If you didn’t know Jeff, there is no reason you would have heard of him. I met him years ago when I was developing real estate, and he was involved in real estate sales and finance—one of many people whose paths I crossed doing business. A nice guy I’d promptly forgotten, until he called me a few months ago, joking that he was “a voice from your checkered past."
He’d called on behalf of a "good government" political action committee in Plainfield, Indiana. Plainfield has been growing rapidly, giving rise to concerns that its governing practices—rooted in casual, small-town "handshake" politics—were not proving adequate to the challenges of a more sophisticated economic development environment. They thought the Town needed an Ethics Ordinance and Jeff remembered that I had once chaired the Indianapolis Ethics Commission. Could I help?
During the following months, I met with Jeff and other members of the Plainfield PAC. I found a model municipal Ethics Ordinance, and worked with them to revise it to meet Plainfield‘s needs. I attended the Town Council meeting where Jeff asked for consideration of the Ordinance. And I enjoyed getting reaquainted with Jeff, who was unfailingly cheerful and upbeat–the result, he told me, of a heart transplant he’d had ten years before. It "brought home how wonderful life is."
What I thought was wonderful was seeing a group of citizens coming together for the sole purpose of improving the way their Town’s government did business. If there was a hidden agenda, I didn’t see it. None of the people I met had business interests involved. Their efforts certainly weren’t partisan (everyone in Plainfield, apparently, is Republican). The PAC members had grown concerned that questions were being raised about the Town’s business practices, and they wanted to put rules in place to provide ethical guidance and ensure transparancy. If there were any personal scores being settled, I saw no evidence of it. What I saw was a group of good citizens taking responsibility for their community—not carping, not complaining, not dealing in accusations or innuendos, but spending their own time and money to make their government more open and responsive.
In Jeff’s case, he was using some of his "borrowed time" to engage in the effort. He’d raised his children in Plainfield, and he wanted them to be proud of their community. He wanted to ensure that Town business was conducted "fair and square." That’s what good citizens do.
When Jeff’s transplanted heart gave out a few weeks ago, Plainfield—and Indiana, and America—lost a good, decent man and a model citizen.
When I get depressed about our national politics—the corruption, the partisanship, the contempt for the rule of law—I think of Jeff Harris and the people like him, people who don’t want to run for office, don’t "wheel and deal," and don’t create organizations based on business calculations.
For thirty-five years, I was a Republican because Republicans were the “live and let live” party. Back then, the GOP was the party of limited government, the party that believed government should do those things that government really had to do, like provide police and fire protection, pave streets, and collect garbage. I left the GOP (along with many others) after it was hijacked by moral scolds, and an emphasis on limited government and fiscal prudence gave way to an obsession with imposing religion and making life miserable for gays and lesbians.
Is the tide beginning to turn?
Nationally , signals are decidedly mixed. On one hand, there’s the spectacle of GOP senators frantically distancing themselves from (“I’m not gay”) Larry Craig, while showing a bit more “Christian charity” to (call me a Madam) David Vitter. On the other hand, none of the Republican frontrunners for the Presidental nomination are rabidly anti-gay, although both Guiliani and Romney are engaged in a rather unseemly effort to rewrite their past moderation on gay issues.
On the local level, however, there is an unmistakable—and welcome—change in the air. It began with Carl Brizzi, who expanded his office’s nondiscrimination policy to include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and extended to Governor Daniels, who has pointedly avoided anti-gay rhetoric. Local councilor Scott Keller has championed equal rights for gays and lesbians.
At a recent fundraising dinner for Lambda Legal, a gay civil rights group, Republicans were well represented; among the 500 plus guests, I saw the GOP’s county chairman, its candidate for Mayor, a couple of ward chairs, and a number of others who have not previously attended.
And when Indiana Equality sent a questionnaire to all candidates in the upcoming election for Indianapolis’ City-County Council, the responses from a number of Republican candidates were a pleasant surprise.
One Republican respondent wrote “The role of government is not to promotedistinctions; rather, to recognize the challenges facing each community and adopt a course of action that ensures that the civil liberties and personal freedoms of each are protected….understanding works to eliminate prejudice dirven by fear and ignornance.When you eliminate prejudice, you eliminate a threat and the community is safer.”
Another said “I respect everyone’s right to live without prejudice or discrimination, whatever their race, beliefs, or sexual orientation.I live my life that way and my wife and I raise our children that way.”
