Forget about what the law says.
Forget about what any of the laws say.
The text doesn't matter; the intent does.
In a few days, the 90th Arkansas General Assembly, the first since Reconstruction to operate with GOP majorities in both houses and the governor's mansion, will wrap up its business and adjourn sine die. I would call this session ignominious if I thought that more than a handful of these legislators would know what that meant without consulting Webster's.
HB 1228, the so-called "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," has been merely the most prominent in a laundry list of Tea Party-initiated or -favored acts. (This morning, Gov. Asa! Hutchinson, sensing a disturbance in the corporate force to which he owes his major allegiance, announced that he would be asking the General Assembly to "recall" HB 1228, or at least to "fix" it. I suspect that Asa! knows that an outright veto would be hastily overridden by this radical legislature--it only takes a simple majority to override a governor's veto, which makes the governor pretty close to impotent.)
This season in Little Rock has seen attacks on Common Core, Obamacare, California's egg laws, workers, solar energy, history classes, and sexual minorities, among other targets. And there is a common thread to all of it.
These are all acts in a war waged against progress and the future.
We've trod this ground before.
The building on the University of Arkansas campus that houses the admissions offices is named for Silas H. Hunt. Aside from Razorback Stadium or Bud Walton Arena, this is often the building at the University that students first encounter. It is the University's "best foot" put forward, because of who Silas H. Hunt was.
In 1948, a full six years before Brown v. Board of Education, Silas H. Hunt was admitted to the law school at the University of Arkansas. This was a remarkable event because Hunt was black. In fact, he became the first black student at any all-white Southern university since Reconstruction, and the first black graduate student at any all-white Southern university at all. Thus began the desegregation of the University of Arkansas.
I do not mean to say that Hunt's time at Arkansas was a bed of roses or that he was in any fashion accepted as an equal. He was prevented from taking classes designated for white students; instead, he was accommodated with special segregated classes in the basement of the law school (which white students were permitted to attend, and he was in fact joined by a handful of white students), at a time when "separate but equal" was still considered a reasonable position.*
* - Sadly, Hunt died of tuberculosis, a probable consequence of wartime wounds suffered at the Battle of the Bulge, in 1949. The University awarded him a posthumous degree a few years ago.
As happy and amazing as it is, this story and the small change it wrought are dwarfed by the ugliness of the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School not a decade later. That, too, was part of the war against progress, made worse by a gutless governor caught between his constituency and the path of righteousness. It took nearly four decades and the election of a progressive native son as President for us to shed that terrible incident as the prime mover of the general public's consciousness of Arkansas. Others were worse, but we were bad enough. It was a reputation that was tough to live down.
How much money and time and effort--how much human capital--was wasted fighting the inevitable future? And how much more will we waste as we are forced by these sorry people to fight it today?
Men like Bob Ballinger and Jason Rapert and Justin Harris exist as legislators because we let them. This war they are waging--they wage it because we enable them to do so. The would-be voices of reason in the General Assembly are shouted down by buffoons like these, who love to playact, and whose favorite role is that of the boy with his finger in the dike, holding back the flood of modernity that has already swept most of our great nation.
There are many great things about this state--things I love dearly. But damn! if there aren't problems that most direly need our attention. We live in a land where a significant number of people believe that an 11-dollar-an-hour job with no benefits is something to be grateful for, where some people believe that dial-up internet is good enough for rural school districts, where the only thing standing between us and a theocracy is a thin line of court decisions. It is no wonder that so many have gone mad for Jesus; he's the only brand that's offering much hope in Arkansas these days; too bad you have to leave this Earth to cash in on it.
I have always been a man of unbridled optimism. I know that the road to prosperity and liberty is long and fraught with danger, but I have always believed that the journey is worth it and that we would get there. I believe that we are just one good election away from real change to benefit the most and the poorest Arkansans.
But, boy, are they making it difficult.
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Monday, March 30, 2015
On deaf ears
I was born here, and reared here, and I stayed for college here. For law school, I went elsewhere because of a unique and wonderful opportunity. From law school I went to work in a place that was as much like here as I could find and still have the opportunities that were otherwise available to me.
And almost three years ago, I came back here to live. I am and always have been an Arkansan, and even when I lived elsewhere I have never considered myself anything but.
The Arkansas of my youth was different from today. Our politicians were genuine statesmen and stateswomen, Fulbright and Clinton and Pryor (the elder) and Bumpers, and numerous others, who valued balance and progress and intelligence. We knew we were poor, but we knew we could do better. We had, some of us, lived through perilous, ugly times, when our eyes were blackened, and when ignorance and hatred had made us for some hick backwater. But it seemed for a time that we had managed to put that behind us.
During my fifteen-year absence, something changed. I'm not sure whether it was me or the prevailing tenor of our public discourse, informed as it now is by religion, not reason. The truth is that before I left, I was political; before I left, even though I was nominally a Christian I was not guided in any of my positions by religious duty; and before I left, I don't remember any of my contemporaries being particularly driven by that, either.
Somewhere along the way, while most of my hometown contemporaries grew up, they became what I can only charitably describe as religious zealots, driven as never before by an apparently pathological need to be seen by others as the Right Kind of Christian. I suppose I could have found that change tolerable if the philosophy they espoused looked anything like that of Jesus himself. These folks, however, follow a bastard form of Christianity--one that is fueled by piety and purity and status and in some cases the "prosperity" gospel first popularized by Oral Roberts and taken to new heights by Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar, one that seeks to inject itself into the most private affairs of others and to use the law to punish those whose actions make them disfavored.
Incredibly, these people mark themselves as persecuted, even as they control all of the levers of state and local government and most of the levers of the federal government.
Much has been written about HB1228, a so-called "Religious Freedom Restoration Act." There are many reasons why this legislation is not needed. It will foster hatred of others. It will cause us economic damage. It will not make anyone more free and its absence will not make anyone less free. It is this last aspect that I'd like to focus on.
In one sense, I am in favor of legislation that respects the rights of individual Americans to make their own religious choices and to excuse them from the general application of a law when it would genuinely burden their sincere religious practices or beliefs. In fact, I would appreciate some protections for my own religious choices, because my own religious beliefs, being in the minority in which they stand, are under virtually constant attack from the Christians who are pushing this legislation.
