U.C. Irvine is apparently trying to get a new law school off the ground. I say “apparently,” because they’re sure going about it in a funny way. They may have shot themselves in the foot before they started: last week, one week after hiring him to be the new Dean of the proposed law school, they fired him because of pressure from Orange County conservatives. Apparently, they suddenly realized Chemerinsky was “a liberal.” And god knows we can’t have them running our law schools!

Rumor has it they may lose their ABA accreditation before they even get it.

But they’re working on fixing things. Like so many other recent stupid political moves, they’re trying to convince Chemerinsky that they’ve changed their minds again and want to re-hire him.

Where did the fiction that the neo-cons were smart ever get any traction?

Case in point: Yet again, the so-called “Andy Rooney” message regarding immigrants is making the rounds again and someone otherwise near and dear to me sent it to me with, essentially, a “hell yeah!”

What follows is my response….

First of all, you might want to know that Andy Rooney did not write that article. In fact, he wants to sue the person who did. “I suppose it’s not important, but I hate the fact that people think I’ve been writing these things,” said Andy Rooney when asked about it. “It’s hurtful.”

You know, people talk about things like this as if we did not have associations like The Jewish Defense League, Tikkun, Jewish Currents, the American Jewish Committee and so on. We have museums and schools devoted to Jews and Judaism. In “the old days,” there were many Jews running around who were not completely literate in English, but could stand for hours in stores and on street corners to kvetch in Yiddish. And, in fact, this phenomenon of using Yiddish words was so prevalent that many of them — including “kvetch” — have worked their way into the English language.

The note falsely attributed to Andy Rooney also trivializes certain real-life situations that numerous American citizens who speak perfect English and otherwise buy into the American dream have to deal with every day.

For example, to say that “thinking homosexuality is wrong is not a phobia, but just an opinion,” ignores the fact that numerous homosexual individuals are beaten to death because of their sexual orientation. Others are “just” refused employment, fired from jobs they managed to get before someone realized they were homosexual, discriminated against in certain housing situations and cannot form solid loving relationships that allow them the same basic benefits that two rednecks who beat their children and abuse one another can receive. By that, of course, I mean that the “average” heterosexual American, who will go through their lives running from one marriage to another can marry and have benefits like community property, social security death benefits, the right to assist one another with health care issues (including, but not limited to, obtaining health insurance for a spouse) and so on. But homosexuals who enter into a solid and caring relationship will not be able to have those same benefits.

The article also contains statements which are just plain weird. “When 70% of the people arrested are black, in cities where 70% of the population is black, that is not racial profiling; it is the Law of Probability.” What kind of asinine statement is that? Can you tell me how many cities have African-American populations of 70%? Can you tell me how many cities have African-American populations of 70% and only 70% of the “black” people arrested are African-Americans? The fact of the matter is that in most American cities, the African-American population is significantly lower than 70%, but arrest rates are significantly higher than they would be based on “the Law of Probability.” Those with open minds can take a look at Michael Males’ article titled “San Francisco Challenges: Statistics don’t support official explanations for high black arrest rate” at the San Francisco Chronicle’s online website.

“I don’t go around claiming to be European-American….” Perhaps the author — who, again, was not Andy Rooney — doesn’t claim to be “European-American,” but I know numerous people who proudly claim to be “Irish” or “Jewish” (and that’s not even a nationality!) or some other “-ish.” There is a Ukrainian-American Society, a Ukrainian American Bar Association (for lawyers, of course; not the kind of bar in which one drinks), a Polish American Congress, Polish American Journal (a magazine), a British-American Business Council, and a British-American Chamber of Commerce for the Great Lakes Region which is a member of the British-American Business Council. No doubt, there are other smaller British-American Chambers throughout the United States. In San Francisco, at least, there is a French-American Chamber of Commerce. There is a French-American school in Rhode Island with a — gasp! — bilingual program in French and English. There is a Swedish-American Hospital that was started in 1911 in Rockford, Illinois, that initially aimed to provide better health care to Swedish-Americans and Swedes were “challenged” by the editor of the “Svenska Posten,” a — gasp! — Swedish-language newspaper, to contribute towards it on a yearly basis. The funds for it were kept in the Swedish-American Bank. (P.S. Realizing that I’m potentially writing to uneducated Americans, I feel compelled to point out that Swedish is not English.)

My own great-grandmother, the first generation from my mother’s side of the family to enter the United States, never learned to speak English — not in her entire nearly 100 years on earth, even though she came to the United States as a youngish woman. It is not at all unusual for many first-generation white immigrants not to have learned English well. And they had no excuse! They frequently ventured out into the world of other white Americans, but never spoke their language. Prominent examples of this can be found in Italian-American communities and the various communities of Americans who originated from parts of what used to be called “the U.S.S.R.” (This Republic is sometimes mistakenly referred to as “Russia,” but Russia is actually just one of many countries that made up the U.S.S.R.)

On the other hand, Mexican and Mexican-American immigrants today — those against whom the charge of not speaking English is most often lodged — frequently do not interact often with “white America” because of racial prejudice. Many of them live in a de facto segregation from “white Americans” because they take jobs that no white American will take. And then we complain about them “taking our jobs.” (And don’t give me any crap about how white Americans would take the jobs if the Mexicans did not. When was the last time you saw a white family working in the orange groves, grapes, or cotton fields?)

Since they work in the fields and factories surrounded by numerous other Mexican or Mexican-Americans and they have to communicate with one another, they use their native language. It’s not as if there’s anyone working side-by-side with them who might give them a reason and an opportunity to utilize English! Meanwhile, every time these people go to a store, even if it does happen to be a store in a “Mexican” neighborhood run by “Mexicans” — and by that I’m acknowledging that because of our Orwellian/Kafkaesque procedures many of the people about whom these complaints are lodged are not actually citizens — they spend money, boost our economy and contribute to the tax revenues the state uses to support all the people in the state. The roads that are built with sales taxes don’t just benefit recent legal and illegal immigrants; they benefit “white Americans” whose families were once immigrants, as well.

