Plato and Aristotle on Tyranny: an Ancient Discussion of Modern Significance

 

Plato and Aristotle have differing viewpoints on tyranny; one sees it as a justified form of governance, while the other sees it as a “perversion”. While Plato justifies tyranny as evidence of a man’s ability to rule, Aristotle sees it as counter to the purposes of political association. Aristotle’s arguments against tyranny rely heavily upon his theory on the role of government and its proper end in promotion of virtue.

 

            As Plato sees things, tyranny is a justified form of government because cities are not comprised entirely of good men. (The Republic, pg 31, Jowett and Knight translation). This being the case, those seeking the first two forms of payment, money and honor, are the more likely to rule. Men who would truly regard the interests of their subjects first would also disdain the holding of office except to prevent the ruling by one who is worse. (The Republic, pg 31).  Based upon this, one can see that it would be better, in Plato’s view, to have one who was “the true artist”, seeking the betterment of all, or even self, rather than a collection of assorted interests competing for the various modes of payment. From tyranny comes order, whereas other forms of government sow chaos. Another justification for tyranny in Plato’s view is that the practitioner of any art must be adept at the skills antithetical to the art itself, as summed up nicely with the quote from Homer regarding Autolycus (pg 11) during the dialogue with Polemarchus. Thus, as the guardian most adept at theft is best to guard, so, too, the man most qualified to rule is the man most qualified to usurp a ruler. This also results in the idea that, in a tyranny, some form of merit has been demonstrated by the tyrant, whereas a monarch is born into his position without consideration to ability.

 

            Aristotle would argue Plato’s assertion on a number of counts. Aristotle directly attacks Plato’s Republic in many chapters, but the real dissension is shown in Aristotle’s general theory. Aristotle refers to tyranny as a perversion of rule due to its serving the interests of the ruler, as opposed to serving the interests of the ruled. Aristotle would also argue that tyranny defeats his concept of distributive justice, as explained in the heading for Politics, ch. 9, in which each person receives honors and office in accordance with his contribution to the good of the city. Tyranny also is of a lower form of rule, being that of master over slave, than is required for the political association of the city. Finally, tyranny defeats the nature of man. The purpose of political association is ever-increasing self-sufficiency and the realization of virtue or the good life; under any form of tyranny, this is impossible due to the ruler’s concentration on self-interest. Tyranny, Aristotle would argue, depends upon a perversion of rule that serves the interest of the ruler rather than of the subjects and creates a master to slave relation in rule that denies the purposes of political association. It also refuses to acknowledge Aristotle’s concept of distributive justice and further erodes the pursuit of the good life and virtue. These counts of Aristotle’s political theories are sufficient to show his disagreement with Plato without necessitating recourse to his direct attacks.

 

            The proper end of government, in Aristotle’s writing, is the pursuit of the good life. Aristotle arrives at this conclusion by going through the various forms and levels of association which human beings form and developing a hierarchy of political association. As Aristotle sees it, the association arises from the natural impulse of man to leave behind something like themselves. Starting with the association of male and female, Aristotle takes the reader through a series of expanding developments, family and village, to the sovereignty of the city or polis. The impulse, after the association of male and female, becomes that of increasing self-sufficiency, as indicated in his comments on the human associations that lead to the city. The height of self-sufficiency is reached in the political association of the city and the natural impulse changes form again to become the search for the good life. This good life might also be referred to as virtue, civic excellence, self-realization through community participation. No longer is the association’s primary goal self-preservation. The city represents the true nature of man as the natural mature development of his associations. From the city is man’s true nature revealed and derived. In the city, man is perfected and the best of animals, by virtue of association and the pursuit of the good life, while isolated from the city’s law and justice, he is the worst of animals. From this development of natural impulse toward association, man arrives in the political association of the city naturally impelled to pursue the good life which is Aristotle’s belief in the end of government. Government preserves man’s ability to associate and pursue his higher end, which is found within the association itself.

 

            In contrasting the perspectives of these two philosophers, one sees that they disagree on the topic of tyranny and the proper role of government in human affairs, Plato argues in favor of tyranny while Aristotle criticizes Plato’s work directly and indirectly, arriving at an entirely different conclusion. Ultimately, Aristotle’s argument rests upon his definition of the role of government. Aristotle sees government’s end as the preservation and promotion of the highest self-sufficiency and the pursuit of the good life.

