Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
With apologies to Archbishop of Canterbury John Morton, I’m offering this version of his famous “fork”:
You’re a young idealist standing for the highest office in the land. Against many odds you’ve offered a candidacy of hope and change to an electorate tired of both war and the prior Administration that got them into those wars. There are rumors of widespread atrocities committed by that Administration in response to a horrific terrorist attack on American soil where thousands of your countrymen died. In your capacity as an US Senator, you’ve been briefed on several of these and you see a pattern developing. You’re a Constitutionalist; a lawyer; and a principled man, but you recognize the nation faces a real threat of nuclear holocaust at the hands of committed, well-funded terrorists supported and protected by renegade states and even some of our allies. These terrorists have a fanatical zeal and value martyrdom above self-preservation. You believe that if they acquire weapons of mass destruction the question will not be if millions of people will die, but which millions of people will die.
Riding a groundswell of promise and belief in your promises to restore American values, the electorate sends you to the nation’s capitol to change the way things have been done. During the course of the election, it has become clear that the drain on the economy caused by war, corruption, and old-fashioned greed has left the country in dire financial straits.
On January 16th you are briefed by the nation’s intelligence communities. You are told definitively that the intelligence community has engaged in extraordinary measures to fight America’s enemies which you conclude amount to torture, illegal renditions, detaining innocent people, and even Executive Orders approving the killing of persons deemed enemy combatants. You’ve inherited a Gulag within sight of the American coast and during the campaign you’ve vowed to close it. You are told that many senior members of the permanent intelligence community were aware of and approved the illegal measures employed in defense of the country. Losing these people would severely cripple efforts to defend the country as they form a sizable amount of the intelligence community’s institutional knowledge and memory. You’re also told that these senior intelligence officers have been promised immunity for their actions by the earlier Administration.
You convene your economic advisors who explain to you that the emergency measures adopted by your predecessor and designed to prop up the failing economy may well work but it will take time,and any shock to the nation could disturb this fragile trust building process. If the stimulus fails, the resulting shock could send the nation and Europe into a full-blown depression crippling the efforts to fight terrorism.
Moderate governments in the Mideast have come to you seeking aid to fight the fundamentalist movements that are fueling terrorist recruitment and sponsorship. They tell you that to continue the fight means more money and intelligence from the US or their efforts will be severely handicapped.
What do you do?
A. Continue the illegal policies of the past Administration reasoning that this is war and that your primary goal is to defend the nation at all costs. These repugnant policies seemed to have had some effect in curtailing the terrorist threat and your calling off the dogs is a real risk to your viability as a leader if you’re wrong and another deadly attack occurs on US soil. Another successful attack could throw the markets into a death spiral and the recovery might not occur for decades. You continue with the stimulus program and avoid any investigation of earlier illegal acts concluding that any shock to the fragile economy caused by the turmoil will reap more evil than it alleviates. You also avoid any investigation to eliminate the possibility of crippling the intelligence community. You share money and both illegally obtained and legally obtained intelligence with the friendly Arab states.
B. You reason that principle trumps expediency and stop all illegality. You immediately order investigations into the prior Administration’s handling of the war. You make public the results and bring indictments against wrongdoers. You do so even in the face of prior pledges of immunity reasoning they are void ad initio given our treaty obligations and on principles of international law. You make Herculean efforts to replace the intelligence officers lost to the investigations and you build morale by explaining your policies as being in the nation’s long-term best interest. You do what you can to stabilize the economy but you will not compromise in your efforts to prosecute those who have violated the law. You tell friendly states and Europe you understand their concerns about such a policy but you adhere to the adage that “let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
C. You adopt a middle ground approach reasoning it is best for the country that the economic recovery not be affected by criminal investigations of the American intelligence community and the prior Administration. You believe any move otherwise could lead to a weakening of American strength at the worst time and make that nuclear holocaust against an American city more likely. You change the illegal policies of the prior Administration to stop torture, curtail renditions and if absolutely necessary only to countries that will not use torture. You employ death warrants abroad and only against those your intelligence agencies tell you present a clear and present danger to the US. You fully support friendly states abroad against extremists and provide intelligence to them as well as cash.
D. Your Choice.
Now, the tough part: Defend your choice — and no changing facts that you don’t like in our “hypothetical situation.”
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Frank,
I read Glenn Greenwald regularly. There are many things that trouble me about Ron Paul. I wrote about them on other threads on this blog. It is for those reasons that I could not support him as a presidential candidate.
Bron,
Do you believe that the Palestinian people should have their own country? Would you have them live as a people without a land forever because you don’t approve of their government?