Lastly — although there’s much more that I could say about the comments to which I’m responding — the claim that immigrants are “disrespecting” our country is just bogus. Granted that sometimes immigrants do things like march in the streets carrying the flags of the country from which they emigrated along with them. When they do so, they are protesting the mistreatment of people who have emigrated from those countries and are immigrants — legal or not — to this country. They are identifying their country of origin and saying, “We all came here from this common place. And now that we’re here and contributing to the strength of this country, we want to enjoy the same rights as the Polish-Americans, the Irish-Americans, the British-Americans, the Swedish-Americans and others who came before us!” Why is it unacceptable for people from Mexico or Africa or Portugal or Asia or other nations where people are typically darker in skin color to do these things, but no one complains about the famous labor protests and violent clashes of the late 1800s and early 1900s by the European-Americans?

And, for goodness sake! If trying to improve our country by protesting injustice is not American, then what is? Frankly, it’s the “America: Love It or Leave It!” crowd that shows the greatest disrespect and hate for our nation. The United States was built upon a belief in “certain inalienable rights” and upon Enlightenment ideals about progress. (Yes, sad to say, the Founders were progressives, not conservatives.)

The bottom line is that the article that was allegedly written by Andy Rooney — but which Andy Rooney did not write — is a racist, bigoted diatribe that contains significant falsehoods and amplifies things that naturally occur within immigrant communities, including white immigrant communities.

It’s just that today, there is a perception — I don’t even know if it’s a correct perception, since I don’t track immigration issues — that most immigrants are non-white.

And we just can’t have that.

My uncle sent me (and several others) an email about the flag of the United States being flown upside down at the Montebello High School in Montebello, California.

For further clarification (the story, incidentally, is true): http://www.montebello.k12.ca.us/

It’s hard to know how to react to this, frankly. On the one hand, I myself proudly flew the flag of the United States outside my home – with a light on it – 24 hours a day until misguided nationalism became nearly ubiquitous in the run-up to the war against Iraq. And I would still do so, if it weren’t for the fact that I don’t want to be confused with those fanatics who really do hate our country’s traditions (including defense of the United States Constitution), but fanatically defend the piece of cloth that is supposed to remind people of those traditions.

The problem here in California right now is that the same ignorance of what the United States really stands for – the rule of Law – is crippling California. We no longer follow the rule of Law in this state and, instead, have declared war on non-whites.

And then, just as has happened in the Middle East, we act surprised that they want to fight back.

I know my point of view won’t be popular with many people. It is, however, based on a wistful love for what once made our country great. I lament the fact that our flag no longer commands respect, nor stands for that which made our country great. But more than that, I support our Constitution and lament the fact that a piece of cloth has become more revered than the principles enshrined in that document.

Until we, Americans, re-embrace the ideals that made us a great Nation, I find it hard to criticize those who would attack what has become a symbol of our disrespect to, and abuse of, the rest of the world.

I support the Constitution. Won’t you?

[I]t is never only the number of dead by which terrorists measure their work. It is also the number of the living — the survivors — taken hostage to fear. Their mission was to invade our psyche; get inside our heads — deprive us of trust, faith, and peace of mind: keep us from ever again believing in a safe, just, and peaceful world, and from working to bring that world to pass. The writer Terry Tempest Williams has said “the human heart is the first home of democracy.” Fill that heart with fear and people will give up the risks of democracy for the assurances of security; fill that heart with fear and you can shake the house to its foundations.

Read the rest of his speech here.

Click to Enlarge

Extremism is on the rise in America because it seems to be the only form of politicking that actually gets results. Let’s face it, following a path of moderation and compromise takes longer. And as the number of Americans weaned on television commercials and impulse buying grows, so, too, does our unwillingness to get involved in processes that last longer than five minutes.

But more than that is the frustration that comes from knowing that your product — whether it’s “respect for the United States’ flag” or “living a godly life” or “tolerance” — just doesn’t sell.

What brought this home to me this week is the difficulty — no, the impossibility — of convincing Club One that deliberately allowing the continued desecration of the flag of the United States of America is (shall we say) “not a Good Thing™.” From all appearances, Club One wholeheartedly disagrees.

I say this not because Club One has actually said to me, “We disagree.” No, like a lot of other Americans, they can’t be bothered with the problem even long enough to say this; yet their actions speak louder than any words ever could.

And as I sit in my office, day after day, gazing out the window at the rags that once were American flags, my mind increasingly seeks ways to resolve this problem and erase this disgrace. In my saner moments, I’ve thought about — and tried — to get our religious and patriotic Mayor involved. That, so far, has earned me a nice form letter which one local attorney labeled “an insult.” I’ve tried talking to news reporters, thinking that, surely in a Red city with a large conservative base, they would find the treatment of these flags to be newsworthy. Other times, I’ve considered finding a way to get up there and tear down those rags myself. Given that they’re in so many pieces, this could take a long time, during which, I imagine, I’d find myself arrested for trespassing.

Bunny Chafowitz has suggested a Fourth of July protest, but I dislike the idea of standing on a sidewalk railing at passersby. To me, this smacks too much of those other hapless downtown residents who, due to lack of government funding, are unable to get the medication they so badly need to live normal lives (or at least less insane ones).

And then it occurs to me that, in the end, that might be the only way to get the attention of enough people to shame Club One into doing something about it.

From there, I begin to understand the extremists.

No doubt, my “understanding” is still somewhat simplistic. Extremism in America probably streams from more than one source. After all, there are some people who will never be satisfied with compromise and, in a pluralistic nation, compromise is a necessity. If you think about it, that makes sense. How many of us always get what we want? Even if you don’t have a spouse or kids, even if you don’t have a job, even if you’re homeless, life itself is a compromise. There are always choices to be made. Usually, choosing one thing precludes having another. So even if there were no others in your life with whom you had to compromise, you’d still have to learn to compromise with yourself.

I started thinking about extremism in America long ago, but I only began to understand what drives extremists on a more personal level this week. That understanding does not convince me to embrace it.

I’m still disgusted with these flags. And, frankly, I’m disgusted with you, too. After all, if not for you, those flags would be gone. I’ve spent hours trying to resolve the issue; you can’t be bothered with one-to-five minutes for a phone call to the Mayor’s office at (559) 621-8000 or Club One at (559) 497-3000. (You can also email the Mayor at mayor@fresno.gov. You’ll get an insulting form-letter response after a bit, but if anyone — say, an intern — actually periodically checks that box, the more people write, the more likely something will be done.)