But not all ends of a means are equally justifiable. Standing in context, HB1228 is not designed to meet the laudable goal of making Arkansans more free in the general sense. It is designed to provide cover for those who would do harm to disfavored minorities--particularly including sexual minorities including homosexuals, bisexuals, and the transgendered--out of a misguided sense that doing so somehow pleases Jesus.
Like it or not--and I like it, because I love freedom--we are living in an America today that has changed. We are on the cusp of finally fulfilling the promise of our forefathers, that all of us are created equal, even as we are different, and that each of us meets the law and society on our own terms as Americans. What has brought us there is not a law or a principle, but the recognition among a majority of Americans that our great nation belongs to us all, and that we must not use the instrumentalities of that nation to set apart a second, inferior class of American based on the different choices they make or characteristics that they possess.
Even in Arkansas, those who would oppose the growth of our American civilization to the mark set out at its start are in the minority. And those of us who believe, as I do, that our great American principles mean something have, to be frank, grown tired of all of this yammering to the contrary.
The freedom of religion does not mean the right to discriminate in public accommodations or in ordinary commerce. Freedom of religion means, in one sense, the right to confine the things that you do, or do not do, to your own conscience. I am sick to death of this analogy, but I am compelled by the argument to comment on it: If you are in the business of baking wedding cakes, then you can choose the conditions under which you will work based on the dictates of your individual conscience--for example, refusing to work on Sunday, if that is your sincere religious practice--but you must take all comers for the commercial transaction of cake-selling. That is the only way that this works. If you believe that baking a cake for a same-sex couple's wedding is a sin, then it's time to stop baking wedding cakes.
In another part of the standard analogy, the proponents of this legislation ask, why can't a Jewish deli owner be compelled to sell a ham-and-cheese sandwich to a customer who wants one? This is a false analogy. The deli owner (of any religion) who doesn't stock a particular meat doesn't sell that meat to anyone out of his own choice. The more apt analogy would be a deli owner who will sell ham to customers to feed to their dogs but not to customers who want to eat it. It is not the right of the vendor to interject himself into the customer's end of the transaction and impose his own moral views on their activities.
I have no problem with anyone for their own religious practices. If you want to deprive yourself of something for religion's sake, that's your choice. If you want to refrain from gambling at Oaklawn because you believe it is sinful, or if you want to want to abstain from alcohol out of religious duty, or if you want to carry on with an unwanted pregnancy because you believe abortion is wrong, then carry on. You'll get no argument from me.
The problem isn't religious practice. The problem is the earnest and insatiable desire of religious zealots to use the power of the government to impose their religious values on others. That's at the root of HB1228 and of countless other pieces of legislation that have spewed forth from the 90th General Assembly. What these people are doing and advocating might be entirely in conformity with what they believe their god calls them to do, but it is entirely at odds with what it means, fundamentally, to be an American in a free society.
Liberty is a blessing, but it comes with the caveat that if we are all free, some of us will do things that others of us don't like. It is incumbent upon us as Americans to know where the line is drawn, between individual choices and the imperatives of civilization, and to set up our laws so as to balance the two to maximize the utility of the liberty that we all share.
I know it will fall on deaf ears, but I call on the governor to veto this piece of legislation.
And almost three years ago, I came back here to live. I am and always have been an Arkansan, and even when I lived elsewhere I have never considered myself anything but.
The Arkansas of my youth was different from today. Our politicians were genuine statesmen and stateswomen, Fulbright and Clinton and Pryor (the elder) and Bumpers, and numerous others, who valued balance and progress and intelligence. We knew we were poor, but we knew we could do better. We had, some of us, lived through perilous, ugly times, when our eyes were blackened, and when ignorance and hatred had made us for some hick backwater. But it seemed for a time that we had managed to put that behind us.
During my fifteen-year absence, something changed. I'm not sure whether it was me or the prevailing tenor of our public discourse, informed as it now is by religion, not reason. The truth is that before I left, I was political; before I left, even though I was nominally a Christian I was not guided in any of my positions by religious duty; and before I left, I don't remember any of my contemporaries being particularly driven by that, either.
Somewhere along the way, while most of my hometown contemporaries grew up, they became what I can only charitably describe as religious zealots, driven as never before by an apparently pathological need to be seen by others as the Right Kind of Christian. I suppose I could have found that change tolerable if the philosophy they espoused looked anything like that of Jesus himself. These folks, however, follow a bastard form of Christianity--one that is fueled by piety and purity and status and in some cases the "prosperity" gospel first popularized by Oral Roberts and taken to new heights by Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar, one that seeks to inject itself into the most private affairs of others and to use the law to punish those whose actions make them disfavored.
Incredibly, these people mark themselves as persecuted, even as they control all of the levers of state and local government and most of the levers of the federal government.
Much has been written about HB1228, a so-called "Religious Freedom Restoration Act." There are many reasons why this legislation is not needed. It will foster hatred of others. It will cause us economic damage. It will not make anyone more free and its absence will not make anyone less free. It is this last aspect that I'd like to focus on.
In one sense, I am in favor of legislation that respects the rights of individual Americans to make their own religious choices and to excuse them from the general application of a law when it would genuinely burden their sincere religious practices or beliefs. In fact, I would appreciate some protections for my own religious choices, because my own religious beliefs, being in the minority in which they stand, are under virtually constant attack from the Christians who are pushing this legislation.
But not all ends of a means are equally justifiable. Standing in context, HB1228 is not designed to meet the laudable goal of making Arkansans more free in the general sense. It is designed to provide cover for those who would do harm to disfavored minorities--particularly including sexual minorities including homosexuals, bisexuals, and the transgendered--out of a misguided sense that doing so somehow pleases Jesus.
Like it or not--and I like it, because I love freedom--we are living in an America today that has changed. We are on the cusp of finally fulfilling the promise of our forefathers, that all of us are created equal, even as we are different, and that each of us meets the law and society on our own terms as Americans. What has brought us there is not a law or a principle, but the recognition among a majority of Americans that our great nation belongs to us all, and that we must not use the instrumentalities of that nation to set apart a second, inferior class of American based on the different choices they make or characteristics that they possess.
Even in Arkansas, those who would oppose the growth of our American civilization to the mark set out at its start are in the minority. And those of us who believe, as I do, that our great American principles mean something have, to be frank, grown tired of all of this yammering to the contrary.
