The Complexities of Race in Schuette v. BAMN

 Let me break down the main ideas of both the majority and the dissenters so as to avoid any misconstruction of my analysis or to allow any hyperbolic oversimplification of what I have to say.

 Main arguments:

• Whether voters can EVER remove racial preference policies in the university admissions process.
• Whether that reversal can EVER be a valid political process OR whether de facto segregation is present whenever a reversal occurs because it burdens the minorities who were disadvantaged at the time of the original admission policy's creation.
• Whether NOT using a racial factor in an admissions policy places a special burden on certain races.
• Whether it is possible to change an admission process through democratic means.
• Whether or not Supreme Courts "are fooled" when political processes are altered that disfavor minorities as found verbatim in Sotomayor's dissent (2). 

Recently, the Supreme Court decided an important case about the issue of admissions policies based on race.  Schuette v. BAMN concerns the legality of using race factors in admissions.  Specifically, the Michigan voters approved a law removing race as a consideration for admission to undergraduate colleges.  Lower courts reversed this law as violating the political process doctrine.  This process is used to determine if changing a law can lead to negative impacts on certain groups of people.  Because the law's reversal would take away race as a factor, the Sixth Circuit reasoned that this would put an undue burden on racial minorities whose access to university admissions would be affected.  The Supreme Court struck the law down as unconstitutional.

However, they narrowly reversed the lower court's decision and stated that there was no reason to overturn the democratic decision of voters because there was no instance of blatant segregation to favor one group over another.  Basically, the majority's view is that they are unable to force a population to include race as a factor and the democratic process is not itself automatically suspect when it addresses racial issues if no instance of a violation of equal protection occurs.  If voters can NEVER decide issues related to race, because they can never reverse a race-based policy and only courts can, then the value of "democracy" in America is diminished.

  Democracy and Race

People exercise democratic principles and may bypass public officials.  In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor believes that people have many opportunities to express themselves politically, but if they oppose a policy of ending racial preference, they can never have that viewpoint become ensconced in law by popular vote.  She believes that violates the "political process doctrine," which by extension from her opinion forever keeps racial preferences.  

However, the main issue resolved by the majority is that the Michigan law does not inflict injury on those previously preferred (4).  The key question goes back to Hunter v. Erickson, Mayor of Akron, et al. in 1969.  Courts must use a different approach when looking at political decisions that are nonneatural or having a racial element.  The question is whether the Michigan law is nonneutral.  I believe that no racial preferences is neutral and that secondary effects of that change do not constitute segregation or legal racism.

As precedent, Hunter barely applies to the Schuette case.   Sotomayor places too much emphasis on this precedent.  In Hunter, the City Council of Akron passed laws to desegregate housing.  They were elected officials who passed through the political process and were seeking relief for minorities adversely affected by discrimination (Kennedy 7).   However, voters passed an amendment to overturn the ordinance that would desegregate, which then altered the process so that similar laws could not be passed again.  This manipulation of the process had discriminatory intent and was declared unconstitutional because it changed politics.  

The Hunter case overturned the voters opinion NOT because voters could never change the law in racial matters, but because the supporters of the amendment had created a law with the specific intent of targeting minorities.  Elected officials had acknowledged the unfair and discriminatory practices of landlords and acted.  By overturning that action to perpetuate inequality, the amendment was unconstitutional because it violated equal protection.   Another way of summarizing it is that removing the authority to address a racial problem has practical effects.  That may lead to a special burden on a minority group, which means the public can't take away the authority to address a racial problem from existing decisions.  It also means that advocates must seek relief for a denied service.  The most abstract implication is that demonstrated injury as a result of a change policy because of state encouragement or participation means that a racial problem could be made worse (Kennedy 7).

Seattle School District

Another key precedent to this case was Washington v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 458 U. S. 457. 
Then, it was decided that one level of government cannot take away authority from another part of government to resist desegregation IF the desegregation policy is still deemed necessary to achieve equal justice and integration (4).  The NAACP sued a school board in Seattle, Washington.  Seattle responded with the court-mandated "Seattle Plan," which used busing and mandatory reassignments to reduce racial imbalance (Kennedy, 9).  A state initiative seeking to overturn the Seattle Plan was determined to be unconstitutional.  Busing students to achieve racial balance was a valid remedy (Ken 10.).  Passing a law to overturn a legitimate remedy is unconstitutional.  Therefore, even a democratic initiative can be unconstitutional if it violates a court specified remedy.

As a precedent, Seattle seems to favor Sotomayor's line of reasoning as a democratic initiative was struck down because of the burden it placed on minorities that had successfully sought relief.  However, Sotomayor misreads Seattle as much as she accuses the majority of doing the same.  Unlike Seattle and in Shuette, remedial action in college admissions policies required "a showing of de jure segregation," meaning specific actions that Sotomayor calls  "invidious" and a "reallocation of power whose practical effect was condemned in Hunter" (Sotomayor 14).  

