The Ugly Un-American: Tough Minded, Decisive, Morally Clear and Wrong
Posted by Ray Church on 09.07.2006
New Bat-time, same Bat-channel, welcome to the first Wednesday edition of the Ugly Un-American, where we look at moral simplicity, have a battle if wits with an unarmed man and, of course, this weeks shut the hell up award.
One of my favourite programs on TV recently has been the BBC series "Child of Our Times", which follows the development of a dozen or so millennium babies and their families year by year. The children, at 6 years old, come from a wide variety of religious, financial and ethnic backgrounds, and are tested in a variety of ways to see how and why they are different.
One piece that interested me in particular was their look at morality, and how that develops differently in children. I couldn't help but watch one child, raised in a fundamentalist Christian family, and think of how much she explained the Bush administration.
On the first test, things went easily for her. She was able to see the difference between an intentional action and an accidental one. The second was also easy, as she was able to identify the more severe of two wrongs; punching is worse than yelling, stealing is worse than being impolite.
Her explanation as to how she knew the difference was also telling. She believed that "(she) might no go to heaven, (she) might go to the other place" if she did the wrong thing.
It was only when she got into more complicated moral choices that she got into trouble. In the third test she was given a jar filled with small balls and asked to move them from the jar to a plate using a spoon. The spoon was entirely inappropriate for the task. No one, not even an adult, would be able to do the task. So instead, she used her hands, an entirely logical proposition to the task.
The difficulty is what came next. Faced with having to admit that she had broken the rules, she chose to lie. Her simplistic moral structure, which served her well in the first two tests, failed her entirely in the third test. Following the rules was more important to her than telling the truth. The moral question became too complicated for her.
Seeing this, I couldn't help but draw immediate parallels between this and the Bush Administration.
Moral Simplicity
It is one thing to be certain Mr. President, but you can be certain and wrong
John Kerry, 2004 Presidential Debates
Understand, before all else, that I am not saying these traits come from Christianity. I would say they are indicative of fundamentalism, as the simplistic "because the bible tells me so" approach leads to moral simplicity. "Things are bad because the bible says so, and things are good because the bible says so, and there is no debating that".
The most famous example of Bush's moral simplicity would be his famous declaration, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists". This same simplistic view has again come to the forefront in recent weeks, especially from Donald Rumsfeld.
But some seem not to have learned history's lessons. . . . Can we truly afford to believe that, somehow or some way, vicious extremists could be appeased?
Rumsfeld has boiled the debate down to two possible answers, you either appease the extremists or you don't. If you don't, therefore, you must do what the Bush Administration is doing.
Yes, all of this could be explained away as political manipulation as well (as I'm no doubt it is), but we're investigating the mindset behind the argument, not the purpose of the argument, so let's carry on.
The place of America is critical in the Administrations morally simplistic world. Bush often confuses what America should stand for with what it does stand for. In the 2004 presidential debates, for example, he unleashed this sparkling piece of wisdom.
Our healthcare system is the envy of the world.
If you don't see what is wrong with this statement, trust me, foreign readers throughout the world are laughing at this right now. Although American's rank first in healthcare spending, it ranks 48th in life expectancy, as well as one of the lowest child immunisation rates in the world (102nd). No, we do not envy your healthcare. And for the record I am living in a country with one of the highest life expectancies in the world…
Similar statements can be seen in his view of torture ("The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example."), foreign policy ("we spoke for the rights of dissidents and the hopes of exile"), his view of WMD's ("Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction") and its place in the world ("America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world").
In fact, this last comment keeps coming up again and again, and yet few people question it. From a 2001 joint session with congress.
They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other
And more recently, in the past week.
This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation
Although a number of people rightfully took him to task about the Islamic fascists comment, it was a critique by Juliette Kayeem, while appearing on "Countdown with Keith Oberman" that put the second part of the sentence in focus for me.
It is misleading to think that Al-Qaeda is hostile only to Democracy. If that were true it wouldn't have launched attacks on Saudi Arabia or Jordan, those are monarchies, or Pakistan or Egypt, Military Dictatorships.
Another moment recently saw Bush say this.