Russian Social Change 1891-1932

Russia fundamentally changed between 1891 and 1932 when one looks at the cities and metropolitan areas. For the peasant in the countryside, the change was less significant, but also more greatly and persistently resisted. Although many cultural and intellectual landmarks and hallmarks were retained, and the Soviet people were still largely Russian people in their cultures, language and minds, the changes to the landscape were reflected in the popular life and mind. The stabilizing effect of logic, reason and atheism locked in certain artificially contrived ideas of nationality and ethnicity. In some respects, the change was to have a retarding effect upon the development of national culture as the Soviet sought to organize and homogenize the various ethnic components of Soviet society.

 

The old monarchy was removed and disposed of. This is arguable as a point of fundamental change because it can be said that the monarchy was displaced simply by a "Cult of Personality" with Lenin at its head. However, despite the apparent consistency of autocracy, as manifested in the leadership of Lenin and then Stalin, the mechanism of power exchange altered considerably. The Party may have replaced the royal family and tsarist bureaucracy in only a metaphorical sense, but the Party, at least in theory, if not always in practice, greatly increased the potential number of contenders for the ultimate leadership of Russia and eliminated the concept of hereditary rule.

 

Emancipation in a truer sense became the rule. With the inclusion of women in 1920, emancipation was extended to all, rather than to selected members of society during this period. One person, one vote became the rule. This counts, as a matter of popular perception, even if the only voting option was for or against the party. The effect of the perception of having a voice that could be heard forever changed the outlook of the people. The development of the unions and then the soviets within the factories and other workplaces gave people something of a voice in the conditions under which they worked, which had been a virtual impossibility in the years prior to the Bolshevist Revolution of 1917.

 

Direct participation in government and corresponding social mobility became possible for those willing to sell their soul (and family and friends) to the party. Upward social mobility through party participation becomes more possible in width and depth, than ever before. This mobility was broader based than the one experienced with the military, particularly the Army, during the Tsarist era due to its application to a broader segment of the populace. Then too, the upending effect of ongoing revolution provided the opportunities for one to have his or her moment where a single decision could alter the course of a previously obscure life.

 

In all of the foregoing, it appeared to the people that they at last had a voice within their government. On occasion, that voice was actually heard favorably. Naturally, when policy or directives were altered as a result of popular resistance or declaration, the Soviets took great pride in pronouncing its democracy and willingness to hear and deliver on the will of the people. Of course, in many ways, this was simply a political maneuver to maintain order and prevent counter-revolution, but the people became adjusted to the idea that their voice might be heard and acted upon.

 

It is in the period arising post-Revolution that the Industrial Revolution finally takes hold in Russia. Russia comes into the fold of modernity during this period, with its emphasis abruptly shifting from agricultural to industrial production. Under Stalin, this shift would be magnified as he sought to bring the Soviet Union to a position of industrial might comparable with the rest of the developed world. As in all things under his leadership, the Soviet Industrial Revolution was brutal and unconcerned with the needs, safety, or welfare of the individual. This move had two purposes. First, one couldn’t have a true socialist state without having a large proletariat, something that Russia did not possess prior to the Revolution, nor at the Soviet Union’s inception. Second, bringing industrial production up to competitive levels reduced the threat of being a socialist state surrounded by potential enemies while proving to the world that socialism could work.  Though the prevalent production was still agricultural in 1932, the inexorable move to industrial production had been accomplished and would consume the Soviet Union in the following ten years.

 

Economically, things were changed as the Soviets experimented with various combinations of controlled and market economies. The end result of these experiments was an economy of equality in poverty. Famine and lack of basic resources were the rule during this time. Socialism failed to produce anything equivalent to its promise in terms of general prosperity. The net result was a deprivation that the worst of Tsarist policies had not matched. The bulk of the population suffered equally, if somewhat differently, from the unresponsiveness and lack of foresight of a ponderous bureaucratic system.

 

The tsarist slogan of “Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and Nationality” gave way to Lenin’s “Bread, Peace, and Land” which proved even less fulfilled or fulfilling. The peasants were stripped of their family and communal lands in collectivization, a more “rational” approach to the problem of feeding the nation and fulfilling the requirements of socialist ideology. The process of collectivization reduced the amount of bread available, fostered a civil, class war in the countryside, and ruined much of the arable land then in use through mismanagement.