Kennedy rejects this broad reading of Seattle because there is no principled limit, no principle requirement for the court to determine the interests served by political policies of  a specific racial group according to Seattle (Kennedy 11).  Using the broad interpretation would allow "the creation of incentives for those who support or oppose certain policies to cast the debate in terms of racial advantage or disadvantage.  He believes this furthers "racial antagonisms and conflict (Ibid).  Seattle could be used expansively to gain benefit or even that certain interest groups could demand an equal protection ruling where decisions could be kept from voter review or participation simply of the possibility that a decision could be made on race" (Kennedy 13).  In the end, Kennedy decides that voters must be given the power to determine IF race-based preferences will be adopted and the court may "not dis-empowers the voters from choosing which path to follow" (Ibid).  Maybe they will vote for race-based preferences.  But, the court can't overturn that unless a violation exists.  

Kennedy also strikes at Sotomayor's assertion that the voter's decision should be overturned.  He states that Hunter and Seattle are not valid precedents, therefore rejecting Sotomayor's claim that the majority violates stare decisis (Kennedy 10).  He rejects the precedent that in this case the government can be instructed not to follow a course that defines racial categories and then one that grants special consideration to some races and not others (Kennedy 18).  Voters thought such a categorization and preference system was unwise. 

 

The Hunter-Seattle cases "direct courts to determine whether the challenged act "places effective decisionmaking authority over the racial issue at a different level of government"" (5).  Kennedy also exposes a contradiction in how courts have made decisions because states get almost limitless sovereignty as to how their states are structured.  Individuals still have the ability to participate in meaningful political processes regardless of race.  In fact, Kennedy argues that this idea doesn't even apply because voters were given the ability to decide and opponents of the law had the ability to engage in meaningful political engagement to stop it.  The Court can't invalidate 15 years of state public debate on this issue, nor can they pick and choose which policy interests are at stake with regard to the constitutionality of laws forbidding racial preference (Kenn. 15).  They failed, and it is against precedent to take away a mandate just because that outcome was not what the opponents wanted.  Therefore, Seattle and Hunter do not apply (6).  According to Kennedy, no precedent exists that limits racially disproportionate impacts (5).

This opinion is contrary to Sotomayor's characterization of the majority opinion that there was a transfer of discrimination across populations simply because a majority of the population changed its mind.  If that range has a racial component, then the court must scrutinize that decision.  The question remains if any state can address a racial problem by creating laws to remedy discrimination and create a law that helps one race.  If the state is given the power to remedy a situation, can the state EVER reverse its view of the state of race amongst the people it represents? 

To contradict Sotomayor, Kennedy wrote that those changes involved moving the ability to make a decision around the levels of government so that a racial preference could be established (for whites, against minorities).  In Schuette, unelected officials used race in admissions as one factor.  The Michigan law reversed the ability of these officials to use race.  The electorate is not too sensitive to handle the debate of complex issues like racial preference in the admissions process (Kennedy 16).  Furthermore, he argues that you can't simply take an issue out of the hands of voters just because you don't trust their result.  That, he argues, goes against the country's democratic principles. 

"Race-Neutral Laws"

Race-neutral laws CAN be created in states if they do not actively create discriminatory practices.  Kennedy wrote that one BROAD interpretation of equal-protection, like that found in Justice Sotoymayor's dissent, is unhelpful and can actually lead to more racial problems.  Some laws can have language that appears neutral, but when put into action, it can have adverse racial effects.  He and past courts categorically rejected that precedent because laws must show discrimination or the intention of it (5).  In Schuette v. BAMN, opponents of the law were unable to prove that voters intended to discriminate against minorities by altering the Regents board process and rules so race was no longer considered a factor in college admissions.  Basically, one cannot claim that a law violates equal protection only to remove equal protection from others.  

While the reasoning of the majority in the case may not be perfect, the decision was also NOT a reversion to the principle of "separate but equal" or the legal segregation as found in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson.  That leap of rhetoric is anachronistic as it assumes the same level of racism of institutions still exists comparable to over a hundred years ago in areas predominately in the South.   It does a disservice to those who might be convinced that there are factors which disproportionally affect minorities and keep them from attending college at a number consistent with whites.   This slippery slope fallacy has found its way to Justice Sonya Sotomayor's dissent.  She assumes an outcome, a return to segregation, from the propositions provided and automatically suspects race to be a factor in changes to the admissions policy.  She also implies  that any equalization of minority and majority rights in the political process is a deceptive practice on the part of the majority.  But, I believe she is mistaken.

