PERRYGRAPHS

POLITICS:  A COMMON SENSE PARTY

(I abhor party platforms! Each issue should be examined carefully with recommendations from experts. At that point lawmakers should propose, debate, and decide each issue by itself, unless it connects vitally with a larger issue. In other words, a Democrat should be able to oppose abortion, and a Republican can on occasion vote to raise taxes. There should be no “whip” pressuring party members to fall in line, but each should vote their own conscience.)

1.     THE ROLE OF THE CONSTITUTION:

My training lies, among other places, in Biblical scholarship. The rule is first, discover what it meant; then discover what it means. How did the first readers and those who wrote intend their meanings? One example, Paul instructs women not to cut their hair. Was that meant as an eternal principal, as some Pentecostal groups interpret it, still refusing to cut ladies’ hair? In that culture, one mark of a prostitute was short hair, which was a form of advertising. So one possible modern application might be “don’t dress like a prostitute,” or just dress modestly. Most denominations had taken this approach in the first quarter of the 20^th century.

Turning to the US Constitution, it becomes vital to understand how and why the founders made the choices they did. The problems they dealt with are at least analogous when not identical to those we now face. They came from 13 colonies, very different colonies in geography, history, ethnicity, and activity. All were English colonies, but with saltings here and there of Dutch, French, Spanish, and a great many slaves. The constitution had to receive approval by a 2/3 vote of 13 legislatures to complete the unifying of one nation. Among other things that last fact resulted in the 10^th Amendment stating that those powers not granted to the federal government remained in the province of the state. Though that provision hasn’t been spoken about nearly so much as the first and second amendments, it may well be the most abused of all. Congressmen do bring it up when they are having difficulty defeating a bill, seemingly just to add one more argument against it. There are indeed many pieces of legislation that could easily be relegated to the states, and many more that could go either way.

An editorial in today’s paper (10/11/16) is a diatribe against one law professor who favors ignoring the Constitution as from a bunch of 18^th century white men. The latter part is true. In fact, those 18^th century white men were considering primarily other 18^th century white men who also owned property. Remember that neither blacks nor women were allowed to vote. Many forget that initially only white property owners could vote. The reasoning was that they were the only ones who primarily paid taxes, so why should others take their money? But note that 100 years later black men could vote, along with white men who did not own property. In the next 40-50 years women also gained the ballot.

But to insist that situation invalidates the document misses the mark. Note that those faults WERE corrected by a process those white men built into the Constitution itself. Less than 30 amendments over 233 years, under 20 if you drop the first 10 that are virtually part of the body itself, testifies to its relevance.

Look at some of the compromises they made. In passing, note they DID compromise, and it was not a dirty word. They built in checks and balances to require compromise for government to function. Where government has bogged down, it almost always come from refusal to work out a mutual agreement, each side adjusting until both find something they can live with. One fundamental compromise was the bicameral legislature. The smaller states were afraid the more populous states would control the legislation and leave them begging. So they created the House of Representatives and required all financial bills to begin there. That kept small states from overtaxing the larger ones to their benefit. They also created a Senate with equal representation – 2 Senators – from every state regardless of area or population. That prevents the big states from running roughshod over the smaller ones. The use of electors to cast the actual ballots for President came from poor travel and slow communication. Should they arrive without a majority, they were free to work out a deal to elect a President with general support. The latter could certainly be modified today with instant communication and easy travel. I’d like to see a national law, perhaps an amendment, requiring ALL states to send electors directly proportional to the vote. Today some states have a winner take all, so a close election there would send, say, 10 electors to vote, rather than 6 and 4 that reflect the vote.

So I think I have shown that I like staying as close as possible to the original constitution, but still adjusting to those things influenced by changes in technology, but not so much in changes of society. One thing I don’t know how to do is to make the Supreme and Appellate Courts apolitical. I would like to see Justices appointed with no commitment to preserving only the original meaning OR to modernizing any suspected Founders’ meaning. The tilt should be conservative, because after all it’s a constitution and supposed to be an infrastructure. But each case should be decided on its own merits, not because the Justice has an agenda.

PERRYGRAPHS

Riffing on Contemporary Ethics

This is turning out very different from where I intended it to go. I envisioned an academic column from my philosophy background discussing ethics – you know, hedonism, utilitarianism, authority, manipulation, even motives. Well some of that is in here, but the piece is much more rambling and personal than I expected. Some preaching sneaked in too. So here are my thoughts, still very much under development.

I have been noticing many new problems arising from changing times and new technology especially. Many of them are being discussed in the intelligent press, but I’m not sure how they interface with traditional ethics. These pieces will be an effort to begin that conversation.

