Wednesday, July 26, 2006

If You Don't Want Your Thoughts Provoked, Don't Read This

Jonathan Zimmerman, a teacher of history and education at New York University, yesterday had an op-ed piece published in many newspapers, among them the Omaha World-Herald. He challenged his fellow liberals to come up with specific instances of when it is necessary to abrogate civil liberties to wage the War on Terror successfully.

He used as his example Abraham Lincoln's actions in suspending the writ of habeas corpus and otherwise trampling on the rights of fellow citizens who were suspected of being Confederate sympathizers. And he argues that Lincoln was right to do so, even though he defied the Constitution (as interpreted by the Supreme Court) to do it.

In short, Zimmerman contends that Benjamin Franklin's admonition that "[t]hose who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security" was [Gasp!--Ed.] wrong.

Zimmerman goes on to note that Dubya's actions to date in riding roughshod over civil liberties are not justified--so far. His weightiest reason for the difference between Lincoln's actions and Dubya's? Lincoln was in a 19th century war--a war requiring the taking of the enemy capital--and Washington, D.C., was geographically surrounded by Confederate sympathizers. Yes, Maryland did not secede, but Maryland was a slave state and a great many Marylanders hoped (and acted to fulfill that hope) that the Confederacy would win. Virginia, forming D.C.'s fourth border, had seceded . . . and took many of the best American military men, such as Robert E. Lee, with her.

Their loyalty was to their states. Lincoln's loyalty was to the Union, as a whole.

Since we are no longer in a war whose winning will be defined by the capture and contol of geography, Dubya cannot ride Lincoln's coattails to justify his wholesale stomping on civil liberties.

I for one do not disagree. But Zimmerman has challenged all his readers to iterate when Dubya's actions would become justified. Despite the historical concensus that Lincoln, as a matter of law, was in the wrong, Lincoln, as a matter of fact, was right. He saved the Union. Ultimately, he freed the slaves. He breathed life into the concept of the United States. Before the Civil War, people spoke of "the United States are . . ." After, people spoke of "the United States is . . ."

As a practical matter, we can either become martyrs to our belief in civil liberties or we can fight as dirty as we need to in order to survive . . . and restore those liberties once the immediate threat to them and to our survival is gone.

What an uncomfortable moral place in which to be! If we sink to our enemies' level, how are we any better than they are and thus more deserving of survival? Yet if we don't, and we fail to survive, our ideals will die with us. But how can we claim them to be our ideals if we do not live in accordance with them?

"Forgive us our trespasses, O Lord, as we forgive those who trespass against us" cuts two ways. We are human, thus by definition imperfect. It is not merely understandable, but expected, that we fail to live up to our stated ideals. But if we don't forgive those who trespass against us, and we instead wipe out those who trespass against us, have we not sunk too far below our ideals to justify claiming them as our own?

Mess O'Potamia

(And with apologies to Jon Stewart for borrowing his pun . . .)

I am in serious curmudgeon mode today, it seems. I have had the exceedingly politically incorrect thought that what we really ought to do about the Middle East is this: we should sneak in and disarm/steal all the nukes on both sides (for our own protection), and then get out completely. Let the Arabs and Israelis fight it out amongst themselves until no one is left standing.

That's what they really want to do, anyway, it seems. We are never going to have lasting peace in the Middle East until the people there realize that revenge is NOT sound political policy. So far, for more than 7,000 years, that hasn't occurred to many people there, and I doubt it will become a popular concept there any time soon.

So let them kill each other off. Without nukes, no one there can destroy or even set off the rest of the world to destroy itself . . . if they can't learn to play nice, the heck with them.

Now, I know this is totally unrealistic. For one thing, it would be impossible for us to go in and safely take out all the nukes lurking around; for another, it's a terrible abrogation of our responsibility as a leader of the so-called Free World to help others (who want our help) to live in peace and some semblance of security.

But we can't just spank their bottoms and send them to Time Out in the corner, now, can we?

And there is no good solution without changing the fundamental mindset of both sides. Until they all learn that revenge is not the way, there's no hope for lasting peace.

Besides, our attempts to "help," like by invading Iraq, haven't done much except tip the balance of power to the more extreme Arabs in other countries like Syria . . . and Iran. So we're probably making things worse overall, not better.

It has been wisely noted that politics is the art of the possible. So far, Middle East peace seems impossible. And this is why I am not ever running for public office. I know what I'd like to say and to do, and I know what I'd be able to say and to do. There's no overlap.

The ultimate lesson is this: Ronald Reagan's push to end the Cold War is going to go down in history as Not A Good Thing. For, whether you liked the USSR or hated the USSR, you have to admit that the USSR was able to keep a lid on the Arab/Islamist fundamentalists and their desire to destroy the world if they couldn't have their own way. [I note this last in light of Hezbollah's stated desire to start WWIII.--Ed]

Better the enemy you know than the enemy you don't know. Better the enemy who understands certain basic concepts (such as "we are all on this Earth together, and we have to learn to live with one another even if we don't like one another, if we ourselves are to survive") than the enemy who couldn't give a damn about anything but glorious martyrdom and immolation.

I never used to want to die, ever, because I always wanted to see how everything turned out. [Yes, I sometimes read the last page of a novel first.--Ed] But I am beginning to think I no longer want to know.

Will someone please explain to me what the heck is so wrong with "live and let live"?

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose, And Sometimes, It Rains

Those of you who know me know that I am not a hot weather person. While all the sun-worshippers are out cultivating their personal melanoma patches, and while all the BBQ fans are grilling their hearts out, increasing fire danger and adding to global warming, I am in semi-hibernation, curled up as close to the coldest air conditioner vent in the house as I can get. Nevertheless, I come out of my summer doldrums when the occasion warrants. Several things have been bugging me for a week now, so the occasion must warrant.

