The Bruin Alumni Association: Lefty Prof Hunt
You've probably already heard of the Bruin Alumni Association and its bounty on tapes of lectures containing putative lefty bias. Dunno what to say about this. On the one hand, I have some reason to believe that there are, in fact, many lefty profs who engage in unwarranted political proselytism in class. On the other hand, I haven't seen any real data on this. And given the right's fabrication/exaggeration of liberal media bias, I'm rather wary with regard to their whining about such bias in academia. However, if I had to bet money on it, I'd bet they have a point.
Seems like profs have intellectual property rights re: their lectures, so they probably can't be taped without permission. You probably realize that the convention is to ask the prof's permission before taping. I encourage students not to tape, because the very idea of my incoherent drivel persisting through time is enough to panic me. But I try never to say anything in class that I wouldn't say out of class. Students are a captive audience and should not be subjected to political sermons. They're there to hear what I have to say about philosophy, a subject about which I can plausibly be characterized as something of an expert; they're not there to here my amateurish political musings. (They can come to this site if they want that. (Not that they know it exists.)) However, profs shouldn't use intellectual property rights as an excuse to avoid taping unless that's their real reason.
Anyway, if I had to bet money, I'd bet that groups like the BAA (a) are assholes and (b) have a point. Even assholes are right some of the time. It annoys the hell out of me that many liberals won't take questions about liberal bias in the academy more seriously. I thought we were against all bias. I should note, however, that many of the sensible liberals I know in academia are, in fact, willing to take the issue seriously. Problem is, I also know plenty of academic liberals who aren't. The sane thing to do would be for those on all sides of the debate to note that it's an open question at this point, and to put some effort into figuring out how to answer it. What will happen instead, of course, is that the conservative point men on this issue will insist that it's obviously a problem, producing the occasional egregious anecdote to "prove" their point, and academic liberals will respond by circling the wagons and ignoring the question.
In the immortal words of the Eagles, I could be wrong, but I'm not.
You've probably already heard of the Bruin Alumni Association and its bounty on tapes of lectures containing putative lefty bias. Dunno what to say about this. On the one hand, I have some reason to believe that there are, in fact, many lefty profs who engage in unwarranted political proselytism in class. On the other hand, I haven't seen any real data on this. And given the right's fabrication/exaggeration of liberal media bias, I'm rather wary with regard to their whining about such bias in academia. However, if I had to bet money on it, I'd bet they have a point.
Seems like profs have intellectual property rights re: their lectures, so they probably can't be taped without permission. You probably realize that the convention is to ask the prof's permission before taping. I encourage students not to tape, because the very idea of my incoherent drivel persisting through time is enough to panic me. But I try never to say anything in class that I wouldn't say out of class. Students are a captive audience and should not be subjected to political sermons. They're there to hear what I have to say about philosophy, a subject about which I can plausibly be characterized as something of an expert; they're not there to here my amateurish political musings. (They can come to this site if they want that. (Not that they know it exists.)) However, profs shouldn't use intellectual property rights as an excuse to avoid taping unless that's their real reason.
Anyway, if I had to bet money, I'd bet that groups like the BAA (a) are assholes and (b) have a point. Even assholes are right some of the time. It annoys the hell out of me that many liberals won't take questions about liberal bias in the academy more seriously. I thought we were against all bias. I should note, however, that many of the sensible liberals I know in academia are, in fact, willing to take the issue seriously. Problem is, I also know plenty of academic liberals who aren't. The sane thing to do would be for those on all sides of the debate to note that it's an open question at this point, and to put some effort into figuring out how to answer it. What will happen instead, of course, is that the conservative point men on this issue will insist that it's obviously a problem, producing the occasional egregious anecdote to "prove" their point, and academic liberals will respond by circling the wagons and ignoring the question.
In the immortal words of the Eagles, I could be wrong, but I'm not.
posted by Winston Smith at
2:30 PM
42 Comments:
Umm, I'd be slightly more sympathetic if they openly opposed right-wing rhetoric too. And if they weren't transparent tools of anti-liberal political operatives.
I would think that ignoring real-world examples of the consequences of differing philosophical stances (i.e., politics) would limit the effectiveness of one's teaching - or one avoids Mill, Rousseau, Locke, Plato, etc. If you teach Frege or Wittgenstein or (insert actually informed example here), never mind.
