According to various reports, Harry Reid is finally so fed up over the constant use/abuse of the filibuster, he is reconsidering “the nuclear option.” According to other reports, the massive overhaul of immigration that the Senate miraculously managed to pass is DOA in the House, where the Tea Party zealots who control the GOP adamantly oppose anything favored by the Administration, no matter how reasonable or humane or good for the country.
Wonder why our government doesn’t work?
Barack Obama ran for office using the slogan “Yes We Can” and the Republicans in Congress responded with a slogan of their own: “No You Can’t–we won’t let you.”
I had a couple of two-year-olds like that.
The problem is, when the equivalent of two-year-olds are preventing the grown-ups from running the country, we are all in BIG trouble.
More and more, I find myself mulling over the question posed by Rodney King in the wake of his horrific beating at the hands of the L.A.P.D. and the ensuing riots: “Can’t we all get along?”
Evidently, we can’t.
On Saturday, a jury in Florida acquitted George Zimmerman of second-degree murder in the killing of Trayvon Martin. As a recovering lawyer, I am not prepared to argue with the jury’s verdict; for one thing, I didn’t watch the trial, and for another, there are elements of a crime that must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in order to justify a conviction. From the bits and pieces I did see, it appeared that the prosecution was struggling to prove Zimmerman had the requisite criminal intent.
But while it may be possible to absolve Zimmerman of legal liability for Martin’s death, his moral culpability—and what it tells us about human behavior in the presence of difference—is quite clear.
From all accounts, Zimmerman was one of those pathetic wanna-be macho types that women and gay men, especially, encounter all too frequently. He’d wanted to be a police officer, and had been rejected on more than one occasion—something for which we should all feel grateful. He evidently compensated by “packing heat” (feelings of inadequacy are an all-too-common reason for brandishing a firearm) and by participating in his neighborhood watch, where he could exercise an authority he did not otherwise possess.
In the television interviews that followed the shooting, he displayed an embarrassing self-righteousness. This was not an individual who appeared self-reflective, or even remorseful about taking the life of an unarmed teenager whom he had voluntarily stalked, despite being told by the police dispatcher to “go home and let us handle it.”
Zimmerman saw Martin as someone who “looked suspicious.” I think it is too facile to assume this was all about race, although it’s hard to believe that race did not play a role. Martin was dressed differently. He “didn’t belong” on the turf that Zimmerman evidently believed was his to protect. His difference and his very presence was a challenge. And so Zimmerman provoked an entirely unnecessary and ultimately deadly confrontation.
The parallels to attacks on gay men are striking.How many times has a homophobic attacker defended his resort to violence by insisting that he was “protecting himself” from an unwanted advance? How often have we seen one of these insecure bullies try to prove his manhood by provoking a confrontation?
Friends who work with victims of domestic violence tell much the same story. The abusive spouse (usually, but not always, a male) is typically emotionally-stunted and insecure, a George Zimmerman type trying desperately to prove to himself that he’s a big, macho man.
None of us will live long enough to see a society without these deeply flawed individuals. We could take steps to make them less dangerous, beginning with reasonable restrictions on gun ownership, and laws imposing significant financial liability on firearm misuse. (If the homeowner’s “watch” group that enabled Zimmerman’s vigilantism had to pay civil damages, such groups would get serious about vetting and training their members.) Given the current political climate, such measures are unlikely, to put it mildly.
We have a long way to go before we all “just get along.”
There are so many real problems in today’s world that it seems extremely petty to complain about this, but I see that The Indianapolis Star is negotiating with the Simon Company to move into the space previously occupied by Nordstrom.
The City has worked long and hard to get a critical mass of retailing in the downtown core. An adequate retail presence is necessary if we are to continue the residential rebirth downtown: these uses are co-dependent. We need enough people who live downtown to support retail uses, and we need retail uses that are convenient in order to attract downtown residents.
We’ve already lost the site of the former Borders to a bank. Now we are losing the Nordstrom site– a prime retail location that many hoped would be filled by a Macy’s or similar shopping destination.