The freedom of religion does not mean the right to discriminate in public accommodations or in ordinary commerce. Freedom of religion means, in one sense, the right to confine the things that you do, or do not do, to your own conscience. I am sick to death of this analogy, but I am compelled by the argument to comment on it: If you are in the business of baking wedding cakes, then you can choose the conditions under which you will work based on the dictates of your individual conscience--for example, refusing to work on Sunday, if that is your sincere religious practice--but you must take all comers for the commercial transaction of cake-selling. That is the only way that this works. If you believe that baking a cake for a same-sex couple's wedding is a sin, then it's time to stop baking wedding cakes.
In another part of the standard analogy, the proponents of this legislation ask, why can't a Jewish deli owner be compelled to sell a ham-and-cheese sandwich to a customer who wants one? This is a false analogy. The deli owner (of any religion) who doesn't stock a particular meat doesn't sell that meat to anyone out of his own choice. The more apt analogy would be a deli owner who will sell ham to customers to feed to their dogs but not to customers who want to eat it. It is not the right of the vendor to interject himself into the customer's end of the transaction and impose his own moral views on their activities.
I have no problem with anyone for their own religious practices. If you want to deprive yourself of something for religion's sake, that's your choice. If you want to refrain from gambling at Oaklawn because you believe it is sinful, or if you want to want to abstain from alcohol out of religious duty, or if you want to carry on with an unwanted pregnancy because you believe abortion is wrong, then carry on. You'll get no argument from me.
The problem isn't religious practice. The problem is the earnest and insatiable desire of religious zealots to use the power of the government to impose their religious values on others. That's at the root of HB1228 and of countless other pieces of legislation that have spewed forth from the 90th General Assembly. What these people are doing and advocating might be entirely in conformity with what they believe their god calls them to do, but it is entirely at odds with what it means, fundamentally, to be an American in a free society.
Liberty is a blessing, but it comes with the caveat that if we are all free, some of us will do things that others of us don't like. It is incumbent upon us as Americans to know where the line is drawn, between individual choices and the imperatives of civilization, and to set up our laws so as to balance the two to maximize the utility of the liberty that we all share.
I know it will fall on deaf ears, but I call on the governor to veto this piece of legislation.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Supernatural
Arkansas state Rep. Justin Harris (R-Northwest Wackoville) has been in the media recently. The facts of his current fame are as follows: Harris's day job involves running a nominally Christian day care center. Harris and his wife adopted two young girls some time ago, in the process apparently applying pressure to the Arkansas Department of Human Services to complete the adoption.
Unfortunately, the adoption didn't work out, for reasons that have not been made clear. Rather than getting help dealing with the situation, Harris and his wife "re-homed" the girls--in other words, abandoned them to the care of someone else--with a former employee...who proceeded to rape the older girl, 6. The employee's now at the long end of a 40-year prison term; he pled guilty as part of an agreement that will keep him locked up for just shy of the maximum term.
Recently, some top-notch, maybe Pulitzer-worthy* reporting by the Arkansas Times's Benjamin Hardy brought these facts to light. Unsurprisingly, Harris has sought to cast himself in the role of victim, claiming that the two girls posed a danger to his older children, and that re-homing was necessary to protect his family. He also claims that he could not go back to DHS with these problems because he was being threatened with a child abandonment charge if he did.
* - That's not hyperbole. I hope his article series gets submitted for consideration.
At this point, I've lost my capacity for astonishment. Whether it's Tom Cotton writing petulant letters to the Ayatollah Khamenei on Constitutional law, or the Legislature actively seeking ways to harm their constituents, I simply cannot be surprised by the depths of depravity to which the modern Republican Party has sunk. (Maybe it's not fair to tar all Republicans with that brush, but, then again, they choose to be Republicans.)
And yet...the Harris case is world-class. I find myself asking how this man can possibly plan to continue as a legislator. I can't find anyone who's coming to his defense on the merits of anything he did. The best anyone seems to be able to offer is "He made some mistakes."
Even so, I had gotten used to the idea that someone could (a) show little if any remorse for having turned over his children to a rapist, (b) continue to cash support checks provided by the State even after he had turned over this children, (c) portray himself as the victim in all of this, and (d) stay in office as a legislator. That last bit may not be entirely up to him--he can be expelled by a two-thirds vote of the House--but it's the wanting to stay that ought to surprise us.
But then it came out yesterday that the principal reason he re-homed his children was that he thought they were possessed by demons.
Let that sink in just a bit.
I know, right? Demons.
Now, people like Justin Harris have been hard at work trying to roll back the calendar. The 1950s have been a popular target, aiming as they are for a time when discrimination was OK, and women were kept barefoot and pregnant, and abortion was a crime. But Harris's reliance on the existence of demons as an explanation for behavior is more at home in the 1590s.
So, I never thought it would be necessary to say these things, but here goes:
Demons aren't real.
Nothing possessed those little girls, nor anyone else.
Perhaps they have some problems that caused them to behave poorly. Maybe they were even dangerous to themselves or to others, although it's hard to conceive of a 6-year-old doing much real damage to anyone. And good grief, the fact that they were in the DHS system indicates that something has gone terribly wrong.
But they were not under the control of any supernatural force, because there are no supernatural forces.
I try very hard not to criticize people for believing in supernatural forces. If you need that for your life to have meaning, or to behave the right way, or to keep yourself from abusing alcohol or drugs or whatever, or because you've been told that terrible things will happen to you after you die if you don't believe, then I'm not going to criticize you even though I don't believe in those things. The truth is that there are a lot more people who believe (or profess to believe) in supernatural forces than who don't, especially in this state, and it is often easier to go along to get along, to believe rather than to do the hard work of living in the real world.
But mostly it's an excuse--an excuse for behaving badly, or for not doing something you should, or for doing something you shouldn't, or for general incuriousness about the world.
And when it results in the chain of events that led to this horrible outcome, enough is enough. He's living in a dream world.
If you believe in the existence and influence of "demons" in worldly affairs, then you have no business making decisions that affect other people. Not as a legislator especially. If all of the other factors weren't enough, then that one ought to be. Justin Harris should resign.
Unfortunately, the adoption didn't work out, for reasons that have not been made clear. Rather than getting help dealing with the situation, Harris and his wife "re-homed" the girls--in other words, abandoned them to the care of someone else--with a former employee...who proceeded to rape the older girl, 6. The employee's now at the long end of a 40-year prison term; he pled guilty as part of an agreement that will keep him locked up for just shy of the maximum term.