Anyway, Mark Kleiman's not on their list and wants on...
Well, but doesn't that just indicate that they're assholes? (Which, as I said, I'd guess.) Not that they're wrong.
I wonder how much right-wing bias there is in academia? Again, empirical question. Be interesting to find out.
Winston wrote, " . . . given the right's fabrication/exaggeration of liberal media bias . . . "
Are you sure about that?
http://www.reason.com/hod/db011906.shtml
(1) Is it fair to characterize university students as a captive audience? After all, they are paying thousands of dollars in tuition and other fees for the privilege of attending class (though you wouldnt know it to look at the prof's salary). Further, the degree of choice the students are subject to (university, major(s), minor(s), classes, profs) seems sufficient to classify them as a willing audience. That is, if university students are a captive audience, then so is the attending crowd at a football game or rock concert.
(2) The previous remarks imply that the obligation a prof has to a student is simply to provide the commodity which is being purchased: and education. Political biases may appear in the process, but the solution seems to be roughly this: if you want a conservative education, dont go to a traditionally liberal school (e.g. UCLA). Put otherwise, if a prof spends classtime on irrelevant polemics, that simply constitutes a failure to deliver a product.
(3) It seems to me (a soon-to-be-debt-ridden universtity student), that a universitiy education is (or perhaps ought to be) about expanding your own horizons, and broadening your life-experiences, as opposed to whining when these new experiences contradict your political beliefs. Political diversity ought to be encouraged; a disagreement is an opportunity to debate, learn, grow, etc. If a student feels otherwise, I say the fault lies with the student.
There are two arguments to make about this, and they get conflated a lot, to the deteriment of understanding. The argument that there are more liberal professors (at least in the humanities) than conservatives is doubtlessly true. Another, different, arguement, is that there is a bias in treatment of students on an ideological basis, which is much more debatable. But a lot of these whining assholes, Horowitz and these UCLA douches included, feel like they have proved the second argument simply by making the first one.
I accept J's free-market argument about buying a university education with the following reservations:
1) UCLA is a state school, and a partisan bent is unacceptable.
2) J stipulates that a school can be "traditionally liberal" (or conservative, it follows), but I'm afraid the vast majority of schools will not be so honest about their prejudices.
Certainly, the commenters here tend to dispute that there is any bias. That an 80-90% majority vote for one party over the other strains my credulity. A passion, an enthusiasm (and the mastery that follows from that), for the subject matter has been proposed as a key ingredient for effective pedagogy in a previous thread. I agree.
The most admired and effective teacher at my own crap-college taught calculus to a stoned audience. His Cuban accent was near-impenetrable, but his passion for calculus was irresistable, and everybody learned something.
I do not think that the conveyance, the sharing, of vital ideas occurs dispassionately, in a vacuum, in the abstract.
It has been my observation that not only the graduates but the instructors themselves in the university system are largely but genuinely unacquainted with "conservative" (and by that I mean non-modernist, non-leftist thought) worldviews.
It may be the purpose of a liberal arts education to create future edge-riders. But I think it's to deepen the understanding of the world in which we live.
We in the West are doubtless Children of the Enlightenment, but the Enlightenment was a response to the classical Greeks, and to the medievals like Aquinas and the Muslim al-Farabi. The world as a whole is more their creation than Wittgenstein's. Neither did the Enlightenment in itself hold all the answers, as the current crisis of the West so clearly illuminates. We have lost the will to even reproduce.
I think the cutting edge of philosophy has begun to acknowledge that, that postmodernism and relativism ignore that man has a nature, and he cannot be fully reprogrammed. But after years of modernist programming themselves, can they work up a decent enthusiasm for the ancients and medievals, who might have been on to something of essence, not accident, after all?
What with tenure and all, I don't expect the composition of the academy to change much. So to answer my own question, all I can say is that I hope so.
(Cheers to rilkefan, who, detecting some gap in his understanding of this here planet and its denizens, on his own gritted his teeth and waded through some Plato. Ditto, dude.)
Anonymous,
Maybe you didn't hear all that because Ginsberg was actually suggested to Clinton by Orrin Hatch?
Maybe she wouldn't be expected to "tilt the balance" all that much then, eh?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200601070001
A couple of points, WS.
