News item: (AFP, 3/5/09) An Iranian woman living in Spain who was disfigured and blinded by a man in Iran said Thursday she welcomed a Tehran court ruling that awards her eye-for-eye justice against her assailant...
"My intention is to ask for the application of the law not just for revenge but also so that no other woman will have to go through this. It is to set an example," the 30-year-old added.
In November an Iranian court ruled that the man -- identified only as Majid -- who admitted blinding Bahrami in 2004 by throwing acid in her face because she rejected his marriage request should also be blinded with acid based on the Islamic law system of "eye-for-an-eye" retribution.
Iran's Supreme Court confirmed the sentence at the beginning of February.
Bahrami, who moved to Barcelona after the attack to get medical treatment, said the court had originally ruled that she was entitled to have the man blinded in only one eye in Iran because "each man is worth two women".
"But I explained to the judge that with one eye one can still live," she told top-selling newspaper El Pais in another interview.
The court then ruled that the man would be blinded in both eyes if in exchange Bahrami agreed to give up the 20,000 euros (25,000 dollars) which she was set to receive from her assailant's family.
"He will be anesthetized and will not suffer pain. His face will not be disfigured because only a few drops (of acid) will be needed, he will not have the internal injuries which I had," she told ABC when asked if she felt she was less cruel than her aggressor…
She says she survives on a rent subsidy of 400 euros per month which she receives from the (secular) Spanish government and charity from friends. (End story.)
Some may suggest that incessant religion-bashing serves only to alienate religious moderates from the advancement of secularism and humanism. It would be suggested by those critics that, for example, the above monstrosity is not “typical” of religion or Islam or anything in particular. I maintain that such criticisms directed at the exposing of the excesses of religious belief are simply wrong; not enough persons are exposed to where irrational beliefs can lead, even if all such beliefs do not lead to disaster.
It is Iran’s Supreme Court’s claim that "each man is worth two women". It is the moral right (and duty) of anyone to denounce this ruling and beyond the utter misogyny of it, this ruling serves to show how laws and rulings based on supernaturally supported beliefs bring nothing to the table in the real world.
Is this a radical and exceptional ruling by an irrelevant body of fanatics? Although it is a ruling by a body of fanatics, a ruling by the worlds most populous Shiite nation’s actual Supreme Court is hardly irrelevant; and if this Court’s decision is exceptional, exactly where do we turn to understand what the orthodox ruling should have been?
Addressing religious moderates, is the religious attitude of the Iranian Supreme Court confined only to “radicalized” societies?
Please take note of the following; From Pew Research: “For example, six-in-ten white evangelical Protestants say that the Bible should be the guiding principle in making laws when it conflicts with the will of the people, a view rejected by an equally large majority of Americans, including most Catholics and white mainline Protestants.”
The last time I checked, evangelical Protestants had their run of the White House for the last 8 years and had a Vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, on the last national ticket of the Republican Party. An early favorite for the 2012 nomination is Rev. Mike Huckabee!
The ruling by Iran’s Supreme Court can be contested on grounds that it is un-Islamic; but if one is honest, one would have to admit that most conservative and literal Islamic fundamentalists would agree with the proposition that "each man is worth two women" and that a more “moderate” view has less claim to orthodoxy.
One can make the claim that “their religion” or “their God” would never endorse such a ruling but if one is honest, one would have to admit that many average Americans would agree “the Bible should be the guiding principle in making laws when it conflicts with the will of the people…”, a principle that entirely supports the ruling of the Iranian Supreme Court.
As a study in logic and law, is the passing of Proposition 8 in California destroying the right of gay couples to marry that much different that the Iranian Supreme Court’s ruling? Just substitute the concept that “homosexuality is immoral because it offends God” for "each man is worth two women" and the shared concept that “the Bible (or Koran) should be the guiding principle in making laws when it conflicts with the will of the people…” and let the results speak for themselves.
Religious moderates of all kinds must face up to the impossibility of governing fairly and reasonably if supernaturally supported beliefs guide law. There is no way to categorize a belief as “moderate” as opposed to a “radical” – certainly the fact that a belief is widely held is not assurance of its “moderation”!
From Iran to the US, the common thread is impossible to deny; human well being simply is not the goal of faith-held beliefs; faith-held beliefs have no goal – they are arbitrary and capricious. They can claim anything from “homosexuality is immoral because it offends God” to "each man is worth two women" to “all non-believers are damned and deserving of it.” What is sure to follow from these propositions is human misery.
There is no place for the supernatural in the public square.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
How Does a Humanist Approach Economics?
Exactly what should a humanist think regarding the economic woes that we are suffering through in the US and around the world? What economic approach should a humanist embrace or are there a number of approaches that can be embraced?
There have been volumes written on the subject, of course, with points of view that are literally diametrically opposed to each other and everything in between. Ayn Rand, a non-theist, advocated unfettered capitalism; Karl Marx, another non-theist, advocated a communistic approach. Closer to the mainstream, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes have all exerted differing influences on economic thinkers and policies that have followed.
Indeed, if you enjoy contradiction and opposing opinions, listen to a number of different economists and economic forecasters explain what has happened and what is about to happen and you will undoubtedly hear everything ranging from a prediction of the next great depression to the next economic boom being just around the corner.
And this is the problem for the freethinking humanist; economics is most certainly still an inexact “science.” There are simply too many factors involved, not the least of which is almost completely factor of unpredictable human nature at play in the economies of an increasingly complex world. “Random” stimulus such as weather, war, corruption and good and bad luck conspire to make the future nearly totally unpredictable. Add human emotions such as fear and euphoria and it becomes clear that forecasting the economy requires more than complex math; it requires complex psychological analyses of masses of human beings as well!
That is why it is unwise, in this writer’s opinion, to have an unswerving approach to economics. The guidelines that we should respect in the economic field involve those common decencies that we revere in all areas of human endeavor, such as not causing unnecessary harm, enabling individual freedom to the degree that others are not harmed, honesty, responsibility, fairness and reasonableness.
This approach does not rule out many moderate economic approaches; it would rule out, for example, communism which promotes a dictatorship of a particular class and may disallow the individual right to be enterprising. A humanistic approach would also rule out a fascistic alliance of large businesses with government. These two approaches are not compatible with fairness or individual freedom, not to mention the fact that fanatical followers often will accept human suffering rather than sacrifice any aspect of their economic belief system.
What is left for us to decide as rational agents is to figure out in each economic situation, what approach harmonizes with the common decencies; what approach allows for individual freedom and, in addition, works well to raise our standard of living and mitigate human suffering! What may work for auto-making or banking may not be the right approach to a utility or other business involved with common areas of a nation, such as roads, police, the army or schools.
Should the goal be as little government taxing as possible, with its concordant fewer government services; or should we band to together via higher taxes to create a social safety net for those who may fall into need?
Would the low tax approach allow for more human suffering? Would the higher tax approach lead to sloth and “gaming the system” lowering everyone’s standard of living?
Should the market determine the price of a product; should a government or a bureaucrat?
Once again, we know that both approaches have problems and limitations. The market approach gave us Enron, Lehman Bros., AIG, Bear Stearns, the health care system we now have and the US auto industry. And, of course, the Great Depression and our current woes.
The Command Economy approach gave the world the disastrous economies of Russia and China for much of the last century. It has only been when both those countries abandoned those failed economic policies for freer markets that their economies grew tangibly improving the lives of many citizens. Even though their new economies have brought other problems to the fore, lives have improved. It is clear already that even in Russia and China, despite capitalism’s success in improving lives, this success is not unqualified.