Justice Kennedy and the majority more correctly assess the historical precedent set.  If judges can invalidate any law relating to race, even one that removes a race preference policy, then no democratic decision can be made concerning race at all.  In 2014, Michigan is not a region targeted for the kind of remedial efforts to break segregation in the South in the 1950s.  States with a history of actively integrating students should be able to make judgements about their laws especially if there is no blatant discrimination that results.  

Whether or not minorities will be affected in college is not the issue.  What is important is the ability of voters to engage in democracy even if their decisions are not universally accepted.  We engage in political debate not for some purposeless talk, but to find solutions to problems in a more orderly way than mudslinging or outright violence.  "American democracy" works best when we thoughtfully consider the implications of words, our abstractions, and recognize that even when discussing complex issues like race, where real injustices have occurred and still occur, we must work together to avoid bitter terminology and the oversimplification of the other side.  So please avoid comparing
Schuette vs. BAMN to Jim Crow or slavery.

Source:

 Schuette vs. BAMN.  572 U. S. (2014)

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-682_j4ek.pdf

"Sequester" Is an Abstraction!

Pieces of paper with words written on them are concrete realities, people acting because of what's written on the paper, like a law, means they're following abstractions.  Therefore, the Sequester law is an abstraction and Obama's speech was inaccurate.

  " This is not an abstraction -- people will lose their jobs.  The unemployment rate might tick up again...... And this is not an abstraction.  There are people whose livelihoods are at stake.  There are communities that are going to be impacted in a negative way.  And I know that sometimes all this squabbling in Washington seems very abstract, and in the abstract, people like the idea, there must be some spending we can cut, there must be some waste out there.  There absolutely is.  But this isn’t the right way to do it." "President Obama Speaks on the Sequester." 2/19/13

It has never been my purpose to be reactive to opinion writers or back and forth politics, but, David Firestone writes in the New York Times about a subject very near to my bloggish heart, namely abstractions and what President Obama said about them.  Firestone agrees with Obama's comments that recent "forced budget cuts" or sequestration coming on March 1, 2013 cannot be abstractions because "sequestration" has consequences for real people everywhere.   Obama also said that "Washington squabbles" over nice-sounding abstractions like "spending cuts" because it foolishly and recklessly thinks waste must be out there. But, the sequestration law itself is a piece of paper with writing on it that tells live human beings things they SHOULD do.  Sequestration isn't real because a law can't stand up and tell you you're fired.  It's the people who believe they're the government who've got to make the determination as to who to fire, then take ACTION, and "fire" other people.

First, I disagree with Obama's "Washington squabbles" abstraction, because rather than THE PLACE, Washington DC, thinking and arguing about budgeting, of course with Obama thinking he's far away from the BLAME, the human beings employed by the "American public" are debating over how to manage the resources we send them.  That includes Obama as well.  So, add another abstraction to his speech about everyone else messing around using abstractions when they should be thinking "smartly" like him.  Really, they're just thinking differently.

Second, Obama then declares himself "absolutely supporting" something he just declared was a terrible abstraction that leads to "communities being impacted in a negative way," namely that "there absolutely is" waste out there.  Add another abstraction to his speech.  So, using his logic, abstractions lead to job losses because of believing in forced budget cuts, aka sequestration, but Obama believes that there absolutely are budget cuts that should be enacted.  Therefore, we should believe in abstractions that he won't acknowledge as being abstractions (I don't believe we can avoid abstraction anyways).  However, is his absolute support for finding budget cuts the way or not the way? Logically, what is his approach from this speech and why is his understanding of the sequester abstraction better than the alternatives?  Is his form of rhetoric effective argumentation?

Third, this form of disagreement about who is thinking realistically or not has effects for the PUBLIC.  Obama has separated his opponents as "thinking in the clouds," while he remains firmly on the ground thinking about what is "going on in the clouds."  How can this abstractive approach lead to a realistic agreement on some pretty complex budgeting issues, if he's supposed to come to agree with those who'd hurt communities and affect people's livelihood?  If open budget cutters (not Obama) are that abstractly "bad," would his realistic outreach work anyways, and should he really want to work with those "promoting disaster"?  Should a reasonably thoughtful public buy such abstractions with such little logic or rationality to connect them just because he says so or because the level of cuts seem so ominous and large?  While people's ACTIONS after March 1st will certainly affect "government workers" and the complex workings of the "American economy," I am skeptical of figures who try to remain blameless and use confusing rhetoric to gain public support for life-changing government action. 