Just this past month, the hacking of the Democratic National Committee came up along with the Clinton campaign organization. These two events remind us immediately of the recent scandal of Hillary’s unauthorized use of a private server as Secretary of State, thus not availing herself of the maximum safety strategies of the US. Look at all the questions these issues raise:

1 – When does hacking become a crime? In the early days of computer development, the geeks developing the technology considered everything fair game. If you could do it, then by all means strut your stuff. But 30 years ago, even 20, none of these events could happen. They were not likely to happen even ten years ago. I remember when Obama became president, he was frustrated that the Secret Service wanted him no longer to use the Blackberry he was accustomed to in order to text.

In the intervening time, everyone stores all sorts of documents on their computers and mobiles. There are even increasing numbers of “cloud” sites that enable one to use the same documents on desktops and mobiles, even sharing them with others.

A.   – There is little disagreement that hacking in order to steal material is wrong, whether social security numbers and other identifiers or documents. “Thou shalt not steal” is virtually axiomatic in every ethical code.

B.   – There is disputed grounds about whether documents, once hacked, should be released. The security clearances of several people did not keep them from releasing to the newspapers all sorts of political and secret documents. Many of those items gave the public a needed and fuller picture of international diplomacy. Much of the material was similar to stories collected in various histories and biographies. But those tales as presented are hearsay and can be discounted. Printing the actual documents however, is another kettle of fish. Yet while the overall result can be counted as salubrious, still these people did violate their oaths of office.

   Note the newspapers also are confronted with an ethical problem. When the New York Times received the stolen emails, they had long discussions prior to deciding to publish. The threat – almost certain – of outlaw websites like Anonymous publishing them seems to have tipped the balance. At least the Times did some selective editing before they published, presumably on the lookout for release of top secret material.

  A May edition of Vanity Fair published an interview with Edward Snowden who leaked so much material to Glenn Greenwald, who in turn furnished it to the NYTimes and a London paper. In the interview Snowden expresses a careful delineation between what should and should not be revealed. Putting people’s lives at risk by publishing their names is wrong. Julius Asange disagrees. Snowden believes in spying and secrecy, but disagrees on what should be secret. (Is this similar to the  discussion re the Clinton emails about what is confidential and top secret?) Wikileaks and Anonymous seems to have not qualms about revealing anything. Snowden says he appreciates the low level people at NSA, but distrusts the top brass. Which raises the question about a private or even a captain questioning a general’s orders. Theoretically a solder can refuse to commit a war crime, but in actual practice…?

*A Basic Issue: What do you do when you strongly object morally to the rules or commands you are expected to obey? Gandhi and King proposed and effectively used a passive resistance technique where to refused to obey and took the consequences. It turned out to be a powerful way to bring change, but only after pain and deaths.

These two are related to the “right to privacy,” which we first heard about in the court affirmation of abortion. I’m an aficionado of cop shows, both in books and tv. For several years now, almost every program or book at some point has authorities turning to security cameras for recorded evidence or to locate someone’s whereabouts.

   Even in small towns, businesses have security cameras, and even households have cameras to record people on the property. What are the ethics of this? It seems ok if I want to put a live camera aimed at my door, so I can see who’s knocking. (Although we’ve gotten by for thousands of years by simply calling out, “Who’s there?”

The trade-off in this area, as it’s developing in some others, is security versus personal control. What right does anyone have to know what store I went to, what I did there, and to whom I talked? Presumably the owner has the right to survey his property. After all, if he were standing there in person, he would see the same thing. But do other parties, like the police or government or hackers also have that right?

The ultimate fear goes back to a tyrannical government controlling its citizens and taking away their freedom. See the novels 1984 and Brave New World.

II. – What about Ad-tracking?

     Yesterday I looked up a book for someone on Amazon. Today on Facebook I saw an ad for that book and another by the same author. This is now normal, if a little spooky at first. FB defends the policy by saying we are going to put up ads anyway so wouldn’t you rather have ads that might interest you? But another way to put the question might be wouldn’t you rather have ads that are more likely to entice you to spend money? Hmmm.

     If you’re not, you should become familiar with computer “cookies.” A cookie is an electronic marker a website places in your computer browser that will identify you the next time you arrive on their site. These can be great. Thus I went on my library account this morning and it recognized me and printed out my card number for me. Likewise Facebook doesn’t require me to sign in, but connect immediately with the correct feed. (I do wish it would let me change the default to “Latest” instead of what their mysterious algorithm thinks is “most important.” On either feed, they are not likely to show a post from a friend who only posts a few times a year. I would argue those are the most important ones I want to see!

    

This is probably too much to read now, so I’ll post and come back later…

PERRYGRAPHS

Baylor's Scandal

Riffing on Sports Ethics

This is turning out very different from where I intended it to go. I envisioned an academic column from my philosophy background discussing ethics – you know, hedonism, utilitarianism, authority, manipulative, even motives. Well some of that is in here, but the piece is much more rambling and personal than I expected. Some preaching sneaked in too. So here are my thoughts, still very much under development.

