Papered Over

Recently, the Colorado State Supreme Court issued a ruling that, in effect, states three things:

1. That the events of January 6th, 2021 constitute an insurrection against the United States of America.
2. Then lame-duck President Donald Trump participated in the above insurrection.
3. The Presidency of the United States is an office of the government of the United States.

And because the court found the three above statements to be true:

• Donald Trump is no longer eligible to hold political office in the United States.

As a result, the court has said that Mr Trump is ineligible to be on the primary ballot for the Colorado presidential primary. There's been a lot of back and forth about this, and one of the arguments that comes up quite often is that the voting public should be allowed to vote for whomever they please. I find this be be a strange argument, mainly because it's more or less unique to this circumstance. It's never been argued that former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger should be allowed to run for President, and have his name on ballots, even though he's ineligible to serve. If not meeting some of the Constitution's requirements for eligibility to be President mean not having one's name on ballots, why would others be any different?

But honestly, none of this is the least bit worthwhile. The Constitution, the United States Criminal Code, policy, regulation, all of it; they are all simply words on a page. When I was younger, and people would bring up the fact that this or that group had some or another right under the Constitution, I would rather testily remind them that: "The Constitution doesn't protect anything. People have to do that." And American history is full of examples of the Constitution being ignored because it was in enough people's interests to ignore it.

The secret to Donald Trump's success as a politician (and I doubt that he is alone in this) is that he has been able to convince people to count his being in office as one of the things that they understand themselves to be entitled to as a matter of right and wrong. And one of the big reasons that drove ignoring the the Constitution is that it's provisions went against what people understood to be their rightful entitlements.

The United States, like most nations, really, is a nation of laws only in so far as the public sees those laws to be operating to their benefit. Part of the reason why none of the myriad charges that Donald Trump is facing right now have made a dent in his voter base is that those voters perceive the charges against him a a deliberate misuse of the law in order to deprive them of someone who actually cares about them and their success. As the saying goes, this isn't rocket science. Commentators who insist that Donald Trump is somehow managing to defy the laws of political gravity are, as far as I'm concerned, very unclear on how political gravity actually works. The current system exists, not because it is somehow just or morally correct, but because people, either actively or passively, approve of it. Once that approval is eroded, all bets are off. Regardless of what anyone, or any court, has to say about it.

Sight Unseen

A Chicago man has been cleared of murder charges after it was revealed that his conviction relied on testimony from a witness who was legally blind.
Darien Harris freed from prison after trial's key witness was found to be blind

"They didn't do anything wrong because they didn't know," [Dexter] Saffold[, the main witness of the shooting,] said of the prosecutors in the case. "I didn't have to tell nobody about my medical history."

Mr. Saffold is, of course, correct. At least, as far as that goes. This is mostly one of those headlines that prompts people to say "Really? This happened?" After all, "legally" blind and "actually" blind aren't the same thing. If there is a legal problem here, it's less Mr. Saffold's medical history than it is about the willingness of prosecutors to put anyone who they think can help them put someone away on the witness stand. I'm sure that some vetting goes on; after all, no-one wants to be the prosecutor of a case where it turns out that the witness's ability to see, let alone see the defendant clearly, is being questioned. But cases being overturned because it turned out that witnesses were too far away for an accurate identification to be believable are more common than they should be.

But I think that a lot of this can also be laid at the feet of juries, who seem willing to believe people who claim that the defendant is guilty more readily than perhaps is wise. Why, for instance, someone would believe that any sane person would commit a crime, then confess the details to a random stranger who just happened to be in the same cell as they, is a mystery to me. Were I to find myself in jail, I wouldn't say word one to anyone else in my cell, especially if I'd actually committed the crime. Because of course that person is going to seek to sell me out for a break in their own case. Why wouldn't they?

For a justice system to actually work, its verdicts have to be perceived as accurate. as the steady trickle of dubious or flatly incorrect convictions continues, suspicion that the system is more random than it lets on will grow. While this won't be a problem for everyone, it is something that should be looked into, in the name of maintaining credibility. Social trust is low enough as it is (which is part of the problem), having that distrust continue to spread may cost more than people expect.

Manning the Exits

There is a local store, part of the Kroger chain, called Fred Meyer. The basic concept could be described as a supermarket with a small department store attached. It really could be something of a one-stop-shop, where a person could get food, clothing, a television, office supplies, and the like under one roof. The stores are just big enough to have a reasonably decent chance of having what one might need. This makes them busy places during the holidays, as not only are there people shopping for groceries, but also for gifts, party preparation and the like.

In any event, I stopped by to grab some food for dinner, and noticed something interesting. There are, generally speaking, three routes out of the parking lot at this particular Fred Meyer; one each to the North, West and South. This evening, there was a panhandler at each one. For one exit to have a panhandler was pretty standard; a lot of stores in the area seem to have one place particularly favored by people needing to beg of passing strangers. But for there to be enough people attempting to work the exits from a particular location that they were all covered is highly unusual; I don't think I've seen anything like it since the "Great Recession" of the late '00s.