Fourth, Obama also discusses the "unemployment" abstraction.  "Unemployment" is a statistic, an imperfect counting of people across the country "who claim" they have no job for a short period of time (See its definition below).  How more abstract can you get than a complex number that merely explains what people offer up to the federal government and its agencies concerning whether or not they BELIEVE they are working or not?  FEELING unemployed is terrible and the concept means to me a lot of awful things.  For example, there are the tangible effects of the abstraction like having no money to pay for food to feed your family or other emotional intangibles like depression or despair that can result.  But, the term unemployment is abstract because it includes both the tangible and intangible effects of believing you're out of a job.

Typing on keyboards is real action, believing you're a receptionist is abstract because it's in your head.  There's nothing stamped in your DNA that says "receptionist."  Likewise, combining all job abstractions together and calling it "employment rate" is even further abstract as is its supposed converse: "unemployment."  As terrible as the unemployment abstraction is, it STILL is an abstraction because human beings believe it to mean a lack of work, while they still have the physical ability for action.  And besides if "unemployment" is only "going to tick up," why are the pesky Republicans and their budget cutting abstractions such a threat to the country's workers?

"Iran Won't Invade Because of Only 90% funding of "American Power" AND 6% More American Preschoolers Won't Become Street Urchins on March 2"

Or, if it's REALLY that bad, the President and Congress better start agreeing!

 

My blog has consistently contradicted the view that some people possess "realism" while others deal in the abstract.  These are human-made dichotomies reducing reality to ideas and then using those ideas to dehumanize those who disagree and supposedly ONLY think in the abstract.  The form of reductionism used by Obama and the false causality from such reductionism diminishes options to solve problems in a better, less conflicting way.

Abstractions are not necessarily a problem of "party belief," rather they are tools that humans use to explain complex ideas.  It happens that there are often harmful and violent effects of abstractive thinking.  According to reporters and most members of both parties,  some degree of "Armageddon" will occur if there are 7-10% cuts of federal budgets of discretionary spending from LAST year's levels.  Untouchable, "Locked box items" like Social Security and public trusts are safe from losing public resources because of the "sequester."  But, in the word games of abstractive politics, it is hard to reach agreement with the other side when you're labeled as "anti-US military" just because you pushed for 9.4 to 10% cuts of an approximately $613.9 billion total budget to counter cuts to your more favorite social programs.  (See See OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act and the "National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2013" 8).  Republicans are using this label quite ineffectively against Democrats because the defense cuts remain as 11:50 on 2/27/13.

Forget that the "defense" abstraction is one of the largest expenditures of taxpayer money, but it must be we need every dollar and more for every sort of duplicate high-tech aircraft that can be provided with those 10% more funds?  If we don't spend it, well, Iran, Korea, and Afghanistan will go up in flames because we spend a tenth less?  And the really important expenditures, like soldier pay and benefits will be eliminated too with the 10% cut?  I'll end the sarcasm because these beliefs are serious.

I want wounded veterans to receive the best healthcare we can afford for our country.  So, if "Republican public employees" share my abstractive belief about providing the best for our soldiers using public money and are really concerned that personnel and the best weapons systems are effective and operable to counter "global threats," they had better do what's necessary to work with Obama and Democrats if he is really going to slash veterans benefits and destroy "America's defense" with his discretionary cutting abilities as "Chief Executive."  Is he really THAT serious a threat to the country's security?  Let's have the Republicans be less guided by abstractive warfare and more focused on preventing further heartache for those serving "our country."  If not, we'll suffer "a tenth more internationally" regardless of how much Republicans have complained about it.

Likewise, many Democrats argue that Republicans want to throw 70,000 kids out of pre-school into the street gutters because the Department of Education's 30 plus offices and programs face a 7.6-8% cut. (See OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act).  Forget that Obama is in charge of distributing the other 92% of funds of $69.8 billion in 30 education offices and programs, a large amount of money that itself is a 2.5% increase in money from 2012 because of inflation.  Or, that 70,000 refers only to a small part of 43% of children who have CENTER-BASED childcare before age 4, meaning they can be in any non-home center and not Head Start or other federally funded programs. And of the rest of the country's under 5-year-olds not in centers, some 57% of preschool age kids who won't be potentially "victimized" at all by these cuts because they are taken care of by parents, relatives, nonrelatives.  And using the administration's 70,000 figure, if Arne Duncan, Obama's Secretary of Education cuts funding for preschool intentionally to ensure the expulsion of that amount of under 5-year-olds, he is affecting approximately 6% of the total number of under 5-year-olds in the country (70,000/11,000,000) who may or may not have preschools with federal funding available to them (National Child Care Aware Association).

So, we can conclude it will be terrible for a small percentage of the eligible population who I assume desperately need the program for early childhood education and care for a host of reasons I can only deduce from Obama's abstractions.  I want this program to remain at current funding levels to help poor working class parents.  I also want as much of the education funding to remain as possible.  But like with the "Republicans," if we're really going to prevent more uneducated 3-5 year olds from roaming our streets,  like apparently the approximately 53% of 11,000,000 American preschoolers already do, Democrats better come to some negotiating position apart from their current, failed abstractions if they want to preserve the unprotected from becoming urchin buskers.

