Category: Politics

 

By Modern-Day Debate, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=151424337

American racists are a diverse group of people who are divided by their views on racism. One area of division is the sincerity of a person’s professed racism. Some racists are no doubt opportunists who do not sincerely and deeply believe in racism, they merely take advantage of it. Other racists are true believers. While racists do question the sincerity of other racists, much of the analysis of sincerity comes from outside these circles. For example, commentators in the media often seemed to agonize over the issue of whether Donald Trump is a racist or merely an opportunist. One the one hand, this can be seen as unimportant. After all, from the standpoint of those harmed by racism it hardly matters whether the racist is a true believer or an opportunist. To use an analogy, if someone robbed you, you would presumably not agonize over or even care whether the thief held a deep and sincere belief in being a thief. What matters is the harm they did to you. On the other hand, the sincerity of a racist is relevant in assessing them morally and can have some practical consequences. In terms of moral assessment, a case can be made that the opportunist is worse, since they are adding dishonesty to their moral crimes. In practical terms, an opportunist would abandon their professed racism when it was no longer advantageous. A second realm of division among American racists is the degree of racism they embrace.

While it is often claimed that everyone is a little bit racist, there is significant diversity in the degrees of racism people embrace. A very mild racist might feel superior to others while professing to be appalled at even the suggestion that people should be harmed solely because of their race. At the other extreme are those who engage in genocide and ethnic cleansing. The United States has a history of ethnic cleansing and it is not unreasonable to consider that the current administration’s immigration practices are aimed at this goal. However, there is disagreement on the right as to what degree of racism is acceptable.

The murder of Charlie Kirk created an influence vacuum that Nick Fuentes seems to be endeavoring to fill. In the process, Fuentes has set off what some commentators are calling a civil war of the right. This dispute centers over the next two areas of division. One is the extent to which the right should be openly racist. The historical shift from open racism to dog whistles and code words is often described as the Southern Strategy. The essentials of this strategy are best presented in the words of Lee Atwater:

 

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

 

While open racism obviously never went away, modern mainstream racists embraced this approach, using dog whistles and code words. Trump’s election and especially his re-election helped rewind the Southern Strategy as people shifted back from dog whistles and code to being more open about their racism. Fuentes, who has been moving into the mainstream, is noteworthy for expressing his views directly, without euphemisms or employing dog whistles.

The other dispute is over who should be considered White. Nick Fuentes is Mexican American and he seems to regard himself as White, though others on the right might take issue with his view. There is also conflict over whether Indian Americans (with connections to India) count and Fuentes has attacked JD Vance because he is married to Usha, whose parents are Indian immigrants.  But a big fight that seems to be dividing American racists is the question of whether Jews should be considered White.  Tucker Carlson is credited with bringing this division into the national spotlight by interviewing Fuentes.

As Nick Fuentes has openly expressed his antisemitic views, he would presumably regard someone like Stephen Miller as not being White. After all, Stephen Miller is from a Jewish family that emigrated from Eastern Europe.  Others on the right profess to reject antisemitism or at least express support for Israel.

As a relevant aside, antisemites can support Israel for a variety of reasons, though this might strike some as bizarre. One reason can be that they favor ethno-states and endorse Jewish people leaving the United States and going to Israel. Another is for religious reasons, because they see Israel as playing an important role in the end times. There can also be purely pragmatic reasons involving Israel’s strategic importance as an American ally. But back to the main topic.

This fight on the right shines a light on the historical fact that being White is a matter of convention rather than a metaphysical reality. To illustrate, consider how the Irish and the Italians became White after being subject to virulent racism from Whites in America. It might strike some as odd that Irish and Italians would be considered non-White and subject to attacks from White racists. After all, one might say, the Irish and Italians look white in those old photos from back when they were not White. But as history shows, being White is not a matter of looking white but being accepted as White by those who are already accepted as being White. This acceptance is, obviously, not a matter of a vote and not all the established Whites accept new whites as White at the same time (or even ever). For the Irish and Italians, it was a gradual and uneven process, and some prejudices and derogatory terms persist.  

The history of Whiteness in America also shows that the right is inclusive and progressive, albeit at a slower rate and with a different style than the American left. In general, the American left has professed to embrace inclusion not by expanding who they accept as acceptable by allowing more people to be White. Rather, they profess to accept people as people. In contrast, the right tends to accept a broader definition of what it is to be White, thus becoming more inclusive. To be fair and balanced, there are those on the right who profess to embrace inclusivity and reject racism, although this seems to often be limited to non-Whites who happen to be in the upper economic classes or share their right-wing ideology. As an extreme example, Nick Fuentes claims to be good friends with Kanye West and they have appeared together with Kanye sporting a giant swastika on a chain.  As a less extreme example, Clarence Thomas has long been accepted by the mainstream right. The fight, then, is over how inclusive the right should be in terms of accepting people as White and which individuals should be accepted even if they are not White. The current main fight, as noted above, is over antisemitism and this is dividing the right. Because antisemitism has historically been embraced by the right and remains strong in the United States, it remains to be seen whether the right will embrace inclusivity or whether the traditional racists will win this fight.

The United States, like all societies, suffers from many ills. This includes such things as mental illness, homelessness and drug addiction. There are many ways that these problems could be addressed. Unfortunately, the usual approach has been to try to “solve” them by law enforcement and criminalization. I will briefly consider the failures of this approach in these cases.

In the 1980s there was a major shift in America’s approach to mental illness: in the name of fiscal savings, the mentally ill were released from the hospitals into the community. One major impact of this was an increase in the number of homeless people. 20-25% of the homeless suffer from severe mental illness, compared to 6% of the entire population. The mentally ill who are homeless, as one might suspect, are usually not treated. People with untreated severe mental illnesses often behave in ways that the public finds problematic, which often leads to their being arrested and imprisoned. Prisons are ill-equipped to deal with the mentally ill and mainly serve to warehouse such people until they serve their sentences. Having a criminal record makes matters worse and makes it more likely they will simply be returned to prison and remain untreated, thus creating a cruel cycle which offers little chance for escape.

