My first night on guard duty in a combat zone was met with a typical Vietnam welcome: a bullet whizzing by my head. In an instant I dropped to my knees and surveyed the area before my guard tower. My heart was beating loud and fast; and every sense was heightened in intensity. If I had seen a single bush move, I would have instantly turned my M60 in that direction and sprayed it with gunfire. But all was calm before me. A month later, I found myself actually facing moving bushes, but they were not swaying in a soft breeze. They were slowly moving in my direction, likely sappers leading the way for an all-out attack. Since I was alone, my position was in danger of being over-powered. Fortunately, I was able to call for support. A gunship rescued me that night. But even with the gunship’s hell fire raining down on the enemy, I felt compelled to empty my magazine into the fray. In neither situation did I act on my best moral assessment of the situation. I did what any soldier was trained to do AND what nature’s instinct compelled.

When I wrote “A Culpable Innocence,” I tried to capture what my fellow Vietnam veterans experienced in that war. Their experience is not different in kind from what police experience in like situations, though on a different scale. When an officer is faced with a hostile environment—real or potential—he or she will instantly feel a heightened intensity and propensity to act. What will determine the course of his or her action? My experience—and the experience of any soldier who has faced combat—would predict a response dependent upon an instantaneous state of mind and prior training. Adrenaline is usually the most significant influence on that state of mind and it tends to track with the extent of the perceived threat. But it does not have to be incited by a gun pointed in your direction. It might be just a walk in a neighborhood where past crimes have been committed. In this case, the “moving bush” is in the head. An officer who feels threatened can be just as ready to use deadly force as an officer approaching an armed suspect. In the latter case, the risk of an escalation is heightened. If deadly force is triggered and other officers are present, they may be drawn into the fray without aforethought. This type of escalation can act like an adrenaline avalanche where the combined response of multiple officers far exceeds the threat, mirroring the effect of a combat operation more than a civil police action. Although officers are not soldiers in combat, they are subject to the same visceral reactions.

So what can we do about the situation of officers using deadly force inappropriately? Many suggestions are being considered. For example, we could provide body cams to our officers. But this solution may not be a very good preventive remedy, since we are most likely dealing with the spontaneous, unpremeditated use of deadly force. (And, frankly, if an officer had premeditated murder on the mind, he or she would simply turn off the camera.) Body cams have their greatest value after-the-fact, enabling investigation and possible punishment. They may not be very effective deterrents. Another course of action might be the use of sanction. We could severely punish officers who use deadly force inappropriately. But would that be a deterrent to any officer caught in the moment of immediate peril, perceived or real? I think not; for that moment demands reaction, not reflection. Also, that reaction may more readily turn violent, if the officer has suffered stress recently in either personal or professional life. When I served in Vietnam, I witnessed more than a few soldiers so traumatized by firefights or shell shocked by night bombardments that they had become walking hair-triggers. The accumulation of high stress experiences or even a single violent incident can take any person to that hair-trigger edge. Perhaps we can learn from the soldier’s experience in combat zones.

One of the remedies currently being discussed and implemented in many parts of the country is what is called “community policing.” I remember the account of an Iraqi veteran who reported no casualties in his unit or in the civilian population where they were imbedded during his tour. He said his unit had daily contact with civilians, not only engaging with them in conversation but working with them in their communities. The Iraqis accepted these soldiers not as an occupied army, but as protectors from the more violent elements of an ongoing civil war. The replacement unit that followed took a different tack, alienating themselves from the civilian community. Their experience was markedly different, engaging in regular combat with insurgents and suffering several casualties. So connecting with communities can be effective. This form of policing needs to be part of police training. In addition, police academies should qualify candidates for acceptance based upon those relational characteristics required for community policing. Since the draft was terminated, the military has strengthened to some degree its admittance criteria. Just as not anybody in the general population can become a good soldier, not any individual who wants to wear a police uniform should. Our police force demands a special type of individual, level-headed and dedicated to public safety. We also need to take better care of our on-duty officers. We do not want traumatized or stressed-out police walking our streets, especially where crime is prevalent. The military, for instance, used to recognize the need to relieve soldiers in combat zones with periodic R & R (rest and recuperation). Any officer who has been engaged in a shoot-out or any stressful situation either on or off the job should be allowed recuperation time, perhaps paid leave or reassignment to some community-involved tasks. We definitely do not want a hair-trigger officer patrolling our streets. And, finally, we need to deal more effectively with the incidence of biased policing. Eliminating preconceptions and bias in the police force is no different than eliminating it in the general population. Naturally, police training should address the issue of racial profiling. Just like everybody else, police need to examine their prejudices and assess the effect on their professional conduct. I have written about this subject matter in a number of blogs (reference “Racial Bias: A Conceit or Merely a Context,” “The More Subtle Relevance of George Zimmerman,” “Telltale Biases,” and “Soulfulness”). Each generation seems to extend the moral boundaries towards greater inclusiveness, regardless of race, gender, sexual preferences, and body types. This spirit of inclusiveness would be helped if police recruitment better represented the community served. But, regardless, police officers will still reflect the cultural biases of the general population.

Throughout this nation there are millions of daily interactions between police and civilians. I suspect nearly all of those interactions service public safety. As much as we decry the misuse of excessive police force, we need to recognize what service these men and women provide to the general public. And we need to assure their care and training is up to the dangerous task we set for them. Since we seem unable to muster the majority needed to disarm criminals, we arm and train police to use deadly force when they or others are threatened with the same. In a sense, we have put them in the same sort of danger as our military. But they are the servants of public order and peace, not soldiers on a beat.

