Category Archives: Politics

June 9, 2012

Part III: Crimes Against Criminals Don’t Count

By Jer Clifton

In this, my thrilling and final series conclusion, I will explore problems that ex-cons face, as well as articulate a path that I see moving forward.  

After people get out of prison, society never truly stops punishing them for their crimes.  In many states you can’t vote or sit on a jury.  Ex-cons are often not eligible for food stamps or public housing.  Finally, it will be hard to attend college, and, of course, to get jobs–discrimination against ex-cons is seen as entirely appropriate.

Of course, ex-cons need jobs desperately.  In addition to often being low-income and ineligible for various forms of assistance, many ex-cons leave prison with debt from accumulating child payments, court fees, probation fines, legal fees, etc.  Steady employment, ironically, is also a condition of parole — a catch 22.  To avoid violating parole, prisoners have to take very low paying jobs even if it does not make sense (e.g., they have to take a 30 minute taxi-ride to work everyday that costs $40 where they make $55 a day at minimum wage).  Unfortunately, within 3 years, 70% of realeased prisoners are rearreested and half are sent back to prison.  Many of them have not commited new crimes, but have instead merely violated parole in one way or another.

So why doesn’t the explosion in our prison population, the prison rape issue, and these other injustices get so little attention? Why is society not interested i?  One obvioius reason is that the victims usually have no voice: they are poor and they cannot vote, which means they can’t back campaigns financially or vote in them.  Another reason, and this was news to me, is that the supreme court has ruled that the first amendment does not prevent prison authorities from barring the press.

Perhaps more importantly there are, in my personal opinion,  five significant cultural dynamics at work that make the American penal system deeply dysfunctional:

  1. America prefers to punish than rehab; we do not feel that others deserve forgiveness or protection once they have failed us to a certain extent–they are now “criminals.”  (Three personal encounters of American passionate punitiveness: inner-city residents I worked with in Buffalo would very often fervently prefer to punish those they thought were responsible for the decline of their neighborhood rather than take steps to arrest that decline, even if punishing others directly contributed to neighborhood decline.  Secondly, in my work in housing court, I saw how Judges might love to throw homeowners and slumlords in jail for violating housing codes, but throwing a slum lord in jail is the only way to ensure that his/her property will not be fixed.  Finally, after I rescued that guy on the subway, I was dumbfounded by how often I was asked if I would have still risked my life if knowing the guy was drunk; as if being drunk and doing something dumb meant that you did not deserve to live.)
  2. The second cultural factor that makes our prison system worse comes from American Christianity.  Too often the church has equated state justice as God’s justice and forgiveness and rehabilitation with weakness.  Fortunately this is solvable.  I would argue that true Christianity is about forgiveness.  There is a debate here that can be won.
  3. Thirdly, while Americans love the entrepenurial spirit and those who take risks when it comes to business, while Americans love taking risks with their health and eating whatever they want, Americans won’t accept risk when it comes to safety.  Americans are willing to keep another million people a year in prison if they think it lowers the chance of their daughter getting raped even .3%.  (I remember moving back to America from Taiwan, and I was amazed at the vast apparatus involved each morning in the task of transporting children to school–those same kids are packing capri-sun, jello, PB&J on white bread, and string cheese for lunch.)
  4. Americans, because we are rich, can afford to indulge our love of segregating ourselves.  The old, the young, the mentally ill, the disabled, the “low-lifes,” the dying, and even the dead, will be curtained off and put out of view as long as we can afford it.
  5. There is little money, passion, or organizational support around protecting men from getting raped.

So what can we do?   Christopher Glazek identifies 7 tasks.

  1. Put up with increased risk in our daily lives by letting people out of prisons.  (Pooling risk, he claims, is the liberal insight.)  I agree, but this is relatively minor.    
  2. Parole needs to be less strict.  Agree.  
  3. He asserts that “we must be ready to sacrifice the trational progressive agenda on the altar of criminal justice” and he offers an example of the death penalty.  For the last three decades, about 30 people a year have been executed.  This, he claims, is a tiny injustice compared to the millions of prisoners and communities that suffer from our penal system generally.  Therefore, “Prison abolitionists should be ready to advocate for a massive expansion of the death penalty if that’s what it takes to move the discussion forward.”  Probably wise to an extent.  
  4. Stop wasting time on gun control; it helps little.  I’m not sure.  
  5. Legalize narcotics.  I agree strongly.  
  6. Lower standards for life sentences.  Agree.  (Interestingly, unlike rape, homicide has one of the lowest recidivism rates of any crime–you can only murder your wife once, suggesting that death row inmates may pose less of a security risk than other categories of offenders.)
  7. Lower standards for prison sentences across the board.  Agree.