Admittedly this is a frustrating and not totally satisfying way of approaching the topic of economics; it’s so uncertain and non-committal. It is much easier for those who crave certainty to be total and unblinking capitalists, libertarians, socialists or communists.
But no one said freethinking and humanism would lead to simplistic answers. In the category of economics there are none.
So when you read about the next “bailout” or “rescue” or “financial stimulus” plan, do not make up your mind so quickly; there is no guarantee that this idea is not either the best or worst idea to come down the pike. Each idea should be looked at in a non-dogmatic manner and assessed in as scientifically a manner as is possible. If our economy is anything, it is complex.
We do know that the previous administration proudly took the certain dogmatic approach: pure ideology ruled until disaster stared the administration in the face.
We can safely say that the dogmatic and ideological approach has failed.
Good riddance.
On a note of hope, the approach of the new administration of President Obama, has been, on the surface, open-minded. It remains to be seen if they can truly think “outside the box,” and govern in that manner as well, but that is the image they are trying to convey. We hope that they succeed in being innovative, creative and freethinking in their economic approach and do not succumb to political pressures, from the right or left that would promote an unthinking ideology.
We shall soon find out.
With all this said I can now offer my opinion on what the approach should be going forward, in the full knowledge that even the best of all possible plans has only a certain percentage change of succeeding as intended, and that even a bad plan might work - with luck.
It is obvious that the current problem has its roots in the abuse of credit by both business and consumers. Businesses borrowed too much, relying on continued growth in the economy to enable them to pay back their loans as they expanded. Consumers borrowed heavily on both the housing front and the credit card front in the expectation that their home’s value would always rise and if they were unable to pay the exorbitant mortgage, they could simply sell their house – at a profit.
The disaster began when so many persons could not pay their mortgages at the same time that home values started to decline because of the glut of homes for sale by distressed sellers.
The situation began to snowball – if sellers could not pay their mortgages and home prices dropped, banks that lent them money had to repossess home that were now worth less than the loans that were owed. It did not help that many mortgages were fraudulently issued without proper credit checks or home appraisals – many of these are the “sub-prime loans” that were the first to go bad.
As more and more persons defaulted, and banks lost more and more money on those loans, and houses became less and less valuable, those financial entities that had bought securities based on home mortgages came to realize that those securities were becoming less valuable. In fact, the value of securities backed by mortgages declined so badly that financial institutions soon had less overall capital or value in relation to deposits and other liabilities as required by both law and common sense.
So some stopped lending, especially to each other, and others went bankrupt.
When banks stop lending, it becomes difficult to buy a house, further driving down home prices, or even buy a car.
If you’re a business, it becomes hard to refinance as you had previously. Good luck to the firm that has a loan due to be paid or refinanced!
When consumers began to realize that their homes were declining in value, and they could no longer be used to finance other purchases they did in fact do the logical thing: they stopped making purchases.
Businesses started to realize that consumers had reached their credit limits and were not buying their products anymore – so they began to lay off workers and lessen inventories.
So this is what you get when consumers have little available credit, and banks have little to lend; a huge and sudden recession.
This is a negative feedback loop if there ever was one and there are many contributing factors. Last year, crude oil soared to $147 per barrel in price; at that moment the credit related bubble began to burst in earnest. Since then practically ALL commodities declined in value, including oil, metals, real estate and even gold. With billions and trillions of dollars in “paper” wealth gone, primarily due to the decline in real estate values, stocks and mutual funds, there was less cash in existence to chase commodities and who needs commodities when you’re not making stuff anyway?
This is called “deflation” and it is deadly to the economy. Why buy something now when it will cost less later? Another negative feedback loop!
Obviously, it’s not as if people do not want to buy stuff and banks do not want to lend their money. Both borrowers and lenders are afraid to do their thing.
Businesses know this and retreat to a protective position.
But consider this; the recession is essentially the result of future expectations which right now are extremely bad. In other words, there is great fear and it is fear that prevents consumers from buying, lenders from lending and businesses from expanding.
Remove or reverse or moderate the fear and the recession can be ended.
What would reduce the level of fear?
The key items must be jobs and job security and the banking system’s viability. If you are secure in your existing job, you will spend normally. Obviously if you are now unemployed and then find a job, your spending should only increase. When businesses see this happening, they will expand further.
If banks are not worried about being paid back because people will not be losing their jobs, they will lend - that is unless they are too bankrupt or deficient in reserves to lend.
So it would seem the task at hand for our government is to foster jobs creation and ensure bank viability.
A stimulus package not focused on job creation may be worthless. Simply sending out tax rebates, for example, will NOT ELIMINATE FEAR! Only a secure job will do this, in my opinion, and to avoid wasting taxpayer money, the job created should be a useful and necessary endeavor, not a time waster such as digging and filling in ditches.
“Fortunately,” over the decades, we have neglected many necessary tasks, such as improving our infrastructure and making our nation energy independent. Building schools, hospitals, repairing crumbling bridges or creating an improved electrical grid or funding advanced technological research would lead to further economic expansion, keeping the economy growing even after the stimulus has run its course. Our quality of life would improve.
Fixing the financial system may be the tougher task. The Federal Government has some choices; buying preferred stock, common stock or nationalizing certain banks. Or, if a price can be calculated, perhaps purchasing the non-liquid assets (e.g.: bad loans) of banks would be the right move; or facilitating a market or exchange where this junk could be sold in an orderly and transparent manner. The choice is complex but the goals are ensuring viability while keeping the expense to taxpayers to a minimum. Letting them go bankrupt is really not a choice – see the mess the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. has caused. It could take years to sort it all out! Imagine the mess if a Citibank were to fail!
Allowing banks to remain “too big to fail” in the future should not be a choice either. Going back to their core business of lending to consumers for more than they pay out for deposits may be boring but it has worked for centuries. Exotic financial instruments such as derivatives, credit default swaps and triple short ETFs should be regulated if not eliminated. There is much to do.
But why did banks (and other companies) get in the position they are in? They were not required to make bad loans or bad business decisions, were they? After all, not all companies made those bad decisions!
As the system now works, the CEOs of banks (and other corporations) do not necessarily have their company’s interest in mind as they drive them to bankruptcy – why should they? If a policy is likely to benefit the CEO and other higher officers of the corporation, rather than the bank or corporation, what do you think will happen – or has happened?
A $100,000,000 bonus is a difficult thing to forsake for the good of a corporation!
Here is the conflict – a corporation, if it was a sentient entity, would have a goal of surviving well, like any other sentient entity. Unfortunately, running a corporation are numerous other sentient entities – officers, directors, and laborers, all with conflicting goals. The corporation thus suffers – you wind up with Enron, Citibank and General Motors.
Therefore corporate governance, in order to protect stockholders and employees in particular, must be codified and made into enforceable law or otherwise a company is at the mercy of sentient beings with conflicting goals. Simply requiring an officer to have a fiduciary responsibility has not worked particularly when corporate boards who oversee the executives consist of the corporate officer’s “pals” who are corporate officers elsewhere. (Note: I’m available for Board of Director work.) This is simply not working in too many situations.
Ethical and responsible captaincy of a corporation has long been neglected and too many in the corporate world accept the myth that humongous corporate bonuses are “necessary” to preserve “talent” within a company.
I don’t think so. In fact it may be that the larger the bonus, the worse a corporation is run.
Limiting bonuses to executives to stock in the company, with the size of the bonus tied to size of the executive’s salary, and then not redeemable for at least 5 to 7 years so that the current stock price cannot be manipulated is a simple solution.
Consider that Major League Baseball, an industry where performance can easily be measured, mostly bans bonuses – even based on performance. Why should they do this; wouldn’t it motivate players? Their answer is actually logical.
