The NorthWest Times of Indiana has an article detailing the devastation that tax caps are visiting on Indiana’s municipalities. We can thank Mitch Daniels for leading the charge to place these caps in the state’s constitution, where they will continue to strangle local governments until we manage the difficult job of passing a constitutional amendment.
WTHR relayed the result of an environmental group’s investigation that found Indiana’s rivers and streams the most polluted in the nation–no surprise to local environmentalists, who have witnessed the Administration’s distaste for environmental regulation.
Indiana’s much-touted “balanced budget” was achieved without touching tax breaks for business (and in some cases, by increasing them)–by cutting programs that aid those poor and disadvantaged citizens least able to access the political process or otherwise protect themselves.
And–as we’ve seen over the past couple of months–there’s mounting evidence that this Administration can’t even keep its own books.
Add to these “factoids” the war this administration has waged against public workers, it’s divisive, politically-motivated attack on private-sector unions, its willingness to sell off state assets and privatize everything in sight, and we are left with a legacy that will last long after Mitch mounts his motorcycle and rides off into the sunset.
You’ve got to give the Governor credit: he has created a persona that is entirely at odds with reality. Mitch “the knife” was a disaster as Budget Director; he took Clinton’s healthy budget and proceeded to facilitate creation of Bush’s enormous deficits. His reputation as a businessman, rather than a politician, rests on jobs in “government affairs”–that is, as a lobbyist. His standing in the national party rests on a fiction of fiscal expertise and a contrast with undeniably pathetic competition.
Whoever wins the gubernatorial election in November will inherit a broken state that has steadily been stripped of the tools needed to fix it. Of course, if that person is Mike Pence, he won’t notice. He’ll just add a dash of theocracy and an emphasis on social issues, and finish the task of turning Indiana into Mississippi.
In 2009, I wrote a book titled Distrust, American Style in which I argued that a loss of trust in our social institutions–and especially in our government–has had significant negative consequences for our ability to function as a productive society.
Things haven’t improved since 2009. If anything, our levels of distrust have continued to grow, and for good reason.
A couple of days ago, major news outlets reported the emergence of a legal memorandum generated during the George W. Bush Administration. There was evidence that the Administration had attempted to destroy all copies, for obvious reasons: the memorandum opined that the “enhanced interrogation” techniques being employed and defended by the Bush Administration were war crimes. Whether one agrees with that assessment or with the more accommodating analysis provided by John Yoo, it is clear that the White House was aware that their actions raised significant legal and constitutional issues, and that it was prepared to ignore both those issues and the rule of law.
It would be comforting to conclude that such actions were confined to one rogue Administration, or at least to the federal level, but evidence suggests otherwise; in fact, there has been a rash of disclosures of local-level prosecutorial misconduct recently. In Illinois, a recent investigation of the criminal justice system uncovered evidence that–among other improprieties–prosecutors had failed to turn over documents in their possession proving that a man convicted of double murder in 1992 could not possibly have committed the crime he was accused of — because he was in police custody at the time. (But the police managed to get him to sign a confession. It is estimated that some 25% of criminal confessions are extracted from people who are actually innocent of the crime to which they confess–another rather disturbing bit of data.)
Add to such unsettling disclosures the constant drum-beat reporting corporate misdeeds, and the pervasive belief that wealthy individuals are able to “game the system” in their favor–able to buy favorable tax treatment, able to escape regulation, able to evade the consequences of predatory behaviors, able to elect public officials that will do their bidding–and you get a level of cynicism that undermines social cohesiveness and our ability to come together to address the issues that face us.
When people no longer trust our governing institutions, it is easy to sell them conspiracy theories. It is easy to turn groups against each other. (Want evidence? Look at the recent disclosures about the tactics employed by the National Organization for Marriage!)
We can’t rebuild trust by wishing it back. It will take a national effort to insure that our institutions are trustworthy–beginning with government. Because if we don’t trust our common institutions–government, yes, but also the church, major league sports, businesses and financial institutions, none of which have exactly covered themselves with glory lately–we certainly aren’t going to trust each other.
Since today marks both Passover and Easter, it seems appropriate to consider the role of religion in American life–or at least, theories addressing that role.
So in today’s New York Times, Ross Douthat bemoans the disappearance of what he calls “the religious center”–what many of us who are not Christians experienced as something rather less benign than the unifying force he nostalgically remembers. The problem with a generally accepted religious identity is that those who don’t share that identity are marginalized, forced out of not just the religious but also the civic mainstream.
As Douthat recognizes, the radical diversity that characterizes the modern era makes that sort of religious and civic uniformity impossible.
There’s an old rhyme: “Twixt optimist and pessimist, the difference is droll; the optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist the hole.” Douthat ignores the “doughnut” of greater civic inclusiveness and focuses upon the “hole” of diminished identification with community.
It’s easy to fault Douthat’s indifference to the merits of inclusiveness, but there is more than a nugget of truth to his assertion that a country needs an overarching theology to which most citizens subscribe. The problem lies in identifying that theology in a way that respects our religious diversity and our constitutional commitment to religious autonomy.
The United States is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world. Furthermore, even though the U.S. remains predominantly Christian, doctrinal differences among Christian denominations are often as deep as the differences between Christians and Jews or Muslims. Adherents of virtually every religion on the globe live in the U.S., and recent polls put the number of secular Americans (those unaffiliated with any religious body) at approximately 16%.
Douthat is certainly correct that this diversity poses a significant challenge to America’s social and governing institutions: what commonalities enable and define the collective civic enterprise? What makes one an American? The United States’ national motto is e pluribus unum, “out of the many, one.” Prominent social and political theorists have long argued that a common belief structure, or “civil religion,” is required in order to turn the many into the one.