These suggestions are mostly good, but I think he widely misses the mark.  These policies are fine, but our first policy aims must be that which has a catalytic effect and increases energy around a host of policy goals.  Here is my list:

  1. I would suggest that the most important task before us is fully reinstating criminals after they have paid their debt to society.  In other words, all discrimination against ex-cons must be illegal.  Specifically, they must be allowed to vote and get jobs.  This would grease the skids for all prison reform by giving the victims more power.  Also, a true 2nd chance would hopefully descrease recidivism rates and allow “ex-cons” to reinvent themselves and gain self-respect.   )This might sound goofy, but I tend think we should have civil reconciliation ceremonies after which ex-cons are declared full citizens again.  These events should be as celebrated as weddings.)
  2. We need the disinfectant of light; the press must have access.
  3. We need to count crimes against criminals as actual crimes, in the data and in our own heads.
  4. This means we need to address the cultural factors that might be mutable.  The goal of prisons must be rehabilitation instead of punishment and we need to push back on all forms of Christianity that advocates for harsher sentencing.

Lastly, and this may sound weird, but I think each of us needs to forgive “the other” for all the anonymous crimes that have been commited against us.  For example, I am still mad at the thief who stole a beautiful leather jacket in college.  I had bought it in Tuscany when I was 17, spending way too much money.  I think there is a part of me that assigns to known criminals all the frustration of unsolved crimes against me.

But whatever the reason, there can be no doubt that the real problem with our penal system is that you and I, and others too, care more about other things.  This is a political issue; it can only be mitigated through public will.  Certainly, there are many other important issues vying for our attention, but I hope that prison reform will be on your list of issues worth paying attention to going forward.

In other news, Alicia probably won’t get to Sri Lanka until late June!  Argh!  But I did make a friend today.  He is 18, a hotel receptionist and a massage therapist, and his name is Anwas.  He walked around with me today and we went to the History Museum together.  Also picture is a tuk tuk ( 3 wheeler Colombo taxi), and a beautiful pool in a restaurant I checked out.  Forgive the bad quality iPod pics.  

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Ethics, Politics, worthy causes

May 16, 2012

Part II: Crimes Against Criminals Don’t Count

By Jer Clifton

Prison life is bad for many reasons.  This post will explore three that receive inadequate attention.   

First and most obviously, when folks are in prison, they are not in their communities.  For instance, 1 in 3 black baby boys can expect to spend part of his life in prison.  The absence of these black convicts, criminals, inmates, “low-lifes,” (aka fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters) can damage black communities, especially low income neighborhoods in inner cities.

The second reason why prison is bad has to do with how the presence of convicts in other districts takes power and money away from a convict’s own community, who often need it more.  Allow me to explain: remember how the constitution originally did not give black slaves the right to vote, but allowed them to be counted as 3/5 of a person in census data?  This constitutional law, in addition to disenfranchising people, gave slave-populated states and slave-populated counties greaterand unproportional representative power in state and federal governments.  In the same way, prisoners count as a person when it comes to districting and funding, but most often they also cannot vote.  In this way, displaced inner-city prisoners bolster the voting power of rural districts, where prisons are located, while being unable to vote themselves.  Rural whites, ironically, are statistically the most punitive demographic, and the power and money that would be allocated to inner-city, minority communities, often flows to the very districts that tend to advocate for harsher sentencing.

The third issue I want to mention in regards to prison life is rape.  In 2008, the Justice Department estimated there were 216,000 victims of rape in the prison system that year–nearly 10% of all inmates (my own calculations 216k/2.3 mil).  This was up from 140,000 rape victims in 2001 (as estimated by the Human Rights Watch).  These victims are often assaulted multiple times over the course of the year.  Consider this story:

“Roderick Johnson, a petty thief who was attacked by his roommate shortly after arriving at a Texas prison. Johnson asked to be transferred to a different section of the facility, and got his wish. But news of Johnson’s physical availability had spread throughout the complex—after you’re raped once, you’re marked—and he was soon enslaved by a gang. In addition to passing Johnson around among themselves, Johnson’s new overseers sold his ass and mouth to a variety of clients for $3 to $7, a competitive enough price that it resulted in multiple rapes every day for the eighteen months that Johnson spent in prison.”

Because of a trend of sexual slavery, 216,000 victims of rape a year might translate into exponentially more actual instances of rape.  Yet, amazingly, there were only 935 confirmed instances of sexual abuse in 2008. I am no expert, but this mind-blowing disparity only makes sense to me if victims feel that the only thing worse than getting raped is getting raped and seeking help.  By allowing this ridiculousness to continue it seems to me that society, that is you and me, is making a clear and icy statement: crimes against criminals don’t count.