Recently, some top-notch, maybe Pulitzer-worthy* reporting by the Arkansas Times's Benjamin Hardy brought these facts to light. Unsurprisingly, Harris has sought to cast himself in the role of victim, claiming that the two girls posed a danger to his older children, and that re-homing was necessary to protect his family. He also claims that he could not go back to DHS with these problems because he was being threatened with a child abandonment charge if he did.
* - That's not hyperbole. I hope his article series gets submitted for consideration.
At this point, I've lost my capacity for astonishment. Whether it's Tom Cotton writing petulant letters to the Ayatollah Khamenei on Constitutional law, or the Legislature actively seeking ways to harm their constituents, I simply cannot be surprised by the depths of depravity to which the modern Republican Party has sunk. (Maybe it's not fair to tar all Republicans with that brush, but, then again, they choose to be Republicans.)
And yet...the Harris case is world-class. I find myself asking how this man can possibly plan to continue as a legislator. I can't find anyone who's coming to his defense on the merits of anything he did. The best anyone seems to be able to offer is "He made some mistakes."
Even so, I had gotten used to the idea that someone could (a) show little if any remorse for having turned over his children to a rapist, (b) continue to cash support checks provided by the State even after he had turned over this children, (c) portray himself as the victim in all of this, and (d) stay in office as a legislator. That last bit may not be entirely up to him--he can be expelled by a two-thirds vote of the House--but it's the wanting to stay that ought to surprise us.
But then it came out yesterday that the principal reason he re-homed his children was that he thought they were possessed by demons.
Let that sink in just a bit.
I know, right? Demons.
Now, people like Justin Harris have been hard at work trying to roll back the calendar. The 1950s have been a popular target, aiming as they are for a time when discrimination was OK, and women were kept barefoot and pregnant, and abortion was a crime. But Harris's reliance on the existence of demons as an explanation for behavior is more at home in the 1590s.
So, I never thought it would be necessary to say these things, but here goes:
Demons aren't real.
Nothing possessed those little girls, nor anyone else.
Perhaps they have some problems that caused them to behave poorly. Maybe they were even dangerous to themselves or to others, although it's hard to conceive of a 6-year-old doing much real damage to anyone. And good grief, the fact that they were in the DHS system indicates that something has gone terribly wrong.
But they were not under the control of any supernatural force, because there are no supernatural forces.
I try very hard not to criticize people for believing in supernatural forces. If you need that for your life to have meaning, or to behave the right way, or to keep yourself from abusing alcohol or drugs or whatever, or because you've been told that terrible things will happen to you after you die if you don't believe, then I'm not going to criticize you even though I don't believe in those things. The truth is that there are a lot more people who believe (or profess to believe) in supernatural forces than who don't, especially in this state, and it is often easier to go along to get along, to believe rather than to do the hard work of living in the real world.
But mostly it's an excuse--an excuse for behaving badly, or for not doing something you should, or for doing something you shouldn't, or for general incuriousness about the world.
And when it results in the chain of events that led to this horrible outcome, enough is enough. He's living in a dream world.
If you believe in the existence and influence of "demons" in worldly affairs, then you have no business making decisions that affect other people. Not as a legislator especially. If all of the other factors weren't enough, then that one ought to be. Justin Harris should resign.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
High Cotton
"Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
-- Sir John Harington
I led off with that quote for a couple of reasons. First, even though he misspelled his own name, Sir John was an interesting character. He was a courtesan during the reign of Elizabeth I, a talented and perceptive writer (as the epigram shows), and the inventor of a flush toilet (not "the" flush toilet, per se, as examples preceded him by centuries). Second, our junior Senator has managed to fling a large turd into the Washington punch bowl, for which Sir John's invention might be of some use.
* * *
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) grabbed the headlines yesterday with a letter, co-signed by 46 of his Republican senate colleagues, to the government of Iran. In the letter, he lectured Iran's government on the American constitutional system, noting that any agreement that might be signed by President Obama but not approved by the Congress could be revoked with the stroke of a pen by a future President.
Sen. Cotton no doubt imagines himself in that chair one day, and as much confidence as he has that he can get there, I am even more confident that he will be out of luck on that point.
(As a side note, I've been away from this blog for a considerable time due to work commitments, but I had to write on this subject.)
I offer a few comments on all of this.
First, I'm sure that Sen. Cotton is proud of his effort, but the letter itself strikes me as petulant and condescending. Perhaps Sen. Cotton imagines the Iranians as uneducated camel-humpers, but Iran is a place of civilization and culture. Many of the people in the Iranian government are well educated, almost technocratic, and certainly up to date not only on their own laws but also on ours. The Iranian Constitution was based on that of the French Fifth Republic, with notable influences from our own Constitution in the structure and organization of government. The Iranian government is overlaid with a clerical system that makes it an Islamic theocracy, but it is a functioning democracy that retains religious protections for non-Muslims--at least, those whose religions were established before Islam.
Second, this sort of effort is sadly typical of a certain party. Leaving aside the cottage industry that Sen. John McCain has made of personal diplomacy of a most erroneous sort (most recently, he suggested arming Syrian rebels who later turned out to be the founders of the purported "Islamic State," also known as ISIL or ISIS), Richard Nixon's private diplomacy likely torpedoed a peace agreement with North Vietnam in 1968, and there are persistent rumors that Ronald Reagan offered a deal to the Iranians in exchange for their refusal to release the hostages in 1980.
Notwithstanding the headline in the New York Daily News, this letter does not amount to treason. The crime of treason is defined in the Constitution: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War
against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and
Comfort. This doesn't meet that definition.
But private diplomacy is against one of our oldest laws, the Logan Act, which provides:
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.
(18 U.S.C. § 953.)
This letter, as it is intended, almost certainly violates that act, which is a felony punishable by three years in prison.
Which brings us to the point: Why send this letter at all?
Perhaps it was sent to grab attention, but more likely, the intent was to disrupt the sensitive negotiations among the U.S., Iran, the United Nations, and others, the goal of which is to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
The cynic in me wants to believe that Cotton's motivation is merely to deny the President a diplomatic triumph. If there is any operative political rule in this country, since January 20, 2009, that rule has been that if Obama is for something, the Republicans are against it.
But I'd really prefer to believe that they wouldn't be such children about something so important. The problem with that is this: They must then be genuinely stupid or malicious, and I'm not sure which is worse.