My fellow alumni and I were recently brought up short by the firing of our much-praised football coach Art Briles. The President was also demoted to Chancellor (he later resigned that position) and Professor because of his involvement in cover-ups of multiple rapes by several football players and others on campus. I immediately thought of Penn State's beloved Joe Paterno, who was also caught in a cover-up that enabled an assistant to continue to molest boys. Then my mind ran back 10-15 years to an even worse case where a basketball player murdered another at Baylor. Then I thought of multiple offenses at LSU in my home state, where it seemed every year, players were violating curfew, getting drunk in bars, and being arrested for assault. Something similar happened to two Alabama players in the off-season in nearby Monroe, LA last month. And rightly or wrongly, I remembered years past when Florida State footballers were in constant trouble with the law while Bobby Bowden was making the Christian tour circuit. Football is a violent sport, and some players won't leave the violence on the field.

With my major in philosophy and continued interest in the subject, several new wrinkles in ethics came to mind. By new wrinkles, I mean current real life problems that you don't find as such in academic ethics. Here are the issues I've considered so far.

Cover-up has risen to be the almost unforgivable sin. Richard Nixon fell because of his cover-up, not because of his authorization of the break-in at the Watergate. No one said (publicly at least) that Paterno or the school could have prevented the earlier molestations by the coach. But they do feel that when the wrongs first came to light, immediate and strong action should have been taken so no one else was hurt. Likewise at Baylor, the problem was the lack of immediate and decisive response to the young women when they first reported the rape. Just last night I found a news article about a very good running back named Chafin who had physically beaten his girl friend on three occasions. She took pictures and eventually reported it. The coaches did nothing until the police arrested him. I'm not sure why they are so slow to respond. After all, the football program regularly suspends participation by athletes for “violation of team rules,” so halting participation after an accusation of rape should be a no-brainer.

Note from the academic ethics point of view, rape and child molestation are assumed to be wrong, sins if you're religious, felonies in any case. Motivation here is the “pleasure” of the perpetrator, a selfish form of hedonism. From the psychological point of view, most abusers were themselves abused. Still, these are college students, trained athletes who cannot succeed without discipline within their sport. They DO have the ability to follow rules – the team rules, practice rules, and the on-field rules that result in penalties if you break them. Shouldn't they be held accountable for rape and violence as quickly and decisively as a referee throws a flag for chop-blocking?

Much more serious is the macho male defense that the victims are not really victims, but invited the attack by their dress or being available. After all, what should a coed expect if she's drunk at a fraternity party after midnight in a mini-skirt and low necked blouse? (At Baylor a frat president drugged a girl at a party, took her outside the building to a quiet place, and raped her.) The correct answer is she should expect to be treated with respect as a human being. Even in our over-sexed society, adult informed consent is expected. Indeed, the on-campus discussion has moved on into how explicit the consent needs to be. A number of people now take the position that the girl must say explicitly that she wants intercourse before the couple proceeds. Others assume that positive participation will suffice. It's a little ridiculous to say one must now pause and get a notarized document before continuing. On the other hand, how does a gal prove she said (and kept saying ) NO?

But there remains, IMHO, some traction in the drunk past midnight accusation, just not limited to women. The most common violation I hear about is drunken football players outside bars at midnight-thirty. During season, this violates curfew, but often gets them arrested on public drunkenness, fighting, or assault. I've known coaches with no toleration for this, and they immediately suspend the player or kick them off the team if the offense is serious enough.

City councils, county supervisors (Police Jury in LA), with police and sheriffs should not tolerate this behavior. They need ways to shut down bars that serve already drunken customers and probably need to back up the closing time an hour or more. Actually they do have ways, but seldom use them. I did not over in Monroe a neighborhood bar has been shut down under protest for a year or so, because they were always too boisterous for what the residents thought should be a quiet neighborhood. No one is up to any good carousing after midnight, or at least 1:00 a.m if they work the late shift.

That said, there is evidence that too many men in college administration still have an almost Islamic attitude toward rape. If a woman is raped, it's her fault. To the contrary, an accusation of rape should be taken seriously at once. If an athlete is accused, he should be suspended immediately until an investigation results in a finding of guilt or innocence. If innocent, of course, he will be re-instated. If guilty, he should be off the team with the information passed on to any other team looking for a reference. Law enforcement should be notified. School and team policy should be clear and automatic. Players should be made aware at the beginning of every season. Colleges must also not rush to judgment. Remember the Lacrosse team falsely accused after a national scandal?

