Category: Society

Law and Order

Every evening when we are not hosting or attending a dinner party, attending a play, concert, or conference, we lie down in bed and watch a movie or a few episodes of a TV series. Ito pushes a button and our large TV screen rises just beyond the end of our bed. Over the last few months, we have watched over 200 episodes for the original Law and Order show, starting for some reason with season 5 (1995). I want to explain why we have found this show so interesting.

The first half of each show follows the search by the police (two regulars) for the perpetrator of a crime (usually a murder). The second half presents the trial to convict the accused perpetrator conducted by two regular justice department characters. The stories themselves can be quite intriguing and the crimes and the issues around them explore every conceivable social issue in America today (e.g., affirmative action, gangs, capital punishment, same sex marriage, abortion, race and sexual discrimination, treatment of minors).

The regulars in the show—police and prosecutors –are “real” people, i.e. flawed but honestly trying to do their best. Aside from the acting being superb, what impresses me most is that for each controversial issue the arguments on both sides are strongly presented. To say the episodes are thought provoking would be an understatement. I don’t always understand the bases on which the judge allows or disallows evidence but we do learn a lot about what the law says and how it is applied. The show is still being produced and is now in its 25th season. To last that long, it must be good. We have many episodes to go and will eagerly watch them all.

DEI—a nuanced assessment

DEI — “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs or policies are efforts to promote fairness and full participation of people who have been historically underrepresented or subjected to discrimination. The normal standard of fairness when employing workers is that they are hired (or admitted to college) on the basis of merit—who best satisfied to the requirements for the job. This is what taxpayers who want the best results from their tax dollars, want as well.

Many universities set aside the admission of the best qualified students to reflect the fact that may blacks who might have greater potential than their past performance test score indicated because of racial discrimination should be given preferential treatment. But these “affirmative action” programs where struct down by the Supreme Courts 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and its companion case against the University of North Carolina, which effectively ended race-based affirmative action in college admissions.

To make room for more blacks, Harvard had raised the bar and thus discriminated against Asian applicants with higher scores. It is appropriate that the standards of equal treatment and merit should be observed for government jobs and public universities.

But private firms and colleges should be able to hire or admit whoever they want. Both firms and colleges may well want the social benefits from greater diversity. Not only can it make the workplace more interesting but the broadened understanding of different racial and religious groups generates greater social harmony as well.

I don’t know what DEI programs generally did or aimed for and am quite willing to believe that they wasted human resources. However, that is quite different from the desirability of properly educating our children about different races and cultures and the history of slavery and harms of racial discrimination. Along with civics, such instruction belongs in elementary school curriculums. Just as the enlightened treatment of gays, blacks, Muslims and other groups in movies and TV shows has led the way toward better understanding, exposure and education are important for building a better and more accepting society.

The government should not interfere in the choices of private firms and university about the composition of their work forces and student bodies.

English

Until now, the US has not had an official language, though over 30 states have made English their official language. Yesterday Trump sighed an executive order that changed that. In many ways this seems a strange issue. Of course English is our language. It is what we speak to strangers and friends (unless you are Mexican or Polish or something). It is what street and highway signs use. It is what newspapers and magazines use (except for the Spanish, French, etc. papers).

It makes sense for it to be the official language in which laws and other official documents are stated. But I have always had somewhat mixed feelings about the issue. While of course it’s English, I always thought it was rather nice and in keeping with our individualist leanings that it was the common language because it is what people chose to use rather than because it was officially proclaimed. But no big deal.

Facebook

Our wise founding fathers established a government to protect the rights and property of a free people, who made their own decisions about how to live. They wisely did not create a government to tell us how to live—nor what to believe.

A society whose members don’t know what to believe, with people who spread lies for whatever nefarious reasons, has a serious problem. Living in communities as we all do requires a degree of trust in a common understanding of the facts. But who is to determine what is true and on what basis? In a free society the responsibility of evaluating what to believe rests with each of us individually.

