No Evil

This is a truism, and I'm not sure it's a particularly useful one at that, but much of the "evil" in the world is perpetrated in the name of combating the "evil" in the world.

I would admit that it rarely looks that way; it's hard to make the case that most murders or assaults are intended to make the world a better place. But I suspect that the second Socratic Paradox, namely: "no man who believes that an action is evil does it willingly--on the contrary, all the actions that a man does willingly he does with a view to achieving some good" is an accurate assessment of human action.

So the problem becomes the different understandings of what constitutes "some good." It's a bone of contention between myself and some of my more religious acquaintances. I am of the opinion that human beings are not willfully ignoring some objectively correct moral code, but that people see morality differently, and a number of conflicts are about people not making that distinction.

Uninformation

Given that people tend to believe that they know more than they do, are incurious about topics they believe (correctly or not) that they understand and are willing to act on what they think they know without validating it first, worrying about disinformation campaigns waged by others starts to look like scapegoating, especially when such campaigns appear to do little other than reinforce beliefs that the targets already hold.

On YouTube, there's an entertaining reading of a letter that one Kent Ashcroft wrote to radio personality Laura Schlessinger (whether it was ever actually sent to, and received by, her is unknown) calling her to task for citing the book of Leviticus to support her idea that homosexuality was a form of biological error, while ignoring other strictures laid out in the same text.

A number of the comments on the video make claims about the letter, and its intent, that are easily checked and found to be false; in fact, a number of people point out the errors over and over again, only for new people to show up and make the same incorrect statements. One can solve for outside actors seeking to spread bogus information and still have a problem with the citizenry simply being gullible when presented with information that confirms their preconceptions.

Circling the Drain

One of the primary critiques of the modern United States is that its government does a poor job of meeting the needs of the citizenry, especially the low-income, mentally ill and medically fragile members of the citizenry. I don't really buy into that framing of the subject. The United States has high social distance between the affluent and the indigent and low social trust between groups. And this limits how effective a government can be when it has to appeal to citizens for legitimacy.

So it's more accurate to say that Americans do a poor job of meeting the needs of other Americans. Sure, many of the programs and the like would be administered by governments, whether they be federal, state or local. But the final responsibility, where the buck stops, as it were, is going to lie with the populace as a whole,given that need for the consent of the governed.

When I talk to people, a vicious cycle comes into view almost immediately; many people who would like to do more to help others are of the mindset that there is no-one ready to help them, should they need it, and so they feel an overriding need to look to their own well-being. In other words, Americans are wary of looking out for one another, because they don't believe that their fellow Americans are looking out for them, and they fear being left in the lurch.

Counter Factual

I was reading a story on the NPR webpage about some flyers, purporting to tell migrants attempting to gain entry to the United States to vote for President Biden in November's elections once they arrive. It's a pretty long piece, but the general gist is this: more than likely, the conservative activists connected to the Heritage Foundation who "found" these flyers are lying, and the whole thing was concocted.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with my father, more than twenty-five years ago. In short, as far as my father was concerned, lying was acceptable when the truth wouldn't drive necessary action. Having met a number of activists for different causes in the intervening quarter-century, I've become convinced that it's an attitude that many activists share.

(As an aside, I find the moral panic in conservative circles around immigration to the United States to be ironic. If, as conservatives are so fond of pointing out, the United States is an exceptional nation and literally the single best place on the face of the Earth, wouldn't one expect everyone and their mother to be attempting to get in?)

The Republican Party has a problem in the person of Donald Trump, because Mr. Trump presented himself during his first four-year term as nearly completely uninterested in the work of being President. This makes an affirmative case for returning Mr. Trump to the White House difficult to make. We he up against a stronger candidate than President Biden, it's likely that November's contest wouldn't be considered as competitive as it is.

Likewise, the Democrats find President Biden to be a problem. He's also very unpopular. Sure, a lot of this has to do with partisanship; most Republicans would object to the President attempting to rescue them from a burning building, but President Biden isn't the sort of inspirational leader that motivates people to come out an show their support for him. There are ways in which Donald Trump is the Biden campaign's biggest asset at this point.

In close elections like this, where the base of each party is likely to show up, and everyone else to take a pass, attempting to motivate those voters marginally attached to your party, and demotivating those people marginally attached to the other, becomes important. And when the stakes are high, honesty becomes a luxury that people feel they simply can't afford.

To take the situation with these bogus flyers as our example, everyone understands that this is unlikely to flip any votes; those people who have already decided that they're planning to vote for President Biden are still going to do so. And prospective Trump voters won't receive a second vote, so they don't really factor into the calculus, either. But there are a number of people who may or may not vote, but if they do vote, they'll vote Republican. And to the extent that they're afraid of a flood of migrants from around the world crossing into the United States, the Heritage Foundation is attempting to give them that final nudge to go to the polls. By the same token, they're hoping to convince the more marginal Democrats that maybe it's not worth voting for them, because they're dishonest and have little respect for America's laws, both concerning the border and the conduct of elections.