The term “civil religion” was first popularized in 1967 by Robert N. Bellah, in an article that remains the standard reference for the concept. The proper content of such a civil religion, however, has been the subject of debate since the Revolutionary War. Over the past decades, as the nation’s diversity has dramatically increased, that debate has taken on added urgency, with political theorists, sociologists and scholars of religion all offering their perspectives to political and religious leaders. (Douthat’s column betrayed no awareness of or familiarity with that ongoing discussion.)
In a culture as diverse as that of the United States, a “civil religion” or common value structure provides citizens with a sense of common purpose and identity. Despite the claims of some conservative Christians, Christianity does not provide that social glue; the United States is not and has never been an officially Christian Nation, although it has historically been culturally Protestant.
As I wrote in a brief article a few years ago,
“The U.S. Constitution contains no reference to deity, and specifically rejects the use of any religious test for citizenship or public office. In order to be consistent with the Constitution, any civil religion must respect the nation’s commitment to individual autonomy in matters of belief, while still providing an overarching value structure to which most, if not all, citizens can subscribe. This is no small task in a nation founded upon the principle that government must be neutral among belief systems. This constitutionally-required state neutrality has long been a source of considerable political tension between citizens intent upon imposing their religious beliefs on their neighbors and those who reject efforts to enforce religious hegemony. Thus far, no proposed value system or theorized civil religion has been entirely able to resolve that conflict. To the extent that Americans do endorse an overarching ideology or civil religion, it is a belief system based upon the values of individual liberty and equal rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.”
America’s founding principles–set out in the Declaration, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights–provide the only content of a “civil religion” capable of providing both the requisite “social glue” and respect for individuals’ right to their own religious convictions.
That sort of civil religion will never satisfy those who believe they are called by their God to impose their “Truth” on their neighbors, but the alternative is the sort of religio-political warfare that has become depressingly familiar, and that Douthat quite properly criticizes.
The Chair of the National Republican Party pooh-poohs the notion that his party is waging a war on women–next, he says, the Democrats will accuse the GOP of a war on caterpillars. How silly, how over-the-top! Just another one of those politically-motivated charges that are thrown around during a campaign season.
At virtually the same time Priebus (or whatever his name is) was comparing women to caterpillars (okay–maybe that wasn’t his intent), Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (yes, that Scott Walker) was signing a new law –passed on a straight party-line vote–repealing his state’s 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act.
The Equal Pay Enforcement Act made it easier for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court, by allowing plaintiffs to bring suit in state courts. Without it, federal courts are the only proper venue for such complaints. State courts, as lawyers all know, are less costly and more accessible, and typically resolve cases more quickly.
This little skirmish is typical of the tactics being used to circumscribe women’s rights. There was no outright reversal of a right–just a measure making it much more difficult to assert that right. This is the same approach being used by most of the anti-abortion measures that have sprouted like dandelions since the 2010 elections swept Republicans into office: the Supreme Court may say they can’t impose an outright ban, but they can bury clinics in a blizzard of medically unnecessary regulations that make it impossible to operate. They can “protect” poor women who clearly don’t know what they want by enacting “informed consent” provisions more burdensome than those required for major, life-threatening surgeries.
Contraception? Well, God’s Own Party has tried to permit your employer to decide whether your insurance should cover birth control, and the party has made it very clear that given the power, it would get rid of Planned Parenthood.
No war?
The troops are marching down the Trans-vaginal Highway as we speak…..
Well, I certainly feel safer now that the Supreme Court has handed down its decision in Florence v. Burlington.
The issue in this case was whether jail officials have the right to strip-search anyone and everyone who is arrested, no matter what the charge and no matter the presence or lack of probable cause to believe the “strip-ee” possesses contraband or a weapon. The plaintiff in the case had been arrested for non-payment of a traffic ticket; it later turned out that he had paid his ticket, but due to a computer error, the payment wasn’t documented. (Governor Daniels can surely relate–those pesky computer errors have been cropping up with annoying frequency in his administration lately!)
According to the case syllabus,
“petitioner, like other arriving detainees, had to remove his clothing while an officer looked for body markings, wounds, and contraband; had an officer look at his ears, nose, mouth, hair, scalp, fingers, hands, arm- pits, and other body openings; had a mandatory shower; and had his clothes examined. Petitioner claims that he was also required to lift his genitals, turn around, and cough while squatting.”
The Court ruled 5-4 that authorities could lawfully require a person accused only of an unpaid traffic citation to submit to this process.
You can bet I won’t be jaywalking any time soon!
As Justice Breyer wrote in his dissent,
“In my view, such a search of an individual arrested for a minor offense that does not involve drugs or violence—say a traffic offense, a regulatory offense, an essentially civil matter, or any other such misdemeanor—is an “unreasonable search” forbidden by the Fourth Amendment, unless prison authorities have reasonable suspicion to believe that the individual possesses drugs or other contraband. And I dissent from the Court’s contrary determination.”
The majority placed a lot of emphasis on–and expressed sympathy for–the difficulties involved in running a penal institution. As a result, the Justices were unwilling to require those in charge to make initial distinctions–that is, to determine the presence or absence of probable cause sufficient to justify a bodily search of this magnitude.
But that is precisely what the 4th Amendment requires of government.
The prohibition against unreasonable searches doesn’t include a caveat for inconvenience or difficulty. And really, how threatening is a guy who’s been hauled in for an unpaid traffic ticket? If jail authorities can’t distinguish between an arrest for a traffic violation and one for theft or armed robbery, we have a lot bigger problem than strip searches.
A quick look at the breakdown of the Justices in the majority and minority certainly confirms the old saying that elections have consequences. We all need to “remember in November.”
And meanwhile, whatever you do, don’t cross against the light!
