End-of-Year Thoughts

This is the time when pundits review the year that is about to end, offer lessons learned, and opine about what is to come. There are many lessons we can learn from the experience of 2020, so I thought it worthwhile to offer my own list of such lessons. I don’t claim that my list is comprehensive, and I admit a certain bias colors my perspective: I am a Christian informed by the Enlightenment and a believer in democracy.

Feel free to copy my list or to argue with my conclusions. Here is the list:

1. Black lives don’t really matter.
   
   
2. Inspiring—and perhaps even rational—political rhetoric is dead.
   
   
3. Falsehood is more interesting than truth.
   
   
4. The presidency is too powerful.
   
   
5. The exploration of space is still inspirational.
   
   
6. We have yet to discover a sustainable balance between globalism and nationalism.
   
   
7. We need fewer stores than we used to.
   
   
8. We still need the Postal Service.
   
   
9. Dogs love company.
   
   
10. Police protect and serve the police.
    
    
11. Constitutional checks on tyranny are weaker than anyone suspected.
    
    
12. The virtues of free speech are diminished when public dialogue proceeds in disjoint communities.
    
    
13. Our baroque system of choosing our president and vice president is undemocratic and vulnerable to manipulation.
    
    
14. Christians must reclaim Christianity for Jesus Christ before it’s too late.
    
    
15. Our survival depends on science and medicine.
    
    
16. Offices aren’t as important as we thought they were.
    
    
17. The American system of delivering medical care sucks.
    
    
18. The military-industrial complex is as powerful as ever.
    
    
19. Unreformed capitalism will eventually lead to its own destruction.
    
    
20. One can even tire of sourdough bread.
    
    
21. Nurses and doctors are heroic; politicians are not.
    
    
22. It’s time for the long run of the Republican Party to come to an end.
    
    
23. John Maynard Keynes was more insightful than we give him credit for.
    
    
24. We have no idea how to deal with the People’s Republic of China or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
    
    
25. Individualism run amok destroys community.
    
    
26. The respect once accorded the United States of America may never be regained.
    
    
27. Children really do like school.
    
    
28. It’s time to rediscover antitrust registration.
    
    
29. Toilet paper and paper towels are essential to one’s psychological health.
    

Lost (and Found) Keys

 Last week, a visitor found a set of keys on the driveway as she was leaving. The keyring held two keys—one was assuredly a house key—and a dark leather strap about four inches long. It also held a key fob for a vehicle. Of course, I had no idea whose keys had just been found.

I quickly determined that the keys belonged to no one who had recently visited; no one had lost keys. It had recently snowed, however, and, rather by accident, I had seen a man engaged in clearing the sidewalk of snow. The keys might be his. Since he was hired by the condo association, I didn’t know who he might have been, but I made a mental note to investigate this person if no owner of the keys was found.

The found object offered some clues as to its owner. First, there was the vehicle key fob. It was probably possible, with the coöperation of the vehicle manufacturer, to match it to its owner. Suprisingly, however, the fob did not carry a manufacturer’s name. It did include various numbers that might have led a determined detective to the owner, but I wanted to look for more obvious clues first.

Information on the leather strap looked promising. It showed a signature on one side and a set of coördinates on the other. With difficulty, I could read the coördinates, but the signature was, as many signatures are, difficult to decode. I could make out the first letter of the last name and also the last two letters. This sent me to the local telephone directory. Since I don’t live in a big city, I could check for all the listings consistent with what I read on the strap. But, as we all know, fewer and fewer people have landlines these days, and there was a good chance the target of my search was not in the directory. That proved to be the case.

That left the coördinates to check out. These were hard to read, but they were clearer than the signature, and I was certain I had read them properly. My thinking was that they would lead me to the home of the keychain owner. It took me a couple of tries to enter the information into Google Maps, but I finally identified the specified location. That’s the good news. The bad news was that that location was within a nearby cemetery. It seemed unlikely that anyone lived there.

My next idea was to post a notice of what I had found, but where? The newspaper was a possibility, as was Facebook, but the former seemed a longshot, and I didn’t know of a sufficiently local Facebook page likely to be seen by the intended reader. Surely, the owner had set foot on the driveway where the keys were found, so it seemed likely that the person would try retracing his or her steps in search of the keys. With this thought in mind, I placed a sign on the garage door. It said, in large letters, “LOST KEYS?” and pointed the reader to the front door.

The next day, the doorbell rang. There was a postal truck on the street and a postman at the door. He explained that a fellow worker who delivered mail in the area had lost his keys and had been searching for them. We agreed that I probably had the searched-for keys. To be sure, I kept the keys, and the postman pledged to speak to his co-worker.

On the following day, that co-worker showed up at my door. He easily described his property, and I mentioned how I had tried to track him down. As it happened, he had lost a son, and the coördinates were those of his son’s grave. I had not considered such a possibility. Checking out the cemetery would have given me another clue, though not a conclusive one.

Anyway, I was glad to have found the owner of the keys. Would it have been better simply to have left the keys where they were? Perhaps. Though they might have been covered by another snowfall, been run over by a car, or picked up by someone less likely to know what to do with them. In the end, it all worked out.

Weapons Carried in Public

The authorities in Washington, D.C., said on Sunday that they had arrested a man in connection with the stabbing of four people on Saturday night as supporters and opponents of President Trump clashed blocks from the White House.