 

The peasants saw changes that were usually less substantial, but always more rigorously resisted, than the rest of the population. Though it might be argued that the switch from communal to collective farming was little more than a change in logistics designed to provide more for the working cities, the perception and the reality were far more brutal. Peasants resorted to exaggerated versions of long used tactics of flight, agitation, proclamation, demonstration, and outright revolt to prevent the destruction of the fabric of their lives and culture. Collectivization required the dislocation of families from land that was usually theirs through a system of heredity combined with allocation and compensation. The influence of the Church was reduced by socialist ideology and programs centered on logic and reason. Atheistic, linear thought processes were introduced and taught to the population, replacing the icons of the Church with those of the State. This in itself threatened peasant identity. Collectivization also eliminated most of the incentive system that traditionally kept farms productive. The peasants still worked the land, unlike those who had, voluntarily or not, gone to work in the industrial fields of the cities over the preceding decades. However, the way in which the peasants worked the land was completely altered in relation to the traditional peasant culture.

 

For women, in spite of emancipation, many things remained the same. Traditional views of the baba- a traditional endearment of women speaking to a mothering, nurturing, though generally incompetent outside of the home, role- retained most of their strength well into the 20^thcentury. By 1930, women’s sections, formed to address the particular needs of the woman in soviet society and the workforce, were disbanded with the simple declaration that their work had been accomplished. Though considerations for maternity and family matters had been legislated as a result of the efforts of the women’s sections, enforcement was typically lax and ineffective. The Russian woman was seen as little more than a tool, or a reserve resource, to be called upon in the interests of socialism when needed and otherwise ignored.

 

Finally, the Soviets purported to espouse the promotion of the various cultures represented within the Soviet Union. This, however, was more of an artifice that locked into acceptable, rational, pro-Soviet imagery the ever-evolving panoply that is cultural identity and reality. The circuses and such that developed froze these misrepresentations into microcosms that could be directly established and altered at the whim of the Party leadership. These faux depictions were rarely accurate, had a glaring propaganda bent to their performance and retarded, by way of promulgating ethnic stereotypes, the true and independent development of cultural identity in post-revolutionary Russia.

           

 

Many could dispute the entirety of this analysis for valid reasons. The Soviet Union, as the Russian Empire before it, saw an ever-increasing gap in real and realized income for the wealthy and the poor. A class system of party loyalists as aristocrats and the common people as serf laborers began to arise in the years following. A middle class of minor party officials established itself, replacing the bourgeoisie. All too frequently, Party positions in the lower ranks became hereditary in that the current official had great influence in naming his successor. Callous disregard for the lives and welfare of the populace in the interest of the country or its leadership hallmarked both eras. However, many, if not most, of the parallels that can be drawn to the Tsarist era came into focus after the period in discussion.

 

Battles of Cynthiana; History Re-written?

A year ago, I wrote a blog following my viewing of a re-enactment of Morgan’s Raid in Georgetown, Kentucky. The same group that performed that re-enactment is now planning a similar event in Cynthiana, Kentucky for the same time frame this year. They will be re-enacting the Battle of Cynthiana, in which John Hunt Morgan’s Kentucky Cavalry Brigade took part. If previous re-enactments in Georgetown are any indicator, they will not present history, but, rather, myth. The re-enactment in Georgetown was given a narration that extolled the virtues and valor of Confederate soldiers and politely suggested a passive racism that denied the true reason for the Civil War. I have sent e-mails to the listed addresses on the website for the Battle of Cynthiana. In these e-mails I asked if the re-enactments would depict truth and illustrate Morgan’s crushing defeat at Cynthiana and if they would present the revisionist deceit of the Civil War as a simple family dispute with no right or wrong at issue. I have received no reply.

The Battles of Cynthiana website can be accessed here:

http://www.geocities.com/morgansraid/

An accurate but brief description of the fight is on Wikipedia, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cynthiana

 

Having done some additional research in the intervening year, I have discovered that, leaving aside the falsehoods of Southern outrage and States’ Rights, the story of John Hunt Morgan and his Kentucky Cavalry Brigade is neither as honorable nor as courageous as its re-enactors would have one believe. The Kentucky Cavalry Brigade, like that commanded by that other false hero of Confederate cavalry, Nathan Bedford Forrest, focused its  military power on civilians and tiny garrisons, choosing, whenever possible, to flee actual Union battle formations. While sabotage, espionage, and logistical interdiction of opposing forces are all valid military operations, rape, pillage, hostage-taking, and murder of civilian populations are not; yet these latter more accurately describe the actions of John Hunt Morgan and the Kentucky Cavalry Brigade during the Civil War.

