Egypt Events Show Drawbacks of Political Purity

In Egypt, the army toppled a democratically elected government.

In a country like the United States, it may be shocking that, no matter what a government’s policies, the vote of a majority of the people should be overturned by force.

President Obama seemed to say that the military coup was acceptable, because of the way the Muslim Brotherhood government was running the country.

“Democracy is about more than elections,” Obama said.

A year ago, the Brotherhood had won elections for the Egyptian presidency and parliament. Based on its religious beliefs, it used its new-found power to change the nature of the country itself.

Obama said earlier that if he wanted government to ban some action, “I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why [it] violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”

That was not the view of the Egyptian government, which seemed to believe that its political victory gave it a blank check to make fundamental changes.

Minority religious groups, including the Coptic Christians and Shia Muslims, and women found their rights were being reduced. President Mohammed Morsi declared himself above the law and rushed through a new constitution imposing the Brotherhood’s theology.

Of course, in a democracy, the majority rules, but there are acknowledged limits on what it can do with the power gained through elections. And a government should not be able to easily change a constitution.

In short, the limit on democracy is that it cannot be used to abolish itself. That’s what seemed to be happening in Egypt.

The American government tried to help Morsi stay in power by urging him to demand less political purity and to include in his government a variety of groups and interests. Morsi refused, apparently believing that his electoral victory constituted all the democracy his country needed.

Should that matter to Americans? In this country, we have repeatedly shown, sometimes under great stress, that our democratic system, with each person having an equal vote and the majority controlling, is remarkably strong.

While that’s certainly true, the American system is experiencing something similar to what happened in Egypt. Parties have become inflexible and unwilling to compromise.

The result of such rigidity was disastrous in Egypt, and it is causing problems here as well.

Formerly, the two major parties could compromise on policy questions. The result reflected mainly, but not exclusively, the views of the majority party.

For example, the Republicans might believe that competition among businesses offers sufficient consumer protection, while Democrats might argue for more regulation. The result could be a compromise law, leaning one way or the other, depending on which party is in the majority.

Now, many Republicans insist they will support only a pure version of their policies. For example, despite a strongly bipartisan Senate vote on immigration policy, the GOP Speaker of the House says his chamber will not even consider the Senate bill, seeking instead a purely Republican alternative.

In an extreme case, Wyoming GOP Sen. Mike Enzi, who has never supported any Obama proposal, is under attack and may be challenged in next year’s party primary simply because he was too polite and not stridently personal enough in his anti-Obama rhetoric.

In Maine, Gov. Paul LePage has attacked the character and intelligence of Democrats who oppose him, apparently because he believes his 2010 electoral victory meant that the Legislature should simply fall in line behind his policies.

Insistence on political purity and the related rejection or condemnation of opponents has produced undesirable results.

The parties are unable to find compromises, at least at the federal level, and policy-making has ground to a halt. There is no federal budget, and gridlock is the usual result of any attempt to pass needed legislation.

The Maine Legislature can still compromise, though the GOP members feel it necessary frequently to support their governor’s vetoes, even if they disagree with him.

And the reputations of both the United States and the State of Maine are tarnished.

Because of the inability of our federal government to function, the United States is losing respect elsewhere.

The loss of respect translates easily into a loss of influence in the world. People abroad may wonder if the United States is even capable of acting, when it is so deadlocked at home.

And when relations between Maine’s Republican governor and Democratic Legislature have reached the low point of name-calling, the sour political atmosphere may make the state look less attractive to out-of-state business.

Supreme Court Uses ‘Catch-22’ in Voting Rulings

You are only allowed to see the doctor if you are sick, but only the doctor can say if you are sick.  So you cannot see the doctor.

That’s a “Catch-22,” named after the famous novel by Joseph Heller in which this logic trap was hilariously and frighteningly described.

The latest Catch-22 has just come from the Supreme Court of the United States. In fact, in its recent decisions on the Voting Rights Act and an Arizona voter registration law, the Court used it twice.

The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to give some teeth to the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibits efforts to block voting on the basis of race.

Intended mainly to stop former Confederate states from preventing newly freed slaves from voting, it gave Congress the right to pass laws intended to enforce the Amendment.

Little happened for a century, mainly because Southern senators filibustered any proposal.  Then President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Texan, succeeded in getting the Voting Rights Act passed.

One part of that law says the U.S. Justice Department must approve in advance any changes to voting laws in nine Southern states and parts of other states, some in the North. The law contains the standards needed to get an OK.

In 2006, the law was renewed.  A Republican-controlled Congress voted for renewal by 390-33 in the House of Representatives and 98-0 in the Senate.  The bill was signed by President George W. Bush, also a Republican.