– The New York Times, December 13, 2020

Violence in America based on political belief has gotten out of hand. Demonstrators of whatever philosophical stripe should not be risking their lives by participating in constitutionally protected demonstrations. Public officials should not have to fear violence against themselves or their families because of their expressed views or their official actions. Doctors performing legal medical procedures should not live in fear for their lives, and houses of worship should be inviolable sanctuaries. Schools should be secure halls of learning. None of these “normal” situations can, any longer, be taken for granted. Twenty-first-century America sometimes seems to be the Wild West redux.

Why, we should ask, should anyone be carrying a weapon—a pistol, a knife, or, heaven forbid, an assault rifle—in public? Weapons carried for an aggressive purpose should be disallowed in a civilized society. If a weapon is carried for an ostensibly defensive purpose, what or who is it protecting its bearer from? If others cannot be armed, why should anyone be? Weapons carried in public are instruments of intimidation. Do we really want public discourse to take place at the point of a gun?

A few disclaimers: I am not anti-gun. Guns should be allowed for hunting game, whether for food or for wildlife management—though mountain lions are a better alternative for the latter task—and guns should be allowed for protection from wild animals or to control pests that are a threat to agriculture. But these legitimate uses are highly environment-specific.

Do police need guns? In the present environment, certainly. If guns were not so common, perhaps not. In any case, police are distressingly likely to use firearms in situations where neither life nor property is at stake. This propensity needs to be suppressed. If otherwise innocent people are carrying weapons to protect themselves from the police, the proper response is to re-train overly aggressive law enforcement officers. The general issue of arming police, however, is a discussion for another day.

Discussing the Second Amendment is likewise a dialogue for another day. For the moment, unwise decisions by the Supreme Court have limited options available for regulating gun ownership and use. We should not be asking what the Court allows, but what is reasonable, perhaps even essential, public policy.

In particular, we should be asking what the purpose of allowing the carrying of weapons in public is. The argument–questionable, in any case—that the Constitution allows it is not a compelling one. If police are available to keep the peace, what is the function of personal carry? This is a question that isn’t being asked. It is a question the NRA does not even want you to think about.

Think about it.

On Trump’s Loss

 Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. The election was not close, and there is no evidence that the contest was other than perfectly fair. It was, in a word, normal. Politicians have been losing elections since the earliest days of the Republic. This is how the system works.

Never in our history, however, has a presidential candidate been psychologically incapable of accepting an electoral loss. Never has such a candidate been unable to believe that the citizenry could reject his bid for reëlection. Never has such a candidate believed that he has a right to be declared the winner, irrespective of rules that afford him no such right. Never has such a candidate enlisted large numbers of his political party in support of his psychosis and his rejection of the rule of law. Never have so many lawmakers been so sycophantic, so enabling of madness, and so wrong.

As of this morning, President Trump was still tweeting “WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!” His notion of “fighting” can only become even more bizarre. Will this nonsense even extend beyond January 20? I hope not, but I am not counting on it.

Why People Are Traveling for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is in two days. In an ordinary year, millions of Americans would be traveling to attend family gatherings. This year, with coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and deaths reaching new peaks, health officials have been telling people to stay home. But airline travel has seen surges not seen in months. Airports are filled with holiday travelers, often without masks, and seldom distant from one another.

Why are so many people ignoring what is clearly wise advice? Admittedly, I have not gone to the airport to interview airline partons, but I can offer a theory. (I’m staying home and keeping away from others, of course, so I’m not going to the airport.)

The most obvious explanation is that people are idiots. Either they are fed up with restrictions or they have considered the pandemic overhyped all along. Let me offer a less gloomy explanation.

Most people crowding the airports have likely heard the pleas to stay at home. Their logic for getting on an airplane may have gone something like this: Because medical experts are telling people to stay home, few people will be traveling. That means that airports and airplanes will not be crowded, and travel will be relatively safe. Unfortunately, if lots of people reason this way, their logic becomes self-defeating.

This phenomenon is akin to bank runs. If there is concern that a bank is unsound, an individual, protecting his or her assets, will go to the bank and withdraw whatever funds are on deposit. If one person does this, the action is innocuous. If hundreds or thousands of people do this, the situation becomes a crisis.

Alas, we have become a country in which many people are concerned only with themselves, ignoring the common good and whether their actions may have unintended consequences.

The Anti-Democratic Party

I created the graphic below for posting on Facebook. I was disappointed that it didn’t seem to get much attention. Perhaps it isn’t as clever as I thought it was, but I still think it deserves more exposure. Therefore, I am making this post on my blog.

The text in the graphic, of course, has a double meaning. Obviously, the Republican Party is, in general, the party that opposes the Democratic Party (the “Democrat” Party to GOP partisans these days). Being aligned against the Democrats, it is anti-Democratic.

Increasingly, the party that likes to think of itself as the “party of Lincoln,” is a party that seeks power at all costs to benefit the wealthy and well-connected. (Lincoln would not be pleased.) The GOP is the party of gerrymandering, voter suppression, and, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, the party of outrageous claims and frivolous lawsuits. It may be the party of even more outrageous attempts to steal the election from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. In that sense, the Republican Party is deeply anti-democratic. It cares about obtaining and wielding power and cares not a fig about the abstract idea that is democracy.