What makes America so special? And how has it become the oldest democracy in history? Seen from beyond its border, it is readily identifiable as a country of great diversity. Its heritage may be born of Europeans fleeing less inviting circumstances, but its population and culture have evolved with the influx of immigrants from every corner of the globe. In addition, the combination of our public school system, diverse employment opportunities, interstate mobility, and advanced education institutions has made for a robust economy that breeds productivity gains even during blips in our GDP. For many around the world, America is still seen as both a melting pot and the “land of opportunity.” But for those who chose not to live here and see America from afar, we also appear to be a land of great chaos: we are armed to the teeth and kill each other at alarming rates for a developed country; our politics swing wildly between extremes of the left and right over issues like civil rights, gun control, or abortion; and we tend to conduct foreign policy like evangelists converting the world to our principles of free enterprise and democracy without regard for other cultures or history. We may indeed be a melting pot. But, if so, we are constantly brewing, bubbling, and even boiling over. The rest of the world both admires our ingenuity and enthusiasm and is wary of our ambition and excesses.

Seen from within its borders, our apparent chaos is just the working out of our nation’s founding principles. One of the wonders of America, besides the goals expressed in our Constitution, is the system of government founded on that text. The checks and balances prescribed therein give voice to every segment of the population—from congressional districts and states of all sizes to the general populace vote for the presidency as represented in the Electoral College. And that founding document has also given us an independent judiciary to settle our disputes, interpret the application of law, and arbitrate justice for all. However wonderful this system of government may be—Churchill seemed to think it was the best amongst the dregs of human history—it appears to rest upon a few assumptions about human nature. Two of those assumptions are my subject matter today. First, as John Adams so clearly identified, our system of government depends upon an informed electorate. Second, although it is designed to give voice to minorities, it presumes that the majority’s decisions will rule. In other words, if we self-govern the way our founding fathers intended, we would be constantly engaged in informed debate where all affected parties are heard and where resolution of the debate is decided by a majority vote. The pot may be brewing, but it needs to be deliberately stirred into a peaceful mixture, where the hard lumps are melted down into a balanced suspension. Our history has witnessed various minorities—ethnic, racial, LGBT, and women’s groups—who have helped to stir the pot and have demanded change that the majority deliberated and eventually voted into law.

The problem we are currently facing is a contemporary anomaly: there is no informed majority participating in the decision making process of our democracy. Whether through apathy or ignorance, the majority seems to have left the public forum to the special interests and issue driven concerns of minorities. Lobbyists of different special interests fight for their respective minorities’ causes or positions. Far right or far left minority groups petition and win not only the legislature’s agenda, but its concurrence on issues the majority would never support. Do the majority of Americans really support the closing of clinics dedicated to women’s health, the lack of universal background checks for the purchase of firearms, the manipulation of voting districts so that a national party can control the legislature without winning a majority of the votes (referring to the Republicans now, but equally to the Democrats previously), the evolution of a tax structure that favors the wealth accumulation of a minority over the wage earning majority, the imposition by a specific minority of religious rights over civil rights where both religious and civil freedoms of the majority may be violated, and the fire-breathing, outspoken minority who consistently preach a foreign policy governed by military options rather than diplomatic engagement? The question I am posing is not whether you agree or disagree with the various positions I just enumerated. I am highlighting the fact that there appears to be a majority of opinion on all of these issues that seems unaccounted in the decision making process. Most of us would like to see our roads and bridges repaired where needed, our future social security funds protected, a fairer tax system, affordable higher education for our children, an electoral system more dependent on our vote than the amount of campaign money raised, and (yes) affordable AND effective healthcare for our families. Even when these universally popular concepts are voiced by our politicians, they are immediately overwhelmed by the issues of well-organized minorities. Our governance is no longer in our hands, even though we are the majority. And yet our Constitution clearly gives us the power to govern ourselves. All we need to do is be informed and vote. So who do we blame for the apparent dysfunction in Washington?

At both the State and Federal level, too much legislative priority is given to minority issues—most often well-funded special interests—at the expense of the general welfare. How does a florist issue with servicing a gay wedding or a single woman’s decision to seek an abortion or the political statement of a faux “repeal” vote of established law deserve more priority than the high cost of college education, the growing student debt crisis, a decaying infrastructure, tax law inequities that both negate fair business competition and middle class wealth creation, the excesses of campaign fund raising, and so many other concerns that affect the majority of American families. If we want our vote to count more than the almighty dollar, then we have to wield the power we already have. Otherwise, the serious issues of our time remain unaddressed while we become mere spectators to the clash of minorities.

In September, 2013, I wrote a piece titled “Subtlety versus Bombast” in which I accused both Republican and Democratic parties of so polluting the political discourse “that it is almost impossible to sift out any factual analysis.” The subject of their contentious discourse was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as the “Affordable Care Act” (ACA), or, mostly disparagingly, as Obamacare. The Republicans claimed that the ACA would cost one trillion dollars over the span of 10 years. The Democrats countered with their argument that the ACA would save the government one trillion dollars over the same period. Both parties quoted the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to prove their point. After reading the CBO report, I realized that both parties were quoting out of context while distorting the CBO’s actual conclusion: the ACA would result in a net savings to the Federal Government in its first 10 years of implementation with the promise of a positive impact on the nation’s GDP in the following 10 years. In addition, the CBO estimated that there might be as much as half a trillion dollars in non-coverage savings which it did not include in its analysis. The latter savings would depend upon future action by the health care industry and Congress.