Is it likely to move a substantial number of votes? No. But in an election that's going to hinge on the margins in only a handful of states, it doesn't have to. A few thousand people here or there are all that's needed to flip enough Electoral College votes to secure a victory. So I expect that the deceptions will continue, and media outlets will have their hands full with vain attempts to convey the truth of the matter to a public that's stopped caring about such things.

Wild Pitch

Well, it's that time of the election cycle again, when the partisans show up to tell people who are dissatisfied with the big two political parties to give their vote to the "right" party, because otherwise, the vote is simply being thrown away.

Okay, sure. But... most votes don't count for beans already. Trump voter here in Washington State? Biden voter in Texas? Wasting their time; they may as well leave the top of the ticket blank on Election Day. Many states are already pretty much decided. So why not let people vote in a way that speaks to them? If this election is that important, I say get yourself over to Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin and start knocking on doors. Depending on who one asks, North Carolina might also be on that list, but that still leaves 43 states that aren't at all competitive. Dragging people for deciding "none of the above" isn't likely to help. When someone says: "A pox on both your houses," criticism of the other house seems pointless.

The number of people who simply don't vote vastly outnumbers, in pretty much every single election cycle, the number of people who vote third party. But actually going and speaking to people is work. And like most work, it doesn't play as well on social media as snarkily shouting at people, then going home.

Negatively Charged

"The Left has now taken 'Boy' out of 'Boy Scouts,' Republican U.S. Representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia said on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Wokeness destroys everything it touches."
After years of scandal, Boy Scouts of America changes its name to Scouting America

The Boy Scouts of America (or Scouting BSA, to use the current name) has been open to both boys and girls for five years now. Apparently, Representative Clyde thinks that in exchange for being able to earn merit badges in Backpacking, Coin Collecting and Shotgun Shooting, girls should have to be referred to as boys.

No, not really. Representative Clyde simply understands that his audience on X will take up the anti-"Woke" rallying cry (or remain silent) without bothering to think about it. And if it makes them, and conservatives in general, look backwards and reactionary to the rest of the nation? The better for knowing who's in the tribe, and who isn't.

The fact that this sort of knee-jerk reactivity to what are basically trivialities is often seen as a feature in American politics, rather than a defect, speaks to the continuing fragmentation of the American polity. A Republican voter, or office holder, who called Representative Clyde out on this would be pilloried for airing the movement's dirty laundry, instead of being lauded for standing up. Especially, since it's all but certain that Democrats would seize on the criticism in an attempt to better their own political standing. And so there's no incentive for anyone who supports Representative Clyde to speak out; giving people on both sides the idea that Representative Clyde's position is more popular than is warranted. Of course, any Democrat who speaks out will simply prompt the Republicans to circle the wagons.

It all makes for a political discourse consisting mainly of cheering for one's own side and heckling the other, regardless of whether the cheering or heckling seems earned. Because, apparently, we've solved everything else, and there's nothing else that needs anyone's attention.

Saint Donald

Donald Trump has been held in contempt of court multiple times during the current The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump trial. Mainly because Mr. Trump clearly understands that he has a significant portion of the population, who are convinced that "the system" is out to get them, behind him. As long as they are convinced that everything Mr. Trump does is for the benefit of the United States (read: in the interests of the United States as they understand them), every sanction that a court attempts to hand down will be seen as further evidence of the malice of "the Establishment." Judge Merchan has a problem because he's up against one of the unwritten rules of any society: the written rules are only binding when enough people decide to go along with them.

Mr. Trump rails against the court, calls out the Biden Administration as the Gestapo and otherwise does as he pleases because his base of voters regards him as someone who is beyond Someone Else's Rules. So like any other martyr, his crime is never a violation of the rules or norms that The Powers That Be are tasked with enforcing; it's being the person who stands up to the wrongdoers who have made themselves The Powers That Be. And those wrongdoers have almost no other reason to exist other than to show how heroic those who oppose them are. It's like King George the Third. Despite the fact that he was King of the United Kingdom from 1760 to 1820, as far as American history is concerned, he was nothing more than a petty tyrant who unjustly opposed Independence who ceased to be relevant to anything the moment the ink on the Treaties of Paris was dry.

Donald Trump's anointing as the savior of (Conservative) America has served to render any opposition to him as illegitimate and any criticism of him a desperate tactic of puppets of foreign powers and/or ideas. And the hope that many people on the American Left seem to have that something will undo this has become tiresome. Part of the difficulty, I think, lies in language. There is a tendency to speak of Mr Trump as "Teflon" or "defying the laws of political gravity," as if he himself were the motivating force behind his success. But what's really at work here is that after decades of feeling either ignored or patronized by the American political class, Trump voters have found someone who appears to genuinely care about the things that are important to them. Former rivals to Mr. Trump now speak in his defense and go after his perceived opponents not because Mr. Trump will punish them himself, but because he can end their political careers by denouncing them to his supporters, whom everyone understands will be unforgiving.