But I’ve largely resigned myself to the fact that America is the land of hypocrisy. The United States is a nation that has no problem turning its backs on veterans who will tell you their compatriots died for the flag, and that they were willing to do so, as well. So why should I be surprised that you can’t get off your ass long enough to make a phone call expressing outrage over Club One’s failure to spend a few dollars and fifteen minutes changing out the flags?

Contrary to the opinion some folk have of me, I’m not an extremist — at least not where extremism requires a willingness to break the law. I have no problem with working to change laws. I have no problem writing and making phone calls and talking to people to try to initiate change. I’m just unwilling to take a step towards breaching the system of law that, in my opinion, is the only thing which ultimately keeps us from being exactly like the terrorists we so often (hypocritically, as I’ve noted) villify.

And so, I guess, I’ll just sit in my office, gazing out at the rags over Club One, and hoping I live long enough to see them disintegrate to the point that they fall off the flagpoles.

Then I’ll walk over, pick them up, and give them the funeral they deserved to have years ago.

Incidentally, those of you who are regular readers and are wishing I’d “get over the flag thing” and “move on” (yes, I read my emails)…consider this: I’m more likely to do that when those flags are gone. So make your phone call, send your email, today.

After all, if I can’t sit in the middle of a supposedly patriotic and religious Red city and get enough people riled to resolve a decidedly unpatriotic abuse of the American flag, what’s the point of my writing about anything else?

Nowadays, the hardest part is that nothing really surprises me anymore. If I woke up tomorrow and found that the United States of America had become
According to a story published on the Common Dreams Newscenter, “students are invoking academic freedom” in order to silence their professors. Irony…eh, not so much. They just don’t want to be taught anything with which they disagree. Anything. They’re tired of having their beliefs challenged.

The ironic part is that, although it’s being cast this way, these aren’t even actually challenges. At the University of North Carolina, incoming students were given a required reading list that included the Koran. There are no reports that the list said, “You must adopt the beliefs of the Koran.” Nor was there any indication that the neo-Pharisees who opposed this assignment were asked to defend their beliefs against the Koran. The idea was to expose them to views they likely had not previously known, to stimulate thinking. I don’t — not for one minute — think the non-Muslim professor who assigned that reading wished them all to become Muslims.

Encountering things that challenge your views is a necessary component on the path to understanding. In fact, it’s a necessary component of developing your own point of view.

It’s probably no secret to anyone who reads my articles that I would be considered a liberal. Conservative readers class me as a “Flaming Liberal,” but I can assure you not a few of my liberal friends rightfully believe they are more liberal than me.

Yet I actively seek out conservative writings and ideas — and not just to mock them. For one thing, increasingly, that would be too easy. My primary goal is more difficult: to understand them. A secondary goal is to consider, first, if I actually oppose them and, second, if so, why. In this way, I come to a greater understanding not only of what other people believe — which I personally think is a good in itself — but I develop a greater understanding of what (and why) I believe.

So committed to this ideal am I that I remember being in a relationship with someone who was bothered that I — a Jew — should have so many copies of the Christian Bible in my home (and read them). Seeing that a particular copy had sat on my coffee table for many days, she asked, “How long is that going to stay there?” Sensing what I thought was distaste in her voice, I replied, “Until it doesn’t bother you anymore.”

Some years ago, a family member — who shall remain unnamed because, well, I wouldn’t enjoy the subsequent joke as much as the Governator — was, oh, riled, to catch me watching the Smarmy Bloviator’s show, the Factor, on Fox. Proving once again that you can learn something from people who disagree with you, I was taught that calling one’s life-partner “a liberal bigot” is not the world’s smartest move.

Point is, I see nothing wrong with being exposed to ideas I don’t already hold. After all, if I’m never exposed, I’ll never either hold or reject them. And I’ll never grow. If, like these students, I try to shut — or, increasingly, shout — down views that challenge me, I’ll never have an opportunity to encounter something I don’t already know. That’s stagnation.

Worse yet — and here’s the real irony — those who oppose being exposed to new ideas because they fear “indoctrination” have clearly already been indoctrinated.

After all, they got their beliefs from somewhere. And to hold them so tightly that they cannot even tolerate hearing something they feel is in conflict with those beliefs is the epitome of indoctrination.

Occasionally, my complaint is that I end up with inferior goods or services, but when I think about it, what upsets me more is simply watching the deterioration of the United States and our way of life. Although most Americans don’t agree, I see where we’re headed. This pattern has presented itself before in the history of the world. (We called it “the Dark Ages.” The workers were known as “serfs” and the corporate bigwigs were “nobles.”)

Unfortunately, Americans aren’t really taught history in any significant way anymore. And when they are, they don’t pay attention.

History isn’t the only thing Americans either aren’t taught or ignore when they encounter it.

The way they used to teach the origin of the species to high school students in this sleepy town of 1,800 people in southern Pennsylvania, said local school board member Angie Yingling disapprovingly, was that “we come from chimpanzees and apes.”

Not anymore. Anna Badkhen, Anti-evolution teachings gain foothold in U.S. schools
Evangelicals see flaws in Darwinism (November 30, 2004) San Francisco Chronicle via SFGate.com

It’s ironic that the Dover area school board thinks the way “they used to” teach was that we came from “chimpanzees and apes.” The decision to include the “theory” of “intelligent design” in the curriculum was made by a 6-to-3 board vote, giving them a stronger mandate than the one that put a chimpanzee in the White House. (And, of course, we’ll ignore the irony that the school board members are so ill-informed about Darwinian theory that they believe we are descended from either chimpanzees or apes, rather than potentially from a common ancestor.)

Their mandate is further cemented by the fact that two of the three board members who opposed the decision have resigned. It’s starting to look like the Bush cabinet in miniature — do we call this marching lockstep? Goose step? Or is it both at the same time?

“There’s only one creator, and it has to be God,” said Rebecca Cashman, 16, a sophomore at Dover High. She frowned when asked to recollect what she learned about evolution at school last year.

“Evolution — is that the Darwin theory?” Cashman shook her head. “I don’t know just what he was thinking!”

Clearly this gal is a thinker. She’s rejected “the Darwin theory” without even knowing what it is. And the board thought they used to teach evolution in the schools! (Maybe Rebecca was absent that day.)