Fun fact: it is very possible, even likely, that the majority of all rapes in the United States in 2008 were committed against male victims, making the United States the first country in the history of the world where men are getting raped more often than women.  Consider these premises:

  • There are around 208,000 victims of rape outside of prisons per year.
  • The substantial majority of prison rape victims are men and the vast majority of non prison rape vicitms are women, though estimates vary.
  • Imprisoned rape victims tend to be raped more often per year than non-prison rape victims, though estimates vary.

The next post will explore issues related to life after prison. 

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Ethics, Politics, worthy causes

May 13, 2012

Crimes Against Criminals Don’t Count

By Jer Clifton

Crime has fallen precipitously since the high of the early ’90s.   For example, from 1980 to 2005, the estimated incidence of rape fell by 85%.  In 1990, there were 2,245 homicides  in NYC.  In 2010, there were only 536.  Crime has continued to fall even during the recession.

But this is not actually true.  Crime has merely been transplanted and concentrated in our nation’s prisons and, incredibly, crime rate statistics do not include crimes which occur in prison.  This is totally understandable, right?  Crimes against criminals don’t count!  But, lately I have pretended that they do count, which has led to some basic research about the U.S. penal system, to a discovery of an obnoxiously worthy cause, and now I am less content in my ignorance and apathy–a rookie mistake.  (If somebody can explain all this away please let me know!)

In recent posts, I noted the media frenzy around Trayvon Martin’s death and that, while the incident was tragic, murder by strangers, especially neighborhood watch volunteers, is not a top societal problem.  In an effort to walk my talk I am taking the next few posts avoiding the latest stories (Obama’s for gay marriage!?) in order to highlight the critical situation in our burgeoning penal system.  These issues receive little attention, and, in my opinion, could easily be much improved.  For those in search of a crusade, you might consider it.

…

Thoughtful citizens take note: the U.S. prison population has boomed (this would make a good voting quiz question).  It rose 400% from 1980 to 2007, while the general population grew 33% in the same period, until U.S. prisons housed 2.3 million with about 5 million people on parole–a total population greater than the municipalities of Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco combined.  This makes the United States the most incarcarated country in the world and second most in known history (supposedly the USSR under Stalin just edges us out).  Today, the U.S. has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s incarcerated people.  We spend $70 billion of the $200 billion spent globally on keeping people locked up.

Many factors contribute to the rise in the U.S. prison population.  One is the war on drugs.  Another is 3 strike and other laws that demand stricter penalties which the public demanded after the rise in crime in the 80s and 90s.  Unfortunately, offenses that count towards 3 strike laws can be quite minor, such as stealing videos from wallmart, etc.  Life sentences are also given out more often than they used to be.  In 2003, 127,677 Americans were serving life sentences, an 83% jump in 11 years.  For these reasons and others, the prison population grew.

At first, the scale of this prison population spike just seemed strange.  After all, have we really had a 400% increase in depravity in the last 30 years?  Regardless, perhaps the rise is gravy if prison life means simply reading, watching TV, and exercising.  But the truth seems a bit more complicated. (Part 2 to come.)

(Unattributed quotes or stats are pulled from a fairly well-known article by Christopher Glazek.)

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Ethics, Politics, worthy causes

April 29, 2012

A Note to George Zimmerman

By Jer Clifton

Last week’s post sparked great discussion.  It is so gratifying tackling these issues with so many friends.  Throughout those conversations, the following three points emerged:

First, as per usual, I am entirely unimpressed with the issues that the media and public choose to care about.  Obesity, to name just one issue, kills millions and costs the US economy at least $300 billion a year and is treated primarily with those two incredibly cost-prohibitive treatments: diet and exercise.

Horrible and solvable issues abound and the Trayvon shooting is not one of them.  All the ranting about this being part of a larger issue about gun control and “Stand your Ground” laws is silly.  Perhaps we will get more cases like this because of these new laws, but right now each year about 56.5% of gun-related deaths in this country are suicides, a majority of what is left is drug or gang related, only 14% of gun deaths involve strangers, and on the whole violent crime like this has continued to decline across the country since the 1980s.  The rise of homicidal neighborhood watch volunteers is not likely to be an important public health issue in the future.

Second, we must be slow to judge what happened and why it happened (this video was something that made me pause).  This story has inspired racial outrage prematurely.  Of course, it very well might be racism that killed Trayvon Martin.  If so, when that is discovered to be the case, I will agree that it is part of a disturbing, larger trend of racism.  But the trends that I see right now are an America who jumps to conclusions when the victim of a shooting is black and progressives who jump to conclusions about gun owners.  So, my progressive friends, take it from me: I find the second amendment archaic, stand your ground laws unwise, vigilanteism foolish, and the modern Republican Party upsetting.  But nonetheless, Zimmerman deserves to be tried based on the laws of his state and not your sense of what is right and wrong.  He should have his day in court and, if you are truly an open-minded liberal, in the court of your opinion.

Third, I have something to say to Zimmerman himself.  (If he is anything like me, he probably spends too much time looking at his story online, so I hope he finds this.)