The criminalization of mental illness has not solved the problem and has made it worse. As such, it is a failure if the goal was to help people. It has not helped treat people and the cost of operating mental health institutions has been replaced with the cost of maintaining prisons. There are those who profit from this system; but it costs society dearly.

It is also a moral failure. On utilitarian grounds, it is morally wrong because it has increased rather than decreased unhappiness. For moral systems that focus on obligations to the wellbeing of others (such as the version of Christianity that embraces the parable of the good Samaritan), this approach is also a moral failure. As such, criminalizing mental illness has proven a resounding failure.

While mental illness leads many to the streets, America’s economic system also makes people homeless. Many unhoused people end up that way due to being bankrupted by medical expenses. Since the homeless have no homes, they tend to live and sleep in public areas. As would be expected, the presence of the homeless in such areas is seen as a problem and some cities try to “solve” the problem by criminalizing such things as lying down or camping in public areas. The ordinances typically impose fines, but since the homeless generally cannot afford to pay fines they usually end up in the criminal justice system which is often a pathway to prison. A criminal record only makes matters worse for the homeless and increases the chance they will remain homeless. This means that they are likely to be arrested again for breaking the ordinances that target the homeless, thus creating another cruel circle.

As might be suspected, this approach to homelessness comes with a significant monetary cost. For example, Denver spent over $750,000 enforcing its homeless targeting ordinances. Other cities pay comparable costs, making the criminalization of homelessness costly to everyone. There have been some efforts to address homelessness through other means, such as providing affordable housing, but dealing with the underlying causes is challenging given the values of those making the decisions.

Once again, trying to solve a problem through criminalization proves to be a terrible approach if the goal is to solve a social problem. Even on the heartless grounds of saving money, it fails as the cost of policing the homeless seems to consume whatever savings might be accrued for pushing people into the streets. This, of course, could be countered. One might be able to show that the monetary cost of strategies aimed at getting the homeless into homes would exceed the cost of policing the homeless on the streets. After all, the politicians could lower the cost significantly simply by not policing the unhoused who do not commit serious crimes, such as robbery. This, however, does still leave the homeless without homes and this can impose other economic costs, such medical expenses paid for by the public. This could be countered by arguing that the homeless should be completely abandoned as this would yield financial savings.

Such abandonment does, however, run into a moral challenge. The harm suffered by the homeless (and society) would seem to make a compelling utilitarian moral argument in favor of approaches that aim at getting the homeless back into society. Moral views that accept that people should love one another also enjoin us to not abandon our fellows. In any case, criminalizing homelessness is no solution, financial or moral.

Drug addiction is another problem that has largely been addressed by criminalization. About half of the people in federal prisons and 16% of those in state prison are there for drug offenses. This is the result of the war on drugs, which endeavored to solve the drug problem by arresting our way out of it. Since the negative consequences of this approach fell mainly on minorities and the poor, there was little interest among politicians in taking a different approach. However, as prison populations swelled and public attitudes towards drug use changed, there was some talk of reconsidering this war. The biggest change in the public discussion arose from the opioid epidemic, a drug epidemic that goes beyond ravaging the poor and minorities to impacting the white middle class.  This has resulted in some changes in the approach to the problem, such as the police offering free treatment for drug users rather than arresting them. It does remain to be seen if these changes will be lasting and widespread. However, this is certainly a positive change to a failed approach to the health issue of drugs.

While some for-profit prisons have done well for their shareholders in the war on drugs, the financial cost to society has been substantial. Criminalization of addiction has also failed to reduce addiction. As such, this approach has proved to be a practical failure, unless you are a shareholder in a private prison or otherwise profit from this situation.

As above, there are also moral concerns about this approach in terms of the harms being inflicted on individuals and society as a whole. Fortunately, there is a chance that America will rethink the war on drugs (in which we are the enemy) and recast it as a health issue. This not only has the potential to be far more of a practical success; it also would seem to be the right thing to do morally. Transforming people in need into criminals cannot solve the ills of society, addressing those needs can.

Back in 2016 Colin Kaepernick created controversy by protesting racial oppression in America during the national anthem. While most of his critics acknowledged that he was within his legal rights, they believed he should not have exercised them in this way. I will review some of the objections against Kaepernick and address some of the broader moral issues raised by this sort of protest.

One tactic used against Kaepernick’s protest is to assert that his protest was invalidated because, as a rich and privileged NFL player, he was not personally oppressed. This approach is flawed in at least two ways. If the intent is to reject his claim that oppression exists by attacking him, then this is an ad hominem fallacy. This is a fallacy in which an attack on something about a person is taken as refuting a claim made by the person. This is a fallacy because the truth of a claim is independent of the person making it, although a person’s expertise (or lack) is relevant to assessing credibility.

This attack can also be seen as based on the view that only a victim of oppression or harm has the moral right to protest that oppression or harm. While this might have some appeal, it is flawed. To illustrate, if this principle were accepted, then it would follow that only those killed by abortions would have the moral right to protest abortion. This would be absurd on the grounds that no protest of abortion would be possible. If the principle were taken somewhat more broadly, it would follow that only victims of cancer could try to raise awareness of cancer. As such, the claim that he is not himself oppressed has no bearing on the truth of his claims or his right to protest. This same general principle applies beyond this historical example.

Another line of attack was against his character to allege  he was not sincere: he was protesting only to gain attention and bolster his flagging career. This approach can have merit if the goal is to determine whether someone is a virtuous. If a protestor is not sincere and using the protest for personal gain, then they can be justly criticized on moral grounds. However, this sort of attack has no logical bearing on the truth of assertions or the merit of a protest. This would be just another ad hominem attack.

To use an analogy, a person who uses an opportunity to focus attention on cancer to selfishly promote themselves is not a virtuous person, but this is irrelevant to whether cancer is a real problem. As such, a protestor’s motivations are irrelevant to the validity of their protest.

There are those who take the approach that his protest was invalid because there is no oppression of blacks. Those who believe that oppression exists point to objective data regarding income, wealth, educational opportunities, hiring, sentencing, and so on that show that oppression is real and systematic.