“The American Founders told everyone who would listen (and some who wouldn’t) that the republic could not endure without a virtuous citizenry. They warned that the Constitution was necessary but not sufficient.”[1]  The quality of our lives and of the functioning of our communities depends on the choices and behavior of each of us. Our freedom to behave as we choose will only produce a successful community if its members behave virtuously. The maximization of each individual’s utility (happiness) as we economists might put it, depends, in part, on how well our individual preferences fit into the community’s norms and expectations. No man is an Island.

Our specific values might come from our religious and/or philosophical beliefs. These can differ but must include respect for the rights of our neighbors to live by their own lights. But decisions based on incorrect information will be suboptimal or worse. The government might require that firms transparently disclose relevant information about their products (such as content) but should not impose its own judgment about the truth—governments themselves lie too often to be the final orbiters of truth.

Meta CEO Mark “Zuckerberg announced earlier this week that his platforms would part ways with the third-party fact-checking organizations he had employed to police speech on Facebook and Instagram.

“‘The fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.,’ he said.”  “An urgent meeting of the fact check legion-of-doom—Reason”  FaceBook posts will continue to allow comments by its users challenging alleged facts.  Zuckerberg, who met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, said his company is “going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.”

It is up to us to evaluate what to believe and what to pass on. This is not a trivial responsibility, but the market works hard to help. Just as we learn how to successfully do anything else (Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic), we need to learn how to evaluate information we are given and to carefully choose sources that we trust. There are private fact checking organizations we are free to consult or ignore. We are free to choose news sources that we believe adhere to the standards of objective journalism. But if we do not exorcise our judgement wisely, our society will be less “successful” than otherwise.[2] But it would violate the wisdom of our founders and the best interests of a free society to give that responsibility to the government.

[1] Jonathan Rauch, “Cross Purposes, Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy” January 2025

[2] Jonathan Rauch. The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2021. 280 pp.

Propaganda

The arguments I present at the dinner table to convince you of my position/proposal, will succeed or fail depending on their merits and the skill with which I present and defend them. My freedom to make my case at home or your home or in the public square (Kiwanis Club, Facebook, X, etc.) and yours to challenge it and/or to make your own, is an essential feature of our free and flourishing society. It is a right guaranteed in the First Amendment to our Constitution. The give and take and challenges of such debate improve the prospect of adopting better policies and proposals and of their broad public support.

The Woke movement to prevent, shout down, or otherwise silence hate speech (at least in the eyes of some) violated our freedom of speech and the virtues of its protection. It was rightly opposed and seems in retreat, last year’s measures by Columbia and many other Universities to prevent pro-Palestinian demonstrations notwithstanding. Demonstrations that violate or threaten the rights and/or safety of others are not protected speech and should be banned.

The anti-free speech virus has spread to elements of the right wing as well. According to Jacob Mchangama in “Reflections on right-wing cancel culture”:

 “’The Left started it.’

“That was the common retort from right-wing X accounts like Libs of TikTok and their supporters, who attempted and often succeeded at getting people fired for making tasteless social media posts about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump back in July. 

“Most of their victims weren’t public figures but regular Americans like Home Depot employees, firefighters, chefs, and school counselors. This was fine and good, many argued, because it constituted sweet revenge for cancel culture excesses driven by the Left.” 

Constructive civil discourse is a valuable skill some have forgotten or never learned. Efforts to strengthen such skills by Braver Angles and other groups are encouraging.

