Washington DOMA

A friend e-mailed this link to me a couple of weeks ago on the Washington Defense of Marriage Initiative. This group is protesting a case decided by the Washington State Supreme Court entitled Andersen v. King County. In the ruling, the Court argues that "DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] is constitutional because the legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival of the human race, and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children’s biological parents."

The Washington Defense of Marriage Initiative group (referenced in the link above) seeks to amend Washington State's marriage laws to limit marriage to those "who are capable of having children with one another," to "require that couples married in Washington file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage automatically annulled," to "prohibit divorce or legal separation when there are children," and to "make the act of having a child together the legal equivalent of a marriage ceremony." The group hopes that the absurdity of such proposed language will undermine the Washington Supreme Court's ruling in the minds of the people.

That such language is unthinkingly assumed to be absurd is another indication of how far American society and jurisprudence have swung in favor of individual rights. Perhaps this is good, perhaps it is not. Nevertheless, there was a time in our history when the main reasons for getting married were to have children, to order society, and to ensure the continuation of the community. Historically, marriage has been, first and foremost, a societal concern and a legally binding contract which society - and, by extension, the State - had an interest in promoting and defending.

There are very important questions attached to the current debate over marriage:

• What is the nature of marriage?
• Does the State have any interest in the state of marriage as a whole?
• Does the State have any business regulating the affairs of married people? What about affairs of unmarried people?
• Should the State be able to limit marriage to certain types of couples?
  
• Is marriage that is defined in the light of individual rights still marriage?
• Can society survive without marriage as it has been?

Whatever the answers to these questions, it would be disastrous for the courts to try to answer them for society. Roe v. Wade was damaging enough, but if the courts continue to push into the realm of legislative concern and short-circuit public debate, the reverberations could destroy our constitutional foundations.

As strange as it might seem, politics is our only hope.

Executive Confusion

Talking heads and historians alike have decried the evolution of the "imperial presidency" for at least three decades now. Nixon's abuses of executive power drove Congress to react and pass a series of measures that sought to restore the balance between the legislative and executive branches. Presidential power has, however, continued to grow, and since 9/11 that growth has accelerated.

And now it would appear that the growth of executive power is manifesting itself among the states as well. Texas Governor Rick Perry recently issued an executive order, mandating that all girls receive the HPV vaccine upon entering sixth grade. Let's set aside the fact that the HPV vaccine is relatively new and untested. Let's also ignore the intensive lobbying in which Merck (the producer of the vaccine) has engaged to make the HPV vaccine mandatory. And let us, for now, assume the appropriateness of having the State mandate the receipt of this vaccine at the expense of parental involvement and decision-making. Beyond all of this, Governor Perry has usurped the legislative process, denied the chance to conduct hearings on this matter to gather expert opinion and citizen input, short-circuited public debate, and removed the people's representatives from voting on a decision that has the force of law.

I don't think that the Founding Fathers thought of these kinds of decisions to rest in the realm of the executive power. It seems to me we have a distorted notion of what executive leadership is supposed to be in our constitutional scheme. The executive branch is supposed to "take care that the laws are faithfully executed" (Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution). This is the executive power. This is the charge of the President of the United States pertaining to federal law, and this is the charge of the governors of the 50 states pertaining to state law.

Nevertheless, for some time now, it has been the "responsibility" of the president to submit a budget to Congress. Excuse me? When did he become the Budgeter-in-Chief?

For some time now, it has been the prerogative of the president to decide when the United States would go to war. But what of Article 1, Section 8 that gives this responsibility, the ultimate change in legal status between nations, to Congress?

For some time now, it has been expected of the president to set the legislative agenda by providing specific proposals to the Congress. Now the president certainly has a role to play in the legislative process. He wields the veto pen, and he has every right to submit legislation for consideration and debate. But I think we go too far when we make him some sort of chief legislator. I think we would be better served if the president kept himself above the "politics" of the matter and acted more as a symbol of national unity. If the president kept himself to setting policy direction and left details to the legislative process, I think the temptation to blur the lines between the executive and legislative branches would disappear.

If this line had been maintained from the start, the "imperial presidency" would never have had a chance to materialize.

