Report from Counsel
ELECTION COMMENTARY
in moveon.org:
“Questions are swirling around whether the election was conducted honestly or not. We need to know —— was it or wasn't it? If people were wrongly prevented from voting, or if legitimate votes were mis-counted or not counted at all, we need to know so the wrongdoers can be held accountable, and so we can prevent this from happening again. “
I observed the election here in Ohio, at the County Board of Elections from 6:30 a.m. until 11 p.m. While the concerns of moveon.org are certainly legitimate (wrongly prevented from voting, or if legitimate votes were mis-counted or not counted at all), they also do not address the issue of ballot-box stuffing, of individuals not registered to vote or voting more than once, in multiple jurisdictions. (In Chicago, it is traditional that every cemetery is allowed to vote.)
In my local Board of Elections, I personally saw mentally retarded individuals being brought to the voting booth and “helped” to vote, and many absentee ballots coming in from nursing homes. A friend (who happens to be Caucasian) served as an observer in a predominantly black, Democrat, precinct in Youngstown. He told me he was routinely pointed out (with a sneer) to voters coming in, as “he’s a Republican”. When unregistered individuals were challenged, the presiding judge (Democrat) routinely allowed them to vote, and not by provisional ballot. We also had the unfortunate recruiting of voter registrant solicitors, by payment of crack cocaine (discovered in Defiance County).
Certainly these could be isolated instances of individual misconduct, or they could be blown out of proportion and become the basis for a conspiracy theory alleging that Democrats attempted to steal the election. The middle way would seem to maintain some balance, to suspend judgment until and unless the empirical evidence shows otherwise. A forgotten source once said: “Never attribute to malice what is more easily explained by ignorance.”
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Culture wars - Who's Winning?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/arts/14rich.html?oref=login&th
Frank Rich in today's NY Times:
"Everything about the election results - and about American culture itself - confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry's defeat notwithstanding, it's blue America, not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. Kerry voters who have been flagellating themselves since Election Day with a vengeance worthy of "The Passion of the Christ" should wake up and smell the Chardonnay.
The blue ascendancy is nearly as strong among Republicans as it is among Democrats. Those whose "moral values" are invested in cultural heroes like the accused loofah fetishist Bill O'Reilly and the self-gratifying drug consumer Rush Limbaugh are surely joking when they turn apoplectic over MTV. William Bennett's name is now as synonymous with Las Vegas as silicone. The Democrats' Ashton Kutcher is trumped by the Republicans' Britney Spears. Excess and vulgarity, as always, enjoy a vast, bipartisan constituency, and in a democracy no political party will ever stamp them out. "
"Excess and vulgarity" = definition of politics??
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From Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac"
Today is Veterans Day, honoring Americans who have served their country in the armed forces.
November 11 was originally called Armistice Day because it was on this day in 1918 that the First World War came to an end. The armistice was signed at 11:00 AM, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year. After four years of brutal trench fighting, nine million soldiers had died and 21 million were wounded.
It was called "The War to End All Wars," because it was the bloodiest war in history up to that point, and it made many people so sick of war that they hoped no war would ever break out again.
Many intellectuals and artists were disillusioned by the war and thought it had been eaningless. But President Woodrow Wilson believed that the United States' participation in World War I was a great victory for idealism. He said, "The Americans who went to Europe to die are a unique breed. Never before have men crossed the seas to a foreign land to fight for a cause which they did not pretend was peculiarly their own, which they knew was the cause of humanity and mankind. These Americans gave the greatest of all gifts, the gift of life and the gift of spirit."
Thank a veteran today.
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HOW TO ARGUE
"...argument, to be effective--to have any chance of persuading--must be ad hominem. This is as true of nonevaluative arguments as it is of evaluative (including moral) arguments. The idea is to begin where your interlocutor is, even if you believe it to be false and even if you reject it. Note the implication. As an atheist, I can persuade a theist (a Christian, say) to change his or her beliefs. If the theist resists my conclusion on grounds that I, the critic, don't believe my own premises, I respond that I don't have to. "It's enough that you believe them," I say. "You are committed to changing your beliefs--if you care about consistency, at any rate."
I sometimes hear it said that I am "imposing" my values on others when I argue. This is risible. I'm imposing their values on them. I want my Christian friends to be the best Christians they can be. I want them to have consistent beliefs, to believe what they say, and to practice what they preach. Friendship, as Aristotle explained long ago, is a demanding relationship. This--promoting personal integrity--is one of its demands.
...
Arguing is hard, daunting work (although great fun). It requires not just logical skill, which, like any other skill, can be refined and honed, but substantive knowledge of various theories, doctrines, principles, ideologies, and worldviews. In order for me, an atheist, to persuade a Christian to believe this or that, I must know Christianity inside and out. If I were once a Christian, so much the better. In order for me, a deontologist, to persuade a consequentialist to believe that war in Iraq was justified, I must know consequentialism inside and out. All of us have a great deal to learn from one another--if only we are willing. The flip side is that all of us have a great deal to teach one another--if only we make the effort.