 

Expecting the same sort of tripe masquerading as history from the re-enactment of the Battles of Cynthiana as occurred at the Morgan’s Raid on Georgetown, I again share the analysis that I wrote last year. If the committee for the re-enactment chooses to contact me, I will have more to share.

 

Southern Revisionism

 

Two weeks ago, this writer attended the Morgan’s Raid festival/reenactment in Georgetown. This event celebrates or commemorates the raid of Confederate cavalry forces on the Georgetown area. Morgan’s Raid, as the event is popularly known locally, brings many questions to this writer’s mind. Many Kentuckians today feel compelled to claim Southern heritage, although Kentucky was overwhelmingly in favor of the North during the Civil War. Kentucky was a major, well-used and publicly known path for the Underground Railway into Indiana and Ohio; Kentucky’s legislature voted to remain with the Union and declared neutrality to keep Confederate forces from using Kentucky as a staging area for harassment of the North. At the end of the reenactment behind the Cardome in Georgetown, one of the senior characters announces for the crowd that the Civil War had no winners, that all were losers and that neither side was right or wrong, that the War was simply the result of political disagreement.

All of this calls into question the general American perception of the Civil War, and the efforts of nearly a century-and-a-half of Confederate/Southern sympathizers to re-draft the War as something more noble and socially acceptable than it was. Why would a state that went with the winning side claim allegiance to the loser after the fact? Why would primary and secondary history lessons claim falsely that the true issue behind the Civil War was States’ Rights, when in fact the War was fought over only one “States’ Right”- slavery? Jesse Helms used this same “States’ Rights” false argument to fight the Civil Rights Act, knowing full well that his true allegiance was to entrenched racism. Why would people align themselves behind a heritage based upon an ancient wrong and resistance to its demise? Why have I never, despite living in regions generally of Southern alignment for twenty-six years, met the great-great-grandson or -daughter of a Confederate private or NCO- they’re all at least captains? Why do people without Southern descent claim preference for Southern ideals? The short answers are revisionism and racism. American public school history seeks to integrate all of the American people, especially the whites, in a way that fails to point out the many failures of that majority in ethics, morality and law. American history textbooks have been written to minimize the evil perpetrated by the South in its continuation of a morally bankrupt economic system and its political and military efforts to protect that system.

Although Kentucky voted to not secede, it declared itself neutral in the military disputation of the Confederate secession from the Union. The Confederacy invaded Kentucky in September 1861 for the purpose of securing strategic ground for attacks along the Ohio River and pillaging civilian stores, while recruiting what few secessionist supporters they could locate. In all, only about 30,000 Kentuckians fought for the South, the largest single component being found in the Kentucky Cavalry Brigade. Otherwise, Kentuckians overwhelmingly fought for the Union, with approximately 70,000 enlisting in arms to oppose the South. The Kentucky Cavalry Brigade’s modern writers make the boast that, “it was never captured or surrendered in combat, and only voluntarily turned itself in to Federal authorities after discharging its last assigned duty..,” http://www.morgansraid.com/hostunit.html What is left out of this statement is the unit’s regular failures; except in attacks against civilians, the Kentucky Cavalry Brigade lost 80% of the time. In its raid through Indiana and Ohio in 1863, the brigade suffered over 2,000 prisoners taken out of a force of 2,462. It seems to this writer that someone certainly surrendered or was captured, including John Hunt Morgan himself. Morgan shortly escaped and later re-constituted his brigade, but that does not negate the defeat, surrender, and capture of the unit, and its leader, denied by modern supporters. Those who re-write or re-phrase history to favor figures and events in defiance of the facts are often called revisionists.

James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and Lies Across America, has detailed much of the story of the re-writing of American history for the purpose of being more Southern white-friendly. I strongly recommend these books to anyone whose understanding of US history was developed in the American public education system. In casting the history of the American south in more favorable light, textbooks bring a “human” element to the struggles of the South and elicit sympathy for the Confederate cause. Unfortunately, this “sympathy” is indiscriminate and even argues the issue of slavery as a necessary evil of the economic conditions in the South. Many American history texts present the Southern cause as a political disagreement over certain intangible ideas, such as States’ Rights and minimize the truth, seeking instead to present the South as a victim of circumstance and necessity. The Civil War becomes a sorrowful family dispute over incompatible ideologies in the history taught to the American student, and its participants should all be honored as noble men engaged in a horrific war for mutually noble but disparate ideals. Comparatively, to this writer, it would be every bit as reasonable to honor the Nazi’s and their conflict with the rest of the world over incompatible ideals. To many who contemporarily support the ideals of Southern heritage, there is no irony in that last sentence.