Zimmerman, I don’t know you, and I don’t know what happened, but please know that I’m feeling for you man, for the fame that has rushed in on you, and for the tragic circumstances that led to it.  Two years ago, I almost hit a baby in a stroller while pulling out of a gas station.  I cannot imagine what you are going through having actually killed a 17-year-old.  And now it must seem like your whole life is out of your control and you don’t know who your friends are.  I am sorry so much has been taken from you so quickly without a conviction to justify it.

But do me a favor.  I know my little traffic accident made me think about giving up cars entirely–that perhaps it just wasn’t worth speeding around at high velocity in large hulks of metal if I could destroy something so precious with it–but I ultimately didn’t because it was too inconvenient. But you could succeed where I failed.  I am wondering, has this experience caused you to reflect anew on whether owning personal handguns is worth it?  If you came out against gun ownership right now, or even sold your own guns, it would send a strong statement.  If you don’t change your mind on guns, I respect that, but you should still think about it.  Very soon your 15 minutes of fame will be gone, your national audience will dissipate, and you will lose the chance to effect enormous change.  Don’t waste the moment. ; )

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Politics, Subway Incident/Nature of Bravery

April 22, 2012

George Zimmerman and Me

By Jer Clifton

One year ago this month, I grabbed the guy off the third rail at a downtown Atlanta station and my life got pretty crazy for a couple of weeks with interviews, new reports, and the story going viral online (click here if you don’t know what I am talking about).  I did not want to say it at the time, because I thought people would look down on me, but 15 minutes of fame is hard on the adrenal glands.  Sure, starving and dying of disease to death can be taxing, but watching a news story about you spread across the internet is stressful too.  Seeing facts become skewed, details lost, and misconceptions develop exasperated me.  I realized that, in everyday life, if a friend misrepresents you to someone, you can contact the friend and whoever they talked with and set the record straight.  But in a public story that millions see and thousands forward, control is illusory.  Over those few weeks I got a bit better at being comfortable being talked about by  strangers, but it left me with a healthy respect for the chronically famous, and pity for those poor souls plucked from obscurity and thrust into the limelight.

George Zimmerman is such a person.  One second he’s an insurance underwriter–entirely unknown.  Within a few weeks, protests calling for his arrest are happening across the nation and 2.2 million people have signed a petition demanding he be arrested and tried.

I was not good at interviews at first.  You can see my “men and boys” epic fail here.  But I watched  Zimmerman’s brother on Piers Morgan’s show doing incredibly well considering one guy was plucked from obscurity and the other makes a living arguing in the public eye.

From what I can gather on the awesome Wikipedia and the world wide web, people are going crazy: “George Zimmerman received death threats and moved out of his home in the wake of the controversy.[5] The New Black Panther Party offered a $10,000 reward for the “capture” of George Zimmerman;[174][175] this was condemned by the city of Sanford.[174]  Film director Spike Lee retweeted to his 200,000 Twitter followers an erroneous Sanford, Florida address, purported to be Zimmerman’s, which forced a family out of their home to avoid harassment after they received hate mail and unwanted visits from reporters.[176][177][178]“

…seems a tad much perhaps?

At least I had the good fortune of being in a story that was made better by skewing the facts in my favor.  People wanted me to be a good guy.  George Zimmerman does not have that luxurty.  The story of him shooting an unarmed teenager is more sensational the more villainous Zimmerman appears.  Of course, this story is way bigger than mine ever was, more beyond his control, and responses to the story are way more cruel and uninterested in facts.

A second lesson I learned from my 15 minutes of fame is that there is no such thing.  When one-off stories like this develop, nobody is famous or known in any complexity that might reflect reality.   A thin projection of yourself, attached to your name, is sent out into the void and people judge it.

The average person feels remarkable freedom to judge people that they don’t know shit about.  They will hear a 1-2 sentence news story and say, “What a dumbass!”  It’s really quite incredible.  Really?  You’ve heard enough information?  Ah.  Absolutely.  No it makes sense.  I’m sure you are very intuitive. 🙂

As friends and I discussed the Trayvon Martin shooting, I was very surprised at how such kind and thoughtful people can also be so quick to judge.  I am amazed at “facts” that people are citing, in my own conversations and in the news, that are so obviously inconclusive and meant to paint a picture.

For instance, it is oft said that he apparently has called the police 46 times since 2004 — but I probably called the police twice as many times in my 2 years as a community organizer.  He also was part of the block club, and was tasked with the neighborhood watch.  Some say he was a busy-body who took it upon himself.  Others say he was asked by the community to do it.  I say that if you walked down any block that I had worked on, you would probably hear both things said about me too.