On the other hand, measures by an increasing number of governments to ban speech they disapprove of seem to be growing. It is not all together surprising that the governments of Russia, China, Pakistan, Hungary, Brazil have banned unfriendly news sources and reporters. Measures in the U.S. to remove what our government considers false information for social media is shocking. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta the owner of Facebook, recently expressed regret for the company’s past decisions regarding content moderation, particularly concerning COVID-19. In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, he revealed that senior officials from the Biden administration pressured Facebook to censor certain content, including humor and satire related to the pandemic. Zuckerberg stated, “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it”

More shocking still, Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector and US Marine Corps intelligence officer, had his home searched by the FBI, potentially due to allegations related to his failure to register as a foreign agent. It is more likely that the real reason is our governments anger at his attacks on its efforts to suppress “disinformation” in the press. He recently participated in a discussion titled “Free Speech & The DOJ attack on Independent Journalism,” highlighting concerns about governmental interference in free speech and press freedoms. Ritter has been vocal on social media, urging authorities to respect the Constitution and stop restricting free speech and press activities. This interview of Ritter is well worth watching: Scott Ritter interview

If that doesn’t shock freedom loving Americans, surely this will. Pavel Durov, the CEO and founder of the messaging app Telegram, was recently arrested in France. He was detained as part of an ongoing judicial investigation into alleged criminal activities facilitated by Telegram, including the spread of child pornography, cyberscams, and organized crime. Durov has criticized the charges as “surprising” and “misguided,” arguing that it is unreasonable to hold a platform or its CEO accountable for user-generated content. He emphasized that Telegram complies with European Union regulations and has robust content moderation practices. The arrest has sparked discussions about the balance between free speech and the responsibility of social media platforms in moderating harmful content.

And then there are evil people who deliberately lie and deceive for the purpose of doing harm? Russia, for example, might judge it in its interest to weaken the United States by undermining America’s public trust in our institutions thus diminishing our effectiveness as a nation. “The Russian government’s covert efforts to sway the 2024 presidential election are more advanced than in recent years, and the most active foreign threat this political season, U.S. intelligence officials said Friday.” “Russia-election-covert-disinformation” But which way would Russia’s interests be best served. Ritter argues that Russia’s interest in the outcome of the American Presidential election is for a President whose policies will be predictable. That hardly describes Donald Trump.

A more challenging question is what to do about those unknowingly spreading false information believing it’s true (e.g. Antivaxxers).  In which of these boxes should we put someone like Tucker Carlson—deliberately deceiving –unknowingly deceiving—or sometimes right? These are not easy questions. I urge you to read Damon Linker’s exploration of Tucker Carlson’s diabolical motives: “The anti-liberal right builds a usable past”

So, what should we do? Defending our freedom to speak should be a top priority. “Do we really need free speech?”  Where should we look for the facts and to expose fake information? Social media and fake news”. What role should government play?

At the end of the day, it is what each of us believes that matters. It is in our own interest to evaluate the reliability of various sources of information. The government can help by being such a source, but it must earn our trust for the objectivity of its research and disclosure. It must never censor the information provided by others.  Government can require and promote the transparency of the information provided by others (e.g, who has paid for it).  This role for government will minimize the incentive for private parties to exert pressure on the government to support one version of the truth and suppress others. We must decide for ourselves, but our institutions can and should contribute to our filtering fact from fiction and help expose liars.  Freedom isn’t free.

Where have all the flowers gone?

My mornings these days are spent reading email and news reports sitting in a swing on our master bedroom balcony, from which I can view Reagan National Airport and further south the skyline of Alexandria Va. Ito serves my coffee and a cut orange to me there. Life is wonderful (age adjusted). Thankfully I am no longer faced with life defining choices—forks in the road.  Luckily most of my choices worked out well. But I am happy to no longer face them.

While reading the Post, WSJ, etc. on my iPad, I listen alternatively to Opera areas and my favorite folk singers of my youth.  This morning while listening to Peter, Paul and Mary sign “Where have all the Flowers Gone,” I broking into tears and thought I would share with you why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgXNVA9ngx8

I believe that the hearts of most young people seek to “do good”– to prosper by or while making the world a better place, which is the essence of capitalism. There are, of course, a few bad apples, but most of us are born with good hearts and a desire to prove themselves worthy. Over too much of history young men too often proved their worthiness by going to war to defend their country, or, at the instigation of those bad apples, to expand their empire. So, the impulse to reach out and help others has often been subverted in our youth to standing up to kill them instead, dying themselves in large numbers. World War II, alone killed 70-85 million people and injured multiples of that. Where have all the flowers gone.