Feel free to copy this graphic for use elsewhere.
 

Is the Use of the Twentieth-Fifth Amendment in our Future?

 My last post expressed concern about how Donald Trump will behave after he has definitively lost his re-election bid and before his term expires on January 20. My concern has increased after seeing Trump’s unhinged briefing last night. The president lied so much and so outrageously that networks that usually broadcast his briefings in full cut away from the president and explained how what he was saying was untrue.

Last night’s briefing may have been a preview of the next few months. What will happen if Trump’s post-election actions appear to be those of a madman whose ego has been fatally threatened by failure? I will suggest a possible scenario.

If Trump’s actions become totally outrageous, a turn to the Twenty-Fifth Amendment becomes a reasonable step to rescue the country from chaos. This would require the co-operation of Republican leaders, of course, but one can hope that even Republican politicians can recognize that their party’s titular leader is ruining their brand. If Trump can be sidelined, allowing Mike Pence to assume presidential duties until January 20, the country will have a chance to achieve a normal and peaceful transfer of power without further damaging the Republic.

Am I putting too much faith in Mike Pence? I think not. Pence has been Trump’s lackey for the sake of his own career, but he is not stupid. If Trump loses, the vice president has little incentive to follow the president’s descent into madness. If Pence is accepting of the will of the people and actively assists in the transition to a Biden administration, he will earn the thanks of the nation and may even have a political future.

The Post-election Interregnum

Once all the frivolous Republican litigation challenging Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election is resolved, Donald Trump will no longer have any incentive to please or help anyone but himself. He will use his last opportunity to settle scores, to further enrich himself and his family, and to lash out at God knows who or what out of sheer malevolence. 

Do not expect Trump to help the incoming administration or to retire quietly. He will issue pardons to unworthy supporters, perhaps even to himself. (Pardoning himself for past and future crimes will be a great temptation for the president. Such a move would be challenged, of course, and it has the drawback of suggesting that he might have done something wrong, an admission Trump would be loath to make.) Expect more increasingly outrageous executive orders from the Oval Office. Thanksgiving and Christmas will give the president excuses to take additional vacation days and to use time on the links to temporarily alleviate his frustration and anger. The effect will be fleeting.

Alas, Trump will remain bitter, uncomprehending, and eager to identify people and circumstances to blame for his misfortune. This will be a painful time for the American people and perhaps a dangerous time as well.

But we will somehow muddle through with the hope for better times and a strengthened democracy beginning on January 20. As Biden assembles his cabinet, a return to reasonable governance will seem a genuine possibility. Let us hope that Donald Trump does not find a way to derail that possibility.

A Note on Blog Comments

 I need to apologize to a few people who left comments on this blog but who never saw their comments approved. Somewhere along the line, a change that Google made to Blogger meant that I was no longer being informed of comments requiring moderation. I have now fixed that (I think), so that moderation should no longer take forever.

I will not offer an apology to those who left comments that seemed oblivious to the content of the post on which they were leaving a comment and whose content was intended to promote some commercial Web site. My blog is not a billboard for posting ads.

I also deleted comments in several other categories. If the comment was totally incomprehensible, I deleted it. Readers would be no more enlightened than I by reading such a comment. I also deleted anonymous comments, which I have explicitly disallowed. I was sad about doing this in a few cases where the content was genuinely responsive to what I wrote. If you want to leave a comment but do not want to tell me who you are, make up an alias and use it whenever you leave a comment. That way, people will be able to identify comments from the same person, even if they do not know who the writer is.

Expect comment moderation to be timely in the future.

Is “Apiece” Really Necessary?

 Sixteen years ago, I wrote a post titled “Is ‘Both’ Really Necessary?” It was written in response to this sentence heard on NPR: “Both of the planes disappeared within a few minutes of each other.” I commonly hear “both” used this way, implying that each of two entities possesses a property that necessarily involves both of them. (If the problem with this location is unclear, read my earlier essay.)

Today, I encountered another use of a redundant word in a similar context. On the 11:00 am EDT NPR newscast, Korva Coleman reported:

Game three of the World Series is tonight. The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Tampa Bay Rays are tied in the World Series. They have each won one game apiece.

One might ask if “in the World Series” is really necessary in the second sentence, but this is only a matter of style. Perhaps it is even helpful to the listener who is not paying close attention.

My concern is actually with the word “apiece.” The word, in the sentence in question, is not only unnecessary but is also nonsensical. The sentence is essentially saying

The Los Angeles Dodgers have won one game apiece.

and

The Tampa Bay Rays have won one game apiece.

Neither of these sentences makes sense. Just as the property “disappeared within a few minutes of each other” is a property necessarily involving more than a single entity, “apiece” necessarily involves more than one entity. Either of the following sentences would have been grammatically and logically acceptable alternatives to the original formulation:

They have each won one game.

or

They have won one game apiece.

The first sentence attributes having won one game to each team. The second sentence attributes having won the same number of games to both teams. Unlike the original, both sentences are grammatical and logical.

A Biden Administrative Agenda

Presidential campaigns usually emphasize policy positions intended to appeal to one constituency or another. The 2020 presidential campaign is very different.