The Governance Imperative: Rethinking "fair but not right"

The Governance Imperative: Rethinking "fair but not right"
While it is true that Civil Rights and discrimination are still a sore subject for some, I believe that it is a good example illustrating the the conflict that can occur when society starts to contemplate whether a law is no longer considered to be fair and/or right. The assumption is that if the legislative branch passed it, they considered it the right thing to do. When the courts uphold it, they are saying that it is fair application of power according to the Constitution. The variable in all this is that societies view change over time. If a law is considered to be no longer the right thing to do, it is the task of the legislative branch to repeal or amend it. If a law, or the application of it, is considered unfair, it is the task of the judicial branch to declare it as such.

Rethinking "fair but not right"

I was reading through our Governance Imperative article the other day and ran across the following two paragraphs:

The outrage expressed by the different parties over "activist judges" usually involves a case where a judge declared something unconstitutional. While that's not new, there is a set of decisions that have something in common to cause the outrage. What seems to cause the most outcry are issues decided by the courts that seek to resolve debates over public morality. The Constitution simply is not concerned with weighing in on moral questions, and any judicial excursion into questions of rightness is inappropriate. Same-sex marriage, access to pornography, and abortion are morality debates which the courts have recently inserted themselves. Civil rights is one that is a close equivalent, except there is a constitutional basis in the 14th and 15th Amendments (passed after the Civil War to outlaw slavery and guarantee equal protection to black Americans) upon which the courts could base their rulings.

And, tangentially, examining the courts' handling of civil rights issues throughout the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries only supports the contention that the courts' recent foray into matters of morality has set them farther adrift from their original charge to determine issues of fairness. The Jim Crow laws, passed by Southern states in the wake of the Civil War to ensure the subjugation of blacks, were good examples of legislation that might have been fairly applied but were not right. The courts were very slow to rule in these matters and only when there were structural issues (i.e., governance) to consider did they step in. Between Plessy v. Ferguson (establishing the constitutional acceptability of forced segregation in the South) and Brown v. Board of Education (mandating racial integration in the schools), the Supreme Court's opinion on what was fair regarding "separate but equal" shifted. The boundaries of structure and fairness had finally been broken, so the courts had to step in. The courts are about fairly applying the law. This is a good case study on how precedence can change; the assumptions of fairness that previous rulings were based upon may be shown to be no longer hold. Once it was shown that the Jim Crow laws could not be fairly applied, the Court declared the "separate but equal" concept unfair, hence unconstitutional.

While I still agree with the underlying principle we were trying to illustrate in the example regarding "separate but equal," I don't think that the example we used is valid or helpful. It's not valid because of the very existence of the 14th and 15th Amendments, which prohibit the states from abridging "the privileges and immunities of citizens of the Unites States" and guaranteeing every citizen the right to vote, regardless of "race, color, or condition of servitude." Of course, this is exactly what the Jim Crow laws did, and for this very reason the Plessy court should have struck them all down as unconstitutional.

Beyond this concern of validity, our use of Jim Crow laws as an example of government action which might be fair but not right tends to cloud the underlying principle. There is still too much emotion and pain behind the Jim Crow laws to speak of them in this way. The wounds are still to fresh to try to speak about them with a historian's cold demeanor. Our use of the word "fair" in the context of the Governance Imperative is a specific one to communicate issues of governance with which the Constitution and the courts are specifically concerned. Our use of the word "fair" is set within contrasting use of "issues of morality," with which Legislatures are specifically concerned. It was never our intention to argue for the fairness of "separate but equal" in the broader sense of "fair." We agree and affirm that the treatment of blacks by the southern states prior to the Brown decision was patently and tragically unjust and unfair.

While our use of the example of the "separate but equal" doctrine might have been a poor example of courts focusing on issues of governance, the issue remains. The courts are called by the Constitution to ensure that the laws of society are evenly applied in accordance with the constitutional principles of balanced, deliberative government, regardless of the general perception of morality behind the laws in question. If a group (or even society in general) has a problem with the morality of a law, then there is plenty of recourse through the legislative and executive branches to change or rescind the law. The courts are not meant to serve that role.