Those who deny it either deny the data or explain it away. For example, the disproportionate arrest rates and harsher sentences are explained by alleging that blacks commit more and worse crimes than whites. Since this is an ideological issue tied to political identity, the lines are solidly drawn: those who strongly deny the existence of oppression will generally never be convinced by any amount of data. Since they do not experience systematic oppression based on race, they also tend to claim that it does not exist because they have not experienced it, although some will claim that they have been mistreated for being white.

The evidence for oppression is convincing, but those who disagree with me will not be convinced by any evidence or argument I can offer. Instead, they will attribute my belief to a distorted ideology. That said, perhaps an appeal can be made to the white people who believe that they are oppressed as they might be willing to admit that blacks are not excluded from this oppression. For example, Trump supporters often speak of how the system is rigged by the elites and they should be able to accept that there are many blacks who are also victims of these elites.  This might allow for some common ground in regard to accepting the existence of oppression in the United States. I now turn to the broader issue of whether it is morally acceptable to protest during the national anthem.

Critics of Kaepernick contended that protesting during the national anthem was disrespectful and most asserted that this action was especially insulting to the troops. When considering the matter, it is worth noting that the national anthem was first played at games as a means of attracting more paying customers. Given its use in this manner, it would be odd to attack Kaepernick for using it as an opportunity to protest. After all, he is using the opportunity to bring attention to injustice in America while it was introduced to make more money. In this regard, he seems to have held moral high ground.

It could be replied that although it began as a marketing tool, it evolved into a sacred ritual that would be besmirched by protest. One line of criticism is that to protest during the national anthem is to disrespect the troops who died for the freedom of expression. This requires the assumption that the purpose of playing the anthem at games is to honor the troops. Which might be the case. However, if the troops did die for, among other rights, the freedom of expression then the exercise of that right would be a legitimate means of honoring these troops. Endeavoring to silence people would be insult to those who are said to have died for the right of free expression. That said, there is a reasonable moral concern about decorum during the national anthem, just as there are also such concerns about behavior at any time. Kaepernick’s protest was a very polite and respectful protest and did not seem problematic. Others, of course, disagreed.

Some of the critics merely wanted him to stop protesting in this manner. Others such as Trump, went beyond this and engaged in a classic reply to those who criticize America: if you do not like how things are, then leave the country.

On the one hand, it could be argued this is a reasonable response. To use an analogy, if a person does not like their marriage or neighborhood, then leaving would be a good idea. Likewise, if a person does not like their country, then they should simply depart in search of one more to their liking. This view fits with the idea that one should be for their country “wrong or right” and not be critical. True patriotism, one might say, is simply accepting one’s country as it is and not engaging in protest. It is, of course, weirdly ironic that Trump is telling Kaepernick to leave, given that Trump relentlessly spews about how awful things are in America and how it needs to be made great again. Ironically, Trump can be seen as engaging in a form of protest: he uses his office to criticize what he hates about America and rambles about what should be done to fix all these problems.

On the other hand, the criticism can be perceived as aimed at silencing criticism without considering whether the it has merit. Going back to the analogies to marriage and a neighborhood, a person who believes there are problems with either could be criticized for simply abandoning them without making any attempt to solve the issues. A true patriot, it could be argued, would no more remain silent in the face of problems with their country than a true friend would remain silent when their friend needed an intervention. This view is, of course, not original to me. Henry David Thoreau noted that “A very few—as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men—serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.” I do not, of course, know what Kaepernick’s true motivations were. But his calling attention to the problems of the United States with the expressed desire to improve America can be reasonably regarded as a patriotic act. That is, after all, what a true patriot does: they do not remain silent in the face of evil and defects, they take action to make their country both good and great.

The war on drugs is one of the longest and least successful wars waged by the United States. The biggest problem is, as Walt Kelley said, “we have met the enemy and he is us.” Which is to say that the war on drugs is primarily a civil war and most casualties are Americans.

While some see the war on drugs as a battle of virtue against vice, most drug laws were motivated by racism. For example, San Francisco’s 1875 law against opium was based on the fear that Chinese men were luring white women into opium dens to have sex with them. This was followed by laws against cocaine (motivated largely by racism towards blacks) and then by laws against marijuana (motivated largely by biases against Mexicans). The war on drugs proper began in 1971 with Richard Nixon’s declaration and following presidents followed suit with varying degrees of enthusiasm. President Bill Clinton, eager to appear tough on crime, escalated the war in a manner that has led directly to the present problems of mass incarceration and the disproportionate incarceration of minorities. This serves as another reminder that while we should be wary of false equivalences, the elites of the Democratic party are not our friends.

Some might argue that drug laws do not specifically target minorities. After all, as one might point out, it is as illegal for a white person to use cocaine as it is for a black person. While this is a point worth considering, the application of the laws and the approach to their enforcement is strongly influenced by race. As one example, minority communities are policed more aggressively than white communities—despite the fact that blacks are no more likely to use drugs than whites (and whites are apparently more likely to deal drugs). This is one of the causes of the disproportionate incarceration rates. As another example, sentencing is often also disproportional, with the difference in sentences between crack and powder cocaine serving as an excellent illustration.

One counter to these assertions is to claim that minorities commit drug crimes at a higher rate than whites and thus the arrest rate correctly reflects this. The challenge is to support this claim with evidence. In some cases, the “evidence” offered is the arrest rate itself, creating a circle of reasoning: minorities have a higher arrest rate because they commit crimes at a higher rate and this is proven because minorities have a higher arrest rate. Unfortunately, for some the crime rates are a matter of ideology and hence they perceive the matter through that lens, and this makes discussing the issue challenging. While an analysis of the data provides what seems to be objective evidence of disparity, there are those who interpret the data rather differently. My own view is that the disparity does exist and is shown by the statistical data. Naturally, those who disagree might be inclined to claim that my view is due to ideology as well.