This is what happens when pinheaded inbred Christians believe they have control of the country because the other 80% of Americans sit silently by and watch the decimation of the nation. And people wondered how the Holocaust was possible. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” This quote, often erroneously ascribed to Edmund Burke, an English philosopher who was the first to refer to the Dover area school board as “the great unwashed masses of humanity” — okay, okay, he meant the hoi polloi, and not just the Doverians — sums up what happened then, with the near-annihilation of the Jews, and what is happening today with the near-annihilation of America’s traditional status as the leader in progressive scientific, political and cultural revolutions.

But the biggest irony of this all is that this trend virtually ensures that whatever the Force-We-Pretend-We’re-Not-Teaching-About is behind this new theory, Americans will soon not be intelligently designing anything.

That means — since so-called “Third World” countries are quickly learning the benefits of science and educating their populations — we will eventually get back all those call centers and manufacturing jobs currently being outsourced.

And — who knows? — maybe one day, Americans will hold their heads high as they trudge to their company home in their company town after their 18-hour workday (no overtime pay, by the way) knowing that all the dolls they made that day have labels saying “Made (but not Designed) in America.”

Last week, Abi Sutherland sent me a link to a story that really bugged me.

I didn’t blog it right away because I wanted time to think a bit. After all, the issues involved are not Bush-friendly issues — that is, they’re not “black and white” — there’s more to this than “for us or against us,” or “the enemy of me is the enemy of everyone” — and Americans have trouble with nuances . . .

The story Abi sent me has become the latest salvo in the abortion “debate.” (We have to use scare quotes there, because there’s no real debate; it’s a culture war.)

Increasingly, doctors and pharmacists are deciding what rights you do and don’t have and how you may, or may not, live.

At first these were just isolated cases, mostly in the Midwest. But recently they have increased dramatically.

Pro-choice groups now call it a significant and growing trend. Lisa Boyce of Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin says it is a conscious extension of the abortion debate.

“They’ve done so much with outlawing and restricting access to abortion that they’ve set their sights on birth control because there’s nothing else really they can do to further restrict abortion here in Wisconsin,” Ms Boyce says. Jill McGivering, Pill propelled into abortion debate, BBC News (UK edition), ¶ 15-17 (13 September 2004).

For the moment, I’m going to ignore the obvious question: “When did the so-called ‘modern’ world go nuts?” As Ms. Boyce notes,

[This] is counter-intuitive because if you’re against abortion in the least you’d think you would see the value in enhancing access [to] birth control, the very means women look to preventing pregnancy and the need for abortion.McGivering, supra, BBC News (UK edition), at ¶ 18.

So instead, I’ll ask, “When did it become okay for people with socially-critical jobs to make life-changing decisions for other people?” What next? Doctors who refuse to perform vasectomies or sterilizations because they thwart pregnancies?

Think seriously about the ethics of this for a moment — and apparently that can only be done by setting aside the abortion “debate” for the moment. Imagine that your son — dressed in the sartorial “splendor” that is all too common in youth today: pants that require a belt to keep the waist from falling below the kneecaps and, say, an Oakland Raiders windbreaker with matching knit cap — is in a motor vehicle accident. He is rushed, barely clinging to life, into the emergency room. The doctor rushes up. Spotting the clothing, he says, “Oh. He’s a gang-banger. Gang-bangers are scum of the earth. I can’t treat him.” You arrive 45 minutes later to find your straight-A son, who never caused you or anyone else a moment of heartache, has bled to death on a gurney in the hallway.

Extreme example, you say? Why? What makes this different? (Stop here for a moment; these are not rhetorical questions.)

Suppose a police officer, attempting to apprehend a criminal, makes a decision about whether or not to shoot the suspect based on his snap judgment about the “value” of the suspect. Think that doesn’t happen? Wasn’t it a factor in Tennessee v. Garner? What about the officer who makes a decision about whether or not to stop Bill Cosby for driving a Mercedes through a white neighborhood? And then maybe figures it’s okay to beat him because he’s just Rodney King? What’s the difference between our pharmacist and the nurse who decides certain patients are better off dead and so “puts them to sleep” with an overdose of pain medication? They shoot horses, don’t they? (Again: not rhetorical questions.)

Return to the theme of unborn children. Suppose one day in-vitro chemical cures are discovered for certain serious deformities. Forget any purely scientific questions for the moment — I’m not a chemist, physiologist, or medical researcher — and just assume the possibility so we can look at the ethical issue. Imagine that someone is able to come up with a pill for a woman whose fetus was diagnosed as having a virtual guarantee of being born autistic, or with spina bifida, or some other defect that would leave them incapacitated for the duration of their lives. The pharmacist says, “I’m sorry. I can’t give you that pill. Only G-d can decide such things. It’s all part of his plan.” (Of course, for these folks, G-d is always male.)

Do we, as a society, really stand for that? If so, when thinking about otherwise legal activities, such as buying birth control pills, who gets to decide which moral choices to enforce?

Justice Scalia, the fascistic bastion of the judiciary who ironically claims to interpret the Constitution the way it was intended while simultaneously getting the thrust of it exactly backwards nearly every time, has said that “any Catholic jurists [if they think the death penalty is wrong] would have to resign.” Dahlia Lithwick, Justice Scalia vs. the Pope: Should every Catholic judge in America quit?, ¶ 1, Slate (18 February 2002).

Not for the first time — which scares me a little bit — I find myself in agreement with Scalia. (Well, okay, only partially. But that’s one of those “nuances” that are “outside the scope of the current article.”)

Nobody forced the Texas pharmacist who refused to give Julee Lacey her birth control pills to become a pharmacist. That was a decision he made of his own free will. Do we really need laws now that say that if you freely choose a job and then perform it in a way that abrogates the freely-chosen life decisions of another, you go to jail?

Ms. Lacey went to a doctor, who apparently decided that the perfectly-legal act of writing a prescription for birth control was the best way to ensure she could keep the size of her family within manageable bounds would be her best medical option. But a pharmacist said, “Nope. I don’t care what the law says. I don’t care what the doctor says. I get to make that decision for you.”

No word yet on whether that same pharmacist has agreed to support any new children that might result from Ms. Lacey having — so far still legal even in Texas — sex with her husband.