And in a response that hearkened back to the “old” GOP, one candidate wrote “[My district] is a diverse mix of people — straight/gay, rich/poor, black/white and every shade in between – but we all have one thing in common.All of us are finding it more difficult to provide for our families.And I mean family in the broadest sense of the word – however you choose to define it.I have no private or political agenda to further – I just want local government to get back to the basics.”
Those of you who know my writing mainly through blog postings here and elsewhere might be surprised to know that my twice-a-month column for the Indianapolis Star is much more restrained (or so I like to think). I measure my words in that venue carefully—in large part because I only get 500 of them, and it can be hard to make complex points within that limit. (Try it if you don’t believe me.) I also try to hold down the snark and make my points politely and reasonably, on the assumption that my readers (inexplicable as it seems) will not all agree with me.
Nevertheless, I get some email and snail-mail that is critical of my motives, my intellect, my personality and occasionally my parentage. Last Wednesday I got snail-mail that included a recent letter to the editor criticising a column I’d written. (It was a perfectly reasonable criticism, which makes me doubt it was written by my correspondent.) The letter itself—in its entirety, capitalization, etc. in the original—read as follows:
“SSK—the only good jews are the messianics who read and understand the O.T. and its prophets. You have alot to learn. Hitler’s holocaust will like like a tea party compared to the coming tribulation where you and yours will be snared. In addition you are a big S.O.B.X”
I’m quite sure the person who penned this charming message is not a reader of blogs, but just in case, if you’ll bear with me, I’d like to respond with an open letter to “X.”
“Dear X,
I have received your letter, and having read the Old Testament, I certainly understood your none-too-veiled reference to The End Times. I know that Christians who are biblical literalists believe that when the End Times come, they (and only they) will be “Raptured” while all the sinners (defined solely as those who fail to believe what you do) will burn in perpetual agony in hell. With respect to my prospects for the hereafter, I’m prepared to take my chances, since I’m inclined to think that a God worthy of the name would be favorably disposed to those of us who spend our energies working for a more tolerant and compassionate world, whatever our faults.
Religion aside, I’m always bemused by people who cannot respond to ideas with which they disagree by specifying the nature of the disagreement. If I have written something with which you have a dispute, why not explain the basis of that dispute? Did I have my facts wrong? Which ones, and how do you know? I’m certainly capable of making mistakes, but if you cannot explain what they are, correction is unlikely.
I’m tired of ad hominem attacks, whether they are attacks on me or anyone else. Responding to a policy argument with the equivalent of “I hate you and your mother wears combat boots” is neither persuasive nor witty.What do you think you are accomplishing by expressing such vitriol? And what was it that I wrote that so agitated you that you could not frame a meaningful response? Have you considered why my opinion—whatever it was—hit so close to home that you felt compelled to lash out with venom? (And I’m curious—is this sort of behavior consistent with your definition of being a good Christian, worthy of being Raptured?)
Finally, why not sign your name? Are you too embarrassed by your own inability to articulate your criticism? Does some small part of you recognize that failure to take ownership of your correspondence implies cowardace and intellectual poverty? Maybe my columns are riddled with errors. Perhaps my policy prescriptions are facile or unworkable. But I sign my name, because I want to play fair. I want serious, thoughtful people to feel free to engage in dialogue with me, to point out holes in my logic or mistakes of fact. That is the only way I’ll learn.
Until you are equally willing to own your words, equally willing to defend your beliefs in calm, reasoned discourse, don’t expect me—or anyone else—to take you seriously.Yours truly, Sheila Kennedy”
Those of you who know my writing mainly through blog postings here and elsewhere might be surprised to know that my twice-a-month column for the Indianapolis Star is much more restrained (or so I like to think). I measure my words in that venue carefully—in large part because I only get 500 of them, and it can be hard to make complex points within that limit. (Try it if you don’t believe me.) I also try to hold down the snark and make my points politely and reasonably, on the assumption that my readers (inexplicable as it seems) will not all agree with me.
Nevertheless, I get some email and snail-mail that is critical of my motives, my intellect, my personality and occasionally my parentage. Last Wednesday I got snail-mail that included a recent letter to the editor criticising a column I’d written. (It was a perfectly reasonable criticism, which makes me doubt it was written by my correspondent.) The letter itself—in its entirety, capitalization, etc. in the original—read as follows:
“SSK—the only good jews are the messianics who read and understand the O.T. and its prophets. You have alot to learn. Hitler’s holocaust will like like a tea party compared to the coming tribulation where you and yours will be snared. In addition you are a big S.O.B.X”
I’m quite sure the person who penned this charming message is not a reader of blogs, but just in case, if you’ll bear with me, I’d like to respond with an open letter to “X.”
