Cain and Assad

About 30 years ago, my family and I were driving through downtown Baltimore in the early evening when we encountered a street scene fairly common then as now.  A man and woman were having a violent argument, and the man was starting to beat the woman severely.  Just on instinct, we stopped and my older son (he was an early teen) and I piled out of the car and approached the fight.  Telling my son to stay back (though he probably would have done as well or better if a real fight had occurred), I told the man to stop beating her, and, surprisingly,  he did.  I then asked the woman how we could help, but she embarrassedly said she was ok and the two went off together.

Afterwards, I reflected on how crazy my stunt had been.  Baltimore’s streets are rough; anyone who has watched “The Wire” knows how really mean they are.  He was probably armed at least with a knife, and I wasn’t; he certainly was younger and stronger and knew more about fighting than I.  I knew nothing about them or their reasons for fighting – husband and wife, pimp and prostitute, drug dealer and addict, whatever.  I would like to think what I did helped, but quite possibly they just went off to a quieter spot and resumed the battle; a more savage beating might have resulted because I had embarrassed him.  All I knew was that someone was being savagely beaten, and I had to do something.

I feel that way now about Syria.  A savage, unpitying beating of his own people is being administered by Assad.  Wise heads all over the place are saying that armed intervention would not work, for many reasons; they cite lack of international consensus, a strong Syrian army loyal to Assad, murky understanding about who the opposition really are, rough terrain that could lead to a long stalemate, and countless other good reasons.  Meanwhile thousands of innocents are being tortured and killed, and the international community is mostly just standing there looking horrified.

At an elevated international level, the impasse results from lack of resolution of an issue that has emerged only over the last twenty years or so; the traditional respect for national sovereignty versus the emerging international doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect” (RTP).  Respect for sovereignty has been around in Western culture since it was formulated at the Peace of Westphalia (called “The Peace of Exhaustion” by contemporaries) ending the bloody Thirty Years War in 1648.  Under it, nations were not to intervene in the internal affairs of other nations; while it has not always been honored, the good guys and bad guys remained clear, and the rules simple to understand.  It has been relatively easy to honor in a period where European boundaries were mostly fixed, religious differences grew less strident all the time, and the ceaseless massacres happening all around the world all were only shadowy rumors heard after the fact. 

RTP is a newcomer in international law, arriving in an age where instant graphic communication makes far away savagery too “up close and personal” to ignore.  RTP doctrine is that when a ruler attacks or neglects their own people in a major way the international community may intervene against the wishes of the ruler to correct the situation.  It’s not a universally accepted doctrine yet – in particular,  Russia and China, because of their own internal histories, are reluctant about it  –  and the boundaries and alternatives remain fuzzy, and will probably stay so at least for another century or so.  That’s the way things happen in international law.  Meanwhile, up close and personal, people die in Syria.

Long before the Thirty Years War or Syria, the issue existed.  It’s really the eternal argument between our heart and our brain that’s innate to being human.  The very first question raised to God in the Judeo-Christian Bible was Cain’s “Am I my brother’s keeper?”, and God’s answer was not a legal treatise on all the nuances of that question; Cain was branded a murderer and banished, which effectively was a “Yes”.  That “Yes” answer, it could be argued, is itself a major mark, one that separates us from wild beasts - the mark of humanity.  In times of horror, the heart mostly outvotes the head. We, unlike gazelles, do not graze along side lions feasting on our comrades, content in just knowing that we were not the target and that the lion for now is sated. We are entitled to ask good questions about how best to do it, but something has to be done.  Simply sitting in the car and watching in horror as savagery occurs will not suffice.  China and Russia, in particular, must determine the mark they bear, that of caring humanity or the mark of Cain.