Whether this is an indication that problems of poverty and homelessness in the Seattle area are worsening, I don't know. This is, after all, simply a single observation. But this is the sort of thing that convinces people that things are worse than they were, say, a month ago. Unfortunately, I'm less certain that it convinces people that they should be part of the solution. And, in the end, they're going to have to be. The circumstances and policies that have lead to homes being out of reach for so many have resulted in the people who own the current housing stock being wealthier than they otherwise would be. Unless and until a significant group of people are willing to give up some of those gains, the high costs of living in the local area will result in more people holding signs by the exits to parking lots.

Numbers Game

"I thought I entered a time machine back to the Trump era," Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey said at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus rally on the steps of the US Capitol.

"I could not comprehend how a Democratic president who vehemently countered Trump's policies as a candidate is seriously putting forward the most Trumpian anti-immigrant proposal."
Biden risks Democrats' fury over deal on border and Ukraine

One of the reason, I suspect, that people have lost a certain amount of trust in "institutions," especially political institutions, is that politicians seem to have little compunction against pandering to favored constituencies by making everything Someone Else's Fault. Because anyone with two brain cells to rub together, and even a basic understanding of politics, understands why President Biden and his team are willing to entertain meeting at least some of the Republicans' demands on this issue. The simple fact of the matter is that the Democrats don't have a majority in the House of Representatives, and House Republicans look as if they prize unanimity over providing more military aid and funding to Ukraine. And if the President genuinely wants Congress to appropriate funds for Ukraine aid, he is going to need at least some Republican votes. Concessions on immigration are the way to get those votes. Personally, I would have sought to increase penalties for employers who hire ineligible workers over attempting to seal the border, but this may be why I'm not in politics.

In any event, the current Republican Party still dances to Donald Trump's tune, and that means that in order to bring House Republicans on board with any policy he might want to enact, President Biden must at least appear to be shuffling along to the same music. And Senator Menendez, who one suspects is able to count to ten (or $580,000) without recourse to his fingers, understands this. But the blame mustn't land with the broader Democratic Party, and it certainly can't be laid at the feet of the public, and so that leaves the President, despite the fact that he's only one person in a major political operation.

As Americans seem to become more and more allergic to actually having conversations with one another regarding politics, the parties lose any ability to persuade voters that they have viable answers to the things that people perceive as problems. Mainly because it takes more than simply party messaging to sway people. A certain amount of open and genuine person-to-person communication is also part of the mix. And that's simply not in the cards these days. When politics becomes a matter of right versus wrong, people become anchored in their positions pretty quickly. Which is fine for office-holders in safe seats, where the other party barely rates an afterthought. But when things are closely divided at the national level, the parties lose the ability to make progress in such an environment (which is why Authoritarianism starts to look good to people). And the people who have worked their way up to the highest levels in the political pecking order should know that.

Uncomplicated

Consider the following, found (like a lot of things I find, really) on LinkedIn:

This doesn't even qualify as a simple solution to a complex problem. Rather, it's simplistic. It makes a raft of assumptions, but notes none of them. For instance, who is "we?" Society as a whole? No-one asked me if retailers should be locking up merchandise. Not that locking up relatively portable, relatively high-value merchandise is anything new. And if the "we" refers to the people making the decision to put in locked cabinets at department stores or grocers, that's a "we" that lacks the authority to lock up suspected shoplifters. And of "we" refers to the criminal justice system... well, that's a whole other can of worms, but suffice it to say that they don't control both sides of the equation, either.

But even with that aside, the idea that the United States, as a society, can incarcerate its way out of the problem of retail theft is pretty preposterous on its face.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, picking pockets was among 220 capital crimes in England. Thousands were executed before the attending masses. Undeterred by the fate of their colleagues, pickpockets routinely worked the crowds at public hangings (Gatrell, 1994, 62).
The Deterrence Hypothesis and Picking Pockets at the Pickpocket's Hanging

If the executions of pickpockets was considered fertile ground for picking pockets, it seems unlikely that the potential for going to jail would eliminate the problem of retail theft. Law enforcement is a poor tool for attempting to force people to bear poverty with stoicism and equanimity, given the fact that even wealthy people have been known to steal when it suits their purposes.

But more importantly, being punitive does nothing to alter the perception of an opportunity gap, which is what's really at work here. Sure, there are going to be people who steal out of desire to injure others, or simply for enjoyment of the act, rather than an actual need, or the idea it's the best means available to them to better their material circumstances. A realistic threat of incarceration may deter those people. And it may deter some of the others, as well. But it's unlikely to be an effective deterrent for most, if for no other reason than most people don't expect to (and likely won't) be caught. Locking up people who steal merchandise from retailers isn't as simple as having a squad of police officers standing outside every Target or Kroger store and marching anyone the staff points to, and who can't provide some proof of purchase, off to jail. If that were a realistic plan, it would already have been enacted somewhere. And without an overwhelming police response, the chances of being arrested and prosecuted are fairly low.

Not to say that there's no place for better law enforcement in all of this. But the law enforcement system in the United States is simply not set up to solve this problem, for all that it looks to some like the easy way out.