Category: Politics

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.

In his first term Trump talked about pardoning himself, his family and others which led to interest in the scope of the pardon power. LegalEagle has an excellent video that walks through key questions about the pardon based on precedent and legal scholarship. My interest, though, is with a seemingly crazy question: could Trump (or any president) pardon everyone for everything forever?

While this question might seem stupid, it is worth considering because it is an invitation to explore the limits of the pardon power of the president. Here is the law as written in the Constitution: “…he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” Since this is but a single sentence, I will also need to rely on legal precedents and informed speculation on the part of Constitutional scholars to answer my question. I will begin with the matter of pardoning everyone.

While there is the question of whether the President can pardon himself, the President can clearly pardon anyone else. The President can also issue mass pardons, as Carter did in the case of the draft dodgers. Since the Constitution does not specify a numerical limit, then Trump does have the power to pardon everybody. If he can pardon anyone and issue mass pardons, then there would seem to be no line that can be drawn forbidding him from extending pardons to everyone. As such, Trump can pardon everyone. But can he pardon everyone for everything?

There are two limits specified on the pardon power. The first is that the pardon only applies to “offenses against the United States.” This has been established to mean federal crimes and so Trump cannot pardon people for state crimes. There have been some attempts to argue that “offenses against the United States” includes all crimes because the states are parts of the United States; but this argument has yet to gain traction. But this could change with a court ruling and the Supreme Court has been, with few exceptions, very cooperative with Trump. The second is that the President cannot pardon in cases of impeachment (Presidential or other). These are the only two limits. As such, the President could pardon anyone for any (or all) federal offense except for impeachment. The final question is whether Trump could pardon forever.

 Thanks to Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon, the pardon power has been shown to apply preemptively to crimes for which a person has not been convicted and even those for which a person has not been charged. Ford was acting according to well established law; the Supreme Court ruled that the power to pardon applies  “to every offense known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.” As such, the President could pardon anyone for everything (except state crimes and impeachment) after the commission of the offense. This does raise the question of how far back in time an offense can be and still be pardonable. The obvious answer is that since the offense must be committed against the United States, the oldest offense that could be pardoned would be set by the beginning of the United States. But what about future crimes?

Talk of pre-emptive pardons can be a bit confusing since this could be taken as pardoning someone for an offense they have yet to commit. But, as noted above, the ruling is that the pardon must come after the offense has been committed. As long as this ruling stands, then Trump cannot pardon people for offenses they have yet to commit. As such, Trump cannot issue a pro-active pardon for an offense that has yet to be committed. So, he cannot pardon everyone for everything forever. While not directly related to time, there is also the question of whether the President can pardon someone for an offense they did not commit.

On the face of it, there would seem to be no reason to pardon a person for an offense they did not commit, they would have no need for it. But a person who has committed no offense might as well accept a pardon. However, this could be a problem for them since the Supreme Court has also ruled that accepting a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance carries a confession.” As such, anyone who accepts a pardon from Trump is admitting guilt and confessing to the offense. While they would avoid the legal consequences for the federal offense, this could impact their reputation (assuming they have any left) and could be used against them. For example, a case can be made that a person pardoned for an offense can no longer plead the Fifth on that offense. They cannot incriminate because they have already admitted guilt by accepting the pardon. But there could be cases in which a person who had committed no offense might want a pardon. But if someone is likely to be charged with an offense they did not commit, then it would be wise to accept a pardon.

As an authoritarian Trump sees Justice Department as his and as a tool to use against his enemies. This is consistent with his being a “law and order” President, since “law and order” is commonly used as a racist code for repression of minority communities. While Trump is perhaps not serious, he still calls for critics and former opponents to be locked up. It is likely that Trump believes that a future Democrat president will see the law as he sees it, as a weapon to be wielded and a tool to be exploited. As such, it makes sense for him to think that the Democrats might go after his family and associates without concern for the facts, since this is what he would do if he could get away with it. Trump could thus try to pardon people for crimes he claims they did not commit to protect them from vengeful prosecution. There are a few problems with this approach.

One problem is that the Democrats will probably not make up fake offenses to charge Trump’s family and associates with. Laying aside any claims about Democrats being committed to the rule of law, Democrats do not need to make up offenses. 

A second problem is that this line of reasoning falls apart. While Trump could issue pardons for any and all federal offenses said to have been committed prior to the pardon, he will lose his power to pardon when he is no longer President. If the Democrats were willing to just make up crimes, then they could just say the made-up crimes occurred after Trump’s pardon. They could also just make up state crimes. As such, Trump’s pardons only make sense if those pardoned committed the crimes and Trump believes that the Democrats will not just make up crimes.

A third problem is that the ruling is specific that the pardon must occur after the offense. If no offense was committed, then it cannot be pardoned. As such, Trump cannot claim that his family and associates committed no crimes while also pardoning them. Circling back, his family and associates would admit guilt by accepting the pardons and Trump could only pardon them if they committed the offenses. If they insist they committed no offenses, then they cannot accept the pardons, and Trump cannot grant them a pardon for an offense that did not occur.