The history behind this revision is complicated and even involves a late-Nineteenth Century through mid-Twentieth Century world-wide pseudo-scientific trend. The antebellum South possessed three primary socio-economic classes of people: The plantation owner/farmer, the merchants and artisans, and the poor white subsistence farmer/laborer. These classes were unified by a couple of facts; they were white, and, usually, they could vote. The Reconstruction introduced former slaves into this mix, creating economic turmoil and an identity crisis within the old structure. Once prosperous plantation owners were now faced with shrinking profit margins as they were required to pay for labor if they wanted to remain in the business of agriculture. Poor whites now had to compete with freed slaves for work, as did, to a lesser extent, merchants and artisans, as many former slaves had been trained in the various trades during their time as plantation property. Into this situation, federal agents set about enfranchising former slaves and people of color, giving them their own voice in government for the first time. At the end of the Civil War, many plantation areas in the Deep South were predominantly black, meaning that the vote of former slaves greatly outnumbered that of the resident whites.

During post-Reconstruction, when the South was released from federal control, many of these whites sought to regain the power that they had enjoyed during the antebellum period. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan had been agitating for freedom from the “carpetbaggers” –Northern federal agents sent to oversee the pacification and reconstruction of the South- and for separation of the races in public venues and affairs. Reconstruction ended as a result of power shifts at the federal level and increasing interest in overall US economic health, among other considerations. Distracting matters on other fronts and increasing power of Southern politicians in federal office shifted federal focus from an as yet un-reconstructed South. At about the same time, western science began to embrace a theory that supported European colonization of the rest of the world. This new theory, based in part on Darwin’s observations, posited that the races were the products of evolution and that certain “genetic” characteristics determined the state of a person’s evolution. Naturally, this pseudo-science being promulgated within European colonial powers, the Caucasian was determined to be the most evolved of the races. With this “scientific” evidence, it became easy to denigrate the black and advance the old prejudices and agendas of the defeated South. By the 1920’s it had become unfashionable to discuss the Civil war as being a result of the issue of slavery, as it was no longer fashionable, thanks to great efforts by the Daughters of the Confederacy and related groups, to think of blacks as fully human. Herein lies the shift in teaching the Civil War as a conflict over issues other than slavery. Thanks to the teaching of the pseudo-science of eugenics, which has now morphed into social-Darwinism, the true catalyst for the Civil War was relegated to abstraction while the new embrace of whiteness unified the majority of Americans to more closely reflect the values and ideals of the South. The influence of these ostensibly civic organizations continues today, although their prominence has fortunately waned under the light of progress in race relations since the adoption of the Civil Rights Act.

Still, the impact of this revisionism, which shaded the lines of truth in American history texts for nearly a century, continues in the attitudes of Americans, particularly white Americans, with regard to the Civil War and its results. Emancipation was not an unanticipated sideline result of the war- it was a pre-determined, if unannounced, outcome of Union victory. States’ Rights and self-determination were not the root causes of the Civil War, as the South based those arguments upon one issue alone: the continuation of slavery. The fact of this is observed quite clearly in the violence, criminality and hatred shown by the South towards people of color after its release from federal supervision under Reconstruction. Quite simply, racism is the root behind the Civil War and the revision of American history to cast the South in more favorable light. No right or wrong? This writer thinks otherwise. No winners or losers? What about those freed? All of them Americans? Americans believe in equality under the law. In truth, the Civil War was only the first fight over Southern racism; the South lost the second with the adoption of the Civil Rights Act.

 

Response to Pat foley's Opinion Piece in Georgetown News-Graphic

Attempts at Influence in Georgetown, KY

The article which sparked this response can be found at: http://www.georgetownnews.com/articles/2009/04/26/opinion/doc49f237f637a81074540100.txt

In the article, Georgetown, KY's former City Attorney, Pat Foley, alleges that Georgetown's City Employees, particularly those of the Police and Fire Departments still haven't realized the need for economy in their departmental budgets. The departments have postponed all new big-ticket equipment purchases and resorted to maintenance as opposed to replacement otherwise. Their have been severe, even dangerous, lay-offs. Individual officers and firefighters are now responsible for a larger than ever portion of their insurance costs.