Testing the Candidates

Not far from here, in Pennsylvania, they engage in an annual great silliness called Ground Hog Day.  On February 2^nd all gather around to watch as the honoree, Punxsutawney Phil, pops his head up out of the ground and decides whether winter is at an end. On a really miserable day, he stays in bed, but if there seems to be spring in the air he starts to check what’s really happening.  On a cloudy day he stays up and winter, at least in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania, is declared officially over.  But Phil is a very skittery little animal, and at the slightest sign of his shadow,  goes back down for another six weeks, and winter, at least in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania, continues its dreary way. Not snow, or balmy breezes, or flights of geese headed north are his guide, but only his shadow.  The fate of the season thus rests on the temperament of that nervous nellie, the ground hog.

I thought of that as I watched the Charlie Rose Show on Monday night.  Charlie is one of those rarities on TV, a talk show host with a keen mind and without vanity.  All he does is gather interesting people around and ask them interesting questions, then sit back and let them have at it.  Monday having been Presidents’ Day, he gathered several eminent historians of the Presidency around and asked them, simply, what is it that makes a great President?  They bounced around from Lincoln to FDR to Jefferson to Jackson, and first decided that “the bright red line” for identifying a candidate for that exclusive club, was that he was a two term President – with one notable exception – they unanimously excluded George Bush.  Then, after more reflection, they all agreed that the distinguishing characteristic of a great President was his temperament.  And by that, they meant the ability to see through the fog of politics to the real issues and to get something done about them.  That, to the historians, involved a mixture of will, insight and unflappability that defined greatness. 

That’s what makes the American electoral process so interesting.  For, going on from the historians’ insights, the purpose of the quadrennially mixed-up mess that we call the election process is not really to determine policies so much as to test candidate temperaments.  The American electorate is rightly suspicious of causes carried to the extreme.   Proclaiming your allegiance to narrow causes is not enough. Kathleen Parker, a columnist in the Washington Post with whom I frequently disagree – but sometimes she’s right,  remarked this morning that voters do not want to be led either by messiahs or prophets. She’s right on that, too.

The temperament of a candidate is key in that it involves being able both to see the problems as they really are and to avoid distraction while working on them.  When my children were young, I sometimes reminded them that the reason, ”the meek shall inherit the earth”, as stated in the Sermon on the Mount, is that arrogance leads to blindness about what’s really going on and how to deal with it.  You start to see things as brighter or more shadowy than they actually are and to reject ideas not your own.   Enough intellectual humility to recognize that your own definition of the problem may need ongoing adjustment in the light of reality is necessarily a part of being a great President.  So is the courage to pursue your solution in the midst of adverse circumstances. 

Finding the candidate who comes closest to that mix of traits which we dub temperament is what we’re doing.  It’s a serious task, and we the people, for the most part, are not distracted by appeals to or from special interests “My way or the highway” automatically fails that arrogance test, as appealing to fears only flunks you on the courage test.  It appears that, at the moment, the Republican part of we the people have about decided that their vote is for ”none of the above” in their primary.  While I support Obama, I think that’s too bad, because serious times demand serious contenders.  Punxsutawney Phil need not apply.

Religion, Rights and The State

Fur is flying, as usual, as politicians and pundits of all stripes, from skunk to tiger, chase each other round and round about religious liberty. It’s an old fight, which began long before the country, when Pilgrims banned Christmas as too frivolous, and Roger Williams and the Massachusetts Bay Colony feuded over the relation of religion to government.  Perhaps that’s why a Constitutional Convention the majority of whose delegates were clergy tabled Ben Franklin’s motion to begin proceedings with a prayer and refused to vote on it.  They then proceeded resolutely to avoid mentioning religion in the Constitution itself except for the stricture against any religious test for public office (a rule resolutely ignored by social conservatives at every election cycle since then.)

In a way, it’s just shorthand for asking, “Could I take you home to grandpa without getting run out of the house?”  That, actually is a serious question; I’m a grandpa myself, and know we deserve at least a modicum of respect. It’s part of the braking system in our vehicle of social change and requires periodic testing.  Sometimes it’s just a way of diverting attention away from policy issues that conservatives know they hold a losing position on.  Occasionally, the perennial debate is just silly; James Madison, when asked about the constitutionality of a prayer in the Senate, replied that he personally was against it, but that “the law should not concern itself with little things.”