Logical Fallacies in the Sequestration Blame Rhetoric: Ad populums, Ad hominems, and Non-Sequiturs

"Cancer researchers are American government, and if Republicans don’t think their work should be supported by taxpayers, they are free to make their case publicly. But they won’t do that, because the various government functions facing cuts are both necessary and popular. Instead they talk in dire but abstract terms about the debt threat, pretending there is no need to ever raise taxes, and hoping that voters won’t remember what their dollars actually pay for."   

"So it’s ridiculous for Republicans to claim the sequester is really Mr. Obama’s idea, as if a kidnapper’s relatives deserve blame for paying the ransom"

"The Sequester Is Not An Abstraction" David Firestone, The New York Times

David Firestone mimics the President's same vein of logical fallacy and dehumanizing reduction to abstraction.  He really does the people who style themselves as the "media" a great disservice by writing so fallaciously that Republicans, all "driven crazy by Obama," should "feel free to defend" his  straw man he has set up for them to the American voter.  Namely, he BELIEVES Republicans do not think cancer researchers are part of the government and that Republicans purposefully try to deceive the American public with their "love of cutting spending" from the shadows.  In the same non-sequitur, he uses the ad populum fallacy to complement his strawman because Republicans must seek POPULAR approval over the merits of HIS characterization of their beliefs.  Furthermore, Obama is the "patient relative of a public held hostage" by Republican "kidnappers" who really should be blamed in the first place, as if Obama had nothing to do with the sequestration debate in the first place.  Most reasonable members acknowledge Obama's prime role in this debate, even if he's not fully to blame.

But let's assume that Firestone is correct that Obama was barely involved in the bad and consistently has done only good....oh and Bob Woodward is completely wrong.  Firestone offers no proof that Republicans do not believe cancer researchers get government funding, nor does he offer what I'm assuming is a figure corresponding to the catastrophic amount of cancer research funding that is to be cut, or that calling yourself "Republican" means you support cutting such research, which by extending his argument, I assume means that when Republicans cut costs that must mean they'll increase the number of cancer victims.  So, what is the evidence that the Republicans are a cowardly, ignorant shadow people who like cutting things they know nothing about?  Firestone's scant evidence is hardly enough.  Firestone offers Speaker Jim Boehner's comments that reflect blame back to Obama as evidence.  But, they are just part of the abstract blame game and not evidence of Republicans as hostage-takers.  And, how is this argument any less abstractive than "cutting spending" anyways?

I may not want the cuts involved with the sequester abstraction, but I also do not have evidence to support the arguments that Republicans are kidnappers who forced the sequester abstraction on America's victimized people.  Nor do I believe that on March 2 more people will die of cancer or that more accident victims will die because of the sequestration budget action effect on first responders.

Can we move to a more logical debate "America" since we're all using abstractions anyways?  The real shadows we can all crawl out of are the places where our eyes are facing the sun  unobstructed by other physical objects.

(Not extending this as a metaphor to describe immoral, sneaky people, but as a literal definition of shadows)

Definitions Useful for This Post

 

Abstraction= a lack of concreteness or the physical (beliefs or ideas)

artifact: a physical object (for example writing on paper like Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012)

abstract consequences:  humans action based on abstraction.

Non-sequitors: "a conclusion that does not follow from its premises." (Dictionary.com)

Ad Populum: "fallacy of attempting to win popular assent to a conclusion by arousing the feeling and enthusiasms of the multitude" (http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/popular.html)

Ad Hominem: "fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument."  (http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html)

"Sequestration": automatic spending cut ("Glossary of Political Terms")

Intent:  “Intent” expresses mental action at its most advanced point, or as it actually accompanies an outward, [physically with ones' body] act which has been determined to be of ones' will. (http://thelawdictionary.org/intent/


"Unemployed": "Those who were not employed, were available for work, and had tried to find employment during the previous 4 weeks.  It also includes those waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off" (Mankiw 614).

Sources:

Blake, Aaron. "Who is responsible for the sequester?" Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/02/05/who-is-responsible-for-the-sequester/

"Child Care Aware of America:  State Facts 2012." Child Care Aware of America.

 http://www.naccrra.org/sites/default/files/default_site_pages/2012/full2012cca_state_factsheetbook.pdf

"Department of Education: Funding Highlights FY2013"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/education.pdf

"Fast Facts: Childcare." National Center for Education Statistics
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=4 

Firestone, David.  "The Sequester is Not an Abstraction."  The New York Times.  http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/the-sequester-is-not-an-abstraction/

"Introduction to Logic." http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html

Johnson, Paul.  "A Glossary of Political Terms: Sequestration."  http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/sequestration. 