Major League Baseball limits bonuses because they do not want players to “game” the system and go for homeruns, strikeouts and other milestones that do not 100% correlate to winning baseball. Corporations similarly should NOT want executives that game the system in order to achieve bonuses in ways that could hurt the company.
What is the most an employee/executive should be paid? If Alex Rodriguez can get by on about 30,000,000 per year, and is obviously good (though not perfect) at his job, that should be about enough for most anyone else. But of course, I could be wrong or unlucky about all of this.
We would love to hear from readers how their humanism informs their take on the current economic crisis.
(Gerry Dantone has an M.B.A. in finance from St. John’s Univ. and was elected to their chapter of the International Honor Society for Economics - http://www.omicrondeltaepsilon.org )
There have been volumes written on the subject, of course, with points of view that are literally diametrically opposed to each other and everything in between. Ayn Rand, a non-theist, advocated unfettered capitalism; Karl Marx, another non-theist, advocated a communistic approach. Closer to the mainstream, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes have all exerted differing influences on economic thinkers and policies that have followed.
Indeed, if you enjoy contradiction and opposing opinions, listen to a number of different economists and economic forecasters explain what has happened and what is about to happen and you will undoubtedly hear everything ranging from a prediction of the next great depression to the next economic boom being just around the corner.
And this is the problem for the freethinking humanist; economics is most certainly still an inexact “science.” There are simply too many factors involved, not the least of which is almost completely factor of unpredictable human nature at play in the economies of an increasingly complex world. “Random” stimulus such as weather, war, corruption and good and bad luck conspire to make the future nearly totally unpredictable. Add human emotions such as fear and euphoria and it becomes clear that forecasting the economy requires more than complex math; it requires complex psychological analyses of masses of human beings as well!
That is why it is unwise, in this writer’s opinion, to have an unswerving approach to economics. The guidelines that we should respect in the economic field involve those common decencies that we revere in all areas of human endeavor, such as not causing unnecessary harm, enabling individual freedom to the degree that others are not harmed, honesty, responsibility, fairness and reasonableness.
This approach does not rule out many moderate economic approaches; it would rule out, for example, communism which promotes a dictatorship of a particular class and may disallow the individual right to be enterprising. A humanistic approach would also rule out a fascistic alliance of large businesses with government. These two approaches are not compatible with fairness or individual freedom, not to mention the fact that fanatical followers often will accept human suffering rather than sacrifice any aspect of their economic belief system.
What is left for us to decide as rational agents is to figure out in each economic situation, what approach harmonizes with the common decencies; what approach allows for individual freedom and, in addition, works well to raise our standard of living and mitigate human suffering! What may work for auto-making or banking may not be the right approach to a utility or other business involved with common areas of a nation, such as roads, police, the army or schools.
Should the goal be as little government taxing as possible, with its concordant fewer government services; or should we band to together via higher taxes to create a social safety net for those who may fall into need?
Would the low tax approach allow for more human suffering? Would the higher tax approach lead to sloth and “gaming the system” lowering everyone’s standard of living?
Should the market determine the price of a product; should a government or a bureaucrat?
Once again, we know that both approaches have problems and limitations. The market approach gave us Enron, Lehman Bros., AIG, Bear Stearns, the health care system we now have and the US auto industry. And, of course, the Great Depression and our current woes.
The Command Economy approach gave the world the disastrous economies of Russia and China for much of the last century. It has only been when both those countries abandoned those failed economic policies for freer markets that their economies grew tangibly improving the lives of many citizens. Even though their new economies have brought other problems to the fore, lives have improved. It is clear already that even in Russia and China, despite capitalism’s success in improving lives, this success is not unqualified.
Admittedly this is a frustrating and not totally satisfying way of approaching the topic of economics; it’s so uncertain and non-committal. It is much easier for those who crave certainty to be total and unblinking capitalists, libertarians, socialists or communists.
But no one said freethinking and humanism would lead to simplistic answers. In the category of economics there are none.
So when you read about the next “bailout” or “rescue” or “financial stimulus” plan, do not make up your mind so quickly; there is no guarantee that this idea is not either the best or worst idea to come down the pike. Each idea should be looked at in a non-dogmatic manner and assessed in as scientifically a manner as is possible. If our economy is anything, it is complex.
We do know that the previous administration proudly took the certain dogmatic approach: pure ideology ruled until disaster stared the administration in the face.
We can safely say that the dogmatic and ideological approach has failed.
Good riddance.
On a note of hope, the approach of the new administration of President Obama, has been, on the surface, open-minded. It remains to be seen if they can truly think “outside the box,” and govern in that manner as well, but that is the image they are trying to convey. We hope that they succeed in being innovative, creative and freethinking in their economic approach and do not succumb to political pressures, from the right or left that would promote an unthinking ideology.
We shall soon find out.
With all this said I can now offer my opinion on what the approach should be going forward, in the full knowledge that even the best of all possible plans has only a certain percentage change of succeeding as intended, and that even a bad plan might work - with luck.
It is obvious that the current problem has its roots in the abuse of credit by both business and consumers. Businesses borrowed too much, relying on continued growth in the economy to enable them to pay back their loans as they expanded. Consumers borrowed heavily on both the housing front and the credit card front in the expectation that their home’s value would always rise and if they were unable to pay the exorbitant mortgage, they could simply sell their house – at a profit.
The disaster began when so many persons could not pay their mortgages at the same time that home values started to decline because of the glut of homes for sale by distressed sellers.
The situation began to snowball – if sellers could not pay their mortgages and home prices dropped, banks that lent them money had to repossess home that were now worth less than the loans that were owed. It did not help that many mortgages were fraudulently issued without proper credit checks or home appraisals – many of these are the “sub-prime loans” that were the first to go bad.
As more and more persons defaulted, and banks lost more and more money on those loans, and houses became less and less valuable, those financial entities that had bought securities based on home mortgages came to realize that those securities were becoming less valuable. In fact, the value of securities backed by mortgages declined so badly that financial institutions soon had less overall capital or value in relation to deposits and other liabilities as required by both law and common sense.
So some stopped lending, especially to each other, and others went bankrupt.
When banks stop lending, it becomes difficult to buy a house, further driving down home prices, or even buy a car.
If you’re a business, it becomes hard to refinance as you had previously. Good luck to the firm that has a loan due to be paid or refinanced!
When consumers began to realize that their homes were declining in value, and they could no longer be used to finance other purchases they did in fact do the logical thing: they stopped making purchases.
Businesses started to realize that consumers had reached their credit limits and were not buying their products anymore – so they began to lay off workers and lessen inventories.
So this is what you get when consumers have little available credit, and banks have little to lend; a huge and sudden recession.
This is a negative feedback loop if there ever was one and there are many contributing factors. Last year, crude oil soared to $147 per barrel in price; at that moment the credit related bubble began to burst in earnest. Since then practically ALL commodities declined in value, including oil, metals, real estate and even gold. With billions and trillions of dollars in “paper” wealth gone, primarily due to the decline in real estate values, stocks and mutual funds, there was less cash in existence to chase commodities and who needs commodities when you’re not making stuff anyway?
This is called “deflation” and it is deadly to the economy. Why buy something now when it will cost less later? Another negative feedback loop!
Obviously, it’s not as if people do not want to buy stuff and banks do not want to lend their money. Both borrowers and lenders are afraid to do their thing.
Businesses know this and retreat to a protective position.
But consider this; the recession is essentially the result of future expectations which right now are extremely bad. In other words, there is great fear and it is fear that prevents consumers from buying, lenders from lending and businesses from expanding.