If their goal really is, as they say, to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranians, then the likeliest way to do that is to support these talks. The aim of these talks is to get Iran to give up their nuclear programme for a long period, which certainly aids the purported goal. Undermining the talks does the opposite of what they say they want.
But maybe their goal isn't to keep nuclear weapons out of Iran. We know that the GOP has had a boner for war with Iran for a long time. You only have to listen to this YouTube clip to know that. The truth is that a diplomatic solution in Iran will make war far less likely, thereby undermining the GOP's goal of lining defense contractors' pockets to run the perpetual war machine.
On second thought, that's not (just) malicious. It's depraved.
I have no confidence that Cotton will see any legal consequences from this. And maybe the Logan Act is a very old law that doesn't serve a modern purpose. But there should be political consequences for this depraved act. If the media can tear themselves away from the Hillary Clinton email issue for a few moments, maybe there will be.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Those radicals
Happy New Year, everyone.
I've been wrapped up in Real Life lately, so there hasn't been much writing (here or elsewhere), and the truth is that giving this subject the treatment it deserves would take more time than I really have. But I didn't want to let any more time pass without a few words. As always, my stick is sharpened, ready to poke you into a different perspective.
Yesterday a truly awful thing happened in Paris. Three men armed with assault rifles and other weapons entered the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper well known for skewering, well, everybody. As it turns out, there are some very radical fundamentalist Muslims who can't take a joke, and a handful of them shot a lot of people, most of them to death, for the crime of drawing and publishing funny pictures of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.
Every reasonable person in the world condemns this sort of violence, but, then again, it's sort of a tautology. If you think it's proper and appropriate to use assault rifles to attack unarmed people in an office building because you don't like some things they said about you or your religion, then by definition, you're not a reasonable person. Add me to the list of people who condemn this sort of violence, and this act of violence in particular.
But if that were all I had to say about it, I wouldn't have said anything at all. You don't need me to tell you those things; you already know them.
An interesting thing happened yesterday. Political cartoonists in particular, but lots of other people who express opinions for a living, rose up yesterday in solidarity against these extremists. Many of them extended their ire to all Muslims. A few people who had always been careful to separate the extremists from mainstream Muslims (who abhor this violence just as everyone else does) decided to abandon the distinction. These acts were unspeakable and inexplicable. When we are confronted by acts that we cannot explain through normal reason, the human tendency is to conclude that the perpetrators--and all those associated with them, even loosely--are driven into action by a mental defect.
I have no idea whether it was the motivation of those behind the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, but they managed to succeed in uniting people of many previously diverse opinions in an increasingly negative view of Islam. (Perhaps they wish to provoke a war. Perhaps they think a war is already raging.) I read a report earlier that grenades had been tossed today at a Paris mosque. This is also a terrible act, no doubt a response from people who were themselves radicalized by the violence at Charlie Hebdo.
Now, let's consider for a moment that you are a peaceful Muslim living in Iraq in 2003 or Afghanistan in 2001. You abhor violence and terrorism. You are focused on feeding, clothing, and housing your family. Then, one day, you turn on your television and you see video of an American drone bombing a family wedding--a group of peaceful people, celebrating a wonderful event in their family life, which is turned to death and destruction. Perhaps you know some of the dead. Maybe you're related to them. Or maybe not. But you definitely see this act as unspeakable and inexplicable.
Doesn't that make your peace-loving self hate the America that would do these things? Maybe you can rationalize it as a mistake. But it probably doesn't matter; even if the Americans didn't do this intentionally, they were careless and that was intentional.
What we do, even in defense of this great nation, has consequences. When we kill, we radicalize the survivors, just as we ourselves are radicalized when others kill our friends and allies. We owe it to ourselves to be deliberate about what we do in our own defense, to consider the consequences of our actions, and to be certain that what we are doing is worth the real cost.
I expect that those who murdered the satirists at Charlie Hebdo have made a grave error in judgment. France is already uneasy with its large Muslim population, and it has a history of taking actions to crack down on what it deems non-French identity. France is unencumbered by the constitutional guarantees that at least nominally protect Muslims in this country from such a crackdown. This is most likely a catalyzing moment for change that will not end well for the broader Muslim population of France.
I've been wrapped up in Real Life lately, so there hasn't been much writing (here or elsewhere), and the truth is that giving this subject the treatment it deserves would take more time than I really have. But I didn't want to let any more time pass without a few words. As always, my stick is sharpened, ready to poke you into a different perspective.
Yesterday a truly awful thing happened in Paris. Three men armed with assault rifles and other weapons entered the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper well known for skewering, well, everybody. As it turns out, there are some very radical fundamentalist Muslims who can't take a joke, and a handful of them shot a lot of people, most of them to death, for the crime of drawing and publishing funny pictures of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.
Every reasonable person in the world condemns this sort of violence, but, then again, it's sort of a tautology. If you think it's proper and appropriate to use assault rifles to attack unarmed people in an office building because you don't like some things they said about you or your religion, then by definition, you're not a reasonable person. Add me to the list of people who condemn this sort of violence, and this act of violence in particular.
But if that were all I had to say about it, I wouldn't have said anything at all. You don't need me to tell you those things; you already know them.
An interesting thing happened yesterday. Political cartoonists in particular, but lots of other people who express opinions for a living, rose up yesterday in solidarity against these extremists. Many of them extended their ire to all Muslims. A few people who had always been careful to separate the extremists from mainstream Muslims (who abhor this violence just as everyone else does) decided to abandon the distinction. These acts were unspeakable and inexplicable. When we are confronted by acts that we cannot explain through normal reason, the human tendency is to conclude that the perpetrators--and all those associated with them, even loosely--are driven into action by a mental defect.
I have no idea whether it was the motivation of those behind the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, but they managed to succeed in uniting people of many previously diverse opinions in an increasingly negative view of Islam. (Perhaps they wish to provoke a war. Perhaps they think a war is already raging.) I read a report earlier that grenades had been tossed today at a Paris mosque. This is also a terrible act, no doubt a response from people who were themselves radicalized by the violence at Charlie Hebdo.
Now, let's consider for a moment that you are a peaceful Muslim living in Iraq in 2003 or Afghanistan in 2001. You abhor violence and terrorism. You are focused on feeding, clothing, and housing your family. Then, one day, you turn on your television and you see video of an American drone bombing a family wedding--a group of peaceful people, celebrating a wonderful event in their family life, which is turned to death and destruction. Perhaps you know some of the dead. Maybe you're related to them. Or maybe not. But you definitely see this act as unspeakable and inexplicable.
