IVN published a Dissident Politics article on the ideology and logic that underpinned the recent attack on civilians in Paris. The article included this:
If the Paris tragedy inspires in some of us who mourn a moment of reflection, and a better understanding of the limited capacity of the human mind to see reality and think rationally about it, then the lives in Paris were not lost in vain.
Better understanding of this human frailty cannot change what
happened. But, it can open minds and that helps to see people and what
they do in new ways. Something in that better understanding might point
to a better solution.
The solution may be slow, messy and painful. And, it may be too late
to affect this particular brand of terror. Despite that, it just might
be a path without war, if not now, then in the future.
The article is here.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Monday, November 16, 2015
Free speech: Quotes & commentary
These quotes and comments on free speech in politics show some of the historical and legal bases that built and support the ongoing vacuous emptiness of modern American politics. Commentary on how some modern commentators see free speech in politics.
Both truth or facts and common sense in politics are mostly subjective because the ideologies that filter reality and common sense are mostly subjective. In other words, liberalism, conservatism, capitalism, socialism and Christianity are all largely based on subjective political, economic or religious principles, dogma or morals.
What passes for fact and logic as seen through one ideological lens, e.g., liberalism or socialism, often looks like lies or deceit and irrational or incoherent nonsense as seen through another lens, e.g., conservatism or capitalism. Because of that, it is difficult, if not impossible, to craft laws intended to limit political spin or false speech. In essence, almost everything is spin or false speech from one ideological point of view or another.
Nothing here is intended to advocate any law limiting free speech. Instead, the point of this post is to simply point out the unspun reality of how little respect unbiased facts and logic receive in our two-party system. It is no wonder that the American people are generally misinformed and distrustful of both government and political opposition. In view of all the misinformation, conscious or not, there is a very good reason for distrust.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 545 (1945), arguing that a Texas state law that required labor organizers to register with the state before making a public speech to enlist support for a labor union, a lawful activity, violated Collins' First Amendment free speech rights. The court makes it very clear that protected speech includes protection for lies. It it were otherwise, people would not need to be their own watchman for truth.
“Absent from those few categories where the law allows content-based regulation of speech is any general exception to the First Amendment for false statements. This comports with the common understanding that some false statements are inevitable if there is to be an open and vigorous expression of views in public and private conversation, expression the First Amendment seeks to guarantee. . . . Even when considering some instances of defamation and fraud, moreover, the Court has been careful to instruct that falsity alone may not suffice to bring the speech outside the First Amendment. The statement must be a knowing or reckless falsehood.”
Matt Levine writing in November 2015 for BloombergView about the legality of lying to the public in politics. He contrasted that with the illegality of lying to investors for commercial profit. The former is know as constitutionally protected free political speech. The latter is criminal fraud.
“As former — and maybe reformed — elected officials, we know how much politicians like to talk about good news: tax breaks, infrastructure improvements, job growth announcements. But they are far less interested in talking about the bad news and hard choices on the horizon as the federal debt continues on an unsustainable upward path. Politicians don’t see big constituencies for that kind of news, and no special interests score them on whether they discuss it with voters. Even the close cousin of bad news — blunt talk — is usually avoided in politics.”
Former New Hampshire republican U.S. senator Judd Gregg and former Indiana democratic U.S. senator Evan Bayh writing for Roll Call in February 2015 on the need for blunt talk about the federal budget in the face of future debt projections. This suggests that politicians avoid honest talk to the American people because their personal incentives are aligned to reward deceit. Avoiding bad news and blunt talk punishes politicians. That clearly implies that deceiving the public rewards politicians much more than it damages them. In turn, that implies that politicians work first and foremost for themselves and second (or maybe third behind special interests with money) for the public interest.
Both truth or facts and common sense in politics are mostly subjective because the ideologies that filter reality and common sense are mostly subjective. In other words, liberalism, conservatism, capitalism, socialism and Christianity are all largely based on subjective political, economic or religious principles, dogma or morals.
What passes for fact and logic as seen through one ideological lens, e.g., liberalism or socialism, often looks like lies or deceit and irrational or incoherent nonsense as seen through another lens, e.g., conservatism or capitalism. Because of that, it is difficult, if not impossible, to craft laws intended to limit political spin or false speech. In essence, almost everything is spin or false speech from one ideological point of view or another.
Nothing here is intended to advocate any law limiting free speech. Instead, the point of this post is to simply point out the unspun reality of how little respect unbiased facts and logic receive in our two-party system. It is no wonder that the American people are generally misinformed and distrustful of both government and political opposition. In view of all the misinformation, conscious or not, there is a very good reason for distrust.