The firing of Briles and Paterno raise another question. In American culture we always seek someone to blame. If something goes wrong, we want heads to roll. But how much can we expect a head coach or athletic director to know about the everyday life on campus and in the town? Apparently, the contemporary answer is “almost everything.” Briles has held out players for whole games or the first quarter for “violating team rules.” That includes even star players. I follow Baylor football very closely and had never heard of two of those accused. (One of them, however, had been in trouble at another college that said they communicated the information in the transfer letter. Baylor athletics denied they knew.) The third was an all-American even casual followers are likely to know. The new one I found last night was a frequent player. I await the publication of the full report to see what Briles knew and when he knew it. [Read the report recently, but it's not explicit at that point. Some of the report was done orally and the information may have come there.]

Colleges in general are reluctant to publicize rapes. I've lived between two LA Tech campuses for 17 years and read the local paper daily. I almost never read a story of rape, even date rape. With around 12,000 young adults in that community, what are the odds of even a month passing without reluctant sex? When you add in several thousand colleges across the country with 300 – 40,000 students in each, I wonder how much rape, near rape, date rape goes on we never hear about. Law enforcement suggests at least two or three times the reported amount.

The investigative report indicated that Baylor had not followed procedures outline in Title Nine regulations. When they first came out, they made a big splash for requiring equal sports opportunities for women. As a result colleges have added or strengthened various sports. What I didn't realize until I read the report is that the Title also deals with setting up a system to deal with problems like this, and even prevent them. It's encouraging that Jim Grobe, the new interim head coach, spent seven years on the NCAA ethics committee, some years as chairman.

So far, here are the ethical issues we've looked at:

Rape

Response to rape reports

Cover-ups

Consent to have sex

Community pressure

Conflict of values: sports, negative publicity, and justice

Can you imagine the pressure on the head coaches when they first get a report of a rape (or other felony). The guy is employed to build a team and win games. Ideally we talk about his role as a teacher, role model, and developer of character, yet we've all known coaches who were outstanding in those areas, but got sacked because their teams were not winning.

No coach wants scandal. No coach wants to believe his players would commit a felony. Remember, some of these guys are becoming friends with a coach after several years. You want to stand up for your friends. At LSU the starting quarterback was drunk and disorderly, and as I recall attacking or defending himself with a knife. Do you want to kick your headliner off the field?

My guess is that coaches need to expand existing systems to include felonies. Nearly every coach has a published rule book with penalties listed. Sneak out after curfew and you don't play the first quarter this week. Do it twice, a second quarter, etc. Miss practice or be late, and the penalty awaits. I believe at the beginning of the year and in the handbook, the head coach and athletic director should clearly state that an arrest or serious suspicion of a felony will result in immediate suspension until the issue is resolved. If guilty, you're off the team. Period. So the coach does not have to decide as the issues come up. The act has consequences – every time, every person.

In fact, after reading the law firm's report of their investigation, I find they believe the problem was systemic. They blame the leaders for a sloppy system with untrained people and lackadaisical response. Although they interviewed victims and dozens of others, at least on paper they did not commit to describing particular incidents. Their claim was upper level administrators (read Briles and Starr) were responsible for the existing system and culture. Their many recommendations all added up to strengthen the system and take each reported rape seriously.

They also report a culture favoring football players. Of course, this is endemic everywhere and includes most athletes. Who has not thought athletes get graded less severely, perhaps have failing grades boosted to passing or better? Here we transition to values.

The chief stress here is the pull between athletic success and the primary mission of the school, which must be education. In conflict, the tension between the two must always result in academics winning. Still, it must be said that athletics raise the awareness to the general public and undoubtedly attracts students to the academic side. I remember at 10 years old in Dallas I idolized Bobby Layne, then a nearby high school star and seriously wanted to go to the University of Texas as he did. When I surrendered to the Baptist ministry, I went to Baylor instead and considered the Longhorns mortal enemies. We had serious discussions as to how Texas and the Aggies could play each other and both lose!

On the other hand Baylor made known in its alumni publications that the donations to academic chairs, scholarships, and the like equaled that dedicated in recent years to the new football stadium. Personally I get upset at the discussions that arise every year over paying football players at the college level. I now smile at my naivete a few years ago when I was proposing a scholars athletic conference similar to the Ivy League because some quality academic colleges were playing sports at only mediocre levels. I thought Baylor might join SMU, TCU, Stanford, Tulane, Vanderbilt, and Rice in a more balanced conference. Then the Bears, Horned Frogs, Cardinal all moved into the top 10-20 rankings, and the rest showed signs of significant improvement.

I've written way too much for a one time blog, but then it's not a one-timer. I plan to continue looking at this and related material in future posts. Meantime, if you're a sucker for punishment, here's an excellent article on rape reports at colleges.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/06/07/these-colleges-have-the-most-reports-of-rape/