Subsequently, in April of 2014, I wrote another blog titled “What Follows Obamacare?” in which I proposed that Congress should “(1) first, assure these non-coverage savings are realized and (2) relook at the structure of our health care delivery system to identify cost effective reforms that Congress might incentivize the health care industry to initiate.” In that blog I delineated what health care insiders had already suggested: what actions the health care industry might undertake and what incentives Congress might provide. Now, five years after the ACA became law, we have some preliminary evidence of the law’s effect:
• Healthcare spending as a percent of GDP has stopped increasing, remaining flat at 17%; and its rate of growth is the lowest in decades at 3.9% per year.
• Since 2011 annual spending per Medicare beneficiary has fallen from $12,000 to $11,200 and is expected to stay at that level through 2020, resulting in an expected annual savings of $160 billion and a further extension of Medicare’s financial ledger balance beyond the eight years projected in 2009.
• Hospital productivity has accelerated as a result of adapting to the new healthcare law which penalizes hospitals for readmissions, discourages the profit making associated with buying and depreciating the latest expensive equipment with minimal consideration of need or effectiveness, and makes attractive the recent surge in hospital mergers which furthers team medicine, best practices, a salaried medical team devoted more to outcome than quantity of services, and, as a result of economies of scale, supports the digitizing of patient medical records for their dissemination to medical teams working in concert to provide better individual patient care.
• Consumers of health care services have benefited in many ways, to include subsidized premiums, competitive pricing of insurance policies, provision of more preventive care, extension of coverage care to students living at home, elimination of insurance companies’ denial of care for various reasons such as pre-existing conditions, and so on.

Specific provisions of the ACA have not only implemented regulatory restrictions beneficial to health care consumers but have also expanded the insurance market, enriching insurance companies with billions in new revenue. Meanwhile the health care industry has become one of the fastest growing segments of the US economy, spending billions in response to the impetus the ACA has given to improve health care in America. But, in spite of these early milestones, America still spends nearly twice as much as other Western democracies on health care (France being an exception, where health care consumes 12% of GDP). The obvious conclusion is that the ACA has been a success, but that more needs to be done. So what is missing in this limited success story?

The missing element is a willingness of legislatures both in some Republican dominated states and in Washington to build on ACA’s success. While the law’s expansion of Medicaid has had a positive impact on the unemployed and working poor, there are still some Republican dominated states that have refused to accept Federal money to fund this expansion, creating a new victim class of uninsured who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid and not enough to pay for partially subsidized insurance premiums. The Republican House of Representatives, meanwhile, has passed legislation to repeal ACA over fifty times. They have threatened to shut down the government and have risked America’s financial stability by refusing to extend the debt ceiling. In spite of these backward-looking phenomena, approximately 16.4 million people have obtained insurance through the ACA exchanges, surpassing the most optimistic expectation of 15 million enrollees. So why have some legislatures, including Congress, taken such a negative position?

I believe the Republican Party has painted itself into a corner. All the negative ads, straw-man criticism, and exotic hyperbole (e.g. death panels, job killer, deficit busting, government meddling in the doctor-patient relationship, and so on) have created an insurmountable obstacle to overcome. The Party’s only response seems to be a doubling down on the rhetoric and continued obstructionist behavior. Is it possible for any politician in America—Republican or Democrat—to admit a mistake or, at least, to adjust constructively to the majority position on any policy that they initially opposed? Apparently, the answer to that question is “no”; for the appearance of being wrong or on the losing side of a policy debate cannot be born in our public forum. Public posture is rated much higher than public policy.

The unbelievable irony of this ACA debate is that it took a Democratic president to initiate and pass a Republican policy. It was Ted Kennedy that convinced President Obama that the Democratic position of a universal state sponsored health care program could never be implemented. Kennedy had come to recognize his mistake in turning down the proposal of a mandated private insurance program run through state exchanges offered by the Republican Senate Majority leader, Bob Dole. President Obama has said that the Republican proposal, initially constructed by the conservative Heritage Foundation, was the least disruptive intervention in the health care structure already established in this country. He never believed that it was the ideal construct. His decision to support it was the very model of pragmatism and compromise that our system of government demands. Republicans could have rejoiced in their victory over the Democratic “big government” solution to American health care provisioning. The Republican proposal was not only more practical, but it emphasized personal responsibility (the mandate), private enterprise (expansion of the private insurance economic sector), and market forces to control price and performance (competitive exchanges). To what purpose have Republicans snatched defeat from the jaws of success? Apparently, their emphasis is on winning at the polls and in the next election rather than in governing. In that pursuit they have been largely successful. Democrats have been cowed into not defending a law they would never have constructed without Presidential leadership. (Witness their reluctance to defend the ACA in the last two mid-term elections.) And “Obamacare” has become a negative acronym in the public domain.

Having stated all of the above, I want to be clear about the future of ACA. There are problems ahead for we are leaning into an unknown and somewhat unpredictable future. We have already witnessed a few blips in the implementation of the President’s new law: the initial rollout of healthcare.gov, the President’s too generalized statement that “if you like your policy, you can keep it,” the law’s inconsistent wording of participant’s eligibility for subsidies through state vs. Federal exchanges, and, of course, the Supreme Court’s ruling that allows states to refuse Federal funds that expand Medicaid. In November, 2013, I wrote a blog that addressed the President’s misstatement (“ACA: Affordable or Not?”). But in that article I concluded “We are at the beginning of a sea-change in America’s health care provisioning system. It’s going to take years to fully stabilize and hone this system, much as it did with Medicare.” I still believe in that conclusion.