So I propose we strike the example of Plessy as an example of an issue of governance. This means we need a new example of something that is "fair" (in the governance sense) but not right. Any thoughts?

Everything Old is Agnew Again

Part of the Governance Imperative is the acknowledgment of the corrupting influence of power on those who wield it. To be on guard against the mis-use of power is to understand not only the nature of power but the hold that power can have over human nature. An elected official does not reign with impunity for the length of their term.

Have we uncovered enough information in former vice-presidential chief-of-staff Libby's perjury trial to make a case for impeachment of the VP?

Here are questions I would hope are being asked:

- Has the VP used top-secret national security information, the identity/affiliation of Mrs. Plame, for political purposes?
- Did the VP violate the law by allowing or directing a leak of that sensitive infomation?
- Can the VP assert some sort of executive priviledge which authorizes him to declassify sensitive information without going through the normal procedures / channels?
- Can the VP claim to have been acting at the behest or on behalf of the President. This implies the awareness and consent of the activity on the President's part.
- Are the VP's actions covered by the authority vested to the office of Vice-President by the U.S. Constitution?
- Did the VP abuse the power of his office by condoning or otherwise allowing the dissemination of classified information to the press?
- Do any of these factors, by themselves or in combination, rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors"?
- Should articles of impeachment be brought against Vice President Richard Chaney?

"I'm the decision-maker"

President Bush has effectively told Congress to put up or shut up regarding his plan to increase U.S. troops in Iraq by 21,500 in an attempt to bring some semblance of order to Baghdad. I believe this is the first decision the Bush Administration has made since the Fall of Baghdad and the widespread looting began that responds to the realities on the ground. While I was sympathetic to the President's desire to remove Saddam Hussein, this war has undoubtedly been one of the most ineptly executed wars in history. Now that the President is trying to do something to adapt our strategy, he has not committed nearly enough troops, he is placing too much faith in the al-Maliki Government, and Congress (newly invigorated by a Democratic majority) is balking.

The President asked for a chance for his plan to work during the State of the Union speech earlier this week, and if I were in Congress, I would be inclined to support his plan, if only to give the U.S. one last chance to set things right before we will be forced to leave the Iraqis to their own vices. Nevertheless, I am also sympathetic to the concerns of the vast majority of Representatives and Senators who are finally standing up and letting their voices be heard. Now that they are providing oversight of the war, it is hardly constructive for the President to demand his critics put forward their own plan or remain silent.

The President is indeed the Commander-in-Chief and the decision-maker regarding how best to conduct military operations in a theatre of war, but this fact cuts both ways. He can't expect alternative war plans and strategies from the Congress. That is not the role of Congress. There is one Commander, and that is the President. But Congress holds the purse strings, and the Constitution empowers Congress with oversight of Administration activities and organization of the military. While Congress cannot force the Administration to abandon its current plan to increase troop levels, Congress does have the capabilities of refusing funding for new troop levels or passing restrictive legislation regulating the use of the military, e.g., limits on where the Army can be deployed.

It seems the President can irritate Congress further and risk legislation that would effectively shut down any further U.S. involvement in Iraq, or he can work with Senators and Representatives to address their concerns. Despite Kelly's ruminations to the contrary, this is far from a monarchy and the Presidency is only one of three co-equal branches.

King George

Not only has the administration decided that they don't need the moral high-ground, they have shown that they don't care to even maintain a thin veneer of fairness. All it takes to be denied your rights is for one person, holding supreme power, to label you as an "unlawful enemy combatant", no due process, no appeal, and no reprieve.

Do I want the country to be attacked by terrorists? Absolutely not! But when there is a greater chance of dying in a traffic-accident than a terrorist attack, it seems foolish to spend billions on expensive toys and promises to protect us from the boogie-man when tens of thousands of people die every year in preventable deaths, for the lack of money.

Let's examine our forefathers complaints against the English King. From the Declaration of Independence we have:

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." and "He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers." Signing statements anyone?

"For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:", the Attorney General of the United States has the audacity to argue in front of a Congressional hearing that the 'Habeas Corpus' clause doesn't really apply to the President.

"For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:" extraordinary Renditions were just rumors but have become frighteningly real.