First, the larger number of liberals may be attributed to liberals having attended to the interests of academia better than conservatives. Conservatives, as a rule, are anti education in pretty much every substantive way imaginable. So, one would really have to scratch one's head and wonder why one would be surprised that there is a bias towards liberal politics in the education profession.
Second, as has been pointed out, there's a difference between your personal politics and how that influences what you teach in the classroom. People aren't robots, that's true. However, it is left as an unsubstantiated allegation that being a liberal - because democrats serve your political and economic interests better than republicans - has any bearing on the quality of classroom education. You're making an assertion without even defining what the damage caused is.
Third, you have to answer why there is a paucity of republicans and conservative oriented education workers. Is it because they're being kept out or is it because - as John Stuart Mill pointed out, stupid people are more likely to be conservative?
Fourth, you have to show damage. In the abstract, who the f*ck cares what political party the teachers and staff belong to. What is the problem? Is it merely the falling short of some platonic ideal of balance that you have? Again, show us where there problem is and what damage is being done to our society.
Business is overwhelmingly populated by conservatives. The boardrooms of corporations are almost solidly republican. Pray tell, who has more influence over the lives of Americans? Teachers in tweed jackets who sip wine and talk about liberal ideals? Or the people who control what we watch, hear, eat, and - to a large degree - think, through their control of our economy.
Really. Get a perspective.
Uh-huh. Avoiding the burden of proof is the enemy of honest inquiry. All "sides" accrue the burden of proof. The only effective argument is an affirmative one.
If there is no bias in the academy, prove it. Evidence to the contrary has been offered. If it does no harm, prove it.
This fellow actually teaches at UCLA.. Do not read him unless you are an honest inquirer.
Oh yes, I understand that one can't prove a negative. Still, one can offer some countervailing arguments.
Bush did no harm by spying on Americans in the search for al-Qaeda murderers. Number 4 I agree with.
I yield the floor.
Well, no. No evidence has been offered. Horowitz - whom, as far as I can tell, is the only putz seriously trying to provide some - has been laughed off the floor.
The assertion has been made that a) there is a serious bias towards the liberal and b) this is a horrible, horrible thing.
I don't think anyone doubts that most of the education workforce swings democratic. Fine. Most of them are white males as well. So, is the assertion that we need to have affirmative action for republicans and conservatives? If so, then Winston's whole tirade against diversity sits in stark contrast - apparently diversity as a goal is okay if it's fighting those stupid liberals.
Why are conservatives like two-year-olds?
They both think that what's theirs is theirs and that you should share.
We can talk about affirmative action for conservative academics once we have affirmative action in place for liberals in the corporate boardroom.
I can say this: Thirty years ago in the belly of the liberal beast as an undergraduate government major (temporarily), the only teacher who tried to indoctrinate me was a right-winger.
Please, this kind of behavior is primarily about a religious agenda, secondarily a conservative political agenda.
If they really wanted to do something about it they would put together an organization to get their PHDs and enter the academic world...but alas that would require foregoing the juicy salary that dance in the corporate heads.
"Bush did no harm by spying on Americans in the search for al-Qaeda murderers. Number 4 I agree with."
Awesome. Lemme alert the NRA that from now on, in order to seek redress for infringement on the right to bear arms, they will have to prove that their plainant was killed or injured by an attacker against whom they were insufficiently armed to deter.
Whoever said conservatives don't love orthodox consequentialist morality?
This guy's a pretty smart guy, so I thought you might be interested in his comments on this subject toward the end of this posting:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10990027/#060125
The law and harm have always been linked, except those who worship the law for its own sake.
Like the ones who impeached Bill Clinton for a harmless lie.
"The law and harm have always been linked, except those who worship the law for its own sake."
True perhaps for statutory law and tort law but most certainly NOT true for the Constitution law and the Bill of Rights. They clearly imply that an infringement of any of those rights are an affront to the concept of liberty.
There is a distinct difference between personal wrongs (torts) and wrongs committed by the government. The Constitution was a granting of power to the government by the people, with the crucial stipulation that certain things are off limits to the government. That some of these actions are permissible by private men or groups of men in no way relieves the government of its obligation to refrain from such behavior.
Anonymous, I detect a person and an intelligence behind certain posts attributed to "Anonymous" here lately. It would be a good thing, I think, if you separated yourself from the brainless Anonymouses who share your nom de plume but are content to simply hit-and-run.