Donald Trump hardly talks about policy positions at all. The Republican Party didn’t even bother to produce a 2020 platform. The understanding is that a Trump victory will deliver a continuation of what we have seen for nearly four years. Without concern for re-election, we can reasonably expect that Trump will continue to ignore existing norms.

Joe Biden, on the other hand, has articulated positions on many issues, though he does spend a lot of time decrying the dumpster fire that is the Trump administration. The Biden campaign implies that, whatever its policy positions, a Biden administration will return our national government to “normal.”

I suspect that many voters indeed yearn for “normal,” perhaps even for something a little better than what has passed for normal heretofore. The Biden-Harris campaign should, I think, be forthcoming about what a new Democratic administration would look like. Although a campaign can articulate a long list of policy objectives, achieving those objectives ultimately depends on the coöperation of the Congress. Those policy goals may be met or not or, perhaps achieved imperfectly.

On the other hand, Joe Biden can promise how a Biden White House will operate administratively, and such promises are not dependent on others. I will suggest what such a promise might look like. I think that making it public now would be a positive move by the Democratic campaign. If not used by the campaign, it can be used to guide the new administration as it comes together.

Here, then, are administrative policies I believe the Biden White House should implement. The items on my list are in no special order, and I don’t claim that my list is exhaustive. I invite additional suggestions.

The list:

1. Twitter will be used neither by the president nor the vice president. The White House will only use Twitter to call attention to material and announcements otherwise released in a conventional manner.
2. The president will hold monthly news conferences and will encourage government departments to hold regular news conferences as may be appropriate.
3. Except possibly in extreme circumstances, the president will not lie to the American people. (Exceptions to this policy are most likely in the pursuit of foreign policy objectives. Exceptions should be rare or nonexistent.)
4. The president and vice president will offer to meet regularly with the congressional leadership. (This should result in regular meetings if the Democrats control both houses of Congress.)
5. Anti-nepotism rules will be enforced throughout the government and will be applied to the White House as well.
6. Cabinet secretaries and administrators will be selected for their technical and managerial expertise. They will be expected to resolve any conflicts of interest before assuming their duties.
7. Judicial candidates will be selected for their legal accomplishments and liberal views. None will have any connection to the Federalist Society. Originalist or literalist views will be disqualifying.
8. Ambassadors will be selected for their relevant skills. Contributions to the president’s campaign are not relevant.
9. The president and vice president will each put any assets that could be affected by government actions into a blind trust while in office.
10. The vice president shall work closely with the president and will be responsible for any special tasks determined by the president.
11. No lobbyists will be appointed to administrative positions.
12. Appointees must agree to not lobby the government for a period of two years after they leave government service.
13. It is the intention of the administration to fully fund and staff all governmental organizations consistent with funding from the Congress. In particular, every attempt will be made to fill diplomatic, scientific, and technical positions left vacant at the end of the Trump administration.
14. Relevant governmental units will be instructed to restore information related to climate change that was removed from the Web by the Trump administration.
15. All governmental units will be encouraged to be transparent by publishing as much useful data as possible on their Web sites.
16. All governmental units will be expected to respond in a timely manner to any reasonable Freedom of Information request.
17. An absolute separation will be established between the White House and the Department of Justice. The White House will have no influence over the impartial administration of justice.
18. The administration will obey existing laws limiting the tenure of temporary appointees to positions requiring Senate approval. Temporary appointments should be for as short a period as possible.
19. The president will consider all cases of the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from international organizations and agreements. Most of these withdrawals should be reversed. Included in the cases to be reconsidered are, among others, the following: the World Health Organization, the Paris climate agreement, the U.N.Human Rights Council, the U.N. Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Iran nuclear deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, etc,
20. The president will review all executive orders from President Trump and rescind or modify them as seems appropriate for the good of the country.

Updated: 10/27/2020

Originalism

Amy Coney Barrett, in the hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, defined originalism, a system of legal interpretation to which she is committed:

I interpret the Constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. That meaning doesn’t change over time, and it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it.

She also explained textualism, to which she is also committed:

… textualism, which is the way that I approach statutes and their interpretation. And similarly to what I just said about originalism, for textualism, the judge approaches the text as it was written with the meaning it had at the time; it doesn’t infuse your own meaning into it.

It is helpful that Judge Barrett supplied us with these explanations.

Judge Amy Cony Barrett

The only difference between originalism and textualism, as the judge defines them—I suspect her definitions are generally accepted by those who believe in these approaches to legal interpretation—is the law to which they apply. This is, I think, a distinction without a difference. An originalist/textualist views laws as frozen in time, meaning exactly what they meant when enacted, as indicated by the words of which they are composed. In what follows, I will simply use originalism to refer to this form of legal analysis.

I believe that Judge Barrett’s embrace of originalism is, ipso facto, reason enough to reject her nomination to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. I say this because I think this approach to law is indefensible and persists only because mainstream thinkers have been reluctant to criticize adherents such as the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

One of the fundamental notions of information theory is that words do not, by themselves, encapsulate meaning. Meaning is conveyed through the interaction of syntax—think grammar—semantics—the referents of individual words or other grammatical units—and pragmatics—roughly speaking, context. As I once wrote: “There is no eternal expression of an eternal truth.” The meaning of the words and, more importantly, the context of a text change over time. That context comprises the entire environment of the text: what the world is like and how it is view by its author. Both the world and the worldview of the Founding Fathers differs substantially from that of 2020 Americans. Hence, I offer my own definition of originalism:

Originalism means governing the country by what we imagine the Constitution used to mean.