Remove or reverse or moderate the fear and the recession can be ended.
What would reduce the level of fear?
The key items must be jobs and job security and the banking system’s viability. If you are secure in your existing job, you will spend normally. Obviously if you are now unemployed and then find a job, your spending should only increase. When businesses see this happening, they will expand further.
If banks are not worried about being paid back because people will not be losing their jobs, they will lend - that is unless they are too bankrupt or deficient in reserves to lend.
So it would seem the task at hand for our government is to foster jobs creation and ensure bank viability.
A stimulus package not focused on job creation may be worthless. Simply sending out tax rebates, for example, will NOT ELIMINATE FEAR! Only a secure job will do this, in my opinion, and to avoid wasting taxpayer money, the job created should be a useful and necessary endeavor, not a time waster such as digging and filling in ditches.
“Fortunately,” over the decades, we have neglected many necessary tasks, such as improving our infrastructure and making our nation energy independent. Building schools, hospitals, repairing crumbling bridges or creating an improved electrical grid or funding advanced technological research would lead to further economic expansion, keeping the economy growing even after the stimulus has run its course. Our quality of life would improve.
Fixing the financial system may be the tougher task. The Federal Government has some choices; buying preferred stock, common stock or nationalizing certain banks. Or, if a price can be calculated, perhaps purchasing the non-liquid assets (e.g.: bad loans) of banks would be the right move; or facilitating a market or exchange where this junk could be sold in an orderly and transparent manner. The choice is complex but the goals are ensuring viability while keeping the expense to taxpayers to a minimum. Letting them go bankrupt is really not a choice – see the mess the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. has caused. It could take years to sort it all out! Imagine the mess if a Citibank were to fail!
Allowing banks to remain “too big to fail” in the future should not be a choice either. Going back to their core business of lending to consumers for more than they pay out for deposits may be boring but it has worked for centuries. Exotic financial instruments such as derivatives, credit default swaps and triple short ETFs should be regulated if not eliminated. There is much to do.
But why did banks (and other companies) get in the position they are in? They were not required to make bad loans or bad business decisions, were they? After all, not all companies made those bad decisions!
As the system now works, the CEOs of banks (and other corporations) do not necessarily have their company’s interest in mind as they drive them to bankruptcy – why should they? If a policy is likely to benefit the CEO and other higher officers of the corporation, rather than the bank or corporation, what do you think will happen – or has happened?
A $100,000,000 bonus is a difficult thing to forsake for the good of a corporation!
Here is the conflict – a corporation, if it was a sentient entity, would have a goal of surviving well, like any other sentient entity. Unfortunately, running a corporation are numerous other sentient entities – officers, directors, and laborers, all with conflicting goals. The corporation thus suffers – you wind up with Enron, Citibank and General Motors.
Therefore corporate governance, in order to protect stockholders and employees in particular, must be codified and made into enforceable law or otherwise a company is at the mercy of sentient beings with conflicting goals. Simply requiring an officer to have a fiduciary responsibility has not worked particularly when corporate boards who oversee the executives consist of the corporate officer’s “pals” who are corporate officers elsewhere. (Note: I’m available for Board of Director work.) This is simply not working in too many situations.
Ethical and responsible captaincy of a corporation has long been neglected and too many in the corporate world accept the myth that humongous corporate bonuses are “necessary” to preserve “talent” within a company.
I don’t think so. In fact it may be that the larger the bonus, the worse a corporation is run.
Limiting bonuses to executives to stock in the company, with the size of the bonus tied to size of the executive’s salary, and then not redeemable for at least 5 to 7 years so that the current stock price cannot be manipulated is a simple solution.
Consider that Major League Baseball, an industry where performance can easily be measured, mostly bans bonuses – even based on performance. Why should they do this; wouldn’t it motivate players? Their answer is actually logical.
Major League Baseball limits bonuses because they do not want players to “game” the system and go for homeruns, strikeouts and other milestones that do not 100% correlate to winning baseball. Corporations similarly should NOT want executives that game the system in order to achieve bonuses in ways that could hurt the company.
What is the most an employee/executive should be paid? If Alex Rodriguez can get by on about 30,000,000 per year, and is obviously good (though not perfect) at his job, that should be about enough for most anyone else. But of course, I could be wrong or unlucky about all of this.
We would love to hear from readers how their humanism informs their take on the current economic crisis.
(Gerry Dantone has an M.B.A. in finance from St. John’s Univ. and was elected to their chapter of the International Honor Society for Economics - http://www.omicrondeltaepsilon.org )
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Does Democracy Still Matter
Many Americans are still basking in the glow of Barack Obama’s victory in the Presidential election. It’s hard to blame them – after 8 years of an administration that has made a mess of two wars, oversaw the ruination of the economy, threatened our civil liberties, allowed 9-11 on their watch, reduced our stature in the eyes of the world, neglected the Mid-East peace process, and failed its citizens after hurricane Katrina, change is something that many Americans are eagerly anticipating.
But before we congratulate ourselves too heartily, we should look at some details. The electoral process itself has changed little since the debacle of 2000. We still have the ridiculous electoral college. “Black box” voting machines still exist and the fact that you may have liked the results this time around does not mean you should be happy with a voting system that is difficult if not impossible to verify.
Money still makes the major difference in elections and just because the winning candidate is hopefully a champion of the less affluent, it does not change the regrettable fact that the ability to spend in a campaign is too all-important. Obama supporters should instead realize that this year’s election was an anomaly in fundraising.
Even worse is the fact that the voting public remains ignorant and irrational. We are the same voting public that believed Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11 and collaborated with Al Qaeda and that WMDs were found in Iraq. Many voters, this time around, believed Obama was a Muslim, for example.
Although America now seems to be pleased with the election results, we should not be happy with the electoral process and the attitudes of many voters:
News Item: (9/20/08 Associated Press) (Excerpts) Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles...
Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice…
The AP-Yahoo poll used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., firm that interviews people online after randomly selecting and screening them over telephone…
Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.
Among white Democrats, one-third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.
The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites." Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't…
Researchers used mathematical modeling to sort out the relative impact of a huge swath of variables that might have an impact on people's votes — including race, ideology, party identification, the hunger for change and the sentiments of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's backers.
Just 59 percent of her white Democratic supporters said they wanted Obama to be president. Nearly 17 percent of Clinton's white backers plan to vote for McCain.
Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice as likely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjective described blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supporters in the primaries — particularly whites with high school education or less — were motivated in part by racial attitudes. (Go to http://news.aol.com/article/racial-views-may-cost-obama-election/181935?icid=200100397x1209949002x1200587996 .)
Polls after the election indirectly confirmed much of the above. A majority of white voters voted for McCain (55%); the only segment of white voters (other than white Democrats) to go for Obama were those under 29 years of age. Wealth and education did not matter for overall white voters. (Go to http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p1.)
For those who read the INQUIRER, the poll’s conclusions are not surprising. The September 2008 INQUIRER suggested that Obama would indeed have a disadvantage on account of prejudice.
At the same time, ignorance, superstition and an aversion to reason and logic are also at work in the election; all of these handicaps to good decision making will be at play.
For example, it was many of Obama’s African–American supporters as well as organized religious institutions that helped to pass California’s Proposition 8 which eliminated the right of that state’s gay couples to marry. It would be hard to argue that these Obama supporters were informed freedom lovers who were interested in social justice.
All of this is not to say that those who vote irrationally were not voting in a manner that will be best for our country. Maybe they are. But it is safe to say that voting irrationally is probably not the best way to go to obtain the best results in the long run!