For the most part, I still think it is, but after seeing Moore’s film it’s impossible to contend that a shift isn’t occurring.

Bob and I disagreed what seems like a lifetime ago, but has actually only probably been about 1 or, at most, 2 weeks. (I could look it up, but most of you have convinced me that fact-checking is a waste of my time.) He thought both sides played “the same game.” Before I became a born-again cynic, I argued that the Republicans were primarily — I think (and I may be the only one who so thinks) that it was significant that I never said “exclusively” — responsible for one-sided reporting, sometimes called “spin,” among other things. I alleged — and still believe — that news from the Right was one-sided enough so as to actually go beyond spin; often, it pushed the envelope far enough to be considered misleading; occasionally, it was outright lying.

Other examples of the imbalance are seen in the recent troubles of Tom DeLay — I’ve always thought that was an excellent surname for a politician who works in opposition to the People — with respect to “simple” things like money-launder — er, I mean “re-distributing” corporate contributions to candidates for state offices in Texas — and gerrymand — er, excuse me, “re-districting.” (Re-districting, of course, is done by both parties; DeLay recently introduced the new wrinkle of not tying it to a census.) Both these moves are aimed at illegitimately increasing the number of Republicans in Congress by boosting the election of Republicans in Texas. And that’s fine.

Yet seldom (never?) do you hear of Democrats offering $100,000 bribes to a fellow Democrat to change a vote and then offering, instead, to work against the campaign of the son of the Democrat that refused. (I’d provide you a reference to Sorel, “Tom DeLay’s Hard Drive” (July 2004) Vanity Fair at p. 112, but, as I said, I won’t be doing those things anymore.) Another difference is that while when Democrats had the upper hand, they were not averse to pursuing the largesse of corporate interests; now that the Republicans have the upper hand, they pursue those interests and simultaneously offer to punish them for any contributions to Democrats. (In years past, many large corporations have usually given to both the Republicans and the Democrats. And, again, I’d point you to p. 154 of the aforementioned article, if I were still doing such things.) That’s just not “the same game.”

Sometime previously on this blog — you can look these instances up yourself — I noted that Republicans, following the lead of David Horowitz’s book, The Art of Political Warfare, have followed the missive that one should not aim “to refute your opponent’s argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth.” Or, as one senior Democrat said in reference to DeLay,

He’s not just interested in winning, but in eliminating the opposition. It’s the Vince Lombardi theory of politics. Winning’s not the best thing, it’s the only thing. — Sorel, “Tom DeLay’s Hard Drive” (July 2004) Vanity Fair at p. 114. (Don’t tell anyone I gave you that reference. Sorel notes, by the way, that the senior Dem who said that likes DeLay.)

As I said, I still believe it’s pretty much true that it’s been a one-sided war of dishonesty and dirty tricks. Democrats, however, have chafed under this regime. As noted in either The Republican Noise Machine or Banana Repubicans — again, my feelings right now are pretty much that hell can freeze over before I bother with fact-checking anymore; look it up yourself — Democrats (I think it actually says “liberals,” so I get to be included in that group, too, but see my immediately preceding disclaimer) consistently lose in the marketplace of ideas because, well, because as one recent visitor to this blog noted, her attention span is much too short to attend to complex ideas. Anything longer than a soundbite has people recommending a visit to the dictionary for the definition of “brevity.” (I actually wonder if such folks know the meaning of that word themselves — and why it is not applicable in all situations. But, in the interest of brevity, I’ll save that for another opinionated, non-fact-checked post.) Yet, for some reason, the social and political issues facing multi-cultural populations of greater than 290 million people aren’t always easily shrunk to the size of soundbites, at least not without becoming dessicated.

Again, one or the other of the books I cited above — the titles have already escaped me, but you can check those yourself, nu? — notes that liberals are taking a beating from those who recognize that the American public has the attention span of a Dalmatian on acid and have conveniently shrunk the message about as small as it can get: “Sit! Good dog.” Liberals, bemoaning this fact and starting to come to grips with this “reality” long for their very own Rush Limbaugh.

Rush, of course, doesn’t play fast and loose with the facts; among the many drugs Limbaugh accidentally became addicted to was an experimental Republican drug similar to Antabuse, but which exhibits its deleterious impact on those who ingest facts.

At any rate, recognizing that the American way of life, based on the Constitution, as it is, and liberalism in particular, based on a combination of the same and the more generalized thinking of the Founding Fathers, are endangered by this trend, the hue and cry has gone out among the liberals: “Make us a god to lead us!” (Cf. Exodus 32:23, from Plaut, The Torah: A Modern Commentary (1981) at p. 648 — rats! I did it again!)

And just as Aaron responded to this call, so, too, the “leaders” among us liberals said, “Whatever you have of any value, take it off!” And we gave it to them and they hurled it into the fire and out came…Michael Moore. (Cf. Exodus 32:24.)

I hope I will be forgiven if I don’t join in this Bonfire of the Vanities, but somewhere, there in the fire, still smolders those items of value we tossed in: fairplay and truth. It would do us well to retrieve them before the winds which wend us this way and that blow it out.

The film, of course, is Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore. And this article is not about that movie.

Instead, I want to talk about something much more important, something which has, of late, become something of a favorite topic of mine. And if I can keep it interesting enough for you to read it, I think you’ll eventually start to see why this topic is perhaps one of the most important topics we, the People, should be concerned about today.

“Any attempts to libel me will be met by force,” he said, not an ounce of humor in his familiar voice. “The most important thing we have is truth on our side. If they persist in telling lies, knowingly telling a lie with malice, then I’ll take them to court.” — Shenon, “Will Michael Moore’s Facts Check Out?” (June 20, 2004) The New York Times: Movies, p. 3.

We, the People — of, by and for whom our government exists — have a difficult job these days. In fact, it’s damn near impossible. Our current apathy regarding our government, our willingness to think of “it” (or, perhaps sometimes “them”) as being responsible for how our country operates while we go about living our daily lives to the best of our abilities blithely ignorant of how “it” (or “they”) do “whatever it is they do” is an understandable mistake.

This article primarily talks about why it’s understandable and makes some comments about what we can do to stop making the mistake nonetheless.

The Mistake

First, though, it will be necessary to understand why it’s a mistake.