Only imperfectly can we conjure the world of the Founding Fathers (or of legislators who followed) to capture the total pragmatics of the Constitution or a statute. Moreover, it isn’t even clear why we should want to do so. The Constitution was not written to be relevant only in 1789 or 1790. It was hoped that it would survive for decades, perhaps centuries, and it is surely true that the lawmakers of 1789 believed that the world of 1879 or 1979 or 2079 would be unchanged from the world they knew. Instead, they had a reasonable expectation that contemporary thought and what we usually call common sense would be applied to their words.

The fundamental question regarding constitutional interpretation is whether the Constitution is a living document. Is the meaning of the Constitution forever fixed or should it be interpreted (or re-interpreted) in the contemporary context? I believe that, since our understanding of the world changes over time—and sometimes changes quite rapidly—it is easier and more sensible to consider the meaning of the Constitution in today’s terms, rather than in the time of its enactment. This means that, rather than constantly revising the Constitution—something that was certainly not anticipated, since it is so hard to do—it is sometimes appropriate for the courts to use the text of the Constitution but not its original meaning to change the law of the land.

For example, the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was clearly not intended to protect homosexuals from discriminatory laws. When it was enacted, it was thought to be for the benefit of those formerly held in slavery. Yet the Supreme Court has outlawed statutes against homosexuality and has even sanctioned same-sex marriage. It should not have been necessary to amend the Constitution to make these changes that reflected widespread changes in the American context. A similar argument can be made about invalidating miscegenation laws. None of these decisions could have been made under the jurisprudence of a Justice Any Coney Barrett.

Under a Justice Amy Coney Barrett, our laws will be straight jackets that hinder human progress and—this is my greatest fear—actually undo human progress. The Senate should reject her nomination to the high court.

Inadequacy of Available Reactions to Facebook Posts

Responding to a Facebook post, a person can indicate a “reaction” by clicking on one of a collection of icons tagged LIKE, LOVE, CARE, HAHA, WOW, SAD, and ANGRY. (For clarity, I will refer to these and proposed options in caps.) There are times when selecting one of these options seems both appropriate and adequate. If someone posts a funny joke, for example, I am totally comfortable clicking on HAHA. But I am not always satisfied with having to choose from the available options. Let me explain why.

I should begin by expressing some discomfort with the inhomogeneity of the response list that Facebook offers. I can say that I like a post or love a post, but I cannot say that I angry a post. The lack of parallelism is irritating, but, if one is limited to single words—Facebook could hardly offer essays here—perhaps perfect parallelism has to be sacrificed. Let’s move on to my main concerns.

The proffered options do not capture all possible emotions a post might elicit. Whereas it is too much to ask that every conceivable human emotion be represented by an icon, some obviously useful options are unavailable. For instance, I can dislike a post without its making me angry (or its presence making me angry). Why is there not a DISLIKE option? Why is there not a HATE option, which could be distinguished both from DISLIKE and ANGRY? One could make a case also for INDIFFERENT and UNFUNNY. Possibly even for JOYFUL. There are probably other emotions I haven’t even thought of that might be appropriate in particular circumstances.

At times, no single response, even were the option list expanded, seems adequate. I might want to select both WOW and SAD or LIKE and HAHA. Facebook demands that I only indicate one emotion. Why can’t I select more than one?

There is often ambiguity about what one’s reaction is actually responding to. A person can post a news story, op-ed, or editorial and introduce it with original commentary. I do this all the time and am sometimes perplexed when someone posts a link to external material without comment. Why is this person bringing the material to my attention? Assuming that the poster does offer an introduction, when one selects a response, is it intended as a reaction to the poster’s commentary or to the material being commented upon? This ambiguity can result in people known to share similar views to select LIKE, on one hand, and ANGRY on another. For example, I can post an op-ed with which I strongly disagree and introduce it with an explanation of why I find it so horrible. Does someone in complete agreement with me select LIKE (or even LOVE), or do they select SAD or ANGRY? I suspect that users are inconsistent in what they do. This makes it difficult to discern what others are trying to say.

I suggest that Facebook should allow us to post separate reactions to external material and to the introductory commentary on that material. In the above example, a person should be able to select ANGRY concerning the op-ed and LIKE concerning my own commentary (or some other combination of reactions). This would actually be easier for Facebook to implement than allowing multiple reactions to the same material. In posts involving external material and an introduction to it, Facebook could simply add another thumbs-up icon at the end of the introduction. This would amount to treating the poster’s commentary as a post in its own right, separate from the material that is the subject of that commentary. If a user only selects a response beneath the post, that response can be assumed to be a reaction to the whole package.

I don’t know if Facebook will adopt any of these ideas. The operation of Facebook seems constantly to be changing, often to no particular purpose. Maybe Facebook could give my suggestions a try. I hope, in any case, that, in the future, users will be able to react to posts in more precise and useful ways.

Reflection on Roe v. Wade in Response to the Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 Although I have never been involved in anyone’s decision to have or not have an abortion, legal restrictions on abortion have never made much sense to me. Why should anyone have the right to tell a mentally and physically healthy woman what she must or must not do with her body?

