If we don’t trust government, we resent (and often evade) its laws. If we don’t trust charities, we stop giving. If we don’t trust the clergy, we lose respect for religion. If we don’t trust the media, we tune it out. The problem is, when distrust and cynicism become too widespread, society comes apart.
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Dirty Harry
The political circus in California has been temporarily eclipsed by the one in Alabama, where Judge Roy Moore is currently playing his own version of Terminator by ferociously attacking the rule of law.
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Outsourcing Patriotism
Last December, The Guardian reported that private corporations "are now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq after the Pentagon." An estimated 10,000 "private" soldiers were then in Iraq; one out of every ten servicemen and women. Nearly a third of the budget earmarked that year for the war, or $30 billion dollars, went to private companies. "a booming business which entails replacing soldiers wherever possible with highly paid civilians and hired guns not subject to standard military procedures." Whether such contractors are mercenaries (whose use is banned by the Geneva conventions) is one concern. But the practice raises much graver issues, among them whether the ability to "hire" soldiers has allowed policymakers to wage war by proxy and without the kind of congressional and media oversight to which conventional deployments are subject.
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What Would Harrison Say?
A couple of years back, lots of young people were wearing WWJD on t-shirts and wristbands. It stood for "What would Jesus Do?" and it was supposed to remind the wearer to consider the moral content of any proposed course of action. We can debate the authenticity–not to mention the depth–of such faddish expressions of religious devotion, but there is something to be said for the use of a standard to measure behavior. Accordingly, I hereby propose one.
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Comparing Cultures
At the end of December, 2004, Spain passed legislation recognizing the right of same-sex couples to marry. It thus joined Belgium and the Netherlands as the third European country to legalize gay marriage. Sweden and Denmark have previously extended civil union legislation to same-sex couples; under their laws, gays have most, but not all, of the rights accorded to heterosexual citizens.
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