You wrote: “A totalitarian state has no right to force itself on another state which does not wish to become totalitarian or to be destroyed.”
Do you think the US should do what it did in Iraq to help spread democratic principles in a Palestinian state? Is it okay if a “liberal, democratic society” wages a preemptive war on a country ruled by a dictator/a totalitarian state?
Do you believe that all Palestinian people are suicide bombers and jihadists?
*****
BTW, our so-called “liberal, democratic society which believes in individual rights” isn’t as liberal and democratic as we would like to think. Our government keeps whittling away at our civil liberties. If the Enemy Expatriation Act (EEA) becomes law, Americans could even have their citizenship revoked.
I wrote about the EEA in a recent post titled “The Enemy Expatriation Act: Learn How Your Government Could Strip You of Your Citizenship If This Legislation Becomes Law.”
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/29/the-enemy-expatriation-act-learn-how-your-government-could-strip-you-of-your-citizenship-if-this-legislation-becomes-law/
Elaine , please also check out greenwald’s new article , if you have not already read it , on salon.com to see what our democratic govt. is really doing .
Things you mentioned are important to me too and that’s why I support the candidate that I do .
Elaine:
My personal feeling is that a state like the Soviet Union or Communist China has no moral right to exist. In other words a society that is not dedicated to human liberty has no moral right to exist. That they exist is a fact of reality and that some people like totalitarian states is also a fact of reality.
A totalitarian state has no right to force itself on another state which does not wish to become totalitarian or to be destroyed. The right of the Palestinian state to exist is not at issue, it does exist and Israel has a right to deny it any moral standing by not calling it a state.
Personally I will take a liberal, democratic society which believes in individual rights over a society which trains children to blow themselves up for the greater “good” of the “Palestinian” people.
I for one dont know why you need the issue clarified. Unless of course you support suicide bombers and jihad.
Frank, I think you need to look at your statement about brainwashed people and projection. Sure looks like projection to me (and I only have A B.A. in psych. Imagine what someone really versed in it might say.)
Frank
1, February 2, 2012 at 3:58 pm
Totally agree with you Tony ! It’s just sad how brainwashed people are …”Frank
1, February 3, 2012 at 1:08 am
the person himself may not be aware of that , as projection happens at a subconscious level .
Bron,
“On the one hand you have a democracy dedicated to individual liberty. On the other hand you have a totalitarian society dedicated to human subjugation.
“Seems pretty black and white to me. It only becomes gray when you bring in peripheral arguments.”
*****
I’m not sure what you mean by what you wrote–that Israelis are good and Palestinians are bad because of their different types of governmental structures…that Israel has a right to exist but a Palestinian state doesn’t? Could you clarify this for me?
Mespo:
“You know better than that. Explain to me how the Arab-Israeli conflict is a black and white situation when you “get down to the bone” and then we’ll talk.”
OK. On the one hand you have a democracy dedicated to individual liberty. On the other hand you have a totalitarian society dedicated to human subjugation.
Seems pretty black and white to me. It only becomes gray when you bring in peripheral arguments.
As Mr. Locke says when you are attacked you have a moral right and duty to protect yourself by all means necessary and to treat your attacker as nothing more than a beast to be dispatched (eliminated, killed, deep sixed, 86).
I would say the Israelis have shown remarkable restraint seeing as how they have atomic weapons.
The gray area is for people who wish to engage in moral cowardice or who have other fish to fry.
When your wife is being raped are you going to care about the reasons why the perp is doing it? Are you going to care he may have had a lousy childhood or his mother beat him or his dog pissed on his leg? But as a lawyer you would if the rapist was your client, you would want to find the gray area so you can cloud the mind of the jury just enough to keep them second guessing themselves as to a fitting punishment.
The gray area always supports evil.
Ekeyra:
The majority in society always sets the principles – for better or worse. You know that didn’t you?
But mespo,
Shouldn’t they have principals when they set the principles?
prin·ci·pal [prin-suh-puhl]
adjective
1. first or highest in rank, importance, value, etc.; chief; foremost.
prin·ci·ple [prin-suh-puhl] Show IPA
noun
1.an accepted or professed rule of action or conduct: a person of good moral principles.
2.a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived: the principles of modern physics.
3.a fundamental doctrine or tenet; a distinctive ruling opinion: the principles of the Stoics.
4.principles, a personal or specific basis of conduct or management: to adhere to one’s principles; a kindergarten run on modern principles.
Mespo,
Popularity trumps principles.
Freedom and human dignity are only relevant to how many people think its a good idea?
Yeah mike does not need anyones help . He is pretty good at calling others names like “ass” like “bigots” etc .