Older Americans remember where they were when they heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I remember, in cinematic detail, where I was when I heard about the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. Unfortunately, illiberal Christians have been trying to re-criminalize abortions ever since that fateful court judgment.

Roe has been criticized both by opponents of abortion and by legal scholars who argue that the decision, which relied on a right to privacy only implied in the Constitution, rested on shaky legal foundations. Indeed, opinions of the justices cited both the Fourteenth and Nineteenth Amendments. The Fourteenth Amendment promises due process for all, and the Nineteenth Amendment denies that the failure of the Constitution to enumerate a right does not imply that citizens do not possess that right.

It is ironic, of course, that Republicans, who compose the major bloc of people opposed to abortion rights, are the same people who most vehemently insist on personal freedom. Militant Republicans seem ready to revolt over having to wear masks during a pandemic, yet they are equally aggressive about their intention to deny half the population the right to make the most intimate of decisions concerning their own bodies.

One suspects that much of anti-abortion sentiment is motivated by the belief that women are inferior to men and that their behavior should be controlled by men. Seldom is this outmoded and unpopular notion expressed publicly. Instead, “pro-life” proponents speak of protecting the health of the mother and of preserving the life of the “child.” However, women are not children, and fetuses are only human in the same sense that a piece of my skin shaved off in a spill on the sidewalk is human. Women, like men, deserve agency, especially with respect to their bodies.

The fundamental finding of Roe is surely correct from a human rights perspective, however it was arrived at. Moreover, the concept of a right to privacy is useful in contexts other than abortion.

I’d like to offer a different take on abortion rights. My reasoning is not original, but it is largely unfamiliar.

The Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery. Section 1 declares

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Is not the forcing of a woman to carry a pregnancy to term a form of slavery? The essential character of slavery is, after all, that one party cannot quit performing service for another without compensation. In the case of anti-abortion laws, a woman is, in the sense I have suggested, a slave, forced to maintain a pregnancy, and her “master” is the state. Of course, chattel slavery in the United States was more complicated than this, but its essential character was the same. The Thirteenth Amendment does not suggest that what it outlaws necessarily requires one party to fully “own” another.

The slavery of pregnant women should be completely abolished, and the termination of pregnancy should, at all times, be a matter left to a woman and her physician.

In the distant past, abortions were dangerous, and one could assert conscientiously that their prohibition protected the lives of mothers. Prohibiting abortions did not eliminate abortions, however, but only made them even more dangerous, as they were performed underground and in medically questionable circumstances.

Today, most abortions are much safer than carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth. Although many Americans—not just Democrats—fear that President Trump will appoint a Supreme Court justice who will vote with the court majority to overturn Roe. This is indeed likely. As most abortions occur early in a pregnancy, however, and are easily effected today with medicines. The ultimate effect of overturning Roe will therefore be minimal (though not without significance in certain cases). Women will obtain the necessary pharmaceuticals by one means or another, and women will have abortions. Most Americans will be fine with that.

Of course, another Trump court appointment will endanger other rights, the environment, and the Republic generally.

The Trump Economy

 Before the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign was relying on touting the economy as Trump’s greatest accomplishment. With the economy in a tailspin because of the pandemic and Trump’s handling of it, the president continues to rely on the former economy and on the rebound that will supposedly blossom in his second term. In fact, at least for most people, Trump deserves no credit for the economy.

As we enter the final stage of the 2020 presidential campaign, the economy is a mess, largely because Trump failed to take responsibility dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Unemployment is above 8%, many of the formerly employed will never be able to return to their old jobs, and we are likely soon to see a rash of evictions. Moreover, the return of students to schools and universities promises to balloon the number of COVID-19 infections, which will further damage the economy.

But the stock market is doing well! This is fine, at least for the moment, for investors, but many people can only wish they had money to invest. In part, the stock market is surging because it is practically impossible to make money in the bond market. And, of course, as Paul Krugman frequently reminds us, the market not the economy. Distressingly, The New York Times reports that the national debt is now larger than the gross domestic product, and it’s certain to become larger still. Now is not the time to attempt to reduce the debt, but it will need to be addressed eventually.

If the president did not handle the economy as well as he claims he did before the coronavirus struck, there is little reason to believe he will handle a recovery well in a second term. Why should anyone believe that the supposedly decent pre-2020 economy resulted from actions of the current administration, anyway?

By most conventional measures, the economy was doing fine when Barack Obama left office. Had Trump done nothing at all, the years-long expansion would have continued. Of course, no administration in recent years has done much for low-wage workers or addressed the rising wealth- and income-inequality. Trump has had no interest in these systemic problems, however, and they have persisted. Unemployment was low and continued to be low under Trump. Growth was positive but anemic. In other words, the economy under Trump largely moved along its pre-Trump trajectory.

Trump did affect the economy to a degree. He caused NAFTA to be re-negotiated, for instance. This was overdue, but the replacement agreement, the USMCA, introduced no dramatic changes. It has, and will have, only modest effects.

Trump began a trade war with China and, to a lesser extent, with Europe. This has hurt everyone concerned and American farmers in particular. Trump threw money at the farmers to keep them quiet. Our relations with China are now a mess, and French wine is more expensive. There have been no obvious winners.