Pascal in his Pensées once said that to write about politics “was as if laying down rules for a lunatic asylum.” Now there are two aspects to this statement. First, there is the laying down of rules. This task befell our founding fathers during the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia. They were fully cognizant of Aristotle’s words, “every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good” (the opening line to Book One, Politics). In the Preamble of the Constitution they laid out what good they hoped to achieve: “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union . . .” What follows the Preamble were the rules by which they hoped to structure and organize the new United States of America. Emmanuel Kant, though not a political philosopher, believed that reasonably intelligent people would establish universal laws and “a constitution in such a way that, although their private intentions conflict, they check each other, with the result that their public conduct is the same as if they had no such intentions” (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals). Echoing the second part of Pascal’s statement, he concluded that “the problem of organizing a state . . . can be solved even for a race of devils, if only they are intelligent.”

Generally, I would refrain from characterizing my fellow Americans as lunatics or devils, but our current legislators do give me some misgivings about their intelligence. As I write this blog, they are unable to agree on a bill that would fund the Homeland Security Department. The “good” the majority party is trying to obtain is the defunding of the President’s administration of immigration policies. The irony, of course, is that they would be defunding border patrol agents, the very people assigned to control illegal immigration. In the process they would be severely limiting the effectiveness of a department responsible for the safety of all Americans. Is there a logic here that any intelligent person can identify for the rest of us? I doubt that the founding fathers ever intended to grant Congress funding authority so that they could shut down the government they vow to serve or any key part thereof designed to preserve it from harm. While the majority party accuses the President of overstepping his Constitutional authority, it clearly is trashing several of the primary goals stated in the Constitution’s Preamble, specifically, to “insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare . . .” Even if you believe the President exceeded his authority by prioritizing deportations—as several Presidents before him have done—his Constitutional authority to do so is already before the courts and will be adjudicated in accordance with the rules set down in our Constitution. With respect to the Republicans in the House, their current action defies the very purpose of the Constitution.

Elsewhere I have written about the failure of our leaders to compromise (ref. “Compromise: An Unfulfilled Promise”), but this new standoff is something different. It is an abdication of Constitutional responsibility. Further, it replaces statecraft with criminal-like blackmail. Remember who the victim is here: “We the people . . .”

Obviously the Keystone XL Pipeline extension is not the legendary philosopher’s stone that could transform lead into gold. But I wonder whether some believe this myth has become reality in the case of TransCanada’s pipeline project. According to its proponents, it will provide hundreds of thousands of jobs, further America’s independence from foreign oil, free us of future interventions in oil rich Middle Eastern countries, offer a more cost efficient and safer transportation medium than rail, and boost our energy driven economy. Is this nothing more than a figurative transformation of crude oil into liquid gold? Perhaps, but it may not seem so to its opponents, especially after two recent pipeline spills into the Yellowstone River. If you are a farmer or rancher in Nebraska or a member of the Cowboy and Indian Alliance in South Dakota, you may not be thrilled with the prospect of your land or water supply being polluted by a broken pipeline. In addition, proponents of climate change foresee Agamemnon if this pipeline extension is built. It seems environmentalists and business interests are irreversibly at odds on the decision to build this pipeline extension. Moreover, these conflicting positions have roiled the cages of our politicians who have emerged with straw man arguments with which to rip apart their opponents. What are we to make of this conflict? Let me offer another perspective. But first, let’s briefly outline a few facts.

Normally, a pipeline cannot be built without hearings to determine justification for the state to force private lands to be sold for public interests. These hearings are generally established to protect private citizens from being damaged by the state’s use of eminent domain. In Nebraska, this protection was overridden by a state law (LB 1161) in 2012 that gave the Governor the authority to grant the use of eminent domain to TransCanada without hearings or any kind of analysis. (It should be noted that Nebraska’s Department of Environmental Quality has no standards for assessing oil pipeline impacts.) A Nebraskan judge found the Governor’s use of the right of eminent domain to be unconstitutional. This month (January, 2015) a majority of the Nebraskan Supreme Court agreed with the lower court ruling, that is, 4 out of 7 Supreme Court judges were in agreement. However, in Nebraska a super majority of 5 is required to overturn the legislature. So LB 1161 stands and the Governor can force the remaining farmers/ranchers to sell the land needed by TransCanada to complete the Nebraska portion of the pipeline. However, the Nebraskans who are affected by this decision have not given up their fight and plan to reprise their case in the courts. In fact, they are being joined by South Dakotans who are also unwilling to give up their property rights. But now that the Nebraskan Governor can authorize the sale of private property to a foreign company under the right of eminent domain, the same ranchers/farmers will be in a position to claim damages. Recent oil pipeline spills will be brought into court hearings as evidence of the potential risk to fresh water supplies and to surrounding communities as well as of possible unrecoverable damage to private property owners. In other words, the Keystone pipeline will continue to be tied up in the courts for a very long time. Meanwhile, the permit that allowed TransCanada to build the South Dakota portion of Keystone has expired. The Cowboy and Indian Alliance in that state is already celebrating what they believe is the death Nell for this pipeline project. How difficult would it now be for TransCanada to justify eminent domain—to show that America’s need for Canadian oil is a public good that outweighs the property rights of American citizens when that oil is intended for cargo ships destined for foreign ports?