Doesn't that make your peace-loving self hate the America that would do these things? Maybe you can rationalize it as a mistake. But it probably doesn't matter; even if the Americans didn't do this intentionally, they were careless and that was intentional.
What we do, even in defense of this great nation, has consequences. When we kill, we radicalize the survivors, just as we ourselves are radicalized when others kill our friends and allies. We owe it to ourselves to be deliberate about what we do in our own defense, to consider the consequences of our actions, and to be certain that what we are doing is worth the real cost.
I expect that those who murdered the satirists at Charlie Hebdo have made a grave error in judgment. France is already uneasy with its large Muslim population, and it has a history of taking actions to crack down on what it deems non-French identity. France is unencumbered by the constitutional guarantees that at least nominally protect Muslims in this country from such a crackdown. This is most likely a catalyzing moment for change that will not end well for the broader Muslim population of France.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Kim Jong-Unimpressed
I've been following the North Korea/Sony Pictures hacking from a distance. I'm interested partly because computer security is professionally important to me. Not that my servers are likely to be targets of high-level, high-profile attacks, of course--but incidents like these show why things like strong passwords and security measures are important, which makes it easier to convince my clients of that.
But mostly this has been interesting because of the hackers' release of inside emails. I'm a big fan of the Jeopardy! game show, so seeing that Alex Trebek wasn't happy about having to retape the end of a Kids Week episode because he made one of the contestants cry and run off stage with an insensitive comment--that was hilarious.1
1 Trebek is notably ham-handed, often cruel, in his contestant interviews and other comments through the game. In fact, he's one of the ruder Canadians I've ever seen, or at least he comes across that way.
Of course, what seemed like a pleasant game got a bit more serious when the hackers began to threaten attacks on theaters that dared to show The Interview. That's not something to mess around with, particularly in view of a fairly recent mass shooting at a movie theater.2
2 I'm referring, of course, to the July 20, 2012, shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., carried out by James Eagan Holmes. Holmes is scheduled to go to trial in January in a case in which he offered to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty; the prosecutors declined the offer.
I think we can all agree that the North Koreans could stand to grow thicker skin. This is not the first time a film has portrayed them in the crazy light they choose to throw on themselves, and it will almost certainly not be the last. And I think we can all agree that threatening terror attacks on movie theaters isn't acceptable under any circumstances.
It was weak-willed of Sony to pull the picture from distribution, but I doubt very much this was an expression of fear so much as it was a calculated move to save money. With none of the five major theater chains agreeing to screen the film, Sony would be left with the independent theater market (many of which would likely refuse to show the film as well) and direct-to-video option. But Sony carries insurance on its major productions. If the film is a total loss, Sony can file a claim. If Sony simply has trouble selling the film in distribution, that's not a covered loss, and Sony gets nothing.
I support the right of these filmmakers to make whatever film they want. There have certainly been films and other media about fictional assassination attempts on actual leaders. One that comes to mind is "The Day of the Jackal," a brilliant 1973 film about an attempt on the life of Charles de Gaulle (based on an equally brilliant 1971 novel by Frederick Forsythe). Of course, de Gaulle survives the attempt in the story, and there were elements of an actual attempt on de Gaulle's life that were adapted into the otherwise fictional story.
I wonder, however, whether The Interview isn't just a bit too much on the nose. What would we think about a foreign film that depicts the grisly assassination of the actual American President? While I'm certain there would be a small teabagging segment of our population that would cheer on such a film, it might well provoke outrage, and maybe even condemnation from our government.
For that reason, films that deal with the fictional assassination of a world leader usually fictionalize the leader as well. Would The Interview have been a less funny, or less compelling, or less marketable film if the target of the assassination attempt were a different, fictional leader of North Korea? I don't know. I haven't even seen the film as it was made. Maybe it's central to the film that it's Kim Jong-Un and not some other Kim who gets offed in the end. Or maybe the North Koreans would be just as upset. Maybe my raising this question is just an instance of victim-blaming.
My point, I suppose, is that it doesn't hurt to talk about these things, just as it doesn't hurt to expose even dangerous ideas to the marketplace. As longtime readers know, I'm a big fan of Louis Brandeis, who told us famously that sunlight is the best disinfectant.3
3 Brandeis wrote that well after the introduction of Lysol, so I feel confident that he didn't mean it literally.
Moreover, this project had to get multiple green lights at Sony, from people who presumably were aware of the storyline, even if they hadn't read the script. If you're going to make that decision, then you should have the courage to own it even when there's a stiff wind in your face. So color me unimpressed by Sony's capitulation. If North Korea can't take it, that's on them. Beef up security, target a proportional response, whatever--but release the film and take your lumps. North Korean censors don't get a say in what gets shown in American movie houses.
But mostly this has been interesting because of the hackers' release of inside emails. I'm a big fan of the Jeopardy! game show, so seeing that Alex Trebek wasn't happy about having to retape the end of a Kids Week episode because he made one of the contestants cry and run off stage with an insensitive comment--that was hilarious.1
1 Trebek is notably ham-handed, often cruel, in his contestant interviews and other comments through the game. In fact, he's one of the ruder Canadians I've ever seen, or at least he comes across that way.
Of course, what seemed like a pleasant game got a bit more serious when the hackers began to threaten attacks on theaters that dared to show The Interview. That's not something to mess around with, particularly in view of a fairly recent mass shooting at a movie theater.2
2 I'm referring, of course, to the July 20, 2012, shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., carried out by James Eagan Holmes. Holmes is scheduled to go to trial in January in a case in which he offered to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty; the prosecutors declined the offer.
I think we can all agree that the North Koreans could stand to grow thicker skin. This is not the first time a film has portrayed them in the crazy light they choose to throw on themselves, and it will almost certainly not be the last. And I think we can all agree that threatening terror attacks on movie theaters isn't acceptable under any circumstances.
It was weak-willed of Sony to pull the picture from distribution, but I doubt very much this was an expression of fear so much as it was a calculated move to save money. With none of the five major theater chains agreeing to screen the film, Sony would be left with the independent theater market (many of which would likely refuse to show the film as well) and direct-to-video option. But Sony carries insurance on its major productions. If the film is a total loss, Sony can file a claim. If Sony simply has trouble selling the film in distribution, that's not a covered loss, and Sony gets nothing.