So, as far as I can tell, Zimmerman might be a vigilante idiot.  He also might be a responsible and active community citizen.  I don’t know.  But I do know that nobody else knows either and that all the facts that I know about the case, including the skin color of the victim, might be incidental and not reflect the mind of George Zimmerman.

9 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Ethics, Politics

March 4, 2012

How One Lawyer’s Mistake Changed History

By Jer Clifton

I have always thought that if it were not for Clinton’s sex life, Al Gore would have won in 2000, Gore probably would not have invaded Iraq, the U.S. would probably have better environmental policy, and the world as we know it today would be different and likely better (I’m not the biggest Bush fan).  From time to time it strikes me (and I define “strike” as a “holy shit!” moment which raises the eye brows to their maximum height for a solid five seconds) how one person’s libido could be so geopolitically potent.  But apparently, though Clinton’s private behavior was scandalous, it was not potent enough on its own to change electoral history.  For that, credit goes to Clinton’s lawyer.

I was only 13 when the Lewinsky scandal story broke, so it has always been, as many news stories you hear when you are younger, a collection of unanalyzed facts in my head, such as the theory that bridges crossing water are maintained by government enslaved turtles which your brother pedantically explains to you when you are four years old which makes you inexplicably sad as as you drive over bridges as an adult.   Gleeful liberation comes from taking a half-second to discover these pockets of unanalyzed thoughts and, in many cases, going through the process of having an opinion, reversing it absolutely, being strangely ashamed of your former opinion, and doing it all so nearly simultaneously that you guffaw, give a high pitched “hee hee,” and sigh happily in rapid succession.

In recent years, I subjected the Clinton scandal to a half-second analysis which left me wondering, “Why in the world did a sitting president testify under oath about his sex life?”

So I was excited that while going through a 14 lecture series by Alan Dershowitz, called “Fundamental Cases of the 20th Century,” I heard the full story.  I would recommend the series.  He deals with all the major trials, as well as a number of trials in which he personally played a role, including the O.J. Simpson trial, the Mike Tyson rape trial, Claus von Bulow‘s alleged murder of his wife Sunny, and some others.  He’s articulate and not afraid to share his opinion when he can.  For instance, Dershowitz blames Clinton’s impeachment on Robert Bennett, Clinton’s lawyer, awarding him the coveted prize of having made the biggest legal mistake in the last century.

In short, Clinton was being sued by Paula Jones, a former State of Arkansas employee, for sexual harassment.  Clinton’s lawyer instructed Bill Clinton that he had to testify under oath about his sex life, and Clinton did as he was advised… and that was the ball game.  However, Clinton did not have to give that deposition.  He could have settled (he ultimately was forced to anyway).  He could have been charged with contempt of court.  He could have easily given a public statement saying that preparing to give a deposition takes too much time, and that he was willing to settle and move on in order to get on with the important business of the country.  In other words, though it would have been a little bumpy politically for a few days, not giving a deposition on his sex life would have worked.  Apparently it is really hard representing powerful people because you have to tell them things they do not want to hear such as, “you obviously can’t speak truthfully and acceptably about your sex life.”  So I suppose it was Bennet’s lack of cajones, rather than Clinton’s overabundance of them, that led the nation down this causal train.

Incidentally, years after the impeachment, Alan Dershowitz talked to Clinton about it at a party.  Clinton shared with him that Bennett never gave any option except testifying under oath about his sex life.

Since childhood, I had always assumed the president had got into trouble for lying just like 13 year old Jeremy might get into trouble for lying.  But apparently, lying does not automatically mean you are in trouble with the Feds.

GUFFAW, heehee (high pitched), sigh.

The end.

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Children, History, General, Politics

February 19, 2012

Support the Arab Spring!

By Jer Clifton

Last week Alicia and I went to a CNN forum at Emory about the future of the Arab Spring.  I thought it was good but there was a suprising amount of technical issues, the topic was a bit broad, the moderator was prone to cutting off good discussion, and when Alicia and I rode the scooter home we froze our little butts off, but that last part probably had less to do with the forum than other things.

Two people on the panel stood out that I want to put on your radar screen.

Dalia Ziada is director of the Egypt office of the American Islamic Congress which focuses on building interfaith and intercultural understanding.  She is a published poet and active in pro-democracy politics.  

 

Lamees Dharif is an award-winning journalist and activist who has been active in the Bahraini resistance campaign.  She has been banned from writing by the Bahraini government since the beginning of the democracy movement there.  

There was some discussion about the relative immaturity of democracy exhibited so far in the region and that people in America and elsewhere were worried about how long it was going to take for the situation to stabilize.  Lamees provided the metaphor that if a man is in a coma for 40 years, he does not wake and go for a run.  No.  It takes him a while to find his bearings, to re-learn how to feed himself, walk, etc.  But eventually he will run.  So it is with the middle east.  When people have languished under corrupt and totalitarian rule for so long, of course it is going to be a long time before the culture and intsitutions of democracy become realized.

