Homeland Security.”
— “Katrina Relief Six Months Later,” February 21, 2006.
That’s also why Paul is against a national ID:
“This legislation imposes federal standards in a federal bill, and it creates a federalized ID regardless of whether the ID itself is still stamped with the name of your state. It is just a matter of time until those who refuse to carry the new licenses will be denied the ability to drive or board an airplane. Domestic travel restrictions are the hallmark of authoritarian states, not free republics.”
— “The Worst Way to Fight Terror,” October 9, 2004.
To more and more people, increased decentralization is beginning to look like the only way to allow less central but polarizing social issues to take a back seat to the two-headed monster we face today — war and economic recession.
And, contrary to the way a largely hostile media has painted it, Paul’s pro-life position is only opposed to Federal funding of abortions and stem-cell research. Nothing stops the states or private entities from funding either. That’s a constitutionally sound argument that allows different points of view to flourish without allowing any of them to tyrannize the others.
In response, critics of Paul argue that federal funding alone allows science and research to develop and cite the Internet as an example. They’re wrong. It was not at the Defense Department but at a European research organization that Tim Berners-Lee created his browser-editor. And aside from that factual inaccuracy, the argument itself is illogical. Because some innovations have come out of government funding, it doesn’t follow that all research could only have come out of it. In fact, the opposite might be true. The Internet could as well have developed sooner and better at the state level and with private backing. Dollar for dollar, federal funding for all sorts of things – from NASA to cancer research – has been shown to be either grossly ineffectual or not needed.
14. KNOWS THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM IS BROKEN and supports opening up the electoral process to more candidates from the grass roots:
“The two items I will be introducing on Tuesday embrace rather than disgrace the first amendment. The first is called the Voter Freedom Act of 1997. It will prohibit states from erecting excessive ballot access barriers to candidates for federal office. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to control federal elections, and I firmly believe that the more voices participating, the more likely it is that the entrenched, out-of-touch, Washington establishment will be swept to the side.”
“Another part of this vital process is opening the debates. So the second piece of legislation I am putting forward is the Debate Freedom Act of 1997……My legislation simply requires that if a candidate accepts the federal funding for his or her election, then that candidate can only participate in debates to which all candidates who qualify for federal funding – whether they take it or not – are invited to participate.”
13. WILL DECREASE TAXES and eliminate the bureaucracy strangling small businesses that create jobs and wealth. Supporters point out that in Paul’s lexicon wealth doesn’t mean the paper-jive of money-sharpers on Wall Street. It’s hard work, innovation and savings.
They also find hope in Paul’s sensitivity to the privacy issues involved with the IRS. He has publicly stated his concerns about the IRS using strong-arm tactics with citizens – and elected representatives – for political reasons.
“Imagine that you have taken a position contrary to the official dictates of the government in your nation. Instead of simply facing criticism from opposing political sides, you find your life turned upside-down; every aspect of your life is closely scrutinized. Without warning, your life savings are seized, your personal, private records divulged far and wide.
Suddenly, how willing are you to continue holding your views?”
“The answer is not to simply revise the code, or to make the IRS more independent, or to have an added layer of judicial review, the answer is to fundamentally change the way we collect taxes in this nation. The nonsensical body of law which governs the IRS is too far removed from sanity to be saved. And the graduated income tax system is neither fair, economically sound, moral nor useful.
“In my mind, the jury is still out on whether a flat tax or a national sales tax is the absolute best way to go (my main goal is for lower taxes, across-the-board), but both will go a long way toward eliminating the politically powerful weapon known as the IRS.”
— “Fear of IRS misplaced, the real problem is the system,” April 20, 1997.
12. BACKS SOUND MONEY Unlike other politicians with little sense of financial responsibility, Paul’s been speaking out for years against the destruction of the dollar. It’s one reason he’s popular. He’s been one of the very few who’ve spoken out again the cheap credit destroying savings and retirement money, pushing up the cost of living and devastating US standing in the international economy.
” I must diagnose an illness before I can treat a patient. In the current instance the diagnoses indicates that the squeeze of the middle class is caused not by low wages, but rather by increased costs resulting from central planning. And the key pillars of our current central-planning regime can be found in tax and monetary policies.