What is not in dispute is that the war on drugs has resulted in a mass incarceration thus making the United States the world leader in terms of the percentage of its population behind bars. While the left has long been concerned with the incarceration rate, conservatives also expressed some concern. What seemed to shift in was the opioid epidemic’s impact across racial and class lines. While the American middle and upper classes have used drugs throughout American history, they have not been the focus of law enforcement. This has enabled the maintenance of the illusion (or delusion) that drugs are a problem for the poor and minorities. Due to the attention paid to the opioid caused deaths, this illusion has been dispelled. As such, it is was recognized that there was a drug epidemic sweeping white America—and not just poor whites, but whites of the middle and upper classes.

Recognition of the whiter and wealthier nature of the epidemic seems to have motivated a shift in how drug use is being policed, at least for certain classes of people. This epidemic was treated by many as a health crisis and not a crime wave. Instead of focusing on arresting and incarcerating people, effort was focused on helping people overcome their addiction and mitigate the harm caused by this addiction. This is not to say that no one previously regarded the drug problem as a health issue, just that this represented a change in the mainstream view.

While this change in attitude centered on opioids has had some trickle-down effect on other drugs, this change has yet to spread broadly. There is still aggressive policing aimed at other drugs despite the fact that the logic that presents opioid addiction as a health issue also entails other forms of drug addiction are also health issues. However, there is some hope that this approach will spread to drug use in general.

There are compelling reasons to accept this shift. The first is that the approach of criminalizing drugs, whatever its intent, failed to address the problem. As such, there is a need for change and the health angle seems a sensible approach. The second is to use Mill’s principle of harm: the use of drugs hurts the drug user; thus people should have the liberty to use drugs, even though they are a poor life choice. This is consistent with treating them as a medical problem and people have the choice to accept or reject treatment.

The principle of harm does justify laws that criminalize drug related activity that harms others. Under this principle, the state has the moral right to impose on a person’s liberty to prevent harm to others. These justified impositions would include such things as making it illegal to operate a vehicle under the influence of drugs. Under this principle, the selling of drugs should be treated as the selling of any other product and regulated as such. For example, selling tainted or contaminated drugs should be punished in the same manner as the selling of tainted or contaminated food. As another example, the selling of dangerous drugs should be treated like the selling of any dangerous product (such as lead paint, rigged financial products, tobacco, and alcohol) and punished appropriately. And, of course, drug-motivated murder and theft should be treated, as always, as murder and theft. Treating drug use as a health issue is thus a better approach and is consistent with still treating some drug related activities as criminal activities.

While the United States has multiple third parties and many voters register as independents, politics is dominated by the Republicans and the Democrats. While there are independents in office here and there, independent voters still identify with the two parties and are also almost entirely limited to voting for candidates from these two parties.

My own party affiliation is Democrat, although it is a very weak affiliation. While I do share some of the values professed by the party (such as support for education and protecting the environment) my main reason for being a Democrat is that Florida is a closed primary state. If I did not have a party affiliation, I would be limited to voting between the candidates picked by the Democrats and Republicans. That is not acceptable, and I regard the Democrats as less evil than the Republicans. At least for now.

While people do sometimes change parties (Reagan started as a Democrat and ended as a Republican, while Hillary Clinton took the reverse path) most people stay loyal. Trump briefly tested the loyalty of some Republicans, but then conquered the party transforming the GOP into MAGA.

Being a philosopher, I try to operate on consistent moral, logical and political principles rather than embracing whatever my party happens to endorse at any given moment. Because of this, I could end up leaving the Democratic party if its professed values changed enough. As Republicans love to say, their party was once the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. As they also love to point out, the Democratic party was once a racist party. Now, of course, both parties are very different. Teddy Roosevelt would be appalled by the current Republican party and the Democrats are now regarded as a civil rights focused party that is welcoming to minorities (and certainly welcomes their votes).

While political parties presumably provide some benefits for citizens, they mainly exist to benefit the politicians. They provide politicians with resources and support that are essential to running for office. They also provide another valuable service to politicians:  an very effective means of cognitive and moral derangement. Like other groups, political parties exploit well-known cognitive biases, thus encouraging their members to yield to irrationality and moral failure.

One bias is the bandwagon effect; this is the tendency people have to align their thinking with that of those around them. This often serves to ground such fallacies as the “group think” fallacy in which a person accepts a claim as true simply because their group accepts it as true. In the case of political parties, people tend to believe what their party claims, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. In fact, it is well-established that people often double down on false beliefs in the face of objective evidence against this belief. This afflicts people across the political spectrum. The defense against this sort of derangement is to resist leaping on the bandwagon and train oneself to accept evidence rather than group loyalty as support for a claim.

Another bias is the tendency people have to obey authority and conform. Stanley Milgram’s famous experiments in obedience purport to show that people are generally obedient by nature and will obey even when they believe what they are doing is wrong. This derangement forges people into obedient masses who praise their leader, such as the objectively unfit Donald Trump or some lame Democrat. Since obedience is so ingrained into humans, resisting is difficult. In fact, people often think they are resisting authority when they are bowing low to another authority. Being disobedient as a matter of principle is difficult, although people such as Socrates and Thoreau do offer some guidelines and inspiration.

Perhaps the most powerful bias here is the in-group bias. This is the natural tendency people have to regard members of their group as having positive qualities while seeing members of other groups as being inferior. This tendency is triggered even by the most superficial group identifications. For example, sports teams stand for nothing, they do not represent moral or political principles or anything of significance. Yet people routinely become obsessive fans who regard their fellows as better than the fans of other teams. This can, and does, escalate into violence.

In the case of politics, the bias is even stronger. Republicans and Democrats typically praise their own and condemn their competition. Many of them devote effort scouring the internet for “evidence” of their virtue and the vice of their foes: it is not enough to disagree; the opposition must be demonized and cast as inferior. For example, I see battles play out on Facebook over whether Democrats or Republicans give more to charity and has ended friendships.

