Trust

Aaron Swartz (on the left) with Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Harvard University

Glenn Reynolds points to a poignant post by Larry Lessig on the death of Aaron Swartz.  Here are the final two paragraphs:

But for now, I need to step away. I apologize for the silence. I am sorry for the replies I will not give. Aaron was wrong about very few things, but he was wrong to take his life. I have to return to mine, and to the amazingly beautiful creatures who are trying to pull me back.

I will always love you, sweet boy. Please find the peace you were seeking. And if you do, please find a way to share that too.

Professor Lessig is grieving for a friend.  Aaron Swartz was victimized by our political system, and he chose to extinguish his life.  It is an American tragedy.

We give our trust to institutions and to people, and when that trust is broken, it is difficult to comprehend.  Aaron Swartz trusted the “rightness” of America and its institutions, and that trust was betrayed.

My post on gender-based authoritarianism touches on authoritarian figures who have broken our trust.  The betrayals don’t resonate with the authoritarians themselves, as they have an expectation of unquestioning loyalty.  They don’t reflect on the feelings of those who view that trust relationship with a sense of intimacy.

Lawrence Lessig gives us a sense of what a non-authoritarian feels.  He dwells on the intimacy of trust.  When that perceived intimacy is revealed as inauthentic and political, it causes a realignment of feelings and perspective.

Sure, it’s not a big deal that Nancy Pelosi digitally enhances historical pictures or that Beyonce Knowles (maybe) lip-syncs our national anthem, but each action is a betrayal of trust.

Human beings don’t like that.

UPDATE 1/31/2013:
The Los Angeles Times characterizes Aaron as a martyr in the fight for Internet freedom.

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Ignoring the Themes

 

Ben Shapiro being interviewed on Piers Morgan Tonight

Hugh Hewitt highlighted the Piers Morgan interview of Ben Shapiro on Thursday, 1/10/2013.  The discussion was on gun violence, and Mr. Hewitt describes the interview as an “embarrassment” for Mr. Morgan.

Mr. Shapiro, a 29 year-old Republican, makes the case for the 2^nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Mr. Hewitt sees it as effective political debate.  Watch the video here.

Mr. Shapiro may have been good at making his points, but the main obstacle in the debate was not addressed.  That was the use of the Democratic Party theme “Republicans are harming our children.”

This theme is typically used in debate on the implementation of No Child Left Behind and various school subsidy issues.  Republicans are characterized as harming our children by wishing to enforce standards and compliance.  Sadly, the theme becomes especially potent when attached to school violence.  It stokes anti-Republican hatred.

Piers Morgan employs Dhimmitude to put the Republican in his place.  You can feel it dripping from the imputation, “How dare you!”

Mr. Shapiro retains his composure and makes arguments based on fact and principle, but it is not enough.  Mr. Morgan uses characterization and The Themes to validate his feelings and win the hearts of his viewers.

Republicans always contend their approach is a solid strategy, but it reflects a discouraging pattern.  Republicans must stop ignoring The Themes of the Democratic Party and begin to counter them.

In the meantime, that “little book” Piers gestures with is all we’ve got.

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Gender-Based Authoritarianism

 

Lisa Jackson, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency

This post is about the central tenet of authoritarianism:

An authoritarian is never wrong.

Within the past week, there have been three instances of authoritarian figures giving us a tutorial on their techniques.  Each of them is a woman, and each shows how to foster that authoritarian sense of infallibility.

First is Hillary Clinton.  The issue is the reaction of our culture to her recent conduct as Secretary of State.  According to the New York Times, Mrs. Clinton has “indomitable stamina and work ethic.”

Contrast that with the observations of Ann Althouse, where she questions the characterizations of Mrs. Clinton.  Ms. Althouse gives voice to the minority report against our culture’s portrayal of Mrs. Clinton.

Second is Elizabeth Warren.  The issue here is Senator Warren’s use of ethnic heritage to achieve competitive advantage.

William Jacobson notes the use of Wikipedia to cleanse the public record of certain facts about Mrs. Warren.  If Wikipedia is our source, we find a “new and improved” version of Elizabeth Warren.

Third is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.  She demonstrates how authoritarians perceive truth.

Roll Call reports that the “official” picture of House Democratic women was modified by Mrs. Pelosi so that it became an “accurate historical record.”  (Does George Orwell come to mind?)

Yes, this is America in the 21^st century.  Official photos and official records are edited to reflect what our culture sees as the correct representation.  It no longer matters what is real; the characterization is what counts.  We now must put the word “reality” in quotation marks.

Should I mention Susan Rice or Lisa Jackson?  Some of our female leadership figures have become caricatures of authoritarianism!

If they aren't careful, they just might give the female gender a bad name.

UPDATE 5/19/2013:
A blog post by William Yeatman highlights the acceptance of authoritarianism (and in fact its celebration!) at the University of Colorado-Denver.