The fact that government creates money out of thin air must be addressed, because it is the entire reason why costs of living increase and standards of living decline….. Again, there is only one reason why prices are rising instead of falling. Because the government, through its credit-creation mechanism, is engaged in a sort of price controls, it is in fact following a policy that eventuates in price inflation as well as recession. Plus, this credit creation is at the heart of recent instability in the markets, thus threatening retirement security.”
— “Answering the Middle Class Squeeze,” March 27, 2000
“The biggest rip-off of all – the paper money system that is morally and economically equivalent to counterfeiting – is never questioned. It is the deceptive tool for transferring billions from the unsuspecting poor and middle-class to the special interest rich. And in the process, the deficit-propelled budget process supports the spending demands of all the special interests – left and right, welfare and warfare – while delaying payment to another day and sometimes even to another generation.”
—— “Searching for a New Direction,” January 19, 2006.
11 UNDERSTANDS THE REAL REASON WHY THE POOR ARE BEING SQUEEZED.
His supporters also think that Paul is the only one willing to tackle the real reason low-wage earners are taking it in the neck. Instead of pandering with price and wage controls, he strikes at the root:
“Our tax burden is at its highest peacetime levels. This means wage earners are being squeezed by the cost of government as well as the cost of living. Had Congress not stopped the Clinton-Gore tax on BTU’s, (which they called an economic stimulus package), fuel prices would be significantly higher than they are right now. This points to why government is not the answer.
Increases in costs of living are a real problem, especially for those at the lower end of the wage scale. Those costs will continue to rise if we allow central planning to continue, but the solution to central planning is freedom, not grant further control over wages to government.”
— “Answering the Middle Class Squeeze,” March 27, 2000
10. STANDS UP FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES AND PRIVACY.
“The Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act also contains a blanket prohibition on the use of identifiers to “investigate, monitor, oversee, or otherwise regulate” American citizens. Mr. Chairman, prohibiting the Federal Government from using standard identifiers will ensure that American liberty is protected from the “surveillance state.” Allowing the federal government to use standard identifiers to oversee private transactions present tremendous potential for abuse of civil liberties by unscrupulous government officials.
I am sure I need not remind the members of this Committee of the sad history of government officials of both parties using personal information contained in IRS or FBI files against their political enemies. Imagine the potential for abuse if an unscrupulous government official is able to access one’s complete medical, credit, and employment history by simply typing the citizens’ “uniform identifier” into a database.”
— Statement of Ron Paul on the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act (HR 220), May 18, 2000
“This legislation gives authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security to expand required information on driver’s licenses, potentially including such biometric information as retina scans, finger prints, DNA information, and even Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) radio tracking technology. Including such technology as RFID would mean that the federal government, as well as the governments of Canada and Mexico, would know where Americans are at all time of the day and night.
There are no limits on what happens to the database of sensitive information on Americans once it leaves the United States for Canada and Mexico – or perhaps other countries. Who is to stop a corrupt foreign government official from selling or giving this information to human traffickers or even terrorists? Will this uncertainty make us feel safer?”
— HR 418- A National ID Bill Masquerading as Immigration Reform, February 9, 2005
9. KNOWS CURRENT ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS ARE BANKRUPT and has the technical savvy to deal with healthcare, where government interference has already created a disaster.
“Those future obligations (of entitlements) put our real debt figure at roughly fifty trillion dollars- a staggering sum that is about as large as the total household net worth of the entire United States. Your share of this fifty trillion amounts to about $175,000.
….. If present trends continue, by 2040 the entire federal budget will be consumed by Social Security and Medicare alone. The only options for balancing the budget would be cutting total federal spending by about 60%, or doubling federal taxes. To close the long-term entitlement gap, the U.S. economy would have to grow by double digits every year for the next 75 years.”
— “The Coming Entitlement Meltdown,” March 5, 2007
The problems with our health-care system are not the result of too little government intervention, but rather too much. Contrary to the claims of many advocates of increased government regulation of health care, rising costs and red tape do not represent market failure. Rather, they represent the failure of government policies that have destroyed the health care market.”
“As a greater amount of government and corporate money has been used to pay medical bills, costs have risen artificially out of the range of most individuals. Only true competition assures that the consumer gets the best deal at the best price possible by putting pressure on the providers. Patients are better served by having options and choices, not new federal bureaucracies and limitations on legal remedies.”
— “Diagnosing Our Health Care Woes,” September 25, 2006.