If Trump states that they did not commit any offenses and issues pardons to pre-empt allegedly unjust investigations, then this could result in Supreme Court case. Trump being Trump, he might very well insist that those he pardons have committed no offenses, but he is pardoning them for these offenses.

 On the one hand, pardoning someone for an offense they did not commit would seem to be something the President cannot do: they can only pardon an offense after the offense has occurred. On the other hand, a ruling might allow this on the grounds that if the pardon does not hold, then the person could be convicted of the offense that they were pardoned for (even though they denied they committed it)—which would be an obvious problem. At the heart of this matter is whether the President can pardon something for an offense they did not commit—while the obvious answer would seem to be “no”, the law can be a strange thing.

Given that there are few restrictions on the pardon power, Trump could direct people to commit federal crimes with the promise of a pardon and then pardon them for those crimes. Given that the Supreme Court ruled that presidents are immune to criminal prosecution for criminal acts committed while in office and that the Republicans control congress, Trump is free to engage in federal crimes as he wishes and have others do so as well, without fear of any meaningful consequences.

To close, Trump could pardon everyone for every federal offense committed prior to his pardon. But he cannot pardon everyone for everything forever.

I, along with some other philosophers, was interviewed in 2016 about voting for an article by Olivia Goldhill of Quartz. While I still stand by what I said, interviews do have inherent problems. One common thing is the lack of depth. In some cases, this is due to the interview being short. For the Quartz piece, I spoke to the author for about five minutes. In other cases, the interview might be longer, but the content must be slashed down to fit in a limited amount of time or space. An interview I did about D&D and the real world was about thirty minutes long; but only about a minute was used in the broadcast. Another problem is that complex material aimed at the public must be simplified because most people are not experts. As such, I need to expand on my quote in the article.

After briefly discussing the difference between deontological and utilitarian approaches to voting, I presented my soundbite view of the issue:

 

 “As a citizen, I have a duty to others because it’s not just me and my principles, but everybody. I have to consider how what I do will impact other people. For example, if I was a die-hard Bernie supporter, I might say my principles tell me to vote for Bernie. But I’m not going to let my principles condemn other people to suffering.”

 

My position can be taken as either a deontological approach or a utilitarian approach. For the deontologist, an action is right or wrong in and of itself—the consequences are not what matter morally. For the utilitarian, the morality of an action is determined by its consequences. Looked at from a deontological perspective, acting on a duty to the general good would be the right thing to do. The fact that doing so would have good consequences is not what makes the action good. From the utilitarian perspective, the foundation of my duty would be utility: I should do what brings about the greatest good for the greatest number.

In 2016 I followed my principles. While I voted for Sanders in the primary and preferred him over Hillary, I thought that a Trump presidency would be much worse for the country than another Clinton presidency.  I saw her as competent business as usual politician. I predicted, correctly, that Trump would be bad for most Americans. I had the view in 2020 and 2024. When Trump runs in 2028, I’ll probably vote against him.  As such, I take the classic approach of choosing the lesser evil and the devil I know. If I was voting for the greater evil, Cthulhu would have my vote.

It might be objected that my approach is flawed. After all, if someone votes based on a rational assessment of the impact of an election on everyone, then she might vote against her own self-interest. What a person should do, it could be argued, is consider the matter selfishly and vote based on what is in her interest regardless of the general good.

This approach has considerable appeal and is based on an established moral philosophy which is ethical egoism. This is the view that a person should always take the action that maximizes her self-interest. Roughly put, for the ethical egoist, she is the only one with moral value. The opposing moral view is altruism; the view that other people count morally (to at least some degree). Ayn Rand is probably the best-known proponent of ethical egoism and the virtue of selfishness. This ideology was embraced by Paul Ryan and she was beloved by the American Tea Party before it was assimilated by MAGA.

While supporters of selfishness claim that the collective result of individual selfishness will be the general good (a view attributed to Adam Smith), history and reason show the opposite. Everyone being selfish has exactly the result one would suspect, and most people would be worse off than if people were more altruistic. To use an analogy, everyone being cruel does not make the world a kinder place. More people being kind makes kinder.

This is not to say that people should not consider their interests, just that they should also consider the interests of others. This is, after all, what makes civilization possible. Pure selfishness without regulation, as Hobbes argued, is the state of nature and the state of war and is not in anyone’s interest.

It can also be objected that my approach is flawed because it perpetuates the two-party lockdown of the American political system. While most people didn’t know this, there were many third party candidates running in 2016. Perhaps the best known was libertarian Gary Johnson. He received 1% of the popular vote in 2012 and managed to reach double digits in some polls. As he did not win, a vote for Johnson helped either Trump or Hillary get elected (depending on whether the person would have otherwise voted for one of them). Many claim that Nader’s ill-fated bid for president enabled Bush to win the election. While voting for a third-party candidate can be seen as, at best, throwing away one’s vote a case can be made for voting this way.