I frequently use a phrase from Abraham Lincoln’s famous “Gettysburg Address.” Even as a child, that speech struck me as being just about the shortest way to explain what America stood for; not for it’s shortness alone, it’s one of the few historical speeches I ever memorized. Now that I’m on the way to becoming an old man (on the way, mind you, with still a ways to go!), I can no longer recite the entire speech from memory, but it’s fair to say that this speech, above all others, drives my thinking about the United States of America to this day.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under G-d, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. — Lincoln, “Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Cemetary at Gettysburg,” (November 19, 1863) English version found at the Library of Congress online.

This speech, giving by President Abraham Lincoln before the end of the Civil War, represents to me one of the most succinct statements of what it means to be a citizen of the United States of America. In our not-really-so-long history — as I get older, it occurs to me that just over four half-centuries is not really that long ago — the success of the United States has always depended upon “the people.” Some of us have died for that success; until recently, most of us worked for it. But if this country is to remain the great and free country that it has been for just over four half-centuries, it is for all of us yet living to dedicate ourselves to ensuring that government of the people, by the people, for the people continues to exist.

Lincoln did not say “it is for all of us in government” or “it is for all of us politicians” to be dedicated to that task. He understood that such an approach is impossible. What has made the United States different from other countries is that we, the people, are not merely governed; through our democratically-structured Republic, we govern. What has made the United States such a powerful nation is that the entire people, collectively, have been intimately involved as citizens in the functioning of this grand experiment.

The American institutions are democratic, not only in their principle but in all their consequences; and the people elects its representatives directly…. The people is therefore the real directing power; and although the form of government is representative, it is evident that the opinions, the prejudices, the interests, and even the passions of the community are hindered by no durable obstacles from exercising a perpetual influence on society. In the United States the majority governs in the name of the people, as is the case in all the countries in which the people is supreme. The majority is principally composed of peaceful citizens who, either by inclination or interest, are sincerely desirous of the welfare of their country. — de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Bantam 2004) pp. 198-199. [Editor's Note: Democracy in America was first published in 1835; numerous translated editions of the text exist today.]

The problem — noted even by de Tocqueville in 1835 — is that

[The people] are surrounded by the incessant agitation of parties, which attempt to gain their co-ooperation and to avail themselves of their support. — Id., at p. 199.

And the mistake we’ve made is that the “incessant agitation” of these parties has become blatantly misleading — to the point of lying — and we do not hold them accountable. Indeed, we do not even pay attention!

Reporter Leslie Stahl tells a story in her memoir, Reporting Live, of an experience she had in 1984 when she broadcast a piece for the CBS Evening News about the gap between rhetoric and reality under the Reagan administration. She juxtaposed images of staged photo opportunities in which Reagan picnicked with ordinary folks or surrounded himself with black children, farmers and happy flag-waving supporters. These images, she pointed out, often conflicted with the nature of Reagan’s actual policies. “Mr. Reagan tries to counter the memory of an unpopular issue with a carefully chosen backdrop that actually contradicts the president’s policy,” she said in her Evening News piece. “Look at the handicapped Olympics, or the opening ceremony of an old-age home. No hint that he tried to cut the budgets for the disabled or for federally subsidized housing for the elderly.”

Stahl’s piece was so hard-hitting in its criticism of Reagan, she recalled, that she “worried that my sources at the White House would be angry enough to freeze me out.” Much to her shock, however, she received a phone call immediately after the broadcast from White House aide Richard Darman. He was calling from the office of Treasury Secretary Jim Baker, who had just watched the piece along with White House press secretary Mike Deaver and Baker’s assistant, Margaret Tutwiler. Rather than complaining, they were calling to thank her. “Way to go, kiddo,” Darman said. “What a great story! We loved it.”

“Excuse me?” Stahl replied, thinking his must be joking.
“No, no, we really loved it,” Darman insisted. “Five minutes of free media. We owe you big-time.”
“Why are you so happy?” Stahl said. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“Nobody heard what you said,” Darman replied.
“Come again?”
“You guys in Televisionland haven’t figured it out, have you? When the pictures are powerful and emotional, they override if not completely drown out the sound. Leslie, I mean it, nobody heard you.”

Stahl was so taken aback that she played a videotape of her segment before a live audience of a hundred people and asked them what they had just seen. Sure enough, Darman was right. “Most of the audience thought it was either an ad for the Reagan campaign or a very positive news story,” Stahl recalls. “Only a handful heard what I said. The pictures were so evocative — we’re talking about pictures with Reagan in the shining center — that all the viewers were absorbed…. It’s all about impressions, and the White House understood that.” — Rampton & Stauber, Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing is Turning America into a One-Party State (2004) pp. 149-150.

The mistake, then, is that the people, whom de Tocqueville called “the real directing power,” have abdicated the position as the true rulers of the United States of America. While the parties incessantly agitate about us, feeding us carefully scripted (more on this below) memes to artfully prod us this way and push us that, we, for our part, have stopped listening; we’ve allowed ourselves to be entertained and manipulated by pretty pictures, like so many primates intrigued by brightly-colored, but valueless, beads.

The Understanding

Before you start to think that I wrote this article because I enjoy bashing and making fun of my fellow citizens, let me make something clear: That is not my intention. If that were my goal, I would not bother to write, or at least I would not bother to write publicly; I’d stick such thoughts in a private journal, perhaps to be found after my death as a means of taunting you from the grave. The truth, however, is that I need you, I value you, and I think it’s perfectly understandable that you’ve come to have a laissez-faire attitude towards our government. As a matter of fact, it’s my feeling that those currently in control of our government are quite pleased that the majority of Americans don’t pay attention, don’t care and, most importantly of all, don’t vote. It means less people politicians need to trick into voting against their own interests.

But why have we done this? Why do so few of us observe our privilege to perform our duty as citizens of the closest thing to a democracy in the world today? Why, for example, do so few of us vote?

Anthony Downs, in the 1950s, noted a tendency of Americans not to vote, suggesting that a personal “cost-benefit” analysis was the reason. The increasing prevalence of the things that Downs noted made voting seem less beneficial and more costly are the very things that I say make our mistake — our abdication of our role as citizens in a government of us, by us and for us — understandable.