In 2006, Georgetown, KY employed nearly 60 officers, it now fields 37; Georgetown's recommended police strength is 50. In 2006, Georgetown's average officer's experience was 15 years; today it is 5. There is current talk of reducing the city's share of police insurance by 10%, with the officers picking this up. For a third year officer with a spouse and two children, this would result in the officer's insurance costing 34% of his gross pay.

Georgetown's firefighters have suffered similar losses and are also encouraged by Pat Foley to give up more.

Pat Foley is a member of one the larger property owning families in Georgetown. Most of this property is investment property, earning profits for Pat and her family. Pat foley wants to see Georgetown's budget slashed to the point that an increased real property tax will not occur. Interestingly, the real property tax in Georgetown is 1/3 that of the surrounding county and nearby towns. Realistically, the real property tax could be doubled in Georgetown and entirely solve the budget problems while retaining competitiveness in relation to local tax rates.

Pat Foley also became the City Attorney in January, 2007, coming in with a new Mayor. Interestingly, the scandal of the Suffoletta Aquatic Park, mentioned briefly in my response below, was set into motion just as Pat Foley suddenly and unexpectedly left her position with the city in the Summer of 2007, citing the ubiquitous "family issues". The Suffoletta Water Park is the single event that pushed the city's budget woes over the brink. Employment levels, general expenditures, payroll; none of these caused the current deficit. The abuse, fraud, and waste that haunted the water park's planning and construction is the undisputed cause.

And now that I have provided some background, I now provide my response:

Over the course of the past year of my residence here in Georgetown, I have heard many farcical, fallacious, preposterous, and unsound arguments presented in the City Council Chamber and read as many in the pages of the Georgetown News-Graphic.

I find it interesting that the voice calling loudest for the city employees to do their share in alleviating Georgetown’s budget woes is a former city official who left immediately after city budget problems were fixed as a soon to be sure thing.

The city employees are not responsible for the city’s economic turmoil; the city government is; yet this voice calls for accountability where responsibility does not rest. Why does this voice continually call for others to fix problems that seem to be linked to her time as City Attorney?

In Pat Foley’s stated opinions, it seems that she is willing to see small businesses fail, crime rates increase, and the city burn so that she and hers don’t have to pay more in taxes. Pat Foley has continually called for others, usually less well off than her, to make sacrifices in order that she and hers, being large property owners in Georgetown, not have to make sacrifices of their own. Also, her calls for cuts have thus far always focused on the productive rather than the administrative end of city payrolls. Could her aim be to slash city spending to the point where the realistic and very necessary increase in real property taxes not be realized? The pattern of Ms. Foley’s lobbying indicates a real and concerted effort to shift the burden of the city’s financial woes onto narrow groups such as local restaurants and city employees, while ignoring the very real need to distribute the burden as equitably as possible. A doubling of the current real property tax, for city property owners, would cost the average Georgetown homeowner approximately $50-$75 per year, an individual pittance compared to her proposals, but a much more equally distributed burden. Yet this fairer and more agreeable increase would satisfy the city’s increased revenue need in one stroke.

This city cuts its police presence while its gang signs increase. Outside of City Hall, I have not been in a Georgetown public restroom that has not been “tagged” by gang organizations. Now I hear a call for additional cutbacks in the agencies that protect this community. Regarding public safety, payroll has been harmed enough. Do not further endanger this community with further cuts in the police and fire protective services. While the best personnel can and will bring success with less than perfect equipment, the best equipment in the world is meaningless in untrained or unwilling hands. There is absolutely no sane reason for talking about further cuts into protective services’ payrolls. Doing so is tragically irresponsible.

We all know, or should, that the city’s budget problems stem from one singular event: the Suffoletta water park. If the city had not overpaid for that project, there would be no budget crisis. Speaking of the water park; when a $2million project costs $7million it is practically a given that someone received a kickback- the question is who?