Now dOnt regress too much , your BP may get high , that’s not good for your health . Take a chill pill .
Like you Frank, I am just calling them as I see them. Mike doesn’t need my help.
Frank,
I understand perfectly well how projection works. I did not suggest that you needed to learn how it works because you don’t know how it works, but rather to illustrate that you were displacing attributes made to Paul by others back on them. When something is done like that subconsciously, that’s classical projection. When it is done consciously, that’s the Rovian propaganda tactic of accusing others of your sin.
I also know how denial works. The facts regarding Paul are he’s been associated with the John Birch Society and newsletters with his name on them that have born his name as publisher and editor have carried racist content. At worst, that makes him a racist himself, but as there is no direct evidence of that, I go with option number two, which at best makes him a panderer to racists. Projection. Denial. Purposeful political propaganda redirection and displacement. Whatever. It’s your opinion that Paul is suitable and relevant for public office. You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. The relevant fact is that Ron Paul has connections to organization and events that make questioning his possible racial prejudices a valid criticism. No amount of rhetoric, no matter the motive or underlying psychological mechanism, changes those facts.
There is also nothing anyone could say to about Paul’s economic policies I’d find surprising. In that area, I’ve heard it all already. Ad nauseum. I have yet to find any of it convincing. While there are a select few social policies of Libertarians I agree with, by in large, I find their economic policy to be fantasy based and recipes for both social and economic disaster like all laissez-faire economics. The assumptions that laissez-faire economics makes about human nature are as disastrously wrong as the assumptions communism made.
Then again, Ron Paul or Libertarian economics isn’t the relevant issue here.
The relevant issue is surveying the variety of responses to the hypotheticals set forth above. A Rorschach test isn’t interesting for the ink blots proper. It’s interesting because reactions to the ink blots and when those reactions are across a spectrum of viewers, the differences in the reactions between viewers.
I see you have a need to defend your buddy . Listen you don’t have to . It’s not that important . I just wanted to check the calliber of grandiosity , and I think I have a pretty good idea now .
Oh yes I’m the one who has been calling people racist bigots 10 year old 🙂
Frank,
Are you describing yourself?
Actually I don’t know that . My analysis of him through his posts does not allow me to say I know anything . I do however believe that people who call others racists and bigots , like Glen Beck , usually have some deep underlying intra psychic conflicts .
No one need defend me against this ass. He doesn’t care about Paul’s bigotry and misogyny so it’s a reasonable assumption he shares it. In his remarks about 18 year olds knowing economics, Von Mises no doubt, it shows he’s just another libertarian ass, incapable of following the logic of his beliefs to their conclusions, which would be the law of the jungle. He is using the childish tactic known as “I’m rubber, your glue….etc.” to call me what his esteemed leader is really guilty of being. All in all the rhetoric of a “true believer” who uses invective, rather than skill. Pathetically sad, but somehow funny. It’s impossible to take him seriously, which coincidentally also is the fate of his idol. Altogether a phony man down to his nomme de plume, meant to convey the honesty he so lacks.
Frank,
You are way off base and you know it.
Rafflaw , I maybe way off base . But as I said a lot of times even wives don’t know the hidden secrets and the person himself may not be aware of that , as projection happens at a subconscious level . That’s what happens with those involved in church abuse cases . Again I’m not saying that anyone is racist or not I’m just describing a proven phenomenon . Life some times is not what it appears to be , but for some it appears pretty black and white .
Gene,
You are right about Mike. Frank is way off base thinking he is a racist! Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Gene, wasnt there a pastor who was recently convicted of molesting boys and even had a male prostitute, who prior to getting exposed was calling gay people all sort of names, do you remember that? its not uncommon for people to call other those names/behaviors that they dont want to accept in themselves. I am not saying that your buddy is, but what i am saying is a fact too. If i were u i will not be that sure. Lot of time even the wifes of these individuals dont know the reality of their partner. By the way, i think you are jumping to a conclusion that may not be very correct, you assume that you know better than me how projection works. You may, but at this point I think you will agree with me that you dont have the evidence to conclude that. However, I understand the automatic conclusion of some is that if some one supports Paul they must not be very educated or qualified. I would suggest one thing, next time you run into a 18 year old paul supporter ask him about the monetary policy, you maybe surprised. Have a good night!
Mike is a lot of things, but racist isn’t one of them.
Then again, anyone who criticizes someone with demonstrable ties to racist organizations (JBS) and racist newsletters (in his own name as publisher and editor) as being a racist in action if not in word and/or a panderer to racists is clearly a racist themselves against Whitey McCracker & the White Supremes.
Yep.
You should learn how the mechanism of projection works before you use the word, Frank.