This bias is useful to politicians as it helps fuels the moral and cognitive derangement of their supporters. The most pronounced effect is that party members will rush to defend their politician over matters that they savagely attack the other side for. For example, Donald Trump is, as a matter of objective fact, unrelenting in his untruths. His supporters who otherwise regard lying as wrong, rush to defend and excuse him, while they bashed Hillary, Biden and Obama as liars and crooks—despite the fact that Hillary said untrue things far less often than Trump. As should be expected, Hillary’s devout backers did the same thing, excusing Hillary for things they condemn about Trump (such as sketchy business deals). Some of Biden’s supporters also dismissed or ignored his issues with aging, while attacking Trump for similar mental decline.

As a matter of rational and moral principle (and consistency), a person who regards lying as wrong should take liars of both parties to task and criticize their lying appropriately. To do otherwise is to be irrational and morally inconsistent. The same should apply to other matters as well, such as sketchy business deals. To avoid this derangement, people need to train themselves (or be trained) to assess politicians as objectively as possible to avoid being morally and cognitively deranged by the undue corrupting influence of party.

This is not to say that a person should fall into the trap of false equivalency or regard any misdeed as equal to any other. Simply saying “they are all equally bad” when they are not is also a failure of reason and ethics. Using the example of the 2016 campaign, while Trump and Clinton both had their flaws, Clinton was objectively better than Trump in regards to qualifications for being president.  As Republicans argued when Obama was running in 2008, experience is critically important and the presidency is not an entry level political job.

I am not advocating that people become apathetic or abandon their parties. Rather, I want people to hold all politicians to the same standards of criticism rather than rushing to defend their side simply because it is their side and bashing the other simply because it is the other. This would, I hope, force politicians to be better. As it now stands, they can be awful and count on the derangement of followers to work in their favor.

Back in 2016, my original essay on felons and voting received an interesting comment from A.J. McDonald, Jr. He was worried about having rapists, robbers and murders voting. One initial reply is that there are many other types of felonies, most of which are non-violent. As such, any discussion of felons and voting needs to consider not just the worst felonies, but all the felonies. And, in the United States, there are many. That said, I will address the specific concern about felons convicted of rape, robbery and murder.

On the face of it, it is natural to have an immediate emotional reaction to the idea of rapists, robbers and murderers voting. After all, these are presumably very bad people and it is offensive to think of them exercising the same fundamental right as other citizens. While this reaction is natural, it is generally unwise to try to settle complex moral questions by appealing to an immediate emotional reaction. I will begin by considering arguments for disenfranchising such felons.

The most plausible argument, given my view that voting rights are foundational rights in a democratic state, is that such crimes warrant removing or at least suspending a person’s status as a citizen. After all, when a person is justly convicted of rape, murder or robbery they are justly punished by suspension of their liberty. In some cases, they are punished by death. As such, it seems reasonable to accept that if the right to liberty (and even life) can be suspended, then the right to vote can be suspended as well. I certainly see the appeal here. However, I think there is a counter to this reasoning.

Punishment by imprisonment is generally aimed at protecting the public from the criminal by removing them from society and to serve as a deterrent to others.  This could be used to justify taking away the right to vote by arguing that felons are likely to vote in ways that would harm society. The easy and obvious reply is that there is little reason to think that felons could do harm through voting. Or any more harm than non-felon voters. For felons to do real harm through voting, there would need to be harmful choices and these would need to be choices that felons would pick because they are felons and they would need to be able to win the vote.  It could be claimed that, for example, there might be a vote on reducing prison sentences and the felons would vote in their interest to the detriment of others. While this is possible, it seems unlikely that the felons would be able to win the vote on their own. If there were so many felons that they could decide elections, then society has a fundamental problem.

There is also the obvious counter that non-felons are just as likely to vote in harmful ways as well, as the history of voting shows. As such, denying felons the vote to protect the public from harm is not a reasonable justification. If there are things being voted for that could do serious harm, then the danger lies with those who got such things on the ballot and not with felons who might vote for it.

Another way to justify disenfranchisement is by making it park of the punishment, which is often justified in terms of retribution. This does have some appeal, assuming the felon wants to vote. However, most Americans do not vote, so it would not be much of a punishment for most people. There is also the question of whether the denial of the right to vote is a suitable punishment for a crime. Punishments should be relevant to the crime. While paying restitution would fit for a robbery, being denied the right to vote would not seem to fit.

Criminals are also supposed to be reformed so they can return to society (assuming the sentence is not death or life). Denying voting rights would have the opposite effect as they would be even more disconnected from society. As such, this would not justify removal of the voting rights. 

Because of these considerations, even rapists, murderers and robbers should not lose their right to vote. I do agree, as argued in my previous essay, that crimes that are effectively rejections of the criminal’s citizenship (like rebellion and treason) would warrant stripping a person of citizenship and the right to vote. Other crimes, even awful ones, would not suffice to strip away citizenship.

Another approach is to make the case that rapists, murderers and robbers are morally bad or bad decision makers and should be denied the right to vote on moral grounds. While it is true that rapists, murderers and robbers are generally very bad people, the right to vote is not grounded in being a good person (or even just not being bad) or making good (or at least not bad) decisions. While it might seem appealing to have moral and competency tests for voting, there is the obvious problem that many voters would fail such tests. There is also the practical problem of designing a fair ethics test. Such tests would, as history shows, simply be political tools for disenfranchising people.

It could be countered that the only test that would be used is the legal test of whether a person is convicted of a felony. While obviously imperfect, it could be argued that those convicted are probably guilty and probably bad people and thus should not be voting. While it is true that some innocent people will be convicted and denied the right to vote and true that many bad people will be able to avoid convictions, this is acceptable.

A reply to this is to inquire as to why such a moral standard should be used to determine the right to vote. After all, the right to vote (as I have argued before) is not predicated on moral goodness or competence. It is based on being a citizen, good or bad. As such, any crime that does not justly take away citizenship would not warrant removing the right to vote. Yes, this does entail that rapists, murderers and robbers should retain the right to vote. This might strike some as offensive or disgusting, but these people remain citizens. If this is too offensive, then such crimes would need to be recast as acts of treason that strip away citizenship. This seems excessive. And there is the fact that there are always awful people voting, they just have not been caught or got away with their awfulness or are clever and connected enough to ensure that the awful things they do are not considered felonies or even crimes. I am just as comfortable allowing a robber to vote as I am to allow Trump and Hillary to vote. After all, we know Trump is a felon and we know Hillary is Hillary.