My tears flowed from the sadness that we have failed and still fail to nurture those good hearts into an even better world to the extent we could. The enterprise of our fellow man once liberated to pursue their dreams has lifted the wellbeing of the average person to unbelievable heights. But every young person knows that a good life consists of more than material wealth. We are again (or still?) in a period when far too many people can only think of dealing with our fellow man by beating them down in war.  What a sad misuse of our potential. Where will all the flowers go?

Serving Self Interest

If the goal of public policy is to maximize society’s wealth, in the broadest meaning of wealth (economic and cultural), what should that policy be? The invention and production of goods and services that enrich our lives (by providing food, shelter, safety, and entertainment) require a mix of cooperation and competition. How that mix is determined is the critical factor providing varied results in different societies. The Soviet Union represented one extreme of central determination and enforcement of the mix. The United States represents the other extreme encouraging individual determination of when and how to cooperate and when and how to compete based on each person’s self-interest.

What form of cooperation and competition maximizes society’s wealth and how should that optimal mix be determined? The exploitation of our self-interest to maximize wealth that has such extensive scope in the U.S. is guided by each person’s understanding of how their interests are best served.  Our moral code for how best to treat others and thus to be treated ourselves is a critical part of that understanding.

Alexis de Tocqueville, in his Democracy in America (1835), marveled at the extensive degree of voluntary cooperation in America. Americans joined together in church groups, civic clubs, charitable organizations, and sports clubs as part of their pursuit of their self-interests to a greater extent than in any other country in the world.

The tightest cooperative unit is the family, were trust between members is very high in dividing responsibilities while sharing its fruits, as they compete with other families for jobs and markets. Firms divide up tasks and cooperate in producing the best possible products and services with which to compete with other firms for market share (see Ronald Coase’s  The Nature of the Firm – Wikipedia). The Brooklyn Dodgers (now the Los Angeles Dodgers) cooperated within the club in order to better compete against other baseball clubs.

The wealth and success of America compared with the poverty and eventual failure of the Soviet Union reflects its better choices of the when and where and how much to cooperate vs compete. History has confirmed that those choices are best made by individuals pursuing their self-interest as they see and understand it. In Adam Smith’s foundational book: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) Smith argues that when individuals pursue their own self-interest in a free market, they are led by an “invisible hand” to promote the general welfare of society. However, these invisible hands operate within and through a society’s legal, institutional, and moral environment. Well defined and secure property rights are particularly important.

The dramatic increase in material wealth for the average family and decline in poverty in relatively free market, capitalist economies over the past 250 years followed thousands of years of unchanging incomes and general poverty. https://humanprogress.org/trends/

I hope that our next generation of innovators and workers understand this.

Free to Speak

I disagree with many of the claims and proposals made by Critical Race Theorists. But the best way to challenge it are with public debt. Hiding it away violates our constitutional protection of free speech and will not be successful in exposing its errors. I remember being surprised and enlightened by reading “Black Like Me” years ago. It recounts the experiences of a white man who had turned his skin black traveling in the South as a black man (or as a negro as polite people said in those days). Did the shock harm me? Hardly. The lack of challenges to our ideas turns us to mush. https://wapo.st/3sYWltz

Happily, some, like FIRE, are fighting back. One excellent presentation of the value and importance of free speech and of civilly speaking up to defend what we believe and to listening to what others believe by the producers of earlier “Free to Choose” series, can be seen on PBS starting Oct 1.   “Free to Speak”  I urge you to watch it.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Earlier this week, Ito and I attended a performance at the Kennedy Center of the play version of this moving and powerful novel by Harper Lee. It was a well-staged production, faithful to the movie as best I can remember it from 50 years ago. Beyond its laudable, powerful attack on racism, it champions a moral position I have trouble with.