“Dear X,
I have received your letter, and having read the Old Testament, I certainly understood your none-too-veiled reference to The End Times. I know that Christians who are biblical literalists believe that when the End Times come, they (and only they) will be “Raptured” while all the sinners (defined solely as those who fail to believe what you do) will burn in perpetual agony in hell. With respect to my prospects for the hereafter, I’m prepared to take my chances, since I’m inclined to think that a God worthy of the name would be favorably disposed to those of us who spend our energies working for a more tolerant and compassionate world, whatever our faults.
Religion aside, I’m always bemused by people who cannot respond to ideas with which they disagree by specifying the nature of the disagreement. If I have written something with which you have a dispute, why not explain the basis of that dispute? Did I have my facts wrong? Which ones, and how do you know? I’m certainly capable of making mistakes, but if you cannot explain what they are, correction is unlikely.
I’m tired of ad hominem attacks, whether they are attacks on me or anyone else. Responding to a policy argument with the equivalent of “I hate you and your mother wears combat boots” is neither persuasive nor witty.What do you think you are accomplishing by expressing such vitriol? And what was it that I wrote that so agitated you that you could not frame a meaningful response? Have you considered why my opinion—whatever it was—hit so close to home that you felt compelled to lash out with venom? (And I’m curious—is this sort of behavior consistent with your definition of being a good Christian, worthy of being Raptured?)
Finally, why not sign your name? Are you too embarrassed by your own inability to articulate your criticism? Does some small part of you recognize that failure to take ownership of your correspondence implies cowardace and intellectual poverty? Maybe my columns are riddled with errors. Perhaps my policy prescriptions are facile or unworkable. But I sign my name, because I want to play fair. I want serious, thoughtful people to feel free to engage in dialogue with me, to point out holes in my logic or mistakes of fact. That is the only way I’ll learn.
Until you are equally willing to own your words, equally willing to defend your beliefs in calm, reasoned discourse, don’t expect me—or anyone else—to take you seriously.Yours truly, Sheila Kennedy”
We see it over and over—Bill Bennett lecturing us on “values” while he’s losing more money than most of us make at Las Vegas’ gambling tables; Ted Haggard thundering against the “sin” of homosexuality while he’s paying a gay hooker; Paul Wolfowitz threatening to withhold World Bank dollars from countries with corrupt officials while he’s using public money to feather the nest of his live-in girlfriend. Our commander-in-chief, who routinely talks in terms of good and evil, had problems showing up for his own, stateside national guard duty, but evidently has no problem sending other people’s children off to fight in Iraq.
There would seem to be an epidemic of “do as I say, not as I do” going around.
The most recent high-profile victim of this epidemic is Judge Robert Bork. Bork, as many of you will recall, was nominated for a position on the Supreme Court, but failed to win confirmation when his radical opinions and truculent manner raised concerns about his judicial temperment. In the wake of that rebuff, he has gotten even more shrill, thundering against the “moral rot” of popular culture and advocating censorship, presumably to be imposed by people who agree with Robert Bork. He has written articles favoring stricter punishments for wrongdoers, and advocating “tort reform” restrictions on the right of injured parties to recover damages. In a 2002 article, Bork argued for a cap on “frivolous” claims and “excessive” damage awards. He has been particularly passionate in arguing against awards of punitive damages to injured plaintiffs.
Whatever the merits of these positions, they evidently are not meant to apply to the good Judge and his cronies. These are measures for the rest of us.
Recently, Judge Bork was one of twelve conservative law professors who asked permission to file an amicus or “friend of the court” brief urging clemency for convicted perjurer Scooter Libby. In its order granting the motion, the court dryly indicated that it expected to see these eminent conservatives “reaching out to other, more indigent, criminal defendents soon.” I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Bork showed truly breathtaking chutzpah, however, following a fall as he was mounting the dias to make a speech at New York’s Yale Club. The good Judge has sued the Club for one million dollars plus—you guessed it—punitive damanges.
Perjury is a serious crime, as Judge Bork and other conservatives were quick to remind us when Bill Clinton was the perjurer.If we should deny punitive damages to someone who lost a limb as a result of medical malpractice, why should a missing handrail entitle the Judge to receive them?
As a self-styled constitutional “originalist,” Judge Bork has insisted upon the “neutral principles” of the law. Perhaps someone should remind him that a neutral principle is by definition one that applies to all persons who are similarly situated. To put that in language that even we peons understand, the same rules should apply to everyone.