"For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:" Read more about this at Slate.

"He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us." How better to describe our own Congress passing a bill that allows the President to declare a U.S. citizen to be beyond the protection of the Constitution? If you think this is just the ranting of a madman and could never happen here, just ask Jose Pedilla.

"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." Whenever criticism is raised, the answer is, 'I'm doing it for your own good' or 'Do you want the Terrorists to win?" He has become blind to injustice and deaf to reason. His logic is starkly, to protect America it is necessary to use any means, at any cost. I say to you, at what cost to our credibility? At what cost to our principles?

The Founding Fathers believed so strongly in their cause that they put it in writing, "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

What has our President pledged? Invasion of privacy? Protection of the Constitution on his whim?

It can not be stated any simpler than, would you trade your liberty for safety? Despots can do a great job of keeping you safe. There was no crime under Stalin, Hitler; or more currently Kim Jung Il. What they can not do is make you free. They stoke the patriotic blaze by feeding your fears with tales of untold crime and violence and then assuage those fears with soothing words and pretty baubles. They desire your trust, willingly given in trade for the offer of safety from shadows, the calm complacency that comes from letting others do the dirty work. Secrecy is their watch-word, for theirs is a bargain of illusions, cooks willing to make sausage as long as you don't ask from whence comes the meat.

The Republican party has been duplicitous in setting up an American Monarch, while the Democrats have stood silent as our rights were sent to the gallows. When there is no one left in Congress to defend our rights when the President comes for them, who will defend you when His men come for you?

All hail King George.

The Inhumanity of Politics

Why did the Founding Fathers take the limitation of the power of the State so seriously? The NPR story linked to in the title gives ample evidence that people with a political stake in the status-quo and having the power of the State to wield will often succumb to hubris, deluding themselves that the ends justify the means. Is protecting ourselves from would-be terrorists in the heat of a paranoid witchhunt worth losing the moral high-ground earned over decades of standing by our principles of fair-treatment and human rights?

Is Mr. Pedilla a criminal? Maybe. Is he a terrorist? Maybe he'd like to think he is. Is he dangerous? I doubt he'd crack the top 1,000. Does he deserve to be treated the way he has? Most definitely not.

When it comes to the governments treatment of detainees, the Bush administration would like us to believe that anything that gets the bad-guy to confess is ok. Congress is complicit when they passed a bill that allows procedures that would not be Constitutional if used in our courts.

The question to ask is, would you consider the treatment or procedure in question acceptable if used on your spouse, son/daughter, or brother/sister by some other country? If the answer is no, then why are we allowing our country to do it to anybody for any reason?

Losing our Human Countenance?

Maclin Horton's Light On Dark Water has asked a very important question:

Can we really look around at our society and say it is not in danger (at least) of losing its human countenance?

Maclin's reflections which lead to his question should give pause to all Americans, no matter their political leanings:

Most conservatives have always acknowledged the principle that, in the words of Pope JPII, “there are many human needs which find no place on the market.” But the principle remained an abstraction in the hurly-burly of political life, especially when the opposition was more or less socialist. The predation, the commercialization, the inanities, the saturation marketing of big business were perhaps something to be sighed over—but, after all, prosperity is fundamentally a good thing, and conservatives are rightly prejudiced in favor of liberty, even when we aren’t entirely pleased with its fruits.

The time is past when that response is adequate. With corporations increasingly able and willing to sell—not just to sell, but to market with the utmost cunning and aggression—anything to anybody, and to exert the considerable power of their wealth and propaganda on behalf of “progressive” causes which attack religion, the family and indeed the person at the root, it’s time for some sort of definite resistance. There should be the potential here for alliances with political liberals in limiting corporate power, although I’m not sure how much interest “social issue” liberals have in doing such a thing now that corporations are increasingly on their side.

It seems the old lines of conservative and liberal do not work anymore. They are antiquated labels in a globalized, homogenized world increasingly run by megacorporations. I believe in free-market capitalism, but I also believe in social responsibility and our human obligation to care for the widow and orphan. This is not a responsibility we can shove off to the government and wash our hands of. It is something staring each and every one of us in the face, demanding that we live in the shoes of our humanity.