But the standards were not updated.  Some discrimination persisted, though it had taken new forms, such as efforts to suppress voting by members of minority groups.

Last month, by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court rejected prior approval of voting changes in affected states, finding that the standards that applied in 1965 were no longer needed and that Congress had not come up with new reasons for extending it.

Five justices decided that national policy adopted by an overwhelming majority of Congress, including senators from all of the affected states, should be tossed out because, in their view, it was outdated.

Justice Antonin Scalia had said in effect during the court proceedings that Congress couldn’t resist being politically correct, so it was up to the Supreme Court to make a decision that normally would be left to the legislative branch.

“Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political process,” he said later.  Instead, he implied there must be an unusual political process, unusual because the Court is not supposed to be political.

The decision did not go that far. It allowed the prior approval requirement for offending states, provided Congress sets new standards, which would presumably have to be approved by the Court.

Could Congress with a House of Representatives now controlled by strong conservatives adopt any new standards?  Would the Court approve any new standards? 

If the answers are “no,” as many observers believe, then the Court has produced an obvious Catch-22.

The Justice Department may still prosecute efforts to stymie minority voting.  Without prior approval, it may need to be more aggressive.

And rather than assuming the House will block anything, President Obama could propose new standards to see where Congress stands.

Congress recognized that some states were trying to reduce the number of minority voters by placing new obstacles in their way. It created the Election Assistance Commission to prepare a standard form stating what information may required from a person voting in a federal election.

Arizona added its own requirements, making it more difficult for a person to prove citizenship. Oddly enough, one target was Native Americans

The Court, in an opinion written by Scalia, overturned the Arizona requirement, leaving the EAC standards in effect.  If Arizona didn’t like them, it could appeal to the EAC, which it had failed to do.

The problem is that there is no EAC.  Congressional Republicans have blocked the appointment of all four members and, without them, there is no staff.

Because Arizona cannot appeal to the body set by law to handle such matters, the state faces another Catch-22.

However, if it cannot get a favorable EAC decision, the state could appeal the non-decision to court. 

The case could make its way up to the Supreme Court, and the justices – or at least five of them – might act in place of the EAC and overrule or expand the agency’s standards.

In the end, Arizona and other states seeking to make it more difficult for minorities to vote could get their way, thanks to Catch-22.

Paying the price for secrecy leaks

The United States is once again caught up in a case of leaked, secret information.

After the WikiLeaks disclosure of diplomatic messages has come the revelation that the National Security Agency collects telephone and Internet data.

Both leaks publicize government actions that people supposedly could find both wrong and invasive. The leakers clearly want to put a stop to what the government is doing by making its operations public and hence worthless.

The suddenly revealed material has been kept secret for reasons ranging from delicate diplomatic relations, involving frank comments about other countries, to intelligence gathering on adversaries, including terrorists.

The first step in bringing secret government activities into public view is revealing them to unauthorized recipients — the leak itself. The second is the publication of the information by the media.

Revealing the information may result in allowing enemies to avoid surveillance, putting American sources in mortal danger or compromising relationships with other countries.

Counterbalancing these concerns is the need for an open government, operating in a democracy, to enable its citizens to be aware of the actions it takes on their behalf, so they may decide what limits to impose on it.

The leakers — Army Pvt. Bradley Manning in the case of WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden in the case of NSA surveillance — concluded that unless they revealed secrets to which they had access, improper government actions would continue without the public knowing.

The leakers knowingly broke the law and the rules on secrecy they had previously agreed to respect.

With the leaked data in hand, the media distributed the information from these sources, pursuing its responsibility in open societies to inform the public.

Faced with the choice between suppressing news and publishing it, the media has done its job and probably broken no law.

Some people believe that Manning and Snowden should not be punished for their actions, because they are serving high and worthy purposes, not simply leaking to gain sensational headlines for themselves.

When people knowingly break the law to serve the public interest, they act in a long tradition. It began 165 years ago in Massachusetts.

Henry David Thoreau, a Concord school teacher, spent a night in jail for refusal to pay a tax. In 1848, he laid out his view “On Civil Disobedience.”

Thoreau advocated nonviolent opposition to government. He accepted that if a person broke the law, he or she would be punished. If “one honest man” freed his slaves and went to jail, “it would be the abolition of slavery in America,” he wrote.

A couple of men, acknowledging Thoreau’s inspiration, disobeyed the law, went to jail and changed their countries. India’s Mahatma Gandhi and America’s Martin Luther King Jr. accepted that their peaceful resistance to colonialism and racism was worth a prison term.

Snowden, following the lead of WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange, has enlisted the help of countries that would like to embarrass and harass the United States. To avoid the consequences of his actions, he compounds them with disloyalty.