Bagram Airbase, habeas corpus, and State Secrets

Another complication in foreign policy for President Obama has been the non-status of those detained in Afghanistan at Bagram Airbase. Technically, assertions made by both this and the previous administrations that the facility is in a war zone and therefore exempt from habeas corpus are legally correct. The problem for the policy lies in the fact that there are people detained at Bagram whose captivity did not originate in Afghanistan, nor did these detainees come to be incarcerated as a result of combat related activities. Under these two conditions, the assertion for denial of habeas corpus becomes suspect. US District Judge John D. Bates on April 2^nd ruled that for those not taken as a direct consequence of local combat-related activities habeas corpus should and will apply. There are at least three detainees at Bagram for whom this ruling applies. The administration and the military must take care in the use of the Bagram facility. If it seems that Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition policies are simply shifted to Bagram, then the campaign promises of President Obama have meant nothing. If the Obama administration fails in this, then the Republicans and conservatives will be able to re-coup their recent losses and re-establish their failed policies and War of Terror upon the world.

 

As I have written previously, the current administration’s continuance of slightly revamped Bush policy in counterterrorism activities is worrisome. Closing Guantanamo as an extra-territorial holding facility and ending secret prisons, supposedly already done in 2006, are great improvements, as is the executive order banning the use of harsh interrogation methods. But it seems there is something of a disconnect in the overall Obama reorganization. It seems in some ways that Obama is paying lip-service to the promise of reform in the execution of the War on Terror.

 

Claiming State Secrets in refusing to disclose information to United Kingdom courts over a matter of lawsuit brought by an admittedly wrongly imprisoned former detainee is also troubling. Although defense of the US against lawsuits and preservation of National Security secrecy are parts of the President’s responsibilities, this matter could have been handled with better response than a flat out denial. The UK court could have received sufficiently redacted evidence that would still have allowed the individual’s case to proceed. This is the government’s responsibility as in the original case, the US acted as prosecutor/accuser in asserting its right to hold the man. The UK case is not isolated; across the world there are hundreds of cases in which the current administration has claimed State Secrets in lawsuits alleging abuse, wrongful detention and extraordinary rendition. In many instances, it seems that judges have begun to side with those abused by Bush-era policy in the War on Terror. Many of these judges were Bush appointees, so there may be something of a political play in ruling against the Obama administration’s stance, but, then again, some of these rulings were made before the inauguration, but still after the election. The potential political dimension of this should encourage the current administration to drop the State Secrets claim and provide useful redacted documentation, if merely to blunt charges of continuing opacity.

 

Of course, full compliance with requests for release of even redacted documents produces another problematic situation. Reparations are necessary for those aggrieved through wrongful detention and other legacies of the Bush administration. Those wrongfully and illegally taken up in the War on terror are entitled to compensation for the many violations enacted upon them. However, successful litigation opens the door for more litigation and threatens a floodgate of legitimate and illegitimate suits. The potential cost to the US government is in the millions, easily.

 

These positions which President Obama has taken are not helpful to the improved image that he seeks for America to project. But, many on the Democratic side of the American political fence miss the complications inherent with true transparency when dealing with foreign and national security policy. Though I am somewhat disappointed with everything I have discussed here, I realize a few things that many on the left may have missed. I don’t have all the facts, and I’m not sure that I can call the administration wrong. It appears that all of these policy similarities run counter to what I expected from President Obama, but there are certain elements of these decisions over which I will never, and rightfully so, receive sufficient information to make the call. Most on the left are in the same position; they simply do not have enough information to have an informed opinion. An uninformed opinion as is useful and fact-based as a Rush Limbaugh diatribe. If we are to move forward, there are some areas where we are going to need to exhibit trust, but always with a healthy dose of skepticism. President Obama has already done much to restore the rule of law in prosecuting the War on Terror. He has strengthened our international relations and helped bolster our flagging reputation in the community of nations. Despite all the flap over bank bailouts, the market is beginning to show signs of recovering from its freefall. From these observations, I am able to suggest trust, but I still retain vigilant skepticism on anything where government’s actions seem suspect.

 

Here are some questions I ponder that help me query these and other events and policies:

 

What is there about this issue that I don’t know?

What is there that, for security reasons, I will never know?

Are the security reasons valid?

How is my personal bias affecting my judgment?

Is there something that is unmentioned but obvious?

Why is it unmentioned?

Is the unmentioning deliberate or accidental?

Again, why?

How do I rationally justify my position?

In all of this, I should mitigate my passion with reason and my reason with compassion.

 

 

President Obama: torture Revisited

President Obama has recently announced that he is open to the idea of investigating and ultimately prosecuting Bush administration officials who gave support to justifications and the policies that permitted the use of torture. This announcement comes after weeks of mainstream protest over Obama’s earlier announcement of seeking answers but not necessarily prosecutions for the individual agents and operators who actually conducted the enhanced interrogation techniques authorized by the Bush administration. The original statement on amnesty for torturers was vague enough to allow Obama to shift the focus to the leadership of the torture justification hierarchy in the face of the public resistance to the idea of simply letting people go.