In 2016 Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe endeavored to restore felons’ voting rights in his state. In the United States, disenfranchising citizens for felony convictions is a common practice and some states extend the disenfranchisement beyond the felon’s criminal sentence.  Since McAuliffe is a Democratic, the Republicans accused him of engaging in a political move. The gist of the charge is that since felons are disproportionately minorities and minorities tend to vote for Democrats, McAuliffe was trying to get votes for Hillary Clinton. Naturally, he denied this and claimed that his motives were pure and noble. Before proceeding, I will start by addressing the general issue of denying felons the right to vote.

Since I am registered as a Democrat (because Florida is a closed primary state), I might be accused of the same motive as McAuliffe: that I just want felons to vote because they are more likely to vote for Democrats. However, my motive is irrelevant to my arguments, which are as follows.

In the United States, the disenfranchisement of citizens has a constitutional basis in that it is allowed “for participation in rebellion, or other crime.” That is not in dispute.  Also, legality is obviously simply set by the law, but my concern is with the morality of disenfranchising felons. After all, history is replete with wicked laws.

In a state that professes to be a democracy, the right of citizens to vote is a bedrock right. As Locke and other philosophers have argued, the foundation of political legitimacy in a democracy is the consent of the governed. As such, to unjustly deny a citizen the right to vote is to erode the legitimacy of a democratic state. Because of this, the only crimes that should disenfranchise are those that would warrant taking away the person’s citizenship. In general, the crime would need to be such that it constitutes a rejection of citizenship. The most obvious example would be treason against the country.

It might be objected that felonies are so bad that they all warrant disenfranchising a citizen. One obvious reply is that the right to vote in the United States is not predicated on being virtuous, marginally informed or marginally competent. The only requirements are being a certain age and being a citizen. Now, if there were morality or competency tests for having the right to vote (which would be problematic in their own right), then a case could be made that felons would fail such tests and thus justly denied this right. However, the right to vote comes with being a citizen and what does not remove citizenship should not take away the right to vote.

A second obvious reply is that while there are awful felonies that might seem to warrant disenfranchisement (like committing mass murder), there is a multitude of felonies that are not severe enough to warrant such punishment. As such, there seems to be no justification for disenfranchising felons for crimes that are not directly relevant to their status as citizens.

Even if disenfranchisement for felonies was justified, some US states extend this beyond the person’s criminal sentence. That is, even after serving their time, some felons are not permitted to vote (although some states permit people to attempt to regain this right). This practice is unjust on the face of it. After all, if the disenfranchisement is part of the punishment for a felony, then the punishment should end when the person has served their sentence. As such, even if voting rights could be justly taken away, their restoration should be automatic upon completion of the sentence. I now turn to the Virginia case.

Not surprisingly, the origin story of disenfranchising felons in Virginia is a tale of racism: the white Democrats of that time explicitly used this a tool to keep black voters from the polls. The tools employed to suppress the black vote also impacted poor white voters, but this was regarded as either an acceptable price to pay or a desirable result. Lest anyone rush to take this as evidence of racism on the part of the current Democratic Party; one should consider the history of the Southern Strategy. That said, it is true that the Democrats were once the explicitly racist party and true that the Republican Party was once the party of Lincoln. It is also true that I used to routinely run sub 17 minute 5Ks; but that was then and this is now.

Of course, to take the origin of a thing to discredit the thing would be to fall victim to the genetic fallacy. As such, while felony disenfranchisement was explicitly created to disenfranchise black voters, perhaps it serves a legitimate purpose today. While I would give such arguments due consideration, I am not aware of any compelling moral arguments for the current practice of disenfranchisement. Not surprisingly, the focus of the debate in Virginia was not over the rightness or wrongness of this disenfranchisement but on the alleged motives of the governor.

As his Republican critics saw it, Governor McAuliffe’s efforts to restore the voting rights of felons was motivated by politics. Minorities make up a disproportionate number of convicted felons and minorities tend to vote for Democrats. As such, the charge is that he was trying to help Hillary Clinton and other Democrats win in the 2016 elections by enfranchising more Democrats. In terms of the facts, felons are generally more likely to be Democrats, but they also tend to vote at an extremely low rate when their voting rights are restored. As such, the impact of restoring voting rights on an election is in dispute; although Republicans often professes terror at the prospect of felons illegally voting.  And of a war on Christmas.

Assuming that felons are more likely to vote for Democrats, it does make political sense for Republicans to oppose restoring their right to vote. Unless that felon is Donald Trump. However, this is also motivated by politics and thus puts the Republicans on par with the governor. They cannot consistently claim he was wrong in wanting to restore voting rights to gain an electoral advantage when they wanted to deny these rights to gain their own advantage. From a moral standpoint what is needed is not accusations about motives but actual arguments for or against restoring voting rights.

It might be claimed that motivations do matter. It is true that they do, but they matter in terms of assessing the morality of the person taking an action, not in terms of the morality of the action itself or its consequences. To use a non-political example, if I give money to a flood relief charity in Texas only because I want to impress a woman with my alleged generosity and compassion, then my motivation is not laudable. However, this does not have any relevance to the issue of whether giving to charity is the right thing to do or the issue of whether it would have good consequences. Those are distinct issues.

 Returning to the case of restoring voting rights, it could be true that the governor’s real motivation was to advance the interests of his party. It could be true that if he believed felons would be more likely to vote Republican, then he would oppose restoring their right to vote. While his motivations matter when it comes to assessing him morally, they have no bearing on the issue of whether these rights should be restored. Likewise, it could be true that the Republicans opposed the restoration because they believed felons will tend to vote for Democrats. It could even be true that they would fight tooth and nail to restore felon voting rights if they believed that felons would be more likely to vote Republican. Their motivations are relevant to judging them as people; but irrelevant to the issue of whether voting rights should be restored.