Sometimes though, the debaters tackle a really serious issue, and that’s the case now.  On the one hand, social activists rightly believe non-Catholic women should not be deprived of insurance coverage for contraception; to them, Catholic institutions’ refusal to fund abortion coverage is a violation of rights. Meanwhile, Catholic bishops argue that “no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion” means just  that – the state can not prohibit the church from discriminating if it is genuinely a part of their doctrine.  It would be a much less thorny problem if only Catholic women worked for the church, but the church’s good work to alleviate poverty, run hospitals, etc., is so extensive, and integral to its doctrine, that it could not possibly be done without employing non-Catholics.  And both sides are equally sincere and fervent in their views.

Both sides forget of course that most Constitutional rights are relative, not absolute, and end “at the tip of the other person’s nose.”  That the church “holds itself out to the public” to provide goods and services means that the state can, through exercise of the interstate commerce provision determine where each nose must end for the good of the country.  The long, torturous history of this debate began with the intellectual grandfather of the Constitution, the Englishman John Locke, who in his Essay on Tolerance argued that no one should be required to adhere to any religious dogma except through persuasion; I personally believe that the founding fathers had that in mind and would have sided with the activists over the church.  Others, including the Supreme Court, may well disagree. 

However it decides, through regulation or a Supreme Court ruling, the state will be perceived as villain by one side or the other.  The real culprit here though is employment based health insurance.  The controversy would not occur, except perhaps in a vastly different form, in places like Canada, Scandinavia or the United Kingdom, where a truly national health program does not rely on the scruples, or lack thereof, of individual employers.  The social conservatives are, interestingly, thus raising the case for the thing they hate most, a national health insurance program. The plot grows very thick indeed.

Tidiness and Democracy

     The World Turned Upside Down!  That was the tune the band of the defeated British army played as they marched out to surrender after the Battle of Yorktown that ended the American Revolution.  And that is how I felt as I read the column on the opinion page of the Washington Post this morning by Vladimir Putin, in which he describes his vision of democracy.  His is a tidy vision, complete with a disciplined electorate filled with lack of greed and with trust and mutual respect for each other and for government, and candidates required to be honest, uncorrupt and realistic.  Unfortunately, his tidy vision bears little resemblance to the actual workings of a real democracy and less regard for its actual strengths.
     Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all others.  Its grand premise is that people provided with choices are capable of choosing wisely. By people is meant all the people -  rich, poor, educated, illiterate, ethical, unscrupulous - and by choices is meant all the choices from wonderful to horrible.  And by capable is meant that actual decisions may or may not be wise, but that people learn in the process and somehow eventually  they get it right. Sometimes an extended exposure to "clowns in bumper cars", as some have characterized this year's election scene, can provide the best education of all.   A famous American saying is that observing democracy in action is like visiting a sausage factory - it is not for those with delicate stomachs.  And Mr. Putin's stomach must be delicate indeed.
     A generally unspoken premise of democracy is that large groups of people learn how to choose wisely only through the experience of choosing, sometimes unwisely.  Any individual may possibly never learn from their errors, especially autocrats who face no personal consequences - witness Assad and Syria - but groups containing competing interests will improve their choices together.  That was the view implicit in James Madison's discussion of the role of factions in American democracy. 
     Mr. Putin wants to limit candidates to those shown to be honest, uncorruptible, and responsible.  He is suspicious of the growing number of Russian young people seeking public service, for they may be doing so out of desire to share in the spoils of corruption.  He views the fight against corruption as requiring "repressive measures."  And he wants to provide administrative procedures, by which he seems to mean arbitration rights, between individual citizens and government officials;  that is a process generally seen as restrictive and loaded in favor of the government or corporation in American democracy.  Alexis deToqueville rightly viewed trial by jury as the great signature element of democracy.
     Putin's proposals in the Post are not all without merit:  he favors transparency in government and a system of checks over the executive power.  He also favors evolution of what Americans would call a type of federalism, with varying levels of budgetary and executive autonomy between city, region and national government.  But to a student of democracy, his proposals are too tidy by far.  Perhaps he should visit a sausage factory. Then, real democracy may not seem so bad after all.