This is also not to say that a President Obama will not serve to “educate” many American voters. It may be that President Obama’s presidency will deal a severe blow to racism, particularly if it’s a successful presidency. In January 2009, Obama’s positive rating was over 75% which would seem to guarantee that a majority of white voters supported him now.
A recent Free Inquiry magazine asked the question “Does Democracy Still Matter?” The simple answer is, “no, not if the voting public is irrational or uninformed; yes, of course, if the voting public is rational and informed.”
What attributes do you think describes various voters? Does Democracy still matter? Just because your preferred candidate won does not mean that the way we pick our leaders is not severely compromised.
Democracy requires reason, free inquiry, concern for others, responsibility and fairness – in other words, a humanistic outlook; for tyranny you need faith, certainty, greed, and ignorance. Not surprisingly, faith, certainty, self-interest (to the exclusion of interest in others) and a rejection of the scientific enterprise are often seen as virtues by many in this society.
Until the American voting public becomes well versed in civics, becomes less bigoted, less ignorant and less dogmatic in all matters relevant to governance, and we improve the actual system of elections, our democracy remains in peril, current results aside.
But before we congratulate ourselves too heartily, we should look at some details. The electoral process itself has changed little since the debacle of 2000. We still have the ridiculous electoral college. “Black box” voting machines still exist and the fact that you may have liked the results this time around does not mean you should be happy with a voting system that is difficult if not impossible to verify.
Money still makes the major difference in elections and just because the winning candidate is hopefully a champion of the less affluent, it does not change the regrettable fact that the ability to spend in a campaign is too all-important. Obama supporters should instead realize that this year’s election was an anomaly in fundraising.
Even worse is the fact that the voting public remains ignorant and irrational. We are the same voting public that believed Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11 and collaborated with Al Qaeda and that WMDs were found in Iraq. Many voters, this time around, believed Obama was a Muslim, for example.
Although America now seems to be pleased with the election results, we should not be happy with the electoral process and the attitudes of many voters:
News Item: (9/20/08 Associated Press) (Excerpts) Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles...
Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice…
The AP-Yahoo poll used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., firm that interviews people online after randomly selecting and screening them over telephone…
Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.
Among white Democrats, one-third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.
The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites." Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't…
Researchers used mathematical modeling to sort out the relative impact of a huge swath of variables that might have an impact on people's votes — including race, ideology, party identification, the hunger for change and the sentiments of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's backers.
Just 59 percent of her white Democratic supporters said they wanted Obama to be president. Nearly 17 percent of Clinton's white backers plan to vote for McCain.
Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice as likely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjective described blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supporters in the primaries — particularly whites with high school education or less — were motivated in part by racial attitudes. (Go to http://news.aol.com/article/racial-views-may-cost-obama-election/181935?icid=200100397x1209949002x1200587996 .)
Polls after the election indirectly confirmed much of the above. A majority of white voters voted for McCain (55%); the only segment of white voters (other than white Democrats) to go for Obama were those under 29 years of age. Wealth and education did not matter for overall white voters. (Go to http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p1.)
For those who read the INQUIRER, the poll’s conclusions are not surprising. The September 2008 INQUIRER suggested that Obama would indeed have a disadvantage on account of prejudice.
At the same time, ignorance, superstition and an aversion to reason and logic are also at work in the election; all of these handicaps to good decision making will be at play.
For example, it was many of Obama’s African–American supporters as well as organized religious institutions that helped to pass California’s Proposition 8 which eliminated the right of that state’s gay couples to marry. It would be hard to argue that these Obama supporters were informed freedom lovers who were interested in social justice.
All of this is not to say that those who vote irrationally were not voting in a manner that will be best for our country. Maybe they are. But it is safe to say that voting irrationally is probably not the best way to go to obtain the best results in the long run!
This is also not to say that a President Obama will not serve to “educate” many American voters. It may be that President Obama’s presidency will deal a severe blow to racism, particularly if it’s a successful presidency. In January 2009, Obama’s positive rating was over 75% which would seem to guarantee that a majority of white voters supported him now.
A recent Free Inquiry magazine asked the question “Does Democracy Still Matter?” The simple answer is, “no, not if the voting public is irrational or uninformed; yes, of course, if the voting public is rational and informed.”
What attributes do you think describes various voters? Does Democracy still matter? Just because your preferred candidate won does not mean that the way we pick our leaders is not severely compromised.
Democracy requires reason, free inquiry, concern for others, responsibility and fairness – in other words, a humanistic outlook; for tyranny you need faith, certainty, greed, and ignorance. Not surprisingly, faith, certainty, self-interest (to the exclusion of interest in others) and a rejection of the scientific enterprise are often seen as virtues by many in this society.
Until the American voting public becomes well versed in civics, becomes less bigoted, less ignorant and less dogmatic in all matters relevant to governance, and we improve the actual system of elections, our democracy remains in peril, current results aside.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Courting the Stupid Vote: The Latest Issues
What issues currently interest stupid voters? Or more precisely, what issues do the various campaigns believe interest or could interest stupid voters?
Here’s a recap of recent items:
1) Washington Post, July 30, 2008: Obama “Snubs” Troops: “For four days, Sen. John McCain and his allies have accused Sen. Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true… McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said again yesterday that the Republican's version of events is correct, and that Obama canceled the visit because he was not allowed to take reporters and cameras into the hospital. "It is safe to say that, according to press reports, Barack Obama avoided, skipped, canceled the visit because of those reasons," he said. "We're not making a leap here." Asked repeatedly for the "reports," Bounds provided three examples, none of which alleged that Obama had wanted to take members of the media to the hospital.” (Go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072902286.html?sid=ST2008072902360&pos= .)
It has been documented that Obama has often visited troops in the course of his European and Asian trip. In this case, since bringing the media was never a consideration, cancellation could have nothing to due with the media’s absence. It may have been a snafu of some sort, but nothing to be insulted over.
It is guaranteed, of course, that the complete lack of evidence is irrelevant to the McCain campaign or many stupid voters. This is a big win for McCain in the war for the stupid vote.
2) Part A: Joe Conason, Salon, July 25, 2008: The Surge is “Working”: “The rebuttals of McCain's embarrassing assertion that the Sunni insurgency's turn toward the U.S. and away from al-Qaida came because of the surge have been ample and devastating. His badly skewed sense of time and events has raised fresh doubts about his fitness for the presidency, since he was either incapable of comprehending contemporary facts or intentionally misleading the public when he told CBS anchor Katie Couric (which was edited in a manner to make McCain seem less ignorant) that the Anbar awakening "began" during the surge (and that troop escalation enabled the U.S. to protect a Sunni sheik who was actually assassinated during that period).
But aside from that moment of untruth, there are deeper problems in all the airy assertions about the triumph of the surge.
First there is the matter of that shift by the Sunni insurgents, which had nothing to do with the escalation. What changed the minds of the Sunni rebels in Anbar province and elsewhere was a revamped counterinsurgency doctrine that emphasized careful bribery over indiscriminate reprisals -- and that seized upon the growing alienation of the Sunnis from the bullying, murderous leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq. The American military officers who oversaw and implemented that strategy, including Gen. David Petraeus, deserve full credit. Even Petraeus, a strong supporter of the surge, makes very limited claims about its role in bolstering the Sunni turn, however.
In fact, it was the prospect of an early U.S. withdrawal, not the surge that prompted the Sunni insurgents to change sides, according to the American officers who worked with their leaders. A fascinating article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs by Georgetown professor Colin Kahl and retired Gen. William Odom quotes Marine Maj. Gen. John Allen, who ran the tribal engagement operations in Anbar during 2007, saying that the Democratic sweep in the 2006 midterm elections and the increasing demand for withdrawal by the American public "did not go unnoticed" among the province's Sunni sheiks. ‘They talked about it all the time.’