The lack of freedom in that region helped create conditions where anger and resentment grew and radicalism thrived, and terrorism found willing recruits
Which begs the question: Why did the last bunch of terrorists that were defeated before their plans could come to fruition come from Britain? Surely there is freedom in Britain? Moral simplicity dictates that all points on a page should be connected with a single straight line. Freedom, on its own, does not prevent terrorism. America itself has created some 16 domestic terrorist groups. Bush has created a simple equation, America=Freedom, which forces a misunderstanding of the issues at hand.
The equation has become even more simplified, down to the most basic equation. The Bush Administration = good, therefore anyone who opposes the Administration=bad.
The rest of the administration follows this lead. Cheney presents the strict dichotomy between good and bad regularly, when talking about Guantanamo ("the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people. I mean, these are terrorists for the most part."), electing democrats ("if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again") and the Iraqi's view of America ("I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators"). It can be seen in Rumsfeld's attitude towards WMD's ("We know where they [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.") and his appraisal of Iraq ("here is a country that's being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they're free").
When their moral simplicity comes back to haunt them, they go into denial mode. Like the child from the BBC show that started my thought process, the Administration denies their former statements. Remember Katrina (Bush: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach in the levees"), Cheney's "liberators" comment ("Well, I think we have by most Iraqis. I think the majority of Iraqis are thankful for the fact that the United States is there, that we came and we took down the Saddam Hussein government."), linking Iraq to 9/11 (Cheney: "I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11"), about the strength of the insurgency (Cheney: "I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered."), Roving Wiretaps (Bush: "any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order") and Osama Bin Laden (Bush: "I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations").
Perhaps the most simplistic view in the administration has already left, namely John Ashcroft. His resignation was filled, not with optimism, but fulfillment. "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." His view of those who question the administration: Traitors. "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil." And his view of America: Messianic, "Unique among the nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And because we have understood that our source is eternal, America has been different. We have no king but Jesus."
Heaven, Hell and All that Lies Between
Those words sound familiar, as they bring us back to where we are today. The last week has seen a slew of attacks by the Bush administration, linking Al-Qaeda to the Nazis and drawing parallels between dissent and Nazi appeasers. Everything lies in black and white, for and against, right and wrong.
This is a naturally evolution from the theology of heaven and hell. The theology behind the Judeo-Christian concept of heaven and hell is binary. At the end of your life you are judged and either sent to heaven or sent to hell. In Catholic theology there was purgatory, but that has since been removed from the books. There is a comfort in this theology, a certainty. If you know that people are either good or evil, you know it doesn't take too much effort to judge someone. You know that if your intentions are good (and you ask to be saved), you will go to heaven.
This certainty can be helpful. I can't speak for George Bush, but I know of people who used that certainty to help them overcome terrible addictions and afflictions.
The devil, as they say, lies in the details. You may have noticed that I have used the terms moral certainty and moral simplicity interchangeably. Adherents to these values would talk of moral certainty, but to me it seems like arrested development, where someone's understanding of morality remains frozen from their childhood. As a teacher we talk a lot about different "intelligences", how people are more talented in some fields than others. I wonder if morality is a form of intelligence, the ability to make ethical and moral decisions of a complex nature.
These binary ways of looking at the world hamper our ability to understand the world, and have hampered the Bush Administrations ability to take ethical action in the middle of complex moral decisions.
"Shut the Hell Up" Award
So many choices, and the administration delivered a dozen or so noteworthy comments this week, but as I devoted the column to them lets looks elsewhere.
Instead, I decided to look at the outing of Armitage as the first source of the link of Valerie Plame's identity. I could have sworn I saw this on Scarborough Country, but having been unable to find it I turn to Hannity and Colmes, this time it's Rich Lowry who decides to open fire on the truth.
Rich, let me start with you. Joe Wilson, let's look at his record here. He lied or was misleading about what he actually found in Niger. He lied or was misleading about whether Dick Cheney had sent him on a mission. He lied or was misleading about whether his wife had any role in sending him on this trip. And finally now we see that his central theory in the case, that this was an evil White House conspiracy to smear him and his wife, is also false.