China, Russia and even little Ecuador have been given the chance to pull Uncle Sam’s beard, thanks to Snowden. Whatever the merits of his cause, he has not only released secrets, but harmed his country’s position in the world.

The federal government itself, no matter its intentions, must take some responsibility for all that has happened. One can only wonder how a lowly, new Army private and a recently-hired contract employee could gain access so readily to vital national secrets.

In fact, the question arises whether the drive to reduce the size of government, partly accomplished by assigning essential tasks to contractors such as Snowden’s employer, makes sense or even really saves money.

One positive side effect of the leaks could be that government officials may be more careful about what they communicate in writing. Email and social media may have made messaging so easy that people may write carelessly before they think.

Without going into details about the content of communications or surveillance methods, the president and Congress could engage in a discussion of just what kind of operations are appropriate in a democratic society. And they could set stricter rules limiting who has access to secret information.

If the government had been more forthright on the nature of what it felt necessary to do, without going into details, and more willing to let citizens know how secret programs are controlled, there might be fewer sensational leaks.

 
Wrapping special courts and Congress in the same secrecy as the programs they supposedly control may be what creates opportunities for leakers.

Politicians, Voters Rely Too Much on Polls

Polls are overwhelming the political process.

Politicians and the public have come to rely heavily on opinion surveys.  Our belief in them has increased just when we should have become more skeptical.

Two stories in the past few days prove the point.

President Obama has reportedly been uncertain about reacting to the civil war in Syria, because he reads the polls as telling him that the American people are opposed to any more involvement in the Middle East.

And, in Maine, the potential entry of Congressman Mike Michaud into next year’s race for governor has led to a spate of reports citing a poll being used by pundits rushing to handicap the contest.

There’s much wrong with reliance on polls in both cases.

Because of his reluctance to act, Obama has seen the situation in Syria deteriorate to the point that it may pose danger to American interests. Iran seems to be gaining a foothold in Syria, and Lebanese terrorists are now fighting in support of the Syrian government.

When Obama’s “red line” against the use of chemical weapons there was crossed, he delayed acting, making the line look like little more than an empty threat.

Reportedly, former President Bill Clinton finally got on his case, telling him that a leader is elected to do what it right for his country not what the polls say a largely uninformed public thinks.

In other words, it is the leader’s job to shape public opinion by defining policy and explaining it to the people.  Could Obama change poll results if he took action with respect to Syria rather than avoiding the leading role much of the world demands of him?

Meanwhile, by taking no action, well short of sending troops, the United States may be strengthening Iran, a country whose nuclear program could be a threat to the U.S., and terrorist groups that could pose an increased danger to the U.S. and its allies.

Under pressure from Clinton and ally Great Britain, Obama may be willing to move out from the shadow of the polls.  Just how far he will go on his own remains to be seen.

In the Maine election picture, some of the worst defects of polling have already appeared.  A recent poll pitted GOP Gov. Paul LePage against independent Eliot Cutler and an unnamed Democrat.

This poll came a year-and-a-half before the election, with no campaign having taken place, and, almost laughably, with one candidate’s identity unknown.

It was hardly a surprise that the phantom Democrat fared poorly, proving that it is tough to beat somebody with nobody.

It proved only that some people are what’s called “yellow dog Democrats” – people so loyal it is said they would even vote for a yellow dog if it were the party’s nominee.

The poor showing by the political nobody should have no influence on Michaud as he makes up his mind about running.  In fact, he almost certainly has already decided to run.

Polls keep playing a prominent role, because the media likes them.  When polls showed the GOP candidate gaining in the upcoming Massachusetts special election for the U.S. Senate, some news reports excitedly hyped the race as a toss-up.  In fact, all signs show Democrat Edward Markey winning next Tuesday.

While polling can be useful, it needs to be handled with care.  Polls today have enough obvious problems to raise question about how much leaders or the public should rely on them.

Many polls have been shown to have built-in biases.  Some, intentionally or not, often produce results favorable to one party or another.  Of course, a few are intentionally meant to produce the false impression of objectivity while favoring a candidate or cause.

Pollsters face a challenge to reach cell phone users on telephone surveys.  To the degree they miss a part of the population, their accuracy becomes questionable.

Many people, selected randomly, refuse to be interviewed. And some people lie to interviewers.  Both the abstainers and the liars undermine the value of surveys.

Even more important is timing.  Public opinion today is obviously not the same as it will be on Election Day 2014.  In 2010, support for the Democratic candidate for governor was much higher in the polls only a few days before the election than it was when people voted.  The false impression may have affected the election outcome.  

Polls have some value, of course, but these concerns suggest we should accord them less importance.  And leaders could try to influence opinion rather than merely trying to follow what the polls show.