Will TransCanada persists in its attempts to build this Keystone pipeline extension or finally revert to their alternate strategy, a new pipeline extending to Canada’s western shore? If the President or legislative action authorized the border crossing of this pipeline at this time, would that action allow pipeline construction to begin? The answer to my first question is unknown, but clearly the second question can only be answered in the negative. With respect to the pro and con arguments, there are a few facts that we can weigh. Is a pipeline a better option for transporting crude oil in terms of safety and costs? One only needs to review rail transportation fees and recent oil railcar explosions before replying strongly affirmative to this question. Will the pipeline extension provide hundreds of thousands of jobs? Not likely, though it certainly will employ thousands of already employed construction workers and require a relatively small number of permanent jobs to maintain the pipeline after construction. How many additional workers will be hired during the construction phase is open to speculation for it depends on decisions TransCanada will make regarding the pace of construction. The mid-West is already riddled with pipelines; literally thousands of pipeline workers are readily available to sign onto this project. Will this pipeline have any affect at all on American energy use, foreign policy, or economy? Since this heavy Canadian crude was never intended to be refined for American use, its only economic beneficiary is a Canadian oil company. Given crashing oil prices, it is no longer clear whether TransCanada’s capital investment in this project is even worthwhile. And since changing the means of transporting this oil has no relevance to its production or ultimate provisioning to customers, there is no effect on the world oil supply, on climate change, or on Middle Eastern oil producers. The only foreign policy impact that I can visualize concerns whether this oil is shipped out of Texas refineries to Europe or out of Canada’s western province to China. Finally, how relevant is the politicization of the President’s approval of this pipeline extension? In my opinion, the facts reveal an alarming lack of political relevancy. Clearly, the President indicated to the Canadian Prime Minister that he favored the pipeline once it passed legal and regulatory due process. Part of that process was the EPA application of extensive monitoring for pipeline leakage and provision of adequate oil spill clean-up capability. The EPA’s favorable determination was probably the major hurdle for the Administration. But the legal issues still persists in the courts.

Given the facts of the matter, you might be wondering what perspective I might offer. Well, I confess I have a bias here. My mother loss her small business to the state’s application of eminent domain—for a freeway off ramp that was never in fact built. As a result, I find it hard to view the Keystone XL Pipeline issue as anything other than a determination of the lawful and fair application of eminent domain. Some South Dakotans and about 12% of affected Nebraskan farmers/ranchers feel their property rights are being unfairly usurped by the state. Clearly, that is an issue for the judicial system. The Administration has already played its part and can do no more until the matter is adjudicated in the courts. The Nebraskan legislature has done its task. Our Congress has no role at all in the matter.

In conclusion, I would like to see the pipeline built with as much spill protection as technology can offer, BUT only if property owners’ interests are protected. And, frankly, I would like our politics to become relevant once again.

Many people have complained of late about the lack of compromise in our elected government. It has been said that the problem in Washington is an inability to concede anything to the opposition or simply to identify common ground. But I think the problem may be language.

Some years ago I read a book about how dogs communicate. What struck me as remarkable was the fact that dog “language” is quite constant across all species of dogs. A tail wag, a raised ear, or a show of teeth always communicated the same message. A British terrier has no problem communicating with an Irish bulldog. Now, if we humans could replicate the same feat in our communication, it would be considered a real breakthrough in international relations and especially in our congressional negotiations. Elsewhere I touched upon our seeming failure to communicate in the hallowed halls of Congress in terms of the misapplication of words and analogies (ref. “Words Have Meaning”). But I think the lesson canines can teach us is different.

If a dog humps your leg, its message is clear. But, as I mentioned in a recent blog, our species can simply change the meaning of something that looks like torture by calling it “enhanced interrogation.” If a dog were capable of such duplicity, I suppose its humping would be interpreted as a desire to clean your pants leg. Of course, dogs are not capable of our dishonesty in their communication. They are quite reliable in their use of dog language. We know why they hump.

Let’s move beyond “torture,” since certain people in a past Administration refuse to use that word to describe certain heinous acts committed in our name. Instead, I want to consider what has been done to the word “compromise.” Its dictionary meaning is a “settlement of differences . . . reached by mutual concession.” Its Latin derivatives—com, “together, with”, and promittere, “to promise”—strongly imply an intent or promise to come together. Now suppose you reverse the meaning. For example, the Democrats in Oregon and the Republicans in Washington State agreed not to replace the Interstate Bridge across the Columbia River after deficit hawks on the right and environmentalist on the left lobbied their representatives to do nothing. As a result salmon continue to swim unabated under a rickety old bridge that ranks as the 28th most insufficient amongst 18,984 similar bridges in the U.S.; and the states pass up $1.25 billion in federal funding for a new bridge in lieu of the $900 million it will costs the states to keep the current nearly 100 year old structure temporarily upright. The right and the left “compromised” by agreeing to do nothing. We experienced a similar “compromise” in a recent debt ceiling negotiation: the President agreed NOT to amend Obamacare and the Republicans agreed NOT to shut down the government. Currently, our government is faced with another showdown over funding for homeland security. My guess is that both sides will “compromise” on an agreement that will NOT defund or limit the Homeland Security Department and will NOT revoke the President’s executive orders affecting immigrant families. Both sides will “come together” without any concessions so that nothing will be accomplished.

The situation in Washington reminds me of the failed compromise I tried to reach with my dog. I wanted her to hold it in until I could let her out the back door. But I could not return from work early enough and she could not restrain a doggie dump on the dining room carpet. You see, we just spoke different languages—much like many of our legislators.