The Bricks and Mortar of America

     Things have been very quiet lately in the national discourse regarding immigration.  Poll results this past week indicated it placed last among the currently hotly burning topics in the Republican debates, and that was one of the few references made to it in the national media. It's quite a contrast with just a month or two ago, and a welcome respite, though I'm sure it will return before the election.  It's somewhat unusual, since it's a topic Americans have argued over since the country was founded.
     Possibly the first debate over immigration policy was between Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who disagreed over the desirability of admitting the Scots-Irish; Franklin thought them dirty, unruly and prone to fighting, while Jefferson felt they had the adventurousness and vitality the new country needed.  Jefferson, and the country, won that one.
     Franklin and Jefferson were of course quite civil in their disagreement, but many American debates on the topic have been far below their standard. Nowadays, people from Arizona sheriffs to forrmer Massachusetts governors make clear their dislike of "illegal immigrants", and the discourse gets ugly.  When the heat starts climbing in discussions of which I'm a part, I like to cool it (sometimes) by commenting, "You know, I'm the descendant of a number of undocumented aliens, and proud of it." It tends to introduce a little more caution into the remarks made, and it's quite accurate.
     I've done a lot of genealogical drudge work over many years to discover that all branches of my personal family tree entered the country before 1820. That's a magic date in immigration policy, because that's the year America first began officially recording the entrance of immigrants into the country.   One of my ancestors was, probably, an English yeoman thrown off his land by the enclosure movement that began the industrial revolution; another a German cobbler perhaps escaping the draft, whose son became a scout for Andrew Jackson in the Choctaw wars; another was an Irish brawler, possibly running from the law; another a Scot, probably fleeing the English army after the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and so on.  You'll notice I say perhaps or probably a lot, for they were all undocumented, by definition, and glimpsible only faintly through the mists of history.  I also say escaped, fleeing and running a lot, because immigrants come to this country for a variety of reasons, not all of which necessarily include taking American jobs, though that happens.
      The Chairman of the Federal Reserve says we need millions of immigrants each year to take American jobs and support the economy.  That's among many rational reasons to support immigration, though we rarely debate the subject rationally.  We get only a fraction of the number needed "legally" because of immigration quotas (which began in 1920 from fears of "radical eastern europeans" after the Russian Revolution; the preferred alternative at that time were immigrants from Mexico, who were deemed hard-working and politically safe.)  The remaining immigrant influx we need comes  illegally and through all the other barriers immigrants have traditionally faced.  For it takes a lot of desperation and guts to take off with your family forever to an unknown land, particularly when that land makes clear you are not welcome.  A little known fact is that historically a third of those who come to America pursuing their dream, or running from their desperation, eventually turn around and go back, unable to live without their native land.  The beautiful Irish song, "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen", written in Chicago, provides a poignant reminder of that.
     They come as bricks, unable to speak the language, tied into close-knit communities of "aliens" who are suspicious of strangers, particularly strangers representing the kind of oppressive law they fled from in their native land, and anxious to handle any work available.  Their children or grandchildren acculturate into Americans like any others, move, intermarry, and become part of the mortar that ties America together.
      On a trip a few years ago to northern Italy, I discovered the great tension between northern  and southern Italians, that was leading some to talk of converting Italy into a confederation instead of a republic; our hosts noted that the tension came partly because Italians still are tied as much to their home city as to the country, and movement between north and south is limited.  Close-knit Scotland to this day includes a separatist movement that would love to see Scotland independent of England. In America, everyone has lived in or has relatives in every other part of the country and about 25% move each year.  That is the invisible bond that ties us together, and that is our inheritance from immigrant ancestors who moved anywhere they could, and ignored any barrier, to find a better life. To them and to their current incarnations we owe our gratitude.