The principles of American government

Greg Krehbiel at Crowhill makes an insightful observation on the true genius of the Founding Fathers:

I was talking with one of my kids this evening about education and government and separation of powers and whatnot, and to illustrate the most significant insight of the founding fathers I said that the basic principle of American government is to find the guy at the top of the heap, knock him down and paint a silly mustache on his face. For that, the founding fathers deserve our endless respect.

The Constitutional Presidency

The nation has spent the better part of this week mourning the death of Gerald Ford and reflecting on his presidency. I was only two years old when President Ford assumed the presidential office upon the resignation of Richard Nixon in August of 1974, so I do not have the benefit of first-hand experience. In listening to all the reflections and memories of his time in the Oval Office, I was most moved by Ford's first speech to Congress as President (replayed by CSPAN this Wednesday past).

"Our national nightmare is over."

Inheriting a nation torn apart by the Vietnam War and scandalized by the imperial presidency of Nixon, Ford governed with the good of the country foremost on his mind. Pardoning President Nixon and negotiating the withdrawal of U.S. forces out of Southeast Asia were controversial and divisive at the time, but history has proven the wisdom of President Ford's actions in working to bind the wounds of the nation.

If Richard Nixon's was the imperial presidency, Gerald Ford's was the constitutional presidency.

The humility and openness with which President Ford governed in many ways epitomized good governance, as envisioned by the Framers of the Constitution. Ford understood the limits of the presidency, respected the co-equal role which the Congress is meant to play in our constitutional scheme, and worked tirelessly to secure the constitutional rights of all Americans.

Presidents are in large measure fashioned by their times. While President Ford made his share of mistakes, he transcended his times to govern in grace and wisdom.

Re: The Emporer's New Clothes

"What the hell happened to Christianity?"

I have an answer to the question asked by the article to which Kelly linked. But I am afraid most people won't like the answer - either because it will offend their secular sensibilities or because it will offend their religious ones.

George Mason, the Senior Pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, has said that the problem with Fundamentalists is that they know too much too soon. They presume to know the mind of God and then act on that presumption to force the rest of the world to comply with that presumption. And while Christianity is not plagued by extremists that blow people up and saw heads off, it is challenged with Fundamentalists who have hijacked the gospel of Christ and twisted it into a message about themselves. American Christianity is more American than it is Christian and more interested in the power of the Establishment than in the powerless who Jesus says will inherit the Earth.

In the end, Christianity has been beset by a crisis of faith.

The Emperor's New Clothes

While the article in question does not mention government per se, it does do a good job of speaking out against a small minority acting as if they are the "Guardians of Truth". The Cold War hawks seem all cute and cuddly as compared to the current set of neo-Cons who have made an art of rushing to war but not to judgment, wouldn't want to be hurried into doing something rash. Ok, enough of that. Mr. Bakker from the article, not the be confused with the ex-Chief of State James Baker, points out that there are a group of people who are using their religion as a weapon. We chide the Islamic world for their treatment of women but look the other way when someone in our own country calls for the bombing of abortion clinics and the murder of the doctors who work there. Is there any other word for this besides hipocrasy?

One man with a vision.

In our discussions of the use of the power of the State vs liberty of the individual, I often make reference to a sordid affair in America's history brought about by one man's pursuit of vice in a vain attempt to control the country's morals. Who is this purveyor of piety? None other than Anthony Comstock. He is as good an example of one person misusing the power of the State as you can find. Right up there with Hoover and McCarthy. Can there be any better cautionary tale for allowing the States authority to be too easily be misappropriated by those with a personal agenda?

Government and the trade deficit

Craig and I once discussed the importance of the trade deficit to the economy. My theory was that we as a country could afford such a substantial trade deficit because we must be creating value, otherwise we'd be sending capital overseas - 'capital flight'. After further thinking on this, I wonder what would happen if all those goods being imported were no longer being desired by the American consumer. Yes, our trade deficit would go away but what would become of our economy? With trillions of dollars available to spend and only the domestic industry to provide goods, I would imagine we'd be in for a serious bout of inflation. Too much money, not enough goods - classic.