8. OPPOSES CORPORATE SUBSIDIES that distort the market and burden tax payers, like the bailout of international speculators with tax payer money in the Mexican and Asian crises in the 1990s.
“But many investors today are eager to embrace the philosophy of free-market economics when it comes to making money and keeping their profits, but at the first sign of those investments going sour, they want the government to socialize their losses at the expense of the taxpayers.
And since these investors have also heavily “invested” in American politics, it is easy for the politicians to use your money to help them out. After all, it is very easy to be generous with other people’s money.”
“President opts to use taxpayer fund to bail out wealthy investors,” December 29, 1997
“For a long time I have advocated getting rid of the Export-Import Bank. It is unconstitutional for the federal government, using your money, to be subsidizing the risky business ventures of corporations. And often, these ventures involve giving large sums of money and aid to oppressive foreign governments, like China……..Subsidizing big corporations is unconstitutional and violative of the laws of free-market economics, no matter what Congress calls the mechanism. Those who are addicted to corporate welfare have no need to worry; USEX will be doing the same thing as Ex-Im.”
— “US shouldn’t cast stones with Religious Persecution,” October 6, 1997
7. OPPOSES THE NEO-LIBERAL GLOBALIST AGENDA and the charade of aid that funds foreign dictators. He also understands the dangers of national armies in the service of global international bodies, a position firmly rooted in the ideas of Madison and Jefferson — and firmly contrary to the delusional “liberventionism” of today’s humanitarian bombers who fancy themselves global Supermen.
“Neither, of course, does the Constitution allow us to subsidize foreign governments through such taxpayer-supported entities as the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, OPIC, Ex-Im/USEX or any number of other vehicles through which the U.S. Congress sends foreign aid to a large number of countries (including those who engage in religious persecution). It is time we stopped both policing the world, and funding the totalitarian thugs of planet.”
” It is ironic that the same federal government which killed innocent children at Waco for their parents “odd” religious beliefs, now proclaims itself ready to judge the world’s nations on their religious tolerance.”
— “US shouldn’t cast stones with religious persecution,” October 6, 1997
6. WILLING TO LOOK FOR OIL IN OTHER PLACES besides the Middle East. Fans point out that he’s not a crony capitalist, either. Paul isn’t piped at the umbilicus to energy companies or in bed with oil executives, unlike our current crop of carbon-dating fossils.
“Yes, we need Middle Eastern oil, but we can reduce our need by exploring domestic sources. We should rid ourselves of the notion that we are at the mercy of the oil-producing countries- as the world’s largest oil consumer, their wealth depends on our business.”
— “Our Incoherent Foreign Policy Fuels Middle East Turmoil,” December 3, 2002 l
5. BELIEVES THE US GOVERNMENT SHOULD GOVERN THE US, not the World. Wow. What a revolutionary idea.
“We should stop the endless game of playing faction against faction, and recognize that buying allies doesn’t work. We should curtail the heavy militarization of the area by ending our disastrous foreign aid payments. We should stop propping up dictators and putting band-aids on festering problems. We should understand that our political and military involvement in the region creates far more problems that it solves. All Americans will benefit, both in terms of their safety and their pocketbooks, if we pursue a coherent, neutral foreign policy of non-interventionism, free trade, and self-determination in the Middle East.”
— “Our Incoherent Foreign Policy Fuels Middle East Turmoil,” December 3, 2002
“The best reason to oppose interventionism is that people die, needlessly, on both sides. We have suffered over 20,000 American casualties in Iraq already, and Iraq civilian deaths probably number over 100,000 by all reasonable accounts. The next best reason is that the rule of law is undermined, especially when military interventions are carried out without a declaration of war. Whenever a war is ongoing, civil liberties are under attack at home. The current war in Iraq and the misnamed war on terror have created an environment here at home that affords little constitutional protection of our citizen’s rights. Extreme nationalism is common during wars. Signs of this are now apparent.”
—“Iran: The Next Neo-Con Target,” April 5, 2006
4. STANDS UP TO BIG BROTHER.
Another reason for civil libertarians to cheer Ron Paul is his position on legislation like the Hate Crimes Bill. For opposing it, he’s been tarred by zealots as a closet bigot. But Paul – unlike his opponents – seems to be long-sighted enough to understand that the danger of creating a category of thought-crimes far outweighs any extra protection it might seem to afford the vulnerable in the short-term. Eventually, hate crime laws are frighteningly liable to be misused and only end up making political protest or the expression of religious conscience impossible.