Federal courts and free speech
“But it
cannot be the duty, because it is not the right, of the state to protect the
public against false doctrine. The very purpose of the First Amendment is to
foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind
through regulating the press, speech, and religion. In this field, every person
must be his own watchman for truth, because the forefathers did not trust any
government to separate the true from the false for us.”The U.S. Supreme Court in Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 545 (1945), arguing that a Texas state law that required labor organizers to register with the state before making a public speech to enlist support for a labor union, a lawful activity, violated Collins' First Amendment free speech rights. The court makes it very clear that protected speech includes protection for lies. It it were otherwise, people would not need to be their own watchman for truth.
“Absent from those few categories where the law allows content-based regulation of speech is any general exception to the First Amendment for false statements. This comports with the common understanding that some false statements are inevitable if there is to be an open and vigorous expression of views in public and private conversation, expression the First Amendment seeks to guarantee. . . . Even when considering some instances of defamation and fraud, moreover, the Court has been careful to instruct that falsity alone may not suffice to bring the speech outside the First Amendment. The statement must be a knowing or reckless falsehood.”
The U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 656, 2012 in finding that the Stolen Valor Act, which made it a crime to falsely claim receipt of military
decorations or medals, was an unconstitutional violation of the defendant's free speech rights. Defendant Alvarez plead guilty to falsely claiming that he had
received the Medal of Honor, but his admittedly false claim was protected on First Amendment free speech grounds.
Commentary on free speech
“It's totally legal
to lie! People lie in private all the time, of
course, it is no problem. But it is also fine to lie to the public. . . .
. It is even conceivable that sometimes columnists lie to the public.
Lying to the public is the American way. . . . If you run a campaign of thoroughgoing falsehood that tricks people into
voting for you, journalists will say mean things about you, and that
will be the full extent of the consequences. . . . [On the other hand, there is a man] who allegedly sent some fake tweets about some stocks, making him a total profit of $97. He faces 25 years in prison.” Matt Levine writing in November 2015 for BloombergView about the legality of lying to the public in politics. He contrasted that with the illegality of lying to investors for commercial profit. The former is know as constitutionally protected free political speech. The latter is criminal fraud.
“After the primaries are over,
politicians need the independent voters to win and woo them with attention in
November. But once they have their victory or -- to use the vernacular -- get
what they want, independent voters are forgotten as quickly as a one-night
stand. Democratic and Republican office holders are beholden to their base
supporters, the special interests who donate time and money to them and the
parties that control both candidate selection and the agenda.”
Linda Killian writing in The Atlantic in February 2012 about how candidates would treat independent voters in the 2012 November elections.
“Politicians break their promises and modify their positions all the
time, of course. They BS us about their opinions and carefully craft
identities that are palatable to the average voter. When a person enters
this political universe, we need accept that most of the things we hear
are, at best, poetic truths. But, yet, there is still a big difference
between BSing and lying– though the latter is . . . . pardonable if you happen to be lying for the cause.”
David Harsanyi writing for The Federalist in February 2015 arguing that president Obama was a liar about his position on same-sex marriage, which the president allegedly falsely portrayed to the public as an evolution in his personal opinion. The article attempts to explain the murky, probably non-existent, difference between apparently acceptable BSing in politics and unacceptable lying.
“As former — and maybe reformed — elected officials, we know how much politicians like to talk about good news: tax breaks, infrastructure improvements, job growth announcements. But they are far less interested in talking about the bad news and hard choices on the horizon as the federal debt continues on an unsustainable upward path. Politicians don’t see big constituencies for that kind of news, and no special interests score them on whether they discuss it with voters. Even the close cousin of bad news — blunt talk — is usually avoided in politics.”
Former New Hampshire republican U.S. senator Judd Gregg and former Indiana democratic U.S. senator Evan Bayh writing for Roll Call in February 2015 on the need for blunt talk about the federal budget in the face of future debt projections. This suggests that politicians avoid honest talk to the American people because their personal incentives are aligned to reward deceit. Avoiding bad news and blunt talk punishes politicians. That clearly implies that deceiving the public rewards politicians much more than it damages them. In turn, that implies that politicians work first and foremost for themselves and second (or maybe third behind special interests with money) for the public interest.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
An objective framework to analyze conflicting personal rights and freedoms
Many, possibly most, liberal vs. conservative disagreements include differences of opinion about how a law, policy or Supreme Court decision affects personal freedoms. Press coverage of these subjective ideological disputes is poor or even detrimental to the public interest because it tends to simply mirror the unresolvable, one-sided partisan arguments and their biased basis in reality.