Let's not take such a simple view. What if the money had somewhere else to go? What if Americans started saving all that dough? There would be lots of funds available for investment. If there was a shortage of capital, these new funds would not cause a problem but instead would spark business expansion or startups. But what if our lack of business startups was not caused by a lack of capital? What then? When too much money chases too few investments, wouldn't we start to see speculation which leads us down the trail to a 'bubble'.

So, is the trade deficit a symptom of how successful we are are creating value? If we tried to reduce it through less consumption, would cause ourselves more problems through inflation or speculative bubbles?

Maybe the deficit is the least of our worries.

The Purpose of Taboos

Which taboos are sacrosanct?

My point was not to suggest a list of taboos specifying which should be maintained and which should be jettisoned. And my real aim was not to complain about the removal of traffic signs per se. But it makes for a good example of this broader thought to do away with societal norms without thinking through the wisdom of doing so. Traffic laws and regulations have been developed by society with over a century of experience in driving cars. They were written and adopted for specific reasons, one of which was to make sure drivers are courteous to one another by not plowing into one another.

If specific signs are more distracting than helpful, then remove the offending signs. But to throw out the whole lot of them is tomfoolery and, as I said, potentially dangerous. The spirit of the old rules might govern traffic flow for a while. But ten years from now, will new drivers who do not have the benefit of learning under the old socially-enforced traffic rules be able to adapt to the new rule-less road?

Which corners stop or yield at a particular intersection? I might feel convicted to stop out of courtesy, but some days I might not. I might be in a hurry. If the guy going through the same intersection adjacent to me is also feeling discourteous, we will crash into each other because we will both be trying to occupy the same space - the middle of the intersection - at the same time. And this is liberating how?

Traffic rules are not societal taboos in the same manner that, say, prohibitions against incest or polygamy are. But the anarchist's goal is the same in each - complete freedom of the individual, no matter the damage done to those around him in the process.

It is these consequences that are so poorly understood. These norms that have been built up over centuries for reasons we no longer understand are being torn down with irresponsible and reckless haste. The separation of church and state took centuries to accomplish, over which time much thinking and theorizing had been attained regarding the benefits and consequences of the separation. What society was doing was well understood.

But the West has largely lost its capacity to engage in ordered, reflective thought. We are five-year olds demanding what we want right now with no regard as to how it will effect others or society at large. In our quest to ensure that minority rights are protected, we must remember the role that societal norms play in making our civilization function. While it might be cute and fun to glibly throw around labels like 'taboo,' doing so does not automatically make them bad or irrelevant.

Re: Taboos

I think Craig has a good point about taboos. The general question is how to distinguish between the taboos that are for our own safety, like incest, versus those that appear to be based on superstition, which I can't quite think of a good example. As for the traffic sign removing Europe, I think they are onto something. It does not take very much signage to overwhelm a driver. The irony is here in Texas they actually have signs that say, "Obey warning signs". I hope they aren't afraid of people missing the warning signs because they were too busy reading the "Please read our signs" sign. I do not agree with the premise that removing traffic signs is like removing taboos, if that was the question. I wasn't sure about the connection Craig was making. If the sign-removal is done where traffic is already somewhat slow speed because of congestion, making less destractions and encouraging driver interaction should not only improve traffic-flow but reduce accidents.

Craig, what are some of the taboos that have been toppled of late and which ones are sacrosanct, or should have been?

Re: 'Why?' and the Efficacy of Taboos

Kelly asks good questions in this post, the most important of which is "how do we protect the minority from a majority that would use the power of government to enforce belief (however wrong) onto an unwilling minority?"

As a Baptist, I am part of a tradition that came into existence in order to fight for the freedom of the conscience of every human being. We believe that faith can be imposed on no man, woman or child, and each person must be free to worship - or not worship - according to the dictates of his or her own conscience. Faith and belief are deeply personal matters, and the State or church heirarchy cannot force belief through the force of arms - or laws.

Having said that, is there an unhealthy extreme to which this principle can be taken? Are there certain taboos that are insisted upon in order to allow society to function? I read story this morning. Apparently at least a few European towns are ready to do away with the most basic of norms - traffic signs.