… perhaps the most plausible reason is that there are many fewer Iraqis to kill in the places where the worst violence occurred, because so many of them have abandoned their homes or left the country altogether. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that roughly 5 million Iraqis have fled, with nearly half of them now living in Syria, Jordan or other neighboring states. Others belong to the cohort known as the "internally displaced," who have sought refuge from the militias "cleansing" Baghdad in either the northern or southern provinces. When there isn't anybody left to kill, the murder statistics tend to improve.” (Go to http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/07/25/mccain_and_iraq/ .)
In his interview with Katie Couric, McCain said, "Colonel MacFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks," said the Senator. "Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening."
The Arizona Republican's campaign went further the next day, claiming that the major figures that turned around Anbar province would have been killed had the surge policy not been in place. "If Barack Obama had had his way, the Sheiks who started the Awakening would have been murdered at the hands of al Qaeda," said spokesman Tucker Bounds.
As it turns out, the major Sunni sheik responsible for coordinating the Sunni Awakening to turn against al Qaeda in western Iraq, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, was assasinated in Anbar province by an al Qaeda group in September 2007 - the midst of the U.S. surge.” (Go to http://www.examiner.com/x-243-Progressive-Politics-Examiner~y2008m7d23-Anbar-Sheik-cited-by-McCain-was-assasinated-last-year .)
McCain’s “Surge is Working” strategy nonetheless is probably a huge success in winning the hearts and minds – well, at least the hearts – of stupid voters. The timid Mainstream Media does little to correct the impression. Facts mean little, and many, if not most voters will not know the history of the surge, the “Anbar Awakening” and the fact that the completion of “ethnic cleansing” which has left many persons as refugees in their own country, has led to a lessening of violence because it has left fewer persons to kill and persecute as neighborhoods in Iraq become increasingly homogenous and segregated.
It also does not matter that McCain claimed that it was “The Surge” that protected the founder of the Anbar Awakening” when in fact Sheikh Sattar, the founder and leader of the tribes that initiated the movement was assassinated in September 2007, at the height of “The Surge.”
And, oh yeah: what was the actual purpose of “The Surge”?
From Wikipedia: According to the "Fact Sheet: The New Way Forward in Iraq " issued by the White House, "the President's New Iraq Strategy Is Rooted In Six Fundamental Elements" as follow:
1. Let the Iraqis lead;
2. Help Iraqis protect the population;
3. Isolate extremists;
4. Create space for political progress;
5. Diversify political and economic efforts; and
6. Situate the strategy in a regional approach.” (Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_troop_surge_of_2007 .)
Which of the above items has “The Surge” been instrumental in accomplishing? Element 1 is doubtful though not ridiculous. Iraqi troops are still not as independent as needed. Element 2 has certainly not been accomplished – ethnic cleansing has been carried out. Item 3 was probably accomplished via the “Anbar Awakening” and the threat of US troops leaving and not via “The Surge”. Items 4, 5 & 6 are probably the most doubtful of all the elements. “The Surge” is no slam-dunk, though it seems to have done no harm in Iraq and may have indeed succeeded, in a sense, in closing the barn door after all the horses ran out. But “The Surge” almost inarguably has harmed US interest overall by depriving the US of the ability to divert more effort to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Al Qaeda and the Taliban actually exist and threaten us and the US-backed government of Afghanistan.
Part B: Barack Obama: “I had no doubt… we would see an improvement”: An appeal to ignorance is not confined to one political party however. In January 2007, candidate Barack Obama said, "We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality -- we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don't know any expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground." (CBS' "Face The Nation," 1/14/07.)
The above quote may have indeed been true and sensible at the time it was originally made. However, it is fair to say that it is possible that “The Surge” has indeed made a “substantial difference on the ground” even if, in the long run, this difference is irrelevant because of political failures of the Iraqi government or if, taken as a whole, US interests were harmed. However, it would be an appeal to ignorance to say “Now, I had no doubt, and I said at the time when I opposed the surge, that given how wonderfully our troops perform, if we place 30,000 more troops in there, then we would see an improvement in the security situation and we would see a reduction in the violence." (Sen. Barack Obama, Democrat Presidential Candidate Debate, Manchester, NH, 1/5/08) (Go to http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=15779 .)
The above contradictory statements rely on ignorance and yet are easily discovered – if one wants to make the effort to find the facts.
The facts do not matter, however, to Stupid Voters and certainly a Stupid Voter is stupid precisely because they won’t make the effort to find anything out. In the battle of “The Surge is Working” vs. “I had no doubt… we would see an improvement” we most likely have a HUGE advantage to McCain in the race for the Stupid Vote.
The Reasoning Voter (and Reasoning News Media member) should not be swayed either way; instead the Reasoning Person might ask, “Why did we need a surge, whether it would work or not, in the first place? Who or what line of thinking put us in this position in the first place? Are we better off overall with this war, or would we have been better off with a continuation of the UN weapons inspections and where did the candidates stand on that when that all important decision had to be made?
When was the last time you heard that series of questions asked of the candidates by the Mainstream Media?
Answer: Stupid Voters probably don’t care, but one could certainly wish that the Mainstream Media were up to the challenge so that we could give the opportunity to Stupid Voters to prove that they’re not so stupid.
Friday, June 6, 2008
The Insanity that is the War on Iraq
(NY Times, 4/11/08) A senior aide of Moktada al-Sadr, the radical anti-American cleric, was killed in Najaf, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad, as he returned home from prayers on Friday in what Sadrists officials said was an assassination carried out by unknown gunmen.
The aide, Sayyed Riyadh al-Nuri, who was a senior official in the Sadr office in Najaf, was also related to Mr. Sadr by marriage. His sister is married to Mr. Sadr’s brother.
The killing is certain to increase tensions between Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army and government security forces, who fought a huge battle in Basra last month and have been engaged in heavy fighting in Mr. Sadr’s eastern Baghdad stronghold, Sadr City.
Hassan al-Rubaie, a Sadrist member of Parliament, said: "We condemn this attack against Sayyed Nuri and we call on the Iraqi government to set up an investigative committee to stop the security situation deteriorating." (End excerpt.)
This episode, one of uncountable similar episodes that have already occurred and will again in the future, serves to display the insanity of the War in Iraq, as if we needed another lesson in its insanity.
As the situation stands right now, the United States is in the position of supporting an Iraqi government that is headed by Prime Minister Nouri Miliki, a Shiite who is closely aligned with Iran. Gunmen, probably associated with the government, and acting as a “death squad” have just killed an aide of the radical anti-American, but more independent cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, who may be in hiding – in Iran!
Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, the candidates try to avoid dealing with the realities on the ground; one side (guess which one) paints an upbeat picture and dreams about the day of “victory” to come, while the other side simply talks about getting the hell out without revealing how to avoid an internecine conflagration.
To further make one’s head spin, a tentative cease-fire is in place (at least for a moment) even as Sadr City, a Mahdi Army stronghold, is occasionally bombed by US pilots at the direction of the government forces! Keep in mind that Sadr City is densely populated with civilians.
Questions: What would we prefer happen? Who would we prefer to prevail? Is it good that Iran’s man in Iraq, Maliki, might benefit from the assassination by a death squad of an American hating cleric’s assistant who is not as aligned with Iran as Maliki?
Answer: Who could possibly answer this?
What is clear is that there is no positive aspect of this for our country. We have the choice of supporting a government that may be sending out death squads against an enemy who hates us even more but who is somewhat less aligned withIran, our country’s most dangerous enemy.