Torture is clearly beyond the pale, for its end is recognizably evil. Or so it might seem. However, it has been judged differently in various contexts. Generally, we consider anyone who tortures another as a pariah, feeding on another’s misfortune to fall prey to his/her power. Such a person would normally be termed morally bankrupt. A sadomasochist, on the other hand, derives pleasure from causing or experiencing pain or both. In this instant, we consider such people mentally disturbed and their actions derived more from a psychological state than from a moral deficit. But how would we characterize torture as a means to an end, specifically, an end that is good and desirable? Recently a broadcaster asked this question in the context of America’s state-sponsored torture program after 9/11, “Is not torture justified when the lives of 3,000 people might be saved?” This question presumes that the saving of many lives is a most desirable end and, as such, can outweigh the evil act of torture. Or so it might seem.

I have mentioned elsewhere how national “ethics” differ from personal ethics (ref. “The Rule of the Primate”). The issue of torture touches on the same ambivalence in the guise of situational ethics. The classic hypothetical case presented in psychology 101 involves two scenarios. The first situation has a train approaching a fork controlled by a switch. On one track are five people who would be run over by the train. On the other track there is only one person. Should the track be switched so that only one person would die rather than five? In the second situation, there is no switch, but that one person is close at hand. Should that person be shoved in front of the oncoming train in order to stop it before it hits the other five people further down the track? “Most people would throw the switch in the first instance, but refuse to push a person in front of a moving train. Even though the moral judgment is the same in either case—the saving of five people at the expense of one—the decision is made on the basis of emotions, not rational judgment. In brain scans they have found that the amygdala, our emotional center, is deeply engaged in your (sic) second scenario. Most people cannot execute the correct, moral act in this case because of the emotions triggered by physical contact with the person they must sacrifice (ref. p.95, “The Therapy Session,” in A Life Apart).” This quote, albeit taken out of context, seems to support the Bush administration’s argument that so-called “enhance interrogations” were morally correct, based upon rational judgment rather than the emotions of teary-eyed liberals. And this argument, my friends, represents the classic difference between the ethical actions that must exist between individuals and the practices of nation states. Ethics is foremost about values, like the value of a human life, and the discernment of such in given situations. Logic then must serve those values, not the reverse, thereby giving weight to that fundamental ethical construct, “the end does not justify the means.”

How torturous is the logic of those defenders of “enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT)?” Well, they never define EIT as torture. Its acronym even further obfuscates its true nature. Yet EIT is the same elephant that was adjudicated in the Nuremburg Trials, is well defined in UN Conventions as torture, and is specifically absent in the US military guidelines for combatant interrogations. Unfortunately, that elephant took up residence in our White House. When its proponents could no longer argue that the elephant did not exist, they argued that it was legal and justified. Of course, slavery was once legal and so was the exclusion of women from the electorate. Legality does not always square with morality. And the pragmatic argument seems no less torturous. Besides the fact of being irrelevant (remember “the end does not justify the means”), what usable intelligence was derived from EIT? Allegedly, one victim’s denial of knowledge was the basis for assuming he was lying and therefore an unwitting admittance of usable intelligence in locating Bin Laden. Little else has been offered as justification for EIT. In reality, the case for a pragmatic justification seems mainly based upon categorical statements that EIT preserved lives without actual proof of such. Much like the statement of former Vice President Cheney that “I would do it again in a minute,” truth must be accepted as a matter of dictate, rather than of logic and, most certainly, of ethics.

Now it is true that we live in a violent world. For that reason alone, we elect leaders who we believe will protect us by any means appropriate. But where do we draw the line; where does our moral conscience intervene? President Johnson personally authorized B52 bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail, even though those bombs violated the sovereign territory of Vietnam’s neighbors. But he never authorized torture. President Nixon had no reserve about extending the bombing to civilian population centers like Hanoi and Haiphong. But he never authorized torture. President Obama personally authorized guidelines for drone strikes, where civilian casualties, though minimalized, are still incurred. But he revoked the guidelines for EIT and condemned torture. In a perfect world, civilian casualties in war would also be condemned as immoral. There is no moral justification for the killing of innocents. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world. This fact only further emphasizes the need to adhere to any ethical guidelines the international community has agreed to support. Maybe the human species isn’t developed to the level of eliminating wars. But it can agree to prohibit indiscriminate minefields—and torture. And we can awaken to the fact that fighting terrorism with state-sponsored torture only raises the stakes in savagery. Rather than President Reagan’s bright city on a hill, we become no more than the whitened sepulcher of hypocrisy.

Personally, I prefer the moral high ground. Let’s not vote for any politician that defends or supports torture. “I think it’s possible for people to change history by choosing not to become participants in its destructive tendencies (ref. p.297, “A War of Words,” in A Life Apart, or for context click here).”

The following tale is about a young social caseworker who plied his skills in Central Los Angeles shortly after the Watts riots of 1965.

The caseworker had just turned into a side street lined with overfilled garbage cans and blocked by police cars. One of the policemen approached his vehicle. The caseworker rolled down his car window and was about to ask the policeman to let him pass. He was running late on his rounds. But he had to fit Mrs. Long into his schedule. He knew she would be excited to hear his news. But before he could address the policeman, the officer blurted out, “Are you lost?” Of course, he wasn’t. Quickly, he explained who he was and that he knew the area well. The policeman eyed him with suspicion and said, “No white man is safe here, especially one in a suit and tie. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t my job and I wasn’t carrying a gun.” The caseworker explained his job was here too. This is where his clients lived. He assured the officer they presented no danger to him. The officer shrugged his shoulders and said, “Okay, but it’s your funeral.” The caseworker steered around the police cars and smiled to himself at the thought of the petite Mrs. Long being any kind of threat to him or to anybody. Two months earlier, when he had been assigned his initial case load, he did have some misgivings about the neighborhood. His apprehension seemed justified when children threw things at his car. But the adults soon corralled them. Now the only danger he faced was the potholed streets and driving after dark. Once he had left a client shortly after sunset and found it difficult to find his way in the darkened streets. His only fear then was the potholes he might not avoid and the pedestrians he might not see. Street lamps he learned were never replaced after burn out. That fact probably explained why the local police cars were all equipped with search lights.