I do believe that the disenfranchisement of felons is a political tool that is now intended to help Republican candidates. It is but one disenfranchisement tool among the many that are undermining the legitimacy of the United States. As noted above, I also contend that the theft of a citizen’s voting rights for anything short of a crime on par with treason is morally unjustified and an attack of the very foundation of democracy. Those who believe in democracy should also oppose disenfranchising felons in particular and the calculated destruction of voting rights in general. At this point I will close by saying that I believe that serious questions can be raised about the legitimacy of a government based on an electoral system that is damaged by systematic disenfranchisement. While I rarely agree with Trump, he is right to claim that the system is broken and needs to be fixed. He is just usually wrong about how it is broken.

Politics has always been a nasty business, but the fact that examples of historic awfulness can be easily found does not excuse the current viciousness. After all, appealing to tradition (reasoning that something is acceptable because it has been done a long time) and appealing to common practice (reasoning that something being commonly done makes it acceptable) are both fallacies.

One manifestation of the nastiness of politics is when it does not suffice to merely regard an opponent as wrong, they must be torn down and cast as morally wicked. To be fair, there are cases in which people really are both wrong and morally wicked. As such, my concern is with cases in which the tearing down is not warranted.

I certainly understand the psychological appeal of this approach. It is natural to regard opponents as holding on to their views because they are bad people, in contrast to the moral purity that grounds one’s own important beliefs. In some cases, there is a real conflict between good and evil. For example, those who oppose slavery are morally better than those who inflict it. However, most political disputes are disagreements in which all sides are a blend of right and wrong, both factually and morally. For example, views about the proper size of government tend to be blended in this way. Unfortunately, political ideology can become part of a person’s core identity, thus making any differing view appear as a vicious assault on the person themselves. A challenge to their very identity that could only come from the vilest of knaves. Politicians and pundits also intentionally stoke these fires, hoping to exploit irrationality and ungrounded righteous rage to ensure their election and to get their way.

While academic philosophy is not a bastion of pure objective rationality, one of the most important lessons I learned in my career is that a person can disagree with me about an important issue yet still be a fine human being. Or, at the very least, not a bad person. In some cases, this is easy to do because I do not have a strong commitment to my position. For example, while I do not buy into Plato’s theory of forms, I have no real emotional investment in opposing it. In other cases, such as moral disputes, it is more difficult. Even in cases in which I have very strong commitments, I have learned to pause and consider the merits of my opponent’s position while also taking care to distinguish the philosophical position taken from the person who takes it. I also take care to regard their criticisms of my view as being against my view and not against me as a person. This allows me to debate the issue without it becoming a personal matter. It also helps that I know that simply attacking the person making a claim is just a form of an ad hominem fallacy.

It might be objected that this sort of approach to disputes is bloodless and unmanly. That one should engage with passion and perhaps, as Trump would say, want to hit someone. The easy reply is that while there is a time and a place for punching, the point of a dispute over an issue is to resolve it in a rational manner. A person can also be passionate without being uncivil and vicious. Unfortunately, vicious attacks are useful political tools.

A classic and reprehensible example involves the attacks on Ghazala and Khizr Khan, the parents of Captain Humayun Khan (who was killed in Iraq in 2004). Khizr Khan spoke out against Donald Trump’s anti Muslim rhetoric and asserted that Trump did not understand the Constitution. While Trump had every right to address the criticisms raised against him, he took his usual approach of trying to tear down a critic. Trump’s engagement with the family led to bipartisan responses, including an extensive response from John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner during the Vietnam War. Trump, against the rules of basic decency, continued to launch attacks on Khan. It is easy to forget there was once a time when a few Republicans had the moral courage to criticize Trump.

Since I have a diverse group of friends, I was not surprised when I saw posts appearing on Facebook attacking Khan. One set of posts linked to Shoebat.com’s claim that Khan “is a Muslim brotherhood agent who wants to advance sharia law and bring Muslims into the United States.” As should come as no surprise, Snopes quickly debunked this claim.

Breitbart.com also leaped into the fray asserting that Khan “financially benefits from unfettered pay-to-play Muslim migration into America.” The site also claimed that Khan had deleted his law firm’s website. On the one hand, it is legitimate journalism to investigate. After all, undue bias damages credibility and it is certainly good to know about any relevant misdeeds lurking in a person’s past. On the other hand, endeavoring to tear a person down and thus “refute” their criticism is an exercise in the ad hominem fallacy. This is bad reasoning in which an attack on a person is taken to thus refute their claims. Even if Khan ran a “pay to play” system and even if he backed Sharia law, his criticisms of Donald Trump stood or fell on their own merits, and they clearly had merit.  There is also the moral awfulness in trying to tear down a Gold Star family. As many have pointed out, such an attack would have once beyond the pale. We are now so far beyond the pale that the light from it would take a million years to reach us.  The Trump of 2025 does not even face token pushback from Republicans and, as I predicted in 2o16, he has changed the boundaries of acceptable behavior.

It might be objected that a politician must reply to critics, otherwise the attacks will stand. While this is a reasonable point, the reply made matters. It is one thing to respond to the criticisms by countering their content, quite another to do something like launch a personal attack against a Gold Star family.

It could also be objected that engaging in a rational discussion of the actual issues is too difficult and would not be understood by the public. They can only handle emotional appeals and simplistic notions. Moral distinctions are irrelevant, and decency is obsolete. Hence, the public discourse must be conducted at a low level. Trump gets this and is acting accordingly. Back in 2016 I hoped this would not be the case, but Trump has triumphed twice and MAGA now owns the Republican party, and they serve his whim and will.

 

Though the United States prides itself as being a nation of immigrants and the home of the brave, appeals to the fear of immigrants and refugees is a dependable political tool. The use of this tool is, of course, neither new nor limited to the United States.

To be fair, there is some legitimacy to the fear of allowing in immigrants and refugees. This is because a large enough group of people will contain a percentage of potential wrongdoers. As such, allowing large numbers of people into a country will result in some increase in misdeeds just as a matter of statistics. Thus, it is not untrue to say that allowing in immigrants and refugees would increase the dangers faced by the citizens of a country. But this is analogous to saying that allowing anyone in your house increases your chance of being harmed. While true, it would be absurd to barricade yourself alone in your house out of fear that someone might present some danger.