Trump’s withdrawal from the development of the TTP is of more concern. Although this had no immediate effect, in the long term, it will allow China to expand its trade and influence over that of the United States. Trump dislikes multi-party agreements because, he argues, he can get better terms in bilateral negotiations. He has shown no inclination or expertise in that direction, however.

Trump has been systematically eliminating federal regulations. This has lessened protections for our air and water, as well as for wildlife. (Who needs the environment, anyway?) He has reduced the checks on corporate rapacity and encouraged projects potentially damaging to the environment. These changes have the effect of increasing corporate profits and transferring environmental costs to the citizens at large. Most people do not benefit from these changes.

Most importantly, Trump oversaw the passage of a massive tax cut, though not the largest ever, as the president likes to claim. This gave small, temporary reductions to lower- and middle-class people and permanent, large reductions to wealthy individuals and corporations. Republicans made the usual argument that these tax cuts would pay for themselves through increased tax collections. This argument is almost never true, and it has not been true in this case. Little of the corporate largess was shared with workers directly or trickled down to workers. The tax cut did not spur significant corporate spending, but it did result in higher bonuses to executives and stock buybacks. Again, most people do not benefit from these changes.

It is irrational to believe that a second-term Trump economy will be anything but good for the wealthy and bad for everyone else.

What will happen if Joe Biden wins the presidency. If Republicans continue to control the Senate, only modest improvements in the economy will be possible. Even in that case, we will see cabinet members selected for their competence and integrity. Much of Trump’s ill-considered deregulation will be undone. Our diplomacy will be more rational, less confrontational, and more disposed to multilateral agreements. Trade will be considered through the lens of searching for win-win situations rather than seeking for ways the U.S. can screw the rest of the world.

If we elect both a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate in addition to Joe Biden, we can look forward to largely undoing the Trump tax cut. This will not only reduce income inequality but it also will give the government enough money to make other changes to the economy and to civil society generally that are very much overdue.

Alas, a single Democratic term in the White House cannot undo all the damage done by Donald Trump nor correct all the inequities in society that were in existence when Trump took office. It will, however, offer a chance at a good start.

Our Lying President

 Apparently, there is a large cohort of people who will believe whatever President Donald Trump says, irrespective of how outrageous it may be. I cannot understand this.

Although it is not literally true that Mr. Trump is incapable of speaking the truth, he is not particularly in the habit of doing so. Based on years of evidence—and not only from the time of his presidency—an objective analysis shows that the president tells untruths most of the time. Sometimes this results from his monumental self-esteem and his equally monumental ignorance. Most often, he lies out of self-interest. Sometimes, he seems to lie for the sheer pleasure of it. 

In any case, unless I have a strong reason to believe otherwise, I assume Donald Trump is lying. This attitude has served me well. Were I to believe nothing he says, I would be correct most of the time.

I fear the voting behavior of those who do not treat the president’s pronouncements as I do.

Responsible Voting

Opinion writers for The New York Times have been commenting daily on the just-ended party conventions. Each writer has offered opinions on the best and worst moments of the four-day presentations. Mostly, the commentary was unremarkable; I agreed with much of it and could usually sympathize with the rest. But the evaluation of the final day of the Republican convention upset me. Well, one remark upset me.

Matt Labash, writing in the “What Else Mattered” section of the Times piece, offered the following:

The R.N.C. was as dispiriting as the D.N.C. At a time of multiple crises, when we most need good, honest leadership, we instead get relentless dishonesty. Democrats lie about “peaceful protests,” as cities are torched and ransacked. Republicans lie about Covid-19, a virus we didn’t even know existed 10 months ago, but which is now our third-leading killer, having taken nearly 185,000 American lives. These are the choices, folks: bunco men vs. flim-flammers. Bloods vs. Crips, engaged in gang warfare for its own sake. I, for one, will be voting my conscience, which dictates that I can’t vote. Not this cycle. Why reward the bastards?

Labash’s other remarks were not flattering either. I haven’t bothered to look up what he said about the DNC, but from what he wrote following the last day of the RNC, I assume it wasn’t positive. What upset me, though, was how he ended the above paragraph:

I, for one, will be voting my conscience, which dictates that I can’t vote. Not this cycle. Why reward the bastards?

This brought to mind something Katy Tur once said on MSNBC. Tur had been tasked by her network to cover the Donald Trump candidacy in the 2016 campaign. That hardly seemed a plum assignment at the time, but, as it turned out, she got to follow the man who would become the next President of the United States. Tur was able to observe the Republican standard-bearer, as they say, up close and personal. Additionally, Trump occasionally singled her out by name as a representative of the fake-news press.

What Katy Tur said after the election was that she hadn’t voted. Apparently, this was out of some perverted notion of journalistic objectivity. I thought that she, of all people, was in the perfect position to see Donald Trump as the lying hate-monger he is. As a well-educated professional woman, could she not see that Trump was a danger to the Republic and that it was her civic duty to vote for Hillary Clinton? Well, apparently not. Journalistic objectivity was no excuse for her behavior.