Some choice… Some war…
What to do About Creationism Course in Long Island, New York
In the February 2008 issue of the INQUIRER, we reported on the Creationism course being offered in the Northport-East Northport Union Free School District’s adult education program. (Go to http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/attachments/feb2008newsletter.pdf).
This course was a blatantly un-scientific course in religious instruction being offered at a public school, partly funded, according to information provided by the district, by tax dollars.
CFI Community of Long Island, as per a request by a parent in the district, beginning in October 2007, wrote a number of letters to the district (copying the media) regarding the course offering. We requested information on the process of offering courses at the school.
The letters and complaints went unanswered for a long time until a letter from the school district’s attorneys was received by CFI Community of LI in early March 2008. The response consisted of a cover letter from the law firm of Ingerman Smith L.L.P. by Warren H. Richmond, dated February 27, 2008, and an opinion letter that was issued by the law firm on March 14, 2007, a year earlier! The opinion was issued after the initial offering of the course to the public in fall of 2006.
Here are some excerpts from the legal opinion issued on 3/14/07 from the law firm to Ms. Arlene Munson, President of the Board of Education of this school district:
I am writing in response to the Board’s request for a written opinion regarding various issues related to courses offered in the District’s Continuing Education Program. These issues have come to the fore as a result of the objection of a member of the community, Dr. Frederic Lipfert, to a course entitled “What is Creation Science” which was offered in the fall of 2006.
Specifically, two concerns were raised by Dr. Lipfert. First, that the offering of this course as a part of the District’s Continuing Education Program constitutes religious advocacy in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Second, that the description contained in the Continuing Education brochure had the effect of suggesting that the District supported the proposition that there is no scientific basis for the theory of evolution…
Freedom of Expression
Identifying the forum
As noted by the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd District in Bronx, Household of Faith vs. Board of Education of the City of NY, 331 F.3d 342 (2nd Cir. 2003), the right to exercise free speech on government property depends on the type of forum where the speechoccurs. The US Supreme Court has identified the categories of fora: (1) the traditional public forum; (2) the non-public forum (3) the designated public forum, which includes a subcategory known as the “limited public forum…”
Restrictions governing access to a limited public forum, including content-based restraints, are permitted as long as two criteria are met: (1) they are reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum; and (2) they are viewpoint neutral…
Restrictions must be reasonable
In considering what is reasonable, courts will focus on whether a limitation is consistent with preserving the property for the purpose to which it is dedicated…
The court noted that in its previous decision of Planned Parenthood v. Clark County School District, 941 F.2d 817 (9th Cir. 1991) (en banc):
We recognized that a public secondary school has legitimate concerns “such as respecting audience maturity, disassociating itself from speech inconsistent with its educational mission, and avoiding the appearance of endorsing views” that render a school’s restriction on advertising reasonable.
Restrictions must be viewpoint neutral
Even if a governmental entity’s restriction of access to a limited public forum is reasonable, it will not pass constitution muster unless it meets a second requirement – that of being viewpoint neutral. Viewpoint discrimination occurs when a government discriminates against particular views taken by speakers on a subject that is generally allowed, rather than excluding the subject altogether as a topic for discussion. Thus, in viewpoint discrimination, a governmental entity impermissibly regulates speech on the basis of the speaker’s ideology or opinion or perspective. Permissible content discrimination, on the other hand, excludes an entire category of speech.
The Establishment Clause
In applying these principles to the Creation Science offering, it becomes apparent that rejection of the course would run afoul of the First Amendment. This is so for several reasons. First, the District has never, by policy or practice, placed any limitation on the subject matter to be offered in adult education courses. Indeed, the administration is not aware of any other instance in which a course has been rejected, nor has there ever been any attempt to review or monitor the adult education curriculum. In this light, rejection of the Creation Science course because of the religious or scientific view presented would clearly be deemed unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. Second, unlike the course offered as part of the school curriculum, this course is presented to adults, outside the regular school day and only to those who elect to take it. As such, the coercive effect of presenting religious materials to a captive audience of students, which various courts have found objectionable, is plainly absent. Finally, any claim of unconstitutional endorsement of religion by the district is removed by the disclaimer which appears in the Adult Education brochure to the effect that the views presented in the classes are those of the individual instructor and should not be interpreted as endorsed by the School District.
Dr. Lipfert’s second point, i.e. that the brochure’s description of the Creation Science course might be interpreted by some as indicating the District’s support for the proposition that there is no scientific basis for the theory of evolution is not without merit. The course description could have more clearly indicated that this was the view of the instructor. There is no legal impediment to the District reviewing and where appropriate editing course description, to this end, and it is recommended that it do so…
As an intermediate step, the Board could limit the content areas to be offered in the Adult Education Program, precluding course in certain areas such as religion, politics or other areas as it may deem appropriate, provided that it does not preclude courses based on viewpoint… The Creation Science course provides an excellent example in that a question exists as to whether this course can suitably be categorized as a course in religion…
In view of the above, the Board must address the threshold question of whether it wishes to continue the Adult Education Program in the same manner as in the past or whether it wishes to modify it so as to restrict the content or subject matter of the courses offered…
Very truly yours, Warren H. Richmond.
Some more background:
The Continuing Education brochure offered by the district does have disclaimers in it, such as “none of the views presented in the classes should be interpreted as endorsed by the district.”
But the information sent along with the legal opinion also notes that “The Community Services Program’s activities shall be supported by a combination of registration and material’s fees, local taxation, and/or Federal Aid as is currently available for that purpose…”
There’s more!
In researching the story, a letter dated April 6, 2008, to the editor of the Times of Northport was discovered who was responding to Dr. Stephen Uzzo, the Northport resident who first alerted CFI Community of Long Island. Here is an excerpt:
“In response to Mr. Uzzo's September 27 letter condemning Creationism as an adult continuing education elective course offering, I find it fascinating that a certified teacher would espouse censorship instead of debate.
I do not know if Creationism is a pseudoscience or not but, far from being the scientific certainty that Mr. Uzzo represents, there are serious and unexplained gaps in evolutionary theory (which is why it is called "theory"), including an almost total lack of fossil records on "transitional" evolutionary life forms.
There is a dynamic and rigorous debate regarding on the one hand a theory that remains, to a large extent, unproven, and on the other a theory that is essentially unprovable. Mr. Uzzo's intent appears to be to stifle this debate, rather than, as a good and experienced educator, offer rebuttal.
In the larger context, Mr. Uzzo's letter provides an important example of a phenomenon that appears to be spreading in the world of higher education — intolerance for free speech...
Perhaps Mr. Uzzo's intentions are benign but I don't think we as a community or society need protection from ideas. The antidote for ignorance is exactly what Mr. Uzzo opposes — freedom of speech. Greg Munson, October 03, 2007. (The writer is married to local Board of Education President Arlene Munson.)” (Go to http://www.timesofnorthport.com/Letters-3551.112114_Antidote_for_ignorance.html.)
One could probably assume that Mr. Munson wrote the above letter with the approval of the B. of E. President who happens to be his wife!
So, in a nutshell, the Northport-East Northport School District has decided that they will have no standards regarding what will be offered to the public in their Adult Educational program! ANYTHING GOES!
In addition, it seems clear that at least the husband of the President of the Board of Education seems to think that issues such as “Creationism vs. Evolution,” or “Global Warming,” or “gender-based” biological distinctions are simply “free speech” matters not subject to scientific inquiry; and other (I’m sure coincidentally) right wing hot button issues such as “affirmative action” and “illegal immigration” are similarly only tangentially amenable to scientific inquiry. In fact, it would seem that scientific inquiry is just another form of mere opinion, on an equal footing with religious or political dogma; is this reading a bit too much into the above letter? It would seem that Public Schools do not stand for anything, and especially not science and reason and, as a consequence, quality education.