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Political Theater

Michael Bennet made news this week.  He is a United States Senator from Colorado and the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSSC).

On the first day of 2013, the U. S. Senate held an early-morning vote over the issue of how much to “tax the rich.”  Senator Bennet ended up voting against the position favored by his party.

It created such a stir that Maureen Dowd devoted a column to it.  How could a Democrat (gasp!) break ranks?  What is going on here?

Pull up a seat.  We have the rare opportunity to watch the calculated political transmogrification of Michael Bennet.

Here is Michael Bennet writing for the DSSC in April of 2012:

First right-wing extremists took aim at women's healthcare. Now, they're trying to double interest rates on millions of student loans.

And thanks to the Citizens United ruling, Karl Rove and the Koch brothers will try to make this radical agenda law by defeating President Obama and taking over the Senate with nearly unlimited cash.

Our side's different -- 97% of our support comes from grassroots donations. It's you vs. the Rove and Koch attack machine.

That could be considered “us vs. them” rhetoric.  (In fairness, it is the expected tone of the DSCC.)

Here is Senator Bennet just eight months later (as quoted in The Denver Post):

The notion that we are raising taxes and not in any meaningful way to deal with the deficit, I don't think that makes sense to Colorado.

What I think is that it's important that you ... voted your conscience, and you did it on behalf of the future of our state. I think people will understand that.

This might be considered “trying to do the right thing for Colorado” rhetoric.

Senator Bennet is telling us he awoke on the last day of 2012 and suddenly felt the need to vote his conscience.  (This revelation from the Chairman of the DSCC, whose sole task is to strengthen the power and authority of the Democratic Party in the U. S. Senate.)

The Denver Post characterizes his action as “intrepid.”  Maureen Dowd describes him as “the future of his party.”

A Colorado Senator casts a symbolic vote in a legislative action whose outcome is pre-determined through secret negotiations between party leaders.

Our culture is awestruck by his “courageous act of conscience.”

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A More Perfect Union

Photo of George Orwell from his 1933 press card

Sasha Issenberg has written a three-part article that appears in MIT Technology Review.  The title of the article is also the title of this post, but here’s the subtitle:

How President Obama’s Campaign Used Big Data to Rally Individual Voters

If you look at the title of the directory in which the Web content for the third article is contained (hotlink above), you see this title:

obamas-data-techniques-will-rule-future-elections/

Mr. Issenberg’s story is about how the Democratic Party uses data mining techniques to predict the voting behavior of Americans.  This is the money quote:

The campaign didn’t just know who you were; it knew exactly how it could turn you into the type of person it wanted you to be.

The article (h/t Instapundit) describes the Democratic Party’s EIPs (experiment-informed programs) that “measure how effective different types of political messages were at moving public opinion.”  One technique was to sequence direct mail to individual voters and then follow-up with survey calls to isolate the particular piece of direct mail that changed voter opinion the most.

The article describes EIP testing done in July of 2012 that focused on equal-pay and health issues for women.  The idea was to pull women to Obama based on a specific message.

It all sounds very academic and innocuous.  That is, until you see one of the ads involved.

In EVERY case, the advertisements depict Mitt Romney as a bad person.  (See my Rope-a-Dope post for a partial listing.)  These are the ads that characterize Mr. Romney as a liar, a person who wants to hurt the middle class, someone who wants you to lose your job, and a rich person out of touch with reality.

The ads were tested with the EIP methodology, and they achieved the necessary outcome.

The MIT article makes no mention of the ramifications of the political techniques being employed.  It simply features the article as a technological extension of focus-group techniques.

If you are a Republican, you might want to focus on the ramifications.  The Democratic Party is using information about voters to manipulate voting preferences.  The Party is honing its negative advertising to create a sense of fear about a certain class of people so that Americans will keep them out of government stewardship.

To think this is not worth noting is a mistake.  Republicans should be concerned that they are being politically “played.”  A couple of instances from current events come to mind…

Republicans are concerned about the “fiscal cliff” and its consequences on the American people, but the Democratic Party has no such concerns.  It simply wants to ensure Republicans come out of the encounter labeled as “uncompromising zealots.”

Republicans are concerned about school safety and practical measures to thwart school shootings, but the Democratic Party simply wants to ensure Americans see Republicans as “violent extremists.”

Watch it unfold on Twitter.

The clear and present danger is that if Republicans continue to focus on policy issues and not political issues, there will be no Republican Party to focus on any issue.

UPDATE 12/20/2012:

Was Mitt Romney the first Republican to be Electro-Borked?

The death of Robert Bork reminds us of character assassination by Senate hearing.  The Democratic Party has now "progressed" to the arena of consumer electronics.  Who will be the next Republican to be Electro-Borked?

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Cultural Staging

The graphic above is a cultural view of candidates from America’s two main political parties.