If you registered with Blogger for your commenting with some sort of name, there would be some sense of the person behind the ideas. Although ideas in the abstract should theoretically be able to stand on their own, to respond with courtesy and humanity requires speaking to The Other in his own language rather than one's own.
To your point, liberty is not an absolute. The Alien and Sedition Acts followed on the heels of the Founding and were instituted by many of the Founders themselves (although they were later rejected); the social(ist) changes institutionalized by the Roosevelt adminstration are still the law of the land.
Per FDR: Freedom from fear? Freedom from want? The Founders would have been appalled. Such things require someone else's freedom be curbed.
Liberty, order, and security are almost necessarily in conflict, yet we have deemed all as desirable. Wisdom, perhaps the highest of man's functions, can only seek to balance them all, and on good days will maximize each, but will never come up with a definitive answer. Even, it should be obvious by now, the US Constitution.
Add in legality and morality, the lawyer and the priest, and it really gets difficult. Perhaps we should kill them all. As for the poor sister of philosophy, it's no wonder they did Socrates in.
No, I suppose that liberty is not an absolute. But it stands as the presumptive core of our existence, so only an existential threat warrants its limitation by government. If you think that's what we face now, I must assume that your judgment is not so good.
The Alien and Sedition Acts were quickly rejected and for good reason; they were clearly unconstitutional. Which leads to an important point, one which the founders failed to heed once some of them found themselves in power: that power has a corrupting and distorting influence.
In that respect, they proved their own point, namely that the concentration of power in the hands of one or a few is a bad idea, the presumed good character of the leader or leaders notwithstanding. Hence, a healthy vigilance by the populace and a distrust of concentrated power are the underpinnings of our system of government. Read the Federalist Papers if you don't believe me.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights admit of NO EXCEPTIONS regarding the exercise of power BY THE GOVERNMENT. The short message: if you don't like it, change the Constitution. And there's a reason they made that so difficult.
Moreover, the fact that men who otherwise might have been good statesmen abused power argues even more for the restriction of government and the dissipation of power.
Their actions may have been moral, constitutional, or neither. As for morality, I'll leave that to the philosophers. Our founders no more considered generic morality to be a cornerstone of governing than they did religion in particular; hence the separation of church and state and Madison's admonition that "If men were angels there would be no need for government". Governments exist to secure our rights, not to infringe upon them.
Regarding government, it's worth noting that our leaders solemnly swear to uphold and defend the Constitution. They don't swear to keep us absolutely safe from every possible peril. Nor to repel every possible attack. Nor anything of the sort. It's also worth noting that the worst abuses of civil liberties have been instituted with fear as a catalyst; more often than not by exaggerating the threat. Do I need to remind you of Goebbels' quote about democracies' lack of immunity to tyranny?
Had me going there until the Goebbels part. Too pejorative.
I'm a bad debating partner for legalities. I don't see any laws of men as inherently moral. They might be, they might not. We do the best we can, mostly. I've lost my romance for the constitution---it's whatever 5 Supreme Court justices say it is. I have no idea if our Creator wants us to have guns or has endowed us with the right to not have Bush listen to our phone calls.
I'm more concerned when the law, whatever it is, claims primacy over conscience. Call it philosophical, for lack of a better term.
The ‘Goebbels part’ was not offered to be pejorative or visceral or anything of the sort; it was offered because it was the person’s disclosure of the truth about the potential of government manipulation, a truth that has been illustrated with countless examples throughout history.
But more generally, you offer nothing but platitudes and odes to moral and philosophical ponderings when the reality is that there has almost NEVER been an example where exigency required a president to brazenly defy the Constitution which he swore to uphold. It’s almost self-parody that you offer examples like the Alien and Sedition Acts and FDR’s liberties with civil rights, which are themselves unconstitutional abuses of power with nothing to recommend them, as somehow supportive of the proposition that the President’s sole judgment that it’s necessary is sufficient justification for undermining our core principles.
I work on the premise that we are a nation of laws and not men, and that therefore, short of an existential threat to the nation, people in government are NOT to defy the ultimate law of the land. Could there be such an existential threat? Yes, I suppose Lincoln faced one. But even in that case, it has never been sufficiently proved that the restrictions Lincoln imposed were necessary to win the war and save the Union. Under the circumstances, though, if ever there was a case where someone deserved the benefit of the doubt, it was that one.