Pulling into Mrs. Long’s driveway, a neighbor saluted and said, “I thought you’d be coming tomorrow.” The caseworker acknowledged the greeting with a wave and replied, “I came early with good news.” The neighbor shook his head and warned, “She won’t be expecting you.” At the front door, he hesitated before knocking. Of course, he would not normally show up unannounced if Mrs. Long could afford a phone. When the door suddenly swung open, he was surprised to be confronted by a large black man. The man was glaring at the over-dressed figure before him, apparently sizing him up. At the same time, the caseworker was making his own assessment. He knew Mrs. Long was married, but her application for AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) stated that her husband had abandoned her. The man spoke first, “So, who the hell are you? You’re not carrying, so I know you’re no goddam cop. If you’re one of those insurance salesmen, we don’t want any of that bogus crap you’re selling.” Suddenly, he took a step towards the caseworker. His face hardened, but his tone was confidential as he said, “If you know what’s good for you, you’d get the hell out of here.”

The caseworker, feeling intimidated, tensed up. He reacted by assuming the air of a county official and met his perceived challenger head on. “You’re Mr. Long aren’t you? Well I’m your wife’s social worker. Do you realize I could have you arrested for failure to support your wife and child?” The large black man caved quickly. “Please sir, don’t call the cops. I’m not living off my wife’s money. I just came by to visit and see my daughter. I’d give them money if I had any . . . I’m looking for work, I am.” He was suddenly interrupted by Mrs. Long who pushed him aside. She apologized for her husband and reiterated his story. The social caseworker relaxed. He reminded her that Mr. Long would not be permitted to live with her unless he was contributing to the support of the family. There were tears in her eyes as she nodded her understanding. The social caseworker was beginning to feel guilty. Finally, he gave her the good news about her acceptance in the training program she wanted. She wiped a tear from her cheek and smiled. Now embarrassed, he suggested that Mr. Long should come to the office and ask for him. He promised to connect her husband with an employment counselor.

Later, he found himself staring at the ignition switch in his car, unable to turn the key. He was caught up in an emotion he was struggling to understand. He felt ashamed.

The End.

I call this story a “tale,” though it is not truly apocryphal. It is a composite of actual events. What it exemplifies is the many aspects of bias. At the time of this tale, there were many segregated black communities cowed by dependency on social welfare, distrustful of police, and intimidated by those who controlled their fate. The latter were also controlled by their fear of the vengeful black man and by deeply rooted misperceptions. In truth, every facet of my story exhibits telltale biases colored in white and black, framed within systems, and hung up in social structures no less bias.

I ask my readers how much of this story has changed in the last five decades and how much of it still shadows us today. Each generation has had to deal with this racial issue—from the creation of our Constitution, the Civil War, and the civil rights movement of the 1960s to Ferguson and the protest in our cities today. Though “the ark of change” may be long and progress has been made, how many generations after us will be still sorting out the consequences of the darkest chapters in American history? Telltale biases will persist until rooted out at their source. That source is only partially revealed in abstract self-examination. Changes in social systems and laws only address the externals, though they provide a threshold for change to pass through. It is only at the level of the heart, however, that these racial biases will finally be overcome. There is where change can touch the soul. (Ref. “Soulfulness”)

Greg Abbot, the Texas Attorney General and Governor-elect, is suing President Obama over his executive order regarding immigration. He says his suit has standing similar to the suits other states have taken against the Affordable Care Act, namely, the exorbitant costs to taxpayers. In the case of the President’s executive order deferring deportation of undocumented immigrants, these costs are allegedly incurred in social services. But he cannot deny the contribution immigrants make to the State’s economy nor can he quantify the countervailing costs incurred in their use of social services. His only supportive statement is the fact that there are immigrant children currently in Texas’ schools. And his comparison to the ACA suits is irrelevant since he is suing over an executive order whereas the ACA suits concern provisions of existing law that quantifiably affects a specific class of people. In effect, he is questioning the President’s Constitutional authority to decide how to enforce established law, specifically, his executive authority. Now this bone of contention has arisen before between the executive and legislative branches of our government and has been carefully skirted by our judges. In other words, the courts have stayed clear of the fray, leaving the dispute to the bickering participants to work out. His suit, then, has more to do with the Constitutional authority of the President than with any harm done to Texas taxpayers. Faced with this fact, he was asked what harm the President’s executive order has caused, or specifically, who has been harmed? His answer (ref “Meet the Press,” 12/7/2014) was the Constitution. He claims that when the President acts without Congress he erodes the Constitution which is the main attraction for legal immigration to America. Now if you allow me to break down this argument, Governor-elect Abbot is stating that (1) the President is violating the Constitution, (2) the Constitution is the main attraction that draws legal immigrants to our shores, and therefore (3) by violating the Constitution the President is removing that attraction and by implication is negatively affecting legal immigration. So, by this logic, the harmed party is the legal immigrant, for the Constitution can be “violated” but not harmed except by insurrection or amendment. Do you see the irony of his position? If he truly wanted to support legal immigration, why would he not support a policy that would in due course make the undocumented among us legal? Why, instead of a lawsuit, would he not engage Texas congressmen/women in comprehensive immigration reform? Simply stated, why not support the bipartisan Senate bill that maps a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants? Making the illegals legal is one way to affirm the “land of opportunity” for migrants to this country and to reaffirm our Constitutional rule of law.