I would take it further.  Americans who criticize the Arab Spring as creating instability are hypocrites and cowards.

Consider, in 1775 we started fighting our Revolution, two years later the States entered into an agreement under the Articles of Confederation.  We won the revolution in 1781 and we remained under the articles of confederation for 8 more years until 1789.  It was only then that we adopted the Constitution.

In other words, we operated under a system of government that was broadly understood not to be working for 12 years, and after that things still took a while to stabilize.  Our economy was in shambles.  Our money was worthless.  Did you know that States were leveraging tarrifs against each other.  States were violating the peace treaty with Great Britain, but the federal government could not do anything about it.  In the meantime, other nations rode roughshod over this toothless and inneffective American government.  Great Britain ignored various aspects of the treaty of Paris.  They kept warships in American waters for years!  Spain closed the Port of New Orleans to Americans in 1784 and the Americans could not do anything about it.  To top it all off, in 1787, Massachusetts farmers under the leadership of Daniel Shay revolted because they could not feed their families and their  homes were being foreclosed.  They captured the arsenal at Springfield and marched on the Massachusetts legislature.  Washington called it, “Liberty gone mad.”

Additionally, the instability that Americans generated in their own country was exported all over the world.  Over the next 20 years revolutions broke out in Haiti, Batavia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Mexico, Ireland, Poland, and most famously, France.  In fact, “Atlantic Revolutions” is a blanket term for all the revolts that happened during the late 17th century.  Or you might call it the “Atlantic Spring.”

We were Egypt in the late 1770s and King George III was Mubarak!  Americans are at the apex of hypocrisy and selfishness when we refuse to support, diplomatically at least, the people rising up to challenge oppressive rulers because we are worried about paying a couple bucks more at the pump.  Additionally, we need to understand that we have supported, in many cases, these totalitarian oppressors ourselves.  I love America, which is why reading the history of our relationship to the Middle East for the past 80 years is depressing.

Finally, revolutions are what I thought conservatives wanted.  Wasn’t this what the second Iraq war was ostensibly about: encouraging democracy around the world.  Was there not instability and confusion in Iraq?  In general, the negative reaction of conservative talking heads to the Arab Spring confuses me.  Maybe these revolutions are tainted by the fact that Obama is in office?  I’m not sure.

Realistically, we should expect the Arab revolutions to make the region messy and unstable for some time.  Nonetheless, we must support them any way we can for however long they need it.  No matter how I look at it, it seems to be, quite clearly, our ethical obligation.

14 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in History, General, Middle Eastern History/Politics, Politics

January 22, 2012

Knowledge Matters: The 1-1-1 Plan

By Jer Clifton

In the glorious light of this nail-bitingly dramatic Republican primary, I am taking the opportunity to articulate  a plan that would forever change our political process.  The plan would hopefully push candidates to do more to educate their constituents and pander towards the generally knowledgeable instead of special interests or the ignorant folks who can’t pick out Saudi Arabia on a map.   My plan, which has been rolling around in my head for some time, is based on two equal premises.  The first is as lofty as the second is pragmatic.

Premise 1: Everyone has a right to influence their country’s decision-making processes.

Premise 2: Those who have more knowledge and understanding in relevant areas should have more influence in their country’s decision-making processes.

In other words, everyone should have a voice, but not all voices are equal.  Some people do not track the news at all, some have never shown any interest in economics, political theory, history, foreign policy, etc.  I’m fine if people do not engage in these issues.  That is up to them.  However, if you don’t cook, I’d rather not eat your food.  If you don’t know anything about construction, I’d rather you not build my house.  In the same way, governing takes skill and picking governing representatives takes skill.  I’d rather live in a country that tried to recognize and use those skills.

Under our current system, politicians cater to those who are less informed rather than more informed.  Why?  I believe a big reason is that those with well-wrought opinions tend to be less easily swayed.  So unless there is an incentive to appeal to those with carefully constructed opinions, they will be increasingly ignored in favor of the emotional, more easily manipulated, less informed voter–those that might change their mind after seeing an ad or two, or hearing a talking point or two.

Therefore, I have created the 1-1-1 Plan.  It’s quite simple.  Everyone has the opportunity to have their vote be worth 3 votes.  Each of us would start with a baseline of 1, by virtue of being a citizen only.  The second amount would be given based on a conglomeration of life experiences that society deems valuable.  These experiences would be identified by a bi-partisan congressional commission every year.  For example, 0.1 points could be given for military service, 0.1 for Peace Corps/AmeriCorps/Teach for America service, 0.1 for college, 0.1 for having visited a foreign country, etc., up to 1.0 max.