In looking to the future, as Obama has stated he wants his administration to do, one must often times engage the past. This was demonstrated in post-WWII Germany and the Nuremberg Trials. When one wants to make a clean break with the past, it is necessary to address and prosecute the abuses of the past to ensure prevention for future generations. This is what the law, both domestically and internationally, has come to tell us; and it is rightly what we as a people now expect. This isn’t some knee jerk reaction to the headiness of obtaining power; it is the rightful and necessary reconciliation of what the US stands for, legally and philosophically, and how the Bush administration abused those principles. It is must never be allowed that the government servant’s immunity from civil litigation as a consequence of job-related actions be translated into criminal immunity. It must also never be allowed that governmental service at high level proscribe efforts at prosecution in such an obvious case of abuse of fundamental legal and ethical principles. Finally, it must not be allowed that high office be a shield against investigation and prosecution for criminal abuse of the law, as this abrogates the principle of equal protection under the law and declares privileged protection.

There are many reasons for Obama to prefer not opening this door, regardless of what he may have said on the campaign trail. There are ramifications for the Presidency and governance in general in holding the previous officials accountable for their actions. Some of the ramifications are becoming visible in the GOP’s admittedly weak call for investigation, not only for the responsible chain of command, but also for legislators, including many Democrats, who had knowledge of the interrogation procedures through their membership in various intelligence committees and sub-committees. Another worry is that the precedent set would possibly permit the later introduction of wholly partisan investigations and prosecutions over trivialities. It is possible, that, if not carefully managed, the prosecution of former Bush administration officials over the abuses of human and civil rights under the various War on Terror policies, subsequent administrations may be victimized by out of office partisan witch hunts. Fear of partisan retribution for later administrations has been part of the reason for the new administration’s reluctance to fully engage the issues of War on Terror- justified abuse of foreign and American laws as well as citizens and their rights.

No less an authority than John McCain, tortured himself in Vietnam, has claimed that Bush era enhanced interrogation techniques constitute torture. Though senator McCain’s torture was more physically and mentally egregious and dangerous than the recent US policy provided for, his opinion on this matter counts. He personally understands that all of these techniques are damaging to the dignity and integrity of people, and that such methods are not acceptable practice for a nation of law. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines torture as: a) anguish of body or mind b) something that causes agony or pain. This is their primary definition. The policies of the Bush administration meet these criteria. The Geneva Convention Against Torture defines torture in Part 1, Article 1: “For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.” Here too, the Bush policies meet the criteria. Whether the “enemy combatants” fit the role of Enemy Prisoners of War or not is a non-argument. The US has laws prohibiting torture of anyone; there is absolutely no body of writing or law which can be used to justify the actions conducted under the Bush administration. Attempting to conduct illegal and deplorable acts outside of US territory is still punishable by US law. And as the decisions to permit these acts were made on US territory, in Washington, DC, then there is certainly jurisdictional authority.

The United States has a legal, moral, and ethical obligation to prosecute those responsible for these abuses. There is absolutely no way around this fact, and President Obama must lay aside fears of future retribution to ensure against acts of future violation. As Shepard Smith said, emphatically and repeatedly, “This is America, we don’t torture!” It is against everything we are, and if even a former President must go to prison over it, then let the law prevail.

H-P/Compaq Disappoints

Okay, I’m back to writing after an absence enforced by injury compounded by the crash of my “reliable” computer. I attribute the bulk of this hiatus to the unreliability and poor performance of both H-P/Compaq products and service. This laptop suffered a fatal hard drive lock up just two months off warranty and after less than a year of actual use. That the lock up was physical indicates that the problem was the result of manufacturer’s defect. My brother is licensed to work on Compaq products, but their service center never replied to him regarding the acquisition of the “tattoo” code necessary to match a new hard drive to the motherboard. So, he sent this machine to a shop, and they it took three weeks to resolve the issues. Because of these issues, occurring little more than a year after original purchase, I will not ever again purchase an H-P/Compaq product other than ink for my current printer. And I will not recommend that anyone else do so either. I am seriously considering a total conversion to Apple, as Hewlett-Packard products are so ubiquitous to the Microsoft platform.