When I first worked downtown, I was a lawyer at what was then considered a large firm (52). There were perhaps two places to have lunch; there was nowhere to shop. When I first moved downtown, there was no grocery. (What is now Marsh and was O’Malia’s was then an old and decrepit Sears Roebuck, with blue metal siding.) City officials and not-for-profit organizations have worked hard over the ensuing years to revive the core of our city, to attract a broad mix of uses, and to make it a place people want to live in and visit.
It’s worrisome enough that the soaring crime rate is once again making people hesitant to attend downtown events. If we lose the things that attract people downtown, that’s a double whammy.
This is just one location–albeit an important one–and obviously, Simon can do what it wants with its own property. But it’s disappointing–another lost opportunity at a time when Indianapolis lacks the political and civic leadership that over the years turned “Naptown” into a great place to live.
There’s an old saying to the effect that what you see depends upon where you stand, so the lessons we can learn from the chaos in Egypt will depend on the perspectives we bring to our analysis.
In my view, Egypt is a cautionary tale about zealotry and fanaticism, about rigid self-righteousness untempered by doubt or moderated by open-mindedness.
As Roger Cohen wrote in yesterday’s New York Times, the Arab Spring “demanded of political Islam that it reject religious authoritarianism, respect differences and uphold citizenship based on equal rights for all.” But zealots cannot, by definition, respect the equal rights of others. They cannot concede the reasonableness of differing beliefs or judgments, nor the right of others to hold those beliefs.
Morsi misread the Arab Spring. The uprising that ended decades of dictatorship and led to Egypt’s first free and fair presidential election last year was about the right to that vote. But at a deeper level it was about personal empowerment, a demand to join the modern world, and live in an open society under the rule of law rather than the rule of despotic whim.
In a Muslim nation, where close to 25 percent of Arabs live, it also demanded of political Islam that it reject religious authoritarianism, respect differences and uphold citizenship based on equal rights for all.
Authoritarianism, however, is indistinguishable from zealotry and fundamentalism of all kinds.
As a friend of mine noted in an email a couple of days ago, the despotic and deeply anti-libertarian impulses that are so easy to condemn when expressed by Islamic extremists are not so different from those displayed by some on the Christian Right, or in the Tea Party. If you need examples, think about Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, Michele Bachmann…think about the antics currently underway in statehouses across the country, as self-righteous men pass laws to control women’s bodies. Think about Indiana, where Mike Pence and Brian Bosma reacted to the DOMA and Proposition 8 decisions by doubling down on their insistence to make “sinful” gays second-class citizens in Indiana.
The lesson I take from Egypt is simple: zealotry is dangerous, no matter what its content.
As the late, famed jurist Learned Hand memorably put it, “The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.”
Today, as we celebrate the birthday of our country, we might take a few moments to consider our polarized and paralyzed legislative process.
To take just one example, the odds are high that the GOP-controlled House will block immigration reform. Wonder why?
Blame gerrymandering.
Jared Bernstein laid it out recently in the Washington Post:
First, “only 38 of the House’s 234 Republicans, or 16%, represent districts in which Latinos account for 20% or more of the population.” Second, “only 28 Republican-held districts are considered even remotely at risk of being contested by a Democratic challenger, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.”
So for about 200 of the House’s Republicans, a primary challenge by conservatives angry over “amnesty” is probably a more realistic threat than defeat at the hands of angry Hispanic voters, or even angry Democrats.
This state of affairs is pernicious, but it is also difficult to change. Thanks to partisan redistricting and the precision of modern computer programs, voters no longer choose their representatives. Representatives choose their voters. And as I have previously noted–and Bernstein’s article amply documents-gerrymandering exacerbates political polarization and gridlock.
In competitive districts, nominees know they have to run to the middle to win in the fall. When the primary is, in effect, the general election, the battle takes place among the party faithful, who tend to be much more ideological. Republican incumbents will be challenged from the Right and Democratic incumbents from the Left. Even where those challenges fail, they are a powerful incentive for the incumbent to protect his flank. So we elect nominees beholden to the political extremes, who are unwilling or unable to compromise.
Since both parties gerrymander when they are in power, it has been virtually impossible to replace the current corrupt system with nonpartisan redistricting. We are stuck with the crazies for the foreseeable future.