The final amount would be allotted based on how many correct answer the voter gives to a simple 10 question basic knowledge test.    Questions would be randomly selected from a question bank which a bipartisan commission would create: 2 questions would be budget related, 2 questions would come from U.S. history, 2 would be about the constitution, 2 about foreign policy, and 2 the economy.  One of each question pair will be easier and one harder.  A typical quiz might look like the following:

  1. Currently, our national debt is closest to what percent of GDP?    A) 40% B) 70  C) 100 D) 130%
  2. Department of Defense spending accounts for what percent of the national budget for FY 2011?   A)10% B) 20  C) 40% D) 60%
  3. Which president signed the Civil Rights Act?  A) JFK B) LBJ C) Nixon D) Ford
  4. After the Boston Massacre in 1770, which Founder represented the British soldiers? A) John Adams B) Samuel Adams C) Thomas Jefferson D) John Marshall
  5. Which branch of the federal government is empowered by the Constitution to declare war? A) Judicial B) Executive C) Legislative D) Military
  6. A constitutional amendment requires how many yea votes in both the House and Senate? A) 1/2 B) 3/5 C) 2/3 D) 3/4
  7. Iraq shares a border with all but one of these countries: A) Israel  B) Syria C) Turkey D) Iran
  8. Through this shipping lane travels 35% of the worlds seagoing oil.  A)  The Straits of Malacca B) The Strait of Gibraltar C) The Bering Strait D) The Strait of Hormuz
  9. The dot-com bubble spanned roughly: A) 1986-1990 B) 1990-1995 C) 1996-2000 D) 2000-2005
  10. In economic parlance, the word “externality” refers to: A) goods which are undersupplied in a typical market.  B) an extreme case of failure of competition as a restraint on producers.  C) a means of final payment for goods in most price system economies.  D) social costs or benefits from production or consumption that are not reflected in market prices.

Obviously, there are problems with the 1-1-1 plan.  For example, literacy tests were used in the South to oppress African Americans for decades, and, in the early days of our country, only land-owning white men could vote.  So there is a bleak tradition here of discrimination under the guise of prudence.  One question particularly concerns me: will the 1-1-1 Plan favor the more educated, and thus the more wealthy?  And I’ve come to think that yes it will.  Or more precisely, it will tend to give wealthier people a more influential voice in the process in proportion to their population.

However, under the current plan, why do the rich already have a more influential voice in the political process?  I believe that a big part of it is for the reason I mentioned earlier: the rich partner with ignorant people by exploiting their lack of knowledge through multimillion-dollar ad-buys.  So the 1-1-1 Plan would dull the cudgel that the rich already wield.  Also, helping the poor, I believe, is a very difficult and complicated affair.  Being knowledgable in economics and economic development, for instance, is a more helpful qualification than having been personally poor.

Finally, and I find this most assuring, this plan has a third premise:

Premise 3: Generally, those less knowledgeable in a particular area desperately want those more knowledgeable to take the lead in solving important problems in that area.

Ultimately, I like the 1-1-1 Plan because it incentivizes education, raises the level of debate, and asks us all to take a breath and humble ourselves.  Voting is serious business.  In fact, I would say the average voter is more responsible for our current troubles than the average politician.  So lets pray for a day when society expects more from voters than merely the possession of an opinion.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Old Jer Idea, Politics

January 8, 2012

Ron Paul = Mitt’s Best Friend

By Jer Clifton

If Mitt Romney is the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, it will be because of Ron Paul.  Consider:

1) If Ron Paul wasn’t running, those votes would be going for anyone but Mitt Romney.  Paul’s success eats into Romney’s opponents.

2) Ron Paul’s substantial but not-substantial-enough following will continue putting him in second or third place, distancing Romney, the front runner, from all the other competitors.  He creates a barrier between Romney and everyone else by making them look small.

A democracy is funny when ideological opposites help each other achieve power.  A new poll puts Jon Huntsman at 17% in NH.  Ron Paul is at 16%.  Mitt Romney is 40% and everyone else is small.  This echoes Iowa, where Ron Paul got second, Santorum tied Romney for first, and everyone else was small.  If Mitt is going to be defeated, that person in second place at least needs to be the same person every time, but if they are not, and Ron Paul keeps the rest of the field at a distance….”hello, President Romney.”

(However, the economy just added 200,000 jobs and we are now at 8.5% unemployment.  If the economy continues to improve, Obama will likely win.  Maybe that is why Huckabee, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio sat out this round out.)

I miss posting more!  I love it and all the comments from last time.  It really is a great way for me to stay engaged with so many friends and family (and strangers, which is cool) all over the world.  Thanks for staying in touch.  