Executive orders affecting immigration policy have been issued by various Presidents over the last several decades, though perhaps of less scope than this recent action by President Obama. That his action has led to debate is actually a good thing, for it has brought this issue to the forefront. In fact, the President has admitted that his order was only a stop-gap measure and that he preferred Congress to act. What prompted him to defer some deportations for three years was the inhumane breaking up of families, many of whom have lived in America for most or even all of their lives. He was echoing his predecessor who, when Governor of Texas, argued that “family values do not stop at the Rio Grande.” Then Governor Bush went on to say that people come to this country to work and feed their families. He felt that “there must be a humane way to help these people attain citizenship while still securing our borders.” When Governor-elect Abbot was asked whether he agreed with his predecessor, he replied, “I understand this even more powerfully because my wife will become the first Hispanic first lady.” His “understanding” implies that he agrees with the last two Presidents on their immigration positions, though he obviously opposes the current President on his executive order. So I must repeat the question: why, instead of a lawsuit, would he not engage Texas congressmen/women in comprehensive immigration reform?

The answer to my twice repeated question should be obvious: the Governor-elect, like many Republicans in the House, would rather indulge in “double-speak” than commit to any policy that provides a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. And yet the Republican platform supports outreach to Hispanic minorities. Many Republicans, as witnessed in the Senate, actually support comprehensive immigration reform along the lines outlined by the President. Perhaps the President’s opponents on this issue are just upset that he has forced their hand. They appear more committed to opposing him than his policy position. Is Congress actually determined to deport (or “self-deport,” as the last Republican nominee for President suggested) 11 million undocumented members of our society? I think not. Can Congress pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation or will it just maintain the inhumane situation under which many now live? For how long will Congress dither, procrastinate, and indulge in diversions like lawsuits when the outlines of a solution are not only well known, but are actually embodied in a bipartisan piece of legislation before the House of Representatives?

Put in blunter terms: should party politics preclude actual governing.

In a democratic society, one of the political prerequisites is the dialogue required to define and eventually enact public policy. It is fair to question whether pundits, journalists, and political commentators support this brand of politics or hinder it. If the former is true, then political reporting supports the dialogue by reflecting the public will and/or the positions of duly elected/nominated representatives. If the latter is true, then political reporting can become nothing more than the management of information for the purpose of self-interest. In other words, it can become a form of propaganda (ref. Webster’s Dictionary, “ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause”). Certainly, political operatives (e.g. campaign managers, press spokesmen, etc.) often excel in this form of politicking. Unfortunately, the “free” press too often provides them a megaphone for the controversial spin or allegation that might capture the public’s attention. Who can resist such coinage as “Governor Moonbeam,” “flip-flopper,” “leading from behind,” or “great communicator,” however misrepresentative these terms may be? For example, was Jerry Brown affected by the full moon when he promoted more sustainable development decades ago or was he just ahead of his time? Though it is true that Mitt Romney advocated his approach to mandated healthcare in Massachusetts for the rest of the nation, did he ever specify it should be a Federal program? Why is “leading from behind” not considered leadership? (Many NFL quarterbacks would beg to differ with the implication of this oxymoron.) And how well did President Reagan communicate his role in the Iran-Contra affair to justify his famous moniker (to paraphrase, “I don’t remember . . .”)? In this context, labels, tag lines, spin, and misnomers like “personhood” or “race baiting” are no more than self-serving propaganda. You may disagree with the terms I “labeled” as misnomers. But do your really believe there is conscious awareness in a zygote? Or do you not see a blind bigotry in any attempt to suppress dialogue on racial issues? If I’m right, then we are all being subject to the tyranny of propaganda where rhetoric subverts meaning.

In Russia, Putin has done a masterful job of controlling the press. He has cleverly used the rhetoric of nationalism as justification for his foreign invasions of Georgia and Ukraine. In order to gain some measure of international support for his policies, he has even established news organizations in America and Europe. Propaganda, after all, has always been one of the tools of tyrants, along with military power and suppression of opposition parties. In America, the news media has too often succumbed—perhaps unwittingly–to the lure of this same device. Following the example of Madisen Avenue, it has applied the mechanisms of word association, out-of-context snapshots, rhetorical hyperbole, and technical wizardry to illicit an unconscious acquiescence from a public mesmerized by presentation rather than substance. These mechanisms can be harmless, even trivial when used merely to attract readers or improve ratings. But applied to politics, they become as subversive as any propaganda waged by tyrants (ref. “Why Fable News?”). Oddly, this form of propaganda is generally anti-government because it reports “scandals” before evidence of such, policy opposition without debate, provocative statements taken out of context, and a laser-like focus on government shortfalls in lieu of subsequent remedies or successes. At times it seems the fifth estate has sold out its journalistic credentials to a kind of mindless propaganda. Although the intent may not be subversive, the result is the same: an inattentive public is lured into disgust and apathy.

Sound bites, catch phrases, and provocative insinuations may win an audience, but they do not make for substantive reporting. And the gross propagandizing of political issues does not alleviate or clarify a contentious debate. In fact, the only winner in this debate is ignorance; and the loser, democracy.