In no example you’ve given, nor any I can think of (particularly the present), can one make the case that the measures being taken, which clearly infringe on our liberty and contravene existing law, are either necessary or sufficient to maintain our nation. Thus, I think we should not consider them as rebutting the requirement to adhere to our laws. We don’t elect politicians to be moral arbiters (except possibly in the most extreme circumstances), but to do their utmost to uphold the law. The burden of proof for necessity must rest on the law-breakers and Constitutional insolents. That burden of proof is nowhere near being met.
Oh, I gave my opinion on the legalities many comments sections ago. I'm not as convinced as that guy named Glenn that laws were broken. I'm done with the debate part of the program.
I understand your orthodoxies about the law, I just don't agree with them. I think it's a real question, even if hypothetical, that if Bush's putatatively illegal wiretapping indeed saved lives, then it was still a bad thing.
I believe there is something higher than both laws and men, and philosophically, that was the nation the Founders wanted to be.
"I believe there is something higher than both laws and men, and philosophically, that was the nation the Founders wanted to be."
Read Federalist #51 and then tell me with a straight face that you don't think this is patently false. The framers KNEW that you could never count on the virtues and morality of those who hold office as the path to good government. It was precisely their understanding of human nature and all its foibles, weaknesses and susceptibility to momentary passions that necessitated the dissipation and separation of power.
They knew that one man's morality was another's immorality, making it more of a personal virtue, and thus took pains to see to it that it never formed the basis of our government. (FWIW, I don't even think they would have seen a big distinction between religion and *morality*, and you know what they thought of the proper relationship between the former and government).
I think it's more a matter of what you'd like to think they wanted it to be than what they actually KNEW IT TO BE.
I should add that I don't mean to get all reductionist on you. I understand that decisions are made every day in government that are based on all kinds of things, morality included, and I have no problem with that. The law has an open texture that allows for a great deal of what I'll call 'judgment'. Therefore, a certain amount of give and take is to be expected.
The Constitution and B of R, are most decidedly *proscriptive* rather than *prescriptive* documents. What they prohibit is a lot more explicit than what they permit.
However, they also have some distinct admonitions that, for government, amount to 'don't go there'. To permit morality to trump those documents allows arbitrariness and capriciousness where none is permitted.
Moreover, it's not fair to attempt to generalize from absurd 'ticking time bomb' scenarios (which appear to be quite the fetish in some quarters) to the proposition that the executive is permitted, in his own idiosyncratic version of morality, to arrogate to himself some unconstitutional power that he decides he needs.
I'm consciously trying to not arrogate the last word to myself, but you raise some interesting points, and since there's nobody left in the bar but you and me, Joe, here goes:
Federalist 51 seems to refer more to states rights vs. the Feds. But no, I don't think they shared your (apparently) relativist view that one man's good is another man's evil, although they acknowledged that could be the case (mostly on slavery, it seems).
What I was alluding to was that the Founders shared a common belief in a higher moral order, whether they arrived at it through religion, Deism (a sort of laissez-faire existence on the part of God), or classical philosophy, which was actually very motivated to deriving absolute Goods by reason. But I do not think they contemplated the relativism of this modern age.
---Your characterization of the constitution as having an "open texture" is well-observed. It makes me more sympathetic to "original intent" arguments; surely the spirit of the law contains more truth than its letter.
Like most of us, I too was inculcated with a reverence for the wisdom of the Constitution. Unfortunately, the more I learn about the history of how its letter has been used against its spirit, its totemistic appeal has faded for me.
I read the parsings of the 2nd Amendment, and whether the "militia" clause is dependent on the "right to bear arms" clause, or vice-versa, and realize that one side is going to enforce their will on the other. As much as we bang that old drum about a nation of laws, we are a nation of men, like any other.
Whether Bush listening to phone calls is analogous to the British stopping suspected rebels on the road and searching their stuff, which the 4th Amendment was designed to prevent, what the hell do I know? At this point, it's like interpreting sacred texts, and that usually goes the way of one's druthers rather than a search for truth.
So, I've come around to a "living Constitution," in the sense that the Founders' Constitution exists only as an echo, like some Shakespeare quote we haul out when it fits our purpose. All politics, as Nietzsche and especially Machiavelli revealed, are a matter of will and power.
That's not to say I've given myself over to pessimism or nihilism. I still believe in the existence of absolute Good, and so I don't see the often-attacked-these-days "ticking bombs" as absurd, nay, they're definitive.