“It’s also disconcerting to hear the subtle or not-so-subtle threats against free speech. Since the FCC regulates airwaves and grants broadcast licenses, we’re told it’s proper for government to forbid certain kinds of insulting or offensive speech in the name of racial and social tolerance. Never mind the 1st Amendment, which states unequivocally that, “Congress shall make NO law.”
— “Government and Racism,” April 16, 2007
Paul’s also made it clear that he’s against regulation of the Internet, one of the last remaining forums for free speech, especially on political matters, and one of the few places you can get independent news. People are rightly afraid of what would happen if that freedom disappeared too.
“I trust the Internet a lot more, and I trust the freedom of expression. And that’s why we should never interfere with the Internet. That’s why I’ve never voted to regulate the Internet.”
— “California Republican debate transcript,” May 7, 2007
3. IS RIGHT ABOUT TERRORISM:
Unlike most of our reps, Paul look like he actually reads what US intelligence (and just about every other intelligence service in the world) has been saying about terrorism for years:
“Consider Saudi Arabia, the native home of most of the September 11th hijackers. The Saudis, unlike the Iraqis, have proven connections to al Qaeda. Saudi charities have funneled money to Islamic terrorist groups. Yet the administration insists on calling Saudi Arabia a “good partner in the war on terror.” Why? Because the U.S. has a long standing relationship with the Saudi royal family, and a long history of commercial interests relating to Saudi oil. So successive administrations continue to treat the Saudis as something they are not: a reliable and honest friend in the Middle East.
The same is true of Pakistan, where General Musharaf seized power by force in a 1999 coup. The Clinton administration quickly accepted his new leadership as legitimate, to the dismay of India and many Muslim Pakistanis. Since 9/11, we have showered Pakistan with millions in foreign aid, ostensibly in exchange for Musharaf’s allegiance against al Qaeda. Yet has our new ally rewarded our support? Hardly. The Pakistanis almost certainly have harbored bin Laden in their remote mountains, and show little interest in pursuing him or allowing anyone else to pursue him. Pakistan has signed peace agreements with Taliban leaders, and by some accounts bin Laden is a folk hero to many Pakistanis.”
— “Hypocrisy in the Middle East,” Feb 26, 2007
2. IS RIGHT ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR
There’s a refreshing moral clarity about the man, say his supporters. Horses go before carts, he insists, in his revolutionary way.
“What is the moral argument for attacking a nation that has not initiated aggression against us, and could not if it wanted?”
“Why are we taking precious military and intelligence resources away from tracking down those who did attack the United States- and who may again attack the United States- and using them to invade countries that have not attacked the United States?”
“Was former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro wrong when he recently said there is no confirmed evidence of Iraq’s links to terrorism?”
“Is it not true that the CIA has concluded there is no evidence that a Prague meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence took place?”
“Where does the Constitution grant us permission to wage war for any reason other than self-defense?”
” Is it not true that a war against Iraq rejects the sentiments of the time-honored Treaty of Westphalia, nearly 400 years ago, that countries should never go into another for the purpose of regime change?”
” Is it not true that the more civilized a society is, the less likely disagreements will be settled by war?”
” Is it not true that since World War II Congress has not declared war and- not coincidentally- we have not since then had a clear-cut victory?”
— “Questions That Won’t Be Asked About Iraq,” September 10, 2002
1. IS RIGHT ABOUT THE BILL OF RIGHTS
Ron Paul’s appeal may ultimately lie in his vision of the country. His America is a modest, self-limiting Constitutional Republic that tends its own garden– not the jack-booted empire of the neo-conservatives. And in search of that vision, he’s consistently defended the Bill of Rights against an arrogant executive and supine Congress who’ve sold them out to jack up their own power at home and abroad:
“It is with the complicity of Congress that we have become a nation of pre-emptive war, secret military tribunals, torture, rejection of habeas corpus, warrantless searches, undue government secrecy, extraordinary renditions, and uncontrolled spying on the American people. Fighting over there has nothing to do with preserving freedoms here at home.”
— “Getting Iraq War Funding Wrong Again,” May 1, 2007
“It is clear, however, that the Patriot Act expands the government’s ability to monitor us. The Act eases federal rules for search warrants in some cases; allows expanded wiretaps and Internet monitoring; allows secret “sneak and peek” searches; and even permits federal agents to examine library and bookstore records. On these grounds alone it should be soundly rejected.”