Downs began with the assumption that the political system is driven by individuals acting to pursue their own interests. He used a cost/benefit approach to explain why it may not always be rational to vote. He suggested that people might not vote because the costs of voting may outweigh the benefits involved. By costs, Downs primarily referred to the time involved in the voting process. It takes time to register to vote, so become informed and go to the polls on election day. The costs of becoming informed are the most significant because candidates are often elusive an issues can be highly complex. — Satterthwaite, “Is it rational to vote?” Questions & Answers Archive: ThisNation, emphasis added.

These days, candidates are more than elusive: they have entire cadres of people whose job it is to confuse you by pumping out tons of information, the majority of which is actually false. No story is too small for their attention. A line in Citizen Kane says, “If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough!” That certainly proves true when it comes to the news that grips the hearts and minds of Republican pundits. In one example, early in the Clinton presidency, Matt Drudge, Republican Congressman Dan Burton, Pat Buchanan and others continually hammered on a story stating that President Clinton had caused Los Angeles International Airport to be shut down for over an hour so he could get a haircut from “a Hollywood star.” As Burton put it, Clinton

spent thousands of your tax dollars waiting to get a haircut for 200 bucks from Hillary’s hairdresser. He ought to be more concerned about trimming the deficit than his own hair. — Rampton & Stauber, supra, at p. 49.

This story is false on at least two fronts. Clinton, of course, was concerned about trimming the deficit. Remembering that he worked for all the people and not just for the rich, he delivered record budget surplus after record budget surplus, which could eventually have lead to tax cuts for all Americans. Instead, some of it was given to the richest Americans after Bush took office, and the rest was used (and then some) to start an illegal war which has been roundly condemned by the world. Yet that isn’t what matters to Republicans. As Rampton and Stauber, after needing several pages to explain all the news stories the Republicans floated about this haircut, put it,

All this might seem like a lot of attention to pay to a politician’s haircut — especially since most of the commonly believed “facts” about Clinton’s haircut are actually false. Clinton did indeed get a haircut from Cristophe aboard Air Force One, but it didn’t “tie up Los Angeles Airport in knots.” According to Federal Aviation Administration records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Clinton’s haircut caused no significant delays of regularly scheduled passenger flights — no circling planes, no traffic james on the runways. The only flight that suffered any inconvenience at all was a single unscheduled air taxi flight that got delayed for a mere two minutes — a holdup that might seem unusual in Switzerland but is fairly ordinary in the United States. To this day, no one other than the Clintons knows what price Christophe actually charged for his services aboard Air Force One. All we know for sure is that it didn’t cost taxpayers a dime, since Clinton paid for it out of his own pocket. — Rampton & Stauber, supra, at p. 50.

Today, Republicans want to remind you of this incident. Matt Drudge recently dredged up this false story again by noting that Senator Kerry had his hair done by Christophe. The implication of this story, by the way, is supposed to be that Kerry cannot possibly care about “poor people” because he is so rich and vain that he doesn’t get his hair cut at Supercuts. But that’s like saying that Bill Gates — who apparently does go to Supercuts — doesn’t really care about the needy, particularly the Third World needy, because he is rich and lives in America. After some writers noted that he doubled the price in an effort to make Kerry look like some spoiled rich guy, Drudge had to add an update — but didn’t change his original story headline nor his original commentary — to point out that the haircut was $75. I was appalled; my stylist charges me $35 and he’s not even a famous Hollywood star!

Whether we’re talking about Weapons of Mass Destruction that don’t exist, cooking numbers (and calling it “a big mistake” when caught), using inchoate or nebulous threats about terrorism as a distraction from real issues, or working to silence opposition in the name of “educating the American people,” the Republican party, in particular, those behind the Bush Administration, have worked hard to keep you from recognizing what’s really going on.

It’s not hard to understand why the majority of the electorate consistently reacts — and votes — based on emotion and a lack of real and useful information about the candidates, rather than by choice of barber.

The Reason

What would happen if Americans were given information of value? What would happen if, instead of charging that John Kerry was a “Botox-addicted French poodle,” Republicans were forced to debate on the issues? What if, instead of discussing who trimmed whose hair, we talked about who trimmed the budget, leading to record-breaking surpluses instead of record-breaking deficits? What if, instead of trumpeting the sexual piccadilloes of Democrats (which, incidentally, can also be found among the ranks of the Republicans), they talked about the way you were getting screwed by the concerted effort to eliminate the governmental controls that keep Big Business from taking even more advantage of the public than they already do? What if, instead of distracting you from the bankrupting of our government, there was a discussion about the attempt to — as Grover Norquist, a Republican strategist, put it — “to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub”? What if, instead of silencing debate, Republicans did what Democrats always do and encouraged it?

This would create a problem for Republicans.

Over a period of decades…polls have regularly shown that a majority of the American people support the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which left the choice on whether to have an abortion up to a woman and her doctor. On the environment, more than 70 percent of the American people believe that the burning of coal, oil and other fuels is responsible for global warming, and roughly the same majority supports the Kyoto Protocol and other international agreements to limit greenhouse gas emissions. In a 2002 Gallup poll, more than half of respondents said they were concerned about water, soil and air pollution, damage to the earth’s ozone layer and the loss of tropical rain forests. Majorities of 70 to 80 percent support higher emissions and pollutions standards for industry, spending more government money on developing solar and wind power and stronger enforcement of environmental regulations. Although terrorism and the war in Iraq have recently become significant public concerns, by far the most enduring concerns expressed in opinion polls are the economy and jobs, followed usually by health care, education and national defense. On the issue of health in particular, Democrats enjoy a clear advantage over Republicans. Surveys consistently show that most Americans want an expanded government, in the form of a tax-financed universal health-care program — an idea that Republicans consistently oppose and that liberal Democrats have supported. If politics were simply a matter of debate over policies, therefore, Democrats would appear well-positioned to defeat their Republican rivals. — Rampton & Stauber, supra, at p. 8-9. [This section is extensively footnoted; I have deleted the footnotes for reasons of space. Those with the interest or desire to check these facts will find this book available at most local bookstores.]