There are a lot of idiosyncratic moralities these days, but the one thing we all know for sure is the reality of life and death. Almost all of us agree that saving innocent lives is more important than the law, and that should be at least the starting point of discussion before we delve into the abstractions of rights, law, and slippery slopes.
Almost all of us agree, anyway.
Basing things on 'original intent' is problematic at best, for a number of reasons. First of all, whose intent? Those who drafted it? Those who ratified it? Those who elected the ratifiers? A cursory examination of the various interpretations of what they were doing, and the conflicts among the significant parties (esp. among Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams and Madison) makes it clear that many of the framers had at least a slightly different conception of what it was they were establishing.
I also CANNOT agree with you that faith in man's inherently good (moral) nature was an underpinning of their thoughts in the design of our new government. I say that as one who has studied that era's history backwards and forwards, immersed himself in Gordon Wood's work, and read the Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Debate many times.
I think it's a matter of them subscribing to the adage that 'power corrupts', though, more so than that them believing man to be an inherently evil creature.
A sense of proportion is required when balancing various rights against each other, that's for sure. This is especially true when one person's right conflicts with another's. When the government is doing the limitation, though, a greater burden is required, and the standard I apply is one of absolute necessity. Most of these arguments are premised upon a false dichotomy, whereby we can't protect ourselves without sacrificing our liberties. As I said before, history has provided almost NO examples where abjectly illegal limitations of liberty have actually been necessary. Lincoln may be the one potential exception that comes to mind.
(And FWIW, you'll get no argument from me about the second amendment. I believe there is a right to bear arms.)
Also, couldn't resist:
"Whether Bush listening to phone calls is analogous to the British stopping suspected rebels on the road and searching their stuff, which the 4th Amendment was designed to prevent, what the hell do I know?"
So you'd also have no problem with the government surreptitiously installing listening and video equipment in your home? I mean it's certainly not analogous to the British stopping people on the streets, right?
The point is that there is a bright line that A) had to be drawn somewhere and B) has clearly been crossed too many times, by presidents of both parties, only serving to prove the founders' point about power.
I dunno: checking out Martin Luther King to see if he was leading a communist revolution (existential threat) might have been prudent. (Government types are notoriously obtuse about reality. Like aliens who just landed.)
The abuse of power really took place when Hoover sent the evidence of his adulteries to Mrs. MLK in order to destroy him, because he was inconvenient politically.
That's the bright line to me, not the abstractions you propose as self-evident.
I also CANNOT agree with you that faith in man's inherently good (moral) nature was an underpinning of their thoughts in the design of our new government.
Then we are both Hobbesians, not Rousseaueans. I was simply commenting on the Founders' highest aspirations, not their lowest expectations. They acknowledged that the republic would rise or fall not on the strength of its cleverness at law, but on the self-governance of its citizens.
You are entirely correct, in my view---conservatives (and the Founders, I think), gravitate to Hobbes' view of man's baseness and occasional recognition of his own self-interest, not any trust in man's goodness (Rousseau).
I was far more wigged out at the Clinton administration's possession of the FBI files of 600+ influential Americans than whatever Bush seems to be up to. (Or any of the BS they actually tried to hang Clinton with.)
The FBI files were far more ominously Hooverish. But our moral and constitutional watchdogs were far less upset than I, it seems. Clinton skated.
Put those files on his domestic enemies in the Bush White House, and he's impeached by the House, and convicted by the Senate, even with Republican majorities in each. Out, with my approval, too.
You carry it too far. The point is that men may or may not be good, evil or indifferent, but the granting of immense power has a corrupting influence. The question is one of boundaries.
The whole point in the present case is about the Bush administration seizing powers just because it can. There is no evidence WHATSOEVER that security was furthered by their program nor is there evidence that they could not get the authorization they legitimately needed from the FISA court.
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/01/administrations-humiliation-of.html
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/01/significance-of-administrations-july.html
And it's appalling that the true power-grabber-in-chief, Cheney, has raised his fear-mongering to a new high by implying that a lack of illegal wiretapping might have contributed to the 9/11 attacks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/23/AR2006012300754_pf.html
You can fertilize acres and acres of land with what comes out of that guy's mouth.
And again, harping on past excesses to somehow excuse the present one is feeble argumentation.