12 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Politics

December 15, 2011

Politics is Intellectual Football (I’m a Confirmed Idiot #1)

By Jer Clifton

Sometimes I have thoughts worth sharing, but I don’t share them because they are in various ways self-congratulatory.  If subtexts had vocal chords they might scream, “See!  Aren’t I great?”  Don’t get me wrong.  That’s a wonderful message which the world needs to hear.  It is just problematic when it is so obviously preached by me.  So sometimes I avoid ideas and messages worth sharing, things I believe in, that may help people, in the pursuit of looking like a nice guy.  But no longer!  I am starting a blog series called “I am a confirmed idiot.”  Basically, I am requiring myself to start any post containing obviously self-congratulatory subtext with a formulation in which I confess a unrelated humorously humiliating personal act.  This frees me to make my points with righteous passion, holding nothing back, for, as it says in Leviticus 27:35, “If you are humble for a moment, feast on the joy that comes from being full of yourself the rest of the time.”  Specifically, I will start these posts by saying, “I am a confirmed idiot.  After all, I once….” then I’ll tell of my stupidity, and I’ll end with “…however…”and then state my idea.  For example: 

I am a confirmed idiot.  After all, I once hit my friend in the head with a brick after excitedly bounding over to show her how high I could throw bricks.

However, unrelated to that, I do treat serious topics, like politics, the way that they should be treated, with marked levity.  Politics, for instance, is no fun unless you watch it like intellectual football, which I do, which is why I stay informed and will continue to stay informed.

I was talking to a friend today.  She’s smart, she cares about the world, and she wants nothing to do with politics because it is so depressing.  I feel like I talk to a friend like this once a week.

This is horrible.  We can’t be losing the attention of smart and loving people.  All we will have left are the angry, jaded, and unintelligent people.

Instead, we gotta make jokes and relish the clever games that politicians play.  We need it to be fun.

“But real lives are at stake,” they tell me.  “Exactly,” I respond, “that’s why we gotta enjoy the crap out of it.”

Alternatively, we can pay attention to non-depressings things that do not matter.  On Tuesday I had lunch with a fun group of African American ladies and a few of them got into a friendly and spirited discussion about the Dallas Cowboys and Atlanta Falcons.  After some fightin’ words, and laughs, and more trash talk, I remained conspicuously silent.   Finally, I blurted it out, “I must confess.”  They stopped and stared as I paused and lowered my head, “I don’t watch football.”  They laughed their heads off.

Football is interesting.  There are personalities involved.  Sneak plays.  Talent.  Vanity.  Cleverness.  Aspirations.  Competitions.  Macho-ness.  Smackdowns.  Sometimes, when an enemy quarterback gets run over, you can’t help but bite your knuckles in delighted surprise.  Sometimes, a penalty gets called that you stand up from the couch to “boo,”  but when you see the instant replay close-up that shows your favorite lineman doing something very naughty, you also bite your knuckles in delighted surprise.

It’s a moment when my Honduran friend might rase his hand and say, “No [SNAP] he [SNAP] didn’t [SNAP]!”

Those ladies loved their football, even though football doesn’t matter.  What mattered is the entertainment value, and nobody is above that.

Fortunately, politics has all the drama of football, except it is more interesting because, obviously, something is at stake.  Like football, the smack-downs are usually obvious and well-reported.  For example, when Gingrich told Romney on last week’s ABC debate that the only reason he was not a career politician is that he lost to Ted Kennedy in 1994–good smackdown.  But here are two political plays that really made me bite my knuckles in glee (the best are always sneak plays):

Perhaps you saw it.  Last Tuesday, Newt Gingrich had a one-on-one debate with Jon Huntsman.  At first, Newt’s choice puzzled me.  Why would the frontrunner choose to elevate one of his opponents?  Ahhh… he wanted to elevate Huntsman because a Huntsman rise is likely to chip into Romney’s numbers rather than his own, and Romney is of course the bigger threat.  Did you see the new poll that came out today in New Hampshire?  Newt’s play picked up a couple of yards for him (and Huntsman).

Nice…I bit my knuckle with glee.

Perhaps you saw it.  Mitt Romney is running a TV spot in which he talks of debt reduction as a moral responsibility.  Ok.  No big deal, right?  Wait…am I crazy, or is this commercial really about Newt’s infidelity and two divorces?  (Note the happy couple at the end who have been married for an often mentioned 42 years.)  Without being negative, the ad turns personal morality into something which actually makes one better at fostering a good economy.

Oooh… well-played Mitt.  Well-played.

I am sure some of my readers will find these “sneak plays” depressing.  Some of those people might also be disgusted at me for how I find so much glee in them.  But I am more disgusted in their disgust than they are disgusted in me.  Enjoying the serious topic of politics as intellectual football is the only moral choice I know of that a loving and smart person is able to make.

So grab the popcorn, don your favorite candidate’s hat or over-priced t-shirt, gather some happy loud-mouth friends, and turn on the news.  The game never stops.

16 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Ethics, I'm a Confirmed Idiot, Politics, Uncategorized