Thanks to an unsigned unanimous opinion by the Nebraska Supreme Court last week, University of Nebraska Regent David Hergert is now an ex-Regent. [This is an ex-Regent! 'Allo, all you Monty Python fans!--Ed] He was convicted (after having been impeached by the state legislature) of committing fraud to get reelected. He did not file required campaign spending documents on time, he included misinformation in those same documents, and he lied about it all to cover it up after the election. It's only the second time in Nebraska history that an impeached public official has been convicted, and the last one was over 100 years ago, so this is pretty big news.

The Court condemned all of Hergert's actions, and chided him for his internally contradictory defense arguments (he had such a messy desk that things were always late/lost/messed up; he didn't do anything wrong because the Nebraska election laws are written in such a way that no one can be impeached for what he did to GET into office). But it based its decision on the coverup, as what Hergert did in that regard took place after Election Day. Nebraska election laws absolutely covered that situation. The Court stressed how close a thing it was that Hergert could have been found not guilty, however, in an effort to get the Unicameral to rewrite the election laws so that this unseemly scenario would not repeat. Here's hoping the Unicameral gets the message . . . and does something about it.

Of course, the folks out in western Nebraska have condemned the whole thing as naught but a plot by the big, bad, urban eastern parts of the state to pick on them . . . talk about paranoia! I don't think anyone gives a damn that Hergert was from the western part of the state. If a Regent from one of the more easterly districts had done the same things, he, too, would have been impeached and then convicted. Hergert broke the law, people. He deserves what he got (none the less because he was and is an arrogant SOB who tried to cow and bully [now that's an interesting turn of phrase.--Ed.] first the state senators and then the members of the Court into letting him off. He paid a fine to the State Board of Elections in exchange for its promise of no criminal prosecution--before anyone else noticed what was going on--so he thought he was in the clear.

Which might have been the end of it had Hergert and the election commissioners involved the state attorney general before the fact. But the AG was not consulted. And he took umbrage. AG Jon Bruning correctly perceived what Hergert did as an improper attempt to work the system, so he got the Unicameral to vote to impeach Hergert. The rest is history.

Good thing, too. Sometimes, you win.

But sometimes, you lose. The Cubs have been playing execrably this year [toss in a chorus of Tom Petty singing Freefallin'.--Ed.]--until today, that is. Right now, they are beating up on the Mets 9 to 2 in the bottom of the 7th inning. But they aren't getting out of the cellar any time soon. Like maybe for the rest of the 21st century. Worse, the entire National League is in the same boat, given the way the NLers lost the All Star game on Tuesday. The AL was losing in the bottom of the 9th with 2 out and two strikes on the batter . . . one pitch away from victory, the NL wound up giving it away to the AL. Again. This is the 10th time in the last 11 tries that the NL has lost the All Star Game. The only game the NL didn't lose was the game that ended in a tie after all the players on both teams had been used and the game had already gone many extra innings. Thank you, Commissioner Bud Selig. [I hope you can hear my sarcasm here.--Ed.]

Also losing this past fortnight was the public in general, and the defrauded former employees and shareholders of Enron in particular, what with the death by heart attack of former Enron CEO Ken Lay. No one gets to see Lay behind bars. No one gets to see even an iota of justice being served. No one will recoup the immense financial losses Lay's criminal behavior caused. Nor will anyone get the satisfaction of forcing Lay to recognize and admit that what he did was wrong. Even after his conviction, he maintained his innocence. I think he really believed it, too. And that is scary. What's even more scary is that Dubya still called Lay a "good man and a good friend," refusing to recognize the way Lay screwed over Enron's employees and the rest of us to boot. People who claim to be "born again" the way Lay did and who yet do the kinds of things Lay did give true followers of Jesus a bad name. Holy hypocrites like Lay deserve all the Hell they can suffer.

One can but hope that at least one "Lesson Of Enron" is that deregulation of public utilities is NOT a good thing. How people can study American history and not notice that it contains waves of financial scandals and swindles EVERY TIME business-related laws, rules, and regulations are relaxed, is beyond me. But then again, I have always maintained that the people running businesses and trading on the various stock exchanges these days all would have been pirates in the 18th century[and with apologies to Johnny Depp, who isn't that kind of pirate--Ed.], so maybe there's no way to stop them in any event. Sometimes, therefore, you lose.

And sometimes it rains. You can do everything right and still get a bad outcome. Here, I am thinking of this year's Kentucky Derby winner, Barbaro. Shocking enough that he shattered his right hind leg in the opening strides of the Preakness Stakes. Frighteningly hopeful that he seemed to be doing so well after getting a metal bar and 27 pins put in his leg. Devastating when his veterinary surgeon announced this week that Barbaro had developed laminitis in his other hind hoof and that his prognosis was now exceedingly poor.

Nevertheless, when it does rain, it eventually stops. Late yesterday I heard that Barbaro is still eating well, does not seem to be in pain, and is coping amazingly well with the additional cast and other medical procedures undertaken to keep him alive. His owners and his doctors are doing everything right. Their barometer is "how is the horse coping?" As long as he's coping well and seems to be in good spirits, they are going to do everything they can to keep him alive and pain-free. They won't give up until and unless he does. Good for them! Here's hoping that the rain stops, the flowers bloom, and Barbaro heals.

OK, so I'm still a child of the 60s. I still believe [clap for Tinkerbell!--Ed.] that individuals can contribute to changing the world for the better, that it's worth doing so, and that hope is alive. Not an easy belief system to maintain in the face of crushing 21st century angst, but I'm hanging on to it anyway. Where there is no hope, there is no real life. I prefer to live.