— “Trust Us, We’re the Government,” August 26, 2003.
“We shuld remember that Iran, like Iraq, is a third-world nation without a significant military. Nothing in history hints that she is likely to invade a neighboring country, let alone do anything to America or Israel. I am concerned, however, that a contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran.”
Details of the declassified Inspector General’s Report on how the torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo was taught through a program that was framed in league with the psychology profession, in this article by psychologist and activist, Stephen Soldz:
“As part of the SERE program, trainees are subjected to abuse, including sleep deprivation, sexual and cultural humiliation, and, in some instances, waterboarding, described by one SERE graduate thus:
“[Y]ou are strapped to a board, a washcloth or other article covers your face, and water is continuously poured, depriving you of air, and suffocating you until it is removed, and/or inducing you to ingest water. We were carefully monitored (although how they determined these limits is beyond me), but it was a most unpleasant experience, and its threat alone was sufficient to induce compliance, unless one was so deprived of water that it would be an unintentional means to nourishment.”
More at his blog, “Psyche, Science and Society,” which has plenty of information on how the mind sciences are deployed in the services of the state. Put that next to the information we have about programs like TeenScreen and TMAP, and it should be clear that the sciences are not immune to the temptations of power and money.
We know we liive in a propaganda state. Now we know the extent to which the state is willing to employ science against any population, even its own. Several of the tortured detainees were American whistle-blowers who had alerted authorities to corruption in the military.
Excerpt from a thoughtful commentary by Martin Hutchinson at Prudent Bear (reposting this piece, as I had some trouble with the old post):
“H.G. Wells postulated in his 1895 “Time Machine” the ultimate destination of a Latin American–style social system. In his future 800,000 years hence the human race has divided into two species, the eloi, who do no work and live only for trivial aesthetic pleasures and the morlocks, sub-men who work underground keeping the mechanical civilization running. Wells’s fantasy seemed far-fetched after 1920, as equality increased and the working classes became both educated and comfortably off. However the fantasy looks a lot closer to reality in 2007 than it did in 1957, when the movie was made.
In the United States, one would expect political activity to begin showing Latin American characteristics, including a breakdown in social cohesion, as Gini rises towards Latin American levels. This appears to be happening. One example is the doubling since 2000 of the number of Washington lobbyists, whose objective is primarily to divert public resources to private uses. A second is the growth of earmarking in legislation, up 10-fold in the decade to 2005; earmarks are generally inserted in order to benefit some private interest at the expense of the general good. U.S. politics has always been corrupt, and was especially so during the 1870-96 Gilded Age, the previous high point for inequality, but the increase in the proportion of Gross Domestic Product spent on lobbyists, the proportion of GDP spent on corrupt government spending and indeed the proportion of GDP spent on elections themselves suggests that systemic corruption is rapidly increasing.
The new immigration bill is above all an example of class legislation. The choice between a low or a moderate level of immigration depends primarily on non-economic factors — a voter’s interest or otherwise in increasing the diversity of the society, and the recognition that the global economy may work better and produce more wealth for all if there is a certain amount of migratory lubrication between different societies. However, the effect of more than modest immigration on inequality and therefore on class structure is highly significant. The Immigration Act of 1924, which largely restricted immigration to the richer countries of northwest Europe, produced the greatest social leveling the United States has ever seen, with the Gini coefficient declining by around 10 points between 1920 and 1965, the years of its salience (the 1924 Act replaced previous restrictions introduced during World War I.)
After 1965, immigration policy was reversed, to encourage a larger flow of immigrants, primarily from developing countries. Initially, this had only a modest economic effect. Then the 1986 amnesty encouraged low skill immigrants, allegedly now numbering 12 million, to try their luck with the overstretched immigration bureaucracy. Even large companies, knowing that immigration laws would not be enforced, seized the chance for some cheap labor.
Whatever the economic effect of moderate amounts of skilled immigrant labor, almost certainly positive, the economic effect of large amounts of unskilled immigrant labor is very clear: it drives wage rates down to rock bottom levels, particularly in personal service sectors where training is minimal and employment informal. That’s why a haircut costs less in real terms now than it did 30 years ago, it’s why even modest middle class households now have a cleaner and a gardener, which they usually didn’t 30 years ago and it’s why enormous numbers of dubiously constructed houses appeared when finance became available in 2002-06.”