I support the right of these filmmakers to make whatever film they want. There have certainly been films and other media about fictional assassination attempts on actual leaders. One that comes to mind is "The Day of the Jackal," a brilliant 1973 film about an attempt on the life of Charles de Gaulle (based on an equally brilliant 1971 novel by Frederick Forsythe). Of course, de Gaulle survives the attempt in the story, and there were elements of an actual attempt on de Gaulle's life that were adapted into the otherwise fictional story.
I wonder, however, whether The Interview isn't just a bit too much on the nose. What would we think about a foreign film that depicts the grisly assassination of the actual American President? While I'm certain there would be a small teabagging segment of our population that would cheer on such a film, it might well provoke outrage, and maybe even condemnation from our government.
For that reason, films that deal with the fictional assassination of a world leader usually fictionalize the leader as well. Would The Interview have been a less funny, or less compelling, or less marketable film if the target of the assassination attempt were a different, fictional leader of North Korea? I don't know. I haven't even seen the film as it was made. Maybe it's central to the film that it's Kim Jong-Un and not some other Kim who gets offed in the end. Or maybe the North Koreans would be just as upset. Maybe my raising this question is just an instance of victim-blaming.
My point, I suppose, is that it doesn't hurt to talk about these things, just as it doesn't hurt to expose even dangerous ideas to the marketplace. As longtime readers know, I'm a big fan of Louis Brandeis, who told us famously that sunlight is the best disinfectant.3
3 Brandeis wrote that well after the introduction of Lysol, so I feel confident that he didn't mean it literally.
Moreover, this project had to get multiple green lights at Sony, from people who presumably were aware of the storyline, even if they hadn't read the script. If you're going to make that decision, then you should have the courage to own it even when there's a stiff wind in your face. So color me unimpressed by Sony's capitulation. If North Korea can't take it, that's on them. Beef up security, target a proportional response, whatever--but release the film and take your lumps. North Korean censors don't get a say in what gets shown in American movie houses.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Torture: Why it matters
Yesterday in Peshawar, Pakistan, six gunmen, affiliates of the militant group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, stormed the Army Public School, a mixed-gender school mostly for the children of military officers, and killed at least 132 schoolchildren and nine staff members. Some reports indicate that at least some of the staff members were burned alive.
This is a heinous act that has been met with nearly universal condemnation.
In response to this news, a man I respect a great deal--a prominent lawyer who has fought for the civil rights of disfavored minorities, a defender of progressive causes--offered a comment that juxtaposed this event with last week's report on American torture--er, "enhanced interrogation techniques"--during the Bush administration.
He asked--and I'll paraphrase him a bit here, just to keep it G-rated--why exactly he was supposed to care if some of these guys get tortured.
It's an interesting question.
It's an entirely human emotional reaction to regard with indifference, if not delight, when bad things happen to bad people. When Jeffrey Dahmer, who raped, killed, dismembered, and in some cases ate 17 people, was beaten to death in prison, I don't recall there being much of an outcry for prison security reform. So it's not surprising that people wouldn't much care that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was repeatedly waterboarded, considering that he was the organizational mastermind behind the 9/11/01 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
If you take it a step further, there are lots of folks who believe that the CIA's torture program helped to keep the country safer by producing actionable intelligence against planned attacks. I think that ship has sailed. As the Senate report indicates, the imposition of torture techniques probably impeded the gathering of actionable intelligence by producing false information in some cases and by steeling the prisoners against cooperation in others. John McCain, who would know about these things (having been a torture victim himself), says that torture doesn't work. Unfortunately, there are lots of people whose opinions are shaped by a 24 fantasy of a ticking clock and an impending disaster being thwarted by torture. That's not real.
If you start from a place where there are at least some people caught up in these techniques who deserved to suffer, and maybe die, it's easy to end up not caring about what happens to them.
I don't particularly care about the ones who have harmed us.
Just as I don't particularly care, per se, about the lives of the people whom we execute for crimes.
I find myself not caring about them at all. And I don't care what happens to the gunmen who killed schoolchildren in Peshawar.
And yet, it's not about what happens to them.
It is about what happens to us. It is about what torture turns us into. And that is something about which we ought to care a great deal.
I don't believe that this is a Christian nation. (It's not. It's a nation where persons of all religious beliefs, or of no belief, are welcome to worship or not worship as they choose, but where a clear majority adhere to some flavor of Christianity.) But if we need guidance on how truly to be a Christian nation, we could easily start with the words of Jesus Christ:
(As you might imagine, though I generally agree with those words, an appeal to authority isn't enough for me.)
Why should we care? Ultimately, it comes down to credibility.
I love this country. This is a great nation for many reasons: our freedom, our individuality, our diversity, our dedication to justice, our egalitarianism. We have not always lived up to the standards we set for ourselves. Sometimes our failures have been spectacular. But we keep trying. And in setting those standards, we provide light to humanity, showing that it is possible to be good and just, and to prosper in spite of, if not because of, our dedication to the principles that differentiate us from most other nations.
Torture is inconsistent with those principles.
When we act unapologetically in ways that are inconsistent with our core values regarding human rights, we lose our credibility to speak about human rights. If we allow exceptions to the principle that no one is above the law, we lose our credibility to urge other nations to establish justice for all of their citizens.
Even when we fail to live up to our high standards, we maintain credibility by taking corrective action.
Here are three basic truths.
First, what we did was torture, no matter what euphemisms we invented to justify our actions. The specific acts we undertook constitute torture by any reasonable definition. This is not a situation for technicalities or narrow legal constructions; our principles are at stake.
Second, torture is a wrongful act, regardless of the motives. It is, of course, a violation of our obligations under the Geneva Conventions and under the UN Convention Against Torture. But it's not just that it's a violation of international law. Those treaties exist because of a greater truth, that civilization demands that we restrain ourselves from the worst human instincts. Therefore, what we did was wrongful, and because it was wrongful, all of those responsible for it should be held accountable, regardless of position. We have a reasonable mechanism for investigating these crimes and for bringing those responsible for them to justice. Our credibility to ourselves and to the world demands that this be done. Moreover, our approach to this must be fearless in the face of complaints that doing so jeopardizes our national security or diminishes our prestige. To the contrary, our national security is jeopardized by not demanding justice; our prestige is tarnished by our failure to act.