So why doesn’t the Democratic Party do more to talk about issues? In Chapter Twelve, “Information Wars,” of The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy, David Brock, an ex-conservative who was actively involved in attacking “liberals” for a big part of his career (indeed, this is how he became the well-known journalist he is today) explains how, as Sean Hannity put it, “We’ve basically taken over!” In the opening pages of his book, Brock says,

People ask me, a former insider, how the Republican Right has won political and ideological power with such seeming ease and why Democrats, despite winning the most votes in the last three presidential elections, seem to be caught in a downward spiral, still able to win at the ballot box but steadily losing the battle for hearts and minds.

While it is not the only answer, my answer is: It’s the media, stupid.” — Brock, The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy (2004) at p. 2.

Rampton & Stauber note that,

One-party dominance has also muted political debates that would have otherwise greeted many of the actions of President George W. Bush. The presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan, the first George Bush and Bill Clinton all had to contend with opposition from at least one other branch of government, and the resulting hearings in the House of Representatives or the Senate fueled controversy and media coverage. With the same party controlling all branches of government, there has been minimal public debate over the policies of the current Bush administration, even as it has launched two wars, reversed long-standing policies on worker safety and the environment and cut taxes for the rich while 2.7 million private-sector jobs have been lost and the number of unemployed Americans has increased by more than 45 percent under its watch. — Rampton & Stauber, supra, at p. 11-12.

It is possible to learn what’s really happening; it’s just much harder than it used to be. Most Americans will not have the patience or time to file Freedom of Information Act requests with the government to get the real information, as opposed to what they hear on Fox “News,” or CNN — let alone Rush Limbaugh’s program. One way you’re still able to get such information is via publishers that are not solely controlled by Repubicans such as Rupert Murdoch. Republicans haven’t worried as much about this venue (but it won’t surprise me if/when they start to!) because most Americans, frankly, don’t read books.

The popular press, ever since the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine (described in detail in Chapter Twelve of Brock’s book) which the right-wing worked hard to achieve, has worked equally hard to convince Americans that the media is “liberal” when quite the opposite is true. Matt Labash, who has worked for such well-known right-wing magazines as The Weekly Standard, Washingtonian Magazine and American Spectator said some interesting things in an interview with JournalismJobs.com:

JournalismJobs.com: Why have conservative media outlets like The Weekly Standard and Fox News Channel become more popular in the past few years?

Matt Labash: Because they feed the rage. We bring the pain to the liberal media. I say that mockingly, but it’s true somewhat. We come with a strong point of view and people like point of view journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We’ve created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It’s a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It’s a great little racket. I’m glad we found it actually.

                                                                                                            * * *

JournalismJobs.com: What type of journalist would you describe yourself as?

Matt Labash: A magical one? {mock-serious}. I work in the right-wing world, but we have a good understanding at the magazine that everyone gets to follow their interests and eccentricities. Our editors encourage that. It makes it a good place to work. They give us a lot of writerly freedom. I’m less interested in scoring ideological points than in finding good stories. Good stories shouldn?t have to conform to some predetermined formula. A lot of times they don’t.

The best stories are the ones that take a left turn somewhere and surprise you anyway. I basically come off of a piece and if it’s a piece I’m proud of, there’s about 30 minutes of satisfaction and then I’m like, “Geez. I’m never going to find another good piece again.” I’m just swinging from vine to vine looking for good pieces. If they conform to our ideological template, that’s great. If they don’t, I’m much more interested in keeping my readers amused or interested. — JournalismJobs.com, “Interview with Matt Labash, the Weekly Standard,” (May 2003).

In that same interview, he admitted that “news” these days is more about “performance art.” (“Tucker Carlson used to work at The Weekly Standard and now he’s on CNN. He’s a natural — one of the best. He can go on the air and know nothing about a subject and pull off a beautiful piece of performance art. I’m not convinced I can do that. It’s a skill.”)

The Solution

In reality, there is no one solution to this problem. To fix things, we’d have to get back to a situation that, frankly, the Republicans will never allow. The Fairness Doctrine, which ensured that Americans would have equal access to the views of other political parties is probably irretrievable. Once people have been brainwashed — many of the comments posted to this blog prove this point — you can hand them the truth on a silver platter and they’ll still refuse to believe it. You can retrieve the facts from our own governmental archives via the Freedom of Information Act and people will still insist that the lie is the truth.

There is at least one thing, however, that has yet to be tried. And Republicans themselves should be pleased about this one, since they are fond of quoting the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson, you see, faced a problem similar to (but not on the scope of) that faced by liberals today and in his Second Inaugural Address, he had a suggestion.

During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science, are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness, and to sap its safety; they might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome punishments reserved and provided by the laws of the several States against falsehood and defamation; but public duties more urgent press on the time of public servants, and the offenders have therefore been left to find their punishment in the public indignation.

Nor was it uninteresting to the world, that an experiment should be fairly and fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided by power, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of truth — whether a government, conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution, with zeal and purity, and doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole world should witness, can be written down by falsehood and defamation. The experiment has been tried; you have witnessed the scene; our fellow citizens have looked on, cool and collected; they saw the latent source from which these outrages proceeded; they gathered around their public functionaries, and when the constitution called them to the decision by suffrage, they pronounced their verdict, honorable to those who had served them, and consolatory to the friend of man, who believes he may be intrusted with his own affairs.

No inference is here intended, that the laws, provided by the State against false and defamatory publications, should not be enforced; he who has time, renders a service to public morals and public tranquillity, in reforming these abuses by the salutary coercions of the law; but the experiment is noted, to prove that, since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions, on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public opinion. — Jefferson, “Second Inaugural Address” (March 4, 1805).

For while public figures, such as Michael Moore (who under First Amendment case law would be considered at least a “limited-purpose public figure”), rightly have great difficulty winning libel suits against those who attack them, they can still do so if they can show that defamatory falsehoods were made with “actual malice,” which means “knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for whether it was false or not.” (New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) 376 U.S. 254, 280 [84 S.Ct. 710, 726; 11 L.Ed.2d 686].) As the Moore quote with which I opened this article noted, he’s prepared to do just that.

The press may wish to continue distorting the truth. They may wish to abdicate their public service function of providing information — without spinning it beyond recognition — so citizens can make informed decisions before voting.

If Republican elected officials are going to knowingly tell lies and if “news” stations like Fox are going to report them while knowing they are lies, particularly while simultaneously working to prevent Democrats from speaking, then perhaps they need to be shown that, when it comes to actual malice, talk is not cheap.