While demagogues and pundits generally do not operate on consistently applied principles, restricting immigrants and refugees can be justified in a principled way. In this case, the principle would be that people should be banned from entering a country if their arrival would result in an increase in the dangers faced by the current citizens of that country. Since allowing a significant number of refugees and immigrants would allow in at least some who would do harm, then this principle justifies such restrictions. While this does allow for a principled basis for restriction, it runs into a major problem if it is applied consistently. This consistency problem is common, which is why demagogues and pundits generally loath and avoid consistency. This specific consistency problem is as follows.

Every country faces waves of immigrants that arrive unregulated and unchecked. While most of them are not a threat, a percentage of them will engage in harmful acts ranging from minor thefts to mass shootings to bilking investors. Oddly enough, no politician has the courage to propose restrictions on these invaders, and many encourage the arrival of more of these potential threats. I am, of course, speaking of immigrants from the womb. Each new generation includes a certain percentage of potential murderers, rapists, thieves and terrorists and thus presents a clear and present danger to the current citizens. Using the same reasoning that justifies keeping out immigrants and refugees (that a certain percentage could present a threat), these invaders should be kept out of the country.

This suggestion should, of course, be greeted with derision and mockery: it would be absurd to impose a ban on reproduction merely because some small percentage of people will become dangerous to the current citizens. The challenge is to reject restrictions on births while accepting restrictions on immigration while using the danger argument.

The most obvious approach is to point out that the potential rapists and terrorists who are born here are children of existing citizens and thus different from refugees and immigrants from other countries. But this seems unfair as where a person is born is entirely a matter of chance and is completely unearned. We do not, after all, earn or select our parents. Thus, restricting immigrants and refugees because some small percentage will present a threat while allowing unrestricted reproduction that will produce people that will present a threat seems to be grounded only in the vagaries of chance. If there is great concern about the threat presented by incoming people, then that threat must be addressed using the same standards on the pain of inconsistency.

It could be countered that immigrants and refugees present a greater threat: the percentage of murders, rapists and terrorists is higher among the vetted and reviewed immigrants than among Americans who are born here. However, this is clearly not the case. This should come as no surprise, given that the immigrants and refugees are vetted and checked very thoroughly by the United States while kids are born with no vetting or review.  

I might, at this point, be accused of wanting to impose restrictions on reproduction. This is not the case. My point is, rather, to show that the idea of putting harsh restrictions or imposing complete bans on immigrants and refugees because some tiny percentage might turn out to cause harm is as absurd as restricting or banning reproduction becomes some children will certainly grow up to be criminals or terrorists. This is not to say that there should not be screening of immigrants and refugees; there should be. After all, we generate so many domestic criminals and terrorists that it is sensible to try to avoid needlessly and carelessly importing more.

Thanks to people such as Teddy Roosevelt, the United States has vast areas of public lands, including the famous national parks. While most Americans have a positive view of public lands, there has long been a push to privatize them. While the very few who would benefit from privatization have a compelling interest in ending public lands, I will show that most citizens should strongly support keeping public lands public.

A somewhat abstract argument in favor of public lands is that they provide the basis for common ownership of the country even for those who do not own private land. As citizens, they have a stake and a share in the public lands. While people might not feel this ownership, it seems to be an important part of being a citizen of a democratic state. In monarchies and dictatorships, the common folk do not own the lands because they belong to the monarch or tyrant. In contrast, public lands are an important part of a democratic state.

It could be countered that a democracy does not require public lands. After all, they have existed without them and there is no necessary link between democracy and public lands. This is a reasonable point: a democratic United States could exist without public lands. There would just be private lands and government property such as military bases, schools and courthouses. There might even be no real change in the attitudes of most people. As such, I must concede that this argument, though appealing, is perhaps too abstract to have significant strength.

A second, stronger argument, is that public lands are needed to preserve nature. While individuals live but a short while and easily change their minds, land that is protected by enduring law can be persevered for as long as the state stands. This preservation of nature has value in many ways. One is that people have a psychological need for nature. For those who favor evolution, we evolved to be a part of this world. For those who accept the divine, it can be contended that we need to look upon the handiwork of the creator and preserving His work is to show respect for God.

I can also point to the fact that the natural areas of the world serve as life support for our planet. Using the obvious analogy, to allow some passengers of a spaceship to rip apart and sell the life support systems would be stupid and wrong. While they would make a short-term profit, they would do so at the expense of everyone. There is also the matter of future generations: to ruin the land for decades or centuries for short-term profits would be a crime against the future.

I noted above that there are a very few people who would benefit from privatizing public lands. They and their supporters typically argue that privatization would take the land back from the government and thus restore freedom and put the decision making back into the hands of the people.

While this sort of rhetoric sounds good, it is a lie. This is because the transition from public ownership to private ownership would mean that the rich owners would control the land with no input from the rest of us.  It would also mean that access to the formerly public land would be at the discretion of the owner. In the case of public land, the citizens have a role in the control of the land through voting and the political process. If you do not like how public land is being used or the restrictions placed on its use, you can take action to get the laws and rules changed. However, if the land is privately owned, then you no longer have any real influence or control (unless you own it). While it is true that the very few would have greater control and freedom because of their private ownership, the vast majority would have no control or influence under this system of private ownership. So, when people use the freedom argument, they mean to give freedom to the very, very few and take it away from the vast majority. After all, when the right talks about privatizing public lands, they are not talking about the land being sold to average citizens but about it being acquired by the rich.

There is also the argument that privatizing public lands would result in profits and economic growth, so they should be privatized. This argument is certainly compelling, at least for the tiny fraction of people who would profit from privatization. While some of the wealth would “trickle down”, most people would gain nothing and would lose access to those lands. Privatization would mean that the least who have the most would get even more, while the most who have the least would have even less. This would be great for the privileged few, but awful for the rest of us.