Alas, teaching and learning require listening and reading skills that are in short supply in our impatient, inattentive, aggressive culture. We value winning more than learning. Argumentation should not be thought of as a contest, much less as warfare. It is more like helping a friend. I want my Christian friends (yes, I have some) to have a coherent body of beliefs. If they care about me, they will want me to have a coherent body of beliefs--even if they also believe, as they probably do, that I will burn in hell forever. They might even try to show me that certain of my beliefs commit me to belief in God. I welcome the attempt. It respects me as a rational being. There is no more shame in being persuaded to change one's beliefs than there is in being helped by a friend to have a more efficiently running automobile. Argue away!
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Arlington, where he teaches Logic on a regular basis. He is coauthor, with the late Irving M. Copi, of Informal Logic, 3d ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996). Years ago, someone asked his mother what he does for a living. She said he teaches philosophy at a university. When asked what philosophy is, she said, "I don't know, but it has something to do with arguing."
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Definition
Presidency, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)
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National Review article
Excerpt from the National Review:
In short, the more sophisticated, the more technological, the more hyped and televised war becomes, the more pundits and strategists warn us about "fourth-generational," "asymmetrical," "irregular," and "new dimensional" conflict, the more we simply forget the unchanging requisite of the will to win that trumps all other considerations. John Kerry has no more secret a plan than George Bush - because there is no secret way to pacify Iraq other than to kill the killers, humiliate their cause through defeat, and give the credit of the victory, along with material aid and the promise of autonomous freedom, to moderate Iraqis. Victory on the battlefield - not the mysterious diplomacy of "wise men," or German and French sanction, or Arab League support - alone will allow Iraq an opportunity for humane government.
Meanwhile, we all vote. One candidate urges us to return to the mindset of pre-September 11 - law enforcement dealing with terrorists as nuisances. He claims the policies that have led to an absence of another attack at home, the end of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, idealistic efforts to extend freedom, and radical and positive changes in Pakistan, Libya, the West Bank, and the Gulf have made things worse. In contrast, the other reminds us that we are in a real war against horrific enemies and are no longer passive targets, but will fight the terrorists on their home turf, win, and leave behind humane government. No choice could be clearer. It is America's call.
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Election Reflections by Keith Burgess-Jackson
Election Reflections
1. Our criminal-justice system instantiates what the late Harvard philosopher
John Rawls (in
A Theory of Justice [1971; rev. ed. 1999]) called imperfect procedural justice. There is an independent standard by which to evaluate the outcome, viz., all and only the guilty are to be convicted, but no procedure to ensure it. Mistakes get made. Either some guilty individuals are not convicted or some innocent individuals are convicted. The best we can do is keep improving the procedures so as to minimize the number and magnitude of mistakes.
Voting instantiates what Rawls called pure procedural justice. Here, there is no independent standard by which to evaluate the outcome. Whatever outcome emerges from a fair application of the procedural rules is just. Let us hope that the rules for tomorrow’s presidential election are fairly applied. Ideally, all and only properly registered voters will vote.
2. Can we agree in advance that there will be no whining about the
electoral college after the election? Both candidates went into the election with their eyes wide open. Both knew that the winner of the election is not the person with the most popular votes. Perhaps we should abolish the electoral college. We can debate that some other day. But not now. The system is in place. It will give us a winner. Let’s live with it without carping.
3. If John Kerry receives more electoral votes than President Bush, I will accept him as my president. I will respectfully disagree with those who voted for Kerry, but accept their judgment and the legitimacy of their choice. I hereby call upon others to make a similar vow. Let’s get behind whoever wins the election tomorrow. We’re at war. Much work remains to be done both in foreign affairs and in domestic policy. Let’s put the acrimony of the campaign behind us and work together as Americans for the common good.
posted by Keith Burgess-Jackson @Analphilosopher.blogspot.com
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From Today's New York Times
To the Editor:Re "Cue the Woman in Pink" (editorial, Oct. 28):
The woman in pink (an image from an ad attacking a congresswoman) is a great metaphor for political strategists' efforts to stigmatize opponents.This, along with poisonous radio and TV talk, leaders who question the patriotism of their opponents, the failure of mainstream journalists to challenge lies and distortions with facts, a passive electorate that naïvely expects to learn about candidates from TV sound bites and staged "debates" and a culture that values simplification of complex problems and prizes candidates' personalities over their abilities, has created a crisis in American democracy, which, as you note, we want to export.
Democracy does not mean that any tactic that produces a vote is justified. I care a lot who wins the election, but I think it is more important that there be a clear winner and that we begin the process of restoring our fundamental values of fairness, openness and respect for the opinions of others.
Tom StewartAltamont, N.Y., Oct. 28, 2004
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