Matt Labash, on the other hand, offers a different, even weaker, excuse for not bothering to vote. He is practicing bothsidesism. Seeing hypocrisy in the presentations of both the Democrats and the Republicans, he concludes, in effect, that the two parties are equally corrupt and not deserving of his vote. He claims a moral superiority in this position. In reality, though, his position is like that of Trump himself when he spoke of good people on both sides of the Charlottesville demonstrations. If Labash cannot see a world of difference between the Republican and Democratic candidates this year, he is too clueless to be writing opinions in the Times. In fact, if he is indeed that oblivious to the obvious, perhaps it is best that he not vote!

I am impressed neither by Tur’s reasoning nor Labash’s. I should also mention a line of reasoning similar to Labash’s that is also dangerous to our democracy. Some voters take the pox-on-both-your-houses position and vote for a third-party candidate or write in the name of some non-candidate. This is yet another way of shirking one’s responsibility as a citizen. When neither of two candidates in an election meets one’s standards, the responsible action is to vote for the better of the candidates. Not voting for the lesser of two evils risks electing the greater of the two evils.

Let me illustrate how my reasoning works in practice. In an election between Donald Trump and Jack-the-Ripper, one has a moral obligation to vote and to vote for Jack.

To the Black Lives Matter Folks: Don‘t Screw Things Up

 I am in sympathy with the Black Lives Matter movement. Blacks have suffered from seemingly racist policing in this country, in addition to suffering from multiple forms of systematic discrimination over nearly a century and a half. Demonstrations demanding change are unquestionably justified.

The best hope for change that makes black lives truly matter is the election of Joe Biden and Kamila Harris, along with Democrats running for the House and Senate. Ironically, recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations have the potential to play into the hands of the Trump/Pence ticket. Trump wants to be the law-and-order candidate, and his insincere promise to quell civil unrest could tip the election in his favor. This would be a disaster for blacks (and most of the rest of us). Four more years of Donald Trump could destroy our democracy.

Whereas it is important to exercise the right of protest, demonstrations must not be allowed to get out of hand and degenerate into rioting and looting. Although demonstrators have not necessarily been responsible for recent civil disturbances, it is critical that they not encourage violence, whether intentionally or not.

Here are some ideas about what Black Lives Matter leaders can do. They can make sure that, to the degree possible, no local laws are violated. Demonstrators should not carry weapons of any kind. As much as possible—this gets harder as the days get shorter—demonstrations should be limited to daylight hours. Signs are hard to read at night, and it is too easy for mischief to begin in darkness. Demonstrations should have a well-understood purpose and should have enforced start and end times. Operations that last into the night court trouble—trouble from demonstrators themselves, trouble from unsympathetic infiltrators, and trouble from the police. Specific members of the team should be tasked with looking for troublemakers, documenting problems on camera, and reporting misbehavior to the authorities.

If these rules make demonstrating less satisfying, so be it. We must show citizens, particularly white citizens, that we are determined to press for change to make our country better and that we are not trying to tear it down.

Please don’t give Donald Trump the one issue most likely to appeal to white voters, even those white voters leaning toward voting for the Biden/Harris ticket. As many have observed from both the Democratic and Republican perspectives, the 2020 election is likely to be the most important election of our lifetimes.

The Trump Platform

 

Unequal Justice

 As is my habit, I listened to NPR this morning. I was struck by a remark by newscaster Korva Coleman on the 9 A.M. newscast. Introducing a brief story about the imminent sentencing of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, she informed listeners, “They could spend months behind bars.”

Months! Imagine that! The rich and connected pay a half-million-dollar bribe to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California, and they may spend months in jail. Had they been a couple of black youths who robbed the corner liquor store of $200, they likely would have been sent to prison for years. Those black miscreants would have lacked the legal services Loughlin and Mossimo can afford.

Of course, rich people don’t knock over liquor stores; they commit nicer, “white collar” crimes. They employ expensive lawyers, and, if convicted at all, they receive light sentences in country-club prisons or are confined for a time to their own mansions with their own hired help.

For now, I want to ignore the privilege or the lack of privilege that individual lawbreakers may have experienced in life, as well as the effects—both positive and negative—of incarceration. Instead, I want to consider the crimes themselves.

Robbing a liquor store is decidedly antisocial and deserves punishment. Bribing college officials to advance the prospects of your unqualified children is also damnable. How do these crimes differ?

The robbers appropriated property not their own and directly terrorized an innocent party or two. Assuming the robbery was not part of a widespread crime wave, most people are inclined to pay little attention to it and do not feel personally terrified. People might even have some sympathy for the underprivileged defendants.

The rich who practice bribery to achieve their desires terrify no one. What they do, however, is undermine the mechanisms of civil society. Whereas the robbers disobey society’s rules, those who illicitly use their wealth and position to obtain what they do not deserve both disobey society’s rules and subvert faith in the fairness of society itself. They are, I think, of greater danger to the body politic. And they go to prison (maybe) for just months?

The penalties we impose for various crimes are, to put it nicely, screwed up. People are incensed by some particular crime and call for unreasonably harsh sentences that lawmakers dutifully enact without consideration of the seriousness of the infraction with regard to other infractions. In general, “violent” crimes and crimes likely to be committed by the underclasses are harshly punished, and the crimes of the wealthy and well-connected are subjected to only modest punishment.

It is time to rethink all sentences for crimes, ranking them according to the harm they inflict and specifying punishments commensurate with that harm. This should be carried out at all levels of government.