Linden, Michael.  "The Way Out of the Sequester Is Cutting Tax Expenditures"  The Daily Beast.  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/27/the-way-out-of-the-sequester-is-cutting-tax-expenditures.html#sthash.MCqyCg3E.dpufhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/27/the-way-out-of-the-sequester-is-cutting-tax-expenditures.html

 Mankiw, N. Gregory.  Principles of Economics 5th Edition.  Harvard UNiversity: Mason, Ohio, 2009.

"National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2013." Office of the Secretary of Defense.http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2013/FY13_Green_Book.pdf

 "OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/stareport.pdf

"President Obama Speaks on the Sequester." The White House.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/02/19/president-obama-speaks-sequester#transcript

"The Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012"
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr5872enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr5872enr.pdf

Weisman, Johnathan and Parker, Ashley. "Acceptance of Defense Cuts Signals Shift in G.O.P. Focus."  The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/us/politics/democrats-and-republicans-miscalculate-on-automatic-cuts.html?_r=2&

Woodward, Bob.  "Obama Repeatedly Lied About Responsibility for Budget Sequester Cuts." http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-woodward-obamas-sequester-deal-changer/2013/02/22/c0b65b5e-7ce1-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html

Obediance and International Laws of Self-Defense

Can you really work for the world?  

Individuals CAN Think So, but I'm Not Ready to Give My Consent to their Authority.

Let me separate a few abstractions first before I discuss the problems of “global governance” in 2012. First, the pace of change toward some ideal global government violates existing (abstract) principles of representative government, citizenship, and the legitimacy of authority based on written constitutions.  Second, in 2012, the United Nations (UN) fails to meet my standards of an authority I should obey first before the US government.  Third, international laws of "self-defense," particularly those found in the UN Charter, are one area where disunity and mass abstraction prevent global governance. 

While some people merely dream of a united world, I believe we should do realistic things with our limited time on earth to help who we can with what limited things we have.  I believe that people have individual responsibilities to obey the most moral institutions human beings can manage during that time.  In the geographic area comprising the US, the US government is the better, and more moral institution when compared to the United Nations or some undefined global government that would hypothetically impose itself over everywhere.  The UN is most useful as a tool, and a very good one sometimes, but a tool of imperfect but more "responsible nations," like the US.  This group  is given the power to determine what constitutes a "self-defense" action.  It is useful to release pressure and to avoid conflict in a world where that might not always be possible.  While the ideas like "unity of all workers" or "ending imperialism" seem attractive and easy, they are just abstractions and dangerous if used to empower the wrong people.  And too many of those abstractions float around the halls of the UN and that probably explains why the "power of the international community" can be so limited at times.

Let me explain using common terms of political discourse.  They are not used to encompass all global political reality, an impossibility anyways, but a way to explain relationships between real people as they act as "governments."

Some terms I'll use:

Authority: an ability to command one or more person.

Consent: agreement to follow another person’s order or law.

Obedience: continued observance of the law.

Legitimacy: the right to demand obedience.

duty to obey: obligation to follow a law.  (See Christiano)

As with any collective group of people organized by their beliefs, UN employees are people who believe that they work for all nations.  Any consent to UN authority comes from "member-states" who signed the charter or were extended some form of membership (observer status of say the Palestinians).  Both membership options legitimize the UN in a way defined by the employees of each nations-state.  Thus, nations consent to the UN voluntarily, by the past/present acts of national employees.  Based on their treaty with the UN, countries only have the duty to obey in certain situations.  And much of the interpretation of what constitutes a duty to the UN is decided in the Security Council by the five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The employees of the member-states then comprise the "force" against a violating subject state again as determined by individual perceptions of international law.  But, consent of a nation for the UN can be withdrawn if the "international collective's" resolution violates the subject states' “authority” over their people.  Perhaps, the subject state believes that consent of their people is more important than the viewpoint of an international body (occasionally the US?).  Or, perhaps they view domination of their own nationals as more important (nearly always North Korea).  Nations like the US value the idea that representatives seek public consent through voting.  There are other more “authoritarian” models, like North Korea, who value ideology above all else.

In order to attempt “world government,” many changes need to occur.  First, enough people on the globe need to believe that global employees possess authority and thus command the duty to obey.  Ideally, these global employees would also believe in my variant of the democracy abstraction and would perceive their own actions as being legitimate because “global citizens” determined they should be given global titles as per a written constitution.

Global Representational Government AND Nation States NOT Possible

“Leaping Forward to Globalism?”  