Although it may be entertaining, that kind of subjective press coverage sheds no light on the reality of how individual rights conflicts actually affect specific rights, e.g., freedom of speech vs. a right to equal protection of law. Mainstream and partisan press coverage never includes an objective analytic framework in which rights and freedoms conflict situations can be rationally explained and understood.
IVN has published two Dissident Politics articles that dealt with analyzing conflicting personal rights and freedoms after the Supreme Court's June 2015 Obergefell vs. Hodges decision extended the fundamental right to marriage to same-sex couples. The first article examined the impacts of the exercise of the right of same-sex couples to marry in the context of freedom of religion and the second analyzed rights conflicts in the context of commerce. The two analyses were different because the rights involved were different and because positive and negative impacts on rights differed in differing ways for different groups of affected Americans.
For both analyses, Dissident Politics relied on essentially the same analytic framework to assess personal rights and freedom impacts. The analysis is based on the following four-step protocol:
Following that protocol provides the information needed to reasonably assess (i) the reality of how such conflicts actually affect various groups of people, (ii) approximately how many people are included in relevant affected groups and (iii) impacts on the broader public interest.
Although this analytic framework is not perfectly objective, it is much more objective, complete, nuanced and balanced than the fragmented and usually one-sided content that the mainstream media, e.g., the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, conveys to the American people. Relative to the generally harmful content that the partisan-biased media provides, e.g., the National Review or The Federalist, this framework constitutes a far better way to assess rights and freedoms conflicts.
The framework should be applicable to assessing conflicts in all rights and freedoms contexts, e.g., from gun control and abortion laws to equal protection of law rights in commerce. For example, it can be used to analyze damage to personal privacy rights in the context of government surveillance for national security. That issue is likely to become more urgent in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks on civilians in Paris. This protocol also works for analyzing conflicts between laws, freedom of speech and equal protection rights. Different conflicts and impacts exist in states that have laws banning discrimination in commerce on the basis of sexual orientation compared to states with no such anti-discrimination laws.
Although it may be entertaining, that kind of subjective press coverage sheds no light on the reality of how individual rights conflicts actually affect specific rights, e.g., freedom of speech vs. a right to equal protection of law. Mainstream and partisan press coverage never includes an objective analytic framework in which rights and freedoms conflict situations can be rationally explained and understood.
IVN has published two Dissident Politics articles that dealt with analyzing conflicting personal rights and freedoms after the Supreme Court's June 2015 Obergefell vs. Hodges decision extended the fundamental right to marriage to same-sex couples. The first article examined the impacts of the exercise of the right of same-sex couples to marry in the context of freedom of religion and the second analyzed rights conflicts in the context of commerce. The two analyses were different because the rights involved were different and because positive and negative impacts on rights differed in differing ways for different groups of affected Americans.
For both analyses, Dissident Politics relied on essentially the same analytic framework to assess personal rights and freedom impacts. The analysis is based on the following four-step protocol:
(1) Considering whether each affected freedom or right is constitutionally fundamental;
(2) determining whether (i) impacts are high, moderate, low or none-negligible, (ii) impacts are positive (freedom-expanding and/or easier
or less costly to exercise) or negative, and (iii) the approximate
number of people in major relevant groups; (3) considering current and projected
public opinion; and (4) assessing whether an overall net freedom gain or loss best
serves the public interest based on objectively balancing all
significant competing considerations and interests.
Following that protocol provides the information needed to reasonably assess (i) the reality of how such conflicts actually affect various groups of people, (ii) approximately how many people are included in relevant affected groups and (iii) impacts on the broader public interest.
Although this analytic framework is not perfectly objective, it is much more objective, complete, nuanced and balanced than the fragmented and usually one-sided content that the mainstream media, e.g., the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, conveys to the American people. Relative to the generally harmful content that the partisan-biased media provides, e.g., the National Review or The Federalist, this framework constitutes a far better way to assess rights and freedoms conflicts.
The framework should be applicable to assessing conflicts in all rights and freedoms contexts, e.g., from gun control and abortion laws to equal protection of law rights in commerce. For example, it can be used to analyze damage to personal privacy rights in the context of government surveillance for national security. That issue is likely to become more urgent in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks on civilians in Paris. This protocol also works for analyzing conflicts between laws, freedom of speech and equal protection rights. Different conflicts and impacts exist in states that have laws banning discrimination in commerce on the basis of sexual orientation compared to states with no such anti-discrimination laws.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
The press and free speech: More harmful than not?
IVN has published a Dissident Politics article on the press, freedom of speech and the usually big differences in the content of reporting on various issues, people and events in politics. The article raises the question of whether the situation constitutes a net benefit or service to the public interest in view of the vast differences in content reported from different sources. The article is here.
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