Republicans worship Moloch. Denying children healthcare, despoiling the environment, their celebration of gun culture, their demand that we maintain a perpetual state of war – they worship Moloch.
Category Archives: Thought for the Day
Thought for the Day: January 9, 2018
David Brooks: Ball-Gargler to the Aristocracy
The Adjudication of Fairness
I’ve read a few commentaries which capture my thoughts on Sen. Franken, left-leaning popular opinion, and how Democrats dealt with him. Zephyr Teachout’s piece, I’m Not Convinced Franken Should Quit, is particularly well-stated:
Zero tolerance should go hand in hand with two other things: due process and proportionality. As citizens, we need a way to make sense of accusations that does not depend only on what we read or see in the news or on social media.
Due process means a fair, full investigation, with a chance for the accused to respond. And proportionality means that while all forms of inappropriate sexual behavior should be addressed, the response should be based on the nature of the transgressions.
Both were missing in the hasty call for Senator Franken’s resignation….
This isn’t just about Senator Franken. Other lawmakers have also been accused of harassment. We need a system to deal with that messy reality, and the current one of investigating those complaints is opaque, takes too long and has not worked to protect vulnerable women and men from harassment. And the current alternative — off with the head of the accused, regardless of the accusation — is too quick, too easily subject to political manipulation and too vulnerable to the passions of the moment….
As citizens, we should all be willing to stay ambivalent while the facts are gathered and we collect our thoughts. While the choice to fire the television hosts Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer were the choices of private companies, condemning a sitting lawmaker is a public choice and one our representatives should make judiciously.
Thought for the Day – November 16, 2016
What’s the threshold for expulsion from the Senate?
Article I, Section 5, of the United States Constitution provides that “Each House [of Congress] may determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”
Since 1789, the Senate has expelled only fifteen of its entire membership. Of that number, fourteen were charged with support of the Confederacy during the Civil War. In several other cases, the Senate considered expulsion proceedings but either found the member not guilty or failed to act before the member left office. In those cases, corruption was the primary cause of complaint.
Senators take an oath of office. Violating that oath is presumably grounds for expulsion but what about behavior prior to taking the oath? Should prior behavior be fair game?
If prior behavior is fair game then should only criminal convictions be considered or is allowable to consider socially-inappropriate but non-criminal behavior also?
If prior behavior is to be considered is the threshold for expulsion that the behavior in question violated the “will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies” portion of the oath or is there a different standard? If so then what is it?
Expulsion is extreme. What’s the threshold for demanding a Senator’s resignation? How is it different from expulsion and what’s the rationale for the particular differences?
Some history: Prior to an expulsion vote, Sen Williams resigned in 1982 for taking Abscam bribes while in office. Sen Packwood resigned in 1995 after allegations of sexual assaults committed while in office. Sen Ensign resigned in 2011 after disclosure of improprieties committed while in office.
Sen. Durenberger was censured in 1990 for financial improprieties while in office. He plead guilty to misuse of public funds in 1995. The most recent expulsions were in 1862 – as noted above, for supporting the Confederacy.
Please think hard about thresholds for expulsion and demanding a resignation. There’s no obligation to comply with precedent but be careful what you wish for. Whatever rules you come up with, be creative in imagining how others might choose to apply them.
Happy Labor Day
Thought for the Day – August 28, 2017
A person does not lightly elect to oppose his society. One would much rather be at home among one’s compatriots than be mocked and detested by them.
– James Baldwin
Thought for the Day – August 15, 2017
Remember that time LGBTQ people got together and plunged America into bloody civil war so they could own straight people as property? https://t.co/JTlKJGzIeC
— Tabatha Southey (@TabathaSouthey) August 15, 2017
No, I don’t either.
Thought for the Day – August 8, 2017
It’s remarkable to consider that there was a time not too long ago when the Grand Old Party was known for being serious, sober, a little boring, but above all, responsible. They were conservative in the traditional sense: wanting to conserve what they thought was good and fearful of rapid change. You might not have agreed with them, but there were limits to the damage they could do. The devolution from that Republican Party to the one we see today took a couple of decades and had many sources, but its fullest expression was reached with the lifting up of Donald J. Trump to the presidency, this contemptible buffoon who may have been literally the single worst prominent American they could have chosen to be their standard-bearer. I mean that seriously. Can you think of a single person who might have run for president who is more ignorant, more impulsive, more vindictive and more generally dangerous than Donald Trump? And yet they rallied around him with near-unanimity, a worried shake of the head to his endless stream of atrocious statements and actions the strongest dissent most of them could muster.
Thought for the Day – July 18, 2017
I read a piece in the NYT today on “pragmatic” Democratic governors. (The NYT reporter uses “pragmatic” and “pro-corporate” interchangeably where I don’t believe it’s justified, but I digress.) One of the governors interviewed was Steve Bulloch of Montana. I have a favorable impression of him but that’s beside the point. In the article, Bulloch was touting apprenticeships as an alternative to free college. I have a favorable view of paid apprenticeships as well as tuition- and fee-free public college. Vocational training is a good thing and it’s a good thing when people can use their college education to obtain gainful employment. That stated, it’s important not to regard college as high-level vocational training. The greatest value of higher education isn’t that it enables better employment opportunities, it’s that it advances Enlightenment values. Paraphrasing what I think is a spot-on description: The purpose of education is to help people to learn on their own. It’s the learner who is going to achieve in the course of education and it’s really up to them to determine how they’re going to master and use it. The greatest value of an education is that it fosters the impulse to challenge authority, think critically, and to create alternatives to the status quo. (I suspect that’s why so many Republicans don’t view college favorably.) Is college the only place where you can get that kind of education? No, but it’s a great opportunity for you to do so if you’re so inclined. Compared to life in the rest of the world, the barriers are low.