Armitage was mentioned a few weeks back as the probable source of the leak and now it has been confirmed. As much as Lowry would like to trump this as the final victory, however, there are far too many inaccuracies for this to be the final word.
1) Wilson was not sent by his wife, he was recommended by his wife. His wife had no authority to send him "on a junket" as has been claimed.
2) Yes, Armitage released his name, but he got that name from Scooter Libby, now indicted for perjury because of this case.
3) Rove also released Plame's name to the press, but this seems to have been forgotten.
4) There is no mention of the newspaper Cheney circled indicating that he believed that Wilson was sent on a junket by his wife.
Am I as sure as I was that there was a conspiracy to get Wilson? No. But am I still waiting to hear a proper answer as to why so many other things would line up against Wilson at the same time. You bet I am.
Short Shot: Taking Josh White out to the Woodshed
I wanted to let it die. I wanted to "cut and run" as Josh White described it, but he had to go and have the last word, so I have to take him out to the woodshed and give him a right good thrashing.
Mr. Ray continued our ongoing discussion of Joe Rivett's poll concerning WMDs in Iraq. However, instead of telling me how I'm wrong he said that we should "move on." My response: just like a raging liberal to not see the fight to the finish. Instead he cuts and runs. That really is "Un-American."
Actually, I didn't continue it, hence the use of the words "move on", and what Mr. White didn't tell you is that I sent him a short email after our last columns pointing out four or five things I felt he misrepresented in his last column and invited him to talk about it in private. Having not done that, I am responding to his latest comments in a much more public forum.
So, for those keeping count, pieces of misinformation presented by Mr. White so far: 2 (I continued the discussion and I cut and run, notice the inherent contradiction in the two statements.
Continuing to pick on Ray Ray...he gives this week's "STHU" award to Sean Hannity for employing the strawman argument against Michael Brown. I have no problem with Ray criticizing Hannity. Good on him. If we are going to say thing someone's arguments are wrong, we should actually attack the argument. We shouldn't change what the person said and then discuss that version. It's the person's ideas that are important, not his opponent's warped version of it. Further, another form of fallacy is called ad hominem. This is where you claim that someone's arguments are wrong because the person making the argument is flawed in some way. If you want to claim that there is something wrong with Republicans (and not just individual ones, Republicans as a whole) then you cannot just give single examples of silly things that they have said. You have to attack their political, ethical, legal arguments. To do otherwise is just as flawed as using the strawman.
OK, to rebut this one.
Firstly we need to look at what ad hominem means. Ad hominem literally means "argument against the person". It means attacking the person instead of the argument. Reduced to a math equation it looks like this:
Person A = "Stupid" therefore Argument from Person A = "Stupid"
You see this in politics in this form.
Person A = "Liberal" therefore Person A cannot be trusted, or is immoral, or a traitor.
If I was guilty of Ad Hominem, my math equation would look something like this.
Repulicans are stupid therefore we should not listen to them
You get the picture.
My argument looked like this.
Republican representatives have recently made controversial statements in public.
These statements Reinforce public stereotypes about the Republicans.
Republican leadership has not taken sufficient control of the situation.
Therefore the Republican leadership is stupid.
Now, I might have accepted it if Josh White had argued that I have been guilty of Metonymy (representing the whole by presenting a small portion), or argued that it is not place of the Republican leadership to censor their party, or that the stereotypes are not intrinsically harmful to the party, but he did not argue that.
For the record, the strongest argument against mine would be that it is not the job of the leadership to censor their representatives, which is fine, and that they have withdrawn support for Katherine Harris, in part due to her PR problems, which is also fine.
But if you're going to try and smack me down, make sure you come with an argument that can be sustained.
The Section Formerly Known as Pimping
OK, got to pimp Crow for putting Mr. White in his place. Not a bad column in its own right, by the way, but my ego needed to mention me first.
Mr. Easley's Political Universe this week is a great read. I'm left to wonder why anyone would think there's a left wing bias. The right have some stalwarts, but other than Colmes, Stewart and Oberman, who could be confused as a liberal out there?
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