Tom,
What's this about the Clinton admin.'s 600 files on influential Americans? This sounds pretty bad to me, and I need to look into it.
Um, but it's hard to imagine that they did anything worse than e.g. lying to get us into war etc...
Still, I'm not so interested in the comparative point. There's really no plausible case whatsoever to be made that Clinton was worse than Bush. I mean, I'm willing to look at the evidence, but let's be serious.
And...um...you can't seriously be suggesting that the impeachment bar is set lower for Bush than it was for Clinton. That's just nuts.
Still: all that rhetorical hogwash to the side: What's up with the folders?
A couple of other points I would make are as follows:
"That's the bright line to me, not the abstractions you propose as self-evident."
...as opposed to *original intent*, which is crystal clear upon inspection.
Also, for someone so concerned about the internal threat of Communism, you're sure down on FDR, who was confronted with a populace disillusioned on capitalism and the spectre of Norman Thomas and Eugene Debs.
Clearly, he stepped over the line when he tried to pack the court. But the New Deal does not reek of unconstitutionality and overreaching, like the SC hijinx and Japanese internment.
I'm not really down on anyone, anonymous. The presidency is a hard job and to my mind, impossible to do "by the book," because the book is always insufficient. FDR cut corners by selling destroyers to the UK in anticipation of the Nazi menace, against the wishes of an isolationist Republican congress. Clinton went to war in Kosovo without the approval of congress. You do what you think is right, and necessary.
And just because power tends to corrupt, it does not follow that it should not be used.
Our hindsight wrings its hands about the Japanese internment, but considering how little white Washington knew of Japanese-Americans, it would have been to them a legitimate concern that Shinto held the Emperor was a god, and the US was at war with him. I withhold my moral condemnation of FDR on this point.
As for Clinton, WS, I think I've made it clear I think the Lewinsky matter was BS, although a strict enforcement of the law probably justified impeachment. But seeing life through the eyes of the law is foolish. Shylock found that extracting his strict measure of justice, his pound of flesh, was not so easy. (I found a justice in that Clinton's biggest prosecutors found themselves out of politics, including Newt Gingrich, whom I admire for other reasons.)
But I'm still troubled by a few things during that time that were permitted to slip into the ether: the sale of missile technology to the Chinese, and the Filegate matter.
It came off as partisan unfortunately, but I was really just trying to add some perspective, that what we all fear is "Hooverism" (as in J. Edgar vs. MLK), and I find Filegate much closer to it than whatever Bush is being charged with.
Sorry, anonymous, I don't really care what That Guy Named Glenn thinks. We could trade blog links all day, to no practical end. I'm only interested in what you think---if I want to read Glenn, I'll read Glenn.
What I think is that this administration, Cheney in particular, came to power with an important self-declared mission: to make the presidency *stronger*. There was nothing secret about this at all. There was also no indication of why this needed to be done. Perhaps the hunting of the previous president had something to do with it.
And observing subsequent events since then, it's obvious that they desire power for its own sake. The domestic spying scandal is a perfect example. THEIR OWN PEOPLE said that the FISA restrictions were in no way damaging their ability to do the surveillance they needed. But you don't want to know that because you're afraid that That Guy Named Glenn has the information which proves it.
Yes, we could trade links all day. But not all links are created equal.
And by the way, you never answered whether you'd have a problem with them bugging your home. What if the majority of Americans would just *sleep better* knowing the government could do it, even without a court order.
P.S. There'd really be no tangible *harm* in it either, right? Because we all know that's the only thing to be concerned about with government abuse of power.
The only worthwhile concern is saving innocent lives. The rest of this is some abstract and increasingly perverse exercise.
I didn't mean to (and realize I did) leave the impression that I didn't read Glenn. I have, and that progressive website, too. I'm open to everything. I've also read a bunch from the other side, which most folks here haven't, I think.
My own conclusion: I dunno. I do not invalidate either side: good drama, and tragedy, lies in that both sides are right.
Further, Joe, I've read up on Cheney from the other side (his critics) and do not disagree with the proposition that he was determined to restore the balance of power to the executive branch. Key term, balance.
I admit a bias in favor of the executive in favor when it comes to foreign policy. (And to the legislative when it comes to domestic policy.)
There is much in easily accessible literature about the potential for tyranny in a strong executive. Overlooked, I think is the stuff on the impotence of legislatures. It's out there, but you have to poke around some to get the whole picture.