Skeletal

I took a trip to Japan with some friends, back in 2002, and one of our stops was Hiroshima. I snapped some photos of this building, the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, which was at ground zero of the atomic bomb dropped on August 6th, 1945.

I was surprised any of it was still standing; the Cold War-inspired movies of the 1980s gave me the impression that nuclear weapons left nothing standing in their wake, and I wasn't yet aware of the fact that the bombs dropped on Japan were small by more modern standards. Still, it was a ghostly place. I should go back one day.

Unpolitic

I think that what stands between me and being politically active, as opposed to being just somewhat politically engaged, is my lack of a sense of outrage. When I made a go of being more political, now two decades ago, I found that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans were a fit for me, because I wasn't angry about the things the party members were angry about. I could understand why they were angry, but I couldn't share their anger. And their anger was most of their motivation for the policies they wanted to see enacted (or, for that matter, repealed).

As much as I tend to consider my politics "Not Republican," I don't see myself as being anti-Republican, in the sense that my policy preferences are driven by opposition to whatever the Republicans happen to be up to. Rather, the two parties have drifted somewhat over the years, and having a somewhat "small-government liberal" mindset, the Republicans are generally (much) farther away from me than the Democrats are. I don't see that as having any moral or ethical valence... it's simply the ways things currently stand. If I'm still around in twenty more years, things could be completely different.

But I understand that not being emotionally attached to politics means that I'm not fired up about the sorts of things that tend to get people fired up. The idea that President Biden and/or Donald Trump are actively plotting against the good of the nation simply isn't top of mind for me.

I've been told, multiple times, that lacking the ability to become outraged over some or another thing that a member of the political class has done is to be actively complicit in whatever, well, outrages, they've perpetrated. To which I shrug my shoulders. I suspect that whatever sense of outrage I may have had is long gone. And given how other people interact with theirs, I don't really want it back.

Ill Defined

"There's a false narrative that the [Working] definition [of antisemitism] censors criticism of the Israeli government. I consider it complete nonsense," [Representative Ritchie] Torres [D-NY] said in an interview with NPR.

"If you can figure out how to critique the policies and practices of the Israeli government without calling for the destruction of Israel itself, then no reasonable person would ever accuse you of antisemitism," he added.
House passes bill aimed to combat antisemitism amid college unrest

Okay. Fair enough. But...

Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:

[...]

Applying double standards by requiring of [the State of Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
Working definition of antisemitism

Has Representative Torres actually read the Working definition of antisemitism? Leaving aside the appropriateness of applying a double standard to Israel, and the more vexing question of who would determine that a double standard, was, in fact, being applied, if H. R. 6090 adopts the "definition of antisemitism set forth by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance for the enforcement of Federal antidiscrimination laws concerning education programs or activities, and for other purposes" and that definition explicitly allows for criticism of the States of Israel that falls well short of "calling for the destruction of Israel itself" to be defined as antisemitic, it stands to reason that one could, in fact make a "critique the policies and practices of the Israeli government without calling for the destruction of Israel itself" and yet be accused by a reasonable person of antisemitism, because that person is thinking in accordance with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's Working definition of antisemitism. And from there institutions could be sanctioned under American civil rights legislation.

House Resolution 6090, the "Antisemitism Awareness Act," may be useful. I don't know. My initial impression is that it's political posturing. It dates back to the first weeks of the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, so it isn't, properly speaking, a reaction to the current wave of anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian protests on American university campuses. Be that as it may, it's being positioned as a means for college administrators to combat antisemitism on campus, seeking to expand the Trump Administration executive order 13899, which was intended to make antisemitism a civil rights violation. Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) has already sent a letter to Attorney General Garland asking that the Justice Department investigate, and prosecute, organizations behind the current campus protest movement. And this is mainly political, accusing the Biden Administration of supporting the protest organizations, and effectively asking the Attorney General to be as zealous in prosecuting political allies as it supposedly is at targeting rivals. (Which seems strange, given that it casts those rivals as having done nothing wrong. Apparently, Senator Scott believes the answer to politically-motivated law enforcement are more political prosecutions.)

I understand the impulse to say: "antisemitism bad" and seek action based on that belief. I'm less certain that a simplistic understanding of the problem makes a good basis for legislation, especially when it's not clear that one is familiar with what's being put in place. According to the Working definition of antisemitism, "Antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by law." Which makes sense. But that speaks to a distinction between the working definition and laws, which is appropriate, given the the authors are not legislators. I'm unconvinced of the wisdom of eroding that distinction. Representative Torres may be working under the presumption that a "reasonableness" standard will simply trump any legislation if it comes up in the courts. I'm unconvinced of the wisdom of that, too.