An excerpt from the article is illustrative:

"The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We're losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior," says Dutch traffic guru Hans Monderman, one of the project's co-founders. "The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people's sense of personal responsibility dwindles."

Having prescriptions does not diminish the sense of personal responsibility in those who have personal responsibility in the first place. They simply bring order to a potentially chaotic situation where chaos will prove deadly. Guesswork is removed as people know what the rules are - in this case, rules of the road. To say that removing traffic signs will result in more courtesy is the silly argument of a five-year old that becomes unconscienably dangerous in the hands of a grown man or woman. There are times, like driving on the road, when rules enable freedom.

It has been a LONG time (centuries) since we in the West have had to build a society from the ground up. In our rush to enable personal freedom, we are tampering with "taboos" that our ancestors from those many ages ago put in place in order to build a society that functioned. While some of these probably are unnecessary, we are removing many of them with frightening speed and glee, before we understand the ramifications of doing so.

'WHY' - The world's shortest 4-letter word.

To those who might be wondering what all the fuss is about: are we just wasting out time? Shouldn't we get back to work like good little citizens; quit questioning our betters and let them get back to the dirty work of making the world more like us, er, I mean a better place...

Is all this discussion about the proper way to setup a government just a bunch a mental bubble-gum? All sweetness and light; keep you busy for a short while but lacking substance? Consider the following from the linked article by Paul Graham:

I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them.

When we talk about the tyranny of the majority, this might qualify. If the majority were actually right about the taboo in question, it wouldn't need to do anything to enforce the 'taboo'.

So, how do we protect the minority from a majority that would use the power of government to enforce belief (however wrong) onto an unwilling minority?

On Jeffersonian Revolutions (or On the Politics of Being 'Thumped')

Jefferson once said that a little revolution every now and then would be good for the country. What happened in the 2006 U.S. elections could be considered a 'little revolution'. I'm sure the incumbents might disagree as to the necessity but I digress. Let's examine what happened that day. What did the party in power do to trigger the revolt, what message or messages were the voters sending and what should the newly empowered party learn from the election?

First off, was the GOP asleep at the wheel? How else do you explain such a sweep where they lose the majority in both the U.S. House and Senate? Was it inevitable?

The Bush Administration leadership stance was that they thought that their current policies were taking the country in the desired direction. Stay the course - stick with the status quo. No one can force the Bush Administration to stray from their course. If they feel it is that imperative to continue their policies then it should be easy for them to convince the incoming majority of the wisdom of their decisions. I daresay that Bush's idea of 'Leadership' is to not waffle. While it can be said that you are being consistent with your principles, it also makes you susceptible to the sweet siren song of hubris. The question I would ask is, wouldn't it be prudent to at least entertain the notion that you could be wrong. In that situation, a little humility will go a long way. Think FDR during the Depression. He didn't defend a program that didn't work, he wanted results even if they came from a program that wasn't his own. Now that is real leadership. If you dismiss polls or the voices of your critics, when those voices get so loud as to sweep you out of power, they are essentially saying, "You are not listening to us!"

Secondly, the voters showed with their ballots that they have misgivings about the current policy direction. You can dismiss the pollsters and pundits, close the door on your critics, but you can not ignore the voices of the voters. It would be one thing if it was only the opposition party clamoring for attention. The danger is when you lump all who disagree with you into a single category. The political cartoon Doonesbury does this succinctly by having U.S. Soldiers refer to the Iraqi insurgents they are battling as 'Benchmark haters', subtly implying that those who disagree with the Bush Administration are in league with terrorists. The message the voters are sending is, "listen to us." We can disagree and still be loyal.

Thirdly, the biggest mistake the Democrats can make is to ignore the golden rule. Take the high road and treat the new Republican minority as you wished they had treated you. Also, don't waste the opportunity on investigating old dirt. Instead of trying to prove that the dirt is/was real, act as if all that uncovered dirt was real. Use the time you have to lead the country upwards and onwards instead of a vengeful trek into the mud. Be vigilant for new cases of ethical lapse, regardless of party. If the GOP had actually shown some gumption to address the misdeeds of their own members, the election may have had a different outcome.