A distrust of the executive should not necessitate a trust in the legislative. Checks and balances. There are fools everywhere.
Of course no one branch of the government should be COMPLETELY trusted. That was the whole point. The crucial thing is that the design of the thing be followed, so preposterous concepts like the 'unitary executive' and executive usurpation of the power of legal interpretation, which should be dismissed as deranged mumblings are given legitimacy by irresponsible jurists. Power is a zero-sum proposition, and anyone who seeks to empower the encroachment of one branch into the codified powers of the others should be shown the door.
The ultimate irony is that the Cheney cabal suddenly decided the presidency needed strenghtening after it spent the previous eight years trying to neuter the executive. An executive which I might add upheld the Constitution when the US participated in Kosovo, since the NATO treaty is part of US law, and NATO had decided in favor of action there.
A lack of sufficient oversight by the legislative and judicial branches often leads to an out of control executive branch, as exemplified, among many other places, here:
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/01/getting_their_w.html
Oh, and re:
"Our hindsight wrings its hands about the Japanese internment, but considering how little white Washington knew of Japanese-Americans, it would have been to them a legitimate concern that Shinto held the Emperor was a god, and the US was at war with him. I withhold my moral condemnation of FDR on this point."
We're a little behind schedule, then, in quarantinig all Muslims in the US because, you know, jihad is a calling of everyone practicing Islam.
Seriously, though, there is a well-received kernel of truth in what you said about that issue, though in that, considering the situation, many people believed there to be a threat from domestic Japanese. However, it is the Constitution and the structure of government which is supposed to prevent poor decision making like that which takes place under conditions of panic, terror or the arousal of other high passions. Depending on one person's moral bent is decidedly irresponsible in such situations. Federalist #10 concerned itself at least partly with this. So while the impulse is understandable, its actualization is not.
Another thing I forgot is that I'd take the rationale of *saving lives* a lot more seriously here if they weren't getting all Ds and Fs on their Homeland Security report card.
Oh, THOSE files. Um, I've never seen that as much of a threat, and the link you provide says almost nothing about them and does nothing to change my mind. It's pathetically small potato(e)s compared to ten things Bush has done.
Seriously, Tom, it's not even close.
Also:
Protecting innocent lives is the only real goal? Jeez, you're starting to sound like a nanny-stater.
I couldn't disagree more. Freedom is important. The freedoms protected by the Constitution are certainly more important than my life. I'd rather be blown to smithereens than see the Bill of Rights shredded.
I agree that trade-offs have to be made, and that large increases in security sometimes warrant some temporary narrowing of rights.
The problem is that this administration is on a hair-trigger, and far to willing to conceed far too much to a bunch of medieval wackos. Fuck 'em, I say. They did their worst and it was bad, but not bad enough to make us destroy ourselves FOR them.
And, of course, they're only willing to give up things they don't like anyway. They're willing to secretly violate the constitution, but not willing to raise taxes. I'd rather they raised the money to go in and stomp al Qaeda flat, allowing us to keep our rights.
Rights are far more important to me than money.
Not so, apparently, for this administration.
I think Filegate is a little bigger, but who cares? My view is that we're comparing the size of small potatoes. Your mileage varies.
I've had my say. Thanks for listening.
This guy read my mind:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/28/opinion/28ellis.html?_r=2&th&emc=th
As well as this poster elsewhere:
V.I Lenin: "The purpose of terrorism is to create terror."
Fear creates instability, weakness, stupid decisions in the target system. The terrorist's greatest ally becomes the forces of irrational reaction within the target itself.
It's a psychological weapon, obviously, and the only way to combat it is with pyschological strength. Attacking Afghanistan with overwhelming moral authority and international support: good. Lashing out at irrelevant targets, screaming hysterically about how afraid everyone needs to be all the time and madly scrambling to identify internal enemies: not so much.
We know what happened. Behind the scenes, within days of 9/11 itself, the nutcases were already on the march. 9/11 was everything they'd been dreaming of. "Only a Pearl Harbor-type event" could authorize their Cunning Plan, and here it was. Such a lovely gift on so many levels, domestic as well as geopolitical. Surely this was the chance to Save America and Save the World. "Our grandchildren will write songs in praise of us!"
No question about it. Bin Laden knew what he was doing.
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