What will happen when the School District is confronted with a course on “Does Science Give Evidence Against the Existence of God?” which actually is a totally legitimate area of inquiry?
How about a course on “Does Southern Baptism Have Racist Origins?” again, a totally legitimate area of inquiry?
What would happen if the school district is confronted with an obviously odious course such as “Why the Holocaust Never Happened.”
What would happen if the Creationism Course is expanded into an explanation of the nature of the human races as explained by Dr. Henry Morris who wrote the textbook actually used in the Creationism course? Would a course entitled “Why Africans are Destined to be the Servants of Humanity” be an acceptable course offering?
How about a course in “2 + 2 = 5”?
The School Board is probably simply praying that no one offers such courses. (And of course, nothing fails like prayer.)
The Northport-East Northport School District should make a principled stand for quality education and prevent their schools and taxes from being used to promote harmful superstition and other non-scientific dogma. They should decide that unscientific dogma is “inconsistent with its educational mission” and that the school will not allow religious or secular political dogma or superstition of any kind in the classrooms. The key words are “dogma” and “superstition” which imply beliefs that are by definition un-testable and beyond debate. What Free Speech issue is at stake when the course is state-funded religious instruction? Isn’t this actually an establishment of a particular religion?
If taxpayer dollars are behind a course in any amount, religious or political dogma does not belong in its offerings; keep in mind that Federal Courts have found ID to be a religious belief. Let those persons who want to preach dogma rent the space outright if they want to offer a course, and remove them from the district produced brochures.
This is all unlikely to occur. And indeed, there is a measure of sympathy with the plight of, we’re sure, many of the members of the Board of Education who are probably extremely uncomfortable with offering courses based on superstition in their school building and funded in part with tax dollars; at the same time they have concern about lawsuits from the religious fundamentalists that would be sure to follow a banning of religious courses disguised as science.
There is no time like the present to take a stand for quality education; the School Board is urged to create guidelines that separate course offerings that are evidence-based versus those based on the supernatural or the unquestioned assumptions of their promoters. What a concept: Schools that proudly offer knowledge, reason, evidence, understanding and real free inquiry!
Where Do the Candidates Stand on Gay Rights/Marriage?
At the time this article is being written, the likely major party candidates for President are Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain. Rather than generalize about each candidate, here are some actual statements, quotes and votes by each on the topic at hand. Then we’ll generalize about and analyze the candidates!
John McCain: On a recent appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, McCain politely noted his opposition to treating homosexuals as if they were entitled to equal rights, if one can do such a thing politely. Without explaining why, he said he opposes gay marriage and believes in "the unique status of marriage between and man and a woman... and I know that we have a respectful disagreement on that issue.”
McCain, who, somewhat surprisingly for a conservative Republican, also opposes an amendment to the Constitution to ban same-sex unions, and voted against such an amendment, and claims that this issue should be left in the hands of states, told the DeGeneres audience that people should be encouraged to enter into legal agreements, particularly for insurance and other areas where decisions need to be made. Note that such agreements would do nothing to help gay couples gain the rights that married couples possess due to Federal Law.
The Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for equality for homosexuals, gave a 33% rating to McCain in 2006.
Here is a quick summary of the McCain position from his website:
“The family represents the foundation of Western Civilization and civil society and John McCain believes the institution of marriage is a union between one man and one woman. It is only this definition that sufficiently recognizes the vital and unique role played by mothers and fathers in the raising of children, and the role of the family in shaping, stabilizing, and strengthening communities and our nation.
As with most issues vital to the preservation and health of civil society, the basic responsibility for preserving and strengthening the family should reside at the level of government closest to the people. In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers reserved for the States the authority and responsibility to protect and strengthen the vital institutions of our civil society. They did so to ensure that the voices of America's families could not be ignored by an indifferent national government or suffocated through filibusters and clever legislative maneuvering in Congress.” (Go to http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/95b18512-d5b6-456e-90a2-12028d71df58.htm)
Analysis: Although McCain did not say as much, his non-explanation for his oppositionto same-sex marriage speaks volumes. It is undeniable that not all children will be raised by a mother and a father; divorce, as John McCain knows, is rampant, and all too often one parent or the other is absent; yet he is not demanding an end to divorce! Far more children are affected by heterosexual divorce than would ever be affected by gay marriage.
McCain’s real motivation, other than appeasing the Religious Right, lies in religious taboo; like many (not all) religious persons, he believes that God would prefer that gays not lead happy lives and denying them equal marriage rights would add to their unhappiness. If his God wanted gays to have happier and better lives, wouldn’t he support equal rights for them even as gays continue to sin? They’d sin either way, no? Why not have some legal benefits in the meantime?
This one issue displays all that is wrong with religious morality; numerous people are convinced to behave in a manner that makes life WORSE for others with no benefit to anyone; and all because of a religious taboo.
Barack Obama: (From About.com) Barack Obama supported gay rights during his Illinois Senate tenure. He sponsored legislation in Illinois that would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In the United States Senate: Every two years the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national gay and lesbian organization, issues a scorecard for members of the Senate based on their sponsorship and voting on key issues of importance to gay and lesbian citizens. Barack Obama scored 89 out of 100% in the 2006 scorecard.
Here's how HRC rated Barack Obama:
Hate Crimes: Barack Obama co-sponsored legislation to expand federal hate crimes laws to include crimes perpetrated because of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Employment Non-Discrimination: Barack Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and believes it should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell - Gays in the Military: Barack Obama believes we need to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. His campaign literature says, "The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve."
Gay & Lesbian Adoption: Barack Obama believes gays and lesbians should have the same rights to adopt children as heterosexuals.
Gay Marriage/ Civil Unions: Although Barack Obama has said that he supports civil unions, he is against gay marriage. In an interview with the Chicago Daily Tribune, Obama said, "I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman."
Barack Obama did vote against a Federal Marriage Amendment and opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 both of which opposed gay marriage.
He said he would support civil unions between gay and lesbian couples, as well as letting individual states determine if marriage between gay and lesbian couples should be legalized.
"Giving them a set of basic rights would allow them to experience their relationship and live their lives in a way that doesn't cause discrimination," Obama said. "I think it is the right balance to strike in this society." Sources: Chicago Daily Tribune, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force” (Go to http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/lesbianactivism/p/BarackObama.htm)
Analysis: Obama certainly has dealt with more detail on the issues than has Senator McCain and iscompletely supportive of gay rights with one exception. Once again, however, this candidate, for religious reasons (supposedly) and a belief that God wants gays to suffer or be stigmatized, has not been able to bring himself to support gay marriage, although as John McCain also did, he voted against a Constitutional Amendment that would have banned it.
It may seem harsh to accuse the religious who oppose equal rights for gays of desiring misery for them. But how else can it be explained? Can it be described as the “collateral damage” of not wanting to legitimize stable and committed homosexual relationships? What would be the difference? Wouldn’t opposition of gay marriage be an encouragement of unstable and uncommitted homosexual relationships?
Once again, if God existed and truly cared about the homosexuals he supposedly created in his image, then why would he promote lesser treatment of gays among his followers, since we’re all “sinners” anyway? There is no escape; making the lives of homosexuals worse seems to be the mandate from God to his followers. That’s what BELIEVERS are saying.
There is one other possibility regarding Obama’s position on gay marriage; his opposition to gay marriage may be entirely political; it may still be too toxic to openly support equal rights for everyone in a country as religious as theUS and have any chance of becoming president.
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