More at the Bear’s Lair.
A comment on my V-Tech posts from Equitas – a human rights organization:
Eq Nunc | eqnunc@yahoo.com | eqrolc.ca/vatech.html | IP: 24.122.48.168
Good R&D LR. Take a look at this EQ Gateway and see what you can dig out of it. Pertinent links and legalogistics to wit! Perhaps some answers may be provided there too:
http://www.eqrolc.ca/vatech.html
Happy Researching!
The EQ Team.
I looked through their site and found this article from last month on FindLaw by Professor Anthony Sebok of Brooklyn Law School.
I wish I had come across it earlier, as it answers some questions I’ve had about why the shooting was being framed by the school a certain way. But it substantially agrees with what I earlier (based on a conversation with a well-known attorney, who had pressed victims’ claims in a previous school shooting case) that gross negligence would have to be the standard here.
From Sebok’s article:
“Let’s suppose Cho had, in fact, gone to counseling, and that his therapist, concerned about his threats about certain students, warned those students about the threats. To fulfill its duty to take reasonable care, would the university have to assign security officers to follow those students – or Cho himself – around? And what if the threats were more general, or to an entire class full of students? Would the university have the duty to expel Cho and remove him from campus?”And more:
“The Second Key Question: Does It Matter that Virginia Tech Is a Public University?
Let’s suppose for a moment that the wounded victims and the families of the deceased victims can, in fact, prove that Virginia Tech failed to take adequate steps to protect its students. Unfortunately, their case would still fail – for the doctrine of sovereign immunity makes it almost impossible for the plaintiffs to collect significant damages even if they can prove negligence.
Sovereign immunity literally means that the government cannot be sued for its torts, even if it acts negligently (or worse). Originating in England before the American revolution, the doctrine has been largely abandoned in the U.K. and Europe. But it is alive and well – though partially waived by both the federal government and the states — in the United States.
Virginia’s waiver of sovereign immunity is pretty typical: The Virginia Tort Claims Act, Code §§ 8.01-195.1 through -195.9, states that “the Commonwealth shall be liable for claims for money . . . on account of . . . personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee while acting within the scope of his employment under circumstances where the Commonwealth . . ., if a private person, would be liable to the claimant for such . . . injury or death.”
You might think that Virginia Tech could be sued under this waiver. But you would be wrong. As the Virginia Supreme Court noted in the 2004 case of Rector & Visitors of the Univ. of Va. v. Carter, only the Commonwealth of Virginia has waived its sovereign immunity, but the Commonwealth’s agencies – such as the University and its various schools — have not.
Thus, in that case, Tina Carter’s medical malpractice suit against the University of Virginia Medical School was dismissed — although she, in theory, could have then refiled the suit against the Commonwealth of Virginia, if it was not barred by the statute of limitations. That’s because the Commonwealth of Virginia can be sued for the actions of its agents under a theory of vicarious liability.
Couldn’t the Virginia Tech plaintiffs just sue the Commonwealth, then? Yes, but here is where the final indignity comes in: The same Act limits the liability of the Commonwealth to $100,000 per tort. This amount, while not insignificant, is dwarfed by the amount of damages that might be won in a wrongful death claim brought on behalf of a college student or her surviving family. (By comparison, the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, which I have discussed in earlier columns such as this one, provided a minimum of $250,000 to the victims’ families, and in the case of young people who would have looked forward to long and lucrative careers, often much more.)
The Best Potential Basis for Suit: Evidence of Gross Negligence, If It Arises
In the end, the only realistic way for the plaintiffs to receive anything like the amount of the damages they have actually suffered, is to show that Virginia Tech acted with gross negligence.
As a Virginia-based federal court held in the 1995 case of Coppage v. Mann, sovereign immunity does not protect doctors employed by the state from tort suits if they acted with gross negligence. So too, the doctrine would presumably not protect university administrators and other employees if they acted with gross negligence. Nor would it protect their employer, even if it were an agent of the state.
In sum, if an investigation reveals negligence by Virginia Tech, and it can plausibly be argued to be gross negligence, then perhaps the wounded victims and the families of the deceased will be able to recover for the damages they actually incurred. But the law – thanks to the archaic sovereign immunity doctrine – sets the bar too high. Proof of negligence, even short of gross negligence, should be enough.”