Like the approach I took in the interview, the argument for voting third party can be based on utilitarian considerations (one can also make a deontological argument based on the notion of a duty to vote one’s conscience). The difference is that the vote for the third party would be justified by the hope of long-term consequences. To be specific, the justification would be that voting for a third-party candidate could allow the greater evil to win this election. And the next election. And probably several more elections after that. But, eventually, the lockdown on politics by Democrats and Republicans could be broken by a viable third party. If the third party is likely to be better than the Democrats or Republicans, then this could be a good utilitarian argument.  It could also be a good argument if having a viable third party merely improved things for the population. The deciding factor would be whether the positive consequences of eventually getting a viable third party would be worth the cost of getting there. Naturally, the likelihood of viability is also a factor.

I am still split on this issue, though Trump’s two victories have pushed me towards favoring voting for the lesser evil. On the one hand, there seems to be a good reason to stick with voting for the lesser evil, namely the fact that third party viability is a gamble. There is also concern about whether any third-party candidate is better than the lesser evil. On the other hand, voting for the lesser evil does lock us in a two-party system and this could prove more damaging than allowing the greater evil to win numerous times on the way towards having a viable third party.

Put a bit simply, a silencer is a device for suppressing the sound a gun makes when it fires. This is usually done to avoid drawing attention to the shooter. This makes an excellent analogy for what happens to proposals for gun regulation: the sound is quickly suppressed to ensure that it does not get too much attention.

Part of this suppression is deliberate. After each mass shooting, the NRA and similar groups step up pressure on their politicians to ensure new regulations are delayed, defeated or defanged. While it is tempting to cast the NRA as a nefarious player subverting democracy, the NRA seems to have mastered the democratic process: it organizes and guides motivated citizens to give money (which is used to lobby politicians) and to contact their representatives. This has often proven more effective than protests, sit-ins and drum circles. While it is true that the NRA represents only a fraction of the population, politics is like any sport: you must participate to win. While many citizens do not even bother to vote, NRA member turnout is apparently quite good. This is, of course, democracy. Naturally, another tale could be told of the NRA and its power and influence. A tale that presents the NRA and its members as subverting the will of the majority.

Certain pundits and politicians also engage in suppression. One standard tactic is, after a shooting, to claim that it is “too soon” to engage in discussion and lawmaking. Rather, the appropriate response involves thoughts and prayers. While it is appropriate to pay respects to the wounded and dead, there is a difference between doing this and trying to run out the clock with this delaying tactic. Those that use it know that if the discussion can be delayed, interest will fade and along with it the chances of any action being taken.

It is, in fact, appropriate to act as soon as possible. To use the obvious analogy, if a fire is ravaging through a neighborhood, then the time to put out that fire is now. This way there will be less need for moments of thoughts and prayers for victims.

Another stock tactic is to accuse those proposing gun regulation of playing politics and exploiting the tragedy to advance their agenda. This approach can have some moral merit; if a person is engaged in a Machiavellian exploitation of some awful event (be it a mass shooting, a terrorist attack, or a migrant committing murder) without real concern for others, then that person would be morally awful. That said, they could still be acting rightly, albeit for all the wrong reasons. This would be in terms of the consequences, which could be good despite the immoral motivation. For example, if a politician cynically exploited the harm inflicted by lead contaminated water to gain national attention so they could gain power and money, then that person would not be a good person. However, if this resulted in changes that reduced lead poisoning in the United States, then consequences would be good and desirable.

It is also worth considering that using an awful event to motivate change for the better could result from laudable motives and a recognition of how human psychology works. To use an analogy, a person who loves someone who just suffered from a lifestyle inflicted heart attack could use that event to get the person to change her lifestyle and do so for commendable reasons. After all, people are most likely to do something when an awful event is fresh in their minds; hence this is the ideal time to address a problem, which leads to the final part of the discussion.

Although active suppression can be an effective tactic, it often relies on the fact that interest in a matter fades as time passes. This is why those opposed to new gun regulation use delaying tactics. They know that public attention will shift and fade.

On the one hand, the human tendency to lose interest can be regarded as a bad thing. As Merlin said in Excalibur, “for it is the doom of men that they forget.” In the case of mass shootings and gun violence, people quickly forget an incident until the next mass shooting reminds them. This allows a problem to persist and is why action needs to be taken as soon as possible.

On the other hand, our forgetting is often our salvation. If the memory of fear and pain did not fade over time, they would be wounds that did not heal. Just as a person would bleed to death physically from wounds that never healed, a person would bleed out emotionally if memory did not fade.

To use another analogy, if the mind is like a ship and memory is like a cargo, just as a ship that could never lighten its load would plunge to the ocean floor, a person that could never lighten her emotional load would be dragged into the great abyss of emotions and thus be ruined. Thus, forgetting is both our doom and our salvation. Of course, we would have far less need to forget if we remembered what we need to fix. And fixed it.