How could employees of the globe command the duty to obey as part of a world government?  And what if one “country’s” citizens do not consent because they do not believe the ruling human beings represent the globe, thus are not legitimate, and thus they have no duty to obey them?  Essentially, for “world government” to be a practical reality, no “national” abstraction, like the United States of America, can exist in the minds of people and the global employees must be able to command the duty to obey from enough people to continue their employment.

Is mankind really capable of devising a representational system that accounts for all of the diverse abstractions that people believe in?  Can we really have widespread belief in global governance without minds purged of national abstractions?  So, national symbols like George Washington to “Americans,” would have to be re-imagined and twisted as part of a history of “progress” toward the belief in globalism.  Attempting to force global abstractions on minds already determined to be national in character will necessarily lead to dissonance and resistance.  Immediate change of ideas hasn't really worked on a mass scale without lots of people dying.  People cannot shed their experience, their core make-up and wiring of their brains quickly.  And forcing global abstractions on people before their brains change and understanding develops removes legitimacy and the duty to obey from the group of people.   Rather than the individual coming to understand the necessity of something like “global government” through “rational” and “irrational” moments in reality, a foreign abstraction is forced upon them. 

There is no guarantee that such "globalism," "progress," or "perfection" will ever exist either.  Irresponsible authorities exist, more responsible ones like the US may not exist, and everything might be destroyed if individuals aren't aware of the complexities as opposed to misleading comfort of words.  And people on this planet are still creating new government abstractions.  See the development of “nations” like Iraq or South Sudan if you want more proof that nations atomize just as much as they consolidate toward one big global nation.  And since World War I especially, international institutions have played their role in that procreative process using the belief in "self-determination" (to be discussed another time) to rationalize new geographic collections of people.   The application of "self-determination" can be quite a destructive process for nations and lead to violence, genocide, and tragedy.

Yet, people resist consent to an authority if they cannot understand the abstraction.  And they need not obey or throw away the abstractions that are more real to them like US flags and eagles to US citizens.  Thus, because a person believes they’re “Iraqi” and to whatever incalculable degree they believe in patriotic Iraqi symbols, their minds are blocked in understanding global abstractions.  They cannot, after however many years of experiencing life as an Iraqi, comprehend “global abstractions” in a way that gives the it more reality than the "Iraqiness."  As an “Iraqi” believer, they could say they’re “good global citizens" but they’d be interpreting “good global citizenship" through their individual lens of “Iraqi abstractions” and their other indefinable beliefs and irreversible history of action as individuals and a people.

UN Charter: Article 51

 

The main article of the UN related to "self-defense" is not universally applied in complete moral way. It is a written law, words on paper that people use to make decisions for billions of people across the planet.  It states "Nothing shall impair" individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs until the Security Council acts to maintain peace/security" (UN Charter).  This article is subjective to nation states that are members.  Then, those "attacked" define their own self-defense and then what action they choose to take to respond.  The UN shall not impair or limit the response until the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decides to do something about it.

In essence this article starts a clock the moment the nation-state is "attacked."  The clock is for Security Council action.  Meanwhile, the victim state "must report to" this body, defend itself however, and wait (Gray 90).  Then, action against the victim is subjective to the Security Council member states which are given the power to maintain "peace/security."  Therefore, conflicts had and have endured because of the subjectivity of the application of "self-defense" and the subjectivity of "peace/security."  One nation's relative peace might be another nation's armed conflict.  In addition, "armed attack" does not limit "attacking people" to the category of the "nation-state" abstraction, so those people could be labeled "guerrillas, terrorists, etc."  Is the SC always the most responsible body where armed conflict is concerned?  No, because its constituent members are not perfect, and other than international politics, members use both rationality and emotion with mixed results.

For example in 2002, Saddam Hussein rejected the collective orders of most nations when it came to disclosure about his weapons programs (See Press Release SC/7564).  He was found in material breach of Resolution 1441 and that meant little until the US used UN resolution violations (selectively) as a pretext for the 2003 invasion (See The Long Road to War).  The US felt that solutions to real problems weren't to be found by continuing measures within the UN.   Thus, the UN itself could do nothing other than legitimize or not those nations that would act and force Iraq to comply.  The UN abstraction did nothing, nationals employed by other peoples’ consent did.