The play centers on the story’s hero attorney, Atticus Finch, who defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. The alleged rape victim, Mayella Ewell, was actually beaten by her father, Bob Ewell, because she had kissed the accused black man, Tom Robinson. Despite the valent efforts of Atticus to defend Tom, who could not have beaten the white girl on both sides of her head because of his unusable left arm from an earlier accident, the all while jury convicts him anyway.

The play opens with Atticus’s daughter, Scout, addressing the audience about the local newspaper’s report of the death of Bob Ewell by falling on his knife. No one can fall on their own knife, says Scout. What is going on here?

Near the end of the play the mysterious, reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley, who Scout and her older brother Jen have never actually seen before, carries an unconscious Jen to his home for treatment. Jen and Scout had been attacked in the night by their white trash neighbor Bob Ewell. When the sheriff finds the dead body of Bob Ewell, Atticus fears that his daughter has killed him during his attack on her and Jen. But the sheriff concludes it was Boo Radley who plunged the knife into Bob Ewell to protect the children.

In a private conversation between Atticus and the sheriff, it is decided that the Sheriff will claim that Bob Ewell fell on his knife rather than risk the verdict of a bigoted jury. Atticus does not want his children to hear the discussion of the lie. Bob Ewell was a bad guy and no one is very sorry that he is dead. The plan ends with Scout facing the audience and saying, “I guess he fell on his sword.”

The play has many instances in which Scout and Jen defy inappropriate customs and views. I applaud those attacks on bigotry and outmoded customs. We recently watched the British series “Cranford”, which masterfully depicts the power of customs (which fork to use and how to dress), the disruption of progress (the building of the railroad into this quant English town) and the ultimate adjustment to positive changes. I highly recommend it.

The moral dilemma for me is the following. Atticus correctly and bravely defended Tom against the clearly false charges. Both the Judge and the Sheriff were strongly on the side of the truth and the law, but bigotry won out. Thus, the judge and Sheriff set aside the law and lied to protect a good man and his good deed against a bad man. Good wins out but only because in this instance the Sheriff and Judge are on the side of ultimate justice.

Many Filipinos also accepted former President Rodrigo Duterte’s green light to kill drug dealers on the streets of Manila without trail. It may well have been that most of those killed were indeed drug dealers. But if we rely on ignoring the truth and the law to achieve good ends, we open a dangerous door. We can’t always rely on the Sheriff and the Judge to be good people. We need strong and trusted institutions as well.

Persuasion or Coercion

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville might be right or wrong about opposing the defense Department’s policy “of providing travel expenses for service women seeking an abortion.” But President Biden is certainly right in claiming that Tuberville’s unilateral “blocking more than 300 military [nominations] with his extreme political agenda” is “jeopardize[ing] the country’s national security.”  “Biden Tuberville military clash”

The DOD must determine the policies that will attract the solders that we need in our All Volunteer Military. Those policies should be open to public debate. But Tuberville has chosen coercion to impose his views rather than persuasion to seek consensus . This is not proper in a free society governed by publicly endorsed laws. It prevents the sort of public debate that will most likely find the best balance between the opposing views of people living in the same space. And it will certainly deepen divides that will diminish rather than enhance civility. In short, it bad for the nation.

But our liberal democracy has survived for two hundred and fifty years because when the pendulum swings too far in one direction, it invariably swings back. Hopefully we are reaching the extreme of the pendulum swing of right-left antagonism. Efforts are growing to rebuild the civil dialog from which we can better live together in liberty. See for example groups like Braver Angles https://braverangels.org/   We should fight to preserve our freedom to live as we choose rather than to restrict the choices of others to live as they choose.