Third, torture is a useless act. Even if you believe that torture is "on the table" as an instrument of national defense, and somehow not a violation of our core principles and our treaty obligations, torture is nonetheless useless, because it does not produce actionable intelligence that cannot be obtained via other means. This is something I've known for a long time, for the simple reason that if torture had produced actionable intelligence, those officials who have advocated for it--Dick Cheney, I'm looking at you in particular--would have fallen over themselves in a race to give all the details about how it worked where other techniques failed.* We would know who talked, what they said, and how we acted based on that intelligence to stop an attack. That never happened.
* I would wager money I couldn't afford to lose that if you caught these people in an honest moment--which is admittedly difficult--they would concede that they did it mostly because they wanted to do it, not because it was helpful to any particular objective other than self-gratification.
The good news is that it's not too late. We can show that we are better than this. These people can be brought to justice. They can be charged and tried, and if convicted, they can be put in jail. It is hard to think of anything that would be a more worthwhile use of our tax dollars, than to show that this is still the America we were promised. But making it happen will take good people with the backbone for justice. And on that point, though I'm hopeful, I'm not holding my breath.
This is a heinous act that has been met with nearly universal condemnation.
In response to this news, a man I respect a great deal--a prominent lawyer who has fought for the civil rights of disfavored minorities, a defender of progressive causes--offered a comment that juxtaposed this event with last week's report on American torture--er, "enhanced interrogation techniques"--during the Bush administration.
He asked--and I'll paraphrase him a bit here, just to keep it G-rated--why exactly he was supposed to care if some of these guys get tortured.
It's an interesting question.
It's an entirely human emotional reaction to regard with indifference, if not delight, when bad things happen to bad people. When Jeffrey Dahmer, who raped, killed, dismembered, and in some cases ate 17 people, was beaten to death in prison, I don't recall there being much of an outcry for prison security reform. So it's not surprising that people wouldn't much care that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was repeatedly waterboarded, considering that he was the organizational mastermind behind the 9/11/01 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
If you take it a step further, there are lots of folks who believe that the CIA's torture program helped to keep the country safer by producing actionable intelligence against planned attacks. I think that ship has sailed. As the Senate report indicates, the imposition of torture techniques probably impeded the gathering of actionable intelligence by producing false information in some cases and by steeling the prisoners against cooperation in others. John McCain, who would know about these things (having been a torture victim himself), says that torture doesn't work. Unfortunately, there are lots of people whose opinions are shaped by a 24 fantasy of a ticking clock and an impending disaster being thwarted by torture. That's not real.
If you start from a place where there are at least some people caught up in these techniques who deserved to suffer, and maybe die, it's easy to end up not caring about what happens to them.
I don't particularly care about the ones who have harmed us.
Just as I don't particularly care, per se, about the lives of the people whom we execute for crimes.
I find myself not caring about them at all. And I don't care what happens to the gunmen who killed schoolchildren in Peshawar.
And yet, it's not about what happens to them.
It is about what happens to us. It is about what torture turns us into. And that is something about which we ought to care a great deal.
I don't believe that this is a Christian nation. (It's not. It's a nation where persons of all religious beliefs, or of no belief, are welcome to worship or not worship as they choose, but where a clear majority adhere to some flavor of Christianity.) But if we need guidance on how truly to be a Christian nation, we could easily start with the words of Jesus Christ:
27 But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.Luke 6:27-36 (NIV). You can go read the rest of that chapter, or the rest of Luke, to check if you like, but I assure you, nowhere did Jesus say, "Except where it's necessary to keep your fellow citizens safe."
(As you might imagine, though I generally agree with those words, an appeal to authority isn't enough for me.)
Why should we care? Ultimately, it comes down to credibility.
I love this country. This is a great nation for many reasons: our freedom, our individuality, our diversity, our dedication to justice, our egalitarianism. We have not always lived up to the standards we set for ourselves. Sometimes our failures have been spectacular. But we keep trying. And in setting those standards, we provide light to humanity, showing that it is possible to be good and just, and to prosper in spite of, if not because of, our dedication to the principles that differentiate us from most other nations.
Torture is inconsistent with those principles.
When we act unapologetically in ways that are inconsistent with our core values regarding human rights, we lose our credibility to speak about human rights. If we allow exceptions to the principle that no one is above the law, we lose our credibility to urge other nations to establish justice for all of their citizens.
Even when we fail to live up to our high standards, we maintain credibility by taking corrective action.
Here are three basic truths.
First, what we did was torture, no matter what euphemisms we invented to justify our actions. The specific acts we undertook constitute torture by any reasonable definition. This is not a situation for technicalities or narrow legal constructions; our principles are at stake.
Second, torture is a wrongful act, regardless of the motives. It is, of course, a violation of our obligations under the Geneva Conventions and under the UN Convention Against Torture. But it's not just that it's a violation of international law. Those treaties exist because of a greater truth, that civilization demands that we restrain ourselves from the worst human instincts. Therefore, what we did was wrongful, and because it was wrongful, all of those responsible for it should be held accountable, regardless of position. We have a reasonable mechanism for investigating these crimes and for bringing those responsible for them to justice. Our credibility to ourselves and to the world demands that this be done. Moreover, our approach to this must be fearless in the face of complaints that doing so jeopardizes our national security or diminishes our prestige. To the contrary, our national security is jeopardized by not demanding justice; our prestige is tarnished by our failure to act.
Third, torture is a useless act. Even if you believe that torture is "on the table" as an instrument of national defense, and somehow not a violation of our core principles and our treaty obligations, torture is nonetheless useless, because it does not produce actionable intelligence that cannot be obtained via other means. This is something I've known for a long time, for the simple reason that if torture had produced actionable intelligence, those officials who have advocated for it--Dick Cheney, I'm looking at you in particular--would have fallen over themselves in a race to give all the details about how it worked where other techniques failed.* We would know who talked, what they said, and how we acted based on that intelligence to stop an attack. That never happened.
* I would wager money I couldn't afford to lose that if you caught these people in an honest moment--which is admittedly difficult--they would concede that they did it mostly because they wanted to do it, not because it was helpful to any particular objective other than self-gratification.
The good news is that it's not too late. We can show that we are better than this. These people can be brought to justice. They can be charged and tried, and if convicted, they can be put in jail. It is hard to think of anything that would be a more worthwhile use of our tax dollars, than to show that this is still the America we were promised. But making it happen will take good people with the backbone for justice. And on that point, though I'm hopeful, I'm not holding my breath.
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