UNSC is an Imperfect Political Institution

In addition, voting against a UNSC resolution, does not confer absolute possession of a moral authority.  For example, throughout the 1980s, the US/UK voted against resolutions condemning the "Apartheid" regime of South Africa (Gray 102).  The nation invaded its neighbors, Angola and Botswana, to respond in "self-defense" to cross border guerrilla raids. It was to some degree motivated by the abstractions of "anti-communism" and "racism."  US/UK leaders wanted a negotiated settlement more in line with their collective abstractions, which meant they did not want to see a "communist" South Africa if the region spiraled further out of control.  In this case, it seemed obvious that in an ideal world, everyone would collectively oppose Apartheid and the laws and practice would be shamed out of existence.  Instead, national leaders received the real world situation as their interests determined; convince racist South African white leaders to change their mind about their abstractions, while keeping a government opposed to the communist abstraction intact.  In the end, the Apartheid regime fell in a more complex way than simple global resolutions or communist victories.  In fact, it was part an individual mind change on the part of President F.W. De Klerk and the persistence and courage of Nelson Mandela and his supporters.

 Representational Consent Developed Through Complexity

Power of representative institutions, rather authority, developed in Western Europe and was brought by settlers to North America as complex ideas with a long history.  This power came about by receiving "consent" to finance government employees.  For example in 1275, England's Parliament gained revenue-producing rights by law and because of the king's need.  The King needed more tax money to pay more employees to fight his war, but found his ability to garner that money stymied by local communities and barons.  Thus, political mechanisms (laws) were needed to gain that consent from lords and the population, who were bound by abstraction to the lord and loyalty oaths subject to individual behavior (See Morgan 148).  In fact, kings themselves had to bargain with all levels of society (communities, nobles) to get people to give up their stuff to do kingdom or spiritually-related things.  And to simplify American history, our Revolution was against increased "government" power.  It was directed from British American citizens at the very much changed authority of King George III and a tax-empowered Parliament.  Those citizens wanted the imperial government to have less power to take away their stuff without their consent.

And as the US developed as a "nation," its people increased the power of voters to determine laws and increased the consent for its employees to take more stuff away.  Can we say that other countries that we're in a diplomatic relationship with have the same level of consent required by citizens in the US?  In the US, at least most of our employees received public consent to take more away.  Can we say the same level of consent exists within such a mixed institution as the UN?  Not really.  Are we ready for globalism with Communist China, a "nation" whose leaders order the bulldozing of whole communities because central planners believe they possess "scientific socialism?" (See Sui-Lee Wee)  I'd prefer America's imperfect "eminent domain" over Chinese "central planning"!  How can we reconcile two seemingly different abstractions, "Americanism" vs. "Chinese communism," based on two different people's understanding of the world around them?  China possesses the authority to claim a UN Security Council seat, a powerful position that allows it to veto decisions, maybe ones I think are good ones, presented by the US or the UK.

Yet, is the UNSC the best way to command US citizens, to ensure they're obedient to some "international community" if Putin's Russia and China are 2/5's of its decision-making?  And if globalism is the unity of "nations," their peoples, and their "beliefs" into one abstract system, do "Americans" really want to consent to some unknown, formless unity instead of their more immediate reality of American "self-government" and "self-determination?"

Why do we bother then?  

Because the UN is the best international system of abstraction that we can manage with what we have right now.  A "powerful" nation like the US could take action alone, but it might have to suffer the violent consequences of a decision to go to war.  And no, the Iraq Conflict of 2003 is not an example of one "nation" fighting alone with no other "nation" supporting it in a conflict.  I'll deal with authority, legitimacy, and Iraq in later posts.  Instead of loneliness, the US makes decisions in a complex world and I find those vastly more appealing than those of Russia or China.

The state of "globalism" is such that "national governments" are subject to possible coercion by the imperfect (but needed) UN system.  In 2012, humanity's abstractions are so complicated and geographically diverse that an incredible level of coercion, even force, would be required to make people believe in global unity over national integrity.  However, it is still easier for a poor farmer in Bangladesh to abstractify their terrible lives into "American economic imperialism," brought courtesy of communist believers, while blaming words for life's hardships.  But, humans are put into awful, inescapable, and/or involuntary situations.  Abstractions help us cope and make us think we understand something as a reduction.  What I demand is skepticism of remedy.  Because the world is as complex as it is, simple remedies are suspect.  Instead, when we act as individuals, we must be aware of the damage our individual action may have on everyone else, regardless of belief.   Maybe with a little more individual awareness, we'll have a little less mass chaos and a little more help for individual man.

Sources:

Christiano, Tom, "Authority", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/authority/>.

Gray, Christine.  International Law and the Use of Force.  Oxford University Press, NY: 2000.

Morgan, Kenneth. Oxford History of Britain.  Oxford University Press, NY: 1984.

"The Long Road to War" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/longroad/etc/cron.html#5

"Press Release SC/7564," United Nations. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/SC7564.doc.htm

"United Nations Charter: Article 51" from The United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter7.shtml

Sui-Lee Wee,  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/22/us-china-threegorges-idUSBRE87L0ZW20120822Thousands Being Moved from China's Three Gorges Dam- Again