From left to right, the pictures are from an Obama speech in Hatfield, Pennsylvania on 11/30/2012 (photo by Jason Reed of Reuters), a Huffington Post article from 11/20/2012, and an Obama speech in Redford, Michigan on 12/10/2012 (photo by Romain Blanquart of the Detroit Free Press).

Two of the pictures feature adoring Americans.

The picture on the left shows Americans hugging president Obama after he spoke about raising taxes on the rich.  The picture on the right shows Americans cheering president Obama after he spoke about right-to-work laws being unfair.

The middle picture is described by The Huffington Post as “A Humbled Mitt Romney Caught Pumping Gas.”

Our culture seems to present pictures of Republicans and Democrats in a slightly different context.

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The Death of the White Male Republican Presidential Candidate

President Obama and Mitt Romney in the Oval Office after their 11/29/2012 lunch (Photo by Pete Souza).

Here is a thought experiment:

Would the Holocaust have endured for a longer period if Germany’s National Socialist Party had restricted its victims to just white males?  When women and children became a part of the extermination, the world’s sensibilities changed.  Is it possible that death camps for white males would not have been that big of a deal on the world stage?

OK, that first paragraph is an “attention step.”  I want to jar readers into some unconventional thinking.

Stick with me on this.

Republicans are exhibiting a monumental sense of sadness these days, and it is easy to say, “You lost.  Get over it!”  But the sadness is not associated with a one-time election loss.  It is bigger than that.  America has just experienced the end of all future white male Republican presidential candidates.

They will be no more.

Oh to be sure, there will be some political egotist who will make a run for office, but it will fail.  White male Republican candidates for POTUS are the walking dead.  The Democratic Party will ensure that result. 

In an odd twist of fate, Mitt Romney’s candidacy will be Barack Obama’s legacy.  President Obama’s primary achievement in his first term will be the elevation of the art of political character assassination to its pinnacle.  The Democratic Party is forever emboldened.

While that is good for the Democratic Party, it is not so good for the millions of Americans who are classified in that demographic of “White Male Republicans.”  These people have seen the opportunity of serving their country at the highest level foreclosed.

Imagine telling your offspring, “If you wish to be President of the United States, you won’t be able to do that.  You are a white male Republican.”

It almost seems un-American.

Maureen Dowd is particularly good at highlighting the extent of this transformation.  In her column from November 10, 2012, she tells us that white male Republicans are in a “delusional death spiral” and she provides the following quotes about Mitt Romney: 

Romney was an unpalatable candidate.

Romney and Tea Party loonies dismissed half the country as chattel and moochers who did not belong in their “traditional” America.

Romney was still running in an illusory country where husbands told wives how to vote, and the wives who worked had better get home in time to cook dinner.

 

These remarks indicate a certain level of partisanship, and are to be expected from Ms. Dowd.  But why is she so “in your face?”  Where does Ms. Dowd get the “green light” to let it all hang out?

Maureen Dowd watched the 2012 elections and now believes the Democratic Party will stop any white male Republican from ever attaining the Presidency.  She has the triumphalism of a political insider’s understanding of the placement of the trump cards.

Maybe you see where I’m going here, but look at a more recent article from Ms. Dowd.  This one is from November 27, 2012 and is about Senator Susan Collins taking exception to the conduct of U. N. Ambassador Susan Rice.  Here are some quotes from that column: 

Collins drew up a list of questions to ask Rice at their one-on-one hourlong meeting slated for Wednesday. She wants Rice to explain how she could promote a story “with such certitude” about a spontaneous demonstration over the anti-Muslim video that was so at odds with the classified information to which the ambassador had access.

Collins said that before she would support Rice for secretary of state, she needs to ascertain what was really going on. “Did they think admitting that it was an Al Qaeda attack would destroy the narrative of Libya being a big success story?” Collins asked.

Collins is curious why Rice is not angrier, if, as she insists, she was repeating what she was told. “I’d be furious at the White House and F.B.I. and intelligence community for destroying my credibility,” the senator said.

 

Do you see the style difference?  The comments about Mitt Romney are simple declarative sentences.  The comments about Susan Rice are reportorial in nature.

Why the difference in style?  Here’s a clue: Mitt Romney is a white male Republican.  Susan Rice is a black female Democrat.

When running a story about Ms. Rice, Maureen Dowd becomes a reporter.  When running a story about a white male Republican, Ms. Dowd is an opinion journalist.  (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

Maureen Dowd is one of many journalists at work for the Democratic Party.  She has a strong influence on our American culture, and we can expect her opinion of white male Republicans to remain steadfast.

This puts Republicans at a cultural disadvantage, but there is a glimmer of hope.  While any attempt to run a white male candidate will fail, we have other Republicans who can step up.